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Join DC Afghans on June 20 to protest Pakistani aggression against Afghanistan, during Paki FM's visit to the US capital
Washington, DC, June 17 (Omaid): The Association for Peace and Democracy for Afghanistan (APDA) is organizing a protest rally on June 20, during Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar's stay in Washington, DC.
The only Afghan political organization in the West, the APDA has a long and unrivaled track record in organizing similar political rallies
The APDA announcement called on all Afghan men and women to participate in the rally, which will protest the Pakistani military regime's continued aggression against Afghanistan.
Protestors will also denounce atrocities — such as mass killings, cultural genocide, and other barbarities — perpetrated by Pakistani fighters — religious zealots and even Regular Army troops — the Taliban militia, and international terrorists.
The rally is scheduled for 1:30 pm Wednesday in Freedom Plaza, located on 14th and E streets in Northwest DC. ><
US Congressmen call for elimination of "despicable" Taliban
Washington, DC, June 13 (Omaid): Wearing yellow swatches on their lapels, 420 members of the US House of Representatives today voted on a resolution condemning the Taliban militia for its recent edict requiring self-identification of Afghanistan's remaining Hindu population.
The resolution, sponsored by Congressman Eliot Engel of New York, cites the "reprehensible policies of the Taliban [that] are exacerbating the suffering of the people of Afghanistan" and recalls the militia's recent "destruction of all pre-Islamic statues in Afghanistan, among them a pair of 1,600-year old...tall statues of Buddha." Now on its way for voting in the US Senate, where it will likely pass with no opposition like the 420-0 vote in the House, the resolution "strongly condemns the Taliban's use of Nazi tactics," and even calls on Taliban patron Pakistan to use its "influence" to revoke the militia's latest decree.
The inclusion of Pakistan in condemning the Taliban has thus far been taboo for US officials and politicians. During a one-hour debate on the resolution, Congressman Benjamin Gilman said it's only appropriate to demand Pakistan take action because "it is an open secret that Pakistan in many ways supports the Taliban." He said the Taliban's continuing oppression against certain segments of Afghan society "goes hand in hand with other reprehensible behavior."
Rep. Gilman, who chairs the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, continued:
"It is not surprising, therefore, that the Taliban provides Osama bin Laden, the terrorist kingpin, a safe haven...It is his thugs that killed our State Department employees...The Taliban and bin Laden appear to be made for each other."
Ironically, the murder of Americans, including State Department employees, has failed to bring a change in Washington's almost non-existent policy on Afghanistan.
In his concluding remarks, Rep. Gilman added:
"The Taliban regime is a threat to the stability not only of the Asian regime but the entire world...The former king of Afghanistan has suggested that all of the parties come together in Afghanistan for a grand assembly known as a Loya Jirga. This could be an appropriate way to bring peace to that Nation...Another method could be to work with the Northern Alliance [eds: United Front national resistance force] that has been opposing the Taliban . No matter what route our Nation takes, we must help to restore stability through the formation of a representative form of government in Afghanistan."
Congressman Tom Lantos of California remarked, "This latest despicable action of this despicable regime is only the most recent of a long list of horrific human rights and religious freedom abuses committed by the Taliban." Afghanistan's "rich history and tradition of tolerance," Rep. Lantos said, "is being dismantled by this dark and brutal regime."
While according to the majority of Afghans this question has already been answered with a resounding "yes," Rep. Lantos asked, "One must wonder if the Taliban are trying to commit genocide against" the people of Afghanistan.
In a call for immediate action against the Taliban, Rep. Lantos declared, "We cannot stand idly by and watch while the Taliban continue their rein of darkness and despair. We cannot countenance their deliberate attempt to undo centuries of civilization. We must find a way to stop this insane regime."
Rep. Lantos said the Taliban's actions are "shear, shear fascism" and their "fanaticism" may "spread."
The Taliban's ethnocide against certain groups in Afghanistan was brought up by Florida's Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who said, "On May 14 of this year, it was revealed that the Taliban has an ethnic cleansing manual." News of the manual, entitled "The Second Water Carrier," was first published in Omaid Weekly in 1998.
