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Afghanistan:
the high-jacking of a population by fundamentalists
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A
great deal is currently written about Afghanistan. In this
letter, the Swiss based Foundation of Terre des
hommes gives a brief overview of the situation seen
from the perspective of an NGO with a long history in the
country.
Our
activity in Afghanistan has not been interrupted.
All our projects in Kabul and in Rustaq, northern
Afghanistan, are fully operational and will continue in
the future.
Terre des hommes was
the first NGO to bring aid materials into Afghanistan
after the crisis of 11th of September. On 18th
of September 200 donkeys crossed the border into northern
Afghanistan with several cubic meter of medicines and
15.000 m of water pipes for Rustaq and reached their next
destination in Faizabad.
The lights are going out in Afghanistan. The cities are
emptying. The population, already desperately hungry, is
on the move. The cities are turning into ghost towns. The
population of the cities and major towns has fallen
dramatically as people move out to the countryside to find
sanctuary from possible fighting, from Taliban
conscription or to find foreign food aid.
“Fear of an imminent US attack, growing sense of
insecurity, deteriorating law and order situation, and
shortage of food and water supplies in Afghanistan are
forcing Afghan families to abandon their homes and run for
refuge in Pakistan. ‘There is a huge fear of attack but
nobody knows why this situation has developed. We do not
know who is Osama bin Laden”, Ghulam Nabi, 40,
who arrived here three days ago from a village near Kabul,
said while talking to The Nation.’ (The Nation,
October 4, 2001) |
Afghanistan:
a failed state
The
basic elements of a state are absent. There is no professional
army, civil service, national police, constitution, or national
revenue system. Government institutions are skeletal at the local,
municipal and national levels. Tax systems function minimally, but
public treasuries are used primarily to fund the war effort.
In
addition there is no civil society structure in place. Political
parties, organizations and social movements are forbidden and
Afghans do not have access to outside information due to the ban
of mass media, TV etc.
There is e.g. no education systems in place: Afghans increasingly
regard the destruction of education as one of the gravest crisis
they face and appear genuinely frightened by the future prospect
of generations of illiteracy.
The 23 years of mass exodus and resulting brain drain has stripped
the country of some of its most valuable resources. Most of those
who remain are vastly under-employed
and under-utilized, and are considered by many as some of the most
vulnerable people. People are desperate for work, yet few jobs
exist in an economy where there is almost no capital investment,
no meaningful government employment, and little household cash for
purchase of even the most basic subsistence needs.
Absence or weakness of state
institutions is one of the main causes of the problem in
Afghanistan and makes any settlement difficult even impossible.
If the situation remains unchanged, the entire region of southern
and central Asia (Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Iran, Pakistan and Kashmir) could become a battle
ground for decades. Millions of people could be uprooted,
impoverished, and killed by war, famine and epidemics.
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Under
current human rights standards, many Afghan leaders should
be arrested and tried as war criminals, a measure that
would probably be quite popular with most Afghans. |
Human
Rights in Afghanistan
We
all feel a genuine concern for the freedoms that so many female
professional Afghan women are presently denied. The international
media, high level donor meetings, UN Special Rapporteurs, and
sometimes even our own reports all too often describe and
articulate the miseries of Afghan women. Often these reports are
over-generalized, misrepresentative, and selective:
Statements indicate that the greater severities of Kabul were
extended to the whole nation; that the greater rights and freedoms
once enjoyed by the privileged, educated elite have been
eliminated and are now on the level that 90% of rural women and
men have known for a long time; that services addressing basic
human rights such as water, health, education have been destroyed.
Such reporting understates historical fact: that the development
of Afghanistan and its people scarcely extended beyond the major
cities; that in fact the vast majority of the population today –
both women and men – suffer not only from human rights
violations perpetuated by uncompromising conflict, but also from a
human rights deficit.
The position of women is one of the hottest controversies of
Afghan society today. Improvement of their status in legal and
social terms has been seen by traditionalists, who have had a
strong impact on Afghan society for decades, as an undesirable
Western, non-Islamic influence. It has been perceived as a threat
to tradition, which would cause unrest in family and community
life. Women's participation in public life, in formal education
and in the labor force, have traditionally been strongly resisted.
