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by Lynn Ockersz

Armed clashes between rival Afghan factions which claimed over forty lives in the town of Gardez in Pakhtia Province recently, underlines Afghanisatan's continuing instability despite the ousting of the internationally-reviled Taliban regime by US-led military forces.

It was another unsettling reminder of the great challenges that await those who take it on themselves to put things right in a state pock-marked by divisions and complex rivalries. The clashes in Gardez were reportedly between fighters coming under Bacha Khan, a warlord in Afghanistan's governing alliance led by Hamid Karzai and troops belonging to the town council which administers Gardez. Apparently, the latter had stubbornly resisted efforts by Khan's fighters to seize the town. Resistance of this kind is bound to intensify as the interim Afghan government seeks to consolidate its hold over rebellious power centres in the periphery of the country. The country's complex ethnic and cultural composition is bound to compound the central administrations difficulties in this regard.

This reminder of the dangerous fragility of Afghanistan's current order came as U.S. President George Bush swore in his State of the Union Address to persist undeterred in current US efforts to root out terrorism. He warned countries which were "timed in the face of terror" that if they proved incapable of taking on this challenge of wiping out terror "America will".

Coming in tandem with the bloody factional clashes in Afghanistan, such rhetoric only exposes the glaring inadequacies of the essentially militarist approach to resolving the problem of terror. The dislodging of the Taliban regime and the undeterred pursuit of Osama bin Laden are likely to appeal strongly to sections of US and European opinion, but they are unlikely to have a significant bearing on the problem of bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan. The achievement of the latter aims will hinge heavily on the ability of Afghanistan's new rulers to launch and see to completion a fresh nation-building exercise which would weld the country's disparate communities into a single people.

This has to be considered a "fresh" enterprise because it is the self-same project which needed to be undertaken in the late Eighties, when the Soviet occupation forces were compelled to pull out of Afghanistan. Needless to say, attempts at that time to form a broad-based government on the basis of a power-sharing formula failed badly. Hence the years of turbulence which ended in the advent of the Taliban.

The indications, then, are that although the West may win its battle against terror, bringing peace to Afghanistan may remain a great, unfinished task. The latter is essentially a task for the new interim government and its international backers, who may need to arrive at a broad, power-sharing formula which attracts the allegiance of all Afghan factions of any significance.

Interestingly, US Foreign Secretary, Collin Powell seemed to have placed his finger on the gut issues which require addressing. Speaking at the World Economic Forum sessions in New York, Powell was quoted saying in relation to Afghanistan that, "It isn't enough just to root out terrorists there (Afghanistan) and destroy that horrible region. It is also necessary for us to rebuild Afghanistan, and that is another purpose of this coalition...." This rebuilding process involves the establishment of a stable, widely-representative government which commands the loyalty of all Afghan ethnic communities. This task in turn requires the working out of a peace formula which addresses the power aspirations of these diverse ethnic groups. Principal among these communities are Pashtuns, Uzbecs and Tajiks - most of which possess armed formations.

The question is for how long are these communities prepared to wait? Experience proves that these groups cannot be relied on to endure patiently indefinitely. As it is, the danger of factional clashes increasing, is great. So ominous is this threat that Afghan interim adminstration head Hamid Karzai was quoted as calling on the UN Security Council to extend the presence of the UN Peace Keeping Forces beyond Kabul, to other principal cities.

The indications, then, are that although the Western battle against terror may be won, Afghanistan's agony may not be ended in a hurry. 

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