‘Afghans must rely on themselves not foreigners’

Press TV has conducted an interview with Shahid Qureshi, with the London Post from London, to discuss elections in Afghanistan.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Qureshi how significant is this presidential election as opposed to the previous ones that have been held since the US’ invasion and occupation of Afghanistan?

Qureshi: Well, I mean it is very significant for the people of Afghanistan depending on what is going to get out of these elections and especially in the year when the US and the allies are leaving Afghanistan in a big mess with millions and thousands casualties and displaced people within Afghanistan but unfortunately the Afghans who are living as refugees in Pakistan and Iran and the other countries, they might not be able to vote and take part in these elections and that is quite unfortunate that they are in Pakistan for more than 20 years and they have not been able to come back to their country.

If this election produces some peace in Afghanistan then those refugees will be able to come back to their own homes, but how important it is over who wins the Kabul is not very important because everyone knows who is going to be in power after the US and the other forces leave Afghanistan and what would be the legitimacy of that government…

Press TV: What do you mean sir? What do you mean by saying: everyone knows who will be in power?

Qureshi: Well, in the last 12 years we have seen who has been running the rest of the Afghanistan, not the big cities like Kabul and the other cities; those, for example the Taliban forces, they have been running quite a large number of the territories and even the allied forces were having local agreements with them, for example the Italians had a local agreement and then the French and the British in Helmand province.

So they have accepted their legitimacy in those areas; maybe after the accord; and they are very well aware that once the occupying forces leave Afghanistan who will be running the show, especially the people who survived on the …, the corruption that the Afghan people faced in the past 10 years since the invasion and the drug production in Afghanistan is on the rise.

So there are a lot of stakeholders who are part of this whole process and this exercise which the Afghan people are going to do tomorrow, I think that they will be worried about their post-election, what would be the results for them, what will it bring for their children and their and families after these elections .

So that is something which is very worrying and two journalists have been shot dead today; my condolences to their families and there was another incident where a journalist was killed in the past two weeks.

So it is becoming very difficult for the journalists as well.

Press TV: Mr. Qureshi let us look at this. What exactly does it mean? We are looking at more than 13 years since the US has been in Afghanistan and you brought up the point of how so many of the areas of the country is still not under control of the Afghan government and so when the American troops pull out, you are saying, basically, that it will totally fall.

So what has been accomplished and how strong, then, is that Afghan government?

Qureshi: Well, the Afghan government has an issue of governance and similarly the Pakistani government has the issue of governance in the past 10 years, especially after the democratic elections in 2008 in Pakistan they had more than 65,000 people killed, 83,000 kidnappings; so these issues…, I am talking about law in order situation, governance issues.

The Afghan government, Afghan people had the similar issues of governance when the people on the streets did not have security, the corruption was on the high-rise, the corrupt lords have been able to become millioners and billionaires, so they are the stakeholders. They are the ones who want the foreign forces to stay in.

As long as the other people who have no stakes in the whole corruption part of it, they feel no difference between living under Taliban or living under Karzai or anybody else. They just see it as a change of the ruler…, and that is the fundamental problem in Afghanistan that third parties have got involved. For example the Indians have got too much stakes in Afghanistan and they are interfering in Pakistan. For example a lot of intelligence officials have been involved in terrorist activities in Pakistan with the help of the Indian agency.

Now, these things need to stop. If there is a peaceful Afghanistan, it is in the interest of Iran and Pakistan and they need to understand that if we want a peaceful Afghanistan and a peaceful South Asia, I must say; then these things need to stop because, obviously after the occupying forces are gone there will be a vacuum and who is going to be fill that vacuum? Those people will fill in the vacuum with whom the allied forces have been having local agreements, i.e. the Taliban…

Press TV: Mr. Qureshi your take on that same question? Do you think that this pact, the signing of that pact with Washington is important in order to enhance security in that country? As again I will reiterate that it has been since 2001 that the Americans have been in the country and we have seen bombings taking place on, practically, daily basis, even inside of the capital itself and very sensitive areas.

So your take on that? Do you think that the next president, that he should sign the pact with Washington?

Qureshi: Well, any agreement between an occupying force and the occupied puppet is of no value at all because on the ground reality, as I said earlier on, the US has to go, today, tomorrow, next week or next month they are on their way out.

Now, the best way for the elected president, whoever he is, would be to mend bridges or to build bridges with the people who are within the country, any forces. Anybody who is expecting outsiders to come and provide security for them…, it is not going to work because it did not work in the past 12 years since 2001.

So they need to build up bridges within the country instead of looking outward and I think that the American people are quite intelligent enough and the American taxpayers have suffered a lot because of these policies of the Bush government; and the current Obama regime was very wisely on the way out.

So the American taxpayers’ money which was about seven billion dollars a month, was a lot of money for the current climate of austerity. So, I think that my colleague (Saeed Murad Rahi) will agree with me that if there is a solution within the Afghanistan stakeholders i.e. Taliban and the elected government in Kabul. Why President Karzai did not sign the agreement? Because he knew that this agreement will have no value at all and he did not want his name written in the history that he was the one who sold the country to the foreigners, although he was known as a puppet but on various occasions when there was NATO attacks on civilians, he was very vocal about it and he really condemned and the US and the occupying forces did apologize for those innocent killings of innocents as a result of those bombings.

So Mr. Karzai to some credit, he was vocal about those things which were done by the occupying forces.

So any agreement maybe in two years’ time or maybe after the US is gone and if there is an agreement between the elected government and the US, then it will have some legitimacy but in the current climate it does not sound as an agreement, it just sounds as anybody who is occupying your country and then you want to sign any piece of paper because any agreement signed under duress has no legal value or no moral value or ethical value within the eyes of the Afghan people living in there who are fighting against these occupying forces.