Afghans to Obama: End the Occupation
*Uprising Radio*, November 13, 2008
Transcript: Radio interview with Eman, Member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).

** Download Audio: MP3, 3.47MB, 15:10Min.

Accused of killing 65 Afghans in yet another wedding party massacre last week, US military officials are now claiming that they have evidence of the Taliban holding the party hostage to lure US forces into killing the civilians and stoking more anti-American sentiment.

The accusation came from an anonymous US official who declined to share the evidence for the claim. According to Afghan officials, a joint investigation with the US found 37 civilians and 26 so-called insurgents were killed in the Kandahar village. Inexplicably the U.S. figure from the same investigation was 20 dead civilians. Afghan president Hamid Karzai has repeatedly denounced the civilian deaths and urged the US to stop relying so much on air strikes. The same week as the wedding party killings, US airstrikes killed 7 civilians in the Northwest province of Baghdis. Among them were two sons and a grandson of a provincial council member, Mohammad Tawakil Khan.

Mourning his loss, Khan remarked bitterly, "The Americans are hitting civilian houses all the time. They don't care, they just say it was a mistake Afghan officials are only offering their condolences. After some 100 times that they have killed civilians, we have to take revenge and afterward say our condolences to them." The civilian death toll has stoked anger across Afghanistan and raised increasing calls for an end to the occupation. However, President elect Barack Obama's foreign policy centerpiece was an increase in US troops to Afghanistan.

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Magazine, August 14, 2008
The NATO Occupation and Fundamentalism
An interview with Mariam of RAWA
By Justin Podur

ISLAMABAD - The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is a women's organization that runs underground schools and other projects, educates Afghan girls, runs a periodic journal, and agitates politically for women's rights, human rights, secularism, and social justice in Afghanistan. From the 1979 Soviet invasion through to the 2006 closings of the camps, millions of Afghan refugees lived in Pakistan and many still do. While RAWA's operations were always based primarily in Afghanistan, they have also had a strong presence in the Pakistan refugee community. I spoke to Mariam from RAWA in Islamabad when I was there in July 2008.

JUSTIN PODUR (JP): To begin, perhaps you could introduce readers to RAWA and its work in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

MARIAM (RAWA): RAWA was begun in 1977 in Kabul as an organization of Afghan women for human rights and women's equality. After the Soviet invasion, some RAWA members were imprisoned in Kabul, and as a huge number of refugees fled to Pakistan, RAWA also shifted its focus somewhat, and began to work with refugee women and children in Peshawar (the capital city of the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan, close to the Afghan border). We began providing humanitarian services and some social assistance, through which we also tried to educate Afghan women of their rights. We continued our political activities, but because of the security situation in Afghanistan it was not easy. We continued to work underground in some Afghan cities. When the Soviet occupation was followed by the fundamentalists' bloody rule and later the Taliban regime, we continued to work both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We ran literacy programs, orphanages and schools in Afghanistan, but a lot of o! ur public, political statements were made from Pakistan. We publish a political magazine called Payam-e-Zan (Women's Message). Today under the NATO occupation and after the closing of the refugee camps, we do the political part mostly from Afghanistan as well, but much of our work is still semi-underground due to grave security risks.

JP: Can you say something about how RAWA is organized, how you 'recruit', where RAWA's leaders are drawn from?

RAWA: Through our literacy programs, orphanages, and schools, RAWA has had contact with many girls over the past 15-20 years. There is a deep difference between the life of women in Afghan society who have lived through war, the Taliban, and the fundamentalists, in normal domestic life, and those girls that have been basically raised by or worked with RAWA. The latter have different vision, ideas, and mentality; they are aware of their rights and know that they must fight to achieve it. Some of them continue to work for RAWA after they are grown up. Some are adult women when they get involved and their whole families get involved. Some young girls and boys get involved. Others are involved who don't yet read and write but become attached to RAWA, especially in rural areas, where RAWA members live and work and are part of the community with the people.

JP: And what is the situation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan today?

RAWA: In general, Pakistan has been better to Afghan refugees compared to Iran or other neighboring countries. There have been some limits. The life in refugee camps was very hard and with very basic resources. The majority of the camps were under the control of fundamentalist parties who imposed their restrictions on the refugees. Work for democratic-minded groups such as RAWA was very hard and risky. Many Afghan freedom-loving individuals were assassinated by Jehadi groups with the help of Pakistani ISI. Meena, RAWA's founder, was one of them. But despite all the problems, RAWA had its presence in some of the camps and we were running a refugee camp in suburbs of Peshawar for over two decades until it was finally forcibly evacuated by the Pakistan government some months ago.

In 2001-2002, after the US invasion and occupation, large numbers of Afghans went back. The Peshawar refugee communities were basically emptied, but due to bad conditions, returning to Afghanistan is still an unattractive option for many refugees.

When the government decided to close some refugee camps in 2006, it had a huge effect. Most of the refugees were forced to leave, even though they had lost everything in Afghanistan: they had no jobs, no shelter, nothing to go back to. And in fact no one knows what happened to them. Those families who have returned to Afghanistan are very disappointed with the lack of any job and facilities in Afghanistan, and many came back to seek refuge to Pakistan for the second time.

Today according to the UNHCR, refugees are coming back to Pakistan and they are trying to find places in the cities. When there is any tension between the Afghanistan and Pakistan governments, the Afghan refugees who suffer the most. Pakistan puts pressure on refugees to return to Afghanistan. But the people in the border areas are the same people - they share language, culture, clothing, tradition. After thirty years, too, many refugees saw Pakistan as their second country. Afghans know Pakistan supports the Taliban and the fundamentalists in Afghanistan, but the political crisis won't weaken the relations of the people across the border.

JP: Perhaps we could complete the introduction with a bit of your analysis of the political and military situation in Afghanistan.

RAWA: It is a complicated situation. We have NATO's occupation and the interference of neighbors, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Russia etc. all of whom have supported different fundamentalist groups in recent years. The Taliban control some areas and in recent months even reached the borders of Kabul. They are being supported by some circles in Pakistan. Even the Iranian regime sends arms and ammunition to the Taliban. Afghan civilians are the prime victims of Taliban brutalities, again, including their suicide bombings. The brothers-in-creed of the Taliban, the Northern Alliance, are in power today and generously supported by the US government. Much of the northern part of Afghanistan is ruled by the local warlords of the northern alliance. The government of Hamid Karzai has no tangible control there. The Taliban and other Islamic movements are the enemy of the Afghan people. And their strength is supported by the US and the West. The support the fundamen! talists get from outside makes it difficult for the Afghan people to resist them. On the other hand the US/NATO play a Tom and Jerry game with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, while ordinary Afghans severely suffer from the impact of their blind bombardments and we witness awful tragedies of civilian casualties on a daily basis.

JP: You have described all of these Islamic political movements as enemies of the people, whether they are supported by the West or fighting NATO. I have heard the argument here that Pakistan and Afghanistan are deeply religious countries, and any political movement has to contend with that fact. As a consequence, I have heard that groups like RAWA isolate themselves because of their uncompromising stand on secularism and religion. Do you find that your secularism makes you unpopular?

RAWA: That is the impression the Western media give of Afghan society. Maybe it is true from their eye. We Afghans have lived through it. How it expresses itself depends on many factors, including social, cultural, and economic factors. We have worked in some of what would be called the most 'backward' areas, very religious, without much recognition of women's rights. But after some time, and sometimes it is quite quickly, over weeks or months, they come to like what we are doing and even get involved, even whole families. We have seen this in some areas. So I do not agree that the country as a whole couldn't accept democratic rights or secular values. It needs time and work to build social and political awareness, and in recent years people have not had that opportunity.

The brand of Islam the fundamentalists present is different from that of common Afghan people. Their Islam is a political Islam and each party has their own brand, which contradict each other. The Islam of Mullah Omar is different from the Islam of Burhanuddin Rabbani or Rasul Sayyaf, and these groups have been at war for years although they all pretend to be true Muslims. The fundamentalist groups have committed unprecedented crimes under the name of Islam over the past two decades. Today Afghans are so fed up with them that majority of Afghans support any voice raised against the fundamentalists. When Malalai Joya spoke against them for only 2 minutes in the Loya Jirga, her voice was soon echoed and supported by millions of Afghan across the country and she was called a heroine and voice of the voiceless. The fundamentalists impose their domination with the help of their weapons, foreign masters and money. Without these, they have no footing in Afghan society.

JP: Is the NATO' occupation helping or harming Afghanistan? Can it be used somehow to strengthen progressive forces? Is it holding back a Taliban victory which would be worse than the current situation?

RAWA: Seven years ago when the US invaded, the situation was different. Many Afghans appreciated their presence and were happy to get rid of the Taliban's oppressive rule. They thought - the Taliban had been eliminated, the international community worked, they were promised a better life, democracy and freedom and an end to the fundamentalist groups. Within months, it was clear that the US government still continues its wrong policy of supporting the fundamentalists in Afghanistan. We saw that the US rely on the fundamentalists of the Northern Alliance to fight another fundamentalist band - the Taliban. It doesn't matter if they fight the Taliban or "terrorism", they are supporting the Northern Alliance, and for Afghans both are the same - both are terrorists and fundamentalists, supported by foreign governments, whether by the West, or Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia or any other country. They violate human rights, they abuse women, they commit corruption and fraud and ! smuggling, as we have documented.

From the beginning, RAWA announced that the US and the West have their own reasons for being here and it is not for the freedom of the Afghan people. We said that what the US/NATO is doing under the name of democracy is in fact a mockery of democracy. It is clear for us. Today NATO bombings are increasing, more civilians are being killed, and other violations are being done by the US and NATO. And now even they are trying to share power with the Taliban and terrorist party of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. If this plot is realized, it will mean another tragedy for Afghanistan and its people, the unification of all enemies of Afghan people under one umbrella so they could jointly smash the Afghan people and freedom-loving individuals and forces.

Under the mafia system and the shadow of gun and warlordism, unfortunately there is no chance for progressive forces to come to the scene and work openly. Any serious and stanch anti-fundamentalist and anti-occupation force still needs to fight underground and they are not supported and encouraged. In fact the US is afraid to see emergence of a powerful progressive movement in Afghanistan. Those who openly criticize the government and warlords face threats, imprisonment and restrictions. We are facing the same problems and risks today which we were faced under the Taliban.

The privatization and the free market system imposed on Afghanistan since 2001 is opening the way for neoliberalism in Afghanistan, which is another nightmare for our people. We are feelings its disastrous impact on poor people of Afghanistan. The degree of destitution and poverty in Afghanistan is beyond imagination. The gap between rich and poor is getting wider day by day. Over 70% of Afghan people are living under the poverty line. According to official statistics, 42% are living with only US$10/month. Skyrocketing prices in recent months have made life a torture for the majority of Afghan people.

JP: What about the argument that if NATO left, Afghanistan would quickly fall to the Taliban, which would be worse?

RAWA: It is true that it might be worse under a Taliban regime. But at least we will not be occupied by a foreign power. Today we have two problems: our own local fundamentalists and a foreign occupier. If NATO left we would have one problem rather than two.

RAWA has announced a number of times that neither the US nor any other power wants to release Afghan people from the fetters of the fundamentalists. Afghanistan's freedom can be achieved by Afghan people themselves. Relying on one enemy to defeat another is a wrong policy which has just tightened the grip of the Northern Alliance and their masters on the neck of our nation.

JP: If NATO left the Taliban would also have a more difficult time portraying themselves as a national liberation movement, an argument they can make and a source of prestige for them so long as the occupation continues.

RAWA: Actually both parties depend on each other. If the US were to eliminate the Taliban somehow, they would find themselves with no pretext for being here. But the Taliban and terrorism are only a pretext. They are not honest. They are here for the strategic ends: the central location from which to control Iran, Russia and China, affect Pakistan's government and society, strengthen its grip on the Central Asian Republics and so on. That is why they keep increasing their military presence and building up bases. NATO will probably leave, but the US won't - they wanted a pretext for being here, and the US will not set aside the golden opportunity.

JP: NATO's "development effort" has involved a lot of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have been involved in providing social services. Is RAWA seen as one of these?

RAWA: RAWA never introduces itself as an NGO. It is a political organization for women's rights and human rights. But it does try to meet direct needs and we do run social programs. Actually it is our political stance and activities that hurt our relations with the NGOs and agencies and why we don't get funds from foreign governments. Embassies do not want to give RAWA funds because we are political. This is in contrast to the thousands of recently established NGOs in Afghanistan over the past 6-7 years. It is a good business. You will have some families, with some English and a computer, and they become an NGO with funds, documents, and proposals being produced in their homes. Most NGOs that are larger, or bigger aid agencies, are funded by governments and influenced by those governments. The smaller ones often get involved in fraud and corruption - they work not for the Afghan people but for their own purposes. Millions of dollars of funds go to NGOs and are wasted ! in overhead, salaries, office expenses, and so on. They collect huge salaries, they have no long-term projects, they spend huge amounts for security expenses and vehicles.

NGO-ism is a policy exercised by the West in Afghanistan; it is not the wish of the Afghan people. The NGO is a good tool to divert people and especially intellectuals from struggle against occupation. NGOs defuse political anger and turn people into dependent beggars. In Afghanistan people say, the US pushed us from Talibanism to NGO-ism!

JP: Your political stance means governments don't want to give you money. Do you have any criteria for where you will accept donations?

