Oversendes ukommentert. Foredrag i USA av Talibans
reisende ambassadør.
Trond Andresen
_______
(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)
" 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 killed in the capital, 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 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 Cheney 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. The United States government tried to kill a man without
even giving him a fair trial. In 1998, they just sent cruise missiles into
Afghanistan and they announced that they were trying to kill Osama bin
Laden. We didn't know Osama bin Laden then. I didn't know him; he was just a
simple man. So we were all shocked. I was one of those men who was sitting
at home at night, I was called for an immediate council meeting and we all
were told the United States had attacked Afghanistan. With 75 cruise
missiles they tried to kill one man. And they missed that man; killed 19
other students and never apologized for those killings. What would you do if
you were in our situation. If we were to go and send 75 cruise missiles into
the United States and say that we were going to kill a man that we thought
was responsible for our embassy, and we missed that man, and we killed 19
other Americans what would the United States do? An instant declaration of
war. But we are polite. We did not declare war.
Our Proposals
Rather we have been very open-minded on this issue. We have said, that if
really this man is involved in the Kenya/Tanzania acts, if anybody can give
us proof or evidence about his involvement in these horrific acts, we will
punish him. Nobody gave us evidence. We put him on trial for 45 days and
nobody gave us any kind of evidence. The United States told us they did not
believe in our judicial system. We were surprised as to what kind of
judicial system they have? They just tried to kill a man without even giving
him a fair trial. Even if one of us is a criminal here, the police are not
going to blow his house; he must go to a court first. So our first proposal
was rejected. They said they do not believe in our judicial system, and we
must extradite him to New York. After the rejection of this first proposal
was we said we were ready to accept an international monitoring group to
come into Afghanistan and monitor this man's activities in Afghanistan. So
that he does nothing. Even that he has no telecommunications. That proposal
was also rejected. The third proposal we gave, six months ago, was that we
were ready to try or accept the trial of Osama bin Laden in a third Islamic
country, with the consent of Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. That was also
rejected. We are still very open minded. And for the fourth time, I'm here,
with a letter from my leadership that I'\m going to submit to the State
Department hoping that they will resolve the problem. But I don't think that
they will. Because we think, and I personally think now that maybe the
United States is looking for a boogey man always. Remember what Gorbachev
said? He said, that he's going to do the worst thing ever to the United
States. And everybody thought that he's going to blow the United States with
nuclear weapons. But he said, I' m going to remove their enemy. And then he
fragmented Soviet Union. And he was right. After he fragmented Soviet Union,
a lot of people lost their jobs in the Pentagon, in the CIA, and the FBI,
because they were not needed anymore. So we think that maybe these guys are
looking for a boogey man now. Maybe they want to justify their annual
budget, maybe they want to make their citizens feel that they are still
needed to defend them. Afghanistan is not a terrorist state; we cannot even
make a needle. How are we going to be a terrorist state? How are we going to
be a threat to the world? If the world terrorism is really derived from the
word terror, then there are countries making weapons of mass destruction,
countries making nuclear weapons, they are terrorist states; we are not.
Sanctions
Now, we are under sanctions. And the sanctions have caused a lot of
problems. Despite that we already had been going through so many problems---
the 23 years of continuous war, the total destruction of our infrastructure,
and the problem of refugees, and the problem of land mines in our
agricultural lands --- all of a sudden the United Nations, with the
provocation of Russia, is imposing sanctions on Afghanistan. And the
sanctions have been approved; we are under sanctions. Several hundred
children died a month ago. Seven hundred children died because of
malnutrition and the severe cold weather. Nobody even talked about that.
Everybody knows about the statues. Renovating Statues as People Die When the
world is destroying our future with economic sanctions, then they have no
right to worry about our past. I called my headquarters, I asked them, why
are they going to blow the statues, and I talked to the head of the council
of scholars of people, who had actually decided this, he told me that UNESCO
and an NGO from Sweden, or from one of these Scandinavian countries Norway,
Sweden, one of these they had actually come, with a project of rebuilding
the face of these statues, which have worn by rain. The council of people
told them to spend that money in saving the lives of these children, instead
of spending it to restore these statues. And these guys said, "No, this
money is only for the statues." And the people were really pissed off. They
said that, If you don't care about our children, we are going to blow those
statues. If you were in such a situation what would you do? If your children
are dying in front of your eyes, and you are under sanctions, and then the
same people who have imposed sanctions and are coming and building statues
here? What would you do?
Kofi Annan
And there is Kofi Annan. You know Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of
United Nations? He went to Pakistan, and he said he is going to meet our
representative there. This man never bothered to come, to talk about these
children, he never bothered himself to talk about six million refugees, and
he never talked about the poverty of Afghanistan. He only goes to that
region because of these statues. It is really, really ridiculous. These
people do not care about children, about people who are dying there, about
the foreign interference that still exists; they only care about the
statues. And I am sure they don't care about our heritage. They only care
about their picnic site one time. Maybe they'll have a good picnic site
there, seeing those statues. And I'm sure these sanctions which are imposed
on our government will never change us, because for us, our ideology is
everything. To try to change our ideology with economic sanctions will never
work. It may work in the United States, where the economy is everything, but
for us, our ideology is everything. And we believe that it is better to die
for something than to live for nothing."
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