Maryland's Congressman Steny Hoyer said, "Today the people of Afghanistan toil under the boot of the brutal Taliban regime, whose crimes...are legion." Commenting on the militia's unabated brutalities, Rep. Hoyer continued, "The Taliban's chokehold on the Afghani [sic] people has only tightened recently."
Other US Representatives who spoke during the debate, all of whom supported the resolution, included Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, Rep. Joseph Crowley of Texas, Rep. Connie Morella of Maryland, Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey, Rep. Edolphus Towns of New York, Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. of New Jersey, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas, and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California.
Clinton administration supported the Taliban
Concluding this report is a large excerpt from the statement of Congressman Rohrabacher, whose involvement with and knowledge of Afghanistan is acknowledged to far surpass his colleagues in the US Congress, during this debate:
"This resolution condemns the Taliban regime, not just for what it is doing against Hindus, which is today what we were using as our hook to draw attention...but this is symbolic of the repression that the Taliban and the fanaticism that the Taliban have brought to Afghanistan.
"As someone who spent considerable time in Afghanistan, I would say that I am probably the only Member of this body who actually at one point fought alongside with Afghans against the Russian troops during their long war against Russian occupation, and I found the Afghans not to be fanatics.
"The Afghans were very devout in their religion, but they were not the fanatics that the Taliban portray today. In fact, I would like to let my colleagues know that, by and large, the Taliban were not and are not the Mujahideen, which is a mistake that many people make.
"Most of the Taliban leadership, as well as most of the Taliban, sat out the war against Russia in Pakistan. The Taliban means students, and they were in what supposedly were schools, although many of them were illiterate, being financed by the Saudis and the Pakistanis. That is where they were during the war, while many of the people who opposed them today were out fighting the Russians.
"Many of the people who I was with are now being repressed by Afghans who were not out there fighting the Russians, who now call themselves the Taliban , as if they have some corner on the understanding of God. What the Taliban are doing is using Islam as a weapon for their own power.
"We have seen this in other faiths as well. We have seen the fanatics and the charlatans use their religion, whether they are Christians or Muslims or whoever, in order to gain their own power.
"Well, that is what has happened in Afghanistan. It is getting worse and worse, because the Taliban, ever since they have been in power, have allied themselves with the worst elements in the world, people who the Afghan people would have nothing to do with if they had some choice in their government.
"Of course, as we know, 60 percent of the world's heroin has been growing in Afghanistan all of these years that the Taliban have been in power. The Taliban now tell us this year they are no longer growing any poppies, and the heroin production is down in their country. Of course, how convenient. At a time when they have a massive drought that has been going on in Afghanistan that has killed all of the crops, now they voluntarily are not growing any more poppies. How convenient. We will wait and see what happens when the water comes back whether or not they enforce this supposed edict.
"Unfortunately, when we are talking about American relations with Afghanistan, what we have found over the last 8 years with the last administration, every time we had a chance to overthrow the Taliban , and I was involved with several organizations whose efforts were in that direction, the last administration, the Clinton administration, rode to the rescue at the last minute every time. That is unfortunate.
"During the last 8 years while we gave refugee relief supplies to Afghanistan, those supplies, our foreign aid, the foreign aid we have been giving to Afghanistan and those poor suffering people of Afghanistan, they needed some help; but yet, the last administration saw to it that those supplies were only distributed in Taliban -controlled areas.
"I can tell the Members that I fought tooth and nail, I went time and time again to the State Department, to try to see that those supplies were distributed in non-Taliban areas. But instead, the Clinton administration insisted that those supplies go to Taliban -controlled areas.
"Why is that? I believe, and I have said this before, the last administration and unfortunately the United States, thus, had a covert policy of supporting the Taliban for a while, perhaps as part of some situation with Pakistan and the Saudis. I do not know.
