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Taliban present
their case to Muslims in the US
By Zia
Sarhadi
A 24-year-old
roving ambassador of the Taliban, making his rounds
of the US, has made quite a stir among Muslims even
if his pleas have fallen on deaf ears in the US government.
Seyyed Rehmatullah Hashemi addressed audiences across
the country, gave interviews to the New York Times and
other newspapers, and was interviewed live on National
Public Radio on March 21.
At all
his functions, he explained the Taliban’s position over
the Buddha statues, the rights of women and the overall
situation in Afghanistan. He explained that their proposed
destruction was on the basis of an edict issued by the
People’s Council, endorsed by the scholars and the country’s
supreme court. He was at pains to distance the country’s
leadership, especially Mullah Omar, from direct responsibility
for the act, which has aroused worldwide concern and
condemnation (the statues have since been destroyed).
Explaining
the context of the decision, Hashemi said that the Afghan
leadership became angry when a delegation of European
envoys and UNESCO officials arrived in Kabul with offers
of money to save the statues but not the starving children
in Afghanistan. The Taliban leadership pointed out that
there were hundreds of thousands of Afghans suffering
from starvation and that the money could be better spent
saving human lives. A few days before the group’s arrival,
more than 700 Afghan children had starved to death in
and around Herat. The response of the European envoys
and UNESCO officials annoyed the Afghans so much that
they decided to destroy the statues to make a point.
While
admitting that the statues’ destruction could not feed
the children, Hashemi said, "When your children
are dying before your eyes, you can hardly worry about
statues." This may sound illogical to western ears,
but to the Afghans it makes perfect sense. They have
been subjected to nearly three decades of warfare that
has left 1.5 million dead and another six to eight million
people refugees. There are also a million maimed Afghans
as a result of the war, as well as the estimated 10
million unexploded mines left by the departing Russians
in exchange for their defeat.
Hashemi
also condemned the US-led UN sanctions, which have exacerbated
an already critical situation in Afghanistan, hit by
a three-year drought that has afflicted a wide swathe
of the region from Syria to Pakistan. Thanks to help
from Pakistan, Afghanistan has about two million tons
of food grain, but it needs at least twice that amount
to feed its people. In the last three months, an estimated
one million Afghans have flooded into Pakistan, adding
to the two million already there from the war against
Russia. Unable to cope with the latest influx, Pakistan
has been forced to close its borders, yet infiltration
continues unabated.
Hashemi
also mentioned the drug situation in Afghanistan, which
used to produce about 75 percent of the world’s opium.
He said that the Taliban have eliminated poppy cultivation
completely. The Afghan ambassador in Pakistan revealed
in a recent interview that three years ago Karl Inderfurth,
then US under-secretary at the state department, promised
US$3 billion in aid if the Taliban eliminated poppy
cultivation. Not a penny has been delivered to Afghanistan;
instead punitive sanctions have been imposed for all
kinds of alleged misdeeds, including sheltering Osama
bin Laden and refusing to hand him over to western ‘justice’.
This new
American bogeyman has been accused of almost every conceivable
crime under the sun. Repeated attempts by the Taliban
to resolve the issue by discussions have been rebuffed.
Hashemi revealed that the Taliban had made at least
three different proposals; the US spurned all three.
The Taliban’s latest proposal, contained in a letter
delivered to state department officials, was similarly
dismissed on the grounds that there was no specific
proposal and that it did not meet US requirements.
In explaining
the situation of women, Hashemi said that when the Taliban
first took control of Kabul in September 1996, there
was complete lawlessness, and weapons and ammunition
were everywhere. The Taliban could not protect women,
who were being kidnapped and raped by warlords and their
minions, hence the decree for women to stay indoors.
It took more than three years to disarm the population
and to restore law and order. According to eye-witness
reports from Afghanistan, the law and order situation
has been restored in and around Kabul at least, even
if ‘human rights’ are not always respected.
Hashemi
insists: "After we disarmed the people, and after
we brought law and order, now women are working. [They]
are not working in the ministry of defence, like here.
We don’t want our women to be fighter pilot[s], or to
be used as objects of decoration for advertisements.
But they do work. They work in the Ministry of Health,
Interior, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Social
Affairs, and so on. And we don’t have any problem with
women’s education." He also revealed that there
were more girl students in the faculty of medical sciences
than boys. He said this was confirmed by the United
Nations as well. He appealed to his audience to help
set up schools, especially for girls, in Afghanistan,
instead of criticising from a distance sitting in California
or New York.
He admitted
that the Taliban are not perfect: "I don’t say
we are 100 percent perfect, and nobody will say that
they are 100 percent perfect. We do have shortcomings,
and we do need to amend our policies. But we can’t do
everything overnight."
Few would
be surprised to hear that the Taliban have flaws. But
Hashemi’s tour certainly gave a lot of people – Muslim
and non-Muslim – an alternative view of them to consider.
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