Consequently, any improvement of their status that has been
introduced by small enclaves of progressives, has been met by a
corresponding counteraction by traditionalists.
With arrival of the Taliban one could consider there was a certain
improvement in terms of security for all people and especially for
girls and women due to former widespread raping, gang-raping,
looting etc.
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New
Project to start soon
In
order to respond to the growing crisis of refugee children
in Peshawar, Northwestern Frontier Province of Pakistan,
Terre des hommes (Tdh) is preparing a new project for
children in street situations.
The majority of the children working on the streets
are boys, aged from 8 to 14, with smaller numbers of young
girls usually between the ages of 8 and 10 |
The
price for this "improvement" has been high: the
widespread raping has ceased, security has been established to
some extent, but the population is impoverished and harassed.
In terms of women rights: there was and is certainly a massive
setback mainly in urban centers (education, work etc.). In the
country side not much has changed for the worse as the situation
was very bad already.
After 23 years of war the people of Afghanistan are already
victimized by all the self-styled
rulers of the past including the warlords as well as the
Taliban nowadays. The country suffers from a long violent inner
conflict. The worst example is Kabul that was from 1994 to 96
virtually laid to waste by internal conflict only, as frequently
as 200 rockets a day pounded opposing factions, with the people,
neighborhoods, universities, high schools, factories and houses
devastated. The physical destruction of Kabul has turned it into
the Dresden of the late twentieth century.
A new generation of Afghans is now growing up displaced and
abandoned, with no education but a smattering of simplistic
religious training for the few, in an impoverished environment
awash in weapons and criminal enterprises. One can only imagine to
what uses these children will be put in ten to fifteen years.
Refugee
children are especially affected by experiencing family separation
and loss of community identity. They see their parents for the
first time depending on handouts and charity, and they notice
their parents’ frustration and shame, because they are unable to
provide food for their children. In the longer term these
experiences will certainly add to their trauma of the forced
displacement.
Taliban
in historical and political context
The
Afghanistan population continues to experience civil war and
political instability for the 23rd
consecutive year. Its people have been bombed, raped,
tortured, slaughtered, looted and uprooted by the 23 years of war.
Its lands are some of the most dense concentrations of land mines
in the world. Its roads, irrigation systems and other
infrastructure have been devastated by war and poverty.
In the early nineties young Afghans who spent most of their lives
in refugee camps in Pakistan near the Afghan border, watching
their country implode, became increasingly disillusioned and
radicalized in the conservative religious schools of the camps.
Slowly they began moving back to Afghanistan and rallied around a
religious leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
The
Pashtun-dominated ultra-conservative Islamic movement known as the
Taliban control nowadays more than 90 percent of the country,
including the capital of Kabul. A Taliban edict in 1997 renamed
the country the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with Taliban
leader Mullah Omar as Head of State and Commander of the Faithful.
The Taliban movement initially responded to some needs felt by
Afghans and received support in Pashtun-dominated areas during
initial advance in 94-95, a time, when Afghanistan was in chaos,
its citizens fleeing the country by the hundreds of thousands. The
Taliban presented themselves as a Islamic solution to the problem
of a failed state by establishing a common authority, collecting
weapons and establishing an order through establishing sharia.
They showed no great interest in the outside world, one way or
another.
The Islamic Movement of Taliban represents an indigenous Afghan
network. It is a religious movement of uneducated people grown up
mainly in refugee camps in Pakistan. They have become far more
radicalized and extremist than Pakistan, its original sponsor,
ever anticipated in 1994 when a few Taliban fighters pitched in to
help open a safe trade route to Central Asia through the badlands
of Afghanistan.
The Taliban have pushed Afghanistan backwards in time, by the
strangest manifestation of political and religious fundamentalism
anywhere on earth. The Taliban are regarded nowadays as
anti-Western. In fact the Taliban owe their existence – born in
the refugee camps across the Afghan border in Pakistan – to a
deep - seated hatred
of the godless Soviet Union which invaded their country.
Extremists
taking over
The
Taliban are linked increasingly, as their isolation from the
global mainstream grows, to the transnational fringe of global
Islamist politics, including Osama Bin Laden. They also provide a
haven to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, some Chechens and
Uyghurs and assorted militants from other countries. It is
believed that around 13'000 extremists are nowadays living in the
country. They are named “Arab Afghan” fighters and are feared
by the majority of the population. The Arab Afghans, along with
Pakistani militants and Afghans from the heartland in the south
are nowadays the crack troops in a war which has increasingly
turned on civilians.
