The BBC's David Loyn had conducted interviews with Taleban commanders fighting British troops in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. He explored reasons why the Taleban are so ferociously battling the foreign troops and Karzai's government. After the publication of the report last week, he now answers questions on the Taleban and their motives. I found it very interesting although I disagree with the correspondent's positive portrayal of the Taleban. I'll appreciate your comments in this regard. Following is the URL address, or simply click on the Q&A about Taleban written above:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/6091532.stm
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Afghanistan's turbulent history
The events of September 11 and what has happened since have made people understand that even a small, distant and far away country like Afghanistan cannot be left to break up into anarchy and chaos without consequences for the whole world. Lakhdar Brahimi, special adviser to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
The rising insurgency mirrors Afghanistan’s turbulent history marked by centuries of conflict and violence. Bridging trade routes between the Indian subcontinent, Persian Gulf and Central Asia, Afghanistan has persistently suffered foreign interference and invasions. But despite suffering perpetual instability and anarchy, its rugged terrain and people’s patriotic and religious zeal have helped preserve the nation’s independence.
It seems unusual that conquerors as prominent as Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan suffered greatly to invade and control this small nation. It is also interesting to note that invading Afghanistan has caused many great empires to collapse.
The British in the 1800s and the Soviets in the late 1900s paid harsh prices for Afghanistan’s occupation. The British suffered three humiliating defeats, while the Russians were forced to withdraw and their empire collapsed right afterwards. The US-led coalition are therefore pursuing a battle of “hearts and minds” to prove themselves as peacekeepers, not occupiers, in order to avoid a similarly fatal fate.
Afghanistan is where Tsarist Russia and British Empire played the Great Game – but neither side succeeded. To prevent Russian influence, the British India East Company invaded Afghanistan in 1838 to oust King Dost Muhammad and install its own satellite regime in Kabul. But the occupation marked the beginning of a disastrous chapter in British military history. Only one out of the 16,000 British troops survived in retreat in the first Anglo-Afghan war. Afghanistan was then nicknamed “graveyard for foreign invaders”.
The lesson learned from all foreign invasion of Afghanistan is that it is easy to conquer the country, but rather difficult, and sometimes impossible, to control it, or get out of it with success.
But to avenge the massacre, Britain repeated the error of invading Afghanistan in 1878 – triggering the second Anglo-Afghan war. The British army conquered many Afghan provinces with ease, including the capital. But a similarly calamitous doom descended on the British army when a nationwide jihad was declared against them.
Nearly half of the British army of 2,600 were annihilated only in the southern city of Maiwand, a district of Helmand Province, where 3,300 British troops are now stationed.
The Taleban are now rekindling the past hostilities to turn the public against the British forces in the province. "The British have been defeated in the past. Afghans are not scared of death. The British are an old enemy of Afghanistan,” a local Taleban is quoted as urging people to fight the British in the region.
Afghanistan has always been an ultra conservative and hyper religious nation. Any attempts of modernisation have met stiff domestic opposition. Having declared independence from Great Britain in 1919, King Amanullah embarked on radical reforms aimed at curtailing the power of the clergy, imposing official dress code, and promoting democracy and women rights – efforts censured as acts of westernisation that led to his deposition in 1929. His successors remained cautious at brining any social changes.
Ironically, the resistance deprived Afghans of political and economic growth. According to Mark Urban, author of War in Afghanistan, Afghans failed to avail themselves of an infrastructure, an efficient civil service, an independent judiciary, an integrated national railway network and well-organised armed forces the British left behind where they colonised.
In 1893, the British also imposed the Durand Line treaty separating vast Afghan territories that now belong to Pakistan. Although Afghan leaders have repeatedly refused to accept the Durand Line as official boundary between the two nations before and after the expiration of the treaty in 1993, absence of a central government in Kabul has denied the country return of its lost territories.
Since the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, the Pakistani military and intelligence agency (ISI) have relentlessly strived to destabilise and weaken Afghanistan to maintain its national security and territorial integrity. “Military hardliners called me a 'security threat' for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan,” said Benazir Bhutto, former Pakistani Prime Minister.
The Durand Line has recently come to international limelight as the areas now under Pakistan’s control (Baluchistan, North West Frontier Province of Pakistan and Federal Administrative Tribal Areas) have turned into headquarters for Islamic extremists and al-Qaeda activists. Pakistani President Parvez Musharraf’s call for building fences along the borders in 2005 met fierce opposition of Pashtun tribes on both sides of borders, as well as that of the Afghan government. “Barbed wire is a symbol of hatred, not friendship and hence it cannot stop terrorism,” Afghan President Hamed Karzai pointed out.
Afghanistan’s independence from Britain followed five decades of relative peace and stability – which ended with the overthrow of King Zaher Shah in 1973.
Zaher Shah introduced a new constitution in 1964 stipulating freedom of expression and equal gender rights for the first time in history. Although Zaher’s 41-year reign is described as the most tranquil era in Afghan history, it was marred by intense economic mismanagement and political negligence. Thousands died in severe droughts in the north, while he was building palaces in Kabul and Italy. His weak administration also paved the way for Russian influence that led to an invasion in 1979.
Daud Khan’s coup d'état of 1973 put an end to the period of monarchy. He established a republican, devised a development marshal plan and sought closer relations with western nations - arousing the wrath of Russians. “I would be the happiest to light my American cigarette with Russian matches,” was his foreign policy motto. In his last meeting with Daud in April 1977 in Moscow, Russian President Leonid Brezhnev complained about Daud’s permission of experts and aid workers from NATO member countries in Afghanistan. Daud is quoted as replying:
“We will never allow you to dictate to us how to run our country and whom to employ in Afghanistan. How and where we employ the foreign experts will remain the exclusive prerogative of the Afghan state. Afghanistan shall remain poor, if necessary, but free in its acts and decisions.”
His souring relations with Russia led to his assassination by the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in April 1978.
PDPA’s bloody revolution saw the killing of thousands of the intelligentsia, Islamic scholars, university professors, leaders of ethnic minorities and civilians. Despite understanding of people’s deep cultural and religious sensitivities, they tempted fate by imposing a Marxist system of social reforms and welcomed the dispatch of Russian troops inside the country – instigating nationwide rebellion and mass migration of people to neighbouring countries, mainly to Pakistan and Iran.
The Afghan resistance coincided with the climax of the Cold War. As John K. Cooley, author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, points out: “The tacit consensus in USA was that the Muslim religion, fundamentally anti-Communist, if translated to politics, could be harnessed as a mighty force to oppose Moscow in the Cold War.”
The United States therefore forged an alliance with Pakistan’s then military government, which sought to topple the Russian-backed regime in Kabul and install its own mercenaries to enable expansion of Pakistan’s trade routes to Central Asia.
America thus fostered close ties with Islamic extremists and provided them with massive heavy and light military hardware – a relationship which went dreadfully wrong afterwards and led to creation of terrorist organisations allegedly responsible for many recent terror activities, including the 9/11 attacks on America.
Thousands of Islamists from the Arab world joined the Afghan mujahedin. According to John Cooley, CIA, unable to continue funding the mojahedin, promoted illicit drugs production and trade in tribal areas of Pakistan and remote Afghan provinces to keep the battle running – a policy that led to flourishing illegal business the world is striving to eliminate now. Thus Afghanistan changed into a hub for international drugs mafia and Arab fundamentalists, including al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
The 300,000 Russian troops and an annual aid of 3bn dollars failed to help Kabul suppress the mounting revolt. Thus they withdrew in 1989 in utter humiliation, leaving behind 15,000 deaths. The Afghan occupation is termed in Russian history as the beginning of the Union’s collapse. Author of Embattled America Richard Crockatt describes Afghanistan as the “Soviet Union’s Vietnam” – both in the failure on the battlefield and the collapse of consensus at home. The difference, according to him, was that the United States could afford such a failure, the Soviet Union could not.
Soon after Russian pull-out in 1989, America turned its back on Afghanistan. Kabul government fell in 1992, but disunity between mujahedin factions led to devastating civil war. And to depose the anti-Pakistan regime in Kabul, Pakistan hatched the monster of the Taleban in 1994. Taleban were an alliance of students at Pakistani madrassas (religious seminaries), previous Afghan resistance fighters, Arab extremist Islamists and even a handful of Chechen and Chinese Islamic fundamentalists. Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who had left Afghanistan in 1990, returned in 1996.
At first, the Taleban won the support of Pashtun population in the south by promising them peace, security and the rule of sharia law. But after they captured Kabul in 1996, they started a series of unprecedented atrocities and severe punishments – such as amputation of hands for theft, stoning to death for adultery, execution for sodomy, and flogging for those breaching their code of dress. They also banned music, movie and still pictures, certain sports, and worst of all, education and work for women. They destroyed two gigantic Buddha statues in Bamian Province in early 2001.
Although the world community had not recognised the Taleban government – with the exception of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates – it was not until the 9/11 incident that the world reacted to oust the brutal regime.
Following 9/11, America called on the Taleban to hand over Bin Laden, allegedly responsible for the assault. But the Taleban’s refusal led the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.
The US heavy air assault supported by ground troops of Northern Alliance, the sole anti-Taleban forces left, drove the Taleban out of Kabul in no time. But the Taleban were never eliminated. Some fled the country and took sanctuary in Pakistan, while others took off their turbans and melted into villages in the south and east.
They established safe havens in the Pakistani tribal areas and continued to regroup, recruit fighters, raise funds and re-supply their forces. But America failed to pressure Pakistan to crack down on their activities. Thus they regrouped and are now back to take revenge.
Hamed Karzai, appointed head of the Interim Authority at the Bonn Conference in 2001, won Afghanistan’s first free presidential elections in 2004. Yet five years since the fall of the Taleban, the president, with enormous international economic and military backing, is still struggling to establish nationwide security, promote national unity, boost shattered economy, disarm local warlords and tackle drugs production.
The rising insurgency mirrors Afghanistan’s turbulent history marked by centuries of conflict and violence. Bridging trade routes between the Indian subcontinent, Persian Gulf and Central Asia, Afghanistan has persistently suffered foreign interference and invasions. But despite suffering perpetual instability and anarchy, its rugged terrain and people’s patriotic and religious zeal have helped preserve the nation’s independence.
It seems unusual that conquerors as prominent as Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan suffered greatly to invade and control this small nation. It is also interesting to note that invading Afghanistan has caused many great empires to collapse.
The British in the 1800s and the Soviets in the late 1900s paid harsh prices for Afghanistan’s occupation. The British suffered three humiliating defeats, while the Russians were forced to withdraw and their empire collapsed right afterwards. The US-led coalition are therefore pursuing a battle of “hearts and minds” to prove themselves as peacekeepers, not occupiers, in order to avoid a similarly fatal fate.
