On Living with Negative Peace and a Half-Built State: Gender and Human Rights

Abstract

This article examines the double standards associated with a precarious international peacebuilding strategy in Afghanistan based on impunity and half-truths rather than accountability and transitional justice. Many international organizations have turned a blind eye to past and current human rights atrocities through forms of rationalization based on an empowerment of cultural differences, relativization of progress and ‘policy reductionism’. Consequently, and in the absence of consistently applied rights instruments, societal divisions along gender, ethnic and other lines have intensified Afghanistan's culture of intolerance to human rights, thereby violating the very principles the international community purports to uphold. Drawing on first-hand experiences, personal interviews and a sober analysis of trends, this article challenges some of the conventional assumptions held about the perception and knowledge of human rights among Afghans. It concludes by identifying possible areas of future study to better understand both the prospects for transitional justice and how ordinary Afghans continue to cope with widespread injustice and inequality.

Notes

1. The concept of negative peace addresses the immediate symptoms and conditions of war. It aims to curtail the use and effects of force and weapons rather than considering the root cause of conflict. For a further discussion in the context of Afghanistan, see: Rama Mani, ‘Ending Impunity and Building Justice in Afghanistan’, Briefing Paper, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), Dec. 2003.

2. On the use of ‘warlord’ and similar terminology see: Antonio Giustozzi, ‘The Debate on Warlordism: The Importance of Military Legitimacy’, discussion paper No.13, London: Crisis States Research Centre London School of Economics, Oct. 2005.

3. ‘Policy reductionism’ is defined as simplifying the nature and extent of the problem to make it appear more manageable: Michael Bhatia, Kevin Lanigan and Philip Wilkinson, ‘Minimal Investment, Minimal Results: The Failure of Security Policy in Afghanistan’, Briefing Paper, Kabul: AREU, June 2004.

4. Louis Dupree, Afghanistan, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973.

5. Deniz Kandiyoti, ‘The Politics of Gender and Reconstruction in Afghanistan’, Occasional Paper 4, Geneva: UN Research Institute for Social Development, Feb. 2005.

6. International Crisis Group Asia, ‘Rebuilding the Afghan State: the European Union's Role’, Report No.107, Kabul/Brussels: ICG, 30 Nov. 2005.

7. Interestingly, the AIHRC has not been given access to US military-operated prisons on Afghan soil.

8. See: Human Rights Watch, ‘U.S. Operated secret ‘dark prison’ in Kabul’, 15 Dec. 2005, http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/12/19/afghan12319.htm.

9. Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan in a Briefing to the Security Council (6 Feb. 2002) described the design of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) structure as ‘an integrated mission that will operate with a “light footprint”, keeping the international UN presence to the minimum required, while our Afghan colleagues are given as much of a role as possible’.

10. Bhatia et al. (see n.3 above).

11. Dr Sima Samar, Chairwoman of the AIHRC, ‘Build on Success’, speech at the London Conference on Afghanistan, 31 Jan.–1 Feb. 2006.

12. International Crisis Group, Afghanistan: Judicial Reform and Transitional Justice Kabul/Brussels, 28 Jan. 2003 Asia Report No.45, p.20.

13. Mani (see n.1 above).

14. Bhatia et al. (see n.3 above).

15. Ibid.

16. BBC ‘Panorama: Bringing Our Boys Home?’ 19 Mar. 2006.

17. Interview with Antonio Giustozzi, 15 Mar. 2006.

18. Oscar Schachter, ‘International Law in Theory and Practice, Developments in International Law’, Vol.13, Amsterdam: Martinus Nijhoff, 1997, p.345.

19. Minutes of the 26th Human Rights AG meeting 1 May 2005.

20. Bhatia et al. (see n.3 above). Mani states that the absence of concrete arrangements for HR in the Bonn Agreement ‘cannot be divorced from the Coalition's decision to support the Northern Alliance and Pakistan as key allies in the War on Terror’. Mani (see n.1 above).

21. Bhatia et al. (see n.3 above).

22. Samar (see n.11 above).

23. Mani (see n.1 above).

24. Subsequently endorsed in SC resolutions 1413, 1419 and 1444.

25. See Bhatia et al. (see n.3 above), p.2.

26. UN Development Programme, Afghanistan National Human Development Report 2004 Security With A Human Face: Challenges and Responsibilities, Kabul: UNDP Afghanistan, 2004.

27. Interview with Jolyon Leslie, Kabul, 14 Mar. 2006.

28. Schachter (see n.18 above), p.341.

29. Mani (see n.1 above).

30. It has been reputed that Dr. Samar has a Maoist past and that Hanif Atmar, former Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development had close links with communist groups. Both these figures are extremely popular with the international diplomatic and donor communities.

31. Kandiyoti (see n.5 above).

32. There was also the Office of the State Minister for Women tasked with policy guidance on legislative and judicial reform processes.

33. For more on this see: Scott Baldauf, ‘Afghan Parliament Debates Chaperones for Women’, Christian Science Monitor, 15 Feb. 2006, accessed at www.csmonitor.com.

34. Samar (see n.11 above).

35. Minutes of the 26th Human Rights AG meeting, 1 May 2005.

36. Interview with Jolyon Leslie, Kabul, 14 Mar. 2006.

37. Giustozzi (see n.2 above).

38. Antonio Donini, Larry Minear, Ian Smillie, Ted Van Baarda and Anthony C. Welch, ‘Mapping the Security Environment: Understanding the Perceptions of Local Communities, Peace Support Operations, and Assistance Agencies’, Medford, MA: Feinstein International Famine Centre, June 2005.

39. By using the word ‘performance’ I am not implying that individuals are acting but that they are, at times, delivering information and creating an image in line with existing frameworks for revealing sensitive information within Afghan culture. For discussion of such frameworks in neighbouring Pakistan, see: Benedicte Grima, The Performance of Emotion Among Paxtun Women: The Misfortunes Which Have Befallen Me, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

40. Kandiyoti (see n.5 above).

41. Ibid.

42. Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, ‘Evaluation Report on General Situation of Women in Afghanistan’, 2006.

43. Interview with Hangama Anwari, Commissioner, AIHRC, Kabul, 2006.

44. Interviews with district and village elders, Faryab, 2003.

45. Interviews with urban widows, Kabul, 2006.

46. Schachter (see n.18 above), p.347.