Monday 9 March 2020

The Taliban and the secret peace deal annexes

There is a building scandal: the US and the Taliban, enemies for 19 years, agreed a peace deal in Qatar to start the long process to end the war and return the militants to some form of power-sharing in the future. The deal was four pages long and every word was made public. But there were also some annexes which have been kept secret. So the only people who know about the secret bits are the Americans and their hated foe, the Taliban, and perhaps the Afghan president. Mum's the word. Totally extraordinary!! What are in these annexes? The Americans and the Taliban have poured cold water over it all, saying it's no big deal, just a lot of logistical stuff. But hey, the logistical stuff is pretty crucial. Like what secret agreement have the two sides made about reducing violence because there is nothing in the four-page peace deal which stipulates anything like "violence will cease", or "there must be a ceasefire from March 20" or "all weapons to be handed over within six months" etc etc. Nothing. Zero. All we had, prior to the deal signing, was a seven-day reduction in violence which sort of worked although a lot of people seemed to die but not as many as normally would have died in a past seven-day period. But once the seven days were over, there were dozens of attacks going on against Afghan checkpoints around the country and many Afghan soldiers died. The Taliban apparently thought this was ok because they had told the Americans they wouldn't target US forces anymore but the Afghan military were fair game. Terrific! So what's in the annexes that adds any detail to what went on between the US and Taliban? Does it spell out anything about the question of killng people? Apparently not. So what the hell is it all about? Does the peace deal amount to a row of beans or is there something really historic and long-lasting and genuinely peacemaking? The annexes must be published. If there is something truy secret, then secrecy be damned. We need to know. Sorry, the traumatised Afghan people need to know.

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