Protests in Afghanistan

A recent wave of anti-US protests in Afghanistan indicates widespread resentment of the foreign troop presence, especially US troops, in the country. According to some, this reflects a country-wide sentiment that all foreign troops should leave the country immediately. In my view, it is too soon to tell if this is true. What is true is that, like in Iraq, the people in Afghanistan most likely to take advantage of the anti-US feeling are not progressive secular democrats but right-wing fundamentalist extremists. Those of us who want to work in solidarity with the Afghan people should resist the temptation to see the situation as presenting a choice between freedom-loving protesters and US imperialism.

The reason I am cautious in judging the implications of the demonstrations stems from a recent trip to Afghanistan I made with Sonali Kolhatkar. In contrast with what appears to be happening now, we couldn't find anyone that thought foreign troops should leave immediately. To the people we talked with, withdrawal of foreign troops at the current stage would be a disaster. People feared the many warlords who were armed by the US to oust the Taliban after 9/11. The US has essentially engineered a situation that requires its presence. If foreign troops left, people told us, the warlords would fill the power vacuum and end any possibility for secular democratic change in Afghanistan. This strategic decision was expressed even by some who took part in the recent demonstrations, people obviously well aware of the abuses committed by US troops. For example, Ahmad Jawed, a 19-year old literature student at Kabul University. Even though he demonstrated against US behavior, Jawed "believed the U.S. presence is necessary for the country's security," but emphasized that the foreigners should answer to the Afghan people and not stay any longer than necessary. "Up until the time they are needed, they should stay. But then they should go."

The only Afghans who have anything close to freedom of speech are either those that do not question the warlords, or those who espouse fundamentalist Islamic values. Consider people like Malalai Joya, a 26-year old woman whose impassioned denunciation of warlords at the constitutional assembly in January 2004 made her the recipient of death threats. When we met her in Afghanistan this February, Joya could only go outside wearing a full burqa, and her compound was patrolled by armed guards. Other journalists, lawyers, human rights workers, and activists that we met were also operating in relative secrecy. Some of them had been openly threatened, others just feared retaliation for their views.

One recent disturbing current happening almost simultaneously with the anti-US wave is the series of incidents across Afghanistan of violence against women. One woman was stoned to death for "adultery." In another village, three women were found raped and murdered, with a note warning women not to work with foreign aid agencies. A woman television presenter was shot and killed two months after she was fired from her job due to complaints from "religious conservatives." About 300 or so women demonstrated in Kabul against these incidents, calling on the government to "implement the laws and rights given to us," but this was a much smaller outing than the more than 3000 who filled the streets of Jalalabad shouting "Death to America." A recent statement by the Afghan women's rights organization RAWA stated that events like the stoning are the result of the "traitor-fostering policies of [president Hamid] Karzai and the US government," who supported fundamentalists and warlords to topple the Taliban in 2001.

The catalyst for the anti-US protests was not the violence against women, but apparently the report in Newsweek that US interrogators in Guantanamo put Koran's in the toilet, or flush them down, to "rattle suspects." Newsweek has since recanted, saying that they haven't confirmed the toilet allegations but the Pentagon told them "other desecration charges [were] 'not credible'." This says nothing of the proven violations of actual humans at Guantanamo, and certainly doesn't make them any easier to accept. As mentioned by Reuters, there is certainly "growing resentment of U.S. forces, especially in ethnic Pashtun areas of the south and east where they [US troops] mainly operate." By joining in protests against Koran desecration, it is likely that many people angry with the US presence are expressing themselves in the only "safe" venue available to them. Unfortunately, since the anti-US sentiment is channeled into religious--as opposed to human rights--issues, this makes it a lot easier for fundamentalists to exploit it for their own gain.

Even fundamentalists close to president Hamid Karzai blessed the events. Sibghatullah Mojadeddi, president for a few months under the US-backed Mujahideen government that ousted the Soviet puppet Najibullah in 1992, told followers at Friday prayers, "we...support those who demonstrate...But we want peaceful demonstrations." Mojadedi seems to share many of the perspectives of the Taliban. When he chaired the late 2003 constitutional convention, Mojadedi told delegates what he thought of women seeking equal rights: "Do not try to put yourself on a level with men. Even God has not given you equal rights because under his decision two women are counted as equal to one man." It was Mojadeddi who had Joya's microphone shut off when she denounced warlords at the assembly. Recently Mojadeddi, as head of Afghanistan's "Reconciliation Commission" offered amnesty to the extremist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Mullah Omar, the former Supreme Leader of the Taliban.

