How To Put The Pieces Together.(Afghanistan)(Brief Article)

Vieira De Mello, United Nations transitional administrator in East Timor, has served in U.N. humanitarian and peacekeeping operations for more than 30 years, most recently in Cambodia, Bosnia, Africa's Great Lakes region and Kosovo.

Afghanistan may seem a long way from places like Kosovo and East Timor- -culturally as well as geographically. But having been involved in United Nations-led efforts to rebuild both those tiny, war-torn territories, I can see one key similarity, perhaps the most critical factor in any post-conflict society. At a certain point the people of a country who have experienced turmoil for too long tell their leaders, loud and clear, that this must now come to an end. They reach a nearly unanimous rejection of violence, war and conflict. They abjure the policies that led to their suffering. The people themselves become peacemakers' greatest ally. I hope that moment has arrived in Afghanistan.

At the same time, several other conditions need to be met if Afghanistan is to emerge as a functioning, viable state. The greatest threat to nation-building is hatred. Intolerance, on the one hand, and the selfish concerns of individual players--warlords, really--can doom any attempt to forge a sense of shared nationality (as Afghans know better than anyone). Continued rivalries and thoughts of vengeance could shatter this fragile opportunity. I have been telling the Timorese for a long time that the best way to erode the support East Timor has enjoyed worldwide is for them to start fighting each other again. If you burn a house, if you burn a school, if you harm one another, why would donors continue to funnel money to you? Why would a foreign investor bring his money here?

Restoring law and order is crucial. The free-for-all in which every citizen faces the threat of arbitrary violence must be brought to an end--and that requires the presence of international peacekeepers. Only a strong, well-equipped outside force will have the credibility to deter combatants from resuming petty feuds, and the ability to ensure that aid and aid dollars go where they are meant to go. Unless you can impose order, you cannot begin to rebuild. All else rests on that foundation.

Afghanistan's neighbors must help by breaking their 20-year habit of interfering in its politics. The international community can do a lot, and will. But Afghanistan must be allowed to seek its own stability and ...