The Dominion - taliban

From Occupied Afghanistan

Stuart Neatby — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:53:37 +0000

Part I: An Interview with Mike Skinner and Hamayon Ragstar

Mike Skinner and Hamayon Ragstar spent one and three months, respectively, in Afghanistan in the late spring/summer of 2007 on a fact-finding trip investigating the effect of the Canadian and International mission on Afghan civilian life. Mike Skinner is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of political science at York University and is also a member of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Hamayon is an Afghan-Canadian who experienced a foreign occupation under the Soviet Union first hand. He is finishing his last year as a political science student at York University, and has a thorough understanding of Afghan politics and history. They have, along with fellow-researcher Angela Joya, recently formed the Afghanistan-Canadian Research Group. Their fact-finding trip represents the first phase of their work.

Kabir Joshi-Vijayan recently interviewed Skinner and Ragstar in Toronto for The Dominion about their reflections and conclusions coming out of the fact-finding mission.

The Dominion: To begin, what was the objective of this trip you undertook to Afghanistan? What were you hoping to investigate?

Mike Skinner: The principal objective was to do an activist documentary film that asks Afghans what they think of the international intervention. We really wanted to listen to Afghans who don’t get heard in the West. We listened to people on the street, we listened to students in the university and in teachers college, shopkeepers, and teachers. That was really the intent, to hear Afghans who don’t get heard.

And what parts of Afghanistan were you able to visit?

Hamayon Ragstar: We spent lots of time in Kabul city and walked around the neighbourhoods. We went to Kabul University a few times. Mike and I went to Bamiyan – we spent about a week in Bamiyan. From Bamiyan, we also went to Yakaolang (which is a few hours away from the Bamiyan valley) – and we went back to Kabul from there. We spent one day in Ghazni, and before Mike’s arrival I went to Ghazni and Jaghori. Later I also went to Mazar and Kundus and I spent about 4-5 hours in Khandahar

Did you have any direct interaction with any of the foreign forces present (ISAF, NATO, the US-coalition) and were you able to speak particularly with any Canadian soldiers or commanders?

MS: Our most direct personal experience is when we almost got killed at one point.

We were in a taxicab in downtown Kabul and our cabdriver wasn’t looking as he pulled out into an intersection and almost ran into an ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) convoy. As he said, fortunately they were Turks. If they had been Canadians or Americans, they would have shot us if we had gotten as close to a convoy as we did. My door was literally a few inches from this military vehicle that almost hit us, so that was our closest experience with ISAF.

In Kabul itself ISAF is always visible, but it’s not an overpowering presence either. The Afghan Army and National police are far more evident in most places. We were staying on a main highway from Kabul to Khandahar and we’d certainly see Afghan army and ISAF convoys regularly coming back and forth on that highway. Just a few days after I arrived, we actually saw in the distance, a couple of kilometres away, one of the ISAF convoys hit by a remote control explosive device that blew up a vehicle. So as we were having breakfast we saw the smoke cloud from the explosion. A few seconds later we felt the concussion shake the building that we were in. The reports were that an American was killed in the convoy and that other soldiers in the convoy opened fire on innocent civilians who were just passing by the residential area where the convoy was hit.

We would have actually liked to meet some of the Canadians there. I tried to arrange something, to try and meet with some of the Canadian soldiers, but it was a difficult situation. Also it is hard to cross the line from talking to Afghan people and then talking to soldiers. So we really didn’t have any direct contact with Canadian troops or any other western forces. In a number of informal situations, we were able to talk with military contractors who were quite informative, but talked off record.

What did you see/hear of civilian deaths while there?

MS: I think on a daily, or almost daily basis during the time that I was there, there were news reports of civilian causalities. By far, the greater number of those casualties were caused by western forces in a number of different ways. I already mentioned the hit convoy – where by retaliation or fear or reaction in the moment, the soldiers blindly fired into a crowd. There have also been many cases of deliberate targeting from the air or air attacks – this is often when there’s a ground battle going on and the ground troops call in for air support; air support comes in and they are not necessarily firing at the right targets. There was one case when I was there where a mosque was targeted in Paktia. It was one of the two eastern provinces where there were several young girls that were killed in a mosque. So we were hearing these reports on a regular, probably a daily basis.

We also need to keep in mind that our military is causing far more damage than just civilian deaths. Many people who are injured do die later or suffer miserably. Many people are forced to become refugees when their homes and livelihoods are destroyed. Large areas of the countryside have become uninhabitable because of the war. We were told that the Canadian military is forcing evacuations of villages. Many people also suffer human rights abuses such as home invasions, arbitrary arrest and detention.

We occasionally hear about some of the worst cases of civilian deaths in the Canadian media, but most of the damage our military is doing remains undocumented.

Through the interviews and discussions you were able to have with regular Afghans - what were their perceptions of the international mission? How did they view the initial invasion, and how do they see the current military occupation?

MS: There were mixed reactions. When we were doing the actual interviews, some people wholly supported the invasion and occupation, and there were people that didn’t. There were some people that were fully against it from the beginning –and they had a really good analysis for that. There were also a large group of people –now I haven’t gone through the tapes and added up the numbers- but I think that probably the largest number of people actually had some really mixed feelings; a lot of people said initially they’d hoped there would be some progressive change. The Taliban were a repressive regime, certainly an incredibly anti-woman regime so people held out hope for some progressive change. But that hope has dissipated in the past 6 years because those changes have not occurred.

Conflicts between various colonial and imperial powers have been key in shaping Afghanistan’s history- whether this was colonial Britain and Russia, or the social imperialist Soviet Union against the US in the 70’s and 80’s. Do inter-imperial rivalries have a role in the current conflict?

MS: There are certainly many indications that they do, and there are a number of players in the mix now. Russia is still very important in the region, China is aggressively moving beyond its borders and Afghanistan is a neighbour of China, Pakistan and India which are all regional players in this. Iran is very important, there is also Saudi Arabia, which has been a big player in Afghanistan for a long time. The United Arab Emirates are very influential as well, along with all the western states aligned with the United States that are playing a big part. And certainly Canada has some real interest, and I expect particularly economically in mining in Afghanistan – because there are some very rich mining resources that are largely unexploited. I’m sure Canadian mining companies would love to get in there and get their hands on it. However, that is not what was driving the invasion. It’s one of those side benefits; while we’re there, let’s make some money by developing those mines.

A number of ‘progressive’ forces in Canada and elsewhere, such as the Senlis Council and the NDP, often draw a distinction between the ‘developmental’ and military role Canada plays in Afghanistan- claiming that the re-construction and developmental aid we are lending is playing a positive role. What evidence did you see of Canadian developmental projects while you were there- and do you agree with this distinction?

