Think tank warns of war if Loya Jirga fails

An independent think thank has warned that the failure of the upcoming Emergency Loya Jirga or grand council might plunge Afghanistan back into civil war. It has urged the international community to initiate confidence building measures between the hostile Afghan factions, and to ensure security and assistance to the UN and the Loya Jirga commission during the event. "Expectations [from the event] are unreasonably high. Visions of a great leap forward in reconciliation are misplaced, and the danger of missteps are grave," said a report on the Loya Jirga by the International Crisis group (ICG), a private multinational organisation working on conflict prevention. The UN-sponsored Bonn agreement between Afghan exiles and factions late last year installed a new government following the demise of the hard-line Taliban regime. The accord also envisioned the holding of a Loya Jirga in June to elect a new government. "God forbid! if anything happens to the Loya Jirga, Afghanistan will suffer heavily," Afghanistan's interim minister for tribal affairs Amanullah Zadran told IRIN from the capital Kabul on Friday. "This should be an open event not a closed one," he suggested. Zadran maintained that corruption and other malpractices were reported during the ongoing process. "People are being bought and some groups are trying to manipulate the process," he said. However, he refused to name anyone. The ICG report noted that a key expectation of the Loya Jirga was that it would correct the ethnic imbalances in the interim administration, which is dominated by ethnic Tajik members of the Northern Alliance. With only three weeks remaining to the holding of the Loya Jirga, the report has brought to the surface issues such as a possible standoff between the Pashtun supporters of the former Afghan king Muhammad Zahir Shah and the Tajik Panjshiri faction of the Shura-i-Nazar. The king's supporters want a strong role for him while the Tajik faction may resist attempts at reducing their current power in the government. The report has recommended that the international community facilitate consensus building among various Afghan factions, guarantee security by threatening warring factions and deploying troops in the regional centres during the indirect election process to the Loya Jirga. It has also underlined the need for swift financial and logistical support to the United Nations Assistance mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Loya Jirga Commission, both are responsible for the holding of the event. The ICG called upon UNAMA and the interim Afghan administration to step-up mass awareness campaigns, and to provide the independent media with more opportunities to cover the national process. It urged the Loya Jirga Commission to publish the rules and regulations of the process to put an end to suspicions and ensure transparency.