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CNN Live At Daybreak

Interview of Joshua Cooper Ramo

Aired November 13, 2001 - 08:56   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Today's fast moving developments in Afghanistan create a sense of urgency about who, eventually, will rule the country after the Taliban. One man, who may be a key player is a fierce warlord with a history of tangled alliances. His name is Abdul Rashid Dostum. Here with some insight on him is Time Magazine Senior Editor Joshua Cooper Ramo. Who is this guy? Good morning.

JOSHUA COOPER RAMO, SENIOR EDITOR, TIME MAGAZINE: Well, he's an essential character to keep an eye on going forward in Afghanistan. The big issue, Paula, for Afghanistan's future is going to be how, precisely, the country is ruled. We've seen tremendous military success by the Northern Alliance over the course of the last few days. What remains to be seen is whether they can translate that military success into political success, actually ruling parts of the country.

Dostum is one of the few guys in that Northern Alliance group who has had experience doing that. He ran, in the late 1990s, a giant chunk of Afghanistan, an area of about six provinces. He was so powerful, they referred to him as the Pasha, which an honorific they give to people who have run large chunks of the country. When he was ruling that part of the country, there are mixed reviews.

Some people say he did a great job establishing basic bureaucratic infrastructure, helping provide people with services, even collecting taxes in some respects.

Other people look at that very differently, and they argue that what he ran there, essentially, was a little miniature kingdom where he extorted money from people that he needed money from, where he inserted his own kind of laws doing whatever he wanted to do without any international supervision, and he now is one of the key power players in the northern part of the country. He is Uzbek by descent, he went into exile in 1998, driven there by the Taliban. But now he is back in the country, and the question is, can he rule effectively.

ZAHN: This guy, has -- has allegedly done some really horrific stuff.

RAMO: Yeah, I mean, none of these folks from the Northern Alliance are the kind of the people that you normally want to go into a government with. But the problem is, the reason they have been fighting so aggressively, not only over the last year, but, frankly, over the last four or five years, is because they want to get in power, because they want to get back into that position of controlling large swathes of the country, and moving from warrior to governor. So they all want to make that move. The question is, can they leave behind that history of incredible human rights abuses and instead become effective governors. The lesson from places like Rwanda, Kosovo, East Timor, is that's very, very difficult to do.

ZAHN: Well, we are following those meeting very closely at the U.N., it'll give us a much better indication of what kind of progress is being made to try to find a government that represents all these different, diverse ethnic groups.

RAMO: It's going to be very difficult, and I think the U.N. is rushing even faster than they had wanted. They were anticipating they had three months to work. Now it looks like they may have three or four days.

ZAHN: Joshua, as always, thank you for your insights.

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