Afghanistan is where Tsarist Russia and British Empire played the Great Game – but neither side succeeded. To prevent Russian influence, the British India East Company invaded Afghanistan in 1838 to oust King Dost Muhammad and install its own satellite regime in Kabul. But the occupation marked the beginning of a disastrous chapter in British military history. Only one out of the 16,000 British troops survived in retreat in the first Anglo-Afghan war. Afghanistan was then nicknamed “graveyard for foreign invaders”.
The lesson learned from all foreign invasion of Afghanistan is that it is easy to conquer the country, but rather difficult, and sometimes impossible, to control it, or get out of it with success.
But to avenge the massacre, Britain repeated the error of invading Afghanistan in 1878 – triggering the second Anglo-Afghan war. The British army conquered many Afghan provinces with ease, including the capital. But a similarly calamitous doom descended on the British army when a nationwide jihad was declared against them.
Nearly half of the British army of 2,600 were annihilated only in the southern city of Maiwand, a district of Helmand Province, where 3,300 British troops are now stationed.
The Taleban are now rekindling the past hostilities to turn the public against the British forces in the province. "The British have been defeated in the past. Afghans are not scared of death. The British are an old enemy of Afghanistan,” a local Taleban is quoted as urging people to fight the British in the region.
Afghanistan has always been an ultra conservative and hyper religious nation. Any attempts of modernisation have met stiff domestic opposition. Having declared independence from Great Britain in 1919, King Amanullah embarked on radical reforms aimed at curtailing the power of the clergy, imposing official dress code, and promoting democracy and women rights – efforts censured as acts of westernisation that led to his deposition in 1929. His successors remained cautious at brining any social changes.
Ironically, the resistance deprived Afghans of political and economic growth. According to Mark Urban, author of War in Afghanistan, Afghans failed to avail themselves of an infrastructure, an efficient civil service, an independent judiciary, an integrated national railway network and well-organised armed forces the British left behind where they colonised.
In 1893, the British also imposed the Durand Line treaty separating vast Afghan territories that now belong to Pakistan. Although Afghan leaders have repeatedly refused to accept the Durand Line as official boundary between the two nations before and after the expiration of the treaty in 1993, absence of a central government in Kabul has denied the country return of its lost territories.
Since the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, the Pakistani military and intelligence agency (ISI) have relentlessly strived to destabilise and weaken Afghanistan to maintain its national security and territorial integrity. “Military hardliners called me a 'security threat' for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan,” said Benazir Bhutto, former Pakistani Prime Minister.
The Durand Line has recently come to international limelight as the areas now under Pakistan’s control (Baluchistan, North West Frontier Province of Pakistan and Federal Administrative Tribal Areas) have turned into headquarters for Islamic extremists and al-Qaeda activists. Pakistani President Parvez Musharraf’s call for building fences along the borders in 2005 met fierce opposition of Pashtun tribes on both sides of borders, as well as that of the Afghan government. “Barbed wire is a symbol of hatred, not friendship and hence it cannot stop terrorism,” Afghan President Hamed Karzai pointed out.
Afghanistan’s independence from Britain followed five decades of relative peace and stability – which ended with the overthrow of King Zaher Shah in 1973.
Zaher Shah introduced a new constitution in 1964 stipulating freedom of expression and equal gender rights for the first time in history. Although Zaher’s 41-year reign is described as the most tranquil era in Afghan history, it was marred by intense economic mismanagement and political negligence. Thousands died in severe droughts in the north, while he was building palaces in Kabul and Italy. His weak administration also paved the way for Russian influence that led to an invasion in 1979.
Daud Khan’s coup d'état of 1973 put an end to the period of monarchy. He established a republican, devised a development marshal plan and sought closer relations with western nations - arousing the wrath of Russians. “I would be the happiest to light my American cigarette with Russian matches,” was his foreign policy motto. In his last meeting with Daud in April 1977 in Moscow, Russian President Leonid Brezhnev complained about Daud’s permission of experts and aid workers from NATO member countries in Afghanistan. Daud is quoted as replying:
“We will never allow you to dictate to us how to run our country and whom to employ in Afghanistan. How and where we employ the foreign experts will remain the exclusive prerogative of the Afghan state. Afghanistan shall remain poor, if necessary, but free in its acts and decisions.”
His souring relations with Russia led to his assassination by the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in April 1978.
PDPA’s bloody revolution saw the killing of thousands of the intelligentsia, Islamic scholars, university professors, leaders of ethnic minorities and civilians. Despite understanding of people’s deep cultural and religious sensitivities, they tempted fate by imposing a Marxist system of social reforms and welcomed the dispatch of Russian troops inside the country – instigating nationwide rebellion and mass migration of people to neighbouring countries, mainly to Pakistan and Iran.
The Afghan resistance coincided with the climax of the Cold War. As John K. Cooley, author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, points out: “The tacit consensus in USA was that the Muslim religion, fundamentally anti-Communist, if translated to politics, could be harnessed as a mighty force to oppose Moscow in the Cold War.”
The United States therefore forged an alliance with Pakistan’s then military government, which sought to topple the Russian-backed regime in Kabul and install its own mercenaries to enable expansion of Pakistan’s trade routes to Central Asia.
America thus fostered close ties with Islamic extremists and provided them with massive heavy and light military hardware – a relationship which went dreadfully wrong afterwards and led to creation of terrorist organisations allegedly responsible for many recent terror activities, including the 9/11 attacks on America.
Thousands of Islamists from the Arab world joined the Afghan mujahedin. According to John Cooley, CIA, unable to continue funding the mojahedin, promoted illicit drugs production and trade in tribal areas of Pakistan and remote Afghan provinces to keep the battle running – a policy that led to flourishing illegal business the world is striving to eliminate now. Thus Afghanistan changed into a hub for international drugs mafia and Arab fundamentalists, including al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
The 300,000 Russian troops and an annual aid of 3bn dollars failed to help Kabul suppress the mounting revolt. Thus they withdrew in 1989 in utter humiliation, leaving behind 15,000 deaths. The Afghan occupation is termed in Russian history as the beginning of the Union’s collapse. Author of Embattled America Richard Crockatt describes Afghanistan as the “Soviet Union’s Vietnam” – both in the failure on the battlefield and the collapse of consensus at home. The difference, according to him, was that the United States could afford such a failure, the Soviet Union could not.
Soon after Russian pull-out in 1989, America turned its back on Afghanistan. Kabul government fell in 1992, but disunity between mujahedin factions led to devastating civil war. And to depose the anti-Pakistan regime in Kabul, Pakistan hatched the monster of the Taleban in 1994. Taleban were an alliance of students at Pakistani madrassas (religious seminaries), previous Afghan resistance fighters, Arab extremist Islamists and even a handful of Chechen and Chinese Islamic fundamentalists. Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who had left Afghanistan in 1990, returned in 1996.
At first, the Taleban won the support of Pashtun population in the south by promising them peace, security and the rule of sharia law. But after they captured Kabul in 1996, they started a series of unprecedented atrocities and severe punishments – such as amputation of hands for theft, stoning to death for adultery, execution for sodomy, and flogging for those breaching their code of dress. They also banned music, movie and still pictures, certain sports, and worst of all, education and work for women. They destroyed two gigantic Buddha statues in Bamian Province in early 2001.
Although the world community had not recognised the Taleban government – with the exception of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates – it was not until the 9/11 incident that the world reacted to oust the brutal regime.
Following 9/11, America called on the Taleban to hand over Bin Laden, allegedly responsible for the assault. But the Taleban’s refusal led the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.
The US heavy air assault supported by ground troops of Northern Alliance, the sole anti-Taleban forces left, drove the Taleban out of Kabul in no time. But the Taleban were never eliminated. Some fled the country and took sanctuary in Pakistan, while others took off their turbans and melted into villages in the south and east.
They established safe havens in the Pakistani tribal areas and continued to regroup, recruit fighters, raise funds and re-supply their forces. But America failed to pressure Pakistan to crack down on their activities. Thus they regrouped and are now back to take revenge.
Hamed Karzai, appointed head of the Interim Authority at the Bonn Conference in 2001, won Afghanistan’s first free presidential elections in 2004. Yet five years since the fall of the Taleban, the president, with enormous international economic and military backing, is still struggling to establish nationwide security, promote national unity, boost shattered economy, disarm local warlords and tackle drugs production.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Afghanistan proving British Vietnam, British MP says
Afghanistan could prove a British Vietnam unless we pull out from the dangerous south immediately, a senior British politician has warned.
Labour MP Paul Flynn in an exclusive interview described the current international campaign in Afghanistan as a “mission impossible”, and sharply criticised US-led counter insurgency and counter narcotics policies in the country.
Support for the Afghan war is dramatically diminishing amongst British public and politicians as the country four years after the ouster of the Taleban is still teetering on the brink of anarchy and collapse.
“We are sending troops to defend Karzai, and his brother is a crook. If that becomes publicly recognised, the support for the war will drain away. That is a reality. We are propping up a very nasty regime. Not Karzai himself, but all his henchmen who run the provinces.”
Mr Paul, who served as government’s spokesman for social security before being elected to the House of Commons, believes the Afghan mission could not succeed because of “ill-conceived” US strategies. “Vietnam started a small thing. And there was assumption by the Americans that they could tell a country what kind of system they should have and there is the same arrogance there. They are trying to impose a system which is in America.”
He ascribed the recent surge in insurgency and violence to “counter-productive drug strategy” being implemented and warned of dire consequences if current forced eradication efforts are not halted. “It is an idiocy and it’s always been and idiocy. I said in 2001 that getting rid of poppies was idiotic… I would rather go to Afghanistan to get rid of al-Qaeda, but I have always been against poppy eradication. And if we go on we will lose lives.”
His scathing remarks come as the British troops recently sustained heavy casualties amid the deadliest Taleban offensive since the troops’ deployment to the turbulent province of Helmand last year.
He emphasised that drug problem could not be tackled on the supply side and called for robust international effort to reduce the demand in America and Europe. “This year there will be more heroin – the biggest harvest ever – yet the price of heroin on the streets of Britain is the lowest it has ever been. And it’s absolutely no good,” he pointed out. “Let’s say if they reduce the production by half in Afghanistan as they did something similar in Columbia, and what happened was that coca was the produced in Peru and Bolivia… It is still failing in Columbia. They have spent 4.7bn dollars in Columbia, but coca production increased by 20 per cent last year.”
Mr Paul, who has also worked as member of European Parliament, backs licensing opium cultivation for production of medicines – a proposal by the Senlis Council, an international security and development think tank. He is strongly against US drug policies being pursued in Afghanistan. He says the drug policy in Afghanistan is a “repeating error” of Columbia – what he termed as “Columbiaisation of Central Asia”.
The current eradication campaign combined with US planes bombing villages, according to Paul, has moved the local population closer to the Taleban.