MS: There’s a new developmental concept, a 3-D approach. It’s supposed to balance defence, diplomacy, development- and actually this concept of provincial reconstruction teams that is being applied in both Iraq and Afghanistan is supposed to do this- where you have the military and development agencies actually working hand in hand in the same base going out and working together.

We asked for a list of CIDA projects from the Canadian embassy in Afghanistan and they said they would contact us and we never heard back from them. We stumbled across one CIDA project that was an artificial insemination project – with a sign on an office – it was closed and the windows were broken. That was the only CIDA project we actually found on our own, but we didn’t go looking very hard, we kind of stumbled across it.

There was an interesting situation in Bamiyan. A New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team- a PRT base, a typical military base- a well-fortified military base, had a large airstrip so that planes could come in and out and it was on a high point of land, a plateau above the town of Bamiyan, about 8 km out of the town. And they did build a development project; they built a high school for girls. But they didn’t build it in the town of Bamiyan; they built it immediately below the base so that the workers at the base would be protected by the military. Bamiyan has been one of the most stable regions since the invasion. This is the town where the Taliban destroyed the giant statues of the Buddha. But since 2001, the Taliban has been gone. It’s a Hazara ethnic area - and the Hazara have really acquiesced to the occupation, and there’s been to my knowledge no attacks on coalition forces or ISAF in this area, so there’s not a big security problem - it’s as stable as it’s going to get. The school was built immediately beside the base below this plateau so as to provide security. It’s a clear shot from the base down to this area, with a clear view of the surrounding valley and a good secure place to build this thing. However, it is a 16 km round-trip walk for the girls from Bamiyan to get to the school and back, and you get pretty severe winters in this area as well. It’s not the ideal place to put the school; it should have been in town.

The university student who pointed it out to me said that this is just typical of the way these projects are – it was obviously considering the interests of the people who built this and not considering the interest of the Afghans who actually have to use it – and it was done without the consultation of the people who live in the area.

Along with development, the Afghan government is also constantly used as a justification for maintaining the occupation. We are told that the current government represents a vast improvement from the time of the Taliban- and that international troops are needed to support and help it. What changes in the government have we actually seen since the Taliban?

Hamayon Ragstar: I don’t think anything substantially has changed since the time of the Taliban – the Taliban was representing the feudal comprador ruling class of Afghanistan – especially the Pashtun ruling classes. This current government is again representing the ruling classes of Afghanistan and is directly at the service of an imperialist occupation. There have been some very minor cosmetic changes. This government is giving some positions of power to the non-Pashtun nationalities - the Taliban didn’t. This government is giving some symbolic positions to women – the Taliban didn’t bother with those kind of things. But I would say all these changes are cosmetic changes, there is nothing substantial. For example, the imperialists during the invasion talked a lot about the issue of women and in that regard have given to some women individuals and groups some positions in the ranks of the puppet regime; this has nothing to do with rights of women of Afghanistan, rather it is purely for the purpose of turning the question of women a political tool at the service of imperialist occupation. It’s still a chauvinist government - a male chauvinist government, an ethnic chauvinist government. It’s a theocratic government. Taliban was a single party theocracy; this government is a multi-party theocracy.

This government also states in its constitution that no law shall be put into place in Afghanistan that is in contradiction to Sharia law – and Sharia law is obviously not very friendly towards women or religious minorities. I would say there is no change substantially from the time of the Taliban. On so many levels this government is worse than the Taliban. For example, this government is more corrupt. There was no bribery during the Taliban’s time- it was much cleaner on those issues. However, in this government, from the President to the very low ranking officials of the government, everyone is taking bribes – so it is much, much more corrupt than the Taliban ever was.

[Continue reading in part II of the interview]

To read the dispatches written by Mike from Afghanistan and to learn more about the Afghanistan-Canadian Research Group visit: http://www.tuaw.ca/other/dispatch0.html

Teashop

Les Talibans regagne la faveur des Afghans

hillarybain — Sun, 13 May 2007 11:30:13 +0000

À Kandahar, où l’insécurité règne, les américains perdent peu à peu le soutien de la population

Quiconque tient à la vie évite de sortir le soir à Kandahar. Dans cette ville, véritable coupe-gorge, les chances de survie diminuent au coucher du soleil.

Subissant quotidiennement cette situation d’insécurité, la population s’exaspère et désigne les coupables. Plus de cinq ans après les promesses de paix, de prospérité et de liberté, nombreux sont ceux qui souhaitent le retour des Talibans.

« Les États-unis se disent démocratiques, modernes et possesseur du savoir, mais ils nous mystifient de tant de manières. Comment pouvons-nous leur pardonner ? », s’indigne Faiz Mohammed Karigar, un résident de Kandahar.

« Si je m’assois à une table avec un Américain et il me dit qu’il nous a apporté la liberté, je vais lui répondre qu’il nous a trompé : “ Tu ne nous a pas apporté la liberté “. »

Alors que le monde commence à prendre la pleine mesure de l’horreur en Irak, l’Afghanistan sombre dans le même bourbier infernal. Chaque semaine, la liste des morts s’allonge dans une guerre que le Premier ministre du Canada, Stephen Harper, considère sur le point d’être remportée.

« Quand les Talibans étaient ici, je me suis enfui jusqu’à la frontière iranienne, mais je n’ai jamais été inquiet pour ma famille », assure M. Karigar. « Chaque minute durant les trois dernières années, j’ai été très inquiet. Peut-être les Américains vont venir chez moi ce soir, toucher ma femme, toucher mes enfants et m’arrêter. »

« J’ai déjà décidé de me tenir debout, de les affronter. Je vais me dresser contre eux même si je les vois dans la rue. Je vais me battre contre eux avec ma langue, avec mes mains, avec des fusils. Je vais me battre contre eux de toutes les manières possibles. »

C’est au sud, dans la province de Kandahar, que le mouvement Taliban est né, et c’est là qu’il est revenu à la vie, régénéré par la colère des Afghans envers les troupes étrangères.

Quand le Mollah Mohammed Omar était au pouvoir, les Afghans pouvaient marcher en sécurité dans la rue, tant qu’ils souscrivaient à l’interprétation stricte de la Loi islamique. Maintenant, une simple sortie au marché est risquée.

« C’est exact, [le président Hamid] Karzai en appelle toujours à la démocratie et assure que tout va bien, mais ce ne sont que des mots », proteste Maria Farah, une mère de cinq enfants. « Si vous rencontrez des femmes, leurs visages sont très tristes. Je ne dis pas seulement deux ou trois femmes. Tous nos visages sont très tristes. Si vous allez dans les maisons, vous verrez la même expression sur le visage des maris car ils n’arrivent pas à trouver d’emploi et s’inquiètent pour la sécurité et l’avenir des enfants. »

« Je ne peux seulement parler de la ville de Kandahar. Je crois que la vie sous les Talibans était très bonne. Si nous n’avions pas le ventre plein, nous pouvions au moins obtenir un peu de nourriture et puis aller dormir. Si nous sortions quelque part, il n’y avait aucun problème », ajoute-t-elle.

