Among The Pretenders To Power

By Johanna McGeary/Peshawar

Haji Zaman spent years fighting as a mujahedin commander during the anti-Soviet war. But when the Taliban came to power, he scurried into exile in France. Now fortunes are shifting again, and Zaman has come back to the frontier city of Peshawar, Pakistan, to join others looking to grab power after the Taliban falls. Sitting in the shady, walled garden of his villa last week, Zaman said, "We don't need meetings and more meetings. Now we need practical action."

Zaman believes you don't really count in the Afghan political game if you can't field fighting men. He is ready to loan his to help topple the Taliban. But if Zaman's recent experience is any example, significant action is still a distant dream for those who hope to install the broad-based, multiethnic alternative everyone professes to want. It didn't take the death last week of Abdul Haq--America's favorite ex-mujahedin--to convince observers that the political campaign was a mess. Last week the evidence was all too clear in the relative safety of Peshawar.

At a two-day meeting in the city's Moghul-modernist Nishtar Hall, a Conference for Peace and National Unity gathered together groups of every creed and allegiance. Rival proposals hummed from cell phone to cell phone, as exiles canvassed their old cronies inside Afghanistan. The Afghan leaders jockeying for power were talking, talking, talking--but plagued by indecision, misjudgment, self-interest, distrust.

Before the attendees even settled in their seats, host Pir Sayed Ahmed Gailani, a spiritual leader who has positioned himself close to deposed King Zahir Shah, sought backing for his plan to set up an interim supreme council headed by the former monarch. Under Gailani's plan, after the Taliban fell, a council chaired by the King would assume power, backed by a U.N. security force from Muslim countries. The council would call a loya jirga, the traditional representative political gathering, to write a constitution acceptable to all ethnic groups within the framework of Islamic law. Speaker after speaker embraced the proposal and vowed unity. But the airy talk could not paper over the rifts and disagreements that make putting together a new government so hard.

Some delegates blamed Osama bin Laden for Afghanistan's troubles; some still considered him a hero of the anti-Soviet jihad. Most of the bearded men in artfully folded turbans came from the same moderate, nationalist, royalist ranks. It is unlikely that many chieftains from inside Afghanistan braved Taliban wrath to come. Nowhere sat a member of the Northern Alliance. Nor did a single so-called moderate Taliban attend. From Kabul, Taliban spokesmen jeered that the gathering was a bunch of self-seekers out to pocket American dollars. Even Zahir Shah, who stood to benefit most, inexplicably failed to send a personal representative. And the maneuvering in Peshawar ignores a harsh reality. When you ask four Afghan refugees who should rule their country, you get four different answers. Ghulan Sarwar, 50, favors the King. Mahmood Ayub, 25, says only the Taliban can maintain peace and proper Islam. He would go and fight for it now if he had food for his family. Twentyish Amanullah is Uzbek and says former President Burhanuddin Rabbani must rule because he is a family relative. Mohammed Daoud, in his 50s, feels betrayed by every leader and trusts no government to bring the peace and safety he yearns for. "Only God," he says, "will ever give us a peaceful Afghanistan."

--By Johanna McGeary/Peshawar, with reporting by Rahimullah Yusufazi/Peshawar

With reporting by Rahimullah Yusufazi/Peshawar