We condemn Saturday’s bomb attack in Kabul on a peaceful demonstration of Hazaras that killed eighty and wounded hundreds. The demonstrators were demanding that the original route of the power lines of a proposed power project be adhered to and not bypass the province of Bamyan, a Hazara dominated province. Obviously the attack has an ethnic undertone, the Hazaras being Shias, which demonstrates the continuing widening of the faultiness in Afghan society.
It is a pity that the longest war in recent times sees no prospect of ending. On the contrary the extremist groups take every opportunity to exploit division in the Afghan society as we saw being done on July 23 through the Kabul bombings.
Unfortunately, there is divided opinion on the process of ending the war, particularly in view of the spike in the US led operation against the Taliban and the increase in the number of attacks by the Taliban, particularly after the death of their leader Akhtar Mansour. No wonder that the fifth meeting of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group consisting of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and China on the Afghan peace and reconciliation process held in Islamabad on May 18 2016, ended with nothing more than an expression of their continued determination to advance the goal of an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process.
With two differing views on the best strategy for peace, the Afghan administration of Ashraf Ghani rooting for a military solution against the Taliban, and Pakistan, as well as the former Afghan President Karzai, opting for giving more time for reconciliation, and the Taliban unwilling to sit for direct talks with the Afghan administration, the prospect of peace, unfortunately, recedes farther. http://www.thedailystar.net/editorial/kabul-continues-bleed-1258687
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