Haji Qadir: Rome Gone Astray

Agha Shireen defection ineffectual

(Published in Omaid Weekly, issue #404, 17 January 2000.)

January 16, Bonn (Omaid): In an interview with Omaid Weekly's correspondent in Germany, former Ningarhar province governor Haji Abdul Qadir said the Taliban militia has "forcibly occupied Afghanistan with foreign-based power and support." The militia, Haji Qadir said, has slaughtered countless civilians, forced many from their land, prevented farmers from harvesting their much-needed crop, decimated the educational system, and exacerbated unemployment causing some to resort to crime to stay alive.

"The Taliban have not only failed to produce jobs, but themselves steal at night and take bribes in [Pakistani] kaldars and [US] dollars," Haji Qadir told Omaid Weekly.

Qadir also was asked about Agha Shireen, a onetime communist militia leader turned Hekmatyar commander who joined the Rabbani government, was jailed in 1995 for plotting to let Hekmatyar forces into Kabul, and finally last week defected to the Taliban. Haji Qadir said that "while Agha Shireen, along with his sister-in-law and five or six others, surrendered to the Taliban, 50 to 60 of his men defected to the Islamic State and recaptured the territories lost by Shireen's surrender."

Agha Shireen had recently been freed, having served his appointed jail term. While news reports repeatedly referred to him as a "top Masood commander," it appears he never returned to active duty. Though some reports placed the number of those who defected with him as high as 50 (about the size of a reinforced US Army platoon), it appears they were mostly family members.

While dismissing as insignificant the Cyprus-Tehran process, an enterprise of Iran's radical clerics and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Haji Qadir also criticized the Rome peace process, an initiative of former Afghan King Mohamad Zaher.

"We reached a consensus in the conferences in Bonn and Istanbul to convene the Loya Jirga, but a virtual coup d'etat in Rome has severely damaged the Grand Assembly's prospects. Currently, it seems the Rome initiative has become a family affair." The Bonn and Istanbul meetings organized by Prof. Abdul Sattar Sirat, a senior advisor of the former Afghan monarch, precipitated last November's Rome gathering.

Haji Qadir concluded, "We always support any peace-making initiatives, and so we have some proposals and recommendations for the Rome peace process and it's hoped they are implemented. Otherwise, I predict failure for these peace movements."