Failure to disarm and demobilise militias in Afghanistan

United Nations-sponsored disarmament and demobilisation of militias in Afghanistan has not gone well. Afghan partners have lacked political will and militia leaders have entered parliament. The international community has compromised, seemingly in denial of the reality that thousands of armed men continue to operate outside the control of the Afghan government.

A report from the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics, in the UK, explores the shortcomings of Afghanistan’s post-Taliban disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) process.

Implementation of DDR was entrusted to the United Nations Development Programme. Mistakes made in other security sector reform (SSR) interventions were repeated here. DDR only started two years after the end of Taliban rule. There was conflict over the ownership of a programme which was externally planned but depended on implementation by locals. Another contradiction was between the humanitarian concerns of partners who wanted to focus on the welfare of ex-combatants and the political interests of local and international actors primarily concerned with maintaining good relations with the military forces controlling the countryside.

Diplomats and officials of international organisations often continued to work on the assumption that the demobilisation process, which in Afghanistan was separated in two programmes - DDR and DIAG (Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups) - was proceeding as planned. Hard bargaining took place but it was in everybody’s interest to maintain a façade that DDR and DIAG were working. The Afghans grudgingly accepted the disbandment of official militias, as long as they were allowed to continue existing in the background. There was a partial removal of militia leaders from official positions but substantial numbers were given civil service jobs or became politicians. In the 2007 parliamentary elections 90 of the 249 elected were militia commanders or their close associates.

The author reports that:

• Lacking reliable partners in southern and southeastern Afghanistan, US forces maintained relations with illegal militias allied to the Karzai government.
• Concerned to maintain the status-quo in rural areas, American and European officials often reached agreements with local military leaders.
• Some cynics argue the illusion of DDR was meant to deliver the image of an uncontroversial Afghan success story to strengthen the chances of President Bush’s re-election in 2004.

Militias pretended to disarm but often only surrendered scrap weapons. There are many reports of rearmament of militias. Either the ex-combatants or their relatives have been re-recruited. Abuses against rural Afghans and non-state taxation have continued.

DDR might have worked if there had been efforts to:

• coordinate the agencies involved in reintegration
• understand rural livelihoods and issues around land ownership, irrigation and livestock in order to provide realistic career guidance to ex-combatants
• help ex-combatants break free of patronage systems: many training courses and projects were organised inside the houses of former commanders
• include all ex-combatants: DDR only involved 63,000 fighters (of which probably a minority had genuinely experience combat) neglecting the much greater number who had helped militias and, crucially, ignoring those who had fought for the Taliban
• prevent the Jami’at-i Islami, the group which drove the Taliban from Kabul, from having a privileged position in DDR to benefit their supporters.

However, to obtain such conditions, a more assertive international intervention would have been necessary, perhaps to the extent of establishing a de facto protectorate.

Source(s):
‘Bureaucratic Façade and Political Realities of Disarmament and Demobilisation in Afghanistan’, Conflict, Security and Development, 8 (2), pages 169 to 192, by Antonio Giustozzi, June 2008 (PDF) Full document.
Further details about this research project on the Research for Development Portal Full document.

id21 Research Highlight: 25 March 2009

Further Information:
Antonio Giustozzi
Crisis States Research Centre
Room U610, London School of Economics
Houghton Street,
London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom

Tel: +44 20 78494631
Fax: +44 20 79556421
Contact the contributor: a.Giustozzi@lse.ac.uk

Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

Other related links:
'Disarming the militias of southern Sudan'

'Flawed demobilisation of combatants in the Congo'

Eldis Country Profile: Afghanistan

GSDRC Topic Guide on Conflict

UNDP Afghanistan's New Beginnings Programme