« Qu’en est-il maintenant ? Si nous sortons, nous ne savons pas si nous rentrerons à la maison sain et sauf. S’il y a une explosion et que les Américains passent par là, ils vont ouvrir le feu sur tout le monde. Les problèmes de sécurité sont considérables ici. Si une personne roule sur l’autoroute, elle sera arrêtée et décapitée. Si les femmes sortent de la maison la nuit tombée, les gens les regardent avec de la haine dans les yeux. »

La femme de 33 ans termine notre conversation par une simple requête : « Demandez à [George W.] Bush de venir ici une seule fois pour rencontrer des femmes qui veulent lui arracher la peau ».

Peu de temps après leur arrivée à Kandahar, au milieu des années 1990, les Talibans ont apporté la paix à une région jusque là dirigée par des seigneurs de guerre rivaux.

Aujourd’hui, c’est une des régions les plus dangereuses du pays ; les violences politique et criminelle y répandent la peur à travers la population. Dans cette province du sud, les quelques 2 500 soldats canadiens font face aux attaques-suicides, aux échanges de coups de feu et aux bombardements routiers de plus en plus fréquents. Les pertes en vies humaines augmentent dans les deux camps armés.

Mais quelle que soit la cause réelle des effusions de sang, les Afghans blâment presque toujours les soldats étrangers et les forces de sécurité locales. Un grand nombre d’entre eux considèrent la présence des États-Unis dans leur pays comme une occupation militaire, ne faisant souvent peu ou pas de distinction entre les différentes nations engagées dans la mission dirigée par l’OTAN.

« Peu importe si une route a été construite », commente Haji Abdul Rahman, un aîné tribal. « Si vous construisez une route et tuez en même temps, quel est le bénéfice ? »

« Tout le monde est voleur. Je te garantis que si tu t’assois dans ma voiture et que je t’emmène faire un tour, aucun Taliban ne va te prendre. Mais je ne peux rien te garantir de la police. Si on t’arrête, on va te voler ton argent et ta caméra. »

Son ami, Abdul Hamid, partage ses inquiétudes. Ses six fils sont sans emploi et il croit que le jihad est la seule possibilité d’avenir pour l’Afghanistan.

« La situation est bien pire que la période d’occupation russe », dit l’homme de 71 ans. « À cette époque, peut-être étions-nous inquiets qu’un missile s’écrase sur notre maison, mais nous n’avions pas peur qu’ils viennent eux-mêmes dans notre maison. »

« Un de mes fils voulait se joindre aux militaires. L’idée ne me plaisait pas. Je lui ai dit que notre pays est détraqué, que tout le monde est voleur et qu’il faut se tenir debout et se battre pour la vérité. »

Panjwayi est une place forte des Talibans dans l’ouest de la province de Kandahar. En mai dernier, les forces menées par les États-Unis ont attaqué par voie aérienne les présumés insurgés du district.

Les officiels américains ont annoncé la mort de 80 militants, mais les villageois présents sur les lieux affirment que nombre de victimes étaient des civils.

Mawlawi Abdul Hadid, un homme de 45 ans, affirme que dix-huit membres de sa famille ont péri lors du raid. Selon lui, une petite fille de deux ans figurait sur la liste de la trentaine de victimes innocentes.

« Au début, vous n’aviez qu’un ennemi. Puis vous vous en êtes fait deux, puis trois, et maintenant moi aussi je me lève contre vous », déclare-t-il. « Vous avez fait de moi votre ennemi et je vais me lever contre vous. »

« Les Talibans sont les fils de ce pays : mon fils est un Talib et ton fils est un Talib », ajoute M. Hadid en faisant des gestes vers un autre homme.

« Les Talibans se battent pour nos droits, l’humanité et la vérité. Jour après jour les Américains perdent des appuis et beaucoup de gens soutiennent désormais les Talibans. »

Quand on lui demande combien de temps va prendre la défaite les soldats étrangers, M. Hadid donne une réponse qu’on entend de plus en plus à travers l’Afghanistan.

« Dans l’Islam, nous ne savons pas ce qui va arriver demain », dit-il. « Mais nous savons une chose : Dieu les a amenés ici, et Dieu les fera partir. »

Traduit par Loca Noregreb

Afghanistan

Kandahar Faces Daily Misery

dru — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:46:44 +0000

"You did not bring us freedom," say residents of Afghanistan's southern province

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN --Anyone who values their life tries to avoid going out after dark in Kandahar. This place is a death trap at the best of times and the odds of survival plummet with the sun.

Security is almost non-existent here. More than five years after they were promised peace, prosperity and liberty, many now want the Taliban to come back.

“The Americans say they are democratic, modern and know everything, but they fuck us in so many different ways,” Faiz Mohammed Karigar, a local resident said. “How can we forgive them? How can we forgive the Americans?

“If I sit at a table with an American and he says he has brought us freedom, I will tell him he has fucked us. 'You did not bring us freedom.'”

As the world starts to acknowledge the full horror of the present state of Iraq, Afghanistan slips towards the same state. With each passing week the list of the dead grows in a war Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper insists is being won.

“When the Taliban were here I escaped to the border of Iran, but I was never worried about my family,” Karigar told me. “Every single minute of the last three years I have been very worried. Maybe tonight the Americans will come to my house, touch my wife, touch my children and arrest me.

“I have already decided to stand against them. I will stand against them even when I see them on the road. I will fight them with my tongue, my hands, with guns – I will fight them in any way I can.”

The southern province of Kandahar is where the Taliban movement was born and it is here that it has come back to life, resuscitated by the widespread anger Afghans feel towards the foreign troops in their midst.

When Mullah Mohammed Omar was in power people could walk the streets safely as long as they complied with a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Now a simple outing to the market is a risk.

“That’s right, [President Hamid] Karzai is always shouting about democracy and saying everything is fine, but it’s just words,” Maria Farah, mother of five, said. “If you meet women their faces are very sad. I don’t just mean two or three women; all our faces are very sad. And if you go to houses you will see the same faces on husbands as well because they cannot get jobs, they worry about security and they worry about their children.

“I can only talk about Kandahar city. I think life under the Taliban was very good. If we did not have a full stomach we could at least get some food and go to sleep. If we went out somewhere there were no problems,” she continued.

“How about now? If we go out we don’t know if we will arrive home or not. If there is an explosion and the Americans are passing they will just open fire on everyone. The security problems are too much here. If someone is driving on the highway they will be stopped and beheaded. If women leave the house when it is getting dark people look at them with a hatred in their eyes.”

The 33-year-old finished our conversation with a simple request.

“Ask [George W.] Bush to come here once and meet with women who want to tear his skin off,” she said.