"But I would hope that the United States policy has changed, and that indeed our goal be the elimination of the Taliban regime and support for those Afghanis who are struggling for their country and struggling to have a moderate and a decent government.
"The Taliban had, by the way, rejected all elections as being inconsistent with Afghan tradition. There are a group of people today fighting against the Taliban whose goal and idea is to have an Afghanistan directed by the democratic process.
"Commander Masood and many others who fought against the Russians, Abdul Haq and his family who are fighting there, fought against the Russians, Pashtoon as well as minority members, were fighting against the Taliban.
"Our goal should be to be on the side of those people who want to replace that regime and to help those people. If we send supplies to Afghanistan, they should go to the people in need, whether they are with Taliban or not.
"There is a group called the Knightsbridge organization headed by Ed Artis and Dr. James Law that have $2 million worth of humanitarian supplies ready to go now to the people of Afghanistan, but they do not have the money for the transport, and they have not been given help because it might go to some non-Taliban areas.
"So I would hope that we do what is right in this country, that we condemn this repression as exemplified by repression against the Hindus, but we put ourselves on the line against the Taliban and their fanaticism and support for terrorism and drug dealing.
"It is time the people of Afghanistan deserve a break after these last 20 years of struggling." ><
State Department doesn't
want to admit Pakistani invasion
Bin Laden funds 40 camps in Afghanistan, ISI trains
fighters
From issue #477
Omaid Weekly's interview with Ms. Otilie English, the Public Affairs Representative of the Islamic State of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C., upon her arrival from a recent trip to Afghanistan:
Omaid Weekly: Tell us about your trip.
Otilie English: I went in with Dr. Elie Krakowski who is
attempting a study of the entire region. He had wanted to go
inside [Afghanistan], and so I implemented that through [the
United Front].
We spent time with Commander [Ahmad Shah] Masood [eds: supreme leader of Afghanistan's national resistance force] spanning seven hours. We had very intense conversations with him about what was happening inside and some of [the UF's] problems. He talked a great deal about Pakistan's interference in Afghanistan.
While [Pakistani interference] is pretty obvious to anyone who is involved in the question, it's unfortunate that the [United States] State Department doesn't want to admit the involvement of Pakistan. I'm hoping the [Bush] administration in its reevaluation of its policies is going to take that into account and come down hard on Pakistan.
Pakistan is now putting restrictions on NGOs [helping Afghans] that are working in Pakistan. In Jalozai they're creating a virtual death camp. There isn't a question in anyone's mind that they want to push the Afghans out.
It's obvious what's going on inside Afghanistan, too. They are being starved.
And it occurs to me, and this is my own personal opinion, that the [Taliban] want to get rid of any women that are not attached to a man. They've already told women in Qandahar that if you're not already married you'd better get married. And by not allowing them to have food, they're basically making them either die or leave. They're misogynists, they hate women. It's a very sick thing.
I interviewed a lot women when I was in Afghanistan. Of course, I was speaking through an interpreter. But, [the women] said things to me that they would never talk about with a foreign, Western male journalist. They certainly wouldn't allow a man to come in with a camera and take their photograph, but they let me. One of the women -- and this is an uneducated woman -- actually said that I think [the Taliban] hate women. It was very telling.
OW: What areas did you visit?
OE: I went to Khwaja Bahauddin, and we met there with Cmdr. Masood twice. And we flew down with him in his helicopter to Chaman Khustdin, which was the area where Cmdr. Masood's original headquarters was against the Soviets. It was a very steep valley, and in order to get there you had to fly through mountain passes; it was a perfect fortress.
In the three meetings we had with Cmdr. Masood, the first one was for Dr. Krakowski, it was for two hours, where he outlined what he was doing -- his study. And then I talked about what I was doing on Capitol Hill [eds: U.S. Congress]. In the second meeting, Cmdr. Masood spent two and a half hours with us, and he spoke very candidly about the situation.