Paul describes Afghanistan as a rouge nation that could not be run as a unified country. “To come to the sober conclusion, it can’t be run as a unified country. It will always be run by warlords, cooks and so on. And the best thing what America must consider is to deal with crooks.”
Paul recalled Russian MP’s warning at the outset of US invasion that America and its allies would face the similar fate Russia met in the 1980s. “When we first moved in, a Russian MP laughed and said well you conquered Afghanistan. He said we conquered Afghanistan in six days and we were there for ten years, and we left, 15000 Russian troops killed.” He also noted that there was a whole series of 200 years of invading armies coming in and leaving their death bodies behind – a calamitous fate, according him, awaiting foreign troops in the country at present.
British Secretary of Defence John Reid at his trip to Afghanistan early this year said that his troops would come back within three years “without firing a single shot”. Describing his remarks as “idiotic”, Paul said: “In any conflicts we go through this process where everyone underestimates the problem. In the First World War we said we would win by Christmas, and we were there for four years then.”
He also questioned coalition forces’ claims the casualties were Taleban fighters and said that they could be civilians. Increase in the number of civilian casualties is said to be another factor changing public opinion against foreign troops in Afghanistan. Mr Paul warned that consequences would be terrible if civilian casualties were not avoided in future. “They can’t win the war without the support of the local people,” he said.
Asked whether Pakistani President Parvez Musharraf was doing enough to crack down on Islamic extremists and terrorist elements on its soil, he replied: “I don’t see what advantage would be for him to have trouble and instability on its borders.” He however pointed out that while Musharraf had reacted on madrassas, he had yet to react on trainees.
He also criticised Afghan President Hamed Karzai for appointing “nasty officials” in key positions. “They are trying to strengthen the rule of Karzai and that seems another mission impossible, because he has appointed all these crooks to run this show.”
Paul called for immediate withdrawal of British troops from the volatile province of Helmand. Asked who could fill the vacuum of power to avoid a Taleban comeback, he said: “I don’t see a threat of the Taleban comeback. The Taleban are coming because Americans are there… I don’t think the Taleban need a base now or al-Qaeda needs one. They can run their operation from Somalia, Indonesia or Iran. There is no deterrent.”
When asked whether a British pull-out would mean British soldiers who died in the conflict so far died in vain, he replied: “Yes, they died in vain. So we mustn’t say we should wait for others to die in vain.”
Mr Paul criticised his government of following “flawed” US policies in Afghanistan and Iraq. “They also wasted lives in Iraq. If we had not followed George Bush into Iraq, 110 British would not have died in Iraq. But did they die in vain? Yes, they did die in vain. They achieved nothing. We are tied in to American policy, and American policy on drugs is columbiaisation.”
Labour MP Paul Flynn in an exclusive interview described the current international campaign in Afghanistan as a “mission impossible”, and sharply criticised US-led counter insurgency and counter narcotics policies in the country.
Support for the Afghan war is dramatically diminishing amongst British public and politicians as the country four years after the ouster of the Taleban is still teetering on the brink of anarchy and collapse.
“We are sending troops to defend Karzai, and his brother is a crook. If that becomes publicly recognised, the support for the war will drain away. That is a reality. We are propping up a very nasty regime. Not Karzai himself, but all his henchmen who run the provinces.”
Mr Paul, who served as government’s spokesman for social security before being elected to the House of Commons, believes the Afghan mission could not succeed because of “ill-conceived” US strategies. “Vietnam started a small thing. And there was assumption by the Americans that they could tell a country what kind of system they should have and there is the same arrogance there. They are trying to impose a system which is in America.”
He ascribed the recent surge in insurgency and violence to “counter-productive drug strategy” being implemented and warned of dire consequences if current forced eradication efforts are not halted. “It is an idiocy and it’s always been and idiocy. I said in 2001 that getting rid of poppies was idiotic… I would rather go to Afghanistan to get rid of al-Qaeda, but I have always been against poppy eradication. And if we go on we will lose lives.”
His scathing remarks come as the British troops recently sustained heavy casualties amid the deadliest Taleban offensive since the troops’ deployment to the turbulent province of Helmand last year.
He emphasised that drug problem could not be tackled on the supply side and called for robust international effort to reduce the demand in America and Europe. “This year there will be more heroin – the biggest harvest ever – yet the price of heroin on the streets of Britain is the lowest it has ever been. And it’s absolutely no good,” he pointed out. “Let’s say if they reduce the production by half in Afghanistan as they did something similar in Columbia, and what happened was that coca was the produced in Peru and Bolivia… It is still failing in Columbia. They have spent 4.7bn dollars in Columbia, but coca production increased by 20 per cent last year.”
Mr Paul, who has also worked as member of European Parliament, backs licensing opium cultivation for production of medicines – a proposal by the Senlis Council, an international security and development think tank. He is strongly against US drug policies being pursued in Afghanistan. He says the drug policy in Afghanistan is a “repeating error” of Columbia – what he termed as “Columbiaisation of Central Asia”.
The current eradication campaign combined with US planes bombing villages, according to Paul, has moved the local population closer to the Taleban.
Paul describes Afghanistan as a rouge nation that could not be run as a unified country. “To come to the sober conclusion, it can’t be run as a unified country. It will always be run by warlords, cooks and so on. And the best thing what America must consider is to deal with crooks.”
Paul recalled Russian MP’s warning at the outset of US invasion that America and its allies would face the similar fate Russia met in the 1980s. “When we first moved in, a Russian MP laughed and said well you conquered Afghanistan. He said we conquered Afghanistan in six days and we were there for ten years, and we left, 15000 Russian troops killed.” He also noted that there was a whole series of 200 years of invading armies coming in and leaving their death bodies behind – a calamitous fate, according him, awaiting foreign troops in the country at present.
British Secretary of Defence John Reid at his trip to Afghanistan early this year said that his troops would come back within three years “without firing a single shot”. Describing his remarks as “idiotic”, Paul said: “In any conflicts we go through this process where everyone underestimates the problem. In the First World War we said we would win by Christmas, and we were there for four years then.”
He also questioned coalition forces’ claims the casualties were Taleban fighters and said that they could be civilians. Increase in the number of civilian casualties is said to be another factor changing public opinion against foreign troops in Afghanistan. Mr Paul warned that consequences would be terrible if civilian casualties were not avoided in future. “They can’t win the war without the support of the local people,” he said.
Asked whether Pakistani President Parvez Musharraf was doing enough to crack down on Islamic extremists and terrorist elements on its soil, he replied: “I don’t see what advantage would be for him to have trouble and instability on its borders.” He however pointed out that while Musharraf had reacted on madrassas, he had yet to react on trainees.
He also criticised Afghan President Hamed Karzai for appointing “nasty officials” in key positions. “They are trying to strengthen the rule of Karzai and that seems another mission impossible, because he has appointed all these crooks to run this show.”
Paul called for immediate withdrawal of British troops from the volatile province of Helmand. Asked who could fill the vacuum of power to avoid a Taleban comeback, he said: “I don’t see a threat of the Taleban comeback. The Taleban are coming because Americans are there… I don’t think the Taleban need a base now or al-Qaeda needs one. They can run their operation from Somalia, Indonesia or Iran. There is no deterrent.”
When asked whether a British pull-out would mean British soldiers who died in the conflict so far died in vain, he replied: “Yes, they died in vain. So we mustn’t say we should wait for others to die in vain.”
Mr Paul criticised his government of following “flawed” US policies in Afghanistan and Iraq. “They also wasted lives in Iraq. If we had not followed George Bush into Iraq, 110 British would not have died in Iraq. But did they die in vain? Yes, they did die in vain. They achieved nothing. We are tied in to American policy, and American policy on drugs is columbiaisation.”
Friday, September 01, 2006
Afghanistan on brink of narco-state
Afghanistan is heading for a bumper opium harvest this year amid growing fears the country could become a narcotics state controlled by drugs cartels and warlords. Sharp increases projected demonstrate failure of the British-led counter narcotics mission that has cost more than two billion dollars since the ouster of the Taleban in 2001.
The UN’s annual world drug report 2006 indicates a 22% drop in world drug supply – with substantial reduction in Asia's Golden Triangle, the border zone between Burma, Thailand and Laos that was once the world's main drugs supplier area.
But Afghanistan’s drug situation, according to the executive director of United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), remains “vulnerable to reversal because of mass poverty, lack of security and the fact that authorities have inadequate control over its territory”.
Opium cultivation fell by 21 per cent last year after President Karzai declared jihad against opium poppies. But farmers resumed growing the illicit crop early this year because of worsening economic conditions and international community’s failure to provide them with alternative livelihoods assistance.
The lucrative business is believed to be funding terrorism and fuelling insurgency. “The various militias – local warlords, Taleban groups and others – all have the capacity to exert control over different aspects of the whole production process to access finance for their own purposes,” says Paul Rogers, professor of peace studies at the University of Bradford.
There is substantial evidence that many local farmers have joined the ranks of insurgents, as drug smugglers and the Taleban are said to be offering them protection and cash inducements to continue growing the illicit crop.
“Drug cartels now offer Afghan farmers more protection and incentives than aid agencies,” says Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani analyst of Afghan affairs and writer of the best seller ‘Taleban’.
The drug economy has also fuelled widespread corruption amongst government officials and undermined the government authority.
An official of Afghan Interior Ministry’s counter narcotics department speaking on condition of anonymity revealed that majority of the ministry’s personnel, local police chiefs and provincial governors are benefiting from the trade. “A network of drug smugglers have created a state within the state and are crippling the government apparatus,” he said, adding that it was too difficult for the president to remove “these corrupt powers”. He also said that many drug smugglers captured were released within days as they had close links with high-ranking officials.
In addition to security, the drug business is seriously hampering the smooth implementation of reconstruction, development and democratisation process as well. “Afghanistan's huge drug trade severely impacts efforts to rebuild the economy, develop a strong democratic government based on rule of law, and threatens regional stability," the US State Department report recently concluded.
Drug addiction is on alarming increase in Afghanistan. A joint survey by UN and Afghan authorities last year estimated nearly one million addicts across the country. This is at a time when addiction treatment facilities in the country are almost non-existent.
Dangers resulting from the multi-billion-dollars trade are not just confined to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan produces 87 percent of world opium production. Almost 90 percent of heroin consumed in Britain, according to Drugscope, originates in Afghanistan. A BBC survey recently learned that three quarters of people in the UK have problem with drugs in their area – almost all of which are smuggled from Afghanistan.
Britain has been leading the counter narcotics campaign in Afghanistan since 2002. But all initiatives taken so far have failed to tackle the booming trade – ranging from soft approaches such as offering compensation and incentives to harsh ones like aerial spraying of poppy fields with herbicide.
“There is no short-term fix, and it at least needs a five or ten-year programme.