RAWA: The question has not come up since we have not been offered funds from a government. But we will accept unconditional support from any source. We rely on individuals and sometimes, groups of feminists in other countries who support RAWA. We sell our own materials through income-generating projects, carpets, handicrafts, CDs, posters; we do fundraising whenever we go on speaking tours to other countries. That is how we continue. After 9/11 there was some interest in RAWA and we had good funding for 1-2 years. Today Afghanistan has the same problems but we have had to scale back our operations, reduce the numbers of children in our orphanages, and cancel some projects for lack of funding. RAWA is facing a grave financial problems today which affects the scales of our activities.

We see a total difference between the Western governments and their people. Most of these people are not in favor of the policies of their government towards Afghanistan. I have heard there is a free media in the US, but also that people do not know much about the outside world or the policies of their governments. RAWA is proud to receive donations from individuals, organizations, and groups not linked to governments, but not from government sources that would put pressure on RAWA. We would rather forego such money and attempts to control us. Even if we face problems, one hundred dollars from individuals gives us courage and lets us know we have support, in a way that thousands of dollars from a government agency would not.

JP: These projects RAWA runs, they must be underground as well?

RAWA: They are semi-underground but not the way we were under the Taliban. We are able to run education projects, and have meetings and gatherings in Afghanistan. But we are not registered with the government. Even if we were, we know they would try to stop us. We never use the title RAWA for our projects. People mostly know, but officially, we are not registered as RAWA - all run as private activities, initiatives, run by locals.

JP: The primary media source in Afghanistan is the radio. Is it possible for RAWA to get on the radio? What is RAWA's media strategy?

RAWA: It is not possible at the moment, partly because of the financial (although some supporters from Italy have suggested they could raise funds for it, in fact), but mainly because of the security problem. But we can use some other techniques to run a radio station if we were provided with the needed funds and equipment. We can run it without any sign of RAWA in it, but still in the current situation, we can't reflect our points of view as clearly and openly as we do through our web site and magazine, because if we do so, the next day the radio staff will be gunned down by the warlords.

JP: I read recently that Afghanistan and Pakistan has a growing number of opium addicts, including women, as a consequence of the war and displacement. Has RAWA come across this in its social service work?

RAWA: Out of the estimated 26 million population, over one million are addicted, which include even children and women, and the number are increasing.

Many people who are involved in poppy fields gradually become addicted: a mother working in the fields all day with health problems of her own, can't get her child to sleep or stop crying, she might give some to her child. There are many women in prisons today, and large numbers get addicted in prisons.

JP: What is RAWA's perspective on drugs?

RAWA: We think poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is part of the US regional strategy to control this third biggest global commodity (in cash terms). And it is not a new phenomenon, but has been a project of the CIA's covert operations in the region since the start of the Soviet-Afghan war in 80's. Today even the US/NATO encourage farmers to cultivate poppies. There are some reports that even the US troops have hand in the drug trafficking and the US government makes billions from the Afghan drug business. The UK military are negotiating deals with the Taliban on drugs, in Helmand.

Since 2001 the opium cultivation increased over 4,400%. Under the US/NATO, Afghanistan became world largest opium producer, which produces 93% of world opium. Those engage in the dirty business reach to the Afghan cabinet and even recently Mr. Karzai was accused by US officials of supporting the drug-dealers. His brother Wali Karzai leads the largest network of drugs in Kandahar. Gen. Daud, head of the counter-narcotics department of the interior ministry, himself is a famous drug-trafficker! Warlords in the Northern Afghanistan each control the route of drug-smuggling to the Central Asian Republics.

No one talks about this horrible aspect of the US occupation of Afghanistan. We are now living under a narco-state and drugs has already impacted Afghan people with horrible consequences.

JP: As a political organization, what is RAWA's relationship with political parties in Afghanistan?

RAWA has announced a number of times that neither the US nor any other power wants to release Afghan people from the fetters of the fundamentalists. Afghanistan's freedom can be achieved by Afghan people themselves.

RAWA: We have good relations with some. But unfortunately most political groups, democratic groups, human rights, women's rights, and intellectuals are not active. Thirty years ago there were lots of activities of such groups, and RAWA was just one. After the Soviet invasion and the Northern Alliance, the Taliban and Pakistan, many activists were arrested, assassinated, or made to flee the country. Our founder, Meena, and many others, were killed here in Pakistan, in the killing grounds of the Russian puppets and elsewhere. The past 30 years, the progressive forces of Afghanistan faced many losses and were always under pressure. And today still they are being marginalized or neutralized by the NGO-ism policy.

So the most powerful forces on the political scene are fundamentalists or linked to them, representing them, and using their political positions to protect them. Movements of left groups and intellectuals have been greatly weakened. But there are many progressive and freedom-loving individuals around and we have a long way to go and unite them under a unified force. There are some small groups too and we are in touch with them. We have to support each other.

There has been some rather small resistance against the US/NATO and warlords in some parts of the country. If the US/NATO occupation and atrocities continue for long, there will be stronger resistance from Afghan people.

To donate to RAWA, see the Afghan Women's Mission.
RAWA's website is www.rawa.org.
Justin Podur is a writer and activist based in Toronto. He was in Pakistan in July 2008. His blog is www.killingtrain.com.
Source: http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18429

Reuters, January 12, 2008
Afghan journalists seek release of colleague
The 23-year-old Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, reporter of Jahan-e Naw daily paper and a journalism student at Balkh University in northern Afghanistan, was detained three months ago
By Tahir Qadiry
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan - Dozens of Afghan journalists and activists on Saturday sought the release of a journalist detained by security officials for allegedly making blasphemous comments.

The 23-year-old Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, reporter of Jahan-e Naw daily paper and a journalism student at Balkh University in northern Afghanistan, was detained three months ago.

Kambakhsh was accused of mocking Islam and the holy book, the Koran, and for distributing an article which said Prophet Mohammad had ignored the rights of women.

Activists gathered outside at the Human Rights Commission's office in Mazar-i-Sharif, the provincial capital of Balkh, demanding the journalist's release.

Habibullah Habib, the head of Balkh University, said Kambakhsh was detained following accusations by his classmates and an investigation had begun.

Kambakhsh's brother, Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi who is also a journalist, said the charges were false.

Security officials refused to comment on the matter.

Journalist Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi says his brother Parwez has been jailed and threatened with death because of his own reporting on human rights violations in the north.
A leading journalist in northern Afghanistan says his brother has been imprisoned on false charges as a way of pre! ssuring him not to write articles critical of local officials and strongmen.

IWPR, Dec.9, 2007

Blasphemy is punishable by death in Islam and Afghanistan is a deeply conservative Islamic country.

Since the ouster of Taliban's radical Islamic government in 2001, dozens of newspapers and other publications, some funded by foreigners, have sprung up in Afghanistan which is going throug! h an unprecedented wave of press freedom in its history.

Several years ago, two journalists were detained for making blasphemous comments, but the pair managed to escape and have been given asylum in a Western country.

In 2006, an Afghan facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity was freed and given asylum in Italy after intervention from Western leaders.

(Writing by Sayed Salahuddin, editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

December 21, 2007
Keep the Light of Hope Alive
Support RAWA's Orphanage Program
UNICEF and other sources say:
- 60% of children have lost at least one member of their family or close relatives
- Over 600,000 children sleep on the streets.
- For every 50,000 there is only one physician
- 100,000 children are disabled
- 60,000 children in Afghanistan are addicted to drugs
- Over 37,000 children work and beg in the streets of Kabul alone
- There are about 8,000 former child soldiers
- An estimated one million are child labourers in Afghanistan.

These heart-wrenching statistics about the Afghan children have made the RAWA residential children's projects the cornerstone of our social programs. The children have been the prime victims of the three decades of unprecedented wars and brutalities. They need help dealing with the trauma of homelessness, hunger, disability, and abuse.If we educate and aid this next generation of Afghans to grow up in a peaceful environment, we can guarantee a prosperous Afghanistan.

With more than 20 years of experience in running children's projects, RAWA has created a framework for the children that teach them to respect and love each other regardless of language, religion, race, sex, color, etc. If you would like to learn more about the lives of the children in the RAWA orphanages, please visit: http://www.rawa.org/orphanage.htm

CharityHelp International, a US based organization teamed with RAWA to launch the Child Sponsorship project in late 2004. This project enables people around the world to sponsor Afghan children. Today, the project is helping more than 200 children rebuild their lives in RAWA's program. As a sponsor, you can communicate with your child by sharing emails and photographs. You will also get regular updates from CHI and RAWA with pictures and slideshows. View a slideshow of child-sponsor communications here: http://www.charityhelp.org/rawa/slideshow1

“Supporting these children is not only a gift to them as individuals; it is a gift to the world's future. Against staggering odds, they have made it this far, surviving as lights of hope through the darkest of nights. It is up to us to help them continue to shine.” - Jennifer A. Hartley, CHI Board Member

Join us in keeping the light of hope burning through the darkest of nights! For less than a dollar a day, you can provide on-going support to complement our child sponsorship program.

If you want to sponsor a child, please visit: https://www.charityhelp.org/rawa Please be aware that because of the ever increasing inflation rate in Afghanistan, we will be increasing the sponsorship rates for all sponsorships on January 1, 2008.

Tuesday, 11 December, 2007
The US and Her Fundamentalist Stooges are the Main Human Rights Violators in Afghanistan
The US and her allies tried to legitimize their military occupation of Afghanistan under the banner of “bringing freedom and democracy for Afghan people”. But as we have experienced in the past three decades, in regard to the fate of our people, the US government first of all considers her own political and economic interests and has empowered and equipped the most traitorous, anti-democratic, misogynist and corrupt fundamentalist gangs in Afghanistan.

[Pic: Human rights violations are widespread across Afghanistan]
In the past few years, for a thousand times the lies of US claims in the so-called “War on terror” were uncovered. By relying on the criminal bands of the Northern Alliance, the US made a game of values like democracy, human rights, women’s rights etc. thus disgracing our mournful nation. The US created a government from those people responsible for massacres in Pul-e-Charkhi, Dasht-e-Chamtala, Kapisa, Karala, Dasht-e-Lieli, 65,000 Kabulis and tens of mass graves across the country. Now the US tries to include infamous killers like Mullah Omer and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar into the government, which will be another big hypocrisy in the “war against terror”.

The reinstatement of the Northern Alliance to power crushed the hopes of our people for freedom and prosperity into desperation and proved that for the Bush administration, defeating terrorism so that our people can be happy, have no significance at all. The US administration plays a funny anti-Taliban game and pretends that a super power is unable to defeat a small, marginalized and medieval-minded gang which is actually her own product. But our people found by experience in the past few years that the US doesn’t want to defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, because then they will have no excuse to stay in Afghanistan and work towards the realization of its economical, political and strategic interests in the region.

After about seven years, there is no peace, human rights, democracy and reconstruction in Afghanistan. On the contrary, the destitution and suffering of our people has doubled everyday. Our people, and even our unfortunate children, fall victim to the Jehadis’ infighting (Baghlan incident), the Taliban’s untargeted blasts and the US/NATO’s non-stop bombardments. The Northern Alliance blood-suckers, who are part of Karzai’s team and have key government posts, continue to be the main and the most serious obstacle towards the establishment of peace and democracy in Afghanistan. The existence of tens of illegal private security companies run by these mafia bands are enough to realize their sinister intentions and the danger they pose.

Human rights violations, crime, and corruption have reached their peak, so much so that Mr. Karzai is forced to make friendly pleas to the ministers and members of the parliament, asking them to “keep some limits”! Accusations about women being raped in prisons were so numerous that even a pro-warlord woman in the parliament had no choice but to acknowledge them.

Rabbani, Khalili, Massoud, Sayyaf, Fahim, Ismael and other criminals for the sake of being “ISI” and “VEVAK” agents could become “leaders” in the early 90’s, invited their god-father General Hamid Gul of ISI to become their army chief. But today they raise anti-Pakistan slogans to hide their corruption and wrong-doings. In this act they even go further and abuse Pakistani people. But they never talk about the dirty act of Pakistan in creating fundamentalist bands and imposing them on our people. More importantly, they keep silent about the wider, more devastating and more active meddling of the brutal Iranian regime in Afghanistan through its cultural and media agents. Pro-Iranian regime politicians and intellectuals are as much traitorous to democracy and human rights as the intellectuals and politicians who, from an ethnocentric and reactionary point of view, call the barbarism and terror of Taliban a “national armed resistance,” and shamelessly defend them.

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) has announced a number of times that when the legislative, administrative and judicial bodies are ruled by drug-lords and warlords or their Talibi, Gulbudini, Parchami and Khalqi accomplices, they will never do anything positive for our deprived people. Rather these bodies will act as a mechanism to continue the ongoing crime, drug-trade and looting by these mafia bands to become richer.

If the US government replaces Karzai with a new puppet, even if he is not from among the Jehadi criminals, it will be just a deception of our people and an attempt to put the responsibilities of today’s tragedies on the shoulders of a single person. Such a move will have no positive outcome for our nation. Only a president who rely on people and come to power through a fair election, free from any kind of dependence or dealings with the fundamentalists, would be ideal for Afghan people.

Instead of defeating Al-Qaeda, Taliban and Gulbuddini terrorists and disarming the Northern Alliance, the foreign troops are creating confusion among the people of the world. We believe that if these troops leave Afghanistan, our people will not feel any kind of vacuum but rather will become more free and come out of their current puzzlement and doubts. In such a situation, they will face the Taliban and Northern Alliance without their “national” mask, and rise to fight with these terrorist enemies. Neither the US nor any other power wants to release Afghan people from the fetters of the fundamentalists. Afghanistan’s freedom can be achieved by Afghan people themselves. Relying on one enemy to defeat another is a wrong policy which has just tightened the grip of the Northern Alliance and their masters on the neck of our nation.

