Press Letters to the Press Global Development Briefing

Letter to
THE GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT BRIEFING
http://www.developmentex.com/industry_news/newsletter.asp

25 October 2001

"Everything the UN's done before looks like a picnic compared to this one."

Former UN Assistant Secretary General John Hughes, commenting on the difficulty faced by the UN in rebuilding Afghanistan, writing in the
Christian Science Monitor newspaper.

Dear Briefing,

Here is a proposal which I believe to be original but which in any case, I have never heard about before.

To provide stability to a post-Taliban Afghanistan and provide a real incentive for all neighbouring states to do all in their power to maintain peace and stability there, why not create in Kabul a Regional Parliament, inspired from the European Parliament, with representatives of all neighbouring countries permanently in session there?

The symbolism of this new democratic institution (the mechanics of which would have to be defined and agreed to by all concerned parties) would be tremendous.

In one go, it would create great investment in the capital (to build the necessary infrastructure and representative buildings), it would create a permanent forum for broad political dialogue in addition to the existing slow and protocol-bound diplomatic channels, it would become a source of pride for the ordinary Afghani as the international influence of Kabul would grow, it would provide a peaceful model for discussion of regional problems etc.

All in all, it could become the incarnation of a catharsis needed to heal the region, and it could inflame the imagination and get support from all countries and peoples in the world.  It would also counter the fear that Afghanistan become a UN/Western protectorate as it would increase the depth of political talent available in the capital, the density of formal and informal networks, of checks and balances.  By employing a large number of young Afghani and other nationalities, it would create and maintain a pool of needed expertise direly needed in countries with high needs for integer public servants, as well as create ties between young educated people of the region.

And by being multinational, multi-ethnic and maybe multi-religious as well, it would foster tolerance as well.

This is of course not to detract from the task of building a national parliament, but rather complementary to it since it would have no competence for internal Afghani affairs, only for regional affairs of course.

Maybe it would be useful to have the site of the Regional Parliament declared neutral international territory (as I think the UN is), but this is independent of the thrust of the proposal.

Sincerely,

Troy Davis
President/CEO
World Citizen Foundation

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