KABUL, Afghanistan — The two sides in the monthslong dispute over Afghanistan’s presidential election are close to signing a power-sharing deal, the terms of which include a significant promotion for a former vice president who is accused of abducting, torturing and attempting to rape a political rival while in office.
The agreement to promote Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum to marshal, a military rank awarded only twice before in Afghanistan’s history, comes as the government is preparing for peace talks with the Taliban, and as Afghans who lost loved ones to terrorist attacks and other atrocities demand that accountability for such crimes be central to those negotiations.
Preparations for the talks have been shadowed by the dispute over the election, which was held in September. In February, President Ashraf Ghani was declared to have been re-elected, but his main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, called the results fraudulent and took the oath of office at the same time that Mr. Ghani did.
The deadlock raised concerns that the Afghan government would be divided and weakened in talks with the Taliban, who have been emboldened by a deal with the United States that has led to the start of an American withdrawal. After significant pressure from the United States, including the cutting-off of $1 billion in aid, representatives of Mr. Ghani began talks with Mr. Abdullah on power-sharing — just as in 2014, when a presidential contest between the same two men led to a similar dispute.
According to the text of their new deal, which was seen by The New York Times on Saturday, Mr. Abdullah will take charge of the peace process with the Taliban. He and Mr. Ghani will each appoint the same number of cabinet ministers, with Mr. Abdullah also having a significant share in the appointment of governors. Mr. Ghani is to remain president.
And General Dostum — a former vice president under Mr. Ghani who became one of Mr. Abdullah’s key backers — will become a marshal, a promotion that Mr. Abdullah had promised in return for his support, and to which Mr. Ghani has now consented. The deal is expected to be signed in the coming days.
“The agreement is final, but discussions continue on some of the details,” said Fraidoon Khwazoon, a spokesman for Mr. Abdullah.
A senior official close to Mr. Ghani said that giving General Dostum the rank of marshal, which he characterized as an honorary title, was one small part of a desperate effort to prevent the political crisis from devolving into a civil war, and to let the government focus on negotiating an end to the conflict with the Taliban. He called it a poison pill that Mr. Ghani was swallowing to prevent bloodshed.
Enayatullah Babur Farahmand, a political aide to General Dostum who has denounced the accusations as false and a conspiracy against him, said the promotion would be long-overdue recognition for the military role the general had played in toppling the Taliban government in 2001, on the back of the U.S. invasion.
General Dostum, who has a history of alleged human rights abuses, was accused in 2016 of abducting and attempting to rape Ahmad Ishchi, a fellow Uzbek and a former deputy who became a political rival.
Mr. Ishchi broke down on national television as he described the episode, saying the vice president had beat him up in front of thousands of people at a sports arena; brought him to a home he owned, where he tortured him for days and tried to rape him; then ordered his guards to sexually assault him with the barrels of their guns. The abduction happened in daylight, and medical reports after Mr. Ishchi’s release showed injuries consistent with sexual assault, as well as bruises on his body.
There were outcries and promises of justice, within Afghanistan and internationally. The United States and the European Union called for investigations. Mr. Ghani said that no one was above the law and that justice would be served.
But though the case has remained open, General Dostum has returned to the center of national politics, after a stint in exile in Turkey.
Mr. Ghani’s team toyed with the idea of seeking the general’s support in the 2019 election. And Mr. Abdullah, whom General Dostum ended up backing, promised that if elected, one of his first official acts would be to make General Dostum a marshal. Senior American officials visited the general at his home, posing for photos with him. The top American commander even presented the general with gifts, appearing to pin on his chest what the U.S. military later said was a “commander’s coin and a NATO pin.”
Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said the general’s pending promotion summed up how justice and accountability had been regarded in Afghanistan since 2001, when the United States invaded and the country’s new political structure was formed at a conference in Bonn, Germany.
“A strongman defies arrest, an investigation thwarted at the highest levels — nothing illustrates as well the post-Bonn embrace of impunity,” Ms. Gossman said. “This does not bode well for those hoping the government will speak for victims in the peace talks.”
An official close to Mr. Ghani said that while the government had failed to bring General Dostum to court, it had done what was possible in a fragile situation against a powerful strongman, who had thousands of armed followers and support from neighboring countries: It had forced him into exile for 15 months, even turning back his plane when he first tried to return, and stripped him of all executive authority as vice president.
Although reports of General Dostum’s promotion have been circulating for weeks, there have been no signs of objection from the Western countries that had called for an investigation of Mr. Ishchi’s accusations. Instead, most of them have pressured Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah to reach an agreement, progress toward which was welcomed on Friday by Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation.
“The decisions made to form an inclusive government are decisions that the Afghans are making,” Mr. Khalilzad told reporters in Washington. “But I generally am of the view that any process for peace requires a balance between requirements of justice and requirements of ending a war.”
General Dostum, 66, who has repeatedly switched sides during four decades of brutal war in Afghanistan, hopes to cement a legacy as a champion of his minority Uzbek people, having become Afghanistan’s first Uzbek vice president. Mr. Ghani, who made the general his 2014 running mate despite having once called him a “known killer,” tried to marginalize him soon after taking office. Infuriated, General Dostum responded with erratic shows of force.
There has been little accountability for any of the warlords involved in Afghanistan’s 1990s civil war, which left Kabul in ruins and plunged the country into bloody chaos that still continues. Many of those men grew prosperous with the backing of the United States military over the past two decades. But while most of them polished their images and showed some public restraint, General Dostum still resorted to brutal ways in crushing potential rivals to his power.
Mr. Farahmand, the aide to General Dostum, said Mr. Ishchi’s accusations could not prevent the general’s promotion, because they had not been supported by any court ruling.
When pressed that the abduction had happened in front of a large crowd, and that Mr. Ishchi had bruises and wounds to show immediately after his release, Mr. Farahmand said, “I am not saying he wasn’t beaten, I am not saying he didn’t have bruises, but he was not raped — I can say that 100 percent.”
Asked why, if the accusations were false, General Dostum had refused to cooperate with investigators or appear in court to clear his name, Mr. Farahmand said the courts were not impartial and that the government had conspired to marginalize the general. He cited a 2016 attack on the general’s convoy, which Afghan officials blamed on the Taliban but General Dostum called the work of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency.
“This was a political conspiracy — this was the excuse to eliminate General Dostum,” Mr. Farahmand said. “They couldn’t eliminate him physically, they came for character assassination.”
Lara Jakes contributed reporting from Washington.
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