By publishing the book “Some Documents of the Bloody and Traitorous Jehadi Years”, RAWA has taken another small step in unmasking and prosecuting the war criminals of the past three decades. But we will not stop here. In the face of continuous threats by the terrorists sitting in the parliament and the government, we will not be intimidated and despite the passivity and compromises of intellectuals in this regard, we are determined that with the help of justice-loving people and organizations of Afghanistan and around the world, will work to push the war criminals into a court of justice and reclaim billions of dollars worth of national assets from them. Only then the eyes of our grief-stricken people may no longer burn endlessly for justice and democracy.

Afghan parliamentarians: "Women prisoners are raped in a Kabul prison"
BBC Persian (translated by RAWA), November 14, 2007
The delegation of Afghan parliament believe the situation in the Afghan prisons is worse then that is reflected in the Amnesty International report

Members of Afghanistan parliament accuse some officials of Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul for raping women prisoners.

A delegation of Afghan parliamentarians who recently visited the prison say some women become pregnant after being raped.

[Picture left: The number of children staying with their mothers in Afghan prisons is extremely high, almost equal to the number of their mothers, according to UNODC. (IRIN Photo)]

The number of children staying with their mothers in Afghan prisons is extremely high, almost equal to the number of their mothers, according to UNODC. (IRIN Photo)
MPs say they are concerned about the conditions of Afghanistan's prisons and are afraid such violations are going on in prisons in the other provinces.

These concerns are stated a day after the Amnesty International report warned about possible abusing of prisoners in Afghanistan.

The findings of parliament delegation suggest that prison officials first give medicines to prisoners to stupefy them and then sexually assault them.

Fouzia Kofi, one of the MPs who meet these victims in the prison, says in some cases victims have been forcibly raped.

Ms. Kofi says: "they (prisoners) say when we are ill and ask for medicines, they gave the medicines to make them unconscious, and then they are sexually abused. In some cases they are forcibly taken to the offices of prison officials, few women have got pregnant."

She says, fearing Afghan traditions and prison officials have made some victims silent, so it is difficult to find out a statistic about the number of abuses.

She says: "the numbers of women who are ready to talk about these issues are few and unfortunately they don’t have the gut to expose the truth. Because when we (the fact-finding delegation) leave the pri! son, they become defenseless."

The Amnesty International had already warned about torture of prisons in Afghanistan, but the delegation of Afghan parliament believe the situation in the Afghan prisons is worse then what is reflected in the AI report.

RAWA Appeal
Monday, 4 June, 2007

Stop Human Catastrophe: Help Afghan Refugees!

Another human tragedy is unfolding just over the border with Iran and threatening Afghanistan. During the past three weeks the fundamentalist Islamic regime of Iran has forcefully deported over 85 000 Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan. Reports tell of the brutal treatment of Afghan refugees by the Iranian police and of women and children being separated from their adult male family members and taken away to Afghanistan. The flood of refugees surged into the hot deserts of Nimroz and Farah with no water, no food and no shelter - a horrific situation. Hundreds of small children who have been separated from their parents can be seen roaming, dazed and crying out for their families.
"My father and mother had been invited out to a party; Iranian police came to our house and deported us in the direction of Nimroz."
These are the sad words of Noorbashee, 9, who claims she has been expelled from Iran along with her 3 year old sister. Now these two small girls are living in great hardship in a camp in the frontier region of Nimroz Province that offers nothing except for the burning desert and whirling sand storms.

"They threw me and my little sister into a truck, where there were other people too, and we were very frightened and they took us to a camp in Zabul and there the Iranians were beating everybody and an old man accepted us as his children and the Iranians beat this old man as well," said Noorbashee. Pajhwok Afghan News, May 17, 2007

"During my 48-hour detention I was given no food," said a young Afghan deportee who accused the Iranian police of having robbed him. Another deported man, showing his blood-stained shirt, said, "They [the Iranian security forces] kept on punching and kicking me in the face and head while I was still bleeding." (IRIN News, April 30, 2007)

Fazila 5, who has been forced out of the Iranshahr Province of Iran, says that another expelled family is looking after her in Nimroz camp. With tears in her eyes Fazila said, "I don't have any news of my father and mother and I don't know anybody here."

Rahima, 3, who has also been forced out of the Zabul Province of Iran, is being cared for by another family. Like Fazila, she knows no-one here. Rahima, with the plaintive language of a small child, says, "I want my mummy and my daddy." (Pajhwok Afghan News, May 17, 2007)

RAWA appeals to all philanthropic, charitable people to come forward and prevent another human catastrophe from happening in Afghanistan. You can respond to this inhumane act on the part of the fundamentalist Islamic and fascist regime in Iran by showing your solidarity with Afghan refugees and raising funds for them.

You can send your donation to RAWA by any one of the following methods of payment:

Online Credit Card Donations: Please click here http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/help_us/donate.php and make your payment at EMERGENCY RELIEF section.

Please make check or money order payable to IHC/Afghan Women's Mission and mail it to:

Afghan Women's Mission
2460 North Lake Ave. PMB 207
Altadena, CA 91001
USA

Bank wire transfers: To do a wire transfer to the Afghan Women's Mission, pease call AWM's office at (626) 676-7884 to make arrangements.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Tuesday, 29 May, 2007
Afghanistan: Reinstate MP Suspended for 'Insult'
Censure of Malalai Joya Sets Back Democracy and Rights
Human Rights Watch, May 23, 2007

Malalai Joya, in a press conference in Kabul on May 21, 2007 vows to continue her fight against warlords. (AP photo)

Malalai Joya, in a press conference in Kabul on May 21, 2007 vows to continue her fight against warlords. (AP photo)
New York The Afghan parliament should immediately reinstate Malalai Joya, a member suspended for criticizing colleagues, and revise parliamentary procedures that restrict freedom of speech, Human Rights Watch said today.

On May 21, 2007, the Lower House of the Afghan parliament voted to suspend Joya for comments she made during a television interview the previous day. It is unclear whether Joya's suspension will run until the current parliamentary session ends in several weeks or whether she will be suspended for the remainder of her term in office, which ends in 2009. In addition to her suspension from parliament, several legislators have said that Joya could be sued for contempt in a court of law.

"Malalai Joya is a staunch defender of human rights and a powerful voice for Afghan women, and she shouldn't have been suspended from parliament," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Joya's comments don't warrant the punishment she received and they certainly don't warrant court proceedings."

Joya had criticized the parliament for failing to accomplish enough for the Afghan people, saying, "A stable or a zoo is better [than the legislature], at least there you have a donkey that carries a load and a cow that provides milk. This parliament is worse than a stable or a zoo."

On May 22, a recorded version of Joya's interview was shown during a session of parliament. Afterward, a majority of her colleagues found her guilty of violating article 70 of the Afghan legislature's rules of procedure, which forbids lawmakers from criticizing one another. Joya's specific crime was "insulting the institution of parliament."

Human Rights Watch noted that members of parliament have regularly criticized each other, but no one else has been suspended.

"The article banning criticism of parliament is an unreasonable rule that violates the principle of free speech enshrined in international law and valued around the world," said Adams. "The Afghan parliament should be setting an example by promoting and protecting free expression, not by stamping it out."

Human Rights Watch urged the Afghan parliament to take steps to revise article 70 and ensure that elected representatives can speak freely without fear of suspension or lawsuits.

Joya, 28, is the youngest member of the Afghan legislature. As a 19-year-old refugee in Pakistan, she taught literacy courses to other Afghan women. During the Taliban years, she ran an orphanage and health clinic in Afghanistan. In 2003, she gained international attention for speaking out publicly against warlords involved in drafting the Afghan Constitution. Two years later, she was the top vote-getter from Farah province in Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, and was easily elected to the lower house of the legislature.

Since her election, Joya has continued to be an outspoken defender and promoter of the rights of Afghan women and children. She has also continued to publicly call for accountability for war crimes, even those perpetrated by fellow parliamentarians.

Joya has survived four assassination attempts, travels with armed guards and reportedly never spends two nights in the same place.

"Joya is an inspiring example of courage," said Adams. "Afghanistan's international friends should not hesitate to speak out in her defense."
www.MalalaiJoya.com

Afghan assembly grants immunity for war crimes
Reuters via Khaleej Times, February 1, 2007
UNAMA: "No one has the right to forgive those responsible for human rights violations other than the victims themselves"

KABUL - Afghanistan's parliament has granted immunity to all Afghans involved in the country's 25 years of conflict, lawmakers said on Thursday, despite calls by human rights groups for war crimes trials.

The decision passed on Wednesday in the lower house, Wolesi Jirga, would also cover fugitive Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who now heads his own militant group, critics and supporters of the move said.

Rights groups have strongly pressed the government to punish those guilty of abuses, including some members of parliament and senior government officials, saying justice was vital for peace.

But the national assembly said its motion would help reconciliation in a nation shattered by years of war and civil strife that have left almost no family untouched by tragedy.

"In order to bring reconciliation among various st! rata in the society, all those political and belligerent sides who were involved one way or the other during the 2-"decades of war will not be prosecuted legally and judicially," the motion passed by the assembly says.

"No one has the right to forgive those responsible for human rights violations other than the victims themselves.... For any process of national reconciliation to succeed the suffering of victims must be acknowledged and impunity tackled."
"International experience shows that truth is vital to reconciliation. As a consequence, the search for truth and the rights of victims are central elements of Afghanistan’s Action Plan on Peace, Reconciliation, and Justice."
UNAMA, Feb.1, 2007

The United Nations in Kabul objected immediately.

"For any process of national reconciliation to succeed, the suffering of victims must be ac! knowledged and impunity tackled," it said in a statement.

"No one has the right to forgive those responsible for human rights violations other than the victims themselves."
The Wolesi Jirga elected in late 2005 includes former senior communist officials, ex-Mujahideen (holy warrior) leaders who fought the Soviets and some former Taleban.

Dozens are accused of human rights abuses.

Several lawmakers said President Hamid Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since the Taleban was ousted in 2001, knew of the assembly's move in advance.

Analysts believe the hanging of Saddam Hussein may have spurred powerful Afghan politicians into acting against similar trials at home. "Afghans will see this as a sign that their parliament is more concerned with protecting its own members than the people," said Sam Zarifi of Human Rights Watch.
But many of those facing the most serious accusations, such as Abdul Rasul Sayaaf, are influential members of parliament.
The Guardian, Feb.1, 2007

"In a way, this provides immunity for all," Shukria Barakzai, a leading woman activist MP, told Reuters. She was among a small group of delegates who left the session in protest.

Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, a former Mujahideen leader who was among the key legislators behind the amnesty, said it was in line with Karzai's efforts to push national reconciliation.

He also believed the immunity would cover Omar and Hekmatyar.

"This is a law and the law will be implemented on all individuals equally," he told Reuters.

The decision was approved days after Karzai again indicated he could consider talks with Taleban leaders to end the bloodshed after the country's most violent year since the Taleban's ouster.

One of Karzai's advisers on Wednesday clarified talks would not be held with the Taleban as a political, ideological or military group.

Thursday, 21 December, 2006
Keeping the Light of Hope Alive
RAWA’s Orphanage Program
"Sponsoring these children and doing what I can to make the orphanages even better places for them gives me a great deal of pleasure...We must try to remain hopeful about change…"
Doffie, USA, began as a sponsor of a single child and has gradually built an extended family with her 8 sponsored children and new library project
While the news coming out of Afghanistan is filled with despair and anguish, we are working with our international partners to create an oasis of hope for our people!

With the support of CharityHelp International (CHI) and international donors, we are helping hundreds of children rebuild their lives. If you would like to learn more about the lives of the children in the RAWA orphanages click here

Donors and supporters just like Doffie are currently supporting three orphanages and more than 140 children through the child sponsorship program. View photos of the newest orphanage here.

"Supporting these children is not only a gift to them as individuals; it is a gift to the world's future. Against staggering odds, they have made it this far, surviving as lights of hope through the darkest of nights. It is up to us to help them continue to shine." - Jennifer A. Hartley, CHI Board Member

As a sponsor, you can communicate with your child by sharing emails and photographs. You will also get regular updates from CHI and RAWA with pictures and slideshows. View a slideshow of child-sponsor communications here

Your sponsorship will help educate a child in an atmosphere of compassion, tolerance and equal rights. These education policies are a vital foundation for building a new Afghanistan.

Join us in keeping the light of hope burning through the darkest of nights! For less than a dollar a day, you can provide on-going support to complement our child sponsorship program. View our sponsorship options here.

Sunday, 10 December, 2006
RAWA communiqué on Universal Human Rights Day, Dec.10, 2006
Afghanistan the Bloodiest Field for Slaughtering Human Rights
Five years ago, America and their allies attacked Afghanistan in the name of bringing "Human Rights", "Democracy", and "Freedom" to the war-torn country. The Taliban regime fell and Hamid Karzai's puppet regime, which included the world-known Northern Alliance criminals or as UN envoy Mahmoud Mestri said, "the bandit gangs", took over in the name of a fake democracy. However, today, the deceitful policies of Mr. Karzai and his Western guardians have brought Afghanistan to a very critical situation in which disaster is a ticking time bomb that can explode any minute. Treason and mockery have efficiently been used under the name of "democracy" and "freedom" in these five years and the human rights situation in Afghanistan is a product of the painful deception of the warlord led government.

