[News] Many Different Enemies: Afghan Women Fight for Their Country

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Many Different Enemies: Afghan Women Fight for Their Country

August 27, 2009 By Harvey Ryan
and Sergio España
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22445

As the government of Afghanistan, under the 
watchful eye of Washington, prepared for its 
second national election since the U.S. invasion 
of 2001, we sat down with Shazia, a Kabul 
resident and member of the powerful organization 
RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women 
of Afghanistan. We wanted to ask her about the 
current situation in her country, and the 
experiences of women under the regime of Hamid Karzai and his American backers.

 From the moment of introduction it became clear 
that Shazia, a name she uses for protection, is 
an insightful and determined woman. She takes a 
daily risk in her activism, aiding her fellow 
citizens in a country that often has women 
literally surrounded by threats ranging from 
warlords, U.S. soldiers and contractors, to 
religious fundamentalists and drug cartels.

RAWA was formed in 1977 during the initial phases 
of the Soviet invasion. Their mission is the true 
liberation of not just Afghan women, but 
Afghanistan as a whole, and they have maintained 
this work throughout the nine years of Soviet 
occupation, the subsequent civil war, and 20+ 
years of hard-line religious rule. They have 
suffered serious repression, most notably the 
1987 assassination of RAWA founder and leader Mina by KHAN (Afghan KGB) agents.

 From the beginning, RAWA has demanded the 
withdrawal of foreign armies from their country 
while also challenging oppressive threats within 
Afghanistan. When the Soviets withdrew in 1989, 
different factions within the Mujahideen, a 
loose-coalition of Muslim resistance groups 
largely based in Pakistan and allied against the 
Soviets, vied for power. The dominant groups that 
emerged in the ensuing civil war, due in large 
part to the disproportionate amount of secret 
U.S. aid given to these smaller, far-extremist 
factions during the occupation, were the Taliban 
and the Northern Alliance. RAWA maintained a 
general opposition to both of these groups, as 
their interests were not in support of the 
freedom of the women of Afghanistan, but in the 
interests of their own political and business ventures.

The United States joins the Soviet Union, the 
Northern Alliance, and the Taliban on this list, 
of unpopular military forces producing hardship 
for the Afghan people. From 1979 through the 
1990's, covert operations (like one involving 
Osama Bin Laden's Makhtab al Khadimat, which 
after the war would become Al Qaida) resulted in 
the Taliban's rise to power. Today, after 8 
years, the NATO-led American occupation continues 
bringing hardship, death, and corruption to their 
war-torn and desperately poor country.

RAWA's work continues at present through a 
conjunction of political and social activities 
including literacy classes for women, educational 
craft centers, refugee relief aid, orphanages, 
and medical services. Their political activism 
ranges from helping organize mass rallies to 
speaking engagements for small gatherings, often 
in secret, in an effort to reach out to those 
most oppressed. Internationally, RAWA's trips to 
share their experiences and understandings with 
allies all over the world have helped forge 
alliances where a media-wall often prevents the 
development of real knowledge and cooperation.

When the U.S. invaded, "people were hopeful" 
because people were fed up with the Taliban's 
harsh rule. But when the U.S. "brought Karzai as 
their puppet" they "shunned the trust and demands 
of the Afghan people", Shazia tells us. It 
quickly became obvious that the White House 
"relied on and shared power with those 
fundamentalist extremists who were in power 
before the Taliban"; with many of their key 
political and social stances sharing the same ideas.

Afghan PM Malalai Joya, who has survived three 
assassination attempts and was recently suspended 
from the Afghan parliament for speaking out 
publicly against other members of the government, 
states it directly: "Our country is being run by 
a mafia, and while it is in power there is no 
hope for freedom for the people of Afghanistan."

"If democrats take power (in Afghanistan), then 
there's no need for the U.S. to be in 
Afghanistan" Shazia added. "That's why they never rely on democrats."

