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[ English Section ] [ Feedback ] Published in issue #465 on 19 March 2001
Pakis playing Gailani cardBased on last week’s Editor’s Note, [Omaid Weekly has learned from a well-placed official of the UN-recognized government of Afghanistan that the eastern Iranian city of Mashad was host this week to a sinister Pakistani-arranged meeting between a number of leaders of the UF and a delegation from Peshawar-based Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani, who headed one of the smallest and least effective mujahideen groups — Mahaz-e Milli — during the Soviet-Afghan war. (From the Afghan jihad against the Soviets onward, Gailani has resided in Pakistan.) This gathering was a follow-up to an earlier meeting between certain UF officials and the Pakistani-created delegation. (See below.)] Recently, a Peshawar-based delegation traveled inside Afghanistan, to the free or liberated areas, to meet with UF officials in the hopes of selling them on Pakistan’s new scam. According to gathered information, the Pakistanis have knighted Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani to succeed Mulla Omar, and when the time is right, give the Taliban war machine a new façade — a seemingly moderate leadership, with a few members dressed in Western togs — but, underneath there would exist the same infernal demon at Islamabad’s servitude. With such duplicity, Pakistan hopes to continue the same path it first tread with Gulbudin Hekmatyar — the infamous Butcher of Kabul — and then the barbaric Taliban. At the same time, Islamabad hopes the new window-dressing will appease the international community, which, because it has never taken a serious look at Afghanistan, wouldn’t know — or wouldn’t want to admit — that Pakistan has simply pushed out another puppet on its assembly line of interchangeable Afghan traitors. In their meeting with certain UF officials, the Gailani delegation has given assurances that, some way or other, the current political leader of the UF will be given a seat of power alongside Gailani. And with this assurance, the delegation impudently asked for an end to the resistance effort. The two sides are expected to continue their talks in the near future in Mashad. These are the basic details of this new Pakistani plot that seeks to target certain members of the UF leadership. In doing so, Islamabad is seeking to undermine our national resistance force from within, because the Pakistanis have not succeeded in defeating our nation’s defenders and completing its conquest of Afghanistan through war and bloodshed, nor through the devastation of our country’s infrastructure, nor even through the destruction of our nation’s ancient heritage, especially Pakistan’s recent demolition of the Great Buddhas of Bamyan. Additionally, by utilizing Gailani — a weak and disreputable “leader” of the Afghan jihad who for two decades has unfailingly toed the Pakistani line — Islamabad is also aiming to subvert the Loya Jirga initiative of former Afghan King Mohammad Zaher Shah. It’s worth mentioning that Gailani took offense at a statement released by the former King’s office in Rome that disowned those — like Gailani — who purported to represent the former Monarch. Subsequently, the official publication of Gailani’s Mahaz faction denounced the statement. The final straw for Rome was a visit to Washington by Hamed, Gailani’s son, who during a brief meeting with low-level US officials hinted that the former King was too old and feeble to organize the Loya Jirga, and that the US should throw its support to a Gailani-led Jirga. As to why Gailani — via his daughter, his son-in-law, and a number of loyalists — is still associated with the Rome peace process, is a matter that shouldn’t require much investigation to find out the truth. I recall that during the June 1998 gathering in Rome, in the course of my interviews with various participants, I went to see Gailani. His first words to me were that Omaid Weekly has been far too harsh in criticizing his statement that “Pakistan is not interfering in Afghanistan.” To which I responded that those words will forever resonate in the ears of freedom-loving Afghans, and that Omaid Weekly — like other national and patriotic media — not only firmly denounced, and will always denounce, that remark, but they now view with suspicion and hesitation the person who spoke those words of ill repute. Gailani went on to explain himself to me: Any political process that seeks to solve the Afghan problem will need to go through Pakistan because there is no alternate route, and to preserve this “route” we must maintain friendly relations with the Pakistanis; so for this reason I made that remark. While Gailani — his daughter, son-in-law, loyalists and other associates who have a vested interest in ISI scheming — has convinced himself to remain silent against the Pakistani aggression, I am more than certain that the rest of the people of Afghanistan do not share the same cowardly and unpatriotic view, which they instead consider as appeasement to our people’s murderer and our nation’s occupier. Gailani went on to say that he, too, could complain about the Pakistanis, but that he wouldn’t risk his stock. This was a transparent reference to his former peer, Hazrat Sibghatullah Mojadedi, who during the same day he sent an official letter to then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemning Islamabad’s interference in Afghanistan, said to me in an interview: Anyone who loves Afghanistan and who loves his people, fears naught but God, and cannot hide the glaring fact of Pakistani intervention in Afghanistan. Soon after, Mojadedi was expelled from Pakistan. Last week’s press release from the office of the former King condemning the Taliban’s destruction of Afghanistan’s cultural treasures, in which he stated “the demolition of the statues in Bamyan is the work of the [Taliban] regime that with Pakistani support has been [forcibly] imposed on the nation of Afghanistan,” the former King pointedly made clear his stance on the crisis in Afghanistan. As such, Pakistan has accelerated its plans to subvert the Loya Jirga initiative, in addition to attempting to undermine the national resistance by creating discord and division in the UF. In light of these realities, it is imperative that the delegation is prevented from traveling in the free or liberated areas in Afghanistan. And not a shred of credence should be given to even a single promise or assurance of the delegation. Moreover, both Rome and the UF national resistance force must immediately jettison the questionable folk who continue to foster ties to Pakistan’s satanic ISI. We have just witnessed the unraveling of the Cyprus-Tehran racket — whose organizers confessed to funding from foreign interests, and even worse, admitted that Gulbudin, the butcher of 60,000 Kabul residents, is free to join the process and offer his “candidacy” for a leadership role, and once again play havoc with the lives of our people and the destiny of our nation. But, with the denouement of one foreign plot, we are facing the emergence of another diabolical conspiracy. And so more than ever, our nation must stand guard and persevere in its hallowed war of resistance and struggle for freedom and liberty. Nawroz 1380An 18 March 2001 statement from the To our brothers and sisters both inside Afghanistan and abroad, the Association for Peace and Democracy for Afghanistan wishes a blessed Nawroz for the solar Islamic-calendar New Year of 1380. The APDA is hopeful that this new year ahead of us will bring an end to the tragedies facing Afghanistan — from mass murder to the burning of villages and farmlands, from extremism and lawlessness to the provocation of ethnic strife and cultural terrorism — and that the new year will bring forth the demise of both the savage and traitorous Taliban and our evil and un-Islamic neighbor, Pakistan. In consideration of the miseries of Afghanistan, and with the arrival of the venerable day of Nawroz — an ancient and sacred tradition of all the people of Afghanistan — we ask Almighty God to bring unity and concordance among our brothers and sisters in their noble effort to liberate Afghanistan from foreign tyranny, the Pakistani-imposed war, and the Taliban’s path of barbarism and inhumanity. May the Almighty bestow on Afghanistan peace and freedom, self-governance and prosperity, so that our glorious homeland and our courageous people once again resume their rightful place among the free nations and peoples of the world, with our proud flag — a mighty emblem of Afghanistan’s illustrious past and our people’s unwavering bravery and heroism — flying high in the life-giving breeze of a thousand more springs to come. Pakistan is responsibleConcluded from our previous issue, the following is the continuing text of a statement delivered on March 9 to the United Nations General Assembly by Dr. Mohammad Younus Bazel, Charge d’ Affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of the Islamic State of Afghanistan to the UN. We are firmly convinced that the main responsibility to any damage or plundering of Afghan cultural property caused by the so-called decree lies with the military junta of Pakistan. Pakistan's direct involvement in the actual fighting in Afghanistan is now a well-known fact to the international community. It is also a well-established fact that Pakistan is the main source of indoctrination of religious extremism in our part of the world. Pakistan has been using extremist religious groups for its expansionist and hegemonic purposes in the region. The Secretary-General of the United Nations in his report of