Soon after the Taliban first surfaced in Kandahar during the mid 1990s they brought peace to an area previously ruled by rival warlords.

Today this is one of the most dangerous places in the country, with political and criminal violence spreading fear among the population. There are approximately 2,500 Canadian troops based here and casualties on all sides are mounting, with suicide attacks, firefights and roadside bombings increasingly common in the southern province.

But whatever the real cause of the bloodshed, Afghans almost always blame the foreign soldiers and local security forces. Many of them simply regard this as a US occupation, often seeing little or no difference between the various countries that make up the NATO-led mission.

“Forget that a road has been built,” Haji Abdul Rahman, a tribal elder, said. “If a road has been built and you are killed, what good is it?

“Everyone is a robber. I guarantee if you sit in my car and we go for a drive no Taliban will take you away. But I cannot guarantee you [the same] about the police. If they stop you they will steal your money and your camera.”

His friend, Abdul Hamid, shared similar concerns. All of his six sons are unemployed and he believes jihad is he only way forward for Afghanistan.

“It’s much, much worse than when the Russians were here,” the 71-year-old said. “At that time maybe we were scared a rocket would land on our house, but we were not scared of them coming into our house.

“One of my sons wanted to join the military. I was not happy about that. I told him this country is fucked up, everyone is a robber and you have to make a stand and fight for the truth.”

Panjwayi is a Taliban stronghold in the west of Kandahar province. Last May US-led forces conducted an air strike on alleged insurgents in the district.

American officials claimed as many as 80 militants might have been killed, but villagers at the scene said a number of the casualties were civilians.

Mawlawi Abdul Hadid told me 18 members of his family died in the raid. He said 30 innocent people were killed in all, the youngest of them a two-year-old girl.

“In the beginning you had only one enemy. Then you made two, then three and now I also stand against you,” he declared. “You made me your enemy as well and I will stand against you.

“The Taliban are the sons of this country: my son is a Talib and your son is a Talib,” the 45-year-old added, gesturing towards another man in the room.

“The Taliban are fighting for our rights, they are fighting for humanity and they are fighting for the truth. Day by day the Americans are losing support, but lots of people support the Taliban.”

Asked how long it would take to defeat the foreign soldiers, Hadid gave the kind of response increasingly heard across Afghanistan.

“In Islam we don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” he said. “But one thing we do know is that God brought them here and God will take them away.”

Abdul Hamid and Haji Abdul Rahman

Canadian Solider in Kandahar City

hillarybain — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 15:27:35 +0000

When the Taliban claimed power, they forced women to cover their entire bodies and stopped girls from going to school. They also brought a semblance of security to Afghanistan that has evaporated since the NATO invasion.

The Taliban's Past and Future

dru — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 22:11:51 +0000

An interview with Mullah Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, former Taliban foreign minister

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--There was a time in recent memory when the people here had nothing but God and an AK-47 to keep them safe from harm. In the early 1990s, Afghanistan was imploding and few in the West seemed to care. Those with power abused it; those with wealth flaunted it; and everyone else lived with the knowledge that each morning could be their last.

Back then, Mullah Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil was just another young man whose father had been killed during the Soviet occupation. He needed a reason to hope and one day he found it. By his mid-20s he was at the forefront of a movement that first stabilised the country, then helped bring war to America and ultimately changed the way Islam was perceived across the world.

"At the time I started with the Taliban, every village had its own government and very dangerous issues threatened Afghanistan," he said. "Every government was making a new currency, every government had its own ministry of defence, everyone had their own private airports.

"For the purpose of stopping the division of the country and solving the problems inside the country -- improving the transportation system and saving innocent people from warlords and their rockets -- the Taliban movement was set up. And a thousand people like me joined it. We had no other purpose, it was just to give the country freedom. We did not represent any other government and we did not stand for anyone else."

These kind of impoverished, deeply religious young men still found across Afghanistan formed the Taliban. They were initially welcomed as saviours by a population tired of having old Mujahideen commanders kill and kidnap at will.

"We wanted a peaceful Afghanistan and good relations with other countries," Mutawakil said. "Now people think the Taliban wanted to make a country full of terrorists, but we didn’t want that."

Less than two years after capturing Kandahar, they rolled into Kabul, bringing a fragile peace to the devastated city and imposing their strict interpretation of the Qur’an on its people.

With Mutawakil working as spokesman for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and later as foreign minister, the new government banned music and kite flying, sanctioned capital punishment and forced all men to grow beards.

"We hoped our laws would bring freedom to everyone in every part of their life, but we did not have lots of facilities," Mutawakil said. "Nowadays lots of countries are giving donations to Afghanistan, but at that time they were only wagging their fingers at us and complaining."

The most notorious edicts were aimed at the female population. Women were not allowed out alone and when they were in public, they had to cover their entire bodies. Girls were stopped from going to school.

"We are against co-education, but we are happy with separate education," Mutawakil insisted. "For example, in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, people are studying separately, which is according to Islamic law. If women wear the hijab, they can go to school."

After capturing the south and Kabul, the Taliban pushed onwards in an effort to establish control over the whole country. A movement of rival warlords known as the Northern Alliance put up fierce resistance and appealed for outside support in its struggle against the new government. Untold numbers of people were maimed and killed by both sides, many of them civilians.

But the West only really began to take notice of what was happening when Osama bin Laden returned to Afghanistan, a country he had helped liberate from Soviet occupation while fighting alongside other CIA-sponsored jihadis.

The Saudi was now regarded as a terrorist by Washington and he soon became a close ally of the Taliban, encouraging more foreign militants to come and join those who had remained in the country since the 1980s.

"We did not hate them, we had a sort of love in our hearts for them. But it was not worth the price for us -- it was not worth putting our lives in danger, which is what happened," Mutawakil said.

"The only solution was for the Arabs to live here quietly, safely, as immigrants. They should have lived here as immigrants, not as fighters."

Mutawakil denied the Taliban had any prior knowledge of 9/11 and he believes the US may already have been planning to overthrow the regime before New York and Washington were hit.

Four months after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan started, the foreign minister handed himself over to the local authorities. He was held for a night and then transferred to American custody, where he remained for most of the next two years.

It is not easy to meet Mutawakil now. Private security guards stand watch outside his home and he claims the government keeps track of his every move.

On a freezing cold January morning, he agreed to this exclusive interview. A friendly, bespectacled man, he talked in Pashto for almost two hours about his life and the difficulties Afghanistan faces.

"All of our problems were not solved under the Taliban," he said. "But the interesting thing from that time, and lots of people are remembering this now, is the tight security there was in the country.

"When the new regime came, people had lots of hope, but one day they found out nothing was happening and they had even lost the tight security they had under the Taliban."

About 4,000 people are estimated to have died in the insurgency last year, a body count roughly four times higher than in 2005 and the worst since the invasion. Indiscriminate suicide attacks are common now, as are reports of NATO-led forces killing civilians in airstrikes and shootings. The Taliban already control areas close to Kabul city and further violence is expected following the winter.

