(also got this from my emailgroup)
Posted: 20 Zul-Hijjah 1421, 16 March 2001
The Qur’an says, “O you who believe! If a rebellious evil person comes to you
with a news, verify it, lest you harm people in ignorance, and afterwards you
become regretful to what you have done.” [Al-Hujurat 49:6]
[Sayyid Rahmatullah Hashemi is the roving Ambassador from Afghanistan who
recently visited the US. The following is the edited version of the
transcription of a lecture given by him at the University Of Southern
California in Los Angeles, on March 10, 2001]
I was just coming from a meeting with a group of scholars, and the first thing
we started talking about there was the statues. And the first thing we started
talking about here was also the statues. It is very unfortunate how little we
see and how little we know. Nobody has seen the problems of Afghanistan; nobody
saw their problems before. And the only thing that represents Afghanistan today
are the statues.
Afghanistan is called the Crossroads of Asia. So, we are suffering because of
our geo-strategic location. We have suffered in the 18th century, 19th century,
and we are still suffering in this century. We have not attacked the British.
We have not attacked the Russians. It was them who attacked us. So the problems
in Afghanistan you see are not our creation.
The Soviet Invasion
The recent problems in Afghanistan started in 1979. Afghanistan was a peaceful
country. The Russians, along with their 140,000 troops attacked Afghanistan in
the December of 1979, just 21 years ago, stayed there for a decade, killed one
and a half million people, maimed one million more people, and six million out
of the eighteen million people migrated because of the Russian brutalities.
Even today, our children are dying because of the landmines that they planted
for us. And nobody knows about this.
After the Russians left during the Russian occupation, on the other side, the
American government, the British government, the French, the Chinese, and all
of the rest, supported the counter-revolutionaries called the Mujahideen; There
were seven parties only in Pakistan and eight parties in Iran who fought the
Russian occupation. And after the Russians left, these parties went into
Afghanistan. All of them had different ideologies, and a lot of weapons. And
instead of having a single administration, they fought in Afghanistan. The
destruction that they brought was worse than the destruction the Russians
brought. 63,000 people were only killed in the capitol, Kabul. Another million
people migrated because of this lawlessness.
The Beginning of Taliban
Seeing this destruction and lawlessness, a group of students called the
Taliban, i.e. a group of students (Taliban is the plural of student in our
language; it may be two students in Arabic, but in our language it means
students) started a movement called the Movement of Students. It first started
in a village in the southern province of Afghanistan, called Kandahar. It
happened when a war-lord, or a commander abducted two minor girls and violated
them. The parents of those girls went to a school and asked the teacher of the
school to help them. The teacher of that school, along with his 53 students,
finding only 16 guns, went and attacked the base of that commander. After
releasing those two girls, they hanged that commander, and so many of his
people were also hanged. This story was told everywhere. BBC also quoted this
story. Hearing this story, many other students joined this movement and started
disarming the rest of the warlords. This same students movement now controls
95% of the country including its capital. Only a bunch of those warlords are
remaining in the northern corridor of Afghanistan.
Our Achievements
We have been in government for only five years, and the following things that
we have done, and many of you may not know:
1.) The first thing we have done is reunifying the fragmented country.
Afghanistan was formerly fragmented into five parts. We unified it when nobody
else could do it.
2.) Second thing we have done, which everybody failed to do, was disarming the
population. After the war every Afghan got a Kalashnikov, and even
sophisticated weapons such as stinger missiles, and they even got fighter
planes and fighter helicopters. Disarming these people seemed to be impossible.
The United Nations in 1992 made an appeal asking for 3 billion dollars to
re-purchase those arms. And because of its impracticality, that plan never
materialized, and everybody forgot about Afghanistan. So the second thing we
have done is to disarm 95% of that country.
3.) The third thing that we have done is to establish a single administration
in Afghanistan, which did not exist for 10 years.
4.) The fourth achievement that we have that is surprising to everybody is that
we have eradicated 75% of world’s opium cultivation. Afghanistan produced 75%
of worlds opium. And last year we issued an edict asking the people to stop
growing opium, and this year, the United Nations Drug Control Program, UNDCP,
and their head, Mr. Barnard F. proudly announced that there was 0% of opium
cultivation. Zero, zilch, none at all.
Incidentally this was not good news for UN itself because many of them lost
their jobs. In the UNDCP, 700 so called experts were working there and they got
their salaries and they never went into Afghanistan. So when we issued this
edict, I know that they were not happy. And this year they lost their jobs.
5.) The fifth achievement that we have, is the restoration of Human rights.
Now, you may think that we are involved in violation of Human Rights. The
reality is exactly the opposite. Among the fundamental rights of a human being
is the right to live. Before us, nobody could live peacefully in Afghanistan.
The first thing we have done, is to give to the people a secure and peaceful
life. The second major thing that we have restored is to give them free and
fair justice; you don’t have to buy justice, unlike here. In Afghanistan
justice is free and readily available.
Women’s Rights
We have been criticized for violating women’s rights. Do you know what happened
before us? I can see some Afghans living here, and they will agree with me,
that in the rural areas of Afghanistan, women were used as animals. They were
sold actually. We stopped this abominable practice.
They didn’t use to have any say in the selection of their husbands. First thing
we have done is to let them choose their future.
Another thing that used to happen in Afghanistan was women were exchanged as
gifts. Of course, this was not something religious; this was something
cultural. When two fighting tribes wanted reconciliation, they would exchange
women. And this has been stopped.
Unlike what is generally said women do work in Afghanistan. True that until
1996 when we captured the capital Kabul, we did ask women to stay home. It
didn’t mean that we wanted them to stay at home forever. We said that there is
no law, and there is no order, and you have to stay at home.
We disarmed the people, and we established law and order, and now women are
working. True, that women are not working in the ministry of defense, like
here. We don’t want our women to be fighter pilots, 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.
Similarly we don’t have any problem with women’s education. We have said that
we want education, and we will have education whether or not we are under
anybody’s pressure, because that is part of our belief. We are ordered to do
that. When we say that there should be segregated schools, it does not mean
that we don’t want our women to be educated. It is true that we are against
co-education; but it is not true that we are against women’s education.
We do have schools even now, but the problem is the resources. We cannot expand
these programs. Before, our government numerous curriculums were going on.
There were curriculums that preached for the kings, curriculums that preached
for the communists, and curriculums from all the seven parties. So, the
students were confused as to what to study. We have started to unify the
curriculum and that is going on.
Recently we reopened the faculty of medical science in all major cities of
Afghanistan and in Kandahar. There are more girls students studying in the
faculty of medical sciences than boys are. But they are segregated. And the
Swedish committees have also established schools for girls. I know they are not
enough, but that is what we have been able to do.
Osama bin Laden
We are also accused of sponsoring terrorism. And for Americans terrorism or
terrorist means only bin Laden. Now you will not know that Afghanistan, or bin
Laden was in Afghanistan for 17 years before we even existed. Bin Laden was in
Afghanistan, fought the Soviet Union, and Mr. Ronald Reagan, the president of
America at that time, and Mr. Dick Chaney called such people freedom fighters
or the Heroes of Independence, because they were fighting for their cause. And
now when the Soviet Union is fragmented, such people were not needed anymore,
and they were transformed into terrorists. From heroes to terrorists. This is
exactly like Mr. Yasser Arafat who was transformed from a terrorist to a hero.
What is the difference between those acts that bin Laden is blamed for and the
1998 cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan. Neither of the two were declared
and both of them killed civilians. If it means killing civilians blindly, both
of them killed civilians blindly.