Afghan's exiled king waits in the wings

Tomas Avenarius, Deutsche Presse Agentur, Peshawar, Pakistan

What good luck that dour Mullah Omar wasn't at a recent gathering of exiled Afghan politicians, dignitaries and enthusiastic students!

If the thunderous drums, crashing cymbals and massed singing blaring from the loudspeakers during the meeting weren't enough to push him over the edge, the sight of the beardless, turbanless men and the outrageously uncovered women and girls would have outraged his eye -- the only one the Taliban leader has left, actually -- when his view fell on them.

The mullah would have seen women both young and old with open, uncovered faces, some of them wearing light green scarves -- in most cases for decorative reasons rather than due to religious modesty. Had the one-eyed Taliban boss been present, he almost certainly would have dismissed the gathering of exiled Afghan politicians and dignatories and the enthusiastic group of Afghan students -- female, by the way -- as nothing but a den of sin and iniquity.

But Mullah Omar was actually sitting in far-off Kandahar, unruffled by the musical onslaught or troublesome stares from so many women. The fundamentalist leader may well still have the final say in Afghanistan, but many fellow Afghans living outside the "Islamic Emirates" have been planning for a future without Mullah Omar for a long time.

So have the couple of hundred Afghans who gathered in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. They issued a call for exiled King Zahir Shah to return to his homeland -- and made their own political interests clear, at the same time. Since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, work has been underway in Rome -- where the king has lived in exile since 1971 -- on finding some way, with U.S.-backing, of returning the ageing monarch to Kabul as a figure who could unite all Afghans around him.

Since Zafir Shah is the only potential candidate for the post, various scenarios have been drawn up -- and the exiled king plays the starring role in all of them. For example, the peaceful installation of the king by means of some kind of grand assembly of all available Afghan dignatories, known as a Loya Jirga. Or a victory for the Northern Alliance in its war against the Taliban for the last six years. In that scenario, the Alliance pass wins, then turns the power over to the king.

Or -- possibly not the most likely scenario, but -- what about the king, who was thrown off the Afghan throne in 1973, riding back to power on the shoulders of American troops as they storm their way into Kabul. Cheering crowds could chant cries of "long live the U.S. king!"

In any case, the meeting in Peshawar proved that, after almost 30 years in exile, Zahir Shah can still count on the sympathy of his fellow Afghans if not their unqualified support.

Peshawar is home to at least a million Afghans, most of them refugees. "In the camps here, the king is hugely popular. People pin their hopes on him and hang his picture in their homes, " says Pir Sayed Ishaq Gailani. Whether or not the monarch's portrait is actually hanging in every emigrant's house and refugee's tent, people like Gailani have just as much reason to put their faith in the king as the refugees do.

Gailani, the organizer of the pro-Zahir Shah meeting in Peshawar, once fought against the Russians. Then he tried his hand at the hopelessly complicated Afghan political game -- unsuccessfully. After that, he decided his best hope was to wait and work for a comeback. Zahir Shah's return to the throne would represent the very chance which Gailani and the other politicians who have been brushed off the chess-board of Afghan domestic politics have been waiting for.

The elderly monarch could do little more for the nation than lend it his good name -- should he indeed eventually make it back to Kabul. "Politics will be carried out by others," says an observer. "Just how successful Zahir Shah could be, depends on his team. And that's where it gets difficult."

The difficulty lies in the divisions splitting the exiled Afghans and their willingness -- already proven -- to use weapons to settle their disputes. The chances of every group being represented and united in whatever government team is put together are very slim indeed. However, this is where hopes are pinned in Peshawar.

The meeting ended with the establishment of an "Organization for the National Solidarity of Afghanistan." Whether appeals for solidarity alone are going to be enough is yet to be seen. If nothing else, the grim, one-eyed Taliban leader in Kandahar has discovered that he has nothing in common with the king.

Mullah Omar delivered a statement to the people of Afghan and the exiled monarch in Rome on the day before the meeting in Peshawar got underway: "Are you not ashamed that you intend to return to power with the help of the United States?"

He also had a special message of solidarity for the king: "Wait and see just how you feel when you come back to this country. Your life will not be safe."