The Afghanistan Peace Plan

This is the peace plan for Afghanistan drawn up by Hezb-e-Islami (led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar), which has effective control of 5 provinces. Daoud Abedi of HEI is in the United States negotiating with U.S. diplomats. He presented the plan to the Afghanistan Study Group and CISS on September 17th, and it appears to be the basis for serious negotiations. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are acting as intermediaries with the Taliban. The Saudis are holding out for "honorable treatment" of Al Qaeda in any settlement, aiming for a global peace accord. Military industrial interests in the U.S. would prefer a strategy that divides "moderate" and "extremist" resistance forces, to shift the balance of forces without actually undercutting their justification for war and militarism.

"We, [Afghans] promise to assist each other, to take our country out of its miseries, to end the war forever, have confident security, have an Afghanistan free of foreign forces and foreign interferences, empower our national conciliation, allow our nation to choose their leader(s) and establish our own type of governance based on our ideology and belief.

In order to reach these holy and high-value goals, we have agreed to the following plan:
1. Foreign forces to start departing from Afghanistan in July of 2010 [the plan was drawn up earlier this year] and complete their departure within six months.
2. Within this time period, the foreign forces are to leave the cities and gather in their military bases for their scheduled departure.
3. Within this period, security to be completely handed over to the Afghan National Army, police, and foreign forces must not have the right to engage in military operations, searching of homes or imprisonment of any person on their own in any part of Afghanistan.
4. The current government and parliament can continue their daily work until according to this agreement an election is held and a newly elected parliament and government is formed, nonetheless, controversial personalities as well as corrupt people, national traitors, atheists and war criminals must not be included in this government; also, leadership of the three branches of the government must not include those members of the parties who have fought on behalf of one party against another.
5. With the agreement of all Afghan parties, a seven-member council in the name of National Security Council will be formed which will have the authority to make the final decisions in regard to important national issues of the country. The head office of this council (NSC) will be in such a province of the country where the security of that province is completely under the control of Afghan security forces and no foreign security force(s) will be present there.
6. After the departure of the foreign forces, elections based on proportional representation should be held simultaneously for the presidency, the House of Representatives, and provincial councils.
7. Those cabinet members and governors of the current government who wish to take part in these elections can do so only if they resign three months prior to the election date from their current governmental positions.
8. In the first elected government, all sides' shares in the government will be honored based on their achieved percentage of votes, but after the first election the high vote winner in future elections is not obligated to form a coalition government.
9. Those parties or political alliances will have the right to participate in the future elections that received 10% of the votes (of eligible voters) in this first election.
10. A complete ceasefire will be held among all warring sides, all political prisoners are to be released. All sides must promise that from now on they will not search for unconstitutional ways for reaching political goals nor will they take up arms against their political rivals.
11. The first elected council [House of Representatives] has the right to review the drafts of the constitution offered by the three sides and make a final decision in regard to the Afghan constitution.
12. No foreign country has the right to have prisons in Afghanistan, imprison any Afghan or punish him/her, send and take him/her out of Afghanistan for investigation, imprisonment or court processing.
13. Corrupt persons, drug smugglers, thieves of national wealth and war criminals will be handed over to the Afghan courts and no one will have the right to defend them in illegal ways, publicly or privately.
14. After the departure of the foreign forces, foreign fighters will not be [allowed] in Afghanistan.
15. Any internal or external force which disagrees to this reconciliation agreement and insists in the continuation of fighting, we all agree that together we will fight them until we rescue our nation and country from them."