Talks with the Taliban won't work

For once, President Hamid Karzai may have it right.

As U.S.-Taliban-Afghan government talks were about to open last week in Doha, Qatar, Karzai objected to the Taliban's decorations of their political office with their flag and other markings of their so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

While it may seem like a small thing, the significance of the flag, etc., was huge. The Taliban, in essence, was declaring that the office was an embassy of their country and their "government."

By extension the talks, they were implying, were and are taking place on their territory and on their terms, and with an illegitimate entity -- Karzai's government.

By sitting down with the Taliban in such a circumstance, Karzai knew that it was tantamount to conceding a Taliban victory in Afghanistan.

For all practical purposes, the Taliban is right. They've won the war in Afghanistan.

As I wrote in Above the Din of War, the Taliban controls at least 75 percent of the country and has for the past several years. The Karzai government, such as it is, controls only the major urban areas, due mostly to the presence of U.S., British, and other international forces.

While international forces and Afghan forces patrol the countryside, they do so at the risk of serious Taliban attacks and the high likelihood of devastating roadside bombs.

The relentless and deadly suicide bombings in Kabul and other urban areas, which grow each day in intensity and frequency, show that the grip of the Afghan forces is tenuous.

Once the international pull-out is complete, the Taliban will quite easily cement their control throughout most of the country.  Within six months of the pull out, we can expect to see a map of Afghanistan that resembles that of 2000, when the Northern Alliance held just parts of northern Afghanistan and the Taliban controlled the rest.

The Taliban has nothing to lose and much to gain by engaging these so-called peace talks. They do so from a position of strength because the United States and its NATO allies are headed for the exists.

As the Taliban is wont to say about the U.S. and NATO: "They have the watches. We have the time."

With the American withdrawal set for the end of next year, just 18 months away, the U.S. is desperate for some sort of a negotiated, political settlement.

The fact is that the Taliban has no reason to make concessions or to sign anything that might diminish  their command and control over vast swaths of Afghanistan.

Yet, when and if talks with the Taliban actually begin, the Taliban will earn bonus public relations points by simply sitting down and portraying themselves as willing to talk about peace, regardless of the truth of the matter.

Each and every day such talks continue, the U.S. will reveal its desperate desire to walk away  from Afghanistan and declare, "job done," regardless of the reality on the ground.

Even if an agreement can be reached with the Taliban, there is little or no way that provisions of it could be enforced, should they be violated by the Taliban.

The absurdity that surrounds these would-be peace talks is difficult to fathom.

I would have thought that someone with the experience of Secretary of State John Kerry would have rejected the notion of Taliban talks without major concessions on their part.

Ironically, it seems that Karzai is one of the few who gets it.

Sudan harbouring Kony: report

It should come as no surprise that reports this past week from Resolve Uganda claim that Sudan has been harboring international fugitive from justice, Joseph Kony, and his Lord's Resistance Army.

 

Sudan, of course, denies the charge.  

Titled, "Hidden in Plain Sight," the Resolve report  (http://www.resolveuganda.org/) includes satellite images that it claims is a recently-abandoned camp, where Kony apparently was seen in late 2012. The region is called Kafia Kingi, and is in the far northwestern corner of South Sudan, where the borders of Sudan and the Central African Republic meet.  

 

Despite the fact that the territory is clearly in the newly independent South Sudan, Kafia Kingi is "disputed" land nominally controlled by Sudan.

"Eyewitnesses testify that elements from Sudan's military actively provided Kony and other LRA leaders with periodic safe haven in Sudanese-controlled territory from 2009 until at least February 2013," according to the Resolve report.

 

While the report raises the necessary red flags about Kony's whereabouts and lines of support, it reflects a host of past behavior patterns on the part of ALL parties concerned.

 

For much of the 20 years that Kony fought his bloody war in northern Uganda, he and his army of child soldiers found refuge in South Sudan during Uganda's dry season, where Kony was able to establish semi-permanent camps and grow food.

 

In First Kill Your Family, I write about my interviews with Kony's former top commanders who described being hosted by the Sudanese, who controlled South Sudan then, including one LRA commander who was flown to a hospital in Khartoum where he was treated for a severe wound that resulted in a leg amputation.

 

Sudan's support for Kony was due to Kony's guerilla war against Uganda, following the principle that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was an ardent supporter of the late John Garang, who led South Sudan in its war for independence from Sudan. 

 

The situation is no different today than it was back then. While Kony has directed his attacks in the past couple of years against the innocent people of eastern Central African Republic, the fact that he remains camped out in South Sudan is a warning.

Then as now, Kony has the strong potential of being a thorn in the side of South Sudan, wreaking havoc on the South Sudanese, who even now are struggling to solidify their independence and their claims to the oil-rich Abyei region that is challenged by Sudan.

 

Another repeated pattern that the Resolve report reveals is of Uganda's wholly inept efforts to capture Kony. Uganda's army, which has been chasing Kony since 2008 when peace talks finally collapsed, is considered one of the best in east Africa.

 

The fact that Uganda's army can't find Kony is not an accident. Kony is much more valuable to Uganda alive and on the loose than he is captured and on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he was indicted for war crimes in 2005. 

 

Kony has been and continues to be an endless excuse for Uganda to received millions of dollars of U.S. and international civilian and military aid. 

 

After all, U.S. Special Forces were assigned in 2011 to help Uganda's efforts to find Kony in the Central African Republic -- just the latest tranche in two decades worth of money and equipment that has been handed over to the Ugandans.

 

What has Uganda been doing with all that support and advice? Not much, it appears, since the search for Kony for the past two years has been based in Obo, a remote town in the far eastern tip of the Central African Republic.

 

Obo is nowhere close to where Resolve says Kony has been operating since 2009. Look for yourself on www.googlemaps.com. Kony's apparent location is about 400 north of where the Ugandans and the Americans have been looking.

 

If a handful of humanitarian activists can track down Kony, what have the Ugandan and their American advisers been doing? Not much, because Uganda does not want Kony captured or killed, but is happy to accept American aid.

 

If the Resolve report is even remotely true, this is a huge embarrassment to the State Department and the U.S. military advisers.

 

According to new reports, this is the U.S. response: "The United States is aware and continues to evaluate reports that the LRA has operated in the disputed Kafia Kingi area claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan," said Patrick Ventrell, deputy State Department spokesman.

"The US and the international community as a whole would take very seriously any credible evidence of support or safe haven being provided to the LRA," he said, adding Washington has encouraged Sudan to cooperate with regional efforts to counter the LRA.

Meanwhile, the US has thrown more money on the table, a reward of $5 million for the capture of Kony, who Secretary of State John Kerry said would "not be easy to find."

 

Given the fact that Uganda once arrested, jailed, then deported a group of mercenaries who were organizing to capture Kony, this reward will undoubtedly result in the same lack of success as all previous efforts.