How to make Taliban tunnel part of the reconciliation program?

Posted on | april 27, 2011 | No Comments

The news is that Taliban dug a 360 meters tunnel in five months and released all about 500 Taliban prisoners in a few hours. The tunnel was dug from a house, the prisoners were shifted in trucks and the government did not know until late morning the next day.

Two years ago, in June 2008, the Taliban had attacked the same prison and had released about 1000 of their prisoners. After that incident, stricter security measures should have been put in place in order to prevent this.

This is a strong indication of how weak the corrupt Afghan government is. In his press conference about the issue, the governor of Kandahar, Toriali Wesa, asked people to help the government in re-arresting the escaped prisoners.

How odd! Why would they help a government which is so corrupt and for that reason so despised by Kandaharis?

Just a few days ago there was an alleged suicide attack in the Ministry of Defense in Kabul. The government claimed they had killed the bomber before he was able to blow the ministry up. But, according to some reports in Pashto media quoting inside sources, there was no suicide attack. In the Ministry of Defense, they say, there was some inside conflict which was named as a suicide attack. Some media people believed this to be the case because of the absence of the body of the suicide bomber.

Anyway, it is likely that the incompetent and corrupt Afghan government sees more such incidents in the near future. While majority of the Karzai government officials are busy in looting the nation, a good number of them are also busy in inventing ways to appease Taliban in the name of reconciliation.

For that use, there are two good ways for the Karzai government to make this latest escape of Taliban prisoners part of their reconciliation program:

1) President Karzai should immediately hold a press conference and say that his government knew about the Taliban’s digging plan but they ignored it as a good gesture for reconciliation; and

2) As his final negotiations with Mullah Omar would take place in a secret place, President Karzai can invite him to the same tunnel where both of them will feel safe and secure. If the Kandahar government was not able to see the tunnel and the escape in five months, the world may not be able to know about Karzai-Omar meeting for decades.

I think there maybe some other good uses of the lucky tunnel, but these two are in the ‘national interest’ of the Karzais.

AUTHOR: Abdulhadi Hairan
URL: http://www.abdulhadihairan.com
E-MAIL: ahhairan [at] gmail.com

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