It is time for the Northern Alliance to stop chanting and start acting.
Author: Rustam Rushangar, analyst, especially for "Sangar"
Marshal Abdurshid Dostum, leader of the National Movement Party, recently declared in his speech at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the assassination of commander Abduraziq Achakzai that “we will go to Afghanistan with you and liberate the country.” This is the third year he has made this promise at every gathering, but it is unclear when he will reach Afghanistan.
When Dostum says “we,” he means the political leaders who oppose the Taliban. These leaders are traditionally referred to as the leaders of the Northern Alliance. Although there are several Pashtun political figures among the leaders of the North, who now mostly reside in Turkey, the Northern Alliance as a whole is made up of political and ethnic leaders of non-Pashtun peoples. Political leaders belonging to non-Pashtun ethnic groups who formed the coalition against the Taliban in the past and cooperated with the international anti-terrorist coalition played an active and effective role in overthrowing the Taliban regime.
In all his speeches over the past three years, Marshal Dostum has constantly emphasized the need for an alliance of northern forces and called it the key to defeating the Taliban. There is no doubt about this statement. That is, the unifying slogan of Marshal Dostum, which many other political leaders who oppose the Taliban also talk about, is a necessary alliance that must be formed sooner or later.
However, the northern leaders need to define a specific mechanism for achieving a practical alliance. Something that seems to have never happened. The leaders of the North always talk about an alliance, but in practice, they behave in a way that violates the alliance. This means the absence of a practical mechanism for achieving unity, preservation, and development.
Many observers say that Marshal Dostum is a pragmatic and courageous man who, if allowed to fight the Taliban, could be effective and challenge Taliban rule, at least in some northern provinces.
But the reality is that in the current situation, no leader or party can be that effective in fighting the Taliban on their own. Hence the need for an alliance.
However, the alliance should be formed based on a set of specific principles and criteria. The leaders of the North should agree on a resolution or a guiding declaration, based on which any action or statement that may violate the principles of the alliance should be prevented.
It can be said about the northern leaders that when they gather for a special occasion, they all raise one voice, but when they leave the meeting, each of them goes their own way. They do not pay attention to this. that their every action and reaction, word, and deed can play a role in weakening or strengthening the alliance.
An alliance can be thought of as a sapling that must be planted at a certain point in time and place, and then measures must be taken to preserve and strengthen it so that it bears fruit. If they do not strengthen and protect the alliance at the level of speech and in the absence of guarantees, no matter how much it is based on the dedication and inner honesty of individuals, there will be no guarantee of its stability.
For example, about a month ago, at a ceremony dedicated to September 20, the day of the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the late President of Afghanistan, although Marshal Dostum at the beginning said good words about the unity and solidarity of the political forces of the north, however, in the last minutes of his speech he said words that contradicted the slogans of unity and insulted several political figures, including those in the Supreme Council of the Resistance and beyond.
In this speech, Mr. Dostum attacked a specific geographical region (Panjshir - S.) and a specific military-political movement (Islamic Society - S.) in a disgusting tone. He said that we have taken power several times and handed it over to representatives of one valley (Panjshir), but they could not hold on to power. He said that the valley had stolen the lands of Kabul and...
Dostum was still trying to downplay the role of Ustad Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud in the fight against the Taliban and the fight against the Soviet troops and the communist government in the end. And thus he wanted to emphasize his own role in the military and political events of the last few decades.
In the same speech, Mr. Dostum attacked a particular region and a particular political movement, prompting the intervention of former Vice President Mohammad Yunus Qanooni, who tried to emphasize the need for unity and solidarity, and thus reduce the destructive role of Marshal Dostum's words in uniting the northern forces.
Whether Marshal Dostum was right in what he said in this speech is a separate debate. But it is certain that such statements at a meeting where they talk about uniting anti-Taliban forces have a destructive effect, cause mistrust, and weaken the alliance.
When an outside observer hears such words from the leaders of the North, he concludes that their alliance exists only on slogans, and they do not take on obligations or do not know what to do to create an alliance and what to talk about.
It seems that in this context, the political leaders of the North need to write an official text. A text that creates and defines the mechanisms of the alliance, and also takes into account the requirements that each of the leaders of the alliance must take into account in their speech and behavior.