Northern Alliance criminals, backed by the US have their own local and barbaric governments. Just the increasing amount of women who commit suicides by burning themselves can be the best example of a human rights violation in Afghanistan. According to UNICEF, 65% of 50000 widows in Kabul think that committing suicide is the only option they have. Northern Alliance crooks raped an 11 year old girl, Sanuber, and traded her with a dog. In Badakhshan a young woman was gang-raped by 13 Jehadies in front of her children, and one of the rapists urinated in the mouth of her children who were continuously crying. In Paghman, a suburb of Kabul, a criminal leader Rasol Sayyaf, who was the mentor and godfather of Khalid Shikh Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11 attacks, plunders our peoples' territory and tortures his oppositions at his private prison. Despite many protest rallies of unfortunate people of Paghman in front of the Parliament House, no one hear their painful voice and the ! so-called police forces headed by infamous criminal warlords like Zahir Aghbar and Amanullah Guzar attack the protester and kill 2 of them. These are all just some examples of thousands crimes that are being carried out by fundamentalists of the Northern Alliance evil men who have high positions in executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of the US-imposed government and some unprincipled intellectuals are dancing to their tune.

Establishment of state-run institutions such as the Independent Human Rights Commission and Ministry for Women Affairs are just a show-off to throw dust in the eye of our people and world community and to conceal the human rights catastrophe. Although these symbolic institutes spend a lot of money, they have never addressed the core issues regarding human rights in Afghanistan, which is the atrocities carried out by the Northern Alliance criminals. For instance, a woman named Zofanoon Natiq, the head of Women Affaires Ministry branch in Badakhshan Province in an interview with Pajhwak News Agency entirely refused the gang-rape saying "no such incident had been occurred in Badakhshan" while the Police chief in the same province contradicted her and said a warlord from the fundamentalist Jamiat-e-Islami party, named Mujtaba committed the crime. Another woman, Fahima Kakar, the head of Women department in Kunduz, didn't want to displeasure warlords by only saying, "I think it! is not proper to behead a lady, in my view and in Islam it is not good to kill someone" regarding the crime in which a woman was beheaded and killed while her hands were tightened on her back. All of the women in official posts are selected among such showpiece women who compromise with the fundamentalists and keep silence against their crimes.

The disgraceful defeat and embarrassing situation in the War in Iraq left no option for the US, except to illustrate Afghanistan as a success whether it results in pain and suffering for the Afghan people. The disagreement among NATO members and the stand of some member sates against the will of the US made the situation harder for the White House. Therefore, America tries to keep a fragile, temporary stability in Afghanistan in order to promote a sense of accomplishment in producing a "democratic" Afghanistan all around the world, a "B52 democracy" in expanse to treason against majority of Afghan people.

Compromising with Gulbuddin Islamic Party and Taliban and plans for Tribal Jirgas are treacherous games to finalize the Jehadies-Taliban-Gulbuddin-Khalqi-Parchami circle of evil. Tribal Jirgas will have no better fate then the Loya Jirga and Parliament to deceive our bereaved people. First the US divided the Taliban criminals into "moderate" and "non-moderate" fractions. In the first stage Taliban criminal leaders such as Mullah Rocketi, Arsela Rahmani, Mullah Khaksar, Wakil Ahmad Motawakil, Qalamaddin etc. were stamped as being "moderate Taliban" and allowed to make their ways into the Parliament. Now, two criminal gangster leaders, Gulbuddin and Mullah Omer, were invited to join the government. In this case, only Al- Qaida remained to be invited to join the rotten Afghan Government.

Although Gulbuddin Party and Taliban have many representatives in the government branches and parliament, the last compromise calls for criminal and blood stained leaders illustrates that America never wants peace and stability in Afghanistan. The US government sacrifices our people for its political and economical interests by establishing a government full of traitors, criminals and drug-lords. It does not matter who rules in Kabul, the US wants just a poppet regime. An American military presence in Afghanistan has no benefit for our people. In addition, thousands of civilians lost their lives because of radioactive and cluster bombs and "friendly fires". This fact is obviously a disgrace for those who strongly defense American military presence in Afghanistan.

Since the Northern Alliance criminals were installed into power, RAWA has been saying that it is impossible to bring peace, human rights, and stability with a gang of criminals in power. Today even the western media points out the jehadi warlords as a main problem in destabilizing Afghanistan which proves RAWA's analyzes. However, the fundamentalist Karzai's government, in order to cover up its own irresponsibility, corruption, and weaknesses, terms Pakistan's interference and support to the Taliban as the only main issue in Afghanistan and pretend that if this interference is stopped Afghanistan will become a heaven on the earth! Karzai's government raise hue and cry on Pakistani statement about the need of "coalition government" but everyone knows that a coalition government with all criminals such as Taliban, Jehadi, Gullbudin's and other is already in place.

Murderers such as Sayyaf, Rabbani, Qannoni, Fahim, Mujadadi, Massoud, Dostom, Mahaqiq, Khalili, Ismail, and others who were Pakistan and Iran's loyal agents and servants are trying to deceive our people by acting as if they are anti Pakistan, however, they can never dissolve the shameful marks of being agents of Pakistan and others. Moreover, Pakistan and Iran also should first of all apologize from our oppressed people for their treacherous role in empowering and supporting Afghan brutal fundamentalist bands. Although it is obvious that the Taliban are supported by some Pakistani sources, as Iran supports her own spies such as Khalili, Mohaqiq, Kazimi, Bahwi, Islael Khan and others, the core issue in Afghanistan is not Pakistani interference inside Afghanistan. The biggest factor in destabilizing Afghanistan is inside Afghanistan. As long as the main issue inside has not been solved, solving the external issues cannot be effective.

The biggest factor that strengthens the Taliban is the hatred and disgust that our people have against the Jehadi mafia in the system. When people have no security, when they see lawlessness and how the criminals embezzle millions of dollars from international aids, they are indifferent about the raise of the Taliban. Haji Nek Mohammad who had lost his beloveds in a NATO's air strike in Kandahar said, "I prefer to join the Taliban forces because Taliban have so far killed only 2 people in my village while the collation forces killed 63 people in a single day."

Our people know that there is no difference between Taliban and Jehadi warlords. They both are fundamentalist medieval forces that were created by foreigners and they will join forces against our people in any possible time. The NA hooligan leader Rabbani in his recent interview by saying that he will not fight against Taliban, confirms this fact.

Amusingly, there are some right and leftists groups outside of Afghanistan who look at the Taliban as an "anti-imperialist" force and defend them. They satirize themselves by such funny remarks and prove that they are completely ignorant of barbaric nature of the Taliban. If they had experienced a day of humiliation under the Taliban rule, they would have never made such hurting jokes with our people.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) strongly supports the anti-war movement which grows day by day all around the world and becomes a strong force against the US and her Allies war-mongering policies.

Despite being on the top of the fundamentalists' black list, we would like to assure our people that RAWA, as before, will never give up its struggle against Jehadi, Talibi, Khalqi, and Parchami murderers and will carry on its uncompromising fight with full determination to break the mask of fundamentalists' demagogy.

We would like to declare to all freedom-loving, anti-invaders, and anti-fundamentalist individuals and groups that as long as we don't form a united movement against the fundamentalists and their foreign masters, we would not be in a position to break the chain of oppression and tyranny. We announced in the first day of the US invasion that there is not one example in history where a foreign force brings freedom to another nation, only people of Afghanistan themselves can gain these values.

Fourteen years have passed from the gloomy day of 28th April 1992, but our nation is being caught tighter day by day around the ankles of those who caused the pain, mourning and destruction in our land. Traitors, country-betrayers, and dark minds are in control of our nation's fate and our country is sunk in calamities. Mr. Karzai and his foreign guardians, who have invested in fundamentalists for many years, today have given key posts in the executive, legislation and judiciary branches of government, to the most infamous and bloody elements of the Northern Alliance and other savage bands. With the passage of time, the ring of these traitors is increasing. The evil men who caused the 28th April tragedy, instead of being sued, have so much authority in the country that through the parliament they shamelessly announce this infelicitous day as a public holiday. In this manner they ridicule the people, the majority of who, according to a survey of national and international hu! man rights defending organizations, want the prosecution and punishment of these national traitors.

Without the end of the fundamentalists rule, observance of human rights is just a dream!

Hold the struggle flag of freedom, democracy, and social justice!

With people against fundamentalism; or with fundamentalist against people; there is not a third option!
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
December 10, 2006

November 29, 2006
Warlords gang-rape a woman in Badakhshan
Husband of the victim: "my children were crying one of them peed in their mouth"
Brig. Sayed Habib Saeedkhili: "Drug-trafficker Mujtaba and his 11 men raped the woman and fled"
RAWA reporter
A local commander and his 11 men gang-rape a 22-year-old woman in Shahre Buzurg district of the northeastern Badakhshan province on Nov.28.

The crime took place in the Shah Dasht village, by a local warlord called Mujtaba who belongs to Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan led by Burhanuddin Rabbani (now member of the parliament).

People of the village told journalists that they have complained a number of times about brutalities and lawlessness in their village by warlords but police and local officials take no action because these warlords are so powerful and backed by Burhanuddin Rabbani, who himself is based in Badakhshan.

Qari Jehangir, husband of the victim, says the armed men raped his wife and when his 2 children were crying one of them peed in their mouth. The victim had been threatened to death by the commander not to complain.

Brig. Sayed Habib Saeedkhili, the border police chief in Badakhshan confirmed the crime and told to the media that commander Mujtaba and his men are famous drug traffickers who succeeded to flee but his brother, Anayat, has been arrested.

According to Pajhwok Afghan News (Nov.29, 2006): "Zofanoon Natiq, director of the Women Affairs Department of Badakhshan, showed unawareness about the incident. She said no such incident had been occurred in Badakhshan. But the head of the Independent Human Rights Commission at northeast zone, said: 'This is a crime, and will also stimulate anger of the people.' He said weakness of the local authorities was the main reason of repeating such cases in the region."

Crimes against women are on raise across Afghanistan but especially in the Northern Province of Badakhshan which is the stronghold of Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan which has its armed militia and key government posts in the area.

In April 2005, Amina, a 29 year-old woman was publicly stoned to death on the basis of a district court's decision in this province.

Wednesday, 29 November 2006
Post-Taliban Kabul blossoms for the rich
"The Taliban time was very bad and now it is very bad for the poor. Where is the difference?"
By Kathy Gannon, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan
Eight-year-old Sajjad's kite struggles upward. It's nothing grand -- a plastic bag salvaged from a heap of garbage and fashioned into a diamond shape.

But it's a symbol of change in Kabul, five years after the Afghan capital was freed from a Taliban regime that believed activities such as kite-flying would distract youngsters from studying the Islamic holy book, the Quran.
Crime and barbarism in Shirpur by Afghan ministers and high authorities

The U.S.-led war and the Western-friendly government that followed eliminated that rule and a host of others. Girls have returned to school. Public beheadings and amputations as punishment for crimes came to an end.

The times have changed. But in Kabul today the question often asked is: How much and for whom?

Sajjad (he says he has no last name) lives in a neighborhood called Shirpur, a significant symbol of what has changed since U.S. and British bombs drove the Taliban from the city on the night of Nov. 12-13, 2001.

Part of it has been demolished and its inhabitants evicted to make way for a "new Afghanistan" of palatial homes -- scores of four- and five-story mansions boasting gold-painted marble columns and floor-to-ceiling windows flanking grand wooden doors.

The owners are the successors to the Taliban -- movers and shakers who in 2003 used their new power to seize and clear the land. About 250 of Sajjad's neighbors were tossed from their homes.

Miloon Kothari, the UN's housing representative, complained and Afghan President Hamid Karzai promised to investigate, but nothing has come of it.

Now, in the waning days of October 2006, Sajjad runs past a half dozen goats and a cow feasting on rotting garbage to get his flimsy kite airborne. He lives with seven brothers and four sisters in a single-story house of dried mud, straw and pebbles. He wears cracked plastic sandals and a torn brown shirt with only three buttons remaining.

One of his neighbors, Aziz Mohammed, a potbellied man with a speckled beard, stands ankle deep in the mud he is using to winterize his home of 25 years.

Mohammed says he has been told that his and his neighbors' houses will be flattened soon to make way for more mansions.

The owners of these mansions "are commanders, ministers. It makes me angry. These people use everything that isn't theirs and they ruin the houses of the poor people to build their homes," said Mohammed. "The Taliban were no good, they were just stupid people. But in this new life there is no job, nothing."

The man who ordered the first homes razed in 2003 was Kabul Police Chief Abdul Bassir Salangi. He has two houses in the ostentatious subdivision. Salangi has since been appointed police chief of eastern Nangarhar province and could not be reached for comment.

The big question, said Najibullah Siddique, director of the Afghan charity Afghans for Tomorrow, is why the billions of dollars in foreign aid that has poured into Afghanistan isn't making a difference. "Why doesn't the government help the poor? Why do the government people and commanders build big mansions and poor people still live in bad conditions?"
Sherpur Today: Gap between rich and poor in Kabul

Gul Haider, a commander of the Northern Alliance that swept into Kabul after the Taliban's collapse, makes no apology for owning a mansion in Shirpur.

"This is the new Afghanistan. We are just beginning. All these houses are from the private pockets of Afghans and I hope one day that all of Afghanistan will be beautiful like Shirpur," he said in an interview.

"We are praying for the poor people to have houses like us," he said. "But everything belongs to God. God knows better who should be given property and who shouldn't. God gave us this property and we built our houses. We are praying that God will look more favorably on the poor."

In the months following the Taliban's collapse there were signs of a business renaissance. Barbershops, beauty salons and music stores reopened. Afghan exiles returned to start businesses.

