A girl stands near armoured vehicles left by the Soviet Army near the Afghan village of Shahrak on Sept. 24, 2001. The land is inhabited by war-scarred people who expressed hope that the current U.S. assault would finish off the Taliban and bring peace.
AP Photo

"Afghans on the Taliban"

Policy Memo, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

November 2009

Author: Sabrina Roshan

Bottom Lines:

• Policy makers should focus on good governance in the provinces due to the Afghan people's desire for efficient and transparent administrative services.
• Establish a parallel, or shadow government by setting up a commission that includes all of the major international and specified domestic actors to manage all foreign aid and other overseas funding.

By and large, the people of Afghanistan are driven by a desire for administration and order - not by money or supreme ideology. Despite its oppressive tactics, the Taliban regime has managed to seize power and sustain it by filling a vacuum of social instability. Wardak province, which lies just two hours outside of Kabul, is a major Taliban stronghold in central Afghanistan today. The Taliban's seizure of power in Wardak serves as a microcosm of the social and political dynamics at play in the entire country. If left unchecked, more and more parts of Afghanistan risk failing into the hands of these non-governmental, rebel powers.

Motivations: Support and Apathy
The general consensus among the villagers from Wardak is that there are two types of Taliban: one group that is composed of the "legitimate" Taliban and the other group made up of local criminals and hoodlums looking to profit from the chaotic situation (the latter group is not a uniform entity, but is composed of a fragmented network of gangs). The Taliban has sought to differentiate itself from these gangs. Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban's Quetta Commission, is responsible for appointing senior-level members of the legitimate group. The Commission is a structure, which serves as a parallel government that provides the actual Taliban with appropriate paperwork. The renegade groups fail to hold any of these official documents.

The Taliban has managed to carve its way into the social fabric by resolving civic issues on behalf of the people in a timely and hassle-free manner. Through official government channels, those same villagers would have to pay numerous bribes and experience significant delays in getting their issues resolved. In addition, the Taliban are able to provide transparent justice when dealing with criminals, whereas the government often releases convicted criminals in exchange for bribes and other private dealings. The majority of petty crimes, including robbery, vandalism, and occasionally more severe crimes, like kidnappings, are committed by the illegitimate hoodlum groups who are often prosecuted by the Taliban itself. Government corruption and inefficiency has opened the door for the Taliban to legitimize itself among the people of Afghanistan.

The Anatomy of a Conquest
The Taliban enters villages by offering dispute resolution, using forced deliverance, and disseminating propaganda. They tend to be elusive and refrain from occupying specific parameters or spaces. The three most common forms of village occupation take place using the following approaches:

1. Dispute Resolution
One form of village occupation involves settling disputes between members of the same village. Once informed of a dispute in the village, the Taliban enter the area at night with motorcycles and take the disputing parties to a mosque and help them resolve the issue swiftly and efficiently. They do not ask the parties involved for membership, but they do provide instructions on how to practice the Islamic religion properly. In addition, they ask for recognition of their regime and system in return for their services. This tends to be the most effective method due to the high level of corruption within the Afghan National Police and the Judiciary which precludes the government from properly addressing the administrative and civic processes that the villagers are in need of solving.

The largest of such ordinary civic problems and petitions include attaining national identity cards and settling land disputes. The government sends villagers from office to office, where they are required to pay government bureaucrats before the appropriate papers become cleared. Instead, the Taliban are able to solve the issue in 30 minutes by providing five judges and doing their best to come to a clear verdict at the end of the process. However, if one of the parties involved disagrees with the verdict that the Taliban has come to, and goes to the government with the complaint, they are ultimately signing their death sentence.

2. Forced Deliverance
A second form of village occupation takes place at night and involves the distribution of leaflets via motorcycle. The leaflets state that from that moment on, villagers should not go to government offices for their civic and criminal justice needs - they should instead go to the Taliban. The Taliban also used networking to pass along the message. Since many members of the Taliban have held positions of governance in the country for several years, they have numerous political contacts and communicate instructions through them. The Taliban ask that information regarding who they are and their purpose (to manage provincial administration) in addition to their rule of law requirement, be disseminated to the people in the villages.

3. Propaganda and Influence
Lastly, men can also join the Taliban voluntarily based on personal contacts. The men are asked to sign-up and are instructed to come to a certain mosque to begin the process. The motivation to seek the Taliban out is related to social and psychological factors. In Afghanistan, young men tend to want to be part of a selective, inclusive, influential, and notorious group. This is buttressed by a series of "public relations" tactics (although usually these tactics are used by the fragmented gangs, sometimes the Taliban employs them as well). The most prominent of these tactics include text messaging propaganda campaigns and parading groups of seemingly invincible men in motorcycle gangs through the villages, enticing the young men to join. For older men, the motivations are a different. Older men in Afghan society look to become part of politically significant organizations where they are given a voice in the reform process, which often involves seeking membership in the respected, legitimate Taliban groups.

Recommendations for Policy Makers
The focus should be completely dedicated to good governance in the provinces. Good governance in Wardak province is directly tied to corruption eradication in the provincial councils. The foundation of corruption in the provinces is also completely entangled with that of the central government, which is why any and every method of transparency development on the village and provincial level also requires the same transparency development in the government in Kabul. The strategic approach towards fostering a less corrupt and more dependable Afghan administration is currently composed of two options:

• Consider the elections null and void, implant a transition government and support the development of a closely internationally led and monitored new election from inception to implementation.

However, due to the recent cessation of the runoff process and confirmation of incumbent rule, the focus for targeting corruption should be the misuse of aid.

• The US and coalition governments should work to establish a parallel, or shadow government to that of the current Afghan administration by setting up an independent Commission. The Commission should include key coalition government representatives and those from relevant UN agencies, as well as specific local and expatriate Afghans. All foreign aid and other overseas funding distributed to the country should be managed by this Commission. This would significantly reduce the corruption founded at the helm of foreign aid and other technical assistance.

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