Afghan tribal representatives call for end of conflict, role for king

By Riaz Khan

Associated Press

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Invoking tradition to resolve a modern dispute, more than 1,000 Afghans meeting in Pakistan on Thursday called on Afghanistan’s former king to help form a multiethnic government.

They also demanded that “those foreigners who add more to our miseries” leave the country – a reference to suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and the mostly Arab members of the al-Qaida terrorist group hiding in Afghanistan.

“They should not exploit any longer the hospitality of Afghans,” said a resolution passed after the two-day meeting of the Conference for Peace and National Unity. It was read in the Afghan language of Pashtu and translated later into English.

The all-male conclave endorsed the resolution in a jirga, or traditional meeting, held in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar near the Afghan border.

Their one-page resolution outlined what they called the building blocks for a new government that could help repair Afghanistan.

Among their points:

_Afghanistan’s former king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, in exile in Rome since 1973, should join other eminent Afghan figures to play an “effective role, according to his moderate and balanced policy, to put an end to this crisis.”

_The “warring parties of Afghanistan and USA” should “end their operations as early as possible” – including the “very important” task of disarming Kabul, the capital.

_Political activity to devise a new government should replace military activity.

_A loya jirga, a grand council used to make important decisions, should be convened to decide the future of Afghanistan.

The resolution did not directly advocate the fall of the Taliban regime, though members of the conference have made clear that is a key goal before a new government can be formed.

Participants – largely from southern Afghan tribes with monarchist sympathies – were trying to prevent what they called “a political vacuum” that could ensue if the U.S.-led military strikes unseat the Taliban.

“If that vacuum were filled by a particular group through military operation,” the resolution said, “it would turn to a new phase of bloodshed and disorder and would afflict our nation with new misfortune.”

The “particular group” it referred to is the northern alliance of opposition groups trying to retake Afghanistan from the Taliban.

Security forces checked IDs outside the hall under a sign that said “Welcome to the conference for peace and national unity.” Armed police looked on as men in flowing beards queued up for the meeting.

Some at the meeting criticized bin Laden, the top suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, for placing Afghanistan and its population in the international line of fire. He is hiding in Afghanistan as U.S. forces try to root him out.

Sirkatib Mohammed Mangal, a former commander in the Afghan fight against Soviet invasion, said bin Laden is a criminal, not a guest of Afghanistan.

“We are opposed to al-Qaida and its activities because they are destroying our country,” he said. “If bin Laden is committed, he should go to Saudi Arabia and carry on his so-called jihad there instead of getting Afghans killed.”

In a protest outside the meeting, scores of men sat on the ground, guarded heavily by Pakistani security forces. Some demonstrators held up pictures of bin Laden.

“We reject the return of former king Zaher Shah to Afghanistan,” said one demonstrator, Qari Shah Mohamed. He called the conference “a conspiracy at the behest of America against our people.”

The protesters were supporters of the Afghan Defense Council, composed of Pakistani Islamic clerics who support the Taliban. It had vowed Wednesday to shut down the meeting if the Pakistani government didn’t.

Conference members were unsympathetic.

“Pakistani clerics who are opposing us should stop their criticism,” said Qazi Mohammed Amin Waqad, chief of the Afghan Islamic group Dayia Ittehad-e-Islami.

“It is the question of Afghanistan’s future, its peace and stability,” he said. “If they have any formula for peace, we are ready to hear it.”

Zaher Shah, who ruled Afghanistan from 1933 to 1973, is now 87. He has met with representatives of various Afghan groups in recent weeks in anticipation of the Taliban’s eventual fall.