Yesterday's Enemy, Today's Ally

by Frieda Gardner, WAMM

The President and Defense Secretary like to talk real simple and friendly. Those evil Taliban folks just got to learn they can't tear down our civilization, which is a good one. Such down home, homeland rhetoric is like a smiley face sticker stuck on the side of an AC-130 gunship, which can fire 2500 rounds of ammunition a minute. It is also an invitation to ignore the complexities of the war on Afghanistan we have not quite declared.

Here are a few lists exemplary of these complexities:

1. The two plus six nations working together at the UN to "solve" the Afghanistan problem are the U.S. and Russia plus China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.

2. Major ethnic groups in Afghanistan include the Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, Baluchi, Punjabi, Sindhi.

3. The main factions in the Northern Alliance, our principal ally in Afghanistan, are: Jamiat-i-Islami (Society of Islam), headed by the Tajik Burhanuddin Rabbani, currently running the captured city of Kabul, and holding the UN Afghanistan seat; Junbish, headed by the Uzbek Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, former communist, who recently led the capture of Mazar-i-Sharif; Hisb-i-Wahadat, composed of Shiite Muslims and ethnic Hazara, backed by Iran; and Ittehad-i-Islami (Islamic Alliance), headed by Abdul Rasool Sayyaf, an ally of Rabbani, formerly supported by Saudi Arabia.

4. Ethnic and/or national composition of the Taliban includes the Afghan Pashtun, Pashtun from Pakistan, Saudis and other Arabs, Chechens, and Chinese Muslims.

We who barely understand what happened in the last American presidential election must somehow grapple with these complexities. Packed into a brief list, they invite overload. But we need lists like these to explain why the work of peace is slow and wordy and grounded as much in material circumstances as in ideas.

A recent Sunday New York Times seemed to take a cue for its headline from Bush: "Surprise. War Works After All." Very short and reassuring. Bombs had been "relentlessly pounding . . . positions." The Northern Alliance was winning; the Taliban were killed, captured, or ignominiously fleeing. Soon Laura Bush, of all people, joined the belated chorus of concern about the state of Afghan women. Here was America taking the first step of its international terrorist clean-up operation. Time to nation-build.

Suddenly, it was hard to remember Colin Powell asking the Northern Alliance not to enter Kabul. It was hard to keep in mind that the Northern Alliance is composed of non-Pashtun warriors, and that our recent ally Pakistan, heavily Pashtun in its eastern provinces, might get upset at having an enemy power to both its east (India) and west. It was hard to recall the background rumblings of those who know the history of the Northern Alliance.

Two organizations not getting front-page coverage in the mainstream press are Amnesty International and RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, both are strong critics of the Northern Alliance. RAWA bluntly asserts that the Northern Alliance is composed of war criminals and should have no part in any new coalition government. It takes its information and outrage to the United Nations, the U.S. House Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, to "Democracy Now," the Minnesota Women's Press -- anywhere it can.

Longtime opponent of Taliban oppression, RAWA has been fighting for social justice since 1977. In addition to its dangerous political work, it has risked setting up schools, medical clinics, and food distribution centers for Afghan women. RAWA's bad news about the Northern Alliance, which rests on carefully taken testimony, a knowledge of history, and concern for the effect of the past on the present, might slow down the nation-building efforts of the U.S.

The Northern Alliance ruled Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996, when the Taliban took over. The Alliance was granted eleven of the 21 seats at the coalition government conference in Bonn, Germany, that began on November 27. On November 29, they rejected proposals for a UN security force in Afghanistan.

Here is yet another list, this time of alleged war crimes committed by various parties within the Northern Alliance: imprisonment of political opponents and others suspected of opposition or criticism; unfair trials; secret detentions; use of torture; shelling of houses, hospitals, and mosques; forced displacement of thousands of people; food blockades of Kabul by Gen. Dostum; mass killings (e.g., of 200 Taliban soldiers near Shebarghan); execution without trial of prisoners; and the beating of prisoners.

Lots of ink has gone into descriptions of Afghanistan's warrior culture. And there is a lot to be understood about sentences like "Yesterday my enemy; today my brother." But as always, we need also to examine the consequences of our own warrior culture and the price so many nations pay for it in lives, loss of everyday health and safety, and loss of livelihood and resources.

Afghan Women Resources

Afghan Women's Mission
260 South Lake Ave.
PMB 165
Pasadena, CA 91101
509-756-2236 (fax)
info@afghanwomensmission.org
www.afghanwomensmission.org

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
P.O. Box 374
Quetta
Pakistan
760-281-9855 (U.S. phone)
rawa@rawa.org
www.rawa.org

Word Up!

Citing "security" problems, the Northern Alliance has refused a permit to 200 women in Kabul who wanted to protest the marginal presence of women in the coalition government talks in Germany. Massouda Jalal, a doctor at the World Food Program returning to Kabul after six years in exile, said, "I saw how few women there would be in Germany and I said, 'Take me. Send me, or send one local woman with you. . . . The decision-makers should be told to get one woman who has experienced these years from start to finish." Out of 38 delegates to the talks, three are women. Two others advise delegations. Not one is from Kabul (Star Tribune, November 28, 2001).