Historically the so-called “Arab Afghans”, recruited fighters
from around the world, were aiding the Afghan resistance against
the Soviet army since 1979. The resistance was backed with
American dollars and had the blessing of the governments of Saudi
Arabia and Pakistan. After the Soviet withdrawal the “Arab
Afghans” turned their fire against the US and its allies in the
Middle East: an attractive message for a few, particularly
idealistic, angry, young men, who believe Bin Laden is the one man
standing up to the might of Washington. But most of his victims
have been fellow Muslims – civilians in the Afghan internal war.
The rule of the Taliban has given Osama Bin Laden free reign –
and now, as a result of the horrific events in New York,
Washington and Pennsylvania, it is beginning to look as though the
US may make Afghanistan a high price for the political anarchy
which has made Afghanistan one of the poorest, most backward
countries on earth.
Bin Laden is the guest of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and
reportedly married into the family of Taliban leader Mullah
Mohammad Omar. Osama bin Laden, in turn, has won increasing
influence over a movement that has allowed him to turn Afghanistan
into his personal training center for terrorists who,
according to Western experts and intelligence estimates, are then
dispersed around the globe.
Role
of NGOs
Only 40
to 50 international NGOs are working in Afghanistan - mainly in
the field of health and emergency intervention. Due to limited
funds and lack of donor commitment a process for establishing
long-term governance, and, finally reconstruction never took
place. In addition NGOs were up to now not able to consider
efforts of reconstruction and institution building due to
insecurity and the ongoing war.
NGOs provide hope, employment, and are feeding millions of people.
They fulfill the role the state should play. NGOs are not liked by
Taliban authorities but tolerated. An understanding of good
governance is severely lacking within the Taliban ranks.
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The
Taliban had no significant previous experience in governance and
dealing with the outside world. At the same time, they are not
officially recognized by the international community. This presents
an enigma for NGOs since it is imperative to engage them in support
of relief and development initiatives. Otherwise, efforts are not
understood by the Taliban, often are interpreted as a threat to
their power, and are stymied. NGOs find the inconsistencies and
attempts at control of incoming assets by the authorities extremely
frustrating and time-consuming.
There is a clear tendency since 1998 that Arab extremist groups
are trying to replace the international NGOs in providing
assistance. It is reported that more and more Islamic radical
movements are coming and working in Kabul.
Improvements of the recent past
Despite
the many constraints, most notably the lack of will for peace among
military protagonists and their external supporters, today we
actually have achievements that ameliorate historical
under-development.
Today there are more health services in rural areas than at any time
in the past – especially for women. Today in rural areas, there
are more girls relative to boys attending primary school than at any
time in the past. These
achievements represent a change of values within rural Afghanistan
– from tradition to modern concepts of life. Such facts are sadly
absent from so-called “official reporting”.
Role
of Terre des hommes
Terre des hommes (Tdh)
is presently working on both sides of the frontlines and
implementing projects targeting health improvement for children and
their mothers, rural rehabilitation, education, water and
sanitation, and emergency intervention.
Terre des hommes (Tdh) is advocating for the plight of
impoverished Afghans, mobilizing their limited resources for better
self-organization, implementing participatory approaches in
development programs and campaigning for the rights of children as
well as women.
Programs and projects in both Afghanistan are still fully
operational today and managed by highly motivated Pakistani and
Afghan staff.
Terre
des hommes (Tdh) employment policy is focusing on promoting
female employment. Presently Tdh has 105 staff members in its
programs and projects. 60.1 % of all staffs are female Afghans
working in projects of both sides of the frontlines.
Presently
more than 500.000 people are indirectly benefiting from Terre des
hommes (Tdh)’ assistance in Afghanistan, assistance which is
focusing on children and their mothers.
The
position of Terre des hommes
Terre des hommes (Tdh)
will maintain its direct aid to people in need in Afghanistan and to
continue to advocate for the rights of the children in Afghanistan
and their parents.
