Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hizb-e-Islami, rejected the idea of a federal state in Afghanistan during Friday prayers in Kabul. Hekmatyar’s stance was in reaction to former US envoy in Afghanistan affairs James Dobbins' exclusive interview with Afghanistan International.
Hekmatyar said that “the dream of federalism will never come true in Afghanistan”.
Dobbins had said that a federal system could support the development of Afghanistan. According to Dobbins if Afghans reached a conclusion based on their need to have a federal state, it will benefit Afghanistan and help in the development of the country.
He stressed that a republic order with elected governors would be useful for sharing power in Afghanistan.
However, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, during the Friday prayers, opposed the federal system in Afghanistan and attacked those who welcomed Dobbins' views.
He accused supporters of the federal system of paving the way towards partition of the country.
According to Hekmatyar, Dobbins proposes a federal state to justify America's failures in Afghanistan and not as a humanitarian solution to overcome Afghanistan’s crisis.
The leader of Hizb-e-Islami accused the US of having killed about a million people in Afghanistan. He said that the US didn’t invade Afghanistan for democracy, human rights, or establishment of a government capable of running the country, but they attacked Afghanistan to take "revenge" for 9/11.
To justify his opposition to the federal system, Hekmatyar said, "The conditions in Afghanistan are not favourable for a federal system. Afghanistan is not like the United States, which is made up of fifty states, each one is bigger than Afghanistan, and Afghanistan cannot be divided into different states based on ethnicity, such as Pakistan."
Hekmatyar also made sensitive statements about different ethnic groups in Afghanistan. For example, he said that Panjshir was a district in the past, but "because of twenty years of occupation, it became a province”.
He said that Pakistan has been divided into four different states based on ethnic Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis and Baloch, but the social structure of Afghanistan is such that different ethnic groups live together.
The leader of Hizb-e-Islami claimed that "except for Panjshir, there is no province in which only Tajiks are present”.
According to him, "Pashtuns are present in all northern provinces except Badakhshan. Pashtuns are the majority in Baghlan and Kunduz, and there is no province from north to the west where Pashtuns are not present."
"With this ethnic composition, how can a federal system be shaped based on ethnicity?” Hekmatyar questioned.
