- "If you harbor a terrorist, if you support a
terrorist,
if you feed a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorists. And the
Taliban found out what we meant," U.S. President George W. Bush told
military personnel in Fort Stewart, Ga., on Sept. 12.
-
- But now all Afghans have found out what it means, as
U.S.-backed warlords keep alive the Taliban's legacy: Two years after the
start of U.S. bombing to topple the Taliban, the United States is replacing
the former terrorist state with yet another of its own design.
-
- Less than a year away from planned elections in
Afghanistan,
UN Rapporteur Miloon Kothari accused U.S.-backed Afghan warlords of
demolishing
homes and grabbing land. Kothari named Afghan Defense Minister Mohammad
Qasim Fahim and Education Minister Younis Qanooni as offenders, calling
for their removal from office this Sept. 13. In a quick backpedal, however,
the head of the UN in Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, said a day later that
Kothari had gone too far in naming ministers.
-
- U.S.-Backed Warlords Keep Alive Taliban's Legacy
-
- Still, Kothari's accusation confirms what human rights
and political organizations have been repeating for months. The Afghan
Human Rights Commission, established by U.S.-backed Afghan President Hamid
Karzai this June, also corroborates the demolishing, calling it a
"clear
abuse of human rights." The BBC correspondent to Afghanistan said
the accusation of bulldozing homes "has hit a nerve among Afghans,
tens of thousands of whom are homeless after more than two decades of war.
Many have just returned from refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran to find
their homes occupied by commanders and their cronies."
-
- But who are Qasim Fahim, Younis Qanooni, and the various
other men, distinguished by the title of warlords? Many were commanders
in the Northern Alliance opposition to the Taliban. Fahim and Qanooni are
both successors to Ahmed Shah Masood, the charismatic warlord hailed by
many as the probable future leader of Afghanistan in a post-Taliban nation,
had he lived. Masood was the most powerful figure in the Mujahedeen party
Jamiat-i Islami and was involved in the indiscriminate killing of thousands
of civilians during the civil war of 1992-1996. For example, according
to the U.S. State Department's 1996 report on human rights practices in
1995, "Masood's troops went on a rampage, systematically looting whole
streets and raping women" after the capture of Kabul's predominantly
Hazara neighborhood of Karte Seh.
-
- The cooperation of warlords such as Fahim and Qanooni
was central to U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom and in fact they were paid
off by the United States and Britain in return for supporting Karzai and
fighting against the Taliban. In July 2002, the UK Observer "learnt
that 'bin bags' full of U.S. dollars have been flown into Afghanistan,
sometimes on RAF planes, to be given to key regional power brokers who
could cause trouble for Prime Minister Hamid Karzai's administration.
Paying
the warlords for their services has triggered clashes among groups eager
to win patronage from the United States. In some areas commanders have
been told they will receive a top-of-the-range $40,000 pick-up truck--a
local status symbol--if they can prove they have killed Taliban or al Qaeda
elements."
-
- In addition to monetary and other bribes, former Northern
Alliance commanders were rewarded with high positions in the Afghan
government.
Fahim and Qanooni won their posts as ministers of Defense and Education
in the summer 2002 loya jirga council to select a transitional government,
where U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad played a central role to ensure
that Karzai and the Northern Alliance remained in power. But no sooner
had the Taliban been defeated than Fahim's men were busy looting cash and
other equipment sent to the central interim government. Fahim has also
been keeping the Taliban's legacy alive. According to Human Rights Watch,
in December 2002, troops loyal to Gen. Fahim, "have been enforcing
Taliban-era 'moral' restrictions" such as "forbidding families
from playing music at weddings and dancing, and in some cases arresting
and beating musicians."
-
- Clearly the cooperation of these warlords has come at
a price that the Afghan people are bearing. According to Brad Adams,
executive
director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, "Human rights
abuses in Afghanistan are being committed by gunmen and warlords who were
propelled into power by the United States and its coalition partners after
the Taliban fell in 2001."
-
- Afghans Suffering from Government Abuses
-
- Loya jirga citizen delegate Omar Zakhilwal, in a
Washington
Post opinion piece on the naming of Karzai as president and the doling
out of top posts to Northern Alliance commanders, asked the following
question:
"Will the new government be dominated by the same warlords and
factional
politics responsible for two decades of violence and impunity, or can we
break with this legacy and begin to establish a system of law and
professional
governance?"
-
- Unfortunately the answer to Zakhilwal's question is the
former scenario of domination by warlords in the government, assisted by
U.S. policies. The expansion of the multilateral International Security
Assistance Forces (ISAF) outside the capital Kabul, which could have
reduced
the power of the warlords, has been stymied by the United States for over
a year, despite warnings from the international community, nongovernmental
organizations, ordinary Afghans, and even Karzai. The mounting insecurity
in the countryside has left ordinary Afghans still desperate for relief,
not simply from Taliban remnants and lack of resources, but primarily from
members of a government foisted upon them by their so-called
"liberators."
-
- A report released in July by Human Rights Watch entitled
"Killing You is a Very Easy Thing for Us," details the abuses
of Afghan civilians at the hands of the U.S.-backed warlord-ministers.