Terre des hommes (Tdh) gives direct aid to children in need,
free of political, racial or religious bias. Wherever children are
victims, we take strong stands.
The war has already started. Tens of thousands of Afghans, fathers
and mothers with their children are on the run. Aid agencies had to
leave the country and to stop or suspend their programs.
The effects of withdrawal of aid agencies could be infinitely more
tragic and devastating than the worst that a wounded America may now
throw at this long-suffering country. Afghanistan is in the grip of
the worst drought in centuries and on the verge of mass starvation.
According to UN by the end of the year 5.5 million people will be
entirely dependent on food aid to survive the winter.
The recent disaster in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania is
terrorism and an attack on values Terre des hommes (Tdh)
holds dearly. The current exodus of thousands of civilians of a population
high-jacked by fundamentalists also grieves us. Fundamentalists that
murder people, terrorize innocents and attack values must be stopped
in their actions by limiting their financial, their legal, their
residential, logistical and warfare capacities. This is the face of
the “new war” newspapers speak about. The bombing of an innocent
and high-jacked population cannot be an option of this war.
Afghan
News:
The
News, October 4, 2001
ISLAMABAD: Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC)
has appealed to the UN Security Council to integrate specific
measures to prevent the use of children as soldiers in the impending
conflict in Afghanistan.
The News, October 4, 2001
JABAL SERAJ: The Northern Alliance said Wednesday it was now in the
fold of US
military planning as preparations for an attack a against the
Taliban and Osama Bin Laden intensified.
The Northern Alliance's chief spokesman Abdullah Abdullah
said he had met unidentified US officials at a secret location in
recent days to discuss coordinated military action in Afghanistan.
As the Taliban repeated its desperate pleas for talks instead of
war, the opposition also claimed that as many as 10,000 Taliban
troops were ready to switch sides and turn against the militia which
has ruled Kabul since 1996.
The News, October 4, 2001
ISLAMABAD: Opposition forces in Afghanistan said Wednesday they had
advanced to within a stone's , throw of Chaghcharan, the
Taliban-held provincial capital of the isolated central province of
Ghor. Our forces are now just two kilometers north of Chaghcharan,
opposition spokesman Mohammad Habeel told the Pakistan based Afghan
Islamic Press.
The News, October 4, 2001
KABUL: Urgently needed United
Nations humanitarian relief convoys reached Kabul on
Wednesday and aid workers said the Taliban had been cooperating.
"The convoys come without any problem. The Taliban are fully
cooperating with us at the distribution sites," said Yosuf
Yosufzai, World Food Programme (WFP) logistical officer in Kabul.
The News, October 4, 2001
TEHRAN : The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food
Programme (WFP) will be sending an important humanitarian aid
shipment to Herat, western Afghanistan , UNICEF sources told AFP
Wednesday.
The News, October 4, 2001
ISLAMABAD: The Taliban have seized three United Nation vehicles in
the militia’s southern stronghold of Kandahar and have been seen
driving them around the city , a UN spokesman said on Wednesday.
The News, October 4, 2001
PESHAWAR: With former Afghan mujahideen commanders regaining their
importance after years in the wilderness, one of them Abdul Haq is
fast emerging as a key player in a future set-up in the post-
Taliban period, Abdul Haq's house in Peshawar's posh Hayatabad
suburb is becoming the hub of activities of former mujahideen
commanders and fighters. He quietly returned to Peshawar a
few days ago after spending some years in Dubai and immediately
started attracting attention of diplomats and the press.
The News, October 4, 2001
WASHINGTON : Representative from Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban
opposition warned Tuesday that Pakistan should not be allowed to
dictate the future of their country.
The News, October 4, 2001
WASHINGTON : The American CIA secretly trained about 60 Pakistani
commandos to either capture or kill Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan
in 1999 with the connivance of former Prime
Minister Nawaz Shareef and his handpicked ISI Chief Lt . Gen
Ziauddin Butt, discloses The Washington Post.
The News, October 4, 2001
LOLA GUZAR: The biting sand in the refugee camps of northern
Afghanistan signals winter is coming, and yet more misery is ahead
for refugees such as those languishing here at Lola Guzar. The
change in the weather is just the latest blow to Afghanistan’s
displaced, already battling to survive civil war and the longest
drought in living memory. And with the United States poised to take
military action against Taliban-held areas, no end to their
suffering is in sight. Hundreds more terrorised civilians are
expected to find themselves waiting hungrily for food in makeshift
camps such as this.