Mutawakil believes the only way to stop the situation escalating into a nationwide jihad is for the Karzai administration and its allies to open high-level talks with the insurgents.

"Now the foreigners think all the Taliban are terrorists," he said. "I think inside the Afghan government, there are people who are far worse criminals than the Taliban; they have committed many crimes.

"So the best way is to forgive everyone. It’s better to start negotiations. Of course there will be problems, as the foreigners don’t like the Taliban and call them terrorists and the Taliban don’t like the foreigners, but the best way is to start negotiations. By negotiations we can move forward step by step.

"The biggest problem now faced by the world is that it does not know the exact definition of terrorism: who is a terrorist; where are the terrorists. I think that terrorism can be in every society, it’s not unique to any tribe, to any religion, to any person -- you can have it everywhere."

But with NATO determined to defeat the insurgency by force, corrupt warlords still holding the reins of power in the government and more heavy fighting due in the spring, it looks like the kind of anger that first launched the Taliban will explode into the open once again.

"There is no hope for the people -- their hearts are broken," Mutawakil said.

Canadian Solider in Kandahar City

Yahya

dru — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 07:24:34 +0000

"Yes, soon the jihad will start. I will fight against the Taliban and the infidels, the foreigners. If your stomach is empty, of course you will do something and what we will do is fight," said Yahya, a local labourer. ©2006 Reproduction without permission prohibited.

Shia in Kabul Preparing for War

dru — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 05:18:22 +0000

Residents warn sectarian violence is just around the corner

This trash-strewn Kabul suburb is dotted with giant furnaces used for baking bricks. Yet not so long ago the smoke coming from these chimneys carried the stench of charred human flesh. People were cooked alive here in the 1990s simply because they belonged to the wrong ethnic group or fought for the wrong commander.

The men who murdered them are not the insurgents NATO-led forces have been struggling against. This is a Shiite neighbourhood and its residents are staunch opponents of the Taliban. But after five years of trying to eke out an honest living from Afghanistan’s shattered economy, they have had enough and are once again waiting for war.

"I will kill [foreign] civilians and not soldiers. There won't be any soldiers on the ground; they will all have disappeared and you will just see them in the sky in their planes. But I will kill civilians because they have stolen all our money. All the money that's been given to Afghanistan goes in their pockets.

"Of course I will kill you if you come back to see me when the jihad starts. That happens when there is fighting. I have seen men kill their own brothers."

Strip away all the NATO talk of winning hearts and minds and it becomes clear the nation is approaching meltdown.

As the insurgency grows stronger, so does the fear and anger among the Shiite Hazara community. Following a civil war in the early to mid 1990s, they faced a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing under the Sunni-extremist Taliban regime. They are not about to let that happen again.

Qurban Hussain told The Dominion that the arrival of international troops had helped save his people from further bloodshed. But he also claimed a new wave of internecine violence lies just around the corner.

"At first, the four per cent of Hazaras who are rich will leave the country. But the others will stay here and the Taliban will start killing and arresting them. Those people who have got small houses will then have to sell them to get their relatives released," he said.

The 32-year-old was speaking in what was once a notorious jail run by Shiites. Men from Afghanistan's two largest ethnic groups, the Pashtuns and the Tajiks, were frequently imprisoned, tortured and murdered between these walls.

"The next civil war will be twice as bad," said Hussain.

The building is now a warehouse and few signs of the horrors remain. One room still lies in ruins from a rocket attack and on a nearby door there is a child-like drawing of an obese man carrying a gun and a knife.

"The last civil war was horrible," said Khoda Dad Attay, as he sat beside Hussain. "Even if we were at home or at work the rockets were raining down and killing us."

He is now preparing for the next round of carnage.

"It's 100 per cent certain we will fight the Taliban. We will fight them to the best of our ability," he said.

Afghanistan's Shiites are found mainly among the Hazara, an ethnic group believed to have descended from Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes. Their heartland is in the province of Bamiyan, where they were massacred by the Taliban regime.

Haji Mehdawi, a former militia commander, said most of them had surrendered their weapons after the 2001 invasion. Now they want them back.

"We just want peace because we are hoping the government will build schools, will build hospitals, will improve our economic situation. But to be honest, nothing has been done," he told The Dominion.

"Many times I have met the Americans in Bagram, and I have met the Canadians. I have said, 'Give us guns and we will fight against the Taliban. If anything happens we will defend our tribes and families. Make us an army, give us guns and a salary, then we can defend our tribes and families.'

"We will fight against the Taliban, but we need the foreigners to give us guns. We believe that the foreigners are the water of life for us."

When asked why he did not enlist in the Afghan National Army (ANA), Mehdawi's response spoke volumes about the deep hatred that exists between the country's different ethnic groups.

"If you join the ANA you have to sign a contract. We want to do it as a community, so if someone has a problem they can leave. Our standards are different to theirs," he said.

"Most of our people believe if we join the ANA the Pashtuns will ask us to go to the front line, then from behind they will shoot us in the back."

Qurban Hussain

Yahya

Qurban Hussain

dru — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 02:37:47 +0000

Qurban Hussain told The Dominion the arrival of international troops had helped save his people from further bloodshed. But he also claimed a new wave of internecine violence lies just around the corner. ©2006 Reproduction without permission prohibited.

Afghan MPs Predict "Very Big War"

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:43:50 +0000

Civilian deaths, corruption, occupying troops leading to "jihad" against foreigners, say leaders

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--As a former senior Taliban commander and associate of Osama bin Laden, Mullah Abdul Salaam Rocketi was a shining example of the warlords who seemed to be rejecting violence and embracing Afghanistan's new democracy.

But the MP for the southern province of Zabul now typifies the anger and despair raging through this blood-soaked country.

In a series of interviews with The Dominion, a number of Afghan politicians said a mass uprising against NATO-led forces will soon begin, driving out the foreign troops and igniting a civil war.

"When the Taliban came along, I gave everything to them because I wanted the country to improve and the people to be safe," said Rocketi. "Then when the current government came along, I gave everything to them because I thought they would make the country better. But I regret that.

"Everything is gone now, we have nothing. I regret it not because I am no longer with the Taliban, but because this government does not have the power to improve our country.

"It's getting worse and worse and worse. I don't have any hope. But whatever is happening now, the people can't complain. If they make a noise the local governor will say they are Taliban or Al-Qaeda and get them sent to Bagram."

Rocketi -- whose name derives from his famed ability with a Rocket-Propelled Grenade launcher -- said pressure is building as his country slips backwards.

"I know, I am sure, that soon a very big war will start between the foreigners and the population," he explained.

The parliamentary elections of September 18, 2005, were hailed as a key event in Afghanistan's transition from a war-torn nation ruled by Islamic extremists to a peaceful and moderate democracy.

