Jirgas and jirgas; Reconciliation without the victims?

Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul

No one wants to play the role of the Talib. The group of women gathered in a dusty courtyard in the poor neighbourhood of Dasht-e-Barchi in Kabul city, are all victims of the years of unrelenting violence in Afghanistan. Successive regimes saw murders, torture, looting and rapes as opposing factions fought their way into power. Most of the women had lost family members- fathers, mothers, brothers, husbands and children. Many had themselves suffered vicious violence. Now, through participatory theatre, (adapted from the pioneering work by Augusto Boal in Brazil), the women are coming to terms with their past. Enacting short skits recreating scenes from their own lives, the women intervene by adopting one of the roles in the skit and play it differently in order to transform the scene, a symbolic gesture that allows them to take control of their lives and change it.

NGOs working with the poorest and most vulnerable sections of the population and local human rights groups are using community-based initiatives to address the trauma of years of violence in an effort to empower victims and help them transform their own lives. The success of this initiative stands in stark contrast to the inability of such groups to impact on the political and decision-making processes of the Afghan government and the donor community.

When the three-day consultative peace jirga to opens in Kabul on May 29 to hold inclusive discussions on reconciliation with the Taliban, missing from the table will be representatives of the victims groups who have firmly opposed some of the first steps in reconciliation taken by the Afghan government, including the amnesty law and the quiet burial of the Transitional Justice Action Plan.

Najibullah Amin, the Deputy Director of the Peace jirga is unfazed by the criticism. “We are all victims of war. The 1600 people who will participate in the jirga are all victims. The whole nation is a victim.”

At this moment the peace jirga has 13 categories of representatives including members of parliament, religious leaders, provincial council members, traders, civil society, Kuchis, governors, women and community elders amongst others. While there is no ‘ban’ on the participation of the ‘opposition’ – members of armed insurgent groups- Amin says it appears to be a hypothetical scenario. The jirga has not evolved any mechanism that would guarantee them safe passage for that participation. The jirga, he says will focus on consulting the nation on how to reach peace; the mechanism by which this can be achieved; identify those who are reconcilable and those who are not, and direct the government to take certain steps.

While Amin’s contention of every Afghan being a victim is acknowledged by civil society groups which have come together under the banner of the Transitional Justice Coordination Group(TJCG), they argue that political decisions are being taken by the powerful elite in their own interests, ignoring the larger interests of the powerless majority. An example, they say, is the Amnesty law. The law provides amnesty not just to “all political factions and hostile parties who were involved in a way or another in hostilities before the establishing of the Interim administration” (Hamid Karzai’s government of 2001), but it also provides amnesty to those “still in opposition” to the Afghan government. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission(AIHRC) has criticized the law as has the International Centre for Transitional Justice(ICTJ). In a joint paper both argued that the law was bad because: it violated the Afghan government’s obligation to pursue prosecution of war crimes as a signatory to international human rights treaties; it provided a form of self-amnesty being passed and adopted by those who would benefit from it without wider consultation of the population; it also provided amnesty in perpetuity since there was no cut-off date, thus encouraging a culture of continuing violence and impunity.

Adopted quietly in December 2008, the law only ‘appeared’ in the official gazette in December 2009, a most propitious time for its acceptance, with the donor community having identified ‘reconciliation and reintegration’ as the way out of the conflict, a decision that was officially endorsed at the London Conference in January 2010.

Predictably, any international criticism was muted and confined largely to NGOs and non-state actors. Responding to a question on the law, the new European Union Special Representative Vyguadas Usackas says the international community “did not see what we wanted to see” in terms of the Amnesty Law and Transitional Justice. He however argued that it was up to “Afghan people to use their democratic processes in influencing and developing a participatory democratic culture.” That is easier said than done. It is the Peace Jirga, reconciliation process and the Afghan government which is getting the bulk of funding and political backing of the international donor community rather than civil society initiatives relating to this process.

Those arguing for the implementation of the transitional justice plan argue that they are not opposed to reconciliation initiatives, but rather, in support of a reconciliation which is sustainable. “Reconciliation must include the victims” says Nader Nadery, a Commissioner in the AIHRC. “It should not be a reconciliation behind the curtains. It should not be just a political reconciliation.”

Amin refutes the suggestion that the current form of reconciliation is only a means of sharing power. “All Afghans have the right to political power” The peace jirga, he says, is going to address the issues that block peace.

Women’s groups for one are enthused that they have been admitted in large numbers to the jirga. Their advocacy has helped push their numbers up from 30 to over 300, a number that they hope will enable them to voice their concerns, even if they cannot influence the proceedings.

There is widespread skepticism on whether the hardcore insurgents groups can be reconciled at all. Asked why no one took on the role of the ‘Talib’ character in the participatory theatre, women gathered there said it was futile, because “a Talib is unchangeable.”

While women’s rights groups fear that their hard-won rights might be reversed in compromises with an intolerant conservative ideology, victims groups fear the jirga is a means to silence their voices. To prevent this, a ‘victims’ jirga held on May 9, brought together victims from different parts of the country to share harrowing stories of their pain and suffering. One of those who suffered brutal violence and lost most members of his family is Ali Faizi who acknowledged the common past of the victims cutting across ethnic and geographical divides. “We have a common suffering. But if we do not treat this wound now, it will afflict future generations.”