But many have since been driven out by runaway corruption, lawlessness and the violence perpetrated by a resurgent Taliban, highlighted by a string of recent suicide bombings in Kabul.

Post-2001 Afghanistan has an elected parliament but it is criticized for its inclusion of warlords, commanders and mujahedeen leaders.

Last May, an outspoken lawmaker, Malalai Joya, attacked the warlords and rebel commanders in the chamber for their role in the civil conflict that destroyed Kabul and killed 50,000 civilians when they were in power between 1992 and 1996, a period of anarchy that gave rise to the Taliban. The response from the floor was threats of rape and death.

A recent report by Womankind Worldwide, a British-based advocacy group, challenges the notion that Afghan women are better off now.

It said the scenes in 2001 of women throwing off their all-covering robes were misleading, and that except for a small elite in Kabul, women still have to cover their entire bodies.

It said up to 80 percent of all Afghan marriages are forced, 57 percent of girls are married off before age 16, some as young as 6: "and the number of women setting fire to themselves because they cannot bear their lives is rising dramatically."

While girls are back at school, the program is far short of where it should be, says Siddique.

"Girls education is like a car," he said. "During the Taliban there was no gas and the car didn't work. Now we are putting in gas and it is running but it isn't because of this government. Any government after the Taliban would have had girls education. But what guarantees do we have? Corruption in the government has delayed schools being built."

Meanwhile, schools are being destroyed, some by the Taliban but as many by tribal feuds, village animosities, and anger at the government for perceived injustices and corrupt practices, he said.

Kabul traffic is a nightmare, a huge contrast from the Taliban era, when only bicycles, yellow taxis and Taliban pickup trucks were running. Luxury SUVs, many driven by the 2,000 employees of the UN and aid agencies, remind the desperately poor how they have been left behind.

Mohammed Habib, an out-of-work laborer, carried his 1-year-old son Mujtaba as he walked the streets begging for food. He said the infusion of foreign aid hasn't changed his life.

"Money comes to help the poor people but the commanders and the government people take it," he said. With the Taliban gone "we thought our future will be better, but every day we are poorer."

Habib might not have noticed, but the culinary landscape of Kabul has changed.

In Taliban times, eating out meant roadside food stalls and rice and kebab restaurants. Now there are restaurants offering French, Italian, Lebanese, German, and Indian cuisine -- but at prices out of the reach of most Afghans.

Alcohol, banned by the Taliban and still offensive to most Afghans, is served, although more discreetly now than in the first post-Taliban years. The government is cracking down by banning the sale of booze at the duty-free stores frequented by foreigners.
" Parliament is just a showpiece for the West," complains Malalai Joya, one of the female MPs. "Women do not have liberation at all. People in power, whether in government, parliament or governors, are warlords and jihadis who are no different in their outlook from Taliban."
The Sunday Times, November 5, 2006

Visitors can spend up to $500 a night to stay in the new Landmark Suites hotel, which has a shopping mall and the country's first escalator.

Afghans flocked to the complex and its glass-enclosed shops when it opened, though many couldn't afford the prices.

Hajji Sadiqullah says he is two months behind on the monthly rent of $1,500 for his cosmetics and hair supplies store. "Another month like this and I will die," he said.

In contrast to the Landmark Suites, the Allauddin Orphanage with its hundreds of poor children has a new coat of paint, a few computers, a ration of food from the government and electricity most of the day. But in winter heat still comes from wood stoves, one for each room where nine or more children sleep. And elsewhere in Kabul there is electricity for barely three hours on most days.

Corruption is so rampant that it can take a $50 bribe just to get the tax collector to register payment of your taxes.

On a street corner, a traffic policeman sidles up to a car window, palm out for money. On a small side street, five women in burqas hold out their babies to passing cars, begging food.

Habib, the laborer, looks at the new mansions in Shirpur and sees injustice.

"These people are very bad people. That money was for us and they took it," he said. "The Taliban time was very bad and now it is very bad for the poor. Where is the difference?"
Amir Shah, an Associated Press correspondent in Kabul, contributed to this report.

Tuesday, 14 November, 2006
Meena among 60 Asian Heroes of Time Magazine
A Hero of Our TIME — M E E N A
She fought—and died at the age of 30 for the rights of Afghan women
By Aryn Baker
Time Magazine (Nov.13, 2006): “In this special anniversary issue, we pay tribute to the remarkable men and women who have shaped these times.”

Meena called the women of Afghanistan sleeping lions, pledging that one day they would awake and roar. In 1977, at the age of 20, she launched the country's first movement for women's rights, calling her group the Revolutionary Association for the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Its goals: the restoration of democracy, equality for men and women, social justice, and the separation of religion from the affairs of the state. But in a country mired in tradition and occupied by the Soviet Union, Meena's beliefs were threatening enough to get her assassinated. Ten years after founding RAWA, she was kidnapped and killed; many Afghans held agents of the local communist intelligence agency responsible.

Although she was only 30 when she died, Meena had already planted the seeds of an Afghan women's rights movement based on the power of knowledge. She believed that if women were able to read and write, that if they could communicate and learn about the world, they would discover their own strength and could make a difference in their own society. After the Soviet invasion in 1979 she established schools and orphanages for refugees pouring over the border into Pakistan. Those schools offered opportunities never available previously to young Afghan women.

“Meena didn't just give me an education; she taught me that I had the right to live a better life,” says Sahar Saba, an early student at RAWA's first school in Quetta.

Today, for the first time in Afghan history, women have campaigned for, and won, seats in the national parliament. One of these women is Gulhar Jalal, a childhood friend of Meena's and an illiterate widow who now represents the province of Kunar.

“I ran,” she says: “because this was Meena's dream.”
Source
http://www.time.com/time/asia/2006/heroes/in_meena.html

November 5, 2006
Sanobar, 11-years-old girl is abducted and raped by warlords
RAWA report
Malom Zafar Shah, district chief and powerful warlord Mehmood, both from “Northern Alliance”, accused of crime
Gulsha, the suffering mother of Sanobar accuses Malom Zafar (district chief) and Commander Mehmood, a local warlord, to be linked with the crime.
Movie Clip of Gulsha | More photos
Sanobar, 11-years-old daughter of Gulsha, an Afghan widow, has been abducted, raped and then exchanged with a dog by warlords in Aliabad district of Kondoz province in North of Afghanistan.

The suffering mother, while crying, says: "a month ago at 11 o'clock of night armed men entered my house and after beating and threatening me by gun, abducted my only daughter."

She accused the district chief Malom Zafar Shah and a powerful warlord Commander Mehmood to be responsible for this crime.

Gulsha says later it was found that her daughter has been raped and exchanged with a dog and a sum of money to another person but her whereabouts are still unknown.

While crying she told journalists: "I approached human rights office and police but none of them could help to find my daughter. The district chief himself has four daughters but he sold my daughters to others. With many difficulties and problems I grown up 2 daughters, one was previously sold [by him] to a Kandahari man and taken to Pakistan and another was exchanged with a dog. Please bring them to justice." (Movie Clip)

Both Malom Zafar Shah and warlord Mehmood are from the "Northern Alliance" and members of Jamiat-e Islami Afghanistan led by Burhanuddin Rabbani (currently member of the Parliament). They have a long record of such crimes and brutalities against people of Kondoz. Malom Zafar has been appointed as district chief directly by Qasim Fahim the former defense minister and vice President and now member of Senate.

In an interview with Ariana TV, Malom Zafar rejected all charges against himself and Commander Mehmmod telling "no Jehadi brother is involved in such crimes."

Mohammad Zahir Zafari, chief of the human rights office in Kondoz says, they have tried since a month to find the child but police is also unable to do anything as powerful people have link to the crime. He also exposed that his office was threatened a number of times to stop following of the case.

Such crimes happen on daily bases in Kundoz and other parts of Afghanistan where warlords have established jungle law and have all the key positions in their possession.

Unfortunately only few of such cases find its way to the media, most journalists are too afraid to report it as it can have dangerous consequences for them.

October 25, 2006
90 civilians perish in NATO air strike: Residents
ISAF spokesman in Kandahar Morall has confirmed killing of four civilians in the bombing
Javid Hamim, Ahmad Farzan — Pajhwok Afghan News,
Haji Nik Mohammad from Panjwaye village of Qandadahar told journalists on October 26, 2006: "I prefer to join the Taliban forces because Taliban have so far killed only 2 people in my village while the collations forces killed 63 people in a single day. Now you tell me who is my real enemy, the Taliban or the foreign troops?"
more photos

KABUL, Oct 25 (Pajhwok Afghan News): About 90 civilians were killed in a NATO air strike in Panjwaye district of the southern Kandahar province, residents said on Wednesday. However, NATO-led ISAF forces claim they had killed 38 Taliban fighters in the bombing.

Residents of Panjwaye also said civilians had suffered great casualties in Tuesday‘s clash and bombardment. Ahmadullah, resident of Zangawad village, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Wednesday that 50 houses of civilians were hit in the bombing.

He said they had retrieved 30 dead bodies from the rubble and some corpses were still entangled there. He said about 90 civilians were killed in the Tuesday air strikes. Per Agha, who has shifted injured to Kandahar Civil Hospital, told this news agency one woman member of his family was killed and three others were wounded. He said he had shifted the injured members to hospital for treatment.

Agha said some members of his family were missing that were perhaps buried in the debris. Another attendant Dad Mohammad said NATO forces heavily bombarded Laknai village of Zangawad area of the Panjwaye district. He also said 90 civilians were killed in this air strike.

A Dr at Kandahar Civil Hospital, requesting anonymity, told this news agency they had received seven wounded including women and children so far. He said ambulances were sent into the area and the number of wounded might increase. NATO forces claimed they had killed 38 Taliban fighters in the attack.

"In two separate engagements we killed 38 insurgents yesterday through very careful targeting against specific groups of insurgents trying to infiltrate back into Zhari and Panjwayi," a spokesman for the NATO force told Pajhwok Afghan News.

The Taliban and other anti-government groups in Afghanistan have gained public support due to the Afghan government's failure to provide essential security and development, and have used the presence of warlords in the government to discredit President Karzai's administration and its international backers.

HRW, Sep. 27, 2006
"We had eyes on them and we knew what they were up to and took action," International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) spokesman Major Luke Knittig said on Wednesday. The area, which is about 35 kilometres (19 miles) west of Kandahar city, was the focus of nearly two weeks of intense fighting last month as part of Operation Medusa, ISAF's largest anti-Taliban offensive.

NATO said afterwards that its soldiers and the Afghan troops involved in the operation had handed the Taliban their heaviest defeat since the hardliners were driven from power in late 2001. ISAF says it is now rebuilding the war damage and setting in place reconstruction projects designed to persuade locals to shun the Taliban.

"We are continuing projects and things that are already putting in place economic development on the ground in follow up to Operation Medusa and insurgents continue to attempt to infiltrate back," Knittig said. "We are trying to deal with that infiltration." Regarding the civilians casualties, Knitting said they had also received such reports and had started investigation in this regard.

However, NATO-led ISAF spokesman in Kandahar Morall has confirmed killing of four civilians in the bombing. Afghan officials have yet to comment about the civilians casualties. Pajhwok contacted the ministry of interior several times but every time it received the reply that the spokesman was “busy in a meeting”. Likewise, Taliban have yet to comment on the incident.

KABUL, Oct 26 (Pajhwok Afghan News)
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has expressed concern on civilians casualties in NATO air strikes in Nangawat village of Pajnwaye district in the southern Kandahar province.

A press statement from UNAMA stated the United Nations had always made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must always come first and any civilian casualties were unacceptable, without exception. According to residents about 90 civilians were killed in NATO air strike in Panjwaye district of the southern Kandahar province. However, NATO-led ISAF forces claim they had killed 38 Taliban fighters in the bombing.

It was clearly in the interests of everyone that the facts be established regarding these events and it was imperative that a thorough investigation was carried out, the statement added.

At this difficult time, the thoughts of the entire United Nations family in Afghanistan were with those who have suffered as a result of this tragedy, the release added.

Afghan women call for ousting war criminals
April 29, 2006
By Our Reporter
ISLAMABAD, April 28: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (Rawa) staged a protest rally here on Friday marking the April 28, 1992, control of Afghanistan by “Islamic fundamentalists”.

Hundreds of Afghan women from the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad and Peshawar gathered in front of the UN offices and condemned what they called the “taking over of power by brutal Jehadi forces after the fall of Russian puppet regime in Afghanistan”.

They were holding banners and placards inscribed with slogans demanding punishment for those who committed war crimes in their country. They also displayed photos of the devastation caused in Afghanistan first by the Russians and then by “Islamic fundamentalists”.

A memorandum presented to the UN officials stated that the same gloom was still dominant in their country and most of the number one suspects of war crimes including Sayyaf, Rabbani, Khalili, Qanoni, Dostum, Mohaqiq, Akbari and Fahim were now either ministers or members of the parliament.

They demanded that the UN should drag the Afghan war criminals to the International Court of Justice.
The protesters criticised the western media for showing a peaceful image of Afghanistan after the US occupation, and ignoring killing, looting, corruption, bribery, abduction, rape, drug cultivation, human trafficking, unemployment and other miseries.

The memorandum also criticised the role being given by the US to the Northern Alliance in the new setup, stating: “The Northern Alliance should know that the bleeding wounds they have inflicted upon the people of Afghanistan during all the years of their Jehadi rule of gore and infamy are too open, too painful.”

It said traitors and dark minds were still in control of the fate of Afghan nation and calamities had gripped the motherland. Mr Karzai and his foreign guardians, who had invested in “fundamentalists” for many years, have been given key posts in the executive, judiciary and branches of government, it added.