However, the Taliban-led insurgency has grown rapidly during the last year and MPs believe the rebellion is an accurate reflection of public anger.

While all militants are usually portrayed as isolated radicals, the reality is not so simple. Fierce anti-American and anti-NATO rhetoric can be heard almost everywhere in this country now. Even moderates who support the presence of foreign troops are predicting catastrophe.

With his well pressed suit and smart tie, Mohammad Hashem Watanwall, MP for the southern province of Uruzgan, would look perfectly at home in the House of Commons. But his vision of the future is bleak.

"When the current government came along I gave everything to them because I thought they would make the country better. But I regret that." -- Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi, MP for Zabul. © 2006 Chris Sands

"There is a big fire under the earth. It's like a volcano and soon it will explode," he warned. "It will explode if everything continues like now; the corruption, the bad security, the bombing of civilians by coalition forces. Soon it will explode and people will stand up in the name of jihad and martyrdom if there are no big changes.

"Now in parliament the MPs are saying 'Forget about Pakistan and the Taliban; why are the foreigners here?'

"They are saying a thousand-headed dragon is here and it's the foreign armies. Just imagine, if the MPs are saying that in an official place, what will a simple person in a village be saying?"

He added: "Now in parliament they say if you kill a foreigner, a non-Muslim, and then you yourself are killed, you will become a martyr and go straight to paradise. They see no difference between the military or civilians."

The insurgency that overpowered Soviet troops and Kabul's puppet communist regime began with small rebel movements. It developed into a nationwide struggle during which Mujahideen battled against the Russians, local government forces and each other.

That occupation ended in 1989, but peace remained elusive and between 1992 and 1996, a brutal civil war raged between Afghanistan's different ethnic groups and political factions.

Watanwall predicted any new full-scale jihad would have the same result. "Of course some tribes will fight each other," he said. "They will say: you are Pashtun, I am Tajik; I am Tajik, you are Hazara; you are Shia, I am Pashtun. The civil war will start because of differences of skin, differences of language, differences of religion."

"Hazaras say they don't have enough positions in the government; Uzbeks say that, Tajiks say that, even Pashtuns say that and they have Karzai as President. Now it's ideological and with words, but soon it will turn to violence.

"I believe if the international forces and the government don't take any strong steps then soon it will start and it could get as bad as Iraq."

Ahmad Shah Khan Achekzai is MP for Kandahar, where Canadian troops are based. He joined Rocketi in demanding that Pashtuns -- the ethnic group from which the Taliban draw their core support -- be given more positions in government. He also launched into a tirade against the foreign troops.

"The population hates the government, hates the Americans and hates their friends because they are all liars," he said.

"Soon the jihad will start, that's right. The Americans and the coalition came to Afghanistan by way of the United Nations, but when they go into people's houses and search them, it's unacceptable. They are acting against Islam and they are attacking innocent people.

"There will be jihad, I am 100 per cent sure. It's against our culture, it's against Islam -- if they want to come to our houses, they need permission."

Then, almost as an afterthought, he added: "If the jihad starts, of course I will join it -- it's natural."

Afghanistan correspondent Chris Sands interviews Afghan MPs, and hears predictions of a "very big war" and jihad against foreign troops.

War, Warlords, War Crimes

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 22:50:11 +0000

Afghanistan in context

photo: Corporal Robin Mugridge, Canadian Forces Image Gallery

When war is waged, multiple factors are suddenly brought into play. An accurate understanding of the ensuing events requires broad, contextual information. Context, however, is frequently denied, obscured and misrepresented by political leaders and wartime media coverage. In this respect, Afghanistan has been no exception. The analysis that follows seeks to provide some of the historical basics essential for an accurate, critical examination of the war in Afghanistan today.

Afghanistan 1979-2001

On Dec. 22, 1979, Soviet forces began to enter Afghanistan. In the decade of war and occupation that followed, over 15,000 Soviet troops and one million mujahideen fighters and Afghan civilians were killed. Yet it was the Islamic fundamentalist mujahideen, backed with billions of dollars in arms and funding by the West, who would ultimately prevail. By 1992, three years after the final withdrawal of its Soviet backers, the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan fell.

An arduous civil war began, fought between rival warlords of the former mujahideen. The civil war was brutal, and the warlords became known for their rapes, purges, summary executions and repression of women, among other crimes. These actions were condemned worldwide. By 1996, however, the tide had turned against the warlords as another fundamentalist group, the Taliban, began its rise to power, taking control of the national capital of Kabul.

The ruling warlords were so cruel and violent that most Afghans welcomed their defeat at the hands of the Taliban, who were credited with bringing some semblance of stability and security to Afghanistan, as well as improving the economy, which had been crippled by the widespread practice among warlords of demanding payoffs from businesses.

While warlords continued to control many parts of the country for some time, by 2001 most of Afghanistan was under Taliban rule. While the Taliban were swept into power amid widespread disgust with the vicious crimes of their predecessors, they too became known as repressive and brutal. In recent years, they became notorious in the West for their repression of women and authoritarian rule.

Afghanistan after 9/11

On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 hijackers (15 Saudi Arabians, two Emirati, one Egyptian and one Lebanese – no Afghans) carried out the infamous terrorist attacks in the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Following the attacks, focus turned to the alleged mastermind of the attacks, Osama bin Laden, who was based in Afghanistan. Amid calls for calm by victims' families and a mourning American public, government rumblings began about possible military attacks against Afghanistan. Aid agencies and the United Nations warned that the threat of bombing would put nearly 2.5 million Afghans at risk of starvation, but the US contended that military force might be necessary to capture those behind the 9/11 attacks.

At the time, British Prime Minister Tony Blair asserted that, "There is no alternative [to a military attack] unless the Taliban regime do what they have so far obviously failed to do and yield up bin Laden." Though largely ignored in the West, the Taliban had stated explicitly through their information minister, Qudrutullah Jamal, that "Anyone who is responsible for this act, Osama or not, we will not side with him." Speaking of bin Laden, they agreed to "give him up," on the condition that they be shown evidence of his involvement. The White House rejected this proposal out of hand, promising there would be "no negotiations, no discussions" with the Taliban.

In fact, there had previously been negotiations, well before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and the Taliban offered to extradite bin Laden to a neutral third country. In addition, following 9/11, as Britain's Telegraph reported on Oct. 4, 2001, they offered to give up bin Laden to an international tribunal in Pakistan, even without being shown evidence.

With the offers to turn over perpetrators quietly dismissed, on Oct. 7, 2001, the American-led coalition began its assault on Afghanistan. The military forces of the US, Britain, Canada, and other countries co-ordinated with an Afghan group calling themselves the "Northern Alliance" to overthrow the Taliban.

