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Horrific Cases of Women Abuse In Afghanistan
The three-decades-long civil war in Afghanistan caused chronic poverty, unemployment, destruction, and mass migration. The US and NATO invasion in 2001 further added to the pain of civilians who then became a victim of drone attacks, Taliban, IS, and local warlords atrocities. All these misadventures have caused starvation and diseases, which forced poor Afghan parents to sell their daughters for bread, fuel, debt settlement, and other necessities. The irony is that this trade continues even under the nose of the Unity Government, while sexual abuse of young girls in safe houses, police stations, prisons and private jails of foreign forces, as well as that of war criminals in districts and provinces, has now become a national shame. Private security companies, government officials, IS commanders, and even Taliban are also involved in episodes of child sex. Women continue to be tortured, sold, killed and even mutilated for honour by their husbands and terrorist organisations that include Taliban and the IS in all cities and towns of Afghanistan. Human trafficking is another challenge that has grown with the civil war as Afghan parliamentarians, war criminals and government officials, and terrorist organisations still retrieve huge money from this business. During the last eight months, Afghan women experienced several horrific episodes of abuse and violence but the authorities have always supported criminals instead of protecting young girls. Last month, a government official in northern Afghanistan admitted that a man had strangled his wife after she had given birth to a girl. She was dragged outside her room and brutally killed. In 2016, the international community had ranked Afghanistan as the most dangerous country for women. In a 15-page report, Human Rights Watch had highlighted the health and economic consequences of marriage for those under 18 years and violence against young girls. Recently, police arrested two men in northern Afghanistan for...
Afghanistan Slides to the Brink of Ethnic Warfare
Afghanistan now finds itself falling toward bloody civil chaos – not because of ethnic rivalries, but because of bad governance and a lack of economic progress that could become a flashpoint for ethnic warfare. The international community has been generous in trying to help Afghans save themselves, but donor nations should not pour more money and troops into a system that is decaying and unsalvageable. Instead, they should leverage their “kindness” to push President Ashraf Ghani into a radical decentralization of power, giving more autonomy to the provinces. Since its inception almost three centuries ago, Afghanistan has been trapped in a vortex. It vacillates from despotism to short-lived “tranquility,” then slides back into anarchy. Intermittent periods of peace can be attributed to foreign financial aid. Long-lasting, stable institutions have never materialized and probably never will, due to huge rifts along ethnic, religious, social and geographic lines. The Afghan problem did not start with the emergence of the Taliban or the U.S. invasion; it can be traced to two major, historic events that date back centuries. First, in 1499, Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama discovered a sea route to India, which meant the region now known as Afghanistan – once a connecting point between central Asia and the west – lost its commercial importance. The second event came in 1893, when British India annexed a large portion of Afghanistan known as Pashtunistan into India with the Durand Line Treaty. That left the country land-locked. Ever since, Afghanistan has been unable to become stable and prosperous. Instead, it served as a graveyard for a succession of governmental experiments: monarchy, republic, communism, Islamism and now a western-built democracy. All failed. As a gateway to India, this area has been invaded by such powers as the Greeks, Persians, Arabs and Mughals who sought to conquer India. Many got bogged down and stayed. Zahiruddin Babur, who founded the...
The Curious Case Of Sharbat Gula – The Green Eyed Afghan Girl
Pakistan recently faced a PR nightmare when Sharbat Gula – the once famous National Geographic Afghan girl – was deported to her native Afghanistan. Gula was accused of forgery, living in Pakistan using fake identity, and thus was not only detained, but was later sent back to Afghanistan. Gula first gained international prominence in 1984 as an Afghan refugee girl, after Steve McCurry's photograph of her – with striking and unique green eyes, was published on the cover of National Geographic. Her portrait, as National Geographic claims, became a symbol for refugees all over the world. She then resurfaced in 2014, but accusations of forging her identity documents sent her back into hiding. This incident too turned international media attention on Pakistan, and yet again, for all the wrong reasons. The western media cried foul over the apparent “injustice” with Sharbat Gula and her family, yet there was rarely a mention of the illegitimacy” of Gula’s stay in Pakistan. What the western media also ignored was that most Afghan refugees returning home are facing financial and residential struggles. Whereas, Gula not only visited the Presidential Palace and had a one on one meeting with President Ashraf Ghani, but was also fortunate to receive a furnished apartment from the Afghan government. Even though this seemed more like a PR exercise by Kabul, none of the media outlets questioned Ghani and his government over the adverse circumstances faced by the rest of the refugees. Afghan media’s reaction to this story was nothing short of displaying Pakistan in poor light internationally, without acknowledging that hundreds of thousands of Afghan families are not only legally based in Pakistan, but also earn their livelihoods. Soon after Gula landed in Afghanistan, the narrative among the general Afghan population and the Afghan media was that of “Gula treated with disgrace in Pakistan”. Yet, many Afghans were unaware that both the provincial government of Khyber...
