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CNN Live Sunday

United Nations Monitors Afghan Talks in Bonn, Germany

Aired December 02, 2001 - 15:24   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: The United Nations have been closely monitoring the talks in Bonn, Germany, where several Afghan factions are hammering out an agreement for a post-Taliban government. This is not a first for the United Nations. They recently took part in peace efforts -- peacekeeping efforts in East Timor, Somalia and Kosovo.

Joining us now to discuss the U.N.'s involvement in nation building is David Rieff. He is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York, and Susan Tillou, who is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Nice to have both of you join us -- thanks very much.

DAVID RIEFF, WORLD POLICY INSTITUTE: Thank you.

KELLEY: Susan, let's start with you. You spent two years in East Timor. What did you learn there, and can any of it be a part of Afghanistan?

SUSAN TILLOU, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Absolutely. I would say that the situation in East Timor was a best-case scenario. The situation in Afghanistan is a worst-case scenario, and you have to look at it that way. It's very difficult for the U.N. to get involved in this situation where it's to have a very wide mandate from the Security Council to be able to build and keep the peace on the ground in a situation like this.

KELLEY: Well, Mark Mallard Brown (ph), who is going to lead the effort for the United Nations, says at best, we will be working in an environment of a very messy peace.

What do you do with that, David?

RIEFF: Well, I think the U.N. is the wrong instrument for it. I think I agree with Susan in this sense that it is absolutely the worst-case scenario -- the least susceptible, imaginable situation for U.N. peacekeeping. The U.N. peacekeeping is really only successful when it has the consent of the warring parties. And that's...

KELLEY: But, David, that's the case though. If you think the United Nations is the worst or the wrong to do that, who else can come in and do it?

RIEFF: Well, I think it has to be either the United States and the other belligerents in the war, or it has to be a coalition of willing Muslim countries, which is probably a more promising solution -- a solution which Turkey and Jordan and Malaysia and countries like that would take the military lead. That's really the only feasible way to do this.

The U.N. will be useful in all of the other questions: rebuilding, humanitarian alleviation. But as far as peacekeeping goes, this the last place the U.N. should be.

KELLEY: Susan, what about that? Have to involve more the people in Afghanistan, they have to take the lead in this?

TILLOU: Yes, absolutely. I think that you should have a Muslim- led coalition sanctioned by the U.N. go in. However, I don't agree in the sense that the U.N. is the last organization who can work here on the ground. You need two different elements here, and that's, one, to go in and build a peace. And then, you need a set of peacekeepers, those who will go in and secure the situation. And that includes a lot more like the U.N. forcing the rule of law, helping militaries to stay out of the types of warlord activities that you see in Afghanistan, and creating and working closely with people to try to establish and encourage a sense that a stable country is actually in their best interest.

KELLEY: David, you've talked about hope over experience. And when you look at that, I was reading some other articles about three options. You either get out, you have the United Nations, hand it over to them, or you're in it for the long haul.

RIEFF: Well, I think if you like in dreams being responsibilities, I think we started this war in Afghanistan. Your reports today tell us about just how terrible the human toll of that war is. If we went into this war, if we feel we can justify this war, then we, I think, have a moral obligation to be in it for the long haul, and precisely not hand it over to the U.N.

I'm not saying there's no role for the U.N., but I'm saying in the essential matter of enforcing some kind of peace, the countries that participated in the war -- above all the United States, but obviously Britain and France and other as well -- need to take the lead. Otherwise, what we have done will be absolutely morally indefensible.

KELLEY: David, you talk about the moral obligation. How long will that go for, and what do you think the responsibility is? Is it humanitarian aid, including the peacekeepers? What all does it entail?

RIEFF: I don't think it's principally humanitarian that, I think, the U.N., in the person of Mark Mallard Brown (ph), who is an excellent official, will do just fine. I think it's in terms of keeping the peace, preventing the kind of warlordism that brought Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan to the state it's in today.

