London Conference to Discuss Rehabilitation of Taliban Fighters
By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer
Washington - Ahead of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's attendance at the January 28 International Conference on Afghanistan in London, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke says 2010 will be a "year of heavy implementation" of the Obama administration's strategy in Afghanistan, and the conference will include support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's plans to reintegrate Taliban fighters into the country.
Speaking on the MSNBC network January 25, Holbrooke said the meeting in London is "a very good time to bring the world back together to reaffirm its support and to move to the next stage," following developments such as President Obama's December 2009 announcement ( http://www.america.gov/st/peacesec-english/2009/December/20091201205642esnamfuak0.7319147.html ) that additional U.S. civilian and military forces are being deployed to Afghanistan and President Karzai's re-election in November 2009.
"This is not a pledging conference. Enough of those for the time being. Countries are coming through," Holbrooke said. "This is about policy."
The first units of the 30,000 new troops that President Obama ordered are in Afghanistan, and the ambassador said, "I think you're going to see some very dramatic military activity in the coming weeks." U.S. civilian personnel such as agriculture and governance experts and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees are "moving in right behind them," he said.
The Obama administration remains committed to a "responsible transition" enabling Afghan government forces to assume security control of the country beginning "with withdrawals at a pace and scale to be determined in July 2011," Holbrooke said.
Karzai has announced a "big, new program" to reintegrate Taliban fighters into Afghan society, and Holbrooke said the London conference will "affirm our international support for it."
The rationale behind the reintegration program is that "over 70 percent of the people fighting with the Taliban are not ideologically committed to al-Qaida, the Taliban," he said. "They're fighting for local grievance, or they've been misled about the purposes of ... the alliance presence in Afghanistan," and there hasn't been a "good program to invite them back into the fold."
Support for Karzai's initiative will include funding, and Holbrooke said Japan will be leading the donations.
"It's partly a job program," he said.
"If they're given an opportunity for jobs and security and if they understand the purposes of the presence there, we think a lot of them will come back," he said. "Isn't it a lot better to invite them off the battlefield through a program of jobs, land, integration than it is to have to try to kill every one of them?"
Holbrooke differentiated between the reintegration program and reconciliation, which would target the Taliban's ideological leadership, which he said would be "very difficult."
He said he does not "see any merit" in rehabilitating Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar by removing him from the United Nations' "black list" of 144 Taliban and 257 al-Qaida leaders that obliges member states to freeze their bank accounts and prevent them from traveling.
But, Holbrooke, said the U.N. list can be revisited. "Some of the people on it are dead. Some probably are innocent. We ought to re-examine it," he said.
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