As we head to press, the Afghan cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul have fallen to the Northern Alliance. Both places figure in mediator Roger Plunk’s account of his effort to draw up a peace plan for Afghanistan. His insights have special relevance today, as Americans debate what role this country should play in Afghanistan’s future.
—The editors

Between 1979 and 1989 the Soviet war in Afghanistan resulted in one million Afghan deaths, five million refugees, and countless land mines strewn throughout the land that continue to injure Afghans every day. When the Soviets withdrew, Pakistan’s involvement in Afghan politics, and rivalries between ethnic groups, dragged the country down into a whirlpool of civil war. Since the mid-1990s, war has been raging between the Northern Alliance and the fundamentalist Taliban, causing tens of thousands of more deaths and plunging the country into severe poverty. The American-led war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda holds a promise for change. Out of the ashes of 23 years of war, Afghans hope that their dreams of peace and healing may finally be realized.
In October of 1997, I left for Afghanistan to provide my services as a mediator. My first stop was Pakistan, the stepping stone for foreign aid work in Afghanistan. From Islamabad, I took a bus to Peshawar, on the Afghan border. Nearing Peshawar, we passed through a town full of stores selling AK-47 assault rifles. An older man seated next to me presented a card that identified him as a 'Former Member of the Parliament of Afghanistan' and invited me to his home. His wife gave me traditional Afghan clothing to wear: baggy drawstring pants and a loose shirt that hung below the knees. She told me with a giggle that the Taliban didn’t like jeans. The AK-47s and the hospitality are two aspects of what I would see everywhere in Afghanistan: a dichotomy of fierce fighting and profound friendliness.
This was not my first trip to Asia as a mediator. After law school and a graduate law degree (LL.M.) in international and comparative law, I worked briefly in the U.S. State Department’s legal division. During this time I received an invitation from the Dalai Lama’s administration to advise them on the drafting of a new constitution for Tibet. This invitation struck a deep chord in my heart, and awakened a passion for human rights and conflict resolution that has never died.
In 1993 I traveled to Dharamsala, India, where I worked as the Dalai Lama’s constitutional adviser, drafting a model constitution for an autonomous Tibet. I then traveled twice to Beijing, for talks with Chinese officials on the Dalai Lama’s 'middle-way approach' for Tibetan autonomy. While working on Tibet issues in New Delhi, I got entangled in the dispute between India and Kashmiri political activists, and drafted an autonomy plan for Indian-held Kashmir that was presented to the Prime Minister of India. And in Myanmar (formerly Burma) I worked with lawyers to begin a dialogue between the military regime and Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy advocate who had been under house arrest for several years. As a single American meeting with various political leaders, I was often accused of being a CIA agent. However, I was just a private citizen doing mediation, pro bono publico (for the public good), a legal concept for charitable work. I had a passion for this work, and did not mind living on a low budget and getting little in return. To maintain impartiality as a mediator, I could not accept funding from the parties I mediated between. I got by with small amounts of funds from third parties, mostly friends. Thus I always traveled on a small budget, staying at a YMCA in Burma, a university dorm in Beijing, guest-houses in Afghanistan, and inexpensive hotels.