"The testimony of victims and witnesses implicates soldiers and police
under the command of many high-level military and political officials in
Afghanistan. These include Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the minister of Defense;
Hazrat Ali, the military leader of the Eastern Region; Younis Qanooni,
the minister of Education; Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former president of
Afghanistan; and Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf, a powerful former mujahedeen
leader to whom many of the officials involved in the documented abuses
in Kabul city and province remain loyal."
-
- The most vulnerable members of Afghan society have felt
little relief since the toppling of the Taliban in 2001. Two million
refugees
have returned to Afghanistan, encouraged by the UNHCR (United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees) and their countries of residence. In some cases
refugees were coerced to return. For most, the return home has been met
with disappointment due to poverty, joblessness, and lack of housing.
Afghan
women and girls, while enjoying a certain measure of freedom since the
Taliban's reign ended, still feel threatened. HRW interviewed hundreds
of women and girls and discovered that "on many occasions when Human
Rights Watch asked women and girls if they were, in fact, studying,
working,
and going out without burqas, many said that they were not. This was
especially
true in rural areas. Most said this was because armed men have been
targeting
women and girls. Men and women told Human Rights Watch that women and older
girls could not go out alone and that when they did go out they had to
wear a burqa for fear of harassment or violence, regardless of whether
they would otherwise choose to wear it. And in Jalalabad and Laghman,
certain
government officials have threatened to beat or kill women who do not wear
it."
-
- Additional abuses of Afghan civilians include arbitrary
arrests; torture; kidnapping; rape; armed robbery; home invasions;
extortion
of shop keepers, taxi drivers, truck and bus drivers; beatings; illegal
seizure, and land occupation. There have also been political threats and
arrests, press restrictions, and other violations of democratic and human
rights. HRW summarizes,
-
- "Although many observers have noted the harmful
effects of chronic insecurity in Afghanistan, few have sufficiently
appreciated
the extent to which continuing insecurity, at its heart, is due to policies
and depredations of local government actors. Human Rights Watch found
evidence
of government involvement or complicity in abuses in virtually every
district
in the southeast, ...[but] serious human rights violations of the kind
detailed in this report are not confined to the southeast--they are taking
place throughout Afghanistan... Many prominent Afghan commanders,
officials,
and former mujahedeen leaders, including officials in the Afghan Ministry
of Defense, Ministry of Interior, and the intelligence agency, the Amniat-e
Melli, are responsible for or are implicated in many of the
abuses..."
-
- On the second anniversary of the U.S. bombing of
Afghanistan
this October 7, the status of the first target in the War on Terror is
nothing for Bush and friends to write home about. To date, none of the
warlords has ever been held accountable for terrorizing the Afghan
population.
They have instead been rewarded by the United States with high-level
positions
in the government. Bush, in his address to U.S. military personnel in Fort
Stewart, Ga., on Sept. 12, said: "In Afghanistan, America and our
broad coalition acted against a regime that harbored al Qaeda and ruled
by terror. Ö Thanks to our men and women in uniform, Afghanistan is
no longer a haven for terror." But far from liberating the Afghan
people, the United States has clearly ensured that terror remains alive
in Afghanistan. Washington has empowered Karzai, a Pashtun leader
representative
of the demographics of the largest ethnic majority, and crippled him by
simultaneously empowering warlords with ugly human rights records. These
warlords have predictably returned to old practices with impunity.
-
- Afghans Warned of Warlord Abuses
-
- "We were happy after the collapse of the Taliban...
We thought there would be peace and stability. But nothing has changed...
[Afghan warlords] fight among themselves for their own goals. Their victims
are innocent people. We are very angry," said 25-year-old Tajik
Rasood,
who was shot one year ago in the cross fire of resumed in-fighting between
warlords.
-
- In its statement in November 2001, soon after the fall
of the Taliban, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
(RAWA) said, "The world should understand that the Northern Alliance
is composed of some bands who did show their real criminal and inhuman
nature when they were ruling Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996... The NA will
horribly intensify the ethnic and religious conflicts and will never
refrain
to fan the fire of another brutal and endless civil war in order to retain
power." Clearly, as Human Rights Watch and other organizations prove,
RAWA's prediction has come true.
-
- Only a few days before RAWA issued its statement, the
U.S. Department of State released a fact sheet on the "Taliban's
Betrayal
of the Afghan People." In it were listed in detail the crimes
committed
by the Taliban, and RAWA's documentation of Taliban crimes was cited,
including
its vast online database of photos, videos, and testimonies. Strangely,
while the State Department found RAWA's documentation of Taliban crimes
credible enough to cite, it has not made a single mention of RAWA's
extensive
documentation of the crimes of Northern Alliance warlords, such as Qanooni,
Fahim, Masood, and others.
-
- RAWA's position is bolstered by voices from among the
Afghan public. A survey conducted by the Center for Economic and Social
Rights (CESR) in May 2002 found that many Afghans "expressed concern
that the UN had sanctioned the return to power of brutal and corrupt
warlords,
both in Kabul and at the local level. They insisted that without an
international
force to maintain peace, disarm warlords, oversee the transition to a more
representative government, and establish mechanisms for human rights
accountability,
Afghanistan was likely to slide into renewed war once the world's attention
shifted to the next global crisis." That crisis came in the form of
the war on Iraq and today Afghans' worst fears have been realized.
