A year ago, US troops withdrew from Afghanistan after a 20-year war started by American in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks on New York’s Twin Towers. The Taliban quickly returned to power. The country has since experienced famine and economic crisis and human rights have come under sustained attack. Liberation interviewed Asadullah Keshtmand, a former Afghanistan diplomat and senior politician, for an assessment of the picture now.
When the Taliban came to power last year, they claimed that they had changed. One year later, how true is this claim?
The Taliban have changed for certain. A significant part of the Taliban leadership passed their “training courses” in Guantanamo, Bagram, and other US prisons, and have changed as a result. And, they have re-entered the scene for a much different mission than the previous time they were in power. Only the way they dress has remained the same. Despite their adherence to Sharia law, they have now become more pragmatic and show less of their violent and repressive face than the previous time around. This does not mean that their belief in Sharia law has diminished or that they are no longer fundamentalists and fanatics. They have retained all of these beliefs, but in their day-to-day administration and governance, as dictated by the US, they relinquish some of their original social demands and act with much more leniency than before. However, they continue with their single-minded tribalist and theocratic policies.
The Taliban’s prime minister, Mohammad Hassan Akhund, in his speech on 30 August, on the occasion of the anniversary of the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, claimed that the Taliban have put an end to the killings and explosions and guaranteed national security. How true is this?
Before withdrawing their troops from Afghanistan, the Americans had polarised the entire field of politics and war in Afghanistan: on one side was the puppet government, and on the opposite side stood the Taliban. With the transfer of power from the puppet government to the Taliban, the field of politics and war in Afghanistan has now become entirely uni-polar. The current various fragmented and mostly spontaneous conflicts and uprisings [in Afghanistan] are not based on a unified fighting front or opposition protest movement and will ultimately fail to topple the Taliban. It is true that the Taliban are dominating Afghanistan today, but the nature of the Taliban’s policy, despite the US controlling things behind the scenes, is such that it is unable to stop any nationwide protest should it arise. There are bound to be major developments as security is rapidly deteriorating. Even in recent days, we have seen explosions and killings in some parts of Afghanistan.
What kind of progressive opposition, if any, would work against the Taliban?
Currently, there is no progressive opposition to the Taliban in Afghanistan. It should be remembered that during their 20 years of occupation, the US spread the seeds of national and ethnic discord. Thus, any potential opposition to the Taliban would likely manifest as an ethnic protest given that there is no place left for a progressive national vision. From the very beginning, at the Bonn Conference in 2001, the US formed the occupation government by division of power based on two religious and national-ethnic criteria. For this reason, the lives of the people of Afghanistan have been dictated on the basis of ethnic division and hostility for more than 20 years. The re-emergence of the Taliban a year ago is a very strong example of this “ethnicisation” of politics in Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s prime minister has said that sanctions have added to poverty. He emphasised that better results could be achieved through mutual understanding rather than external pressure. What do you think?
Poverty in Afghanistan has intensified with the arrival of the Taliban – and, today, it is at an explosive point. The situation in Afghanistan is so terrible that people sell their children because of poverty. The extent of the poverty of most of the people is proportional to the power of the Taliban. There is some exaggeration about the extent of sanctions upon Afghanistan. Compared to Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere, the embargo on Afghanistan is not as strict in today’s terms. It is the Taliban’s very rise to power, more than any sanctions, that has led to the poverty and deprivation of the Afghan people. In fact, these sanctions have not been imposed against the Taliban’s atrocities and their oppressive actions, especially against women and some ethnic and religious groups in Afghanistan. Only some of Afghanistan’s assets have been blocked in the US. In addition, from time to time, help is provided to Afghanistan under humanitarian aid. This is welcome, as a small part of the aid reaches the helpless people of Afghanistan, but it would be a mistake to call this aid wholly humanitarian in nature. This is because such aid is carefully calculated so as to maintain the power of the Taliban and prevent a groundswell of anger amongst the hungry people. The priority of the donors is not to heal the pains of the Afghan people as they are still being kept in dire poverty and under the cruel yolk of Taliban rule with nothing material being done to afford the Afghan people redress of this terrible situation. No, the priority is to maintain the fundamentalist rule of the Taliban in clandestine and inhumane ways.
Is there any government or an international body that has, over the last year, contributed towards achieving real peace, progress, and security in Afghanistan?
Unfortunately, most international organisations, including charities, currently operate under the influence of the US and NATO. Governments are worse. The main problem is that the US has made our country a beacon of surveillance, to play a subversive role in Central Asia – ultimately, it was for this reason that the Taliban were re-installed to power. Western countries that could play a role will not do anything without the assent of the US. The people of Afghanistan have been placed in this horrific uncertainty for a year now.
Asadullah Keshtmand, born in Kabul in 1949, is a graduate of agriculture from France, a former member of the central committee of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, former deputy director of the International Relations Department of the central committee of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and former Afghan ambassador to Hungary, Iran and Ethiopia. He currently lives in London, England.
Photo: CC BY-SA 2.0