You also have to bear in mind the fragile state, and you have to be prepared for the high risks,” warns Labour MP Ann Mcketchin.
She believes the problem could not be addressed only through use of force. “Thailand at one time produced a lot, and now it doesn’t. It is because it established an alternative economy and also provided incentives for farmers to join the legal economy. It is a carrot and stick approach.”
While British officials rule out forced eradication without provision of alternative livelihoods, their American counterparts are emphasising to wipe out opium fields with crop-spraying planes – a controversial approach that not only met stiff opposition of Afghan farmers but also caused health hazards to local communities in 2004when the scheme was tested in Afghanistan for the first time.
But many analysts reject the militaristic approach to tackle the opium crisis and warn of terrible consequences. They argue that such measures have failed in Columbia – where chemical spraying of coca fields made millions of people destitute, yet the price of cocaine is still dropping in world markets.
UN figures suggest that two million Afghans are engaged in opium poppy cultivation. Many farmers say they are willing to stop opium cultivation if they are provided with an alternative source of income. Infertile land, grinding poverty, family debts, chronic droughts and lack of agricultural facilities such as irrigation systems have made them helpless to continue with the illegal trade. Opium prices exceeded 200 dollars per kilogram last year, which means the revenue from opium is at least ten times as much as that from wheat and other licit crops.
Thus the question remains as to how the monster of drugs could be defeated.
To tackle the illegal production and trafficking of opium in Afghanistan, the Senlis Council, a European drug and security policy forum, is proposing licensing Afghan opium for the production of opium-based medicines such as morphine and codeine.
The council’s executive director Emmanuel Reinert says the licensing scheme could not only turn the illegal Afghan opium economy to a “legitimate, medicinal market”, but also help tackle acute deficit of morphine-based painkillers around the world.
Opium licensing system, according to the think tank, would not only contribute to resolving the Afghan opium crisis, but also help boost its shattered economy, facilitate reconstruction process and establish the rule of law by reducing the amount of opium flowing into illegal market and into the hands of insurgents.
The proposal however has yet to meet approval of UK and American officials – who believe that the system could not be implemented successfully under currently inadequate law enforcement agencies in Afghanistan. The officials argue that the central government has not yet established its complete rule in provinces to control the system and avoid diversion of drugs into illegal market.
Although the licensing scheme has been rejected in the past, British officials are urging for reconsideration of the proposal as forced eradication efforts not only failed but recently undermined security and escalated insurgency as well.
Foreign troops are encountering the fiercest insurgency in southern Afghanistan since the fall of the Taleban in 2001. Much of the disaster is blamed on forced eradication drive that has antagonised local farming communities and is believed to have driven farmers into the hands of the Taleban. And if the current militaristic approach is continued without substantial aid to farming communities, Afghanistan is feared to lapse back into anarchy and chaos.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Afghanistan in danger of Taleban comeback
Security in Afghanistan is dramatically deteriorating as resurgent Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters are regaining control over most of southern Afghanistan. The nature of insurgency has changed from sporadic attacks by a few hundred Taleban fighters last year to an open warfare led by thousands of Taleban guerrillas this year. Mullah Dadullah, Taleban’s chief commander in the south, claims to have 12,000 armed men and 20 provincial districts under his command.
Massive international efforts have failed to wipe out flourishing drugs trade – allowing the insurgents to enormously benefit from the illicit business and fund their subversive activities.
The question arises as to why Afghanistan is facing resurgent Taleban and mounting violence despite huge international military and financial aid to bring peace and stability to the war-shattered country.
Ill-conceived strategy
The resurgence of Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters almost five years after the US military intervention toppled the regime indicates that the international campaign in Afghanistan is not moving on the right direction, if not failing.
Afghan President Hamed Karzai has recently called on the international coalition to rework its strategy in Afghanistan. His plea comes amid mounting insurgency and violence in the south. NATO’s commander in chief in Afghanistan, General David Richards, has also talked about NATO’s plan to reconsider its strategy in Afghanistan.
US-based Human Rights Watch’s latest report on Afghanistan says that the surge in violence was both predictable and avoidable. According to the report, the US-led coalition has failed to provide ordinary Afghans with political and economic stability – a vacuum exploited by the Taleban and warlords for their own ends.
Analysts criticise the strategy of US-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq, reasoning that a military approach could not be a solution to the problem of terrorism, but that the danger should be tackled through effective political administration and eradication of causes of terrorism.
In Afghanistan, the decision to expand NATO forces throughout the country is deemed to have led to a rise in insurgency and instability. “I think the increase of foreign troops in the south, and mistakes in their military operations have caused insecurity in the county, and made the situation worse,” says Hamidullah Tarzi, a former Afghan cabinet minister.
An independent study after the fall of the Taleban found that 80 per cent of ordinary Afghans were backing the new Afghan government as well as presence of international peacekeeping forces.
In sharp contrast, a recent field survey by the Senlis Council revealed that 80 per cent of people in the south were now supportive of the Taleban and were against foreign troops – complaining that the coalition has brought no development to their areas apart from continued fighting and destruction.
According to Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani analyst of Afghan affairs, the Taleban now offer more protection and incentives to the local population than the international coalition in Afghanistan.
The radical change in public opinion could also be attributed to US harsh military tactics. An Afghan Interior Ministry’s official, requesting anonymity, revealed that many of those killed by US air strikes were civilians not Taleban fighters.
“The increasing number of civilian deaths… has directly contributed to the disintegration of local population’s confidence in the international troops,” said Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of Senlis Council, an international security and development think tank. “The US has lost yet more of the support of the local people with the blood of innocent civilians on their hands.”
Mr Reinert also warned that consequences would be “irreparable” unless the currently forced eradication of poppy crops stopped. “Conflicting drug, development and security policies are making Afghanistan spiral into chaos,” he recently told a press conference in London. “The growing violence shows that the current approach in Afghanistan is simply not working. The international community needs to go back to the drawing board and rework its approach in Afghanistan.”
British military offices have recently expressed worries that coalition’s persistent air strikes and deadly clashes could reawaken memories of Soviet occupation that instigated mass rebellion across the country in the 1980s. “There is a lot of suspicion,” said senior British officer in southern Helmand province. “There is a danger that people will see us as the new Soviets.” These concerns are mounting at a time when American warplanes are relentlessly bombing villages to kill suspected Taleban fighters.
Safe havens in Pakistan
One main reason for the surge in insurgency is that the Taleban were ousted from power after the US air attacks in October 2001, but they have never been totally defeated. Some temporarily laid down arms and disguised as civilians, while majority continued to have a safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
According to analysts, although the international coalition continued to fight the remnants of the Taleban and al-Qaeda elements inside Afghanistan, it has done little to crack down on terrorists’ training camps, sources of finance and military headquarters in Pakistan.
While the Taleban and their al-Qaeda allies were regrouping, recruiting fighters from Pakistani madrassas (religious seminaries) and Afghan refugee camps, training new fighters and suicide bombers and raising funds for their operations on the other side of the border, the coalition troops were celebrating their illusory victory in Kabul.
America’s negligence to pressure Pakistan to close down terrorist camps on its soil and outlaw extremist religious groups, such as Lashkar Taiba, accused by the US Department of State of sponsoring terrorism in the region, has allowed the Taleban and al-Qaeda elements to seek support of these religious groups to re-establish their rule in Pakistan-Afghanistan border. And now they are back with a vengeance.
Analysts say that although America pressured Pakistan to capture key al-Qaeda elements in its territory, it has not made any attempts to make the Pakistani officials deal with the Taleban leadership in Pakistan tribal areas. And assuming that international coalition would not stay long in Afghanistan, Pakistani strategists tried to keep alive the Taleban in case the county lapsed back into anarchy and fell into the hands of non-Pashtun factions that strongly oppose Pakistan.
Now the Taleban enjoy broad support of not only al-Qaeda elements operating in Pakistan but also Pakistan’s fundamentalist political parties such as Jamiat-e Ulema-e Islami, which came to power in Baluchistan in 2002 general elections and holds key positions within Pakistani government.
War on Iraq
The US invasion of Iraq is deemed to have been a major distraction and obstacle to Afghanistan’s security and reconstruction process.
Just months after the ouster of the Taleban from Kabul and before eliminating the remnants of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the United States decided to wage a war against Saddam Hussein’s regime.
In early 2002, the United States reportedly started to withdraw its Special Forces and advanced military and surveillance equipment from Afghanistan in preparation for the invasion of Iraq. The distraction allowed the Taleban and al-Qaeda remnants to establish sanctuaries in Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan (FATA).
Furthermore, after the collapse of Saddam’s government, donor countries’ attention was diverted towards Iraq’s post-conflict rehabilitation. Thus Afghanistan did not receive sufficient amount of international aid for reconstruction and state building process.
Although billions of dollars have been pledged to Afghanistan by the international community at the Tokyo summit and recently at the London conference, a recent study found that international aid equalled less than 60 dollars per person in Afghanistan, as compared to 250 dollars in Iraq.
Poverty
Poverty is described as a source of instability and a breeding ground for terrorism in Afghanistan. The removal of the Taleban has helped end Afghanistan’s political isolation, but the country continues to suffer grinding poverty, as the pace of reconstruction has been terribly sluggish.
Despite receiving billions of dollars of international aid, Afghanistan is ranked 173rd out of 178 nations on the UN’s Human Development Index – with only five African countries listed lower.
According to UN estimates, life expectancy in Afghanistan is 44.5 years; one out of two Afghans can be classified as poor; 20.4 per cent of the rural population does not have enough to eat; one in five children dies before age five – 80 per cent of them from preventable diseases; and 3.6 million people remain refugees or internally displaced.
Analysts say that people’s poor living conditions and lack of any assistance by the government and international community have driven the local communities into the hands of the Taleban, who offer them protection and cash inducements. Government’s forced eradication of their opium poppy crops has further exacerbated the situation.
Senlis Council, an international security and development think tank, has recently called on international community to deliver an “emergency aid package” to southern
Afghanistan in order to quell rising security tension. “Southern Afghanistan urgently needs an injection of financial aid earmarked for the short-term relief of conditions of extreme poverty in which many people live,” says council’s executive director Emmanuel Reinert.
The US invasion ended brutal rule of the Taleban five years ago, but it has failed to bring peace, stability and development to the multi-decade-war-battered nation. According to findings of a field study by the Senlis Council, people have started losing confidence in the central government and the Taleban are now considered real power holders in the south. Although US-led coalition’s chief commander, Gen Karl Eikenberry, has recently emphasised that “the United States will not leave Afghanistan until the Afghan people say the job is done”, the decision to pull out some 4,000 US troops by the end of the year has given rise of speculation that the Taleban are winning.