]]> http://imaginaction.org/more-news-about-our-friends-in-afghanistan/feed 0 http://imaginaction.org/our-friends-from-afghanistan-continue-to-do-their-courageous-theatre-for-healing-and-social-justice-work http://imaginaction.org/our-friends-from-afghanistan-continue-to-do-their-courageous-theatre-for-healing-and-social-justice-work#comments Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:27:02 +0000 hector http://imaginaction.org/?p=826 War Crimes Amnesty Adds to Afghan Women’s Grief

By Aunohita Mojumdar

WeNews correspondent

Friday, March 26, 2010

Afghanistan’s amnesty for war criminals is not playing well in a therapy theater group for Kabul women victimized by years of violence. They wait for a form of justice while perpetrators of violence get impunity and a chance to hold positions of power.
KABUL, Afghanistan (WOMENSENEWS)–On a makeshift stage on a small verandah of a ramshackle house in Kabul, four women stand together in front of an audience of more than 50 women who are gathered in the courtyard of the house. Three of the actresses play the parts of women: a matriarch and her two daughters-in-law. The fourth plays a disabled son.
The production is part of the women’s attempts to come to peace with what they have experienced in their strife-torn nation. Yet, a new realization that those who raped and otherwise maimed and murdered them and members of their families now will receive total amnesty in perpetuity may add even more of a sense of unresolved grief.
Its plot: With no able men to hold down a job, the family is reduced to penury and discord. The story ends with the disabled son joining the Taliban in return for money.
The situation is familiar to both the actors and the audience, all women from some of the poorest neighborhoods of Kabul who have lost a family member or suffered brutal violence in the successive waves of fighting and the regime change from the Soviet- installed government to the anti-Soviet mujahideen and the Taliban.
Some of these women have survived rape, according to some rights workers here, but little public mention is made of that due to the heavy social taboo that can turn rape victims into social outcasts.
The participatory theater is organized by the Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization. The group, based in Kabul, works with victims of the Afghan conflict and is a member of a coalition of civil society groups advocating a transitional justice program.

Theater of Transformation

The theatricals call on the women to take on one of the roles in a familiar societal drama and transform it. Based on theories of social psychotherapy, the goal is to internalize a sense of civil rights and to heal wounds. Before the staging, the women go through a workshop about the social influence of theater and taking the performances into their communities.
“Most of the women suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Dr. Neak Mohammed Sharif, a member of the Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization. Sharif says the project draws on the Theatre of the Oppressed, pioneered by Augusto Boal of Brazil.
None of the women in the production last week wanted to play the part of the Taliban insurgent. Several said a Taliban character would be too rigid and unchangeable.
The women associated with the drama group come from the neighborhoods of Chilsitoon and Dasht-e-Barchi, which were caught in the crosshairs of the violence unleashed on the city between 1992 and 1996 as commanders of political factions fought for control of Kabul.
Since 2006 they have been waiting for the Afghan government’s promise to implement a transitional justice program intended to help women such as themselves. The phrase transitional justice refers to a process that seeks recognition for victims while promoting possibilities for peace, reconciliation and democracy. Afghanistan’s plan included removing human rights abusers from positions of power. The deadline for implementation passed in March 2009.

Quiet Forgiveness of War Crimes

Instead, in a development that caught the world off guard, the government earlier this year announced it had adopted an amnesty law as far back as November 2008, a fact it had kept under wraps until now. The amnesty is in perpetuity for all combatants, including war criminals and those who committed rape. The women here expect it to include some of the military commanders of the 1992-1996 violence.
“Who is [Afghanistan's president] Karzai to forgive the deaths in my family?” said Sakina, a middle-aged widow from Dasht-e-Barchi, a poor neighborhood of west Kabul. She lost her husband and niece in the conflict. “He wants to give the Taliban money, land and privileges. To me, a victim, he gives me a widow’s pension of 300 Afs ($6) a month. Karzai says he will forgive the Taliban? Who gave him this right?”
In 2007, Parliament introduced a law to prevent the prosecution of individuals responsible for large-scale human rights abuses. The bill produced widespread outcry and rights groups and international donors thought it was dropped.
Earlier this year, however, it came to light that the law been adopted quietly at some point in 2008. It says all those engaged in hostilities before the formation of an interim government in December 2001 shall “enjoy all their legal rights and shall not be prosecuted;” it also promises the same immunity to all those currently involved in hostilities if they lay down their arms and adhere to the constitution.
The coalition of groups calling for implementation of the transitional justice program passed a resolution earlier this month calling for a repeal of the amnesty law.
Meanwhile, the government is preparing to hold a peace meeting during the first two days in May, which will include clerics, community leaders and elders and is designed to bring current armed insurgents back into civic life.
Many women here see the meeting as a chance for perpetrators of violence to join the government and hold positions of power, with no accountability and no punishment.
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who has reported on the South Asian region for 20 years. She has been living in Afghanistan since 2003.