If US withdraws, China wonders if it is ready to lead the world
That was the question posed by the nationalist Global Times tabloid in Beijing on Monday. If the United States under Donald Trump gives up its global leadership and withdraws into isolationism, will the rising superpower of China replace it? Ironically, in the past week, China has come forward to defend the system of global governance which the United States has done much to build. Senior officials have urged Trump not to walk away from a global deal to address climate change, while President Xi Jinping told the Asia-Pacific region not to surrender to protectionist pressures, but recommit itself to globalisation and free trade. “Openness is the lifeline of the regional economy,” Xi told the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in the Peruvian capital Lima on Saturday. State news agency Xinhua gushed that Xi’s speech put China and the region in the “vanguard” of a joint effort to revive the global economy. Of course, both the United States and China have sometimes used their power to ignore global rules, whether in sidestepping the United Nations to invade Iraq or in advancing territorial claims in the South China Sea. Nevertheless, China is defending the collaborative, rules-based order because it has benefited hugely from that system: its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 gave an immense boost to Chinese exports but also provided a real incentive for its own domestic economic reforms. Its 1.4 billion people also stand to lose heavily if the planet continues to warm sharply. But is it prepared to accept the burden of leadership? In 2014, President Barack Obama accused China of being a “free rider” on the world stage, but there is no doubt that under Xi Jinping the country has been taking a more forceful global role — launching the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2014 and a ‘Belt and Road’ regional development plan. China’s influence will also expand if Trump fulfills his campaign promise to walk away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership...
Gwadar Augurs New History
The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) Exactly this is the misery of life and it is endless. Isn’t it another misery of life that at one time, one person weeps while other laughs? It goes on every part of the world. Same were the feelings watching the inauguration ceremony of the first shipment of trade goods from China to Gwadar that will further be shipped to its export destinations. Pakistani and Chinese singers were singing Urdu Chinese duet songs to mark the celebration of the long-awaited moment of history of Pakistan when the first CPEC cargo ship was launched. On the other hand, we could see the people screaming and crying over the misery inflicted upon them just a day ago at the shrine of Shah Noorani in Khuzdar district. The person who blew himself killing and injuring many did not have a heart. He crossed all the limits of humanity and risked his own life to take the lives of others. First known as Taliban, then Daesh and now the IS — they are the different names of one mindset, one philosophy and one agenda. The attack at the shrine of Shah Noorani one day before the inauguration of CPEC first trade shipment does have some meaning that the enemies of humanity are also opponents of development of Pakistan. They did not want to see this multi-billion project in this completion mode. It was due to the tireless efforts of civil military partnership that the dream of regional development turned into reality. The whole world witnessed that nothing can bar the process of progress when government is committed to bringing the underdeveloped areas of Pakistan into mainstream of prosperity. The important thing about CPEC is that it is not the project of development and economic benefit for Pakistan and China, it will also usher an era of regional integration, cooperation and development. The regions of Asia, South East Asia,...
