The man who called the meeting, the UN's special representative to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi said that the meeting was "very important" to set the process of healing and development in Afghanistan and added "I very much hope that out of this meeting we will take some concrete decisions."

Dr Barahuddin Rabbanni, the leader of the Northern Alliance which has taken over control in Kabul and put its men-- and they are all men-- into national ministries in the downtown area, publicly says the meeting is only "symbolic."

The alliance has a thing about meetings. Last month when exiled Afghans mostly from the Pashtun tribe in southern Afghanistan, held a meeting in the national hall in Peshawar, some 1,000 colorfully attired delegates came and denounced the Taliban. Some praised former King Zahir Shah, others were lukewarm, but everyone one in the podium- but one- declared the meeting an historic powwow.

The one, the sole Northern Alliance representative, looked around the auditorium, and told the Earth Times, "This is just a seminar."

He said a "real meeting" between 60 members of the Northern Alliance and 60 followers of the former king would take place in a week or two and that would really decide things, the future of Afghanistan included.

It didn't happen.

The new meeting, on which so much UN prestige is riding, will have at least two women attending, according to advanced reports, but no Taliban, which makes sense since it is not a peace treaty.

And they don't want to go anyway. At an unusually long press conference in the contested city Khandahar this week a young Taliban commander said he would literally rather die than go to the meeting.

But they still do control a hunk of real estate, and the Bonn meeting, technically isn't all-representative if there are no Taliban.

And at the daily briefings here UN spokespeople repeatedly emphasize that the meeting is crucial. Hamid Abdeljaber, Thursday's duty spokesman even went so far as to directly contradict the Northern Alliance, with whom they are dealing daily on humanitarian matters, saying the meeting was "not symbolic."

"The important thing, said Abdeljaber, "is that the United Nations is getting Afghans together, in the same room so they, the Afghans themselves decide. That is important."

But this, if looked at with a cynical eye could conceivably be interpreted as a slightly different policy than that of the Americans. The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, hinted very broadly that the future donations from the major countries would be used in carrots and stick manner, in an effort to weed out any return to the corruption that has plagued pre-Taliban Afghan governments.

Powell's people here have repeatedly said that they would reward efficient leaders and freeze out the corrupt. But who makes that decision. Not the Afghans.