Cmdr. Masood feels very, very optimistic. Especially because he has all the folks in line -- like [General Abdur-Rashid] Dostum, [Ustad] Karim Khalili, [General] Ismail Khan, Haji Qadir. And he has a number of Pashtoon commanders that are about to join the UF, whose names I cannot mention. One of them was prominent in Qandahar.
It's obvious to everyone that Afghanistan has been invaded again. It's been invaded twice in two decades. And that's what I'm saying to people in [Congress].
But back to my trip. We spent five days in Chaman Khustdin, and then Dr. Krakowski flew back to Tajikistan. I then drove along the Kokcha River, which was beautiful, to Faizabad.
I spent six days in Faizabad. I went to see the teaching hospital there, which was just fantastic. It was a fantastic hospital. They have women there that are going to become doctors. I went to a wonderful women's school called Makhfeeya, named after a famous [Dari-]Persian poetess from Badakhshan. It was very impressive high school with 1,500 girls, it was very large. They're operating with almost nothing. The students sit on the floor, and they need simple things like papers and pens, they need books. But, what they were teaching was very impressive. They were teaching mathematics, science, Arabic, English, [Dari-]Persian, and all the subjects. The women who were running it were from Kabul.
I then met with President Rabbani. I outlined what I was hoping to do [in the Congress], gave him my reports -- that I'm always giving to Dr. Abdullah [eds: Afghanistan's Acting Foreign Affairs Minister] -- about the people I've met with and some of the problems I've run into in the [U.S.] House International Relations and [U.S.] Senate Foreign Relations Committees, and some of the misconceptions or lack of knowledge about the UF. For example, what I'm always discussing [with Congressman and Senators] is I'm saying look at a map [of Afghanistan], [the UF] does not control just ten percent of the country, they control thirty percent of the country, and in a heartbeat they can control much more if they could only get help from the U.S. And they're getting none of the [humanitarian] aid even though they have fifty percent of the population [in areas they control], and this is what's important.
One of the things I'm desperately trying to do is get more humanitarian aid; trying to get NGOs to work out of Tajikistan, as well as perhaps Uzbekistan -- to use as a weigh station for humanitarian aid. Interestingly, when I go to the State Department and I mention this, their immediate reaction is well then you would have people picking at it and skimming. And so I ask them if they're saying that [interference with humanitarian aid] doesn't happen in Pakistan?! And so of course there is nothing that they can say. [The State Department's] lack of knowledge about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and all the "stans" is astonishing.
I then traveled back and went to Panjsher where I interviewed four POWs. They were all from Pakistan. And I brought this up to some Pakistanis who hate to hear this, and they asked how do I know [the POWs were Pakistanis]? I said the only thing the four of them had in common was they all spoke Urdu; and, they all said they were paid by the ISI [eds: Pakistan's military intelligence agency], they were trained by the ISI inside of Afghanistan, and all of their instructors in the training camps were ISI. And the whole thing is funded by Osama bin Laden. There are now about forty camps, according to what some intelligence sources have told me. Every six months they graduate new students.
However, an Uighur I interviewed had only a month's training. And there was another Pakistani boy who was eighteen and had already spent two years in prison, which means he was sixteen [when he started fighting]. They had given him only one month of training with a Kalashnikov and sent him to the frontlines. This is what some twenty percent of [Taliban] foot soldiers are made up of, these young kids. And what people don't understand is that they don't stand a chance against Cmdr. Masood's battle hardened, well trained forces. And that's why there are so many fatalities on the [Taliban] side.
The prison was impressive. It was well run. The Red Cross brings [POWs] packages from home. They're taken out for exercise every day. And I've photographed and filmed all of this. They're well treated. They get to make a telephone call to their families. You can't tell me that the [Taliban] are also doing this. The UF is abiding by Red Cross rules and international law. I ate the prison food for lunch. It was a big bowl of rice with raisins and nuts -- it was very healthy. And for breakfast the POWs get an egg and a piece of bread. For dinner they get another big bowl of rice.
