Afghanistan: safeguarding the survival of the population, enabling democratic reconstruction

American-British air-strikes against Afghanistan. US-President George W. Bush wants to capture Osama bin Laden, the presumed suspect behind the brutal terror attacks in New York and Washington on September 11th, 2001 and crush his network Al Quaeda. The American threat of violence itself has triggered off a new mass exodus of more than 1,5 million Afghan people. Yet, in the past two decades the Afghan people have endured war and destruction like no other nation. They, too, are victims of terror.

The communists seized power in Afghanistan in 1978, one year later the Soviet army occupied the country. Under the influence of fundamentalist Islamic doctrine the Afghan Mujaheddin put up a bitter resistance. They were armed by the USA, inter alia. Until the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 more than one million Afghan people were killed by acts of war and genocide. Four million people had fled the country. At the beginning of the nineties Afghanistan sank into a bloody civil war between the different Mujaheddin factions.

The Taliban came into being as an attempt to restore law and order in Afghanistan in 1994. The Pakistani military secret service ISI recruited young men from radical Sunnite Koran schools with money from Saudi Arabia. Mullah Omar, a former totally unknown person, became the leader of the movement. The USA supported the Taliban as well and had economic ulterior motives at the same time: in 1995 the US-oil company Unocal concluded a contract with the Taliban regarding the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan.

The Taliban established a dictatorship in Afghanistan which is based on the harsh interpretation of Islamic law, the Sharia. Not just criminals have to fear severe punishment like amputations and executions. Every person with a different opinion, like for example Schiites, are being persecuted as infidels. Women have to cover themselves completely with the „burka“ and are excluded from public life. Girls are denied any education.

The Taliban are predominantly supported by the Pashtun, the biggest ethnic group in Afghanistan. Time and again „religious students“ took cruel action against members of ethnic minorities as well. North of the capital Kabul hundreds of thousands of Tajiks were driven out. After conquering the town Mazar-e Scharif on August 8th 1998 they killed several thousand Hazara, an ethnic group of Mongolian origin who speak a Persian dialect. At the beginning of January this year the Taliban killed once again more than 300 Hazara civilian people. In April 2001 the Taliban ordered the few remaining Hindus to wear a piece of yellow cloth for identification.

The Taliban have condemned Afghanistan to decline economically as well. Time and again they hindered the work of international relief organizations with new arbitrary decrees. That’s how the drought of recent years brought about dramatic effects. By the end of August 2001 already six million Afghan people were depending on food relief and more than a million people were starving, according to the United Nations. More than two million Afghan people were living as internal refugees in wretched conditions. 1,5 million Afghan refugees had already been taken in by neighbouring Pakistan, one million by Iran.

In order to find peace Afghanistan not only has to get rid of Osama bin Laden and his followers. Moreover the Taliban have to be toppled. However, even the Northern Alliance, the joined forces of opponents who benefit from American military action, have committed severe human rights violations in recent years. For a democratic reconstruction a new national assembly („Loya Jirgah“) with representatives of all ethnic and religious groups therefore needs to be convened under the patronage of the United Nations. The last Afghan King Zahir Schah, who had to leave the country in 1973, is the most likely person to have a mediator role in integrating the Pashtun tribes. The educated elite have to be able to return to the country as well. Above all it is necessary to prevent widespread deaths in Afghanistan in the approaching winter months.

Dr. Andreas Selmeci

Human rights work of the Society for Threatened Peoples for Afghanistan

In the eighties the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) conducted impressive campaigns in order to draw attention to the genocide committed by the Soviet attackers which claimed one million Afghan victims. Following their withdrawal we warned about the one-sided arming of extremist Islamists with the help of western countries and Arab dictatorships and from 1998 until 2000 we passed on detailed information about massacres of Hazara, committed by the Taliban. Afghan people in opposition work together with the GfbV. We organise rallies with Afghan refugees and we speak up for their rights in Germany. We support women’s initiatives in Afghanistan and arrange medical help for the Hazarajat.

Please support our commitment to human rights in Afghanistan with a donation addressed to the account no. 1909 at the Sparkasse Göttingen, BLZ 260 500 01.

Translated by Bärbel Heimansberg