Those who stand most to gain from the current wave of anti-US protests are people who share the ideology of the perpetrators of the recent atrocities against women. Furthermore, there are hints of a political agenda underlying the agitation that goes beyond the need to preserve the sanctity of the Koran. The Italian news service ADN Kronos International points to the former Taliban, forces of renegade Islamists Yunus Khalis and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and "political parties and groups that supported the Northern Alliance" as among those most eager for the anti-US actions to continue. According to ADNKI,

Sources maintained that five parties met last week near Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan and agreed to support the mass mobilisation of people against the US presence in Afghanistan and to try to turn it into a political movement. Among those present was former Afghan president [1992-1996] Burhanuddin Rabbani [the nominal head of the Northern Alliance]...

Significantly, Amin Tarzi of RFE/RL notes that the Pakistani consulate was targeted for vandalism in Jalalabad, and that just after the first protests had started, a letter was circulated in Kabul declaring that the "principle duty of the Mujahedin has just started." He doesn't come out and say it, but Tarzi is hinting that members of the Northern Alliance or other anti-Pakistan and anti-Taliban fundamentalists could be orchestrating some of the demonstrations. Shukria Barakzai, the editor of a women's newspaper in Kabul, told Sonali Kolhatkar that the protests are being fanned by "some of our neighbors" (Pakistani groups that are against president Musharraf) as well as "inside people [who would] like to be in power," and drug smugglers.

If indeed the anti-US mobilizations are being fomented for political gain by members of the Northern Alliance or other warlords, they may be reacting to the recent ad hoc tribal council called by president Hamid Karzai, which agreed in principle that an extended foreign troop presence is necessary for the country until the Afghan National Army is strong enough to ensure security. The obvious consequences of such a decision would be that Alliance commanders might lose much of the military control of the country that they currently enjoy. Notably, the delegates emphasized that this was not an official decision, since only the parliament, which has not yet formed, can rule on such matters.. But the ad hoc meeting was mainly assembled so that Karzai, whose own status depends on foreign support, would have some legitimacy (with foreigners and with his own people) in his current trip abroad when he asks the EU, NATO and the US for aid. Rumblings that the US is eager for permanent bases in Afghanistan have not gone down very well with the populace. That resentment is easily harnessed by the fundamentalists who can rally people to their side by calling the president a supine puppet who asks for support from blasphemers. By calling a meeting behind people's backs in advance of parliamentary elections, Karzai makes the case against him that much easier for the fundamentalists.

It is ironic, but not surprising, that the men applauding, and perhaps orchestrating, the movement against the US presence in Afghanistan happen to be the same men that the US helped to power, first in the early 1990s against the Soviet-backed regime, and later in 2001 to replace the Taliban. We've seen this happen often enough (eg., Osama bin Laden, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar). The men who were restored to power by the US after 9/11 now want the US out of their way so they can run the country. The brutal warlord Ismail Khan, returned as governor of Herat by US action (now minister of energy), told his benefactors, "thank you for your help, such as it was, but it is no longer needed." (New York Times, November 17, 2001) While he governed Herat, Khan kept alive the Taliban's legacy of oppression.

In the past, the United States empowered extremists with little popular support to fight the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. (This is not to say that the anti-Soviet jihad had little popular support. The United States and its allies simply chose to back the most extreme factions that were not well regarded by the people.) Afghans were in effect forced to decide between two centers of power, both criminal. Today, Afghans (and progressives in the US who want to work in solidarity with them) are forced into a similar false choice between the imperialist US and its client Hamid Karzai on the one hand; and their loudest opposition, the fundamentalist warlords like the Taliban and Northern Alliance, on the other. Most Afghans we met rejected this dichotomy. There is a silent but large portion of the population that wants the warlords to lose the power given to them by the US. The "Call for Justice" produced by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission voices some of the concerns of this silent majority. Because of its relative weakness, however, the secular democratic movement in Afghanistan will probably not be a major player in the current protests against foreign occupation. The demonstrations are symptomatic of a real resentment, but without strengthening democratic forces, that resentment is likely to be channeled by reactionary warlords, drug lords, and the Taliban.

Jim Ingalls is a codirector of the Afghan Women's Mission, a US-based nonprofit that works in solidarity with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Jim publishes the blog, political conScience. He is also a staff scientist at the Spitzer Space Telescope Science Center.

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