I've talked to other people who have visited these camps, like Sebastian Junger. [eds: Mr. Junger visited the Panjsher last year for National Geographic; see our February 26 issue.] I've asked whether the POWs are forced to say these things, and the general idea is no; they are treated well. Sebastian went to that same POW camp and saw them bringing back a guy who had just escaped, and he said there wasn't a scratch on him. He said in New York City if you escaped the cops you'd have at least a few scratches on you when they brought you back.
Continued in our next issue. (See below)
------------------------------------------
From issue #478
Pak feeds info to State Dept Rocca step in right direction
Continued from our previous issue, following is Omaid Weekly's interview with Ms. Otilie English, the Public Affairs Representative of the Islamic State of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C., upon her arrival from a recent trip to Afghanistan.
Ms. English's background on Afghanistan includes a stint in 1987 at the American Security Council (ASC), a bi-partisan think tank on foreign policy issues. In that capacity she shot a video on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and traveled across the US speaking on the subject for ASC speaker's bureau. In 1989 she became Director of Public Relations for the Committee for a Free Afghanistan and returned to Qandahar with journalists from CNN. At the Committee she worked directly with the majority of Afghan political organizations in Peshawar, published a newsletter on Afghanistan, the Free Afghanistan Report, and advised journalists on conditions inside that country.
Prior to her current position, she was an appointee of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge.
Omaid Weekly: Why do US State Department human rights reports contradict facts by always giving the impression that the United Front (UF) treats their POWs like the Taliban?
Otilie English: I saw how [the UF] treated their prisoners. [eds: See Ms. English's response in our last issue.]
OW: Then where does State Department get its information?
OE: They're getting it from the Pakistanis. Are State Department people going inside Afghanistan? I've asked them repeatedly. One [State Department official], I won't mention his name, said in one of our meetings, "Oh, years ago I was in Afghanistan and I know it well." And I said no, no, no, years ago is not now. And I can tell you what I saw.
OW: So the State Department is still looking at Afghanistan through Pakistani eyes? Even with the bin Laden issue?
OE: Absolutely, absolutely.
The overriding thing with the State Department is to go along with and follow things the way they have always done it. They are wedded to this old Cold War mentality that our big friend in the region is Pakistan, and we have their bases to fly out of. And I keep saying to all of them that our future is not with Pakistan, it's with India. Anyone who doesn't understand this is deaf, dumb, and blind. Right now there's a golden opportunity for the United States to realign itself and make new friends.
OW: Have there been any changes [in the State Department] since the new [Bush] administration? Or does it take some time to trickle down?
OE: It takes a lot of time to trickle down. But, I don't know.
However, Dr. Abdullah [eds: Afghanistan's Acting Foreign Affairs Minister] is coming to Washington, DC and we will be meeting with some members of the Bush administration. We're certainly going to be meeting with [US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs] Christina Rocca, and we will also meet with higher level officials.
OW: Rocca has been hyped, at least by Indian newspapers, for her pro-India views. Do you see any of that?
OE: Whether she's pro-Indian or not, her statement to the Senate in her confirmation hearing mentioned Afghanistan heavily, and she talked about the terrorist training camps and the terrorism problem. I think she's very knowledgeable about it, and I think this is a step in the right direction.
OW: From your recent trip, how does Cmdr. Masood still view the US?
OE: He outright said that the United States has to realign itself and get a better understanding of the situation. He mentioned that one of the things that they can do is to do something about the horrendous reporting by the Voice of America, in particular the Pashto service.
The Pashto service is very slanted, they are very pro-Taliban. In fact, I've taken to call it the VOT — Voice of the Taliban — and I think a lot of Afghans have. He was also critical of the Dari service. He said it's very weak.
OW: How is Cmdr. Masood still optimistic?
OE: He's optimistic about the future because he is seeing that Afghans are tired of war. That Afghans now realize they have been invaded again, and they hate the Taliban. And they hate the foreign "guests." They have realized that these people are not Afghans — they're Chechens, Uighurs, Punjabis, and Arabs of every stripe.
Continued in our next issue.
*From this week's English-language page
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