The fact is these images you see on TV of ruined Kabul, they didn't happen during the Taliban's rule. They happened during the rule of the guys who are in Bonn today trying to make a new deal. These guys, left to their own devices, will go to war again.

KELLEY: What about that, Susan? Will they go to war again left to their own devices, and if their transitional government doesn't get put in place in these meetings in Germany?

TILLOU: I would actually -- I would just like to make a clarification, and that's where our moral or our national values lay and where our national interests lay. This is a very (UNINTELLIGIBLE) situation, and I wouldn't go as far as saying it's the United States' responsibility to commit for the long-term future here. We've made it very clear that our goal is to bring bin Laden, the al Qaeda network, and the government that has sponsored this network. I wouldn't...

(CROSSTALK)

KELLEY: But then, would you go in? Some people say you can't go in and drop bombs and then just scoot.

TILLOU: That's exactly right. However, our interests -- the United States' interests are simply in those aims that I just stated. The United Nations is a little bit more prepared for this type of war, because it has done so.

Having said that, yes, there have been failures in the last 10 years. But then again, this is exactly what the radical Islamist world has been fighting against, this sense of what really imperialism. Is Afghanistan really better off than the Jeffersonian democracy and us committing here? And if we do do that, what are we setting a precedent for as far as other countries, which support terrorism? You know, are we going to start going into other countries around the world, like the Sudan and Iraq and take out the dictators and set up a protectorate? I don't think we should.

I don't think that that's the United States' role and I would be really wary of saying it's the United States role to take on this task and leave it all to the U.N. too.

KELLEY: Let me just ask you for a clarification too, Susan. When you were in East Timor, what did you see? What did you come up against for stability and security in trying to make a peace work, and trying to help the people there?

TILLOU: Yes. Well, it's really difficult because when you are going into a peacekeeping and peace-building situation, you have to make sure that the troops you put on the ground be then multi-lateral troops through an organization like the U.N. or unilateral troops like U.S.

They have to have a wide enough mandate to do the job. They have to be able to discern enemy from ally on the ground and be able to achieve the mission's interest.

That was the difficulty that the U.N. had in the first mission in East Timor, which was called UNIMED (ph) in that the security of the personnel on the ground were actually reliant on the Indonesian military and police. However, going in afterwards with the transitional administration, it becomes very clear that without a country's involvement and really a country's involvement at the forefront of taking over a new coalition type government or a democratically elected government, that that really should be the first aim and not establishing a protectorate under the United States with the goals and morals and humanitarian values that the United States holds as its first priority...

KELLEY: David...

TILLOU: ... because that is exactly what they're fighting against.

KELLEY: I'm sorry, excuse me. David, tough at best, what do you see as the best scenario for going in to try and make a difference long haul, long term in Afghanistan?

RIEFF: That scenario is not at all creating a Jeffersonian democracy. I quite agree that's an impossibility.

The best scenario would be a coalition of relatively liberal Muslim states, like Turkey and Jordan, underwritten by American power to put just a basic floor on the situation, so warlordism doesn't start up again.

That is something only coalitions of the willing can do. In other words, the forces would be there simply to stop the fighting from starting again. That worked very well when NATO invaded Bosnia. It can work in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, one has to be pessimistic. This is a country of 30 years of war, a ruined country, a country whose most talented people are in exile.

You know, being an optimist would be idiotic, but that doesn't mean one can just leave them in the lurch, and I simply can not see how one can justify bombing this country, killing probably thousands of civilians who have nothing to do with al Qaeda or the Taliban, and then saying, all right, well we've accomplished our mission. Ciao. Sayonara.

That seems to be immoral, and one doesn't have to believe one can create a Jeffersonian democracy to believe one's responsibilities are deeper than that.

KELLEY: We have to leave it there. David Rieff with the World Policy Institute and Susan Tillou who's a former U.N. transition team member and the member of the Council on Foreign Relations. We're so glad to have both of you join us today. Thanks, much.

TILLOU: Thank you.

RIEFF: Thank you.

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