Pak-US Relations in The Trump Era
The most important single event in the Pakistan-US relationship in the last decade was the November 26, 2011 slaughter of over two dozen Pakistani soldiers on the border with Afghanistan by US forces. The Salala incident, as it came to be known, was characterised as a mistake by the US. The current corps commander Multan, Lt-Gen Ishfaq Nadeem, was the DGMO at the time, and in briefings with civilians, he made clear that Salala could not have entirely been a mistake. The Defence Committee of the cabinet met the morning after the attack under the chairmanship of then-PM Yusuf Raza Gilani. Pakistan suspended Nato’s supply lines and closed an airbase that Nato/Isaf and the US had been using. The relationship did not recover for seven months, until a July 3, 2012 phone call between then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton and then-foreign minister Hina Khar. (Full disclosure: I joined the government of Pakistan as an adviser to the foreign ministry days after the Salala attack, and remained in government until January 2013). Clinton’s apology took seven months, and some of the most robust diplomacy Pakistan has had to engage in, in Washington DC, thanks to the leadership of Khar and our then ambassador to the US, Sherry Rehman. But the US apology was not the end of that story. I believe Gen Ishfaq was right. Salala was not a random act of violence, it was a product of a slow burn in which the bitterness of US officials, usually unattributed, and published in the New York Times, came to define official US tactics and operations in the region. The public imagination about 2011 as a disastrous year for Pakistan-US relations is animated by Raymond Davis (January 2011), the Bin Laden raid (May 2011), and Memogate (October 2011). However, among the most telling informants of the poisonous contamination of the Pakistan-US relationship back then was a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in September 2011, just two months before Salala in which Admiral Mike Mullen famously...
CPEC’s Territorial Impact
ON Nov 13, the military and civilian leaderships of Pakistan appeared on the same page during the operationalisation ceremony of Gwadar port and testing of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’s western route. An impressive array of development components related to road transportation, railways, port airport development (in Gwadar), energy and warehousing constitute the revealed dimensions of the corridor initiative. No doubt many more will follow. Barring some dissenting voices, political forces and provincial administrations have generally welcomed CPEC and are working to connect with it to reap greater benefits for themselves and, perhaps, their people. However, there seems to be little effort vis-à-vis the general preparedness of the planning and implementation apparatus at the national, provincial and local levels to connect Pakistani people — especially the proletariat, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, traders and the like — with the project. While the corridors of movement and connectivity are discussed with much rigour and energy, the territorial and spatial impacts of CPEC are not being considered. Whether urban, sub-urban and logistic-based settlements shall be able to reconcile and adjust to these physical developments remains an unaddressed concern. An immediate outcome of corridor-based developments is a rapid rise in land values along the arteries of movement in suburban and rural settings. Land and real-estate enterprises tend to cartelise to acquire land along strategic locations. Development of high-end neighbourhoods along the Super Highway between Karachi and Hyderabad is one example. All along the western and eastern routes, ruthless investment sharks are likely to expropriate land from existing owners. As a consequence, the working classes here will be pushed out and marginalised. Capitalists may also elbow out indigenous livelihoods in many parts of the alignments and corridors. Subsistence fishermen in Gwadar were concerned about the closure...
Post-Presidential Karzai: Still A Challenge To The NUG?
Hamid Karzai may have handed over the reigns of power in September 2014, but his influence on Afghanistan’s politics did not end. His calls for a Loya Jirga, as the National Unity Government approached its two-year anniversary, represented a danger to that government. However, political groups and influential individuals, even those who had previously been his closest allies, did not take up his call. Rather, some of his recent comments have met clamorous pushback and the expressions of support he did receive, mainly from people in government, only increased the controversy that surrounds him. AAN’s Ali Yawar Adili (with parliamentary reporting from AAN’s Salima Ahmadi and input by Thomas Ruttig) looks at a number of recent incidents, their fallout and what they tell us about Karzai’s political clout. Ever since he left office in 2014, former president Hamid Karzai has maintained a shadowy presence on Afghanistan’s political scene. In his compound not far from the presidential palace, he frequently meets those who feel belittled by the National Unity Government (NUG), or who have an axe to grind with it, often hosting elaborate luncheons. (The new president, Ashraf Ghani, has abolished such practices in the presidential palace.) There are rumours that the former president has been tacitly conspiring against the NUG (see this July 2016 Los Angeles Times article or this June 2015 Radio Free Europe article, both by Afghan authors), an accusation he has denied. More overtly, he has frequently granted interviews to the international media, opining on a wide range of topics. He told the German news agency dpa there were ‘no tensions’ between himself and his successor Ashraf Ghani, but that he would make his voice heard “when he had the feeling that the country was moving in a wrong direction on essential issues.” “Death to Karzai” Over the last few months, Karzai has been involved in a fair share of controversy. The most notable incident took place on 30 September 2016...
