Time for Holbrooke to play Durand
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Dawn, Pakistan
By Nasser Yousaf
Saturday, 06 Jun, 2009
THAT Sir Mortimer Durand was the statesman consummate he has left irrefutable proof thereof. In the early autumn of 1893, Durand left Peshawar for Kabul and stayed there as a special guest of Amir Abdur Rehman.
He returned to Peshawar two months later with the priceless trophy of the ‘Durand Line’ drawn between the British and Afghan areas of influence in the heretofore no-man’s Frontier region.
Those were not easy times either. British India had taken the railways into the heart of Afghan lands through the mythical Khojak Tunnel in the rugged Balochistan terrain. Amir Abdur Rehman was incensed and it appeared that the formidable Afghan emotions would be hard to cool down. Employing all the craft that he possessed, the Afghan amir had made stealthy arrangements to pen every single word that Durand, who spoke fluent Persian, uttered during their fateful meetings. But all such moves on the part of the Afghan ruler came to naught as an astute Durand carried the day through sifting and demarcating the respective spheres over which the two would have the right to exercise suzerainty.
More than a century later, Durand lies buried in obscurity in the Christian cemetery in Dera Ismail Khan. The area all around is up in spiralling flames and the world knows little about how to put out the raging fire. Although the sanctity of the Line is scarcely known to have been observed owing to the fact that the same people have for eons lived on either side of it, it had a symbolically sobering effect on relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But new actors or non-state actors — the Taliban — have since emerged on the scene. Britain has since been replaced by the US as the reigning power and Mr Richard Holbrooke has unwittingly been chosen to act as Mortimer Durand.
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Labels: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Durand Line, Militancy, Pak Afghan Border, Taliban, Terrorism
posted @ 9:51 AM,
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