Taliban Is Likely to Use Extreme Violence As Leverage During Negotiations
By Ajit Kumar Singh
August 17, 2020
In its attempt to cross the last
hurdle to the Intra-Afghan Negotiation (IAN), the Afghanistan Government on
August 13, 2020, started the process of releasing the last batch of 400 'high
value' Taliban prisoners. The Office of the National Security Council tweeted
on August 14, 2020,
|
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
yesterday released 80 Taliban convicts out of the 400 that the
Consultative Loya Jirga sanctioned for release to speed up
efforts for direct talks and a lasting, nationwide ceasefire… All released
Taliban prisoners vowed to return to peaceful life after their release and
not to fight the Afghan people again. |
The move followed President Ashraf Ghani signing a
decree on August 10, 2020, facilitating the release of the last batch of
prisoners.
Earlier, on August 9, 2010,
speaking at the closing session of the Consultative Peace Jirga, President
Ghani stated,
|
Today (August 9) I will sign the decree that I was not able in
my life to sign it, because it was higher than my authorities. Now with your
consensus and moral decision, I will sign decree of releasing these 400
prisoners and they will get released. |
The decree was, however, signed on August 10.
Significantly, the final
resolution of the Consultative Peace Jirga, held between August 7-9, 2020,
had 25 recommendations, one of which states,
|
The jirga approves the release of 400
prisoners demanded by the Taliban in order to remove obstacles to the start
of the peace negotiations, to stop the bloodshed and observe public interest
and good. |
It is pertinent to recall here that President Ghani,
during his Eid-ul-Adha message on July 31, 2020, had categorically said,
|
Even though the government of Afghanistan was not bound by any
commitments in the US-Taliban agreement, we released 4600 Taliban prisoners
from the list, provided by the group, to set the stage for beginning of peace
negotiations… I want to clarify an important issue for the people of Afghanistan.
In the list that Taliban provided to the Government of the Islamic Republic
of Afghanistan, some 400 prisoners are included in the list that according to
the Afghanistan Constitution and the Afghan Penal Code, the President of
Afghanistan has no authority to issue order on their release… I repeat it. I
do not have the authority to release them. I have to consult with the nation
and call for a consultative Loya Jirga to be able to make a
decision on those 400 prisoners. The Loya Jirga will be
convened soon. |
In his message he also announced the release of 500
Taliban prisoners who were not part of the Taliban 'list'.
According to the Taliban, the
release of Taliban prisoners was a prerequisite to start the IAN as per the
US-Taliban agreement signed on February 29, 2020. The Taliban had reiterated
this position time and again. Most recently, reacting to the signing of the
decree by Ghani, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, on August 10, asserted,
"Our stance is clear, if the prisoner release is completed, then we are
ready for the intra-Afghan talks within a week."
Though the Ghani Government
started the process of release of the last batch of Taliban prisoners on August
13, it clearly indicated that it has done this under the pressure of the US.
Ghani made this crystal clear in a conversation with the Council on Foreign
Relations on August 13, noting,
|
Until now, there has been a lot of pressure, requests from the
Afghan government. Now the balance shifts because we have taken all the risks
because we are a state. We were not party to an agreement to release 5,000
Taliban but out of the imperative of wanting peace in the conviction, we did
it… The list is likely to pose a danger both to us and to you [US] and to the
world because it is the drug dealers and hardened criminals - that has been
shared with all our allies and friends - but again this is a step that we
have considered necessary. |
According to reports, government
data states that out of the 400 prisoners in question, 156 had been sentenced
to death, 105 were accused of murder, 34 were accused of kidnapping that led to
murder, 51 were accused of drug smuggling, 44 were on the blacklist of the
Afghan government and its allies, six were accused of assorted other crimes,
and four of unspecified crimes.
Some countries have already
demanded that some of these prisoners not be released. France's Foreign
Ministry stated, on August 15,
|
France is particularly concerned by the presence, among the
individuals liable to be released, of several terrorists convicted of killing
French citizens in Afghanistan. It firmly opposes the liberation of
individuals convicted of crimes against French nationals, in particular
soldiers and humanitarian workers. As a result, we have immediately asked the
Afghan authorities not to proceed with the release of these terrorists. |
According to reports, France has specifically opposed
the release of two Taliban terrorists - Zia Ahmad and Abdul Nabi - who had
killed a French woman, Bettina Goislard, an employee of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, in Ghazni, on November 16, 2003.
As expected, on August 13 the
Taliban blamed the Government of making attempts to "create obstacles to
peace" and "and to provoke the international community through
propaganda." Things got worse on August 15, 2020, when the Taliban
reiterated,
|
The Islamic Emirate does not recognize the Kabul
administration as a government but views it as western imported structure
working for the continuation of American occupation. |
Meanwhile, data indicates that violence persists in
Afghanistan. On August 13, 2020, the Afghan Ministry of Interior disclosed that
at least 121 Afghan civilians were killed and 336 were wounded in Taliban
attacks in 29 Provinces over the preceding two weeks. This means that
approximately 8.64 civilians were killed daily over 14 days. This 14-day period
coincides with Kabul taking determined action to release the last batch of
prisoners in order to appease the Taliban. On July 31, 2020, President Ghani
announced the calling of the Jirga and, on August 10, the
signing of the decree to release the prisoners. The daily average civilian
fatalities worked out at of 7.04 during the first six months of 2019 (1,282
killed in 182 days), according to UNAMA reports. In July, according to media
reports, the daily average fell to 3.51 (109 civilians killed in 31 days). The
Taliban clearly chose to escalate violence precisely at the point when the
Government was doing everything to meet their demands.
The Taliban’s rejection of the
Afghan Government’s legitimacy and the escalating violence at critical
junctures of the implementation process of the US-Taliban peace deal are
disturbing reminders that the Taliban is likely to use extreme violence as
leverage during negotiations, or even to pursue maximalist goals to overwhelm
Kabul – with inevitable overt or covert support from Pakistan – once the
Western withdrawal is complete, and US Coalition Forces are out of the
equation.
Ajit Kumar Singh is
a Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management
Original Headline: Intimidatory
Negotiations
Source: South Asia
Intelligence Review
URl: https://newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/taliban-likely-use-extreme-violence/d/122651