Afghan Ambassador Ponders the Future
By DUNSTAN PRIAL
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- Afghanistan's ambassador to the United Nations said Saturday that a post-Taliban government could include moderate members of the fundamentalist regime, an apparent softening of his stance of earlier in the week.
Ravan Farhadi represents the former Afghan government, which ruled between 1992 and 1996, and is still recognized by the United Nations but not by the United States. It is part of the northern-based opposition alliance fighting the Taliban.
On Thursday, Farhadi said in a note to the U.S. State Department that he vehemently opposes Secretary of State Colin Powell's suggestion that moderate elements of the Taliban might have a role in a future government in Kabul.
"The Taliban have given not only shelter to (Osama) bin Laden but they facilitated his international terroristic acts," Farhadi told reporters in New York after handing the note to Richard N. Haass, the State Department's director of policy planning, who is Powell's coordinator for Afghanistan. "We don't agree with Mr. Powell because we think that the Taliban leaders ... need to be (on) trial in a court."
On Saturday, Farhadi said there could be some room for moderate members of the Taliban in a future government, but only those found innocent of crimes against Afghani citizens.
However, no group of former Taliban members allowed to participate in a future coalition government could use the name 'Taliban,' he said.
"We will never tolerate the participation of anybody by the name of the Taliban in any government," Farhadi told The Associated Press. He spoke on the side of a conference on global violence sponsored by the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace.
If the Taliban, which is under attack by the United States, does fall, Farhadi said former members of the regime would have to enter a future Afghanistan government through elections. In addition, those members would have to be found not to have been responsible for Taliban-sponsored crimes.
He accused the fundamentalist government of genocide and severely curtailing the rights of women.
Farhadi predicted that there would be no remnants of the Taliban to exist after the current regime is toppled.
The ambassador also said Saturday that he supports a strong U.N. presence in Afghanistan to act as peacekeepers once the Taliban is removed. "What is needed in Afghanistan is the demilitarization of the cities. We need to have local police take care of each town," he said.
The U.N. could also help establish democratic institutions in Afghanistan and prepare the country for future elections, he said.
The ambassador said he foresees a broad-based, multiethnic coalition "representative of all Afghanistan. "There is no ethnic group in Afghanistan that holds an absolute majority," he noted.
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