November 2000 on the Situation in Afghanistan indicated that there is significant number of non-Afghans essentially from Pakistan alongside the Taliban. Pakistanis are not only involved in the fighting alongside the Taliban but, in fact, Pakistan's high ranking officers are engaged in the planning and logistical support of Taliban military operations in the battlefields of Afghanistan. On the basis of these facts, Pakistan’s military junta is directly accountable of actions and crimes committed in the occupied parts of Afghanistan. The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the event of armed conflict is to be observed by the Pakistani military junta, which prohibits any requisitioning, theft, pillaging, vandalism, misappropriation or reprisal directed against cultural property. Likewise, protocols additional to the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 considers as a grave breach, i.e. a crime, any acts of hostility directed against historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of people. The Islamic State of Afghanistan, gravely concerned about the fate of two ancient Buddha statues in Bamyan, had already contacted UNESCO and had requested in letters dated 22 April 1997 and 12 November 1999 the recognition of the Bamyan statues as part of the world cultural patrimony. Such recognition of a historic monument could provide special protection by UNESCO. Dismayingly, we did not receive any response. It is questionable how far the acceptance of such a request would have provided the required safety to the statues against the evil intention of vandalism emanating from dark-minded Taliban obscurantism. These pre-Islamic statues have been preserved as a national patrimony by the successive Islamic governments in Afghanistan for 14 centuries. The destruction of the Bamyan statues is not only a crime against history, art and humanity, but also a crime against peace and stability in the world. Indeed, communal and sectarian violence in different parts of the world would follow this shameful act by the Pakistani-Taliban alliance, constituting a threat to international peace and security. The Islamic State of Afghanistan and the Afghan nation attach great importance to the cultural property of Afghanistan, considered of fundamental cultural value to them. We would like to avail ourselves of this occasion to launch an appeal to UNESCO to help us to prepare an inventory of all objets d'art, monuments, pieces, archives, manuscripts, documents or any other cultural or artistic treasures. The establishment of a committee for the return of cultural property of Afghanistan or restitution of such a property in case criminal appropriation could serve to a high degree in the endeavors of the preservation or restitution of Afghanistan Cultural Property. Most of the looting and theft of Kabul Museum happened after April 1992 when the site of the museum was occupied by the Pakistani-Hekmatyar alliance, Naseerullah Baber, the former minister of interior of Pakistan, considered by many Pakistani media as the father of the Taliban, and Mr. Zardari, the husband of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, among many others, have been involved in the theft and smuggling of Afghan artifacts. In conclusion. we would like to emphasize the following: 1. The Charter of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in its preamble stipulates: "Resolved to preserved Islamic spiritual, ethical, social and economic values..." On the basis of this disposition, the OIC should break its silence and clearly spell out its position regarding the words and deeds of the Taliban, practiced under the holy name of Islam. 2. Some countries which have recognized the Taliban as the legitimate 'government' of Afghanistan, in bona fide, have not only legitimized the occupation of parts of Afghanistan by an international network of terrorists but have also rendered acquiescence to Taliban's religious interpretations. It is time these countries withdrew their recognition from the so-called 'Emirate' of the Taliban, which signifies not only an aberration of Afghan moderation and civility, but also personifies an affront to the Afghan character. In addition, in light of their ignorant views and obscurantism, this group has distorted the image of Islam. 3. The international community and the United Nations should put strong pressure on Pakistan as the ideological center of Taliban internationalism to put an end to its aggressive and hegemonic design in the region, to withdraw its military personnel from Afghanistan and to close down Taliban production factories, i.e. so-called madrassas (religious schools), where bigotry, hatred for humanity and religious intolerance are inculcated in minds. *From this week's English-language page
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