The News, October 4, 2001
PESHAWAR: Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar on Wednesday
said the change in Pakistan’s Afghan policy was a indication of
his oft-repeated assertions that the Taliban were not a creation of
Pakistan .
The News, October 4, 2001
MOSCOW: Russia denied Wednesday a British newspaper report that a
number of its special forces has already crossed into Afghanistan
from bases in neighbouring
Tajikistan ,
Inter fax reported.
The News, October 4, 2001
PEHSAWAR: Former Afghan president and Mujahideen leader Pir
Silbghatullah Mujaddadi extended support to Taliban and opposed
return of ex-king Zahir Shah to Afghanistan. Talking to Radio
Shariat on telephone , he said the Zahir Shah was even ready to
support foreign attacks on Afghanistan just to get power.
The Mirror, October 4, 2001
ISLAMABAD: The United Nations began distributing emergency food aid
inside Afghanistan on Wednesday, but some aid agencies warned that
the supplies pouring in after a two-week break fell short of demand.
The Nation, October 4, 2001
PESHAWAR : The Taliban on Wednesday relaxed the veil (burqa) system
for women and has directed the women entering to Afghanistan to keep
their faces uncover for identity, say reports reaching here from the
war-torn country.
The Nation, October 4, 2001
PESHAWAR: Though Pakistan as well as UNHCR are busy in arrangements
for around one million Afghans who are likely to leave their country
in the wake of possible United States attacks on Afghanistan but the
reports from inside war stricken country reveal that more than two
million people are ready for migration. These two million refugees
will join around three million Afghans already living in various
urban and rural areas of Pakistan, mostly in NWFP and tribal areas.
The Nation, October 4, 2001
PESHAWAR: Most of the Afghans fleeing the country in the wake of
possible US attack, are even unaware of the most wanted man Osama
Bin Laden, prime suspect in the recent terrorist attacks in New York
and Washington.
The Nation, October 6, 2001
ISLAMABAD: The Taliban’s days as the ruling power in Afghanistan
appeared numbered on Friday after the war-ravaged state’s former
monarch received a request from neighbouring Pakistan to begin talks
to form a new government.
The News, October 6, 2001
ISLAMABAD: The United Nations officials on Friday welcomed massive
US and Japanese pledges of cash for the relief effort in
Afghanistan, but warned long-term assistance was vital to avoid a
human catastrophe.
The News, October 6, 2001
VIENNA: The Northern Alliance has become Afghanistan’s major opium
producer after a Taliban clampdown on poppy-growing slashed world
production by around 60 percent, a UN official told AFP Friday. The
Alliance, which has won US support in its battle against the
Taliban, produced 150 tons of opium this year. This was stated by
Mohammad Amirkhizi, senior policy adviser at the United Nations
Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention.
The News, October 7, 2001
WASHINGTON: Some commanders in the anti-Taliban opposition in
contact with the United States are guilty of brutality abuses, Human
Right Watch (HRW), a US-based rights organization, said Saturday.
The US and its allies
should not cooperate with commanders whose record of
brutality raises questions about their legitimacy inside
Afghanistan.,” the director of the organization’s Asia branch,
Sidney Jones, said in a statement. HRW said there had been reports
from nearly two years ago of executions, looting and arson and of
children being drafted into opposition Northern Alliance. The
opposition, which has rebaptised itself the United Front, was also
guilty of killing civilians between 1992 and 1996, it said.
The News, October 7, 2001
ISLAMABAD: The UN said on Saturday life inside Afghanistan was
returning to normal following internal panic at the prospect of US
strikes against Osama bin Laden and his Taliban protectors.
The News, October 7, 2001
PESHAWAR: Taliban government on Saturday offered to release foreign
aid workers in line with the demand of the United States, provided
President Bush’s government put an end to its propaganda against
the Islamic Emirate and change the threatening tone of attacking
Afghanistan.
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Published
by:
Terre des hommes Liaison Delegation Office - Afghanistan
P.O.Box 729 UT
Peshawar
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Email: tdhkabul@brain.net.pk |
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