5,000 Afghan 'militants' have surrendered - but are they real?

“We were solving people’s problems, but we could not build anything,” he says. “We were not able to asphalt roads for the people. We were not able to build a school or a clinic for them. There was no rebuilding in my area. That’s why I decided to come back to the government.”

At Wali’s reintegration ceremony, local reporter Obaidullah Jahesh says he was taken aback by the amount of ordinary people who were among the supposed insurgents. As reporter covering only Baghlan Province, he knows a number of people in the community and he immediately spotted a teacher and several students among those “militants” reintegrating.

‘It’s completely fake’

“It’s completely a fake process,” he says. He and his fellow reporters have had many similar experiences at other reintegration ceremonies, he says, adding that he thinks it actually hurts the peace process, “the insurgents see this sort of corruption and it strengthens their resolve not to join the government,” he says.

Now not only will Wali and his fighters receive a check for three months, the local government has also promised to try to find jobs for them. And the possibility of a development grant has inspired hopes that reconstruction projects will finally reach their area.

Given that many in Baghlan still question Wali’s involvement in the shooting, his case strikes a particular chord among Afghans who accuse the program of offering criminals a way to escape justice.

The reintegration program does offer amnesty to insurgents for actions they committed while opposing the government, however, it is not designed to offer forgiveness to common criminals.

Stories of people with questionable insurgent ties like Wali are common, but it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine who is telling the truth.

Nearly two years ago, a Pakistani man now believed to be an ordinary shopkeeper managed to dupe international forces into believing he was one of the top Taliban leaders, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, and he was ready to begin peace talks.

Optimistic international forces

Still, British Maj. Gen. David Hook, director of the Force Reintegration Cell for the International Security Assistance Force, says he is confident in the program and its vetting process.

Prior to reintegrating, applicants are screened at the local level and then passed along to officials in Kabul for final approval. General Hook says Afghans turn away a number of applicants, which he says is the result of a robust and effective vetting process. 

“I think it would be slightly inappropriate to think that every single individual who has entered the program is actually a bona fide insurgent, but, from my view, the Afghans own the vetting process, it’s the Afghans who make the decisions, and the Afghans are comfortable that those they have in are insurgents,” says Hook. “There are occasions when individuals want to reconcile where they don’t want to admit the things that they’ve done against the government.”

The program only became nationwide in the last six or seven months, he points out. He says he expects results to improve, especially as Afghan forces take control of more areas and foreign troops withdraw, giving insurgents opposed to international forces a reason to reintegrate.

Officials say that Wali, and others like him are an important part of the peace process.

“We know that we didn’t have any threat from them. It was clear. They were ruling their area… We didn’t want that, we wanted the government to do that. This is why we wanted them to reintegrate,” says Maj. Gen. Mel Alhaj Asadullah Sherzad, the chief of police in Baghlan Province. If they didn’t get Afghans like Wali who oppose the government to reintegrate, they could be used by insurgents, he says.

The race for influence

General Sherzad adds that while Baghlan has few insurgents, in the past year he managed to use the reconciliation process to regain control of an area that had fallen under militant control.

And although officials recognize that many of the hard-line Taliban and insurgents are unlikely to reintegrate with the government, they say the reintegration of even inactive insurgents like Wali is critical because they could be used by insurgents.

“If the government doesn’t go to an area, then definitely the enemy will come to that area and use it for their own purposes,” says Maulvi Sarjuddin Seerat, the head of the High Peace Council in Baghlan.

Previous

1 | 2