U.N. Envoy Calls for More Peacekeepers in Afghanistan

"Afghanistan is a very violent place. We’ve got to be careful and take as many precautions as possible. There are still spoilers out there who do not want this peace process to succeed," Brahimi said in an interview with Deutsche Welle.

The United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan is in Germany to receive a special peace prize from the federal state of Hessen on Thursday. Ahead of the award ceremony, he met with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Defense Minister Peter Struck.

During the meeting with the two German ministers, Brahimi stressed how important the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was to maintaining the peace in conflict-ridden Afghanistan. After nearly 25 years of war and civil strife, the country needs the international peacekeepers and the provincial reconstruction teams to restore security, rebuild the infrastructure and help the central government establish its authority outside Kabul, Brahimi said.

"The international troops, ISAF, are needed now and they will be needed for some time. How long is difficult to say. My personal calculation is a couple of years before the Afghan army and national police can provide security for the people of Afghanistan, especially in Kabul. I think it will take one or two years."

Limited influence

One of the main problems facing reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan is the limited reach of the central government under President Hamid Karsai, whose position, although recognized and respected in the provinces, has hardly any influence over the warlords and militias who still control considerable areas of the country. Brahimi said this was understandable in a state that has been completely destroyed.

"We are in a process of rebuilding the state machinery. There are no roads, no telephones, no lines of communication. That is why it is so difficult to project the influence of the central government in the country," Brahimi explained. "The government is limited in its resources, but it is recognized in the provinces," he said, "and therefore what is required is to help the government rebuild the state, not only in Kabul, but in the provinces."

"The best way of doing this," Brahimi stressed, "is to extend ISAF outside the capital."

Extending the ISAF mandate

But the issue of extending the commitment of international peacekeepers in Afghanistan is still a matter of discussion. The ISAF, which will be operated under Dutch-German command until August, is currently restricted to the Afghan capital Kabul, but the United States and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan have requested that troops also be sent to the provinces to protect civilian workers who are helping rebuild the country.

In Berlin, the question of extending the ISAF mandate beyond Kabul has been met with a good deal of opposition following a June 7 bombing in the capital city that killed four German soldiers. Germany, which supplies the largest troop contingent in the international force, has been hesitant to commit more soldiers and extend their area of operation until the security situation in the provinces improves.

The German parliament in not scheduled to vote on an extension of the mandate until September.

Brahimi said he respects the German government’s deliberations in light of the recent terrorist attack, but at the same time he expressed hope that Germany would not rule against extending the security forces outside Kabul. "I think we would be sorry if that was the decision of the Federal Republic of Germany," he told Deutsche Welle.

The ISAF is still developing, Brahimi explained, "but it promises to be helpful for the progress of the peace process, for the training of the Afghan police and the army." He added that not expanding ISAF’s mandate beyond Kabul would hinder the security and reconstruction efforts in the provinces and prolong the instability in the country.

"Afghanistan is certainly in some parts still a dangerous place," Brahimi conceded, "but I think in the places [the German government] is contemplating, we don’t see many problems for the German soldiers if they were there."

"Of course we must be careful," he continued while pointing out that the United Nations itself has been sending unarmed civilians into the provinces for quite some time. Brahimi admitted, though, that security was a serious problem for U.N. reconstruction workers who are not able to access certain regions in the south and east and can only enter other regions with bodyguards.

The road to democracy

According to Brahimi, it will take some time before Afghanistan is in a position to provide its own effective security. He estimated that by September the national police and army are expected to have trained about 6,000 people, but it will be at least another year before the central government will have built up enough of a security force to make a substantial difference.

Building a democratic state takes time, Brahimi emphasized. It is a slow and difficult process. Nonetheless, he expects that Afghanistan will have a constitution in the near future. "The constitution work has started and it is going reasonably well. Barring any unforeseen difficulties, we hope the country will have a new constitution by October," he stated.

Elections, on the other hand, are more difficult. The U.N. envoy described them as a logistical nightmare. "We have to register people all over the country, in every village. And we have to go there ourselves, because they will not come to us, especially the women. That means we have to recruit thousands of people, and it will cost a lot of money." But he believes elections can take place as early as October 2004, if the security situation in the countryside allows for it, Brahimi added.

Waning interest in Afghanistan?

When asked if international interest in Afghanistan was fading and whether or not money from Western donor countries was drying up, Brahimi responded that there is always the fear of donor fatigue and competition with the attraction of other international crisis situations.

"Probably the attention has diminished a little bit," he said, "but I think there’s still a reasonable amount of interest and support for what is happening in Afghanistan."