Between 3,800 and 5,000 Afghan civilians were killed by the initial bombing campaign, and 20,000 to 50,000 eventually died as a result of the invasion (according to investigations by University of New Hampshire economist Marc Herold and British journalist Jonathan Steele). The country, particularly outside the capital of Kabul, transformed into the cauldron of violence and unrest it remains over four years later.

The Northern Alliance Warlords and Afghanistan today

The US-led coalition allied itself with the "Northern Alliance," and one might rightly wonder: who are they?

The answer to this question had been well known to the governments of the invading countries, but ordinary Afghans knew it even better. The Northern Alliance is comprised of the murderous warlords who were finally thrown out of power a few short years before the 2001 invasion. With US backing, they would come to play a disastrous role in shaping the course of events in post-war Afghanistan.

In December 2001, with the Taliban government defeated, an agreement was reached among Afghani exiles meeting in Bonn, Germany. Hamid Karzai, an Afghan returning from exile in the US, was installed to power and would soon be named interim president of Afghanistan.

Following the Bonn Agreement, Northern Alliance warlords were given prominent positions in the interim government, including in key departments such as defence, industry and agriculture.

The leading Afghani women's rights group, RAWA, which is unequivocally opposed to both the Northern Alliance and the Taliban, had expressed hope for reform under Karzai. However, they quickly became one of his administration's harshest critics, decrying its corruption and collusion with warlord extremists. While the interim government maintained relative stability in Kabul under the protection of multinational troops, the rest of the country fell squarely into the hands of the despised warlords.

To this day, the warlords wield prominent, even dominant influence in the US-backed Karzai government. Human Rights Watch observed that last December Karzai again directly appointed notorious human rights abusers to Afghanistan's upper parliamentary house, including former defence minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim. The group also concluded that an astounding 60 per cent of the deputies currently sitting in the lower house have been linked to human rights abuses.

photo: Sergeant Carole Morissette, Canadian Forces Image Gallery

Sadly, this reflects the reality of the human rights situation in Afghanistan today. Approximately 600 children under the age of five die every day in Afghanistan, according to UNICEF, "mostly due to preventable illnesses." While women technically have more rights than before, they are not able to exercise them due to lack of security. Afghans are regularly detained arbitrarily, tortured, and denied due process rights.

Infrastructure is in ruins and rebuilding efforts are made difficult by lack of funding and rampant corruption. Much of what is spent is wasted as contracts go to foreign firms whose bids are, in many cases, 10 times more expensive than their Afghan counterparts. Organizations inside and outside of Afghanistan cite insecurity as the top human rights issue in the country.

Who is responsible for all this insecurity? Groups like RAWA, all the major human rights organizations, and even Hamid Karzai agree that the US-backed warlords are a greater threat to security in Afghanistan than the Taliban.

US Operations in Afghanistan

Throughout its occupation of Afghanistan, under the auspices of Operation Enduring Freedom, in its quest to hunt down Taliban and Al Qaeda members, the US has continued to collaborate closely with the Northern Alliance warlords.

Over the repeated objections of groups like the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, RAWA, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, the US-led military forces have undermined the rule of law in Afghanistan by backing the criminal warlords, arbitrarily detaining and denying due process rights to Afghans, and using "excessive force . . . in residential areas." Amnesty condemns what it calls "grave human rights violations" by US and coalition forces, including "killing of civilians and torture of prisoners."

This kind of conduct has "generated tremendous resentment against the international community" and "made a mockery of respect for justice," in the words of Human Rights Watch. Most critically, it is driving the crippling state of insecurity in Afghanistan.

Canada's role

In recent months, Canada has endorsed and contributed to this counterproductive, ostensibly "counterterrorist" role in Afghanistan by joining Operation Enduring Freedom. The Martin government made the plans to scale down our peacekeeping role in Kabul and join the US-led combat operations. These plans came to a head in February under the new Harper government when 2,200 Canadian troops began to arrive in Kandahar, ready to hunt down and "destroy" pockets of Taliban loyalists in the region.

The Canadian government is certainly aware that this type of mission is doing more harm than good, if they are listening at all to those they claim to be helping. The reality is not unknown to Canadian officials. In an astonishing display of self-contradiction, Major General Andrew Leslie – describing why Canada must be in Afghanistan for at least 20 years – explained that "Every time you kill an angry young man overseas, you're creating 15 more who will come after you."

Still, Canadians are told this is what we must do. While Canadian troops are abroad, we must stop questioning our leaders, whose noble aims ordinary citizens cannot fully comprehend. While our troops are in danger, we should "roll up our sleeves" and prepare ourselves for the "inevitable" deaths we must endure on the march for freedom.

Short-term solutions

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has developed extensive action plans and recommendations on transitional justice, women's rights, children's rights, human rights monitoring, and education. Supporting their work is a potential starting point for making a positive impact in Afghanistan.

Human rights groups have stressed the need for security in Afghanistan if the country is to be reconstructed. However, the kind of security assistance they've called for is peacekeeping, not "counterinsurgency" operations, which engender "tremendous resentment" and create scores of "angry young men." According to rights groups and many other observers, what Afghanistan needs from the outside world right now is what Afghani and international rights groups have been calling for all along: an end to support for criminal warlords, an end to torture and other abuses, respect for basic due process rights and the rule of law, support for existing domestic peace initiatives, and the commitment of a sufficient, neutral international peacekeeping force. (Troops from countries that have invaded Afghanistan should be excluded, of course, and if there is any justice, costs would be covered by reparations from those governments.)

Most of these short-term solutions involve no active effort of "aid"; they simply require the US, Canada, and their allies to stop doing harm.

Their own society on their own terms

Afghanistan's woes didn't appear out of thin air. Nor did they begin with the rise of the Taliban, nor even with the rise of the mujahideen warlords. Afghanistan has suffered a long history of foreign aggression and interference by Britain, the Soviet Union, and now the United States (with Canada's help) – interventions rooted in geopolitical manoeuvring and strategic interests more than in any concern for the long-term well being of the Afghani people.

Over 40 years ago, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 2131, declaring, "Armed intervention is synonymous with aggression." Article Six of the Resolution affirms "the right of self-determination and independence of peoples and nations, to be freely exercised without any foreign pressure, and with absolute respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms."

Like every nation, the people of Afghanistan are entitled to self-determination and freedom from aggression – the right to develop their own society on their terms.

Alex Hemingway asks why Canada has allied itself with warlords in Afghanistan and provides some context to the current conflict.

Canada's Debt to Afghanistan

Thu, 13 Apr 2006 22:35:53 +0000

Canadians needs to "undo the damage": visiting activist

Kolhatkar in Montreal. photo: Ehab Lotayef

MONTREAL--In the midst of a public debate about Canadian troops in Afghanistan, a Montreal audience heard a stark message about what the majority of Afghani people want, but aren't getting from occupying forces: disarmament, justice and reparations.