-
- Afghanistan's Future Appears Doomed
-
- Afghanistan was a test case for the U.S. war in Iraq,
hailed as a success story by Bush, U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and
other U.S. warlords. But clearly the lessons learned have not been how
best to stabilize a country to pave the way for democracy, rather on how
best to create havoc through purposeful negligence and criminal government
actors with the prime losers being ordinary, war-weary civilians. In the
CESR survey, only 20% of Afghans thought that Afghan authorities, either
central or local, should be primarily responsible for reconstruction
efforts
to ensure human rights. "These results reflect deep distrust of
government
authorities but also high hopes that the international community will
follow
through on public commitments to assist Afghanistan."
-
- Unfortunately the high hopes of the Afghan people have
been dashed. In a Tokyo meeting in early 2002, donor countries pledged
$4.5 billion in aid to Afghanistan over 2.5 years. This translated into
$40 to $80 per capita, and is a pittance compared with the $200 to $300
per capita pledged to victims of conflict in the Balkans, Occupied
Palestine,
and East Timor. In fact, the World Bank and UN have estimated the
war-ravaged
country's reconstruction needs at between $13 billion and $19 billion.
Additionally, much of the original $4.5 billion from the pledges made in
Tokyo has not come through, with donors citing security concerns, hampered
of course by U.S. refusal to expand the ISAF. Recently, in response to
growing criticism, the Bush administration pledged $1.2 billion to
reconstruction
efforts in Afghanistan. Contrast this number with the $11 billion allocated
for the military operation in Afghanistan.
-
- Aside from reconstruction and other serious physical
needs, an Afghan dream of peace and democracy remains unattainable,
clashing
with the interests of the world's only super-power-empire. Efforts to draft
a new constitution and preparations for elections in 2004 will be seriously
deterred in the current climate of fear generated by U.S.-backed Afghan
warlords--unless there is an immediate disarmament or intervention by the
international community. Already Karzai has postponed the approval of a
new Afghan constitution by two months, and the current draft has not even
been made public.
-
- As it did in Iraq, Washington has clearly thwarted any
attempts to bring stability or democracy to the country it claims to have
liberated. An engineer from the Ghazi province reflected on the future
of Afghanistan, a future that is doomed unless U.S. policies are
drastically
changed: "In the loya jirga, 85% of the elected were with the
warlords,
or were warlords. If the international community takes no action to correct
this situation, those elected in the [2004] elections will be 100%
warlords."
-
- The same engineer also asked some crucial questions:
"Will warlordism end, or will it grow stronger? Will ISAF and the
United States deal with warlordism, or let it strengthen? What assurances
can we have for future elections?" The answers to these questions
will determine whether the Afghan people are destined for peace and
democracy
or for continued devastation engineered by their so-called
"liberator,"
the United States.
-
- - Sonali Kolhatkar <sonali@afghanwomensmission.org
is a founding director of the Afghan Women's Mission, a nonprofit
organization
that works in solidarity with Afghan women on political and social
issues.
-
- Endnotes: 1. BBC, "U.N. U-Turn on Afghan Land
Grab,"
September 14, 2003.
-
- 2. Ibid.
-
- 3. J. Burke and P. Beaumont, "West Pays Warlords
to Stay in Line," UK Observer, July 21, 2002.
-
- 4. J. Ingalls, "The United States and the Afghan
Loya Jirga: A Victory for the Puppet Masters," Z Magazine, September
2002.
-
- 5. News International, Pakistan, "Tons of Money
Grabbed by Northern Alliance," 01/31/02.
-
- 6. AFP, "U.S. General Myers to Visit
Afghanistan,"
July, 29, 2003.
-
- 7. Physicians for Human Rights, "Iran Coerces Afghan
Refugees to Return to Afghanistan," August 8, 2002..
-
- 8. Human Rights Watch, "Killing You is a Very Easy
Thing for Us," (July 2003)
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/afghanistan0703/.
-
- 9. Wiseman, P., "Lawlessness Still Rules in
Afghanistan,"
USA Today, July 8, 2002.
-
- 10. RAWA, "The People of Afghanistan Do Not Accept
Domination of the Northern Alliance!" www.rawa.org, November 13,
2001.
-
- 11. U.S. State Department, "Fact Sheet: Taliban's
Betrayal of the Afghan People," November 6, 2001
http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/01101712.htm.
-
- 12. Center for Social and Economic Rights, "Human
Rights and Reconstruction in Afghanistan," (May 2002)
http://www.cesr.org/Emergency%20Response/Afghanistan%20Reportfull.pdf.
-
- 13. Ibid.
-
- 14. AFP, "Afghanistan to Get $1.2 Billion for
Reconstruction
under Bush Plans," September 8, 2003.
-
- 15. Human Rights Watch, op cit.
-
- http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0310afghan.html
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