‘between the dragon and his wrath’, 1994–2017been responsible for the chaos, bloodshed and misrule that had been one
of the key reasons for the rise of the Taliban in the first place.
The majority of the 25 Afghans who sat around the table in Bonn
represented the interests of Jami‘at, Shura-yi Nizar and the Northern
Alliance. A smaller faction, the Peshawar Group, were members of the
Pushtun-dominated mujahidin. The Rome Group consisted of a hand-
ful of Western-based monarchists, mostly Muhammadzais, backed by Pir
Gailani, attended at the invitation of the un and the usa, while Afghanistan’s
Shi‘a communities were represented by one or two delegates from Hizb-i
Wahdat. Only two women and one or two independent Afghans were
invited to the conference. Pakistan wanted the Taliban to have a seat at the
table too, but all parties rejected this suggestion out of hand.
Except for one or two individuals, all the Afghans at the Bonn
Conference represented a variety of vested and competitive interests and
none could claim to represent the Afghan people as a whole, since they
had not been elected. The talks were marred by heated arguments over old
disputes. When the Jami‘at representatives threatened to walk out, Colin
Powell rang Vendrell and frantically urged him to ‘keep them there; lock
them up if you have to... If they go off, I don’t know when I’ll get them all
back together.’ 16 A compromise of sorts was eventually agreed, but despite
Vendrell and Powell proclaiming the conference to be a success and the
Agreement’s bombastic claim to be the means to end the ‘tragic conflict’,
and promoting ‘national reconciliation’ and ‘respect for human rights’, it
was a deeply flawed document.
The Bonn Agreement was essentially a rehash of the failed Peshawar
and Islamabad Accords. It too was only a provisional agreement, valid
for six months, ‘pending the re-establishment of permanent government
institutions’. 17 After this period, a Loya Jirga would convene to elect a
Transitional Government with national elections to follow in 2004. The
ministries were once again divided up between the various factions repre-
sented at the Bonn Conference, with Jami‘at and Shura-yi Nizar holding
all the most senior cabinet positions, with Fahim as Minister of Defence.
As for Dostam, the royalists and Hizb-i Wahdat, they had to be content
with honorary or lower-ranking posts.
The issue of who should head the Transitional Administration was
particularly contentious since Rabbani was already back in the Presidential
Palace and was still officially recognized by the un, usa and nato coun-
tries as President of Afghanistan. Despite this the Rome Party, backed
by the u.s. and un, pushed for the reinstatement of the octogenarian
ex-king Zahir Shah as head of state, a move opposed by the Northern