Karzai offers olive branch to Taliban
Washington Post, April 28, 2006
Reported by Reuters
Several dozen Afghan women held a protest outside U.N. offices in the Pakistani capital to demand democracy and the prosecution of "warlords."
"Today is a black day because it brought civil war to our country in which 65,000 Afghans were killed and now, those criminals are in parliament," said Danish Hamid, a spokeswoman for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

Protest against warlords sway in Afghanistan
The Nation, April 29, 2006
By Our Correspondent
ISLAMABAD - To observe April 28,1992, as a Black Day when fundamentalists had entered Kabul, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) staged a protest rally in Islamabad.

According to RAWA on April 28, 1992, after the fall of the Russian puppet regime, fundamentalist jehadi forces took power in Afghanistan and prevailed a reign of terror, rape, looting and destruction.

Over 65,000 people were killed only in Kabul from 1992-96 when the jehadi fundamentalists were replaced by ultra-fundamentalist Taliban. But today again the same criminal jehadi forces, instead of appearing in court of justice as war criminals, have key positions in the government of Hamid Karzai and trying to destabilize the situation.

RAWA says, while the warlords-fostering government of Mr. Karzai every year observe April 28 as a victory day, for Afghan people, particularly women, it is the darkest day in our history when the criminal fundamentalist bands took power in Kabul in 1992 following the collapse of the Russian puppet regime.

It was start of a new wave of terror, destruction and barbarism all over Afghanistan and especially the capital Kabul in the hands of these terrorist gangs. And the gloom of 28th April is still dominant in our country and most of its number one suspects such as Sayyaf, Rabbani, Khalili, Qanoni, Dostum, Mohaqiq, Akbari, Fahim, Ismael etc. are either ministers or members of the parliament.

The RAWA every year stages a protest rally to denounce it as a Black Day. On April 28, 2006, RAWA organized a demonstration in front of the UN headquarter in Islamabad. The demonstrators numbering around 600 women and girls arrived from Peshawar and some other cities of Pakistan and nearby provinces of Afghanistan. A RAWA member presented a memorandum to UN authorities in the UN headquarters in Islamabad asking the UN to consider seriously bringing the top fundamentalist leaders in front of the International Curt for their role in war crimes in the past 14 years.

The demonstrators carried large photos depicting the destruction and devastation in Afghanistan and portraits of top criminals in the government with cross marking on their faces, together with banners and placards in Pashtu, Persian and English.

A number of RAWA activists raised cue slogans, which were responded with fervor by participants in the march. Some of the slogans on the banners were: “Parliament full of drug kingpins, criminals and traitors cant represent our people!”, “Collaboration with any of the fundamentalists is equivalent to treachery”, “The Northern Alliance should be brought to justice”, “April 28 odious than April 27”, “New cabinet: the same donkey with a new saddle.”

The participants criticized Western media for portraying peaceful image of Afghanistan while ignoring killing, looting, corruption, bribery, abduction, rape, drug cultivation, trafficking, wasting stealing of billions of dollars, unemployment and so many other miseries, which are very common in Afghanistan today. They also condemned the negative role of the Pakistan government in the events of April 28, 1992.

Delivering speech, a RAWA activist stated: "The re-emergence of the Northern Alliance criminals in different parts of our country crushed all hopes of our people for peace.

The Northern Alliance need to remember the years 1992 to 1996 when they were in power; when the execrable Gulbaddin Hekmatyar gang turned Kabul to rubble with their daily indiscriminate bombardment and rocketing; when the infamous Mazari-Khalili gang were gouging out the eyes of non-Hazaras; when the vile Sayyaf gang were driving 6-inch nails into the heads of Hazaras and broiling them alive in metal containers; when the perfidious Rabbani-Massoud gangs slaughtered the inhabitants of Afshar and other residential areas in Kabul and whitewashed the faces of all murderers, rapists and looters in history in terms of the barbarity and infamy.

The Northern Alliance should know that the bleeding wounds they have inflicted upon the people of Afghanistan during all the years of their jihadi rule of gore and infamy are too open, too painful.”

A statement in Persian and English was distributed during the rally. The title of the statement was “28th April, Mourning for People - Joy for Fundamentalists”. Parts of the statement read: “Traitors, country-betrayers, and dark minds are in control of our nations fate and our country is sunk in calamities. Mr. Karzai and his foreign guardians, who have invested in fundamentalists for many years, today have given key posts in the executive, legislation and judiciary branches of government, to the most infamous and bloody elements of the Northern Alliance and other savage bands.

“Mr. Karzai and his Afghan and foreign advisers have shown conspicuously that they are ready to shake hands in friendship with the filthiest individuals and parties, who now wear the bogus mask of democracy on their nasty faces. “

24 April, 2006
Hezb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has 34 members in the lower house of parliament
A powerful faction in the new Afghan parliament may still be controlled by a man regarded as a terrorist by the United States government
Institute for War & Peace Reporting, ARR No. 210, April 6, 2006
By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul
Hezb-e-Islami is back, green flag and all. The most radical and powerful of Afghanistan’s Islamic movements is an officially recognised political party which now claims to be one of the largest blocs in parliament.

Party leaders say they are poised to sweep to power in future elections now that they are able to campaign openly.

They also say that they have broken ties with the man most closely identified with Hezb-e-Islami, its founder Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United States lists as a wanted terrorist.

Many political analysts, however, are sceptical of the party’s claim that it has reformed.

Hekmatyar, one of the major commanders in the resistance to the Soviet occupation of the Eighties, is an unrepentant mujahedin. He has called repeatedly for a new holy war against the foreign occupiers and those who cooperate with them - including the current Afghan government.

He has publicly vowed that his supporters will never join the present regime.

“Hekmatyar’s policies are his own personal position. He does not represent Hezb-e-Islami,” said Sayed Rahman Wahedyar, a member of the faction in Kabul. “We have cut all ties with Hekmatyar.”

Wahedyar added that member of parliament Khalid Farooqi, a powerful Hezb-e-Islami commander in Paktika province during the mujahedin years, had been named as the party’s new leader.

But the new-look Hezb-e-Islami does not appear to have deviated far from its fundamentalist roots.

The feeling at party headquarters is decidedly conservative. Everyone is dressed in the traditional pirhan-tunbon, the loose shirt and flowing trouser that constitutes Afghan national dress. Most sport the pakul, the soft round hat that became a symbol of mujahedin resistance. And the vast majority wear long beards like those favoured by the Taleban and by Hekmatyar himself.

As a result of last September’s parliamentary election, Hezb-e-Islami has 34 members in the lower house of parliament, making it one of the largest groups in the 249-member body, according to Wahedyar.

Given Afghanistan’s chaotic political landscape, with 81 parties now registered and several more in the works, this represents a significant achievement. Wahedyar says the party would have been even more successful if it had been allowed to register earlier.

“The justice ministry did not want to let Hezb-e-Islami conduct political activities,” said Wahedyar. “They wanted us to change our name and flag. But we resisted.”

It took repeated negotiations with President Hamed Karzai, and one-and-a-half years, to overcome the government’s reluctance to see the symbols of Hekmatyar’s once-formidable power officially displayed.

“This was all engineered by our opponents, who are part of the current government,” said Wahedyar.

Hekmatyar has a host of enemies among those now in power. He engaged in a vicious civil war with many of them after the collapse of communist rule in 1992, when mujahedin commanders destroyed Kabul and much of the rest of the country in a fierce power struggle. He was twice prime minister between 1992 and 1996, although the shifting alliances and violent conflict made his appointment notional.

When the Taleban came to power in 1996, Hekmatyar went into exile in Iran, where he continued to run Hezb-e-Islami.

His outspoken condemnation of the invasion of Afghanistan and of the interim government established in the wake of the September 2001 attacks on the US got him expelled from Iran and earned him a place on the list of terrorists most wanted by the American government. In 2002, the CIA reportedly tried to assassinate him.

Hekmatyar is currently in hiding. Observers say he continues to have broad popular support, especially in the Pashtun-dominated south. An ethnic Pashtun himself, he appeals to many who want to see a strongly Islamic state established in Afghanistan, and who condemn what they see as the corrupting influence of the West.

His supporters say he has been unfairly excluded from power. They point to other former mujahedin leaders and militia commanders who have been accepted into the new government, and ask why Hekmatyar’s alleged crimes are deemed worse than those ascribed to General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the former strongman of the north who is now chief of staff of the armed forces, or of Ismail Khan, who ruled the western province of Herat with an iron hand until being made energy minister in December 2004.

Abdul Gheyas Eleyasi, head of the political parties department at the justice ministry, acknowledged that officials were initially reluctant to grant Hezb-e-Islami an official license.

“We registered them only after we received confirmation from the ministries of defence and the interior, as well as the security organs and UNAMA [the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan] that the party no longer had links with Hekmatyar,” said Eleyasi.

But many suspect that Hekmatyar is still running the show.

“Hekmatyar has played many such games and he has always won them,” said political analyst Fazul Rahman Orya. “Hezb-e-Islami is certainly here with Hekmatyar’s agreement. They are behaving according to Hekmatyar’s wishes, so as to accomplish his goals.”

Tuesday, 11 April, 2006
RAWA launch appeal for Child Sponsorship Program & New Orphanages
There is an urgent need in our growing child sponsorship program. This program, which enables sponsors to build relationships with their sponsored child via the internet, has filled our existing orphanage facilities. To aid the children still living in dire situations, we urgently need to add more of these facilities.

To help us to meet this need, our partners, CharityHelp International and Afghan’s Women’s Mission, have assisted us in implementing a program to enable individuals or organizations to contribute towards an entire orphanage. You and/or your organization can support this effort by providing one-time or on-going operational support for starting new orphanages that we expect will eventually become self-sustaining through our child sponsorship program. For more information on how this can easily be done online, see www.charityhelp.org/rawa.

You and/or your organization can support an orphanage at increasing levels up to founding a complete orphanage. Should you and/or your organization decide to do this, you and/or your organization would instrumental in helping us change hundreds (if not, thousands) of lives over the coming years. The founder of an orphanage would only need to support the initial cost of setting up the orphanage. CharityHelp International and other supporters would take care of all the administration associated with running this project along with on-going solicitation of child and sustaining sponsorships to support annual costs.

If paid via our website, for $16,000 you and/or your organization can become a silver level founding sponsor of a new orphanage (see https://charityhelp.org/sponsor/founding_sponsorship.php). Alternatively, if you and/or your organization are able to pay the money directly to RAWA so we do not need to pay the credit card processor and the International Humanity Center (which provides charitable status in the US); the amount needed can be reduced to $14,500.

Our costs at the orphanages have dramatically increased recently for many reasons including the over 50% increase in rents due to the recent devastating earthquake. Unfortunately, these costs are even higher in war-torn Afghanistan. Even though the orphanage operating costs are still lower in Pakistan we are driven by the need to work towards going home. Those of us who live in Pakistan still live as refugees and could be forced to leave at any time by the Pakistan government. As well, the children deserve to live in orphanages close to their native homes where they can visit their remaining relatives as often as possible. We are nurturing the next generation of Afghan citizens and can do so in our native land with your support. Unfortunately, current sponsorship levels do not support the operating costs for Afghanistan or Pakistan. So, in an effort to keep our individual child sponsorship price as low as possible, CharityHelp International has developed a way for dono! rs to support the whole orphanage via the sustaining sponsorship program. For more information, see: https://charityhelp.org/sponsor/orphanage_sponsor.php

To commemorate these donations, CharityHelp International is announcing the virtual “Wall of Honour”. To honour the founding sponsors, CharityHelp International will create a special page on their website announcing each new orphanage and its Founding Sponsor/s. You and/or your organization will be recognized on a plaque at the orphanage as the founding sponsor.

We are also looking for feedback on these new opportunities or any additional ideas you may have to generate support for RAWA’s orphanages. If you have comments, questions, or ideas about CharityHelp International’s new orphanage sponsorship program please send them to orphanagefund@charityhelp.org

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Mar.21, 2006

UNICEF warns of continued threat facing women and children

An estimated 600 children under the age of five die every day in Afghanistan, mostly due to preventable illnesses, some 50 women die every day due to obstetric complications...

More than one quarter of Afghan babies do not see their fifth birthday (UNESCO, 1997).

According to UNICEF's State of the World's Children Report, Afghanistan has the fourth worst record in under five child mortality, the infant mortality rate being 152 per 1,000 live births.

The Frontier Post October 25, 2000

Kabul 21 March 2006
As Afghanistan's new school year officially begins tomorrow (Wednesday) UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director, Ms. Rima Salah, has warned of a continued threat facing Afghan women and children from high rates of child and maternal mortality, low levels of school enrolment and neglect of children's fundamental rights.

Speaking at the start of a week-long visit to Afghanistan, Ms. Salah expressed concern at the health, education and protection status of children and women; an estimated 600 children under the age of five die every day in Afghanistan, mostly due to preventable illnesses, some 50 women die every day due to obstetric complications, less than half of primary school age girls attend classes, while a quarter of primary school age children undertake some form of work, and an estimated one-third of women are married before the age of 18.

"With more children in school than ever before in Afghanistan, school gates across Afghanistan will open again tomorrow for a new academic year – but at least one in two girls who should be in classes will remain at home," said Ms. Salah. "One in five children in this country do not survive long enough even to reach school age. Others will drop out of school, to support their families. This is a tragedy that threatens progress made in recent years."

Ms. Salah recognized the recent spate of incidents against schools in some part of Afghanistan as undermining the cause of development. "Attacks against education are attacks against the most basic rights of all Afghan people," she said. "We urge communities and authorities to work together to find ways of ensuring all children enjoy the opportunity to go to school."

