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American Morning

Afghan Tribal Meeting in Bonn Will Have to Wrestle With Old Divisions

Aired November 27, 2001 - 08:10   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: The meetings in Bonn may come up with plans for a transitional government, but to be successful any government will have to take into consideration hundreds of years of factional divisions. We turn now to Miles O'Brien at CNN Center for more on what that government may look like. We keep on hearing this word "Loya Jirga" thrown around. What is that?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Loya Jirga. Get used to that term, you're going to be hearing a little bit more about it. Quite literally the term means great circle. "Jirga" translated means circle, "Loya" meaning larger or a grand assembly. It is the time honored, time tested way that the ethnic and religious factions in Afghanistan have come together, sort of a summit meeting, if you will, to try to come up with a way to govern themselves -- much easier said than done.

Let's take a look at this map that we have put together. You've seen it before. It kind of looks like something you'd see -- it looks like a little bit of camouflage on the side of tank or whatever, given all of the various overlapping areas of ethnic interest in Afghanistan. More a collection of tribes in a country, if you will.

Here in this area, up here in the northeastern portion, those are Tajiks. No surprise there because that is Tajikistan up there. Across here is Uzbekistan. Those are the two primary groups that make up what we call the Northern Alliance. It is northern, but to call it an alliance may be a bit of a euphemism. There's a lot of simmering rivalries, which go on inside the Northern Alliance.

Now of course the big group that you've heard so much about all the Pashtuns, which are in this huge area here, sort of a maroon color on here. The Pashtuns as we have pointed out to you many times make up the predominance of the Taliban. The question is are there anti Taliban Pashtuns. Well many of them have come over into this area, historically an area that is Pashtun populated.

As a matter of fact, there are some Pashtuns who would like to create a separate country here, made up of Pashtuns. In any case, these anti Taliban Pashtuns would be represented in the Loya Jirga -- as it stands right now, at least in this summit meeting near Bonn, there are no representatives of the Taliban who are Pashtun who are part of this. Now this Loya Jirga, the last time that one existed in Afghanistan was in 1990. This was after years and years of Soviet occupation and the result of that was the Northern Alliance coming to power. The problem was the Northern Alliance did not have Pashtun representation and this government ultimately failed leading to civil war and ultimately the rise of the Taliban.

So the question becomes whatever is said near Bonn and whatever is discussed there, no matter how successful they may be, it will ultimately lead to one of these so-called Loya Jirgas or grand assemblies, and once that occurs, there is an awful lot of opinions that are traded in what is a country that has been divided really since it began -- Paula.

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