Perhaps the occupation's hypocrisy can be summed 
up best by the empty, rhetorical responses 
Western politicians offered in response to the 
Karzai administration's passing of the Shi'a 
Personal Status Law. The law, introduced and 
supported by hard line Shi'a clerics and signed 
with no public announcement by Hamid Karzai 
earlier this month, allows Shi'a men to deprive 
their wives of food and basic necessities if they 
refuse to fulfill sexual demands. It goes on to 
require permission from one's husband before 
applying for work, and effectively legalizes rape 
by requiring that "blood money" be paid to the victim's family.

Though President Obama called the law 
"abhorrent", he did nothing in his power to push 
Karzai to repeal it. France threatened to 
withdraw only its female troops, but nothing else 
has been done. Alone, as is so often the case, 
Afghan women took to the streets in protest, 
risking their lives to voice their opposition. 
"The government was not democratically elected, 
and it is now trying to use the country's Islamic 
law as a tool with which to limit women's rights", Malalai Joya contends.

"In 2007 more women killed themselves in 
Afghanistan than ever before", she continued. 
Shazia told us of a terrifying increase of 
self-immolations, with hundreds of women setting 
themselves on fire in the last few years. 
Malalai, Shazia, and millions of other women in 
Afghanistan live amongst this nightmare, 
struggling to make sense of the horrors of war 
while dealing with their immediate safety. "We 
have a lot of different enemies in Afghanistan", Shazia explains.


THE WAR CONTINUES

While the West grapples to understand a fraction 
of what is happening in Afghanistan, its citizens 
are dying. Western media reports censor, 
mis-construe, or conceal facts, in large part due 
to the American media often reporting events 
after they have been carefully processed through 
a Pentagon filter, part of a Bush "War on Terror" 
program first developed in 2002 by the Office of 
Strategic Influence. The Pentagon's efforts to 
undermine reality continue to this day, with 
reports on U.S. air raids and predator strikes 
always assuring us of 'suspected militants' or 
'Taliban fighters' being killed, with the gross 
majority of civilian casualties hidden from view. 
Take a bombing incident in July, 2002 where after 
a U.S. plane bombed a wedding killing upwards of 
40 civilians, U.S. Central Command released the 
following response: "Close air support from U.S. 
Air Force B-52 and AC-130 aircraft struck several 
ground targets, including anti-aircraft artillery 
sites that were engaging the aircraft."

Since then, funding for these 'strategic' 
communications programs has grown at a staggering 
rate, with the Washington Post last month finding 
funding for such programs growing from $9 million 
in 2005 to nearly $1 billion dollars for fiscal 
year 2010. Quite frankly, it is passed the point 
where the existence of such programs should be considered shocking.

Meanwhile, atrocities continue. Shazia described 
a U.S. bombing earlier this year in Farah 
province, where over 150 people were killed. 
"They massacred more than 150 Afghans. I 
personally saw the lists of the people who were 
killed. 12 people were killed from one family. I 
saw the name of a child of one year, of two years 
who were killed. This is a massacre. This is a 
mockery of freedom and democracy in Afghanistan."

After the invasion, the U.S. "almost removed the 
Taliban in one month", she continues, "then they 
brought Karzai". Since then, coalition deaths 
have increased every year except 2003, where they 
fell from 67 to 57, then back to 59 in 2004. 
Halfway through 2009, coalition deaths 
(overwhelmingly American and British) have almost 
surpassed last year's record of 294, with July 
being the bloodiest month on record.

All the while, Taliban forces have steadily grown 
more powerful. "It shows that they don't want to 
remove them from Afghanistan, because they need a 
justification to be in Afghanistan, to fulfill 
their demands and interests in Afghanistan" 
Shazia says. "Through Afghanistan they can easily 
control Pakistan, Iran and the Middle East 
countries." Furthermore, "more than 92 percent of 
the world's opium is cultivated in Afghanistan, 
and it's a big drug business for the Westerners to control that."

