AFGHANISTAN:Afghans are sceptical as 700 tribal elders and officials from Pakistan and Afghanistan gather, write Pamela Constableand Imtiaz Ali in Kabul
Banners have been strung up showing two hands in a firm, brotherly grip. A giant air-conditioned meeting tent is being readied, hundreds of guest rooms are being prepared on a college campus, and welcome speeches are being written.
But as 700 tribal elders and officials from Pakistan and Afghanistan gather for a four-day peace conference in Kabul aimed at finding ways for the quarrelsome neighbouring countries to collaborate in the war against Islamic insurgents, the weight of historical suspicions will be battling the common urgency of the moment.
The presidents of both countries, in a good will gesture, are scheduled to jointly inaugurate the session today after months of blaming each other for sending extremist violence across the common border.
But many tribal elders and legislators from the most volatile border areas in Pakistan, whose participation is vital to any meaningful progress, have already announced they will boycott the conference. Representatives of the Taliban insurgents were not invited.
Many people in the Afghan capital, unnerved by a season of suicide bombings and the seizure of 21 Korean hostages by Taliban insurgents, expressed deep scepticism this week about the mass meeting, known as a jerga. Many asserted that Pakistan was behind the spread of religious violence, that its leaders could not be trusted and that the meeting was just for show.
"It could help if the Pakistanis stick to their promises, but our enmity with them is very old, and they have their interests in our insecurity," said Shams Hoja (50), a carpet seller. "We want to be hospitable to our guests, but they created the Taliban and the terrorism."
Afghans are especially suspicious of the Pakistani intelligence services. This week the governor of Ghazni province - where Taliban insurgents abducted 23 Korean church workers on July 19th, two of whom have since been killed - publicly accused Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency of orchestrating the incident. Pakistan has denied the claim.
Pakistani officials, in turn, often describe the Taliban as a home-grown Afghan phenomenon and disparage Kabul as being unable or unwilling to stop them from sneaking into Pakistan for refuge.
But Pakistan now has several compelling new reasons to co-operate with Afghanistan. Its government, after years of trying to co-opt local Islamic groups, has suddenly become a high-profile victim of religiously inspired violence on its own soil. More than 300 people have died in suicide bombings and military clashes this summer following a radical Islamic group's seizure of the Red Mosque and an adjacent religious school in downtown Islamabad.
Moreover, Pakistan's president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, has come under enormous international pressure to mend fences with Afghanistan and to deny a safe haven to Taliban fighters and their al-Qaeda associates in the lawless tribal areas along the border.
For the first time since Gen Musharraf took power in 1998, US officials have threatened to pursue armed insurgents into Pakistani territory from Afghanistan, where about 20,000 US troops and another 18,000 Nato personnel are stationed.
"The circumstances have changed," said Hamid Gailani, a son and spokesman for Pir Saeed Gailani, the elderly religious and tribal leader who will head the Afghan delegation at the jerga. "Pakistan has now been bitten by the mosquito, and they know if they do not join a broad campaign with us to eliminate these mosquitoes, it could endanger the health of the entire region."
Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the leader of a major Islamic party and one-time ally of Gen Musharraf who is also boycotting the jerga, said the Taliban's participation was "a prerequisite" for any peace effort, "but they have been left out of the loop".
Some Afghans, meanwhile, complain that the selection of delegates has already stacked the meeting in favour of Pakistan and certain powerful interests. The Afghan side is dominated by former Islamic militia leaders who worked under Pakistani tutelage to fight Soviet occupation in the 1980s and who still wield strong influence in Afghanistan - some say more than its elected, Western-backed president, Hamid Karzai.
Critics of the jerga say it is an anachronistic throwback to a loosely structured tribal tradition that will undermine the authority of both governments and produce no formal result.
Supporters, however, contend that this very informal quality may be what allows participants to break through barriers of suspicion and bitter memories and begin co-operating against the common enemy of Islamic terrorists. - ( LA Times- Washington Post service)