A recent study by Senlis council concluded that the recent rise in insurgency demonstrated failure of policies implemented by the international community in Afghanistan, especially the key players – the United States, UK, NATO, the UN, Karzai’s administration and neighbouring country Pakistan.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Afghanistan facing deadly Taleban offensive
Afghanistan is seeing the deadliest insurgency since the ouster of the Taleban in 2001, raising fears that the country could lapse back into anarchy and chaos.
More than 200 people are reported killed over the past week in a spate of clashes between insurgents and coalition troops in the south. Around 60 Taleban fighters and dozens of civilians have died in a US air strike in southern Kandahar province over the past 24 hours.
The upsurge in violence comes as NATO is preparing to take over control from the US-led coalition by the end of July.
The string of assaults started last Wednesday in southern Helmand Province, where 3,300 additional British troops are being deployed. The British troops were reported not to have been involved in the fighting.
The Taleban appear to be more powerful than at any time since their downfall in 2001. The ferocity and sophistication of their spring offensive has taken the Afghan government and its international allies by surprise.
Much of the unrest is blamed on Pakistan. “Pakistani intelligence gives military training to people and then sends them to Afghanistan with logistics," Afghan President Hamed Karzai told a crowd in eastern Konar Province last week.
Colonel Chris Vernon, chief of staff for southern Afghanistan, endorsed Karzai’s remarks, describing the Pakistani city of Quetta as the “major headquarters” for the resurgent Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters.
Earlier Henry Crumpton, coordinator for counterterrorism at the US Department of State, had also expressed concern that Taleban and al-Qaeda leaders were using parts of Pakistan as a haven for their terrorist activities. "Has Pakistan done enough? I think the answer is no," Crumpton said at the US Embassy in Kabul. Pakistani officials, however, have repeatedly denied all the accusations.
Recent reports indicate that insurgents in Afghanistan import tactics from Iraq, what is termed by some western analysts as “Iraqisation” of Afghanistan. Suicide attacks, once unknown to Afghans, have reached epic proportions, as three happened just over the past week. One occurred last week in the generally peaceful province of Herat in the west, alarming that violence, once restricted to the south, is spiralling all over the country.
In addition to hundreds of Afghan troops, 31 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year, most of them Americans. The rise in foreign casualties raises the concern that certain NATO member countries would refuse to extend their mission in Afghanistan. The killing of the first Canadian servicewoman last week occurred right after the country’s parliament narrowly voted for extension of their military mission in Afghanistan until 2009.
The deteriorating security also hampers reconstruction efforts as the Taleban have repeatedly targeted aid workers. They beheaded an Indian engineer last month.
Analysts predict a shortage of foreign aid in the near future. This is at a time when Afghanistan, according to UN estimates, produces only eight per cent of its annual expenditure through domestic revenues and illicit drugs trade constitutes 54 per cent of its GDP.
Last Saturday, NATO’s top military commander warned that Afghanistan was on the brink of becoming a narco-state. “It is not the resurgence of the Taliban but the linkage of the economy to drug production, crime, corruption and black market activities which poses the greatest danger for Afghanistan,” General James Jones pointed out.
Forced eradication of opium poppy crops without providing the farming communities with alternative livelihood assistance is thought to have fuelled insurgency. According to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), more than two million Afghan rural population feed on the illicit drugs cultivation. The Taliban recently offered protection for their opium fields provided that they cooperated with them. The incentives are feared to drive the farmers closer to the insurgents.
The rise in the number of civilian casualties in the coalition operations is allegedly another factor setting the local communities against the government and foreign troops. A US air strike yesterday killed at least 16 non-combatants in the district of Azizi in southern Kandahar.
Analysts have repeatedly warned that the Taleban could use civilian deaths as a recruiting tool. The insurgents have already launched a propaganda campaign to amass local support. A Taleban commander last month warned the local people of British occupation and described Britons as “an old enemy of Afghanistan”.
Increasing local support with the Taleban and al-Qaeda terrorists is extremely worrying. Leader of Hezb-e Eslami Golbuddin Hekmatyar, the most influential leader of Jihad era in the 1980s, recently declared support with the Taleban and al-Qaeda. “We hope to participate with them [Taleban and al-Qaeda] in a battle that they lead. They hold the banner and we stand alongside them as supporters," Hekmatyar said in a tape shown on Al-Jazeera.
The insurgents have stepped up attacks amid intense public dissatisfaction with current reconstruction efforts. Much of the 12bn foreign aid over the past four years have been wasted on short-term, ineffective projects, or squandered by government and nongovernmental organisations. More than seven million people, according to UN estimates, suffer grinding poverty and 53 per cent live on almost half a dollar a day. The growing public anger at the slow pace of reconstruction and acute poverty are described as the winning card for the Taleban.
The United States toppled the Taleban in 2001, after the regime refused to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, blamed by Washington for having masterminded the 9/11 attacks. It has however failed to bring peace and stability in the country shattered by three decades perpetual wars and anarchy.
More than 200 people are reported killed over the past week in a spate of clashes between insurgents and coalition troops in the south. Around 60 Taleban fighters and dozens of civilians have died in a US air strike in southern Kandahar province over the past 24 hours.
The upsurge in violence comes as NATO is preparing to take over control from the US-led coalition by the end of July.
The string of assaults started last Wednesday in southern Helmand Province, where 3,300 additional British troops are being deployed. The British troops were reported not to have been involved in the fighting.
The Taleban appear to be more powerful than at any time since their downfall in 2001. The ferocity and sophistication of their spring offensive has taken the Afghan government and its international allies by surprise.
Much of the unrest is blamed on Pakistan. “Pakistani intelligence gives military training to people and then sends them to Afghanistan with logistics," Afghan President Hamed Karzai told a crowd in eastern Konar Province last week.
Colonel Chris Vernon, chief of staff for southern Afghanistan, endorsed Karzai’s remarks, describing the Pakistani city of Quetta as the “major headquarters” for the resurgent Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters.
Earlier Henry Crumpton, coordinator for counterterrorism at the US Department of State, had also expressed concern that Taleban and al-Qaeda leaders were using parts of Pakistan as a haven for their terrorist activities. "Has Pakistan done enough? I think the answer is no," Crumpton said at the US Embassy in Kabul. Pakistani officials, however, have repeatedly denied all the accusations.
Recent reports indicate that insurgents in Afghanistan import tactics from Iraq, what is termed by some western analysts as “Iraqisation” of Afghanistan. Suicide attacks, once unknown to Afghans, have reached epic proportions, as three happened just over the past week. One occurred last week in the generally peaceful province of Herat in the west, alarming that violence, once restricted to the south, is spiralling all over the country.
In addition to hundreds of Afghan troops, 31 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year, most of them Americans. The rise in foreign casualties raises the concern that certain NATO member countries would refuse to extend their mission in Afghanistan. The killing of the first Canadian servicewoman last week occurred right after the country’s parliament narrowly voted for extension of their military mission in Afghanistan until 2009.
The deteriorating security also hampers reconstruction efforts as the Taleban have repeatedly targeted aid workers. They beheaded an Indian engineer last month.
Analysts predict a shortage of foreign aid in the near future. This is at a time when Afghanistan, according to UN estimates, produces only eight per cent of its annual expenditure through domestic revenues and illicit drugs trade constitutes 54 per cent of its GDP.
Last Saturday, NATO’s top military commander warned that Afghanistan was on the brink of becoming a narco-state. “It is not the resurgence of the Taliban but the linkage of the economy to drug production, crime, corruption and black market activities which poses the greatest danger for Afghanistan,” General James Jones pointed out.
Forced eradication of opium poppy crops without providing the farming communities with alternative livelihood assistance is thought to have fuelled insurgency. According to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), more than two million Afghan rural population feed on the illicit drugs cultivation. The Taliban recently offered protection for their opium fields provided that they cooperated with them. The incentives are feared to drive the farmers closer to the insurgents.
The rise in the number of civilian casualties in the coalition operations is allegedly another factor setting the local communities against the government and foreign troops. A US air strike yesterday killed at least 16 non-combatants in the district of Azizi in southern Kandahar.
Analysts have repeatedly warned that the Taleban could use civilian deaths as a recruiting tool. The insurgents have already launched a propaganda campaign to amass local support. A Taleban commander last month warned the local people of British occupation and described Britons as “an old enemy of Afghanistan”.
Increasing local support with the Taleban and al-Qaeda terrorists is extremely worrying. Leader of Hezb-e Eslami Golbuddin Hekmatyar, the most influential leader of Jihad era in the 1980s, recently declared support with the Taleban and al-Qaeda. “We hope to participate with them [Taleban and al-Qaeda] in a battle that they lead. They hold the banner and we stand alongside them as supporters," Hekmatyar said in a tape shown on Al-Jazeera.
The insurgents have stepped up attacks amid intense public dissatisfaction with current reconstruction efforts. Much of the 12bn foreign aid over the past four years have been wasted on short-term, ineffective projects, or squandered by government and nongovernmental organisations. More than seven million people, according to UN estimates, suffer grinding poverty and 53 per cent live on almost half a dollar a day. The growing public anger at the slow pace of reconstruction and acute poverty are described as the winning card for the Taleban.
The United States toppled the Taleban in 2001, after the regime refused to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, blamed by Washington for having masterminded the 9/11 attacks. It has however failed to bring peace and stability in the country shattered by three decades perpetual wars and anarchy.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Shall we celebrate or mourn?
Today marks the 14th anniversary of Mujahedin’s taking over power in Afghanistan.The Afghan people feel ambivalent about whether to celebrate today for the victory of mujahedin over the communist-backed regime one and a half ago, or lament over colossal material and human loss they inflicted afterwards.
Afghan Mujahedin after 15 years of struggle succeeded to end the Soviet-backed regime and enter Kabul in 1992. Subsequent domestic violence and factional fighting, however, marred their triumph.
President Karzai speaking at a ceremonial gathering in Kabul today urged the opposition to lay down arms and join the peace process.
He ascribed the mounting insurgency and violence to backstage conspiracies of “foreign circles” and called on Afghans not to be "deceived by their intrigues". He however did not mention any specific country.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Woman presides over parliament
A woman today presided over the Afghan parliament for the first time in history. Deputy Parliament Head Fouzia Kofi’s presidency at the ultra-conservative parliament dominated by former mojahedin leaders marks an unprecedented revolution.
Afghan women have suffered unique hardship over the past decades. They have almost always been denied their basic rights. With the exception of the communist-backed regime in 1980s, women have never had presence in socio-political arena.
This move is therefore an encouraging step to promote women’s equal rights and participation in political sphere. It demonstrates a fundamentally positive change in radically religious figures’ attitudes towards women.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Afghanistan's media
Independent media and freedom of expression have rarely been present in Afghanistan. Governments, except during the “Era of Democracy” in 1960s, have always controlled the media and used them as a propaganda tool for their own ends. Afghanistan’s media could be divided into five different historic eras.