Last week, captured Afghan militants led British 
forces to a stash of "several tons" of raw opium 
on one of Ahmed Wali Karzai's farms (United Press 
International, August 13, 2009). Ahmed, head of 
the provincial council of Kandahar, is President 
Hamid Karzai's half-brother. Ahmed, of course, 
was not arrested. Shazia told us about Ahmed Wali 
Karzai's drug activities right before this story broke.

Our conversation soon illuminates the America 
that Afghans know, the one so many here don't 
want to recognize. Under the Taliban, opium 
production was banned and the export of opium 
dropped dramatically. Under Karzai, business is 
booming. "They encouraged farmers to grow. If 
Karzai encourages, the U.S. encourages." Shazia 
also told us about the new Minister of 
Anti-Narcotics, General Khodaidad, "the biggest, 
biggest drug lord" in her country.

As we write this, thousands of U.S. Marines and 
British soldiers are knee-deep in an offensive in 
the opium-rich Helmand Province, supposedly to 
tackle this "Taliban stronghold" and fight the 
poppy industry. The role has seemed to shift 
lately towards more anti-narcotics operations, 
supposedly to take away the financial base of 
terrorists and Taliban militants. But one can't 
help but wonder whose crops they will be 
destroying if they are following the lead of an 
anti-drug policy being written and directed by 
one of the countries largest drug-dealers. 
Thousands of villagers, as well as hundreds of 
U.S., British and Afghan soldiers and many 
Taliban-affiliated fighters have been killed in 
the Helmand in the last two months.

Aside from the opium-trade, this "surge" also 
came at a time when Hamid Karzai feared he would 
lose this election. Attempts to "weaken the 
Taliban" could well have been a tactic of scaring 
people into voting for the current government, or 
keeping Taliban-supporters scared of going to the 
polls. This form of political bullying grew even 
more explicit this week, with Karzai announcing a 
ban on reports of violence or "opposition" during 
the voting process, which has been quickly 
condemned by human rights groups and the UN. 
Perhaps Karzai took a tip from the Americans 
here, with Tom Ridge's recent admission that 
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney 
General John Ashcroft pushed him to raise terror 
alert levels during the 2004 elections.

The U.S. and Karzai insist that low-voter turnout 
is the result of Taliban-led attempts to disrupt 
the elections, which they did through bombings, 
an attempted bank robbery and multiple instance 
of murder. However, it's more likely that 
low-voter turnout is the result of a general 
feeling of mistrust amongst the Afghan 
population. "Like millions of Afghans, I have no 
hope in the results of this week's election", 
Malalai Joya said in a recent online post. "In a 
country ruled by warlords, occupation forces, 
Taliban insurgency, drug money and guns, no one 
can expect a legitimate or fair vote."

Shazia adds; "I don't think that people will go 
to vote... Because these elections, these laws 
that are being passed, are just for show, to show 
to the world that the U.S. invaded Afghanistan 
and now Afghan women are free, and now they have 
democracy and they are living in peace, it's just a show to the world."

Last Thursday's election has since been heralded 
as a beacon of democracy and freedom, despite low 
turn out reported in several, but not all, 
provinces (though hardly any turnout in the 
Helmand, Kandahar, and Logar provinces), and 26 
Afghans dead, four of them children. Karzai 
sounded very obliged in the Washington Post, "We 
regret the loss of civilian lives, but we are 
grateful for the sacrifices people made. It went very, very well."

And though the White House's public justification 
for the surge and ongoing occupation has received 
little criticism from its constituents, Shazia, 
along with a large portion of her country and an 
increasing number of U.S. service-members, does 
not agree with the common American rhetoric that 
troops need to stay to prevent a civil war. "Now 
there is a civil war", she says. "If the troops 
leave Afghanistan, of course for a few years 
there will be wars... Years and years of struggle 
is needed. After World War Two, the European and 
Western countries all struggled. Women and men, 
they, together, struggled to better their own 
countries. We will also do that. We will give 
sacrifices. But we will do that ourselves. 
Because history has shown that no country can 
grant peace and security to another country as a 
gift. This is the responsibility of that country, 
that people, to gain those values.... by their 
resistance and by their struggle."




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