Why the proposed reconciliation program is flawed?

In recent weeks, the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has been vehemently pursuing a reconciliation plan with the Taliban, offering them jobs and housing if they decide to put down their arms and join the civilian life.

While the efforts and intentions are to be applauded, the plan is fundamentally flawed and needs to be much more critically deliberated before being rolled out. I can’t help but lament on at least two critical questions in this regard.

Firstly, what does the Afghan government (and the international community) offer the current masses of impoverished and war-ravaged civilians in Afghanistan to make it an enticing promise for Taliban fighters to lay down their arms for? Do the civilians live a life that is enviable by anyone in the country, the least of whom would be Taliban who not only enjoy much better pay, but also power and even social prestige (perhaps only self-perceived) for bravely defending their land against the “infidels” and foreign invaders? Maybe I am wrong, but I always thought for anyone to voluntarily enter into an agreement, it must at least make them slightly better off than before, otherwise, it is not worth the change in lifestyle.

The brutal fact is that the majority of Afghan civilians live in such poor conditions that their lives are hardly enviable. The luckiest among them have a stable government job, which pays at most about Rs.5000 a month ($100), which is a lot less than an unskilled labor would get by doing odd jobs, and certainly a lot less than Taliban get as fighters, which many believe to be close to at least $300 a month. So why give up $300 a month and the authority that comes having an AK47 on your shoulder for a lifestyle that can barely feed your family and puts you at the bottom of the society?

The second question that comes to mind is, why reward bad behavior? We already know that a lot of the Taliban fighters fight, not for ideological reasons, but for economic reasons. We also saw the emergence of the “occasional” Taliban and then the “weekend” Taliban who may actually be working for the government during the week. Are we sending a signal to those who have not joined yet to do so so that they are eligible for our promise of jobs and housing? Why not focus on those desperate young men and give them jobs and opportunities BEFORE they join the Taliban, with a lot less monetary incentives?

In fact, this last point is exactly what we have been pushing for through our JobsforAfghans initiative. The masses of unemployed Afghans are willing to work for about $5 a day and we are totally ignoring them, until they become a threat and join the Taliban or other forms of illicit earning out of desperation. It is a lot cheaper and easier to convince those on the brink of poverty and on the verge of joining the Taliban to “work for peace” than those who have crossed this line. And if we can show, in practice, that we are able to change the lives of our civilians for the better, we do not need to extend invitations and promises of this and that to the non-ideologically driven Taliban; they will come and “work for peace” themselves…again emphasizing IF we make the lifestyle of those who are already working for peace at least livable, if not enviable.