I. Evolution of Journalism (1868):
The first newspaper in Afghanistan, “Shamsulnahar”, was published in 1868 during the reign of Amir Shir Ali Khan. Its successor, Sarajul-Akhbar, was founded by a renowned Afghan poet and literary figure, Mahmud Terzi, in Amir Habibullah’s reign in 1893.
In 1929, radio was established in Afghanistan, which was the first radio station in the region. Afghanistan’s first news corporation, Bakhtar Information Agency (BIA), was established in 1939.
II. Era of Democracy (1960s):
The decade of 1960s is known as the “Golden Era” in Afghanistan’s history. Freedom of the media was for the first time stipulated in the 1964 constitution, and free press flourished throughout the country.
The first English newspaper was published during this period. The golden era, however, was soon terminated by the 1973’s coup and subsequent communist coup in 1978.
III. Soviet Invasion (1978 - 1992):
This period is known as the “Sovietisation” of Afghanistan’s journalism. The media has yet again suffered a strict ban.
However, Ahmad Rashid, a senior member of Far Eastern Economic Review, argues: “… despite certain setbacks, the period was also an important and positive time for the growth of the media in Afghanistan. Most notably, this period saw a large influx of equipment and infrastructure development… The period introduced a new generation of Afghans to careers in journalism through Soviet training programmes.”
IV. Media under the Taleban (1995 – 2001):
The Taleban closed down all independent media. The state’s radio and television broadcast only religious programmes and news about the Taleban’s activities.
Furthermore, media equipment imported during the communist era was destroyed during the factional fighting between mojahedin and subsequently by the Taleban. The Taleban banned photography and music.
The television and radio programmes were not popular with the audience and this has resulted in a tremendous tendency towards foreign media.
V. Post-Taleban media:
The media has flourished in Afghanistan since 2001. Freedom of speech and expression reappeared after years of censorship and a strict ban on free media under the Taliban. The print media has fared better than the broadcast media.
More than 200 publications are currently printed throughout the country. However, the quality of the print media remains very poor because of the lack of government support for the private media and the lack of any other sources of finance, as a paper retailing at 10 cents costs at least 30 or 40 cents to produce.
As a result, most of the current newspapers gradually lose their independence and become affiliated with political parties.
Independent media:
"The state of media in Afghanistan today is not zero, it is minus zero,...Internews has a done a great job in Central Asia, Indonesia and other parts of the world where they have helped create independent media. It is critical that we extend that work to Afghanistan where much of what we think of as 'journalism' has been destroyed.” (Rashid, 2002)
The last four years have been a conducive atmosphere for the private media to prosper in Afghanistan. However, there are almost no financially independent papers; governmental agencies, international organizations, or political parties either sponsor most…" (Newsweek, 2004)
Political Challenges:
Although freedom of speech and freedom of expression are enshrined in the new Afghan constitution, the media still faces political pressure and constraints. The government has immense influence on the private media. According to Reporters Without Borders, the media is “under the government’s thumb”.
Furthermore, Afghanistan is an ultra-conservative Islamic country. Ariana and Tolo, two independent television channels, have several times received threats and warnings by individuals, government authorities, local warlords and even the Afghan Supreme Court.
Economic factors:
Newspapers in Afghanistan have very low circulation. Television, too, is viewed in limited provinces because of lack of electricity. Furthermore, advertisement is not yet a lucrative business for the media industries in Afghanistan.
Almost all newspapers, periodicals, radio and television channels are dependent on foreign donors’ funding. Surveys and studies by the Internews have shown that many media company owners in Afghanistan are not clear about their economic strategy.
Social challenges:
The Afghan audience is largely fragmented. In the capital, people would like to view entertainment programmes, mostly Indian and western films and music. The case is very similar in certain provinces, especially in the north.
In the south and southeast, however, people are extremely conservative and they dislike any programmes counter to their religious and traditional values. This creates a fundamental problem to the all television channels to meet the demands of their audience.
Technological factors:
Compared to the state-run broadcasting studios that still use outdated Russian equipment, private broadcasters are well-equipped with modern technology. However, in order to deliver a better service and communicate with the outside world, they need further advanced equipment.
Conclusion:
Independent media have flourished over the past four years, but they are still struggling for sustainability. No independent newspapers or broadcasters are self-sufficient. They receive funds from government institutions, political parties, or foreign organisations.
This adversely affects the independence of the private media outlets. Advertisement is not yet a highly profitable business for the media organisations in Afghanistan.
However, private media still generate a quarter of their expenditures through advertisement4, while state-run media do not make even one per cent of their expenses through advertisement.
Although private media have recently mushroomed in Afghanistan, their future appears to be pretty volatile, as they solely rely on external funding. Most media company owners are not clear about their economic strategy and lack expertise in broadening their audience and generating income through commercial means.
Despite the fact that the Afghan constitution and media law re-modified early this year endorse freedom of media, journalists continue to suffer pressure from government authorities and religious sects.
Recommendations:
- Workshops on business management of the media should be convened for private media sector personnel.
- Audience research projects should be carried out so that media organisations recognise their audience well.
- Distribution network should be expanded and developed.
- Newspapers should be made available at lower prices at academic places to increase circulation.
- Seminars on use of Hi-tech equipment should be held by foreign donor agencies.
- Newspapers with small circulation that share similar editorial agenda should merge in order to ensure their future existence.
- Because Afghanistan has always had a tradition of state-run media, even professional Afghan journalists are not very familiar with norms and principles of free and independent media. Thus, special workshops on free media should be organised for editors of media organisations.
- Both print and broadcast media should set up websites for their coverage in order to better communicate with the outside world and market their products as well.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Warning: We're facing a peace epidemic
Relax and enjoy the insurgency. You'll be surprised to know that we're living in the most tranquil time in decades.The recent wave of sectarian violence has brought Iraq to the brink of civil war. In Afghanistan terrorists have stepped up attacks and regained control over many provinces. Tension over Iran’s nuclear ambition signals yet another devastating war.
The Middle East conflict appears to be unending. And grinding poverty, unremitting genocide and several intrastate conflicts continue to threaten civilians in Africa. Few, then, will doubt that the world security is getting worse.
But contrary to what appears to be conventional wisdom, two independent security reports have revealed that the world is more peaceful than at any time since the Second World War.
The reports by the University of British Columbia’s Human Security Centre (HSC) and the University of Maryland’s Peace and Conflict Report 2005 have drawn similar conclusions.
The HSC report indicates that there has been a dramatic and sustained decline in the number of armed conflicts since the end of the Cold War. “Over the past dozen years, the global security climate has changed in dramatic, positive, but largely unheralded ways. Civil wars, genocides and international crises have all declined sharply.”
It continues: “Notwithstanding the horrors of Rwanda, Srebrenica and elsewhere, the number of genocides and politicides plummeted by 80% between the 1988 high point and 2001... The number of refugees dropped by some 45% between 1992 and 2003, as more and more wars came to an end.”
The findings of the University of Maryland’s Peace and Conflict Report are quite similar. “The decline in the global magnitude of armed conflict, following a peak in the early 1990s, has persisted… Major societal wars are down from twelve at the end of 2002 to eight in early 2005.”
It is worth noting that UN’s 2005 annual Human Development Report has also concluded that the world security, health and economic conditions have got better.
“ Life expectancy in the developing world has lengthened by two years, child mortality rate has dropped considerably, and most importantly, more than 130 million people have been rescued from extreme poverty.” Despite the rapid spread of AIDS, the report claims, health hazards are on a sharp decline.
Andrew Mack, who directed the HSC report, says that despite prevailing security threats around the world, peace is breaking out all over. “It is not surprising that most people believe global violence is increasing. However, most people, including many leading policymakers and scholars, are wrong,” he says.
Mack, who was UN’s strategic planning chief, blames the media for presenting an incorrect image of global security. He says: “The global media give far more coverage to wars that start than to those that quietly end.” He also criticises international security organisations for “not collecting global or regional data on any form of political violence”.
He argues that over the past 15 years the number of armed conflicts has fallen by 40 per cent, genocides by 80 per cent and people displaced around the world by 45 per cent.
Mack ascribes the sharp decline to the UN’s conflict resolution and peacekeeping efforts in the aftermath of the Cold War. He says that despite the UN failures in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Somalia, the world body has a 40 to 60 per cent success rate in stopping conflicts.
Many security analysts and scholars have backed the HSC report. Austin Bay, a US strategic analyst, says: “The January 2005 Palestinian and Iraqi elections… were not the revolutions of generals with tanks and terrorists with fatwas (Islamic religious decrees), but the slow revolutions of the ballot box… These revolts were the beginning of democratic politics, where ‘jaw jaw’ begins to replace ‘war war’ and ‘terror terror’…”
Both security reports, however, agree that despite a significant decrease in conflicts, international terrorism appears to be getting worse. But the HSC report argues that the death toll resulted from international terrorism is exaggerated.
“Like genocide, terrorism is directed primarily against civilians. But although the focus of enormous attention, international terrorism has killed fewer than 1,000 people a year, on average, over the past 30 years.”
Certain international groups and scholars, however, have contested the findings of the report. The International Crisis Group’s 2005 security report has shown that ten conflict situations around the globe had deteriorated, while only five had improved.
Roger, a professor at the University of Bradford’s Peace Studies Department, points out: “The HSC report is sufficiently reliable for us to conclude that there is less conflict than 10 years ago, but the problem is that we may be in a lull in violence made worse by the policies embedded in the war on terror being likely to set up extended conflicts, as we are seeing both in Afghanistan and Iraq and may shortly see in Iran.”
It appears that there is a general consensus that terrorism is the biggest threat to human security today. Although, as the report indicates, the number of conflicts and violence has decreased significantly, people almost everywhere fear threats posed by terrorist networks.
For more information and comments on HSC report, refer to the following link:
http://www.humansecuritycentre.org
Leave your comments about whether you agree with the report.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Bush and Karzai at a religious showdown
An Afghan citizen threatened with execution for rejecting Islam has been released amid intense international outcry. Italy granted asylum to Abdul Rahman, 41, who was charged with converting to Christianity, as his life would be at risk in Afghanistan. Apostasy is punishable by death under the interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
The sensitive case had placed Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a political dilemma, as he was under extreme pressure of both his western allies calling for the man’s release and religious conservatives at home demanding his execution.
President Bush last week said that he was “deeply troubled” over the Christian Afghan’s fate, while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Karzai to seek a “favourable solution at the earliest possible moment”.
“US forces did not help liberate Afghanistan from the Taleban rule so that conservative Islamic judges could issue death sentences against people because of their religious beliefs,” Bush pointed out.
Australian Prime Minster John Howard warned that he could not be friend of any nation that could “advocate killing someone for changing his faith”.
Although Karzai stressed the case was to the judiciary to decide, many believe he personally intervened to dismiss the case.
