Two days ago, spokesmen for the Taliban announced an agreement to release 19 kidnapped South Korean church volunteers. Some observers immediately claimed that the Taliban had new legitimacy as a negotiating partner. "They successfully negotiated a deal with a foreign government," Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan, told The Globe and Mail. "This takes the Taliban to a different level of recognition." There is a very large leap, however, from a hostage deal to negotiations about the future governance of the country. Nevertheless, the deal does suggest there may be some bridges over the abyss.
Even amidst ferocious fighting, adversaries who do not recognize each other come together, often through a third party, to negotiate the release of hostages or an exchange of prisoners. In the long history of the bitter Arab-Israeli conflict, there have often been these kinds of negotiations. In other conflicts, warring parties have worked out temporary ceasefires to remove wounded from the battlefield, or to celebrate holidays with "Christmas truces." But making deals over hostages and prisoners do not necessarily signal an intention to negotiate. Adversaries often go right back to war as soon as the truce is over.
Nevertheless, the negotiations with the Taliban do tell Afghan President Hamid Karzai something. There is a political structure to the Taliban, local or central, that can make decisions and deliver results.
The Taliban of today are not the same Taliban who swept to power in Afghanistan more than a decade ago. There is ongoing debate on "who" the Taliban are - indeed, on whether there is a unified movement, with a structure at the top that controls local decision-making and reaches down to the ground in Afghanistan. Today, Taliban leaders walk openly in the streets of Quetta in western Pakistan. The Taliban shura (council) meets regularly, and a spokesman holds press conferences.
The structure of the Taliban inside Afghanistan is much less clear. Local Taliban leaders in the south and east make operational decisions with little or no consultation with leaders in Quetta. And they do not speak with a single voice. Some local leaders have negotiated truces with elders and pulled out of villages, at least until the truce was broken. Others continue to launch direct assaults against North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces, plant roadside bombs, and attack schools and clinics rebuilt since 2001. The Taliban are far more fragmented today than they were six years ago.
Taliban leaders, of course, are the only element in the insurgency. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who fought fiercely against Soviet forces and then in the civil war that erupted after the Soviet Union withdrew, has openly declared his support for the Taliban. More important, hundreds of young Afghan men, especially in the south, have joined the insurgency because they have no jobs, no money and very little hope. The Taliban pay much better than does Mr. Karzai's government. Finally, in the narco-economy that increasingly dominates the southern provinces, drug lords work closely with the Taliban, who protect their supply routes.
In this complex context, who exactly does Mr. Karzai negotiate with? Who is the authoritative representative of the Taliban in Afghanistan? That argument is frequently made by those opposed to negotiating with the Taliban. The talks that led to the release of the Korean hostages tell a somewhat encouraging story. The Taliban - whether at a local level or one higher up the chain of command - were able to delegate authority to a team of negotiators, with Afghan elders playing a crucial intermediary role. What's encouraging is not that the Taliban negotiated over the hostages but that they were capable of delivering a result.
Mr. Karzai, in fact, has already begun a series of negotiations with the Taliban through different channels. These negotiations are not with Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's elusive leader, but with men much lower down the chain. Mr. Karzai is exploring the possibility that "soft" Taliban leaders may leave the insurgency and join the government. Informal processes - ones with plausible deniability - are under way.
The Inter-Services Intelligence, the largest and most powerful intelligence agency in Pakistan and a long-time supporter of the Taliban, has also mediated discussions. The question is no longer whether to negotiate with the Taliban. Informal negotiations to separate the "softer" Taliban from the hard core around Mullah Omar are ongoing. The only question is: How high up the chain of command should Mr. Karzai go?
Insurgencies do end, although they usually have a long life cycle. A very few end with the unmistakable defeat of the insurgents or the government. But most end through negotiation, when insurgents lose hope they can win and governments open up political space, talk to their adversaries, and bring them into some kind of political coalition. The insurgency is raging in the south of Afghanistan, but the solution is in Kabul.
Janice Gross Stein is co-author, with Eugene Lang, of the forthcoming The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar.
