The agreement for bringing peace to Afghanistan and the 1973 Paris Peace Accords/Vietnam contrasted and compared

The Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan, signed yesterday in Doha, by the United States and the Taliban is worse for the people of Afghanistan than Henry Kissinger’s Paris Peace Accords of 1973 were for the people of South Vietnam.

The Paris Peace Accords authorized through omission the Communist Party in Hanoi to renew its war of conquest after a “Decent Interval” had passed between the withdrawal of American forces and its commencement of a massive military offensive against the South Vietnamese government.

But the Paris Peace Accords did impose obligations on the Communist Party’s front organization in South Vietnam to negotiate a political compromise with the Saigon government representing all South Vietnamese, including Tan Dai Viet, Revolutionary Dai Viet, VNQDD, and other Nationalists, the Buddhist, Catholic, Cao Dai, and Hoa Hao religions, and anti-Communists such as the Progressive Nationalist Movement, and the trade unions.

The Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan imposes on the Taliban only the obligation to withhold support from, and to deny presence in Afghanistan to, those who would attack the United States.  The Agreement permits – because it does not forbid – the Taliban to continue fighting and killing other Afghans.

The Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan contains no acknowledgement by the Taliban that the people of Afghanistan have the right to choose their own government by fair and free elections.  At least the Paris Peace Accords obligated the Communist Party in Hanoi and its subsidiary political organization in South Vietnam to accept the principles of popular sovereignty and fair and free elections as providing for a future government in South Vietnam.

The Agreement contains no protocol about the terms of a cease fire across Afghanistan or when it will start; no terms on when real peace negotiations will start; no agreement by the Taliban even to recognize the government in Kabul as a party to negotiations for a cease fire or a peace.

All the Agreement says is: “A permanent and comprehensive ceasefire will be an item on the agenda of the intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations. The participants of intra-Afghan negotiations will discuss the date and modalities of a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire, including joint implementation mechanisms, which will be announced along with the completion and agreement over the future political roadmap of Afghanistan.”

Article 2 of the Paris Peace Accords, by contrast, said “A cease-fire shall be observed throughout South Viet-Nam as of 2400 hours G.M.T., on January 27, 1973. … The complete cessation of hostilities mentioned in this Article shall be durable and without limit of time.”  And Article 3 of the Accords obligated the parties “to maintain the cease-fire and to ensure a lasting and stable peace.”

The Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan mentions intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations to form a new post-settlement Afghan Islamic government but no date is set for such negotiations to begin and no mention is made of who will be allowed to participate in such negotiations. No necessary parties to an “intra-Afghan” dialogue and negotiations are stipulated. No party or individual is obligated to join in such negotiations; and no consequences are provided to sanction those Afghans who refuse to enter the negotiations or who refuse to sign any proposed agreement for the formation of a “new post-settlement Afghan Islamic Government”.

The intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations is only a pious wish, nothing legally enforceable du to vagueness.

By contrast, Article 11 of the Paris Peace Accords provided that: “Immediately after the cease-fire, the two South Vietnamese parties will : —achieve national reconciliation and concord, end hatred and enmity, prohibit all acts of reprisal and discrimination against individuals or organizations that have collaborated with one side or the other; —ensure the democratic liberties of the people : personal freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of meeting, freedom of organization, freedom of political activities, freedom of belief, freedom of movement, freedom of residence, freedom of work, right to property ownership, and right to free enterprise.

In its Article 18, the Paris Peace Accords provided for an international control and supervision commission as follows: “The International Commission of Control and Supervision shall form control teams for carrying out its tasks. The two South Vietnamese parties shall agree immediately on the location and operation of these teams. The two South Vietnamese parties will facilitate their operation.

In referring to an Afghan “Islamic” government in the future, the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan gives the Taliban a substantial political and cultural victory. They, not our Afghan allies, can enter the inter-Afghan dialogue and negotiations as the morally superior party, the party that saved Afghanistan for Islam and for God.

And by referring to any future government of Afghanistan as “Islamic”, the United States has approved in advance policies of religious intolerance which might be adopted by such government.  The Agreement makes no reference to human dignity or human rights.

In addition, the Agreement gives the Taliban a second major political victory – the right to tell every Afghan that it signed the Agreement as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. While the United States has no obligation to recognize the Taliban as a government of Afghanistan, the Agreement does not prevent the Taliban from presenting themselves to all Afghans as the legitimate government of the country, the Emirate to which they owe allegiance.

In an insurgency seeking sovereign authority, the political, cultural, and emotional appeal of claiming legitimacy can turn the tide of the war in favor of the insurgents. For example, In the United States the mobilizing power of claiming sovereign legitimacy was invoked by the rebellious colonists with their 1776 Declaration of Independence, a Declaration not recognized by the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain, but of great consequence nonetheless in determining the outcome of the American war for independence.

Stephen B. Young is the Global Executive Director of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism