Overture to Taliban Jolts Afghan Minorities

Christoph Bangert for The New York Times

A political settlement could end the war, but power sharing may also risk igniting ethnic strife in major cities like Mazar-i-Sharif.

By DEXTER

Source: NYT

Published: June 26, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan — The drive by President Hamid Karzai to strike a deal with Taliban leaders and their Pakistani backers is causing deep unease in Afghanistan’s minority communities, who fought the Taliban the longest and suffered the most during their rule.

The leaders of the country’s Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara communities, which make up close to half of Afghanistan’s population, are vowing to resist — and if necessary, fight — any deal that involves bringing members of the Taliban insurgency into a power-sharing arrangement with the government.

Alienated by discussions between President Karzai and the Pakistani military and intelligence officials, minority leaders are taking their first steps toward organizing against what they fear is Mr. Karzai’s long-held desire to restore the dominance of ethnic Pashtuns, who ruled the country for generations.

The dispute is breaking along lines nearly identical to those that formed during the final years of the Afghan civil war, which began after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union in 1989 and ended only with the American invasion following the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 100,000 Afghans died, mostly civilians; the Taliban, during their five-year reign in the capital, Kabul, carried out several large-scale massacres of Hazara civilians.

“Karzai is giving Afghanistan back to the Taliban, and he is opening up the old schisms,” said Rehman Oghly, an Uzbek member of Parliament and once a member of an anti-Taliban militia. “If he wants to bring in the Taliban, and they begin to use force, then we will go back to civil war and Afghanistan will be split.”

The deepening estrangement of Afghanistan’s non-Pashtun communities presents a paradox for the Americans and their NATO partners. American commanders have concluded that only a political settlement can end the war. But in helping Mr. Karzai to make a deal, they risk reigniting Afghanistan’s ethnic strife.

Talks between Mr. Karzai and the Pakistani leaders have been unfolding here and in Islamabad for several weeks, with some discussions involving bestowing legitimacy on Taliban insurgents.

The leaders of these minority communities say that President Karzai appears determined to hand Taliban leaders a share of power — and Pakistan a large degree of influence inside the country. The Americans, desperate to end their involvement here, are helping Mr. Karzai along and shunning the Afghan opposition, they say.

Mr. Oghly said he was disillusioned with the Americans and their NATO allies, who he says appear to be urging Mr. Karzai along. “We are losing faith in our foreign friends,” he said.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was worried about “the Tajik-Pashtun divide that has been so strong.” American and NATO leaders, he said, are trying to stifle any return to ethnic violence.

“It has the potential to really tear this country apart,” Admiral Mullen said in an interview. “That’s not what we are going to permit.”

Afghanistan’s minorities — especially the ethnic Tajiks — have always been the most reliable American allies, and made up the bulk of the anti-Taliban army that the Americans aided following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

The situation is complicated by the politics of the Afghan Army, the centerpiece of American-led efforts to enable the Afghan military to one day take over. The ethnic mix of the Afghan Army is roughly proportional to the population, and the units in the field are mixed themselves. But non-Pashtuns are widely believed to do the bulk of the fighting.

There are growing indications of ethnic fissures inside the army. President Karzai recently decided to remove Bismullah Khan, the chief of staff of the Afghan Army, and make him the interior minister instead. Mr. Khan is an ethnic Tajik, and a former senior leader of the Northern Alliance, the force that fought the Taliban in the years before Sept. 11. Whom Mr. Karzai decides to put in Mr. Khan’s place will be closely watched.

One recent source of tension was the resignation of Armullah Saleh, the head of Afghan intelligence service and an ethnic Tajik. Mr. Saleh, widely regarded as one of the most competent aides, resigned after Mr. Karzai said he no longer had faith that he could do the job.

Along with Mr. Khan, the army chief of staff, Mr. Saleh was a former aide to Ahmed Shah Massoud, the legendary commander who fought both the Soviet Union and the Taliban. Since leaving the government, Mr. Saleh has started what appears to be the beginning of a political campaign.

Other prominent Afghans have begun to organize along mostly ethnic lines. Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister and presidential candidate, has been hosting gatherings at his farm outside Kabul. In an interview, he said he was preparing to announce the formation of what would amount to an opposition party. Mr. Abdullah, who is of Pashtun and Tajik heritage, said his movement would include Afghans from all the major communities. But his source of power has historically been Afghanistan’s Tajik community.

Mr. Abdullah said he disagreed with the thrust of Mr. Karzai’s policy of engagement with the Taliban and Pakistan. It would be impossible to share power with Taliban leaders, Mr. Abdullah said, because of their support for terrorism and the draconian brand of Islam they would try to impose on everyone else.

“We bring the Taliban into the government — we give them one or two provinces,” Mr. Abdullah said. “If that is what they think, it is not going to happen that way. Anybody thinking in that direction, they are lost. Absolutely lost.”

The trouble, Mr. Abdullah said, is that the Taliban, once given a slice of power, would not be satisfied. “They will take advantage of this,” he said of a political settlement, “and then they will continue.”

The prerequisite for any deal with the Taliban, Afghan and American officials have said repeatedly, is that insurgents renounce their support of terrorists (including Al Qaeda), and that they promise to support the Afghan Constitution.

Beyond that, though, Mr. Karzai’s goals vis-à-vis the Taliban are difficult to discern. Recently he has told senior Afghan officials that he no longer believes that the Americans and NATO can prevail in Afghanistan and that they will probably leave soon. That fact may make Mr. Karzai more inclined to make a deal with both Pakistan and the Taliban.

As for the Pakistanis, their motives are even more opaque. For years, Pakistani leaders have denied supporting the Taliban, but evidence suggests that they continue to do so. In recent talks, the Pakistanis have offered Mr. Karzai a sort of strategic partnership — and one that involves giving at least one the most brutal Taliban groups, the Haqqani network, a measure of legitimacy in Afghanistan.

Two powerful Pakistani officials — Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the army chief of staff; and Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, — are set to arrive Monday for talks with Mr. Karzai.

Afghanistan’s non-Pashtun leaders are watching these discussions unfold with growing alarm so far they have taken few concrete steps to resist them.

But no one here doubts that any of these groups, with their bloody histories of fighting the Taliban, could arm themselves quickly if they wished.

“Karzai has begun the ethnic war,” said Mohammed Mohaqeq, a Hazara leader and a former ally of the president. “The future is very dark.”

Malalai Joya in The 2010 TIME 100

To be a woman growing up in Afghanistan under the Taliban and to survive is in itself a major feat. To be so lucky as to become literate in a place where girls are shrouded and denied even fresh air is close to a miracle. To start underground schools and educate girls under the noses of turbaned, self-appointed defenders of virtue and forbidders of vice is truly extraordinary.

But to get a seat in parliament and refuse to be silent in the face of the Taliban and warlord zealots shows true fiber. When Malalai Joya did this, her opponents responded in the usual way: expulsion from parliament, warnings, intimidation and attempts to cut her life short. She has survived all of it.

Malalai, 31, is a leader. I hope in time she comes to see the U.S. and NATO forces in her country as her allies. She must use her notoriety, her demonstrated wit and her resilience to get the troops on her side instead of out of her country. The road to freedom is long and arduous and needs

source

Silence

Kabulistan

Guli Souri

To see the best photos of people of Afghanistan, Visit Basir Seearat

Afghanistan Monuments on the eve of destruction

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Burkas behind bars: Afghan women in prison

From RT

Most Afghan women are illiterate, face poverty, have limited access to healthcare, and subjected to continued and widespread violence. As if this is not enough, they are often arbitrarily imprisoned for “moral crimes”

Under the Penal Code of 1976, which is still in force, women can be punished for offences defined as “moral crimes”. These are mainly adultery and running away from home, often both combined.

The majority of female prisoners at Badam Bagh Central Prison for Women Offenders in Kabul are being held for violating social, behavioral, and religious norms.

When the taxi driver attempts to drop my Afghan interpreter and me off at Badam Bagh, the prison guards wave us off repeatedly, shouting that we are not allowed to stop at the entrance. With the increase of suicide bombings in Kabul they are terrified of explosions and view everybody with suspicion passing the prison.

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After shouting out our identifications and reasons for visiting the prison through the open taxi window, we are eventually allowed to get out at the prison gate.

The prison guard who reads my prison admission letter is illiterate and holds it upside down, pretending to understand the writing. “You look OK,” he says, and gives us directions how to find the commander who is in charge of Badam Bagh.

The commander keeps a list of all the prisoners under a plate of glass on his desk. When asked what crimes they’ve committed, he tells me that he is very busy and that I should go and speak to the women themselves. Although some of the prisoners admit to crimes of murder, drug trafficking and attempted suicide bombings, many of the women I interview tell me they have been falsely accused of crimes by male members of their families.

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The wardens’ observation room, where I conduct my interviews, is crowded with upwards of twenty-five women, talking, weeping, and laughing. They range from late teens to late fifties, some heavily made up in tight-fitting tops and pants, others in traditional Afghan dress, with white or black lace-bordered pantaloons peeping from under long, full skirts. The young girls are unveiled; the older women, especially those from tribal areas, bear dark blue tattoos on their faces and deep orange henna on their fingernails, toes, and feet.

Zarmina, a petite twenty-six-year-old, is nervous and shy. She stares at her tattooed hands and twists her ring. The tattoos are the names of her six children, living with her mother-in-law in Ghazni, in central Afghanistan.

“I was very small when my mother died. When I was thirteen, my father sold me to a forty-five-year-old man. I was exchanged for his daughter, who was married to my brother. My husband was an opium addict. I told my father I wanted a divorce, but he didn’t care about me. My husband brought another woman into the house and had sex with her. He told me I should do the same. ‘Find a man and have sex with him,’ he said. I was with my husband for twelve years. He beat me and often attacked me with a knife. Look at my scars.”

Toward the end of their marriage, the couple moved to Iran, where Zarmina’s husband contracted HIV/AIDS. When they returned to Afghanistan, he at last agreed to a divorce. “I thought my life would change, but it got worse.”

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“I went to live with my brother in Kabul, but he beat me all the time because I was divorced. I then left for Mazar-i-Sharif to be trained as a police officer. I wanted a job. My sister followed me to Mazar and tried to convince me to return to my brother’s house. She threatened me, saying: If you refuse, I will report you to the police and tell them that you tried to kidnap me.”

Nevertheless, Zarmina refused to return to Kabul. Her brother had her arrested on charges of kidnapping. She was imprisoned in Mazar-i-Sharif, where she spent a few weeks, before attending a court hearing in Kabul, where a male judge chose to believe her brother and sent her to Badam Bagh.

“I’ve tried to commit suicide three times: once when I was a child and twice while I was married. Every day I pray to Allah to let me die. A few days ago, I pushed a burning cigarette into my upper lip to kill the pain I feel in my heart. No one has come to visit me here. My brother threatens to kill me when I’m released. I don’t have a future.”

In jail, Zarmina is safe from her brother, and there are a few women’s shelters where she can be taken in secret to stay a few months while attempts are made to reconcile her with her family and/or find her a job. She has met only once with a defense lawyer during her ten-week stay in jail. She says the lawyer has no information on her, “doesn’t care, and isn’t helping me.”

The prisoners listening to Zarmina’s story all shake their heads in sympathy. “We are being kept here for no reason at all,” one says.

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Shahpari, a thirty-year-old tribal woman from northern Afghanistan, is soft spoken with thick black kohl lining the lids of her light-green eyes. She clutches her seventh child, a month-old baby born in her cell.

“I was twelve when I was married to a forty-year-old man. Six months ago I was kidnapped by two of my male relatives during the night at gunpoint. I was pregnant. They brought me to Kabul, where I was raped repeatedly for four to six days. The men told me they were going to sell me. I managed to escape and immediately reported them to the police in Kabul,” she recounts.

Shahpari was sent to prison, she says, because “the rapists said bad things about me to the police.” She originally received a sentence of one-and-a-half years, but for reasons she does not know, the term was increased another six months. A Supreme Court judge disregarded her plea for release.

“My husband has told me that when I’m free I can come back home, but he will not accept me as his wife, because I’ve been raped. ‘I will keep you to take care of my children,’ he said.”

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Many international and Afghan NGOs strive to defend Afghan women’s rights, but they have little power and no legal staff. Medica mondiale Afghanistan provides lawyers in order to ensure the women get a fair trial. There are few female defense lawyers in Afghanistan, no public defense pool of lawyers as in the United States. At Badam Bagh – where free legal aid is provided by medica mondiale Afghanistan and the Afghan NGO Da Qanoun Goshtunky – prisoners complained of the slackness of the legal system and that female defense lawyers have little clout in court. Husbands are said to bribe judges to put or retain their women in prison.

