Exiles Meet on Post-Taliban Plan

The most significant achievement of a gathering here Wednesday of 800 Afghan leaders, politicians and clerics--most supporters of exiled monarch Mohammad Zaher Shah and opponents of the Taliban regime--was that it was held at all.

Rallies by Afghan political groups have long been banned in this dusty frontier city bulging with more than 700,000 refugees. Since the Taliban movement swept into power in neighboring Afghanistan five years ago, those who spoke out against the fundamentalist Islamic regime have faced arrest and deportation by the pro-Taliban Pakistani government.

But in a sign of the changed political climate here, Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani stood on the stage of the overflowing 680-seat Nishtar Hall on Wednesday and called for a new political order to replace the Taliban.

Gailani, an aristocratic former Afghan resistance leader whose flagging political career has been revived by recent events, outlined a political program that would include the creation of what he called a “leadership council” of eight to 12 elders and representatives of the major Afghan ethnic groups and political units.

It is unclear how much support Gailani has for his governing plan, which is considerably different from one put forward by the former monarch.

In fact, somewhat surprisingly, no representatives of the former king attended the two-day meeting, which is scheduled to conclude today with a consensus resolution outlining a general direction for Afghanistan’s future.

Hamid Sidig, a spokesman for the exiled king, said he had no information on exactly what the meeting in Peshawar is about. “If he’s doing this to support the process, then it’s welcome,” Sidig said. “If it’s something different, we don’t know about it.”

Despite the apparent lack of consensus, the meeting here was the biggest so far in a series of gatherings aimed at developing a broad, united base of support for a Zaher Shah-led interim government in Afghanistan. Another smaller meeting was held Wednesday in Nicosia, Cyprus. Another is tentatively planned for Istanbul, Turkey.

As Gailani described his plan, the compact leadership body would have executive power over a Cabinet of professional managers and technocrats that would function as the Afghan government under protection of U.N. security forces until a more traditional ruling council, or loya jirga, could be convened.

The Gailani proposal has the advantage of being more manageable and easier to put in place than the much larger, 120-member Supreme Council that has been proposed by Zaher Shah and endorsed by the Northern Alliance opposition force that is battling the Taliban in northern Afghanistan.

Under the king’s plan, the Supreme Council would serve as a nominating board for an even larger loya jirga.

The uncertainty over a post-]Taliban government comes against the backdrop of increased concern that diplomatic and political efforts to construct a new Afghan political structure are lagging behind the events on the battlefront.

Gailani had hoped that the Peshawar meeting would attract a broad spectrum of Afghans from inside and outside the country, to produce a credible alternative to the Taliban.

But organizers were disappointed that there was no official delegation from the exiled king. “Everyone here supports the king,” said Gailani’s son Hamid, who serves as his interpreter and political advisor. “I don’t know why they didn’t send a representative.”

Also conspicuously absent were several key former moujahedeen commanders, notably Peshawar-based legendary fighter Abdul Haq. His older brother, Haji Din Mohammed, did attend, taking a position among 50 senior leaders on the meeting hall stage.

Even more important for a meeting that was supposed to unite Afghans under the banner of Gailani’s organization, the Assn. for Peace and National Unity of Afghanistan, there was no representative from the Northern Alliance.

Possibly intimidated by recent Taliban reprisals against opposition groups, only a handful of people arrived here from inside Afghanistan. In the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif last week, the Taliban reportedly hanged five opposition leaders as “spies.”

Huge divisions remain in the Afghan community, particularly between the Tajik- and Uzbek-dominated Northern Alliance and the largely ethnic Pushtun groups here. The Taliban draws much of its support from the Pushtuns, who constitute the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.

“There is still no coordination among all the people who are working for the king,” said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist and expert on Afghanistan. “We have yet to see a joint rally of all the groups in support of the king.”

Wednesday’s meeting in Peshawar may have been more of a departure for Pakistan than it was for the Afghans.

Bending to international pressure, Pakistan dropped its support for the Taliban after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Exiled Afghans were invited back, and Pakistani authorities have recently warmed to the idea of a new political order organized under the largely symbolic agency of the 87-year-old former king.

“It shows a major shift in Pakistan’s Afghan policy,” Yusufzai said. “Before this, meetings against the Taliban or in support of the king could not be held.”

Significantly, Yusufzai said the monarchists and anti-Taliban elements are now free to organize opposition and resistance forces in many refugee camps that surround this city.

“I expect more such meetings,” Yusufzai said, “and they will now be allowed to work in the camps.”

At the Nishtar Hall, speaker after speaker rose from the crowd that overflowed into the aisles to announce support for the deposed king, who was exiled in 1973 and lives outside Rome. One of the speakers, Azi Amin Waqad, exhorted the mostly turbaned Pushtun audience to join hands and chant: “God is Great. God is Great. We want peace in Afghanistan.”

Some of the speakers endorsed Zaher Shah’s call for a U.N. security force, drawn from Muslim countries, to patrol the streets of Kabul, the Afghan capital. Gailani asked that the U.N. protection be extended to other major Afghan cities. Nearly all those who spoke condemned the U.S. air attacks on their country and the mounting civilian casualties.

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Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux in Rome contributed to this report.