Kim Ki-Hyon Special Report: Northern Alliance Dream of Forming New Government after Taliban

The Northern Alliance who controls northern Afghanistan is busy securing global acknowledgment of its government after the Taliban falls. The Northern Alliance is focusing its foreign relations maneuvers on the adjacent Tajikistan`s capital, Dushanbe. This is because the region under the Alliance`s command is next to Tajikistan and its leading figure is a Tajikistani. During the my fifteen day stay in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, the foreign minister of the Alliance, Abdullah Abdullah visited Dushanbe three times. Mr. Abdullah also traveled to Paris and Rome during this time. Due to a vibrant foreign relations activity, the Alliance received the backing of Russia and Iran and is working to get US military support to attack the Taliban.

In the Alliance`s provisional capital Feyzabad, the rumor that ``Western powers have made afterwar plans to place former king Jahir Shah as head of a provisional government after the expulsion of the Taliban and hold free elections after to which the Northern Alliance agreed.`` has spread rapidly. After the Taliban, the Alliance has the largest armed forces with 150,000 soldiers and is acknowledged as a legally legitimate government by the international society, all of which places them as the most fit for the next ruling government. Furthermore, the Alliance has the experience of governing Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996.

It remains a question whether the majority of the Afghanistan people want the Northern Alliance to retake the government. Many people expressed opposition toward the Taliban as well as the Northern Alliance. They have not forgotten the chaos and anarchy during the four years of Alliance rule. At that time, public security was so unstable that people feared to leave their homes during the day. There was constant pillaging and violence, and the Alliance soldiers tyrannized the people.

During the coverage, I tracked down Alliance soldiers harassing people. Every time I passed a guard post, many soldiers demanded money and said, ``we will escort you to your destination if you pay.`` One truck driver I met said, ``I drive through Taliban controlled lands and acquire goods from Iran to sell in Feyzabad. The Taliban soldiers I met on the way are much better than the Northern Alliance soldiers.``

One foreign reporter who covered the fall of the Alliance in Kabul five years ago said, ``If the Northern Alliance does not learn its lessons from the past, it will repeat the same mistake again.``

kimkihy@donga.com