Neither Afghan women nor men have access to lawyers at the police station during their first interrogation and may wait in detention for months before arraignment. Some never get a hearing. Time limits for detentions are rarely applied. The Supreme Court in Kabul, which covers the whole country, is responsible for thousands of cases referred from the secondary courts of Afghanistan’s thirty-four provinces, many of which offer no access to free legal counsel whatsoever. When time limits expire, detainees are not released, as provided by legislation.

The Family Court in Kabul is the only one in Afghanistan with a small number of female judges. Rahima Razai is the Head Judge of the Family Court. She is assisted by two senior female judges and one male judge. It was extremely difficult for me to set up an appointment with Judge Razai, who fears for her life and therefore did not want to reveal personal information. Judges have been killed outside their homes by suicide bombers or fundamentalists or family members angered by convictions.

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“My job is very difficult,” she says. “I have to deal with complex family problems, corruption, and traditional culture.”

Judge Razai is not so much concerned with discrimination against Afghan women working in the current judicial system as she is worried about those who are imprisoned for so-called “immoral acts” and those who remain in prison while others can afford to bribe criminal justice agencies are released.

“Many women who have been raped are beaten, rejected, and put in jail,” Razai says. “Those who pay the bribes are released. Illiterate women with no power, connections, or independent means suffer particularly.”

“Only two basic points will solve the current situation in Afghanistan where women to a great extent are still regarded as ‘commodities’,” concludes Judge Razai. “Teach the men about human and women’s rights at the mosques; and teach boys and girls at school that they are equal.”

The vast majority of women and girls in Afghanistan have little knowledge about their constitutional rights, no access to justice, and no power to change their lives. Every small change and every bit of progress should be considered a major victory in a country governed by war, violence, corruption and ancient traditions.

Lizette Potgieter for RT from Kabul, Afghanistan

Marefat Celebrates the Success of its Students

37 girls and 23 boys are among the awarded students of Marefat High School. This is the fifth round of Marefat graduated students since 2002 when the school started its operation in Kabul from a bombed-out 4-rooms building in Poli Khosh, Dashti Barchi with a total number of 35 students. The school got accreditation in 2006.


37 girls and 23 boys are among the awarded students of Marefat High School. This is the fifth round of Marefat graduated students since 2002 when the school started its operation in Kabul from a bombed-out 4-rooms building in Poli Khosh, Dashti Barchi with a total number of 35 students. The school got accreditation in 2006.

Marefat High School is a tax-exempt entity registered as a non-prophet community sponsored institution in the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Finance. The total number of students for the academic year of 2010 is around 2500, 42% girls and 58% boys. The school is led by a board of trustees comprised of 33 members from different strata of the community.


According to the officials, this year the capacity for the higher education system of the country is around 20%. Marefat students have gained nearly 95% successes in all their fifth round of graduations.

Worldview: Grassroots Afghan education

By Trudy Rubin

Inquirer Opinion Columnist

We all know the importance of educating girls (and boys, too) in poor Muslim countries.

So it is exciting to come across a successful educational model developed by an unusual Afghan educator to teach poor minority children. And it's a model with a special link to Philadelphia.

Kabul's Marefat School, the brainchild of Aziz Royesh, was built by the residents of a minority slum and teaches not only educational basics but principles of civic responsibility and humanistic values. I have visited the school and was bowled over by what it has accomplished.

But equally fascinating: Last week, the National Constitution Center brought Royesh and a gaggle of Afghan boys in suits and girls in headscarves to Philly, where the Marefat School has been paired with Constitution High School, a predominantly minority charter school. The link with the Marefat School was made by a young Philadelphian, Jeffrey Stern, who spent two years in Kabul and now manages international projects for the Constitution Center.

Students of both schools are putting together an exhibit of photos about the meaning of freedom to minority groups. It will be shown the second week in May at the Constitution Center and later at the National Museum in Kabul. "Our school should be regarded as a branch of the Constitution Center," says Royesh. And the Marefat School should be regarded as a model for how Americans can help Afghans get the education they need.

What makes the Marefat story so exceptional is that it was built by poor Afghans who wanted better education for their children using small contributions and sweat equity. The inspiration came from Royesh, a compact man with a neat beard who was forced to abandon his own formal education when he fled the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He educated himself and began setting up schools in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. continued on...