Sonali Kolhatkar, co-director of the US-based Afghan Women's Mission, and radio host on Los Angeles' KPFK Pacifica Radio, was the messenger.

"Afghanistan," Kolhatkar told a crowd at Montreal's Sala Rosa, "is a broken country," that has "endured decades of continuous war." Much of that war, said Kolhatkar, was funded by "billions and billions of dollars" from the US, which trained, funded and armed the fundamentalist Mujahideen to fight against Soviet forces. After the Soviets left, the well-equipped warlords fought amongst each other, brutalizing populations with killings, rape and oppression of women. This violence was simply "formalized" by the Taliban when they seized power in 1996 with promises of a reprieve from war and corruption, said Kolhatkar. While the autocratic Islamist regime provided some stability, it also systematized the oppression of women in Afghanistan.

"The rapes of Afghan women, the forced marriages, all of that started under [what is today known as] the Northern Alliance.

"The Taliban institutionalized into law, in a more organized fashion what the Northern Alliance and the Mujahideen had already begun. What the Taliban did was the same, but with less killing. [The two] are ideological twins," said Kolhatkar.

The Northern Alliance, of course, was a key ally in the US-led 2002 invasion of Afghanistan, receiving additional millions in arms and financing from the US government.

Today, Kolhatkar told The Dominion, many of the feared warlords occupy high offices in Afghanistan's government and benefit from US and Canadian aid.

What nearly all Afghans agree on, said Kolhatkar, is that democracy and security cannot be achieved without disarmament; "Survey after survey shows that they want disarmament.

"This is something people brought up over and over again [during Kolhatkar's recent visit]. 'We want pens not guns, pens not guns.'"

There is a UN program, known as Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR), but Kolhatkar says it is "very underfunded, very selective and not at all comprehensive."

"People want absolute and complete disarmament," she said.

The International Crisis Group, a research NGO, reported in February that

the central government and its international supporters have, to some extent, been complicit in the maintenance of power by militia commanders. The US-led coalition has relied on militia commanders in its military operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, empowering its local allies militarily and economically and helping them to resist central government control.

Kolhatkar proposed that the US and its allies need to reverse this policy. However, she insists that disarmament is only the first step towards reconstruction.

"Many people identify as victims of war crimes and they want some sort of war crimes tribunal," said Kolhatkar. "Not," she added, "of the kind that the US has carried out in the former Yugoslavia or in Iraq, but something that is led by Afghans, that is created by Afghans, but that simply needs some sort of foreign support.

"If you have justice and take these men to court, you might also have to indict [US presidents] Carter and Reagan and the men who supported these warlords.

"[A war crimes tribunal] is something that Canada, the UN and NATO could at least support," she added.

Kolhatkar also criticized one-sided North American media coverage of Afghanistan, saying that few journalists venture outside of Kabul, where the country's minimal wealth is heavily concentrated and where warlords are not in control. She also cited the little-heard-of case of Malalai Joya, an Afghan woman, who interrupted the loya jirga (a constitutional forum) to point out the Mujahideen warlords in attendance and their responsibility for the civil war that destroyed what was left of Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion. For this, and subsequent acts of bravery, she has been the victim of four assassination attempts and countless demeaning insults and death threats, but she has also received enormous grassroots support. Now a member of parliament, she often says she does not expect to live out the year. The Canadian- and US-backed Karzai administration removed funding to her security detail in March, but the North American press ignored her story in favour of a man sentenced to death for converting to Christianity, said Kolhatkar.

What can be done?

"This is a crucial moment for Canadians to be questioning the war, but I don't think it's as simple as 'troops out now,'" said Kolhatkar. Most Afghans, she said, believe that if troops leave, the result will be deadly: "The warlords that we armed will plunge the country into another war and tear the country apart, piece by piece."

However, Kolhatkar believes that the conflicting messages coming from Canadian commanders—alternately, "our job is to kill people" and "winning hearts and minds"--are damaging, and their actions are making things worse. Military "Provincial Reconstruction Teams" (PRTs), she said, are an extremely ineffective and expensive way to rebuild infrastructure. Additionally, Kolhatkar said the existence of PRTs has made all aid workers potential targets for Taliban attacks, as they are no longer distinguishable from the military. She cites the case of M_decins Sans Fronti_res (MSF), which pulled out of Afghanistan after maintaining a constant presence for over two decades and three wars. MSF said that the situation is now too dangerous for its workers.

The fact that US-funded warlords are as powerful as ever "does not justify our war fighting, or really even our presence, but the damage has been done."

"Canadians need to call for an undoing of the damage," she said.

In addition to disarmament and justice for warlords and criminals, Kolhatkar said that the US, Canada and their allies must pay reparations to the people of Afghanistan.

"We need to pour just as many billions of dollars into rebuilding the country as we put into destroying it." Kolhatkar said that Afghans need "no-strings-attached reparations, not loans."

In Afghanistan, Canada's annual military budget is roughly four times as large as its aid budget.

The aid money that is being spent in Afghanistan either "goes into the warlords' pockets, because they're the ones in charge," or it goes to expensive and often misguided Western firms or NGOs.

Kolhatkar cited one instance where a foreign NGO used aid money to dig 100 wells in the Farah province. The only problem: "within a year, the wells dried up." The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), a group that Kolhatkar works closely with, later went in to speak to farmers, who had begun fighting over scarce water resources. They realized that the best solution was to build a canal that would divert the water equitably through all of the villages.

"They built a canal with funds from donors in the US, through the Afghan Women's Mission," said Kolhatkar. "I visited that canal last year, and now the area is getting enough water to irrigate farms that feed 35,000 people.

"Ultimately, the Afghan people know best how to rebuild their country. They don't need our expertise, they don't need our advice, but they need money.

"It's really crucial for us to figure out how we can best support grassroots organizations in Afghanistan that are doing the hard work of rebuilding."

According to Kolhatkar, there are hundreds of groups, experts and local councils that are struggling to build schools and hospitals, provide education (especially to women), resist warlords and find alternative work for farmers who are forced to grow opium poppy to feed their families.

For now, she said, the situation remains grave for the majority of Afghans who live outside of Kabul, with literacy rates between four and 10 per cent, debilitating poverty, insecurity, rule by feuding warlords and war-ravaged infrastructure.

"There is a sense that the war is over, that we just need to mop up the insurgents and that women are liberated and on their way to freedom.

"Because media coverage has gone down, donations have literally plummeted and groups have been forced to close down schools, orphanages and literacy projects," she said.

The solution, Kolhatkar told a few hundred Montrealers, is not for Canada to withdraw, but to begin to take responsibility for its actions and rebuild the country that has suffered so much at the hands of foreign powers.

Afghan Women's Mission co-director Sonali Kolhatkar says that Canadians need to begin "undoing the damage" in Afghanistan