Lakhdar Brahimi, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy for Afghanistan, presented a plan on Tuesday for a two-year transitional government to bring the country's ethnic groups under one umbrella and establish a multinational security force to guard them.
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council considers a British and French drafted resolution that would support Brahimi's efforts and takes a step toward approving the force.
The document would "encourage" countries to help "ensure the safety and security of areas of Afghanistan no longer under Taliban control." Diplomats said no particular security arrangement was authorized because plans were not yet firm.
The draft resolution says "the United Nations should play a central role in supporting the efforts of the Afghan people to establish urgently" a new, broad-based transitional government.
Brahimi said he preferred an all-Afghan force to provide security for any transitional government in areas where the Taliban no longer ruled, particularly the capital Kabul. But he said this would take too long to organize as would a traditional UN peacekeeping force.
Instead he suggested a "coalition of the willing" of multinational troops, which diplomats said could include Turkey, Jordan and Malaysia, along with European nations.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem told Reuters in an interview in New York that Ankara was willing to send troops to Afghanistan but must have a say in the political process.
Brahimi also gave a dour prediction of the food supplies in Afghanistan where an estimated six million people could face starvation. Even if progress is maintained, there will still be "a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan," he said.
The United States as well as many other governments have pushed the United Nations to the foreground in organizing a broad-based government in Afghanistan that would have global legitimacy rather than one imposed by Washington alone.
MILITARY MOVES OUTPACE POLITICAL MANEUVERS
But with Kabul as well as Mazar-i-Sharif to the north having fallen swiftly to the US-backed Northern Alliance, the military campaign appears to have outpaced political maneuvers, despite worldwide calls for a UN presence in Afghanistan.
Brahimi, who was given the task to organize a government only within the last month, has to cope with competing goals of the Pashtuns, who dominate the south of the country and make up most of the Taliban supporters. The Northern Alliance is composed largely of ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaara, and is known for as many human rights abuses as the Taliban.
But Brahimi made clear that the United Nations would not "parachute in" officials to set up a protectorate as in East Timor or Kosovo but invite Afghans, whether at home, in exile, or in refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran, to take the lead.
He said his deputy, now in Islamabad, would go to Kabul as soon as possible. At the same time, he said he was organizing a meeting of all Afghan factions as soon as possible, hopefully within a week.
The United States was reported to prefer the United Arab Emirates, which until recently backed the Taliban, as a site for the meeting. But diplomats said Iran was raising objections and the session might be held in Geneva.
Specifically, Brahimi said the first meeting of all factions should discuss steps to convene a provisional council, reflecting various Afghan groups. It should be chaired by "an individual recognized as a symbol of national unity," an apparent reference to Afghanistan's 87-year old exiled king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, living in Rome.
The provisional council would plan a transitional administration that would run the country for up to two years.
At the same time, an emergency Loya Jirga, or grand assembly of tribal elders, would convene to approve security arrangements and help write a constitution. A second Loya Jirga would approve the constitution to create a government for Afghanistan, Brahimi said.
"The processes being proposed are not perfect," Brahimi said. The proposed institution "will not include everyone who should be there and it may include some whose credentials many in Afghanistan may have doubt about," he said.
But he appealed to the the UN council to "remember that what is hopefully to be achieved is the elusive peace the people of Afghanistan have been longing for for so long."
(China Daily November 14,2001)