Ms. Salah is calling upon the international community to increase support to development programmes for women and children. Congratulating the Government for including key targets for improvements in for child and maternal health and education in the recent Afghanistan Compact, she urged donors to provide the resources needed to meet those goals.

"Unless the world makes tangible commitments to the Government and people of Afghanistan, increasing investment in core services such as health, education and protection of children, development will continue to be constrained," noted Ms. Salah. "Efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals will be thwarted unless every Afghan child enjoys a quality basic education, free from abuse and exploitation. These are inalienable rights that we must guarantee."

Ms. Salah will also urge Government and donor representatives to improve outreach of services to Afghanistan's provinces, to reduce disparities between urban and rural communities.

"We have seen so much progress made in recent years, with new institutions in place and stronger policies for women and children, but long-term growth cannot happen if we do not meet our obligations to safeguard health, education and protection," said Ms. Salah. "The children who will flood through those school gates tomorrow, and more importantly those will still remain at home, expect nothing less."

Thursday, 9 March, 2006
RAWA statement on the International Women’s Day — 8 March
“Let’s rise united and resolute for liberation and against the fundamentalism!”
Another Eighth of March has arrived but still the Afghan women are hostage to the fundamentalists’ claws. The continuation of traitor-loving policies of Mr. Karzai and his sympathetic friends by the indication of US government is still like spears entering deeper and deeper into the injured face of our unfortunate people. Whenever the criminal “Emirs” and their commanders commit another heinous crime, instead of being sued, they are rewarded and receive higher posts.

Murder, robbery, kidnapping and the rape of women and children has become the routine. There is a high rate of women committing suicide and an ever expanding cultivation and trafficking of narcotics, all while billions of dollars of foreign aid and public resources are squandered away. Unemployment and homelessness is on the rise. Opening of Kabul Serina Hotel and other hotels of this type in a country with the lowest rate of income per capita in the world doesn’t mean development but it is indeed providing sensual environment for criminals and mocking about the miserable life condition of majority of our nation. The compromising government is unable even to solve smallest of these issues. The country is in chaos.

The last four years of experience in our Afghan nation has confirmed the point that for the government of Karzai, the will of our oppressed nation is not the priority but it is the interests of criminals. Mr. Karzai doesn’t want to and can’t destroy the band of criminals from Afghanistan because the interests of both parties are intertwined.

In the presidential elections the majority of our people gave their votes to Mr. Karzai in the hope that he will prosecute and punish all the criminal fundamentalists for their crimes and atrocities. But he betrayed the vote of the people. That is why in the parliamentary elections, our deceived and hopeless people knew whether they vote or not, the composition of parliament will be made behind the scenes. Jehadi executioners were placed into parliament in order to guarantee the ability to pass and enforce laws that oppress the common people and the country, legitimize the signing of the "Strategic treaty between USA and Afghanistan" and other similar oppressive treaties.

RAWA has stated several times that the government, the court and parliament under the domination of the criminal “Northern Alliance”, the Taliban, Gulbuddini, Parchami and Khaliqi traitors, will never do any good for our bereaved people. Against the unsubstantiated accusations of collaborators that RAWA’s criticisms and attacks on government are always from a negative point of view, treacherousness and corruption has meshed around the roots of government so deeply that its nasty smell has not only been published in the world’s most respected publications; but even Habibullah Qaderi the so called minister of anti-narcotics and Ali Ahmad Jalali, former interior minister, have been forced to confirm that the government is dominated by the mafia.

It is clear in these circumstances, that the grant of more than 10 billion dollars promised during the London Conference will not be used for the masses, but instead like the previous 12 billion dollars, will fill the pockets of the “Northern Alliance” to buy their loyalty to the US.

In the situation when, by the support of criminals the innocent blood of Rahimas, Aminas, Nadias, Gulbers, Saimas and … pours on the ground, the presence of pro-fundamentalist women in the cabinet is nothing but a tool in the hand of government to say to the world and people, “Look at Afghanistan, Women have gained so much freedom!” The mentioned women, like most of the women in the parliament, are as much indifferent to the plight of Afghan people as Sayyaf, Rabbani, Qanonni, Gulbuddin, Mullah Omar and their partners.

The “Northern Alliance”, who gave shelter to Assadullah Sarwari until now, today they want that by punishing him to death, the Afghan peoples’ desire to prosecute the filthier criminals than him, will willow in despair and vanish forever.

Our people and especially the mournful women will not abandon the pursuit of the trial and punishment of religious fascist and Soviet puppets for any price or condition, because they have realized this now more than ever before, that until these unchaste felons are thrown off the throne, they will not be witness to the dawn of freedom, democracy and prosperity in their Afghanistan.

We are not alone in our difficult and tumultuous struggle against the “Northern Alliance” and their Gulbuddini, Talibi and Al-Qaeda brothers. Women of Iran, Kurdistan, Palestine, Turkey, Latin America and other countries are in combat for democracy and against the plague of fundamentalism and war. We sympathize with them and we must assist the movement of women in rest of the world by intensifying our decisive struggle against fundamentalism and their supporters in the region.

Regards to the imprisoned freedom-loving women in Iran and all over the world!

Long live the solidarity between the resilient women of Afghanistan and other countries!

Down with all fundamentalists, the most evil enemies of Afghanistan and human beings!

Hold high the glorious flag of RAWA and all organizations and persons supporting democracy against criminal fundamentalists!

BBC NEWS, February 26, 2006
“Millions of dollars worth of aid money is being wasted”
Ashraf Ghani: "More than 90% of the more than $1bn that was spent on about 400 UN projects in Afghanistan in 2002 was a waste of money"
By Toby Poston, BBC News business reporter
As more than 5,000 British troops are being deployed in Afghanistan, it is becoming clear that the dire security situation is just one of many obstacles that hold back reconstruction efforts.

True, security is a major worry for aid agencies, who saw 30 of their workers die last year.

But in some cases, the agencies' wasteful bureaucracies are also holding back efforts to rebuild this war ravaged country, according to Ashraf Ghani, who has written a report on international development and post-war reconstruction, sponsored by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

As chancellor of Kabul University and Afghan finance minister between 2002-2004, Mr Ghani's word carries some weight.

When he says millions of dollars worth of aid money is being wasted, both donor nations and aid agencies take note.

Complete waste of money

Mr Ghani believes the Afghan government could build a school for about $40,000 (£23,000), a fraction of the $250,000 cost racked up when one international aid agency took on the task of delivering 500 schools.

The difference would arise because the Afghan government would use locally hired contractors, while the aid agency spent 80% of its funds on hiring external technical assistants, he explains.

Another case of money being wasted was the reconstruction of the road between Kandahar and the capital Kabul, which the government estimated would cost $35m.

It was eventually built by USAID and ended up costing more than $190m, Mr Ghani says.

Moreover, these are not isolated cases, Mr Ghani insists, as he estimates that more than 90% of the more than $1bn that was spent on about 400 UN projects in Afghanistan in 2002 was a waste of money.

More harm than good

But the billions of dollars of aid pumped into Afghanistan over the past four years have not merely been wasted; the cash injections might even be doing more harm than good, Mr Ghani suggests.

The country's 280,000 civil servants earn an average wage of $50 per month, while approximately 50,000 Afghans work for aid organisations where support staff earn up to $1000 a month.

"Within six months of starting my job as finance minister, my best people had been stolen by international aid organisations who could offer them forty to a hundred times the salary we could," Ashraf Ghani says.
In particular, it has been damaging to the government and its ability to build law and order and deliver public services, he says.

With more than 2,400 national and international aid agencies and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) registered in the country, the government is finding it hard to hold on to its staff, Mr Ghani says.

The country's 280,000 civil servants earn an average wage of $50 per month, while approximately 50,000 Afghans work for aid organisations where support staff earn up to $1000 a month.

Lucrative work

ODI workers on the ground say Mr Ghani has a point.

They say Afghanistan is brimming with expensive foreign contractors and consultants who are often duplicating or replacing work that could be carried out by the government.

"There is a tendency for UN agencies and non-government organisations to rush in with thousands of small projects, each requiring international staff and drivers," says Clare Lockhart, a research fellow at the ODI and a former advisor to the Afghan finance ministry.

These experts cost far more in overheads like living expenses and repatriation costs than in actual fees for their services, but with further lucrative work in the pipeline, it is not in their interests to pass on their skills to their Afghan counterparts, Ms Lockhart explains.

An inquiry by the US daily, the Washington Post (Nov.20, 2005), has discovered serious flaws in the US efforts to rebuild Afghanistan, suggesting that corruption and inefficiency caused millions of dollars to be wasted on useless projects.
Nevertheless, she also points out that some projects, for example like the National Solidarity Programme, are worth copying.

The programme has seen hundreds of millions of dollars delivered straight to local communities, thus enabling 13,000 villages to plan and manage their own reconstruction and development projects, she says.

Corruption

Critical voices, such as Mr Ghani's, have helped ensure that in future Afghanistan's own government and people will gain greater control over how aid money is spent.

Early this month, the launch of the Afghan Compact initiative saw more than $10.5bn in aid pledged to Afghanistan over the next five years, as part of an agreement where both the Afghan government and its outside backers must benchmarks progress in areas such as security, economic development and better government.

In the UK, the Department for International Development is paying 70% of this year's £100m aid budget direct to the Afghan government, making it the largest donor to it's core budget.

The funds are not earmarked, and there are firm commitments to deliver the funds for at least three years hence. This gives the Afghan government the chance to plan ahead.

February 5, 2006
Drugs link to Afghan cabinet
(The Age, February 6, 2006)
"Some cabinet ministers in Afghanistan are deeply implicated in the drugs trade"
By Toby Harnden, Kabul
SOME cabinet ministers in Afghanistan are deeply implicated in the drugs trade and could be diverting foreign aid into trafficking, the country's anti-narcotics minister has said.

The admission will dismay Western governments, which last week pledged $US10.5 billion ($A14 billion) in aid, including £505 million ($A1188 million) from Britain, to help fight poverty, improve security and crack down on drugs.

It raises the prospect that donated funds could be used indirectly to kill British soldiers, 3300 of whom will be stationed in Helmand province, where corrupt officials, insurgent fighters and drug lords reign.

"I don't deny that," said Habibullah Qaderi, when asked whether corruption linked to the £2.7 billion-a-year drugs trade was extended to the cabinet.

But he declined to name names and said Afghanistan's weak justice system meant it was difficult to convert allegations into fact.

Western aid officials and several European diplomats named the same high-ranking politicians, including one with close links to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, as drug lords.

"The Afghans complain that 75 per cent of aid is spent directly rather than being filtered through their Government but the reason for that is because otherwise a significant proportion is skimmed off into the pockets of drug lords," said one American aid worker.

But a European diplomat in Kabul said: "The problem, as ever, is the smoking gun. We all know it is happening. We all know the names. But I have never seen any direct evidence and I don't know anyone who has."

Militants behead headmaster in S. Afghanistan
"over the past one year some 1,500 people have been killed."
KABUL, Jan. 4 (Xinhuanet) --
In the latest wave of violent attacks, the anti-government militants in Afghanistan beheaded a headmaster of a school in the country's southern Zabul province Tuesday night, director of provincial education department said Wednesday.

"Armed militants entered the house of Abdul Habib , the headmaster of the Shikh Mati Lycee in Zabul's provincial capital Qalat last night and brutally beheaded him in front of his children," Mohammad Nabi Khoshal told Xinhua.

He put the attack on the enemies of Afghanistan in a term used against Taliban insurgents.

Some eight personnel of educational institutions including teachers and students have been killed and three schools were set on fire over the past two months mostly in the southern provinces, the hub of Taliban loyalists.

Remnants of the former Taliban regime who vowed to oust the Afghan government and expel the U.S.-dominated foreign troops from the country have intensified their activities over the past one year during which some 1,500 people have been killed.

RAWA’s response to “The Afghanistan Miracle”
published in The Seattle Times (October 4, 2005) by Diane Tebelius

The “Miracle” or a Mockery of Afghanistan?
by Mehmooda Shekiba
Ms. Diane Tebelius, Republican congressional candidate and observer in the Afghan elections sponsored by the International Republican Institute, is perhaps the first election observer in Afghanistan who wasted no time to communicate her impression in The Seattle Times of October 4, 2005.

A few days ago Ms. Tebelius returned to the United States from Kabul, I am writing these notes as a response to her dreadful article from inside my trampled country. As a member of RAWA, I had to be in several provinces to meet as many people as possible regarding the elections. Tebelius can enjoy the luxury of sitting in her house and so easily call the disgusting mockery of an election “the miracle of Afghanistan”, while I am crying from among the people in the hell of the Taliban and Northern Alliance (NA) terrorists and their “westernized” accomplices. Tebelius and other election observers with their bullet-proofs and body guards were in the hands of the American soldiers and Afghan agents. She might have been told about “swift spreading democracy”, “prosperity”, “complete security” and other “miracles” in our land of warlords and payees of foreign powers. On the other hand since she was selected by the U.S. government that brought Karzai and the Northern Alliance to the scene, it comes as no surprise she is not calling a spade a spade.

One of her miraculous statements is: “The Afghan people see Americans as liberators.”