Isis in Afghanistan: 'Their Peak Is Over, But They Are Not Finished'
Fifteen months ago, militants arrived in the village of Manan Bagh, eyeing its strategic location in the mountains close to Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. They started picking out community leaders, elders and people they accused of conspiring against them. Among them was Zahir Shah, who was marched into the mountains and whose fate his family only learned from a video uploaded to Facebook. “They forced him to sit on explosives,” Ziarat Gul, Shah’s father-in-law, told the Guardian. “We haven’t been able to find even one part of his body.” Islamic State fighters have been pummelled by US airstrikes and receive little local support, but they maintain a small – and seemingly resilient – stronghold in eastern Afghanistan. The fighters are few but unusually brutal, in keeping with the group’s behaviour elsewhere. They may not be an existential threat to the Afghan state but they are to civilians. Local authorities said using explosives was a common method of killing for Isis, who also impose strict rules at odds with local customs: forcing men to grow beards and women to wear burqas. They declare government-officiated weddings invalid, smash shrines and ban smoking, snuff and poppy cultivation. These rules erode an already limited public support for Isis, argues the US Institute of Peace in a new report. However, since it emerged publicly in 2014, Isis has continued to claim attacks outside Nangarhar – the only province where it has managed to gain ground – most notably when it targeted a crowd of protesters in Kabul in July, and a group of Shia mourners last month. This week, Isis attacked a unit of elite Afghan bodyguards in central Kabul, which killed at least six, including civilians. Although on the ropes in Afghanistan, the group can still strike in the heart of the capital. Since April, about 200 US airstrikes in Nangarhar alone have helped push Isis into retreat, killed its leader in Afghanistan – Hafiz Saeed Khan – and limited its reach to four districts....
Isis in Afghanistan: ‘Their Peak Is Over, But They Are Not Finished’
Fifteen months ago, militants arrived in the village of Manan Bagh, eyeing its strategic location in the mountains close to Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. They started picking out community leaders, elders and people they accused of conspiring against them. Among them was Zahir Shah, who was marched into the mountains and whose fate his family only learned from a video uploaded to Facebook. “They forced him to sit on explosives,” Ziarat Gul, Shah’s father-in-law, told the Guardian. “We haven’t been able to find even one part of his body.” Islamic State fighters have been pummelled by US airstrikes and receive little local support, but they maintain a small – and seemingly resilient – stronghold in eastern Afghanistan. The fighters are few but unusually brutal, in keeping with the group’s behaviour elsewhere. They may not be an existential threat to the Afghan state but they are to civilians. Local authorities said using explosives was a common method of killing for Isis, who also impose strict rules at odds with local customs: forcing men to grow beards and women to wear burqas. They declare government-officiated weddings invalid, smash shrines and ban smoking, snuff and poppy cultivation. These rules erode an already limited public support for Isis, argues the US Institute of Peace in a new report. However, since it emerged publicly in 2014, Isis has continued to claim attacks outside Nangarhar – the only province where it has managed to gain ground – most notably when it targeted a crowd of protesters in Kabul in July, and a group of Shia mourners last month. This week, Isis attacked a unit of elite Afghan bodyguards in central Kabul, which killed at least six, including civilians. Although on the ropes in Afghanistan, the group can still strike in the heart of the capital. Since April, about 200 US airstrikes in Nangarhar alone have helped push Isis into retreat, killed its leader in Afghanistan – Hafiz Saeed Khan – and limited its reach to four districts....
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I am also a member of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting. Recently, we held a meeting with the Director General of Radio Pakistan and we told them to initiate such local programs (like Constituency Hour) in regional languages to educate and inform people. Even Indian Radio can be heard in FATA which is being used for propaganda purposes and must be closed. Therefore, we should launch some standard and quality programs like CRSS that will change the taste of the listeners.