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On
13 November 2002, during the first visit ever to Australia
by a high-ranking Afghan official, HE Dr A. Abdullah,
Foreign Minister of the Transitional Islamic Government
of Afghanistan, was welcomed to the Australian National
University by the ANU’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor
Malcolm Gillies, and CAIS Director, Professor Amin Saikal.
Dr Abdullah, who was appointed Foreign Minister in the
Interim Government established in December 2001, and
reappointed in the Transitional Government established
by the Afghan Loya Jirga in June this year, presented
a lecture at the CAIS on "Afghanistan: Reconstruction
vs Terrorism".
The
attendees included representative of a large number
of the diplomatic missions in Canberra as well as academics,
representatives of various government departments and
interested members of the public.
Dr
Abdullah gave a brief account of events in Afghanistan
over the past 25 years. He explained that following the
withdrawal of Soviet troops in the late 1980s, and the
end of the Cold War, Afghanistan’s allies disengaged themselves
from Afghanistan, leading to another period of instability
in the country.
The
rise of the Taliban provided an opportunity for terrorists
from around the world to be trained in Afghanistan, but
not all remained there. The resistance forces in Afghanistan,
in particular their leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, warned
the international community time and again about the nature
of the Taliban and its benefactors, but it was only after
the tragic events of 11 September 2001 that international
attention focussed on Afghanistan.
The
Transitional Government has had to start rebuilding from
the ashes of 23 years of war and destruction. Part of
its challenge is to consolidate government. Elections
are planned for 2004, although in response to a later
question, Dr Abdullah acknowledge that a great deal of
infrastructure building was necessary to facilitate these
elections, including improving roads and communications
as well as educating electors.
There
have been some successes in the reconstruction program,
but also short-comings. Almost three million children
have commenced school but there are severe shortages of
teachers, equipment and buildings. Resources in the health
sector are extremely limited – for example, only four
eye clinics exist in the country for a population of 24
million. The government was expecting 500,000 Afghan refugees
to return home in 2002, but the actual number has been
closer to 2 million, increasing pressure on scarce resources.
The returnees have little means of livelihood, but Dr
Abdullah noted their great hope for the future. The funds
promised by the international community at the Tokyo meeting
held early this year seemed to be adequate, but almost
a year later the scale of the reconstruction project has
proved to be greater than had been anticipated.
The
immediate focus following the demise of the Taliban was
on humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, but the emphasis
should now be placed on reconstruction to ensure stability.
Unless a stable, secure and economically viable Afghanistan
can be consolidated, there would be fertile ground for
further terrorism. Dr Abdullah said that although the
backbone of terrorism has now been defeated in Afghanistan,
training bases destroyed and the capacity of Al Qaeda
diminished, individual terrorists remain within Afghanistan
and in its neighbourhood. It was important for the international
community to recognise that success in rebuilding Afghanistan
was crucial to world security against a form of terrorism
that did not want to accept defeat.
Dr
Abdullah believed there was a sense of national unity
among Afghans, and ethnic differences were not the source
of instability that some observers had anticipated. Terrorism
was not ethnic. Nor was terrorism religious, although
religion had been misused and abused by some for political
purposes. Terrorism had become transnational with a global
agenda, and combating it required a multidimensional,
international strategy, which included the reconstruction
of a stable Afghanistan.
(Courtesy
of Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies of the ANU)
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