A distorted proclamation! As we have repeatedly asserted and shown, all of the fundamentalist bands including Taliban were created, funded, and trained by the CIA turning a blind eye to the higher interest of the Afghan people and to the consequence of such sinister support to the fate of freedom and democracy in our country. Thus, the US war on the Taliban is nothing but a family fracas between the father and his rogue children. The US started the fracas by not replacing religious tyranny with democracy, by not relying on the people, but rather by siding with the NA, the very worst enemies of our people. It goes without saying that Afghans will not see as their “liberators” those who drove the Taliban wolves through one door and unchained the rabid dogs of the NA through another. How a nation “sees as liberators” those who have blown to shreds not the terrorists but thousands of innocents? How can simple Afghans “see Americans as liberators” while the “liberators” are going to woo their men in the government and in the parliament to approve the establishment of the US bases on our soil for decades, which obviously goes contrary to the independence of the country? Our people say that if Americans were their liberators, they should have not allowed about 200 criminals and arch enemies of democracy to pave their way to the parliament and provincial council. After four years the people see that the “liberators'” promises for them were all lies. And bear it in mind, Ms. Tebelius, that our ruined people have no doubt that those with the disgraceful stories of Abu Ghraib cannot be their “liberators”. Do we need to recite abuses of the “liberators” in Afghanistan?

Even high-salaried government spokespersons do not have the courage to utter such nonsense openly before the people of Afghanistan. But Ms. Tebelius as a U.S. agent and good friend of one of the two most corrupt governments in Asia can and has to throw dust in the eyes of Americans.

Now let’s see more of her “miraculous” words: “I am convinced, now more than ever, that spreading of democracy is the only long-term strategy to defeat global terrorism.”

Nice maxim! But were Americans or Karzai & Co. “spreading democracy” since 2001? After 9/11 when the U.S. resorted to bomb our wounded country and take the lives of several thousands innocent civilians it helped the bloodthirsty NA seize power. The NA is comprised of those millionaire rapists busy in the opium trade under the very nose of the US troops. They are the people behind the insecurity, kidnappings, embezzlement of billions of dollars of foreign aids, injustices, anti-women constraints, covering up of the day light murders, and so on and so forth.

They include the likes of Dr Abdullah, Younis Qanooni, Zia Massud, Karim Khalili, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Mohaqiq, Sarwar Danish, Ms. Mosouda Jalal, Nematullah Shahrani, Ismail Khan, Ms. Sediqa Balkhi, Rasul Sayyaf, Ikram Masoomi, Rashid Dostum, Mullah Fazil Hadi Shinwari, Ms. Amena Afzali and others are stained with the blood of tens of thousands of Kabul residents. All of these ladies and gentlemen have the disgraceful scar of inhuman brutalities against our people in the blackest years of 1992-1996. They are “our” ministers, vice presidents and advisors to the president. Most of the Afghan ambassadors, governors, secretaries and other high ranking officials are also affiliated with NA mafia.

Don’t you know them, Ms. Tebelius? Just months ago The New York Times and The Los Angles Times named some of them including one of Karzai's brothers. Of course Human Right Watch (HRW) and other organizations have disclosed many more names. However, you Ms. Tebelius are making painstaking efforts to portray these criminals and spies as honorable persons under whose rule “democracy” will “spread” and an electoral “miracle” has already been performed! In any case, as one living in Afghanistan I shall mention the following parts of the “miracle” which obviously show only the tip of the iceberg:

- For the presidential election about 70 percent of eligible voters went to the polls. The real figure of the turnout at the “miraculous” elections however is less the 40 percent and in some areas even lower than 30 percent.

- A report by the HRW stated: “In addition to fear of Taliban and other insurgent forces, found primarily in the south and southeast, many voters and candidates voiced concerns to Human Right Watch about their sense of vulnerability at the hands of warlords forces, de facto or official militia forces ostensibly allied with the government:

“Across the country, candidates and political organizers complained to Human Right Watch of cases in which local commanders or strongmen, or local government officials linked with them have held meeting in which they have told voters and community leaders for whom to vote. In some cases, candidates and their supporters allege that direct threats have been communicated.” [1]

- Filthy figures of the Taliban including their foreign minister and the head of their dreaded religious secret police, notorious for executing and abusing thousands of men and women, criminals figures of the infamous terrorist band of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, high level members of the Soviet backed puppet regime were allowed to stand as candidates, a major factor of disappointment of people to go to the polls.

A conservative EU observer mission said shortcomings during the campaign included intimidation, intervention by officials, inadequate voter lists and “deplorable” killing of candidates and election workers.

- The so-called Electoral Complaints Commission received hundreds of notes about crimes of the fundamentalist leaders, but except some scapegoats, none of them were disqualified. And you know Ms. Tebelius who is the head of the Commission? Bismullah Bismil, an infamous fundamentalist and close relative of Ismail Khan!

- Different kinds of rigging were so blatant that even pro-government and pro-fundamentalist papers couldn’t help but to hint at them.

- In many districts no women could participate in the elections due to security problems. Nevertheless thousands of votes of the women were somehow managed to be cast into the ballot boxes.

- Anti-fundamentalist and anti-government candidates of the parliament and provincial councils of Kapisa Province issued a joint statement condemning irregularities in the elections, desisted from campaign.

- In all areas under the warlords, tens of thousands of ballots have been marked in favor of certain candidates and youth under the age of 18 were brought to vote.

- Ballot boxes were kept for 48 hours or more before being transferred to the polling stations.

- Ms. Shokria Barekzai a participant from Kabul alleged that just in front of her own eyes, ten votes for her were cast for another candidate.

- In Kunduz province, 260,000 votes were cast, but 6,000 of them were excluded in favor of a pro-fundamentalist candidate.

- In some ballots, voters had written words like “he is a murderer”, “he is a bandit”, “he is a foreign agent”, “He is a Talib”, etc. against some candidates, but they were all counted as valid votes.

- Thousands of votes for independent candidates were burnt and thousands of fake votes were cast for the pro-fundamentalists/ pro-Karzai candidates.

- Supervisors and vote counters were forbidden to carry pens. But during a check in a polling center in Nangarhar province, more than 200 pens were found from the mentioned workers. When I asked a middle-aged teacher which candidates is her favorite, she replied: “How can I vote for Engineer Ghaffar, or Hazarat Ali and the like who have blood on their hands?”

- In a constituency in Paktia province, the number of voters was ten thousand, but at least twenty thousands ballots were cast there.. A 30- year-old man from Paktia who was not willing to vote told me: “When I see a traitor like General Shahnawaz Tanai that is so openly is active in election campaign, I can understand how anti-democratic and ridiculous the present election is.”

- In Farah province, Naim Khan Farahi, the biggest landlord of the province, directly backed by the government, by the United Nations’ UNAMA and his gunmen became the “first winner” by committing every kind of irregularity. A nephew of this person is the head of UNAMA in Farah. In Farahrod district another nephew of his (Zabet Jalil) was forcing people by use of his armed henchmen to vote for his uncle.

- Most of the people in Farah are of the opinion that if there were not so much fraud in the elections; Malaali Joya would have garnered at least fifty percent of all votes.

- As in Herat and Nimroz provinces, the regime of Iran had also a hand in Farah. Its intelligence agencies gave 100 millions Toman (about $117,000) to Haji Taimor Shah. His huge color posters were unmatched by others.

- nmatched nt, UNAMA and his gun The stink of the elections spread so wide that even the terrorist Al-Zawahiri talked about them in his statement of 20 September: “The election have been conducted under the terror of [Afghan] warlords. The elections were a masquerade more than anything else, as various regions of the country are under the control of highway men and warlords, and international observers …even the ballot boxes remained in the hands of warlords, bandits and the US agents before they were deposited at the polling centers.”

To get another idea about the scale of corruption and the Karzai regime, we draw your attention to a confidential document recently disclosed by Dr. Ramazan Bashardost. As soon as Dr Bashardost was assigned as the minister of planning he tried to stop activities of 2,000 suspicious and money-maker NGOs, but was soon forced to resign. According to the document, presidents` spokesperson, ministers and high ranking officials, in addition of other allowances get up to $36,000 annually from a British company. Whereas the disabled get $6 and ordinary government employees get $60 per month only.

The overwhelming corruption has risen to the highest organs. “The President had asked me to assume the responsibility of the Administration of Fight against Corruption,” says Bashardost, “I however told him that I would undertake it provided to start from the Presidential Palace.”

In an interview with Reuters on Aug.30, 2005, he says:

"Government members, the NGOs, the big embassy staff, the United Nations staff ... they made a mafia system and you can see the result." [2]
"We received about $12 billion since three years, where is the money?" he said, referring to international aid since the overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001.”

"The Afghan people are against warlords, why does the international community, why does the Afghan government supports warlords?"

"In the provinces, all governors are former warlords, all chiefs of police, and the Afghan people don't accept this situation."

- And so on.

It is not difficult to predict what will be the result of the “miracle” election about which you take comfort. A parliament filled with the most cruel, misogynist, anti-democracy, and reactionary fundamentalists headed by such disgusting drug traders as Sayyaf, Qanoni, Rabbani, Mohaqqiq, Pairam Qul, Hazrat Ali, and their likes. These U.S. backed religious fascists will never “spread democracy”, but rather try to “legitimate” and perpetuate their bloody domination on our people by sitting in the legislature as “lawmakers”.

Ms. Tebelius, anybody who wants to be regarded as a friend of the people of Afghanistan and not of the present regime, she/he has to expose the fundamentalists and their dangerous agenda and avoid to dance to the tune of the US government or its blue-eyed boys in Afghanistan. As Aldous Huxley wrote, “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human”. Please don’t play the role of a propagandist.

Moreover by naming the most scandalous elections in the world “the miracle of Afghanistan”, you have insulted millions of Afghans who didn’t vote for the murderers of their beloved ones. Can’t you feel how painful and disgusting it is to propagate such nonsense?

We hope to recognize you in the future as a sincere friend of our people.

Mehmooda Shekiba, RAWA
Kabul
October 25, 2005

Mehmooda Sheikiba is an activist of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) who has worked in the publications committee of RAWA during the past five years.

----------------------

1- Human Rights Watch Backgrounder, “Key Areas of Concern. The Threat from Taliban and other Insurgent Forces” (August 2005) [go back]

2- From Robert Birsel, “Afghan Former Minister Takes Aim at ‘Mafia System’,” Reuters (August 30, 2005 at 3:53 AM ET) at http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=ISL51261 [go back]

The Afghanistan Miracle
The Seattle Times (October 4, 2005)
by Diane Tebelius
Having just returned from Kabul, where I served as an election observer from the United States to Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, I am convinced, now more than ever, that spreading democracy is the only long-term strategy to defeat global terrorism.

I have witnessed firsthand the "miracle" of Afghanistan. The Afghan people see Americans as liberators and welcome our support, but our delegation never left the hotel without a security detail or our 30-pound bulletproof vests. And that is the picture that is painted in Afghanistan — the hope of democracy, shaded by the uncertainty of terrorism.

For the historic parliamentary elections, men and women, old and young, defied the ongoing threats from Taliban holdouts and voted for a future free from oppression and violence. Nearly 6,000 candidates ran for the 249 seats in the National Assembly and for the 34 provincial councils.

Because the illiteracy rates are high — 80 percent of the women, due in part to the Taliban's policy of denying women access to education, and 50 percent for men — the ballots included the picture of the candidate and a symbol for that candidate. And because there were more candidates than recognizable symbols, the candidates had symbols such as "one lion"; "two lions"; and even "three lions." Posters spread about the city before the election identified each candidate by their respective symbol.

What struck me about these candidates were the issues they talked about: the same issues we find in our own public debates in Washington state. Transportation, safety and jobs headlined the different campaigns. However, unlike our state, where we debate millions of dollars to expand freeways or add bus lanes, Afghans just want the roads paved.

Infrastructure, economic opportunity, public safety and education must exist within the context of a free society. A prosperous and free people will not strap bombs to themselves and blow up innocent women and children for any cause.

In debating the "roots" of terrorism, you can talk about programs. to help the poor, or debt relief, or diplomatic relations. But if the words "we the people," or "the emancipation of women," or "respect for the rule of law," have no meaning, then there is only tyranny.

The women selling their wares on the streets of Kabul can now walk freely about without fear of being beaten if they are not covered from head to foot. The women who once were prisoners in their own homes because it was against the law to be seen in public without a man now joyfully take their daughters to school.

There, too, lies a key to fighting terrorism. Surveys of Muslims that were conducted after the July bombings in London found that women, by a large margin, were much less sympathetic to the ideology of terrorism than were the men.

Free the women, and you begin to safeguard future generations from the snares of Osama bin Laden and his culture of hatred and death.

But building democracy and the institutions that serve the common good and protect individual rights, means you can never escape the uncertainty.

The story of Afghanistan, and other emerging democracies around the world, should inspire us to stay the course. America and the free countries of this world must continue to provide aid and, yes, even military support to the peoples of Afghanistan.

My most memorable moment involved meeting a young lady who had lost her father in the civil wars. She and her mother and brother had fled to Pakistan, and then returned when the Taliban took control. They were forced to leave again when she was told she could not attend school or even work. I asked her why she and her family chose to return after the Taliban's ouster, despite the uncertainty. "Because I love my country," was her heartfelt response.

This is the hope and future of Afghanistan. With the world's continued support, Afghans will succeed, terrorism will be defeated in that country, and the world will be safer.

Diane Tebelius, a former federal prosecutor and Republican congressional candidate, is an attorney in Seattle. She served as an observer in the Afghanistan elections under the sponsorship of the International Republican Institute, a nonprofit organization promoting the growth of freedom and human rights globally. IRI is not affiliated with the Republican Party; it receives some funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

RAWA’s response to “The Afghanistan Miracle”
published in The Seattle Times (October 4, 2005) by Diane Tebelius