The ceasefire is essential – but what should happen next for peace in Afghanistan?

Afghan security force inspects the site of a suicide bomb in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, 03 December 2017. NurPhoto/ Press Association. All rights reserved.

Afghanistan is at a crossroads facing two possible futures:
indefinite violent conflict, or gradual progress towards sustainable peace.

Choices made now over strategy, tactics and resources can
tip the balance either way. The recent declaration of a temporary ceasefire by
both the Afghan Government, and, for the first time since they were ousted from
power in 2001, the Taliban, could be a first step on an incremental journey
towards peace. But what should happen next and how can this gradual progress
towards peace be supported?

Why
is a ceasefire important?

Accord’s
latest publication on peace in Afghanistan,
produced by Conciliation Resources, highlights
the need for a radical new approach to peace in the country – one that builds
progressive steps towards de-escalation and reconciliation and includes Afghan
society as a whole.

Uniquely,
the publication brings together in one place perspectives on peace from both
the Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban – with contributions from the
Chair of the High Peace Council, HE Mohammed Kareem Khalili, the Taliban
Political Office in Qatar and senior representatives of five Taliban factions.
Across the 25 chapters, contributors also span a range of outlooks and insights
of Afghan and international men and women from academia, the military, politics
and civil society.

Accord’s editors argue that the process towards peace must begin
with measures to reduce violence as a basis to build confidence in more fundamental
change over time. Lack
of confidence among the warring parties is the primary blockage to progress towards
agreement on even the most basic issues.

It is
driven in the first instance by the pervasive violence affecting many parts of
the country. Confidence is further compromised by widespread mistrust of formal
negotiation processes and agreements, and perceptions that national
institutions are corrupt and partisan, as well as by the dual system of
governance in Afghanistan – with the government running the main
population centres and the Taliban much of the countryside.

Only after the establishment of a credible ceasefire can the
root causes of the conflict be dealt with.

What
needs to happen now?

Concrete progress
towards violence reduction could provide the necessary momentum to move beyond
the peace rhetoric in the country – so far a persistent theme of the Afghan
conflict is the glaring gap between words and actions, with both sides talking
peace while intent on waging war.

President
Ghani’s offer of peace talks in February provides a rare opportunity and a practical platform around which
to coordinate international support for an Afghan-lead peace programme. The
subsequent temporary ceasefire affords a more concrete opening for
both sides to demonstrate their willingness and
ability to deliver tangible progress. International
support could add credibility, accountability and resources to President
Ghani’s proposals.

But
measures to reduce violence must be tied to wider efforts to build peace. Evidence
from the Political Settlements Research
Programme, to which
the Accord Afghanistan study belongs,
shows that the success of peace agreements to resolve immediate violence has
not been matched by longer-term commitments to broader reform, and that peace
agreements have more often led to uncertain and often impermanent peace and
political stalemate.

Now is the time to take
action. International support could add credibility, accountability
and resources to President Ghani’s proposals and help them to withstand
resistance and shocks. International actors in discussion with the President
could develop criteria that a more permanent ceasefire or de-escalation of
violence would need to meet before it is considered credible.

What about NATO?

Although
the Taliban have announced that they would not be suspending offensive
operations against foreign troops as part of their ceasefire, the US and NATO have agreed to support the
government’s initiative. Building on this, a joint commitment by NATO and the
Afghan government to reciprocate plausible future Taliban de-escalation measures
could help convince the Taliban of the reliability and breadth of their commitment
to reducing violence.

It could
also help joint planning for future measures such as conditional prisoner
release, temporary de-listing of sanctioned Taliban and safe-conduct or
security guarantees.

Supporting
local peace zones

Reducing violence in Afghanistan is difficult. Security
continues to deteriorate year-on-year. De-escalation is most
likely to be achieved through parallel bottom-up and top-down measures. The end of the June ceasefire saw a return to violence. Local
peacemaking initiatives have seen some success in Afghanistan, but a challenge
has often been a resistance from central Taliban leadership.

In statements in the Accord
publication, leaders from five different Taliban factions express an interest
in achieving
non-violent political status. At this stage, the
establishment of locally agreed ‘peace zones’ could be supported while the
terms of more permanent ceasefires could be renegotiated and the zone
potentially expanded, supporting de-escalation from the ground up.

Incentives to join could include providing protection for
participating groups and leaders. Parallel progress towards reducing violence
at a national level could help protect local initiatives from being ‘spoiled’
by the central leadership. Parallel progress
towards reducing violence at a national level could help protect local initiatives
from being ‘spoiled’ by the central leadership.

Despite the very real challenges and uncertainty over the long-term implications of the  temporary ceasefire, it still gives us
grounds for optimism. The
tangible decrease in violence that resulted can help to build momentum
towards sustainable peace in Afghanistan.

But the
country still has a long way to go, and a step-by-step process towards a
settlement offers a way to move beyond the peace rhetoric, building stability,
confidence and legitimacy over time. To find out more visit www.c-r.org/afghanistan or www.politicalsettlements.org.