The Murder of Burhanuddin Rabbani
By S Iftikhar Murshed
October 03, 2011
Former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani has been inappropriately described by a Western analyst as “a titan among the Tajik warlords.” Nevertheless, it is believed that his recent assassination, probably by one of the Taliban factions, has the potential of transforming the ongoing insurgency into a full-blown ethnic conflict. Prior to his involvement with the Islamic Movement of Afghanistan, the 71-year old Rabbani was widely known for his anti-Pakhtun views and therefore his appointment as head of the High Peace Council was controversial.
Rabbani was a disarmingly soft-spoken man who, it almost seemed, was inspired by the Quranic injunction: “... be modest in thy bearing, and lower thy voice: for, behold, the ugliest of all voices is the voice of asses.” Yet, behind this self-effacing facade was a ruthlessly ambitious person who is blamed by his detractors for the anarchy that prevailed in post-Najib Afghanistan and triggered the emergence of the Taliban.
Three overwhelmingly strong impulses motivated Rabbani throughout his eventful life: a commitment to the cause of Afghanistan’s Tajik community, a passion for restructuring Afghan society in accordance with his own interpretation of Islam, and an insatiable urge for power. He believed that power would enable him to achieve the first two objectives.
In the early 1960s, he was one of the four founding members of an organisation which projected itself as a movement against national oppression. This group consisted only of Tajiks from northern Afghanistan and dedicated itself to redressing the persecution that the ethnic minorities had suffered under centuries of Pakhtun rule. Rabbani, however, left the outfit because of strategic and tactical differences between him and its leader Tahir Badakhshani.
Subsequently, he involved himself with Islamists at the faculty of theology at Kabul University, where he was teaching. A reasonably accurate portrayal of Rabbani was in an obituary: “In the best traditions of Afghan hierarchs he was both elder statesman and warlord, a vainglorious politician and an Islamic scholar.”
His religious predilections evolved during his studies for a master’s degree in Islamic philosophy at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University from 1966 to 1968. He established close links with the Muslim Brotherhood and was deeply influenced by the political teachings of Sayyid Qutb (1906-66),
Qutb is described by Karen Armstrong as “the real founder of Islamic fundamentalism...” He insisted that the tolerance enjoined by the Quran was applicable only after the political victory of Islam and the establishment of a truly Muslim state. Rabbani became the first Afghan to translate Qutb’s works into Dari and sought to enforce his obscurantist interpretation of Islamic doctrine in Afghanistan.
Rabbani’s studies in Al-Azhar paid off and his reputation as a theologian prompted the 15-member council of the Jamiat-i-Islami to select him as the leader of the party in 1972 in the presence of its founder, Ghulam M Niyazi. The widespread belief among Afghan Pakhtuns is that the underlying motive behind the creation of the Jamiat-i-Islami was to replace two-and-a-half centuries of Pakhtun rule by that of the Tajiks.
With the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan the expectation was that the Najibullah government would collapse. But the regime battled on and Pakistan extended support to the Mujahideen factions.
Contrary to the perception that Islamabad was partial to Hekmatyar, it was Rabbani’s Jamiat-i-Islami that was the largest recipient of Pakistani assistance between 1990 and 1992. He was paid Rs460 million while Ahmed Shah Masood received Rs142 million. Thus the total assistance given by Pakistan to the Jamiat was Rs602 million. The disbursements to the leadership of the other Mujhideen factions were: Younis Khalis, Rs 496 million; Gulbadin Hekmatyar, Rs366 million; Prof Sayyaf, Rs244 million; Pir Gilani, Rs241 million; Nabi Mohammadi, Rs240 million; Sibghatullah Mujaddadi, Rs160 million; and Mohseni, Rs60 million.
Six days after the Najib regime came to an end, Pakistan convened a meeting of Mujahideen leaders in Peshawar which was boycotted by Hekmatyar. Under the provisions of the Peshawar Accord of April 24, 1992, Rabbani succeeded Mujaddadi as president on June 28 for a four-month term. He immediately removed Pakhtuns from key positions in the administration and the army and replaced them with Tajiks.
Even worse, he refused to step down in accordance with the stipulations of the accord and had his tenure extended by a further two years through a hastily convened council on Dec 29. The claim that 1,335 delegates participated in the deliberations was dismissed as a farce. Hekmatyar, himself not a man of the most punctilious honour, described the outcome as “a declaration of war against the nation.”
Pakistan intervened again and invited Hekmatyar, Rabbani and other Mujahideen leaders to Islamabad. The talks resulted in a new power-sharing agreement on March 7, 1993, under which Rabbani continued as president and Hekamatyar was appointed prime minister. The Islamabad Accord was to last till July 1994 and in this period the regime was to draft a constitution, hold parliamentary and presidential elections and create a national army and police force.
The signatories went to Mecca and solemnly swore in front of the Kaaba that they would honour the agreement in letter and spirit. But oaths are never sacrosanct to those who crave power. Shortly afterwards, differences broke out between Rabbani and Hekmatyar on the formation of the cabinet and the distribution of ministries. Fierce fighting erupted and lasted until an uneasy compromise was negotiated in Jalalabad on May 20 through the good offices of the Nangarhar shura led by Haji Abdul Qadeer.
Rabbani was to remain president till July 1994 but he had no intention of honouring this agreement and, while the chief justice was out of the country, secured a decision from the Afghan Supreme Court whereby his term was extended till December. Even this decision was not respected by him and he continued in office till the Taliban takeover of Kabul in September 1996.
But Rabbani had mellowed over the years and towards the end of his life genuinely sought reconciliation among the Afghan groups. Several months prior to the initial contact between the Taliban and the US last November, he openly opposed the use of force against the Taliban.
He also believed that peace could not return to the country so long as foreign forces remained and he was against the grant of permanent military bases to the US. For this reason the point-man for Afghanistan at the Iranian foreign office, Mohsen Pak-Ayeen, made the preposterous statement that the Americans and NATO were responsible for the killing of Rabbani.
At his funeral there were deafening chants of “Death to Karzai, death to Pakistan, death to America.” The leader of the Coalition for Change and Hope, former foreign minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah yelled, “Karzai should go to the Taliban whom he has repeatedly called the sons of Afghan soil” and demanded that all contacts with the Taliban must end. Former Afghan deputy foreign minister Mahmood Saikal blamed Pakistan’s ISI for Rabbani’s death. It is unfortunate that the same sickening refrain was parroted by a segment of the Pakistani media.
If “happiness lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort,” as post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh believed, then Rabbani must have been saddened by his failure to achieve his goals. He felt strongly for the cause of the Tajiks but was never accepted as their undisputed leader so long as Ahmed Shah Masood was alive. After Masood’s assassination two days before 9/11, he was eclipsed by Gen Muhammad Qasim Fahim who dominated the Afghan Transitional Administration from 2001 to 2004, from which Rabbani was excluded. His dreams have finally fallen from the tired hands of eternal sleep.
The writer is the publisher of Criterion Quarterly.
Source: The News, Islamabad
URL: https://newageislam.com/war-terror/the-murder-burhanuddin-rabbani/d/5611