International pressure on Washington to cease the bombardment of Afghanistan grew yesterday. The presidents of France, Russia and Pakistan and the UN special representative for Afghanistan appealed for greater emphasis on political and humanitarian solutions to the crisis.
Gen Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan made the strongest statement, after meetings here with President Jacques Chirac and the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin. If the US bombardment continues - especially after Ramadan begins in mid-November - the Pakistani president warned it could cause "negative fall-out in the entire Muslim world". He promised to raise the complaint again with President Bush. Gen Musharraf reiterated his call for the bombing campaign "to be short and targeted" and lamented that it is widely - if incorrectly in his view - perceived to be "a war against the poor, miserable and innocent people of Afghanistan".
Over the telephone, Mr Chirac and President Vladimir Putin agreed "on the necessity of a political solution" and "the essential role of the United Nations", an ╔lysΘe spokesman said. In what sounded like a rebuttal to Mr Bush - who said on Wednesday that success in Afghanistan was not linked to progress in the Middle East - Mr Chirac and Mr Putin said they shared views on the Israeli-Palestinian question and that "everything must be done to relaunch the peace process".
France has long supported a stronger role for the UN, in the hope of balancing US power. Mr Chirac heaped praise on Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, the exhausted UN special representative for Afghanistan, who has spent the last two weeks meeting all of the protagonists in the conflict except the Taliban. Mr Brahimi will present a three-part report on political and humanitarian aspects of the crisis and a plan for the reconstruction of Afghanistan to the UN Security Council next Monday.
Asked whether they agreed with appeals by Gen Musharraf and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, for a halt to the bombing, Mr Brahimi said he could only repeat what the Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, said several times, "that our wish is that these bombardments end as quickly as possible." Mr Brahimi spoke of the dignity and suffering of the Afghan people, who were in no way responsible for the attacks of September 11th. "There are only 50,000 armed men in Aghanistan," he said. "They are holding 25 million Afghans hostage."
Mr Chirac seemed caught between his self-made role as the chief advocate of a political - rather than military - solution to the Afghan crisis and that of US ally and commander-in-chief of the French armed forces. Perhaps his visit to the fleet in Toulon earlier in the day had an effect. The Americans had taken action "with the support of the UN", he recalled. "Their objective was not to make war on the people of Afghanistan" and "it would not be reasonable to ask the Americans today to stop their struggle against terrorism."
Mr Brahimi, who will be the chief architect of post-war Afghanistan, has expressed reluctance at US attempts to promote a UN mandate or UN peacekeeping force for the country. He instead advocates an Afghan government that represents all of the country's 13 ethnic groups and a multi-national force. Mr Brahimi told Europe 1 radio that King Zahir Shah (87), the exiled Afghan monarch whom he visited in Rome, could be "a catalyst . . . to get the process of normalisation and the creation of new institutions started".
Whatever happens, "the role of Iran and Pakistan is of utmost importance", he said earlier in Tehran. "Each of these countries has interests and fears which are absolutely legitimate and which must be taken into account."
