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Monday, January 18, 2010

Reintegration: Embracing the ‘small-t’ Taliban by Dr. Jack Kem

A previous blog entitled Afghanistan: Reconciliation and Reintegration described the doctrinal distinction between reconciliation (focused on the leadership of the Taliban) and reintegration (focused on the individual fighter). In the past few days, there have been a number of stories about the reintegration efforts in Afghanistan – focusing on the “small t” Taliban fighters to “receive amnesty, reenter civil society, gain sustainable employment, and become contributing members of the local populace.”

The New York Times published an article by Rod Nordland and Alissa J. Rubin entitled “Karzai Closing In on Taliban Reconciliation Plan” on January 17, 2010. This article describes the efforts that the Karzai government is currently working on to develop a reintegration plan:

The Afghan government will soon unveil a major new plan offering jobs, security, education and other social benefits to Taliban followers who defect, according to the spokesman for President Hamid Karzai. The plan, in the final stages of preparation, will go beyond the government’s previous offers to the Taliban, Waheed Omer, the spokesman, said at a news conference on Sunday. “The mistakes we have committed before have been considered in developing this new plan,” he said. “We have not done enough.”

The reconciliation and reintegration plan is aimed at luring large numbers of the Taliban’s followers, estimated by NATO officials at 25,000 to 30,000 active fighters, to change sides, and has qualified support from American officials. Afghan officials are hoping to finance the plan through pledges from the international community to be made at a London conference on Afghanistan planned for Jan. 28.

The Washington Post published an Associated Press article by Deb Riechmann entitled “US supports Afghan plan to reintegrate Taliban” on January 17, 2010. The article describes the US reaction to the proposed reintegration program:

The U.S. supports a proposal to lure fighters with no strong allegiance to terrorists away from the insurgency and reintegrate them into Afghan society, the American special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan said Sunday. Richard Holbrooke said he talked with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday about a plan the government is crafting to offer jobs, vocational training and other economic incentives to tens of thousands of Taliban foot soldiers willing to switch sides after eight years of war.

"We completely support the program as it develops," Holbrooke said. "The majority of the people fighting with the Taliban are not supporters of (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar. They're not supporters of the ideology of al-Qaida. They don't even know who al-Qaida is and yet they fight because they've been misled by false information."

On Monday, January 18, 2010, outgoing United Nations envoy Kai Eide made comments about the agenda for the London Conference on Afghanistan that will take place on January 28, 2010. His comments, reported in a Reuters news story entitled “Shift aid focus in Afghanistan, says U.N. envoy,” addressed the reconciliation and reintegration programs that are being developed in Afghanistan:

Eide said a goal of an international conference in London on January 28 was to come up with a more coherent plan to deliver assistance and boost Afghan capacity. Another focus would be on how best to reintegrate Afghan fighters into society and donors' plans to put seed money into a trust fund for this purpose. Britain, Japan and the United States have the lead on this.

There needed to be reconciliation efforts at the same time as reintegration, said Eide. Earlier this month the Afghan ambassador to the United Nations gave the Security Council's sanctions committee a list of names of Taliban members who Kabul feels should be removed from the U.N. sanctions list in exchange for supporting the government. "I strongly hope that process will now be pursued," he said. "This would be a very important confidence building measure which could help bring us into a peace process."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton provided the following during her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on December 3, 2009:

We will also support an Afghan-led effort to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and want to reintegrate into Afghan society. We understand that some of those who fight with the insurgency do so not out of conviction, but due to coercion or money. All Afghans should have the choice to pursue a better future if they do so peacefully, respect the basic human rights of their fellow citizens, and renounce al Qaeda.

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