" Pacha mehmani dasht" (The king had a party) says an old
disabled woman who missed a whole week of her physiotherapy at one of
the non-profit Orthopedic centers in Kabul, since she was coming from
Bagrami, one of the Kabul districts and the movement was heavily
restricted for the past two weeks around Kabul in the wake of Kabul
Conference
Access to information is a rare commodity in Afghan markets. The common
Afghan hardly gets any valid and credible update on the state of affairs
of the government. While television and radio are the main providers of
news to Afghans, certain areas of Kabul did not have power for over two
days and nights before the Kabul Conference and during the day of the
Conference.
" As the Kabul Conference ends here, the Kabul
process starts" were the concluding remarks of the United Nations
Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon at the end of the Kabul International
Conference on Tuesday.
After seven hours of speeches and
promises, a new promise and a new process seems emerging from the Kabul
Conference. The new promise is the date of 2014 and the new process is
called the Kabul process. How would the Kabul process fulfill its
promise by the set deadline is the question that we will know more about
as the time swifts on towards 2014. Answering to the question of what
would be the Kabul Process, one of the Afghan government officials who
was part of the organization of the Conference told me that its the
start of an Afghanization process in which Afghan government will
implement its own policies and will convene international conferences on
Afghanistan in Kabul.
The Kabul Conference that took place in
Kabul after many months of preparations and efforts of the Afghan
government and its international allies seems to have more of a similar
outcome as the Consultative Peace Jirga that was held in Kabul early
June. Both events, bestowed a certain level of legitimacy on the part of
the Afghan government and more than the substance, the events have
symbolic significance for Afghanistan. In more than 30 years, this was
the first international event hosted by the Afghan government and the
level of international attention on Afghanistan is unseen before. But
will the Afghan government be able to utilize the commitment and
legitimacy it has received from the international community...time will
tell.
Many Afghans are relieved that the Conference took place
without any major interruptions, apart from some rockets that were fired
on Kabul on the night of the Conference. The empty streets of Kabul
rehashed the memories of a time when Afghans feared getting out of their
homes, just ten years ago.Though a member of the National Directorate
of Security on the condition of anonymity said that they were only able
to secure Kabul for the Conference due to direct involvement of NATO
forces.
As the world leaders present in Kabul Conference endorsed
the peace processes that have taken place in Kabul and supported the
initiatives of Re-integration and Re-conciliation of the Taliban
militants, the voices and concerns of some sectors of Afghan society
went unheard. BBC's Channel 4
interviewed Afghans in Bamian province and spoke with Hazara community
who expressed their concerns that the return of the Taliban would in
turn bring miseries to them and other non-Pashtun ethnic groups in
Afghanistan. People in Bamian are still living with the fear and terror
of the memories of massacres that happend in Yakawlang
and other instances of violence like the blow up of the Buddhas by the
Taliban militants during the time that the Taliban were in power in
Kabul.
Furthermore, the Conference ignored taking a stock of
the past programs and initiatives and instead new priorities and
programs were introduced by the Afghan government. Many critics were
looking forward to see an update of the progress made on the
implementation of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy which
was hardly discussed in Kabul Conference. However, as the international
community members continue to affirm their commitment for Afghanistan,
an effective monitoring system whether those commitments reach to
Afghanistan and Afghans is still missing in the tenth year since Bonn
agreement. Interestingly, when Afghans hope that the United Nations will
be ensuring oversight and effective aid coordination, the United
Nations Secretary General too seemed to heavily rely on the Afghan
government to improve its functions, a demand from the people of Afghanistan that has turned into a dream now.
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