Dueling messages as London conference on Afghanistan opens

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon introduced his new special envoy, Staffan di Mistura, today at the London conference on Afghanistan, and called for a redefinition of the international community’s relation with the Afghans. (Read Ban’s full remarks here.)

Ban’s message to Hamid Karzai‘s government was essentially: Clean up your act. “We must see corruption for what it is: an assault on the integrity of the state and people’s well-being,” he said. “Afghans have suffered for far too long from a culture of impunity and the lack of rule of law.”

The message to the Western powers: Stay the course, support the Afghans’ capacity to govern themselves, and don’t rely too heavily on military power to win the war. “The Afghan people,” he said, “need to hear — loud and clear — the international community’s long-term commitment to the Afghan government’s reform agenda.”

The Taliban had their own message for the U.S. backed military alliance: Pack up your drones and bombers and get out of Afghanistan. “The war-mongering rulers under the leadership of Obama and Brown want to deceive the people of the world by holding the London conference to show that people still support them,” according to a statement from the leadership council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. “The Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate are the sons of this land; they know every peak and gorge of this country and are ready for its defense. The final defeat and infamy will be fate of the invaders.”

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