Lineages of the State in Afghanistan

Abstract

In March and April 1988 diplomats in Geneva, Washington, and elsewhere were fretting over a few issues that the United States and Pakistan had raised at what was to be the conclusion of the six-year process of negotiations aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan. These included the timing of the termination or suspension of foreign aid of various sorts to the Afghan parties to the conflict, including the state. President Zia of Pakistan also insisted on the formation of a compromise transitional government in Afghanistan before signing the agreements, although he backed down under pressure from both the United States and his own civilian government. After the April 14 signing, the parties to the agreements (Pakistan, the regime in Kabul, the United States, and the USSR) mandated the U.N. mediator, Undersecretary-General Diego Cordovez, to promote efforts to form a new Afghan government, and from June 29 to July 10, Cordovez traveled to Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to present his proposal for a Government of Peace and Reconstruction. In short, the diplomats were confronting the two linked crises that had led to the conflict, crises of the legitimacy of the state in Afghanistan and of its relation to the international system. To call the Afghan state a state, however, may mislead the uninformed Westerner (or Russian). State conjures up the image of an organization whose laws and regulations structure the interaction and guide the common affairs of its citizens who, however else they may be divided, are united in their membership in and attachment to the historical and territorial community that the state represents. This relationship of the state and society is typical of the forms of nation-state that developed in Europe and became generalized through war and imperialism into the in-