The ‘inclusive’ Afghan government Afghans do not want

The Taliban does not want to share power with warlords and corrupt former officials and neither does the Afghan population.

On February 18, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will host a meeting of special envoys for Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar. The Taliban has confirmed it will be sending a delegation to the event, which will also be attended by other Afghan political stakeholders and representatives of the Afghan civil society.

This gathering is being held to accommodate one of the recommendations presented by the UN Special Coordinator for Afghanistan Feridun Sinirlioğlu in his November report (PDF) on the state of affairs in the country.

Although the report highlighted the need to focus on confidence-building measures between the international community and Afghan stakeholders, which would imply identifying areas of possible cooperation that are not politically sensitive, some difficult issues are bound to be brought up at the meeting. Prime among them would be the matter of the formation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan. This demand has been reiterated by regional and international actors as one of the key preconditions for the recognition of the Taliban government.

Seeking inclusive governance after a conflict is a routine diplomatic intervention. The idea is that inclusion is vital in peace-building, as it can resolve grievances produced by exclusion and prevent the re-emergence of violence.

However, the term evokes unpleasant memories for the Afghan people because it reminds them of the Bonn Conference that followed the US invasion of Afghanistan where the exiled and reviled warlords of the country were given a clean slate and an opportunity to participate in the subsequent power-sharing arrangement.