Abdul Rahman’s case was a blow to the Afghan government’s effort to balance international laws with Islamic religious codes – which are both enshrined in the new Afghan constitution.
Although the Afghan Supreme Court said the accused was released on technical and health grounds, the decision unleashed a storm of protests across the country condemning the “western interference” into the matter.
"Western countries have occupied nations, destroyed their political and social systems and killed thousands of people so that people would conform to their civilisation or their pattern of thinking ... While doing so, why did they not bother about honouring the universal principle of freedom," asked an influential cleric Shahnewaz.
Abdul Rahman converted to Christianity when he worked with a Christian aid organisation in Pakistan 16 years ago. He then moved to Germany.
He was arrested last week in Kabul after he returned to take the custody of his two daughters living with his family.
His family refused to let him take his children because he reportedly forced his children to convert to Christianity.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Afghan convert to be ‘released’
An Afghan Christian facing possible death penalty will be released, Afghan officials say.
Abdul Rahman is charged with conversion from Islam to Christianity. Apostasy is subject to capital punishment under the Islamic sharia law. Many Afghan judiciary officials and clerics have demanded Abdul Rahman be sentenced to death.
Since the beginning of the trial, the Afghan government has been under serious international pressure.
Pope Benedict XVI has called on the Afghan president to “show clemency” towards Abdul Rahman.
Last week President Bush urged President Karzai to find a “favourable resolution” to the issue.
The decision is however quite tough for Karzai, as he needs to keep happy both his international allies and Afghan religious conservatives.
Abdul Rahman converted to Christianity almost 12 years ago when working with a foreign organisation in Pakistan.
He was arrested in Kabul last month after a family row over who to take care of his children. His family are reported to have refused to submit the children to him.
Some Supreme Court officials have said the suspect will be released on health grounds. They say he is not psychologically fit.
Abdul Rahman is charged with conversion from Islam to Christianity. Apostasy is subject to capital punishment under the Islamic sharia law. Many Afghan judiciary officials and clerics have demanded Abdul Rahman be sentenced to death.
Since the beginning of the trial, the Afghan government has been under serious international pressure.
Pope Benedict XVI has called on the Afghan president to “show clemency” towards Abdul Rahman.
Last week President Bush urged President Karzai to find a “favourable resolution” to the issue.
The decision is however quite tough for Karzai, as he needs to keep happy both his international allies and Afghan religious conservatives.
Abdul Rahman converted to Christianity almost 12 years ago when working with a foreign organisation in Pakistan.
He was arrested in Kabul last month after a family row over who to take care of his children. His family are reported to have refused to submit the children to him.
Some Supreme Court officials have said the suspect will be released on health grounds. They say he is not psychologically fit.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Foreign Minister Abdollah says he's "happy with Karzai's decision"
Former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdollah Abdollah has said President Karzai's decision to remove him from the cabinet is "understandable". Dr Abdollah was replaced by Dr Dadfar Spanta in the recent cabinet reshuffle. He told the BBC that he welcomed Karzai's changes to the cabinet.
He added that he would back the current development and security process despite his absenece in the government.
Dr Abdollah's positive reaction is very encouraging as it shows that the culture of war and hostility is being replaced by the culture of diplomacy and tolerance.
Previously, when officials were removed or demoted, they would certainly take an offensive stance.
But now they try to achieve their political ends through legitimate and peaceful means rather than to take the path of confrontation.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Afghan foreign minister has been dropped off in the recent cabinet reshuffle. Dr Abdollah has been replaced by Dr Dadfar Spanta, Karzai's adviser on foreign affairs.
Many observers see the exclusion of Dr Abdollah with both surprise and scepticism, as he was one of the ministers that has scored notable achievements over the past four years.
Dr Masuda Jalal, former minster of women's affairs, and two other female minsters have also been excluded. The new cabinet only has one new female member, Dr Suraya Sohrang.
Karzai has time and again been censured by opponents for appointing senior officials on the basis of ethnic and tribal relations. It is therefore feared that the removal of Dr Abdollah, an ethnic Tajik, could unleash a wave of criticism.
Many observers see the exclusion of Dr Abdollah with both surprise and scepticism, as he was one of the ministers that has scored notable achievements over the past four years.
Dr Masuda Jalal, former minster of women's affairs, and two other female minsters have also been excluded. The new cabinet only has one new female member, Dr Suraya Sohrang.
Karzai has time and again been censured by opponents for appointing senior officials on the basis of ethnic and tribal relations. It is therefore feared that the removal of Dr Abdollah, an ethnic Tajik, could unleash a wave of criticism.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Bird flu reaches Afghanistan
The lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu has been confirmed in Afghanistan, recent reports reveal. A test on bird flu samples confirmed at least six cases of the virus in eastern Jalalabad city early this week.
Although no human cases have so far been detected throughout the country, it is feared that hundreds of thousands of people will perish once the virus is transmitted to humans.
Cases of bird flu have already been found in neighbouring Pakistan and India. India last week closed down hundreds of thousands of poultry farms after the virus was tested positive in many chickens.
The Afghan government has imposed a ban on the import of chickens from Pakistan.
The Afghan Ministry of Health lacks resources and facilities to prevent the pandemic.
Further, most of the Afghan population do not have any knowledge of the disease. There is therefore a dire need for launching public awareness campaigns on the virus.
Bearing in mind the government's inability to cope with the lethal disease, the UN and the international community should take urgent, precautionary measures before it is too late.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Osama movie review
Have you seen Osama? Don't get astonished. I'm talking about the movie, not Bin Laden. Don't miss it. It's really worth watching.
Osama is a fairly grim portryal of life under the Taliban. Like The Pianist, Osama shows how religious fundamentalism ruins the entire aspects of life and how it deprives citizens of their basic rights and daily life pleasures.
The The film tells the tragic tale of a destitute widow tempting fate by sending her 12-year-old daughter to make a living, ignoring the terrible consequences.
The little girl, now called Osama, undergoes a horrible time as she struggles to hide her female identity from the Taliban to avoid severe punishment.
Zobaida, 38, has lost all her male family memebers over the long years of war, including her husband. She worked as a nurse at a local hospital, but she can not work now as the Taliban totally banned women from working outside home. Life becomes appallingly difficult for Zobaida, as she has no income source to feed her two young children and widowed grandmother.
So finally the grandmother comes up with an idea for survival. She asks Golbahari to cut her hair short and dress up like boys and find a job to earn a living for the family.
“If the Taliban realise I am a girl, they will defintely kill me,” says the little girl filled with fear and hesitation. “If you do not work, we all will die,” says the grandmother in an attempt to encourage the girl.
Golbahari, now named Osama, finds a job at a local shop quite soon. The idea helps the poor family to scrap a living for a while, but they can not fight the destiny.
Everything turns into a nightmare when the Taliban begin rounding up young people from streets for military training and religious indoctrination. Osama is also drafted into an army training school.
Here begins the most tragic scenes of the film. Osama faces a hard time in the training camp and offen harrased and bullied by other school boys, because of her feministic characteristics.
Despite all intolerable harassment and hardship, she has to conceal her female identity to avoid terrible punishment, perhaps a death penalty.
The film is directed by Seddiq Barmak, a professional Afghan filmmaker with a degree in Arts from Russia in 1980s. Most of the key characters of the film are non-professional Afghans.
Even the protagonist, Marina Gulbahari, was hired from an orphanage. Marina’s natural performance with a face full of gloomy emotion and sad feeling adds make the film resemble a documentary.
What makes the film a masterpiece is its simple but truthfully tragic story. Although the story of the film is confined to story of a single family suffering under the Taleban - just a tip of the iceberg - it depicts the real image of life under the oppressive Taliban regime.
It demonstrates that the women were denied of all basic rights under the Taliban, and that they preferred to die rather than to live such a horrible life. “Wish God had never created women,” says the desperate mother with extreme grief and pessimism.
In many cases, the natural scenes of the film make it resemble a documentary. No brave heart can stand not shedding tears seeing a little girl fighting for her life and being mercilessly brutalized by savage extremists.
Osama is an unbearably sad story, beautifully turned into a documentary-like film. Although some critics have underscored several imperfections of the film, the award-winning movie is doubtlessly a brilliant start to rebuild the shattered Afghan film industry and cultural heritage.
Osama is a fairly grim portryal of life under the Taliban. Like The Pianist, Osama shows how religious fundamentalism ruins the entire aspects of life and how it deprives citizens of their basic rights and daily life pleasures. The The film tells the tragic tale of a destitute widow tempting fate by sending her 12-year-old daughter to make a living, ignoring the terrible consequences.
The little girl, now called Osama, undergoes a horrible time as she struggles to hide her female identity from the Taliban to avoid severe punishment.
Zobaida, 38, has lost all her male family memebers over the long years of war, including her husband. She worked as a nurse at a local hospital, but she can not work now as the Taliban totally banned women from working outside home. Life becomes appallingly difficult for Zobaida, as she has no income source to feed her two young children and widowed grandmother.
So finally the grandmother comes up with an idea for survival. She asks Golbahari to cut her hair short and dress up like boys and find a job to earn a living for the family.
“If the Taliban realise I am a girl, they will defintely kill me,” says the little girl filled with fear and hesitation. “If you do not work, we all will die,” says the grandmother in an attempt to encourage the girl.
Golbahari, now named Osama, finds a job at a local shop quite soon. The idea helps the poor family to scrap a living for a while, but they can not fight the destiny.
Everything turns into a nightmare when the Taliban begin rounding up young people from streets for military training and religious indoctrination. Osama is also drafted into an army training school.
Here begins the most tragic scenes of the film. Osama faces a hard time in the training camp and offen harrased and bullied by other school boys, because of her feministic characteristics.
Despite all intolerable harassment and hardship, she has to conceal her female identity to avoid terrible punishment, perhaps a death penalty.
The film is directed by Seddiq Barmak, a professional Afghan filmmaker with a degree in Arts from Russia in 1980s. Most of the key characters of the film are non-professional Afghans.
Even the protagonist, Marina Gulbahari, was hired from an orphanage. Marina’s natural performance with a face full of gloomy emotion and sad feeling adds make the film resemble a documentary.
What makes the film a masterpiece is its simple but truthfully tragic story. Although the story of the film is confined to story of a single family suffering under the Taleban - just a tip of the iceberg - it depicts the real image of life under the oppressive Taliban regime.
It demonstrates that the women were denied of all basic rights under the Taliban, and that they preferred to die rather than to live such a horrible life. “Wish God had never created women,” says the desperate mother with extreme grief and pessimism.
In many cases, the natural scenes of the film make it resemble a documentary. No brave heart can stand not shedding tears seeing a little girl fighting for her life and being mercilessly brutalized by savage extremists.
Osama is an unbearably sad story, beautifully turned into a documentary-like film. Although some critics have underscored several imperfections of the film, the award-winning movie is doubtlessly a brilliant start to rebuild the shattered Afghan film industry and cultural heritage.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Afghanistan's profile
Afghanistan has suffered long years of perpetual conflicts, infighting and foreign invasions over the last three decades.Situated between the Middle East, Indian sub-continent and Central Asia, the landlocked and mountaineous land has always been the centre of attention and fought over by world superpowers as well as neighbours.
Afghanistan served as a battlefield between the Imperial Russia and the British Empire in India in the 19th century, and subsequently between the Soviet Union and the USA in 1980s.
The last decades of devastating wars and anarchy have left the country's infrastructure, economy and political and social apparatus in ruins - a daunting challenge for the newly elected administration to rebuild them.
Karzai's adminstration, with extensive support of the west, is at pains to expand its rule all across the country, establish the rule of law and bring nationwide stability, while the Taliban and Al-Qa'idah insurgents have recently stepped up insurgency in an attempt to hamper the smooth implementation of reconstruction and development drive.
FACTS:
Population: 26 million (UN, 2005)
Capital: Kabul
Area: 650,000 sq km
Major languages: Pashto, Dari (Persian)
Major religion: Islam (Sunni Muslim 80%, Shia Muslim 19%)
Independence: August, 1919
Life expectancy: 46 years (men), 46 years (women) (UN)
Monetary unit: 1 Afghani = 100 puls (50 Afghani = 1 US dollar)
Main exports: Fruit and nuts, carpets, wool, opium
Chronological events at a glance:
50,000 BC - 20,000 BC: Archaeologists have discovered evidence of stone age technology in Afghanistan.
2000 BC - 1500 BC: The city of Kabul is believed to have been established during this era.
600 BC: Zoroaster introduces a new religion in Bactria (north of Afghanistan), which worships fire.
50 AD: Under King Kanishka Graeco-Buddhist Gandharan culture reaches its peak.
652 AD: Arab conquerors introduce Islam to Afghanistan.
962 - 1030: Under the Ghaznavid Dynasty (962-1140), Afghanistan becomes the centre of Islamic power and civilisation.
1219 - 1221: Genghis Khan invades Afghanistan and turns the highly civlised land of the time into a desert.
1747 - 1773 : Rule of Ahmad Shah Abdali (Durrani). Ahmad Shah consolidates and enlarges Afghanistan. Durrani's empire extended from Central Asia to Delhi, from Kashmir to the Arabian sea. It became the greatest Muslim empire in the second half of the 18th century. He was the first to demarcate the Afghan borders.
1839 - 1842: First Anglo-Afghan War. Afghans kills Shah Shuja, a puppet king installed by the British. Afghans rise against the British, and in January 1842, only one Britih soldier, out of 16,500, survives and returns to British-controlled India.
1893: The Durand Line Treaty is signed between Afghan leader and British India, splitting Afghan tribal areas, leaving half of these Afghans in what is now Pakistan. The treaty expired in 1993, but due to choas and anarchy in Afghanistan, the territory still remains with Pakistan.
1919 - 1929: Afghans defeat the British in the final deadly battle and gain full independence. Amanullah Khan, titled as the hero of the battle, comes to the throne.
1973: Daud Khan abolishes King Zahir's monarchy and declares himself as the president. Thereafter, the Russian influence speeds up and permeates every state department.
1978: Communist coup: Daud is killed, and a Russian-backed administration takes over. Tension, murder, arrest, torture and choas reach epidemic proportions. Afghan mujahedin groups are formed and they rise against the leadership.
1992: Mujahedin topple Dr Najibullah's regime and take over Kabul. Infighting starts and millions of Afghans leave country and take asylum in neighbouring countries and the West.
1995 - 2001: The Taliban are formed by the Pakistani harline religious groups. They take over major parts of Afghanistan and finally get to the throne. Afghanistan suffers the most brutal era of fundamentalism and attrocity.
October, 2001: US attacks Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, accused of harbouring terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attack on USA.
2002: A transitional administration led by Hamid Karzai is appointed to lead the country until the 2004 presidential election.
2004: Incumbent Hamid Karzai wins the first Afghan democratic election with a landslide majority of 54%.
2005: The first democratically parliament in 30 years is formed.
Drugs threat in Afghanistan
Afghanistan is in danger of becoming a narcotics state controlled by terrorists and drugs lords. The multi-billion-dollar trade constitutes nearly 60% of Afghanistan's GDP. It hampers the reconstruction drive, and is very detrimental to the country’s volatile security and nascent democracy.
The looming risk is not just confined to Afghanistan, but it also poses a serious threat to the world. Approximately 85% of heroin consumed in the UK originates in Afghanistan.
Failed attempts:
Karzai has repeatedly urged the world to assist the Afghan farmers, so that they voluntarily abstain from growing illicit crops.
Britain last year took the initiative to provide the Afghan farmers with alternative livelihoods assistance. But the scheme not only brought no result, but provided the farmers with more money to grow more opium in next season.
Harsh approaches like bulldozing poppy fields by US troops not only stirred up farmers’ resentment, but also triggered to health problems in the region.
Dr Axel Klein, former head of International Unit at Drugscope, describes the spraying of herbicides as an "inexcusable down-ride" form of eradication.
Fearing potential consequences, President Karzai called a halt to use of force and aerial spray of pesticides.
Why, then, despite all massive efforts of the Afghan government and international community, is the war on drugs doomed to failure?
Corruption:
There are several reasons making the mission impossible. One is involvement of senior government officials in this lucrative business.
“The illicit business has permeated every stratum of the government apparatus,” says the spokesman of the Afghan human rights commission.
He believes the war on drugs will bring no result unless government officials involved in the business are sacked and punished.
Ali Ahmad Jalali, former Afghan interior minister, resigned after failing to convince the president to reveal the identity of senior officials allegedly involved in drugs business.
Another reason is widespread corruption crippling the state departments, especially the judiciary.
The British ambassador to Afghanistan, Dr Rosalind Marsdin, recently called on the Afghan government to form a special tribunal to prosecute those involved in drug trade. But the proposal has yet to be put into action because of lack of professional legal experts.
Ill-conceived strategy:
Many experts believe that the war on drugs lacked effective strategy. “The US-led war on drugs has failed because it is based on an unreasonable approach and wrong policy,” says Rymond Kendall, former Secretary General of Interpol.
Kendall urges the international community and the UN to rethink their counternarcotics policy in Afghanistan. He advocates "medicalising" rather than "criminalising" drugs in Afghanistan”.
Licensing scheme:
Senlis Council, an European think thank, has recently advocated licensing Afghan opium crops and diverting them from "the black market" to "legitimate medicinal markets".
“Our preliminary feasibility assessment gives a green light for licensing scheme,” says the council’s executive director Emmanuel Reinert.
He sees the licensing scheme as the mere solution to the durgs issue in Afghanistan, and warns that forced eradication will have adverse effects on security situation.
Many drug experts support the Senlis Council’s proposal because the scheme can not only boost the Afghan economy, but also address the shortage of opium-driven medicines like morphine and codeine in the world.
Some analysts and drugs experts are, however, sceptical whether the licensing programme could be successfully implemented under weak Afghan legal framework.
But despite certain constraints, the proposal for licensing warrants close attention. The council's proposal has yet to be approved by the Afghan authorities and the US.
As mentioned above, Afghanistan is facing a real danger. And if not tackled, it will soon lapse back into anarchy and a haven for international terrorist networks.
The drug problem in Afghanistan could not be a short-term fix, so the international community should devise a lonT-term, practical mechanism to wipe out the danger before it is too late.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Afghanistan's uncertain future
Four years after the ouster of the Taliban, Afghanistan is still suffering instability and choas. Worsening security, endemic corruption and lawlessness are hampering progress and development in the wor-torn country.
Despite billions of international aid over the past four years, the country has not yet achieved security, political and economic stability. . There is growing concern that many international donor countries will stop assisting Afghanistan unless the situation is better.
Security
The Taliban and Al-Qa'idah terrorists have re-grouped and intesified attacks on the government and international forces all across the country, particularly in southern frontier regions bordered with Pakistan. The central government has failed to expand its rule all over the country, while the Taliban insurgents are gaining control over major remote areas. Many provinces are still controlled by warlords accused of war crimes and rights abuses in the past.
The extra deployment of NATO forces has not helped pacity sourthern regions bordered with Pakistan. Terroists cross the border, carry out attacks, and return to the Pakistani tribal areas without being caught.
There is plenty of speculation that Pakistan still train and support the Taliban and terrorist groups to destabalise Afghanistan. The world should therefore rethink its approach in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan. It should tack down and eliminate terrorist training camps in the Pakistan territory, rather than to fight them in vain in Afghanistan.
Unhealthy parliament:
Many Afghans had pinned their hopes on the new parliament to tackle the current shortcomings and establish the rule of law and justice.
However, their hopes vanished after they saw senior Taliban members and known criminals and rights abusers of the past in parliament.
To many Afghans, the new parliament is a combination of warlords, Taliban criminals and a handful of technocrats and reformists. After the presidential election, Presiden Karzai was hoped to sack warlords and corrupt official from key positions, but he has done little in this respect so far.
It is widely beleived that the new Afghan parliament will be one of the most controversial assemblies in world history.
Economy:
The last decades of war and choas have shattered the Afghan economy. The country's economy solely relies on the foreign aid and informal drugs trade - which makes 60$ of Afghanistan's GDP. Corruption is rife in all the deparments, and most of the international aid has been wasted and looted. It is believed that Afghanistan could not survive for a year if donor countries stop supporting it.
Women's rights:
Majority of the Afghan women still suffer abuse, murder and forced marriages. They still have not enjoyed their fundamental rights endorsed in the constitution. The limited number of women present in the socio-political arena in the capital and certain provinces could not represent the entire Afghan women population.
More than 90 per cent of women are still confined inside the four walls and treated as nothing more than a chattel and baby-machines.
They are still victims of ill-conceived religious and traditional codes and deprived of their basic rights. It is possible to improve women's situation only by providing education and vocational training opportunities, particularly in the remote and most underdeveloped areas.
Poverty:
Poverty is deemed to be the key factor behind Afghanistan's instability. It was poverty that helped Al-Qa'idah terrorist network to gain a foothold in the country and recruit unemployed, illiterate young people for their vicious ends.
The link between poverty and growth of terrorism has not been assessed prudently. It is observed that terrorist groups recruit people from poorest communities and take advantage of their miserable lives.
The fight aganist the Taliban may have been successful, but the battle against poverty has been an utter failure. Despite billions of the international aid, majority of the Afghan population are jobless and suffer poverty.
More than 70% of the international aid is either squandered on fruitless projects or looted by the national and international NGOs. Poverty forces the Afghan young people to quit education and work to make a living for their family.
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