Home

Issues

Multimedia

Cartoons

Links

How to Help

Forum

Post-War News




   Recent Articles

War With Iraq?

Deep Roots: Israel and Palestine - Part 1

Into the Fire

Indifferent Genocide

Atrocities in Iraq


   Recent Cartoons

Preemptive Strikes and You

What's Next???

A Terrorist Cell


   Recent Other Stuff

The Equation of Death


©AskWHY? All content on this page is free for non-commercial use as long as credit is given to the author of the material in question unless otherwise specified

January 27, 2002

Into The Fire
by @jay Shenoy

     Now that the Taliban has basically crumbled and our saintly ally the Northern Alliance is going to play a large role in Afghanistan’s new government and keep the peace, all is well and happy, right? Sorry to burst the bubble of anyone who actually believes that, but in reality, the situation is quite the opposite. The Taliban’s cruel and repressive control over Afghanistan has come to an end, indeed a good thing (although the means were acts of terrorism in themselves), but if anyone cared to actually take a look, they would learn that the majority of Afghans are not exactly celebrating their situation. One of the main reasons for this is summed up in two words: Northern Alliance. In fact, if one were to visit the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan’s website (www.rawa.org), the stories of the Northern Alliance’s past crimes, the photos of their more recent massacres, and the blatant statements that the Afghan people do not want the Northern Alliance around tend to sum everything up quite nicely. But why is it that the Afghan people are so opposed to their glorious and honorable saviors? Could the reason possibly be that the Northern Alliance is as bad as or worse than the Taliban? The Afghan people would probably reply in the affirmative. As events are, however, the Northern Alliance situation is not quite so bad as people had earlier foreseen; the Northern Alliance has not been made the absolute ruler of Afghanistan as was feared. Unfortunately, the current situation is not much better. An interim government has been established, but it is for the most part completely dependent on the Northern Alliance to act as its military force. Aside from the few foreign troops in the country, the Northern Alliance is the only big military force in the region. It is not very likely that the interim government will be able to control it with deadlines and policies. One may wonder why the Afghan people hate and fear the Northern Alliance so much, and why they are so pessimistic about their presence. The reason is obvious: from 1992 to 1996, Afghanistan was under the domination of this same Northern Alliance, and their crimes when in power were countless. To understand the Afghan people’s fear of the Northern Alliance, one must first learn about their hardships under its domination. First, however, some background information on the N.A. is necessary: during ’92 to ’96, several greedy and ruthless warlords were the rulers of Afghanistan. Several of the most notable of these are:

  • Abdul Rashid Dostum, leader of Uzbek militia
  • Gulboddin Hekmatyar, interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan and head of Hezb-e Islami
  • Burhanoddin Rabbani, president of Afghanistan and head of Jamiat-e Islami
  • Ahmed Shah Masood, commander of Shura-e Nazar
  • The multiple leaders of the Hezb-e Wahdat Islami or Party of Islamic Unity

(Caption [Afghan Mother]) ("AFGHANISTAN Political Crisis and the Refugees.")

After the Taliban took over the country, these warlords moved north to the few provinces of Afghanistan that they controlled and formed a (doubtless temporary) unification called the “Northern Alliance.” New name or not, however, it is very unlikely that the warlords have changed. If the N.A. is allowed to stay as a massive military force in Afghanistan, the Afghan people will be thrown back into the different hell that existed before the Taliban even existed.

     Even the small fraction of the crimes committed by the Northern Alliance included in this essay number too many to be explained at once and must be broken into categories; first, the politically, religiously, and educationally related crimes. A report from Amnesty International details how members reported to be of the Jamiat-e Islami abducted three of Assadullah Wakilzadeh’s children because Wakilzadeh had worked as a carpenter for several foreign embassies in the past ("AFGHANISTAN Incommunicado Detention and ‘Disappearances.’"). It goes on to describe the disappearance of Mohammad Yar, a former army officer, as well as six of his children. His remaining family members recount that the captors were members of the Hizbe Wahdat Islami ("AFGHANISTAN Incommunicado Detention and ‘Disappearances.’"). A third story explained how "...forces allegedly of the Jamiat-e Islami..." arrested Zia Nassry, a journalist in his middle years who had returned from the US to his native Afghanistan to help internally displaced persons ("AFGHANISTAN Incommunicado Detention and ‘Disappearances.’"). The religious crimes committed by the N.A. are far more general, in that nearly all or many different groups partook in them. For example, Amnesty International expressed its concern on this issue as well: "...Amnesty International expressed concern at reports that hand grenades had been thrown by unknown persons into the houses of Sikh and Hindu families in Kabul," ("AFGHANISTAN Political Crisis and the Refugees."). Even other Muslims were not safe to practice their religion; in the Afshar are of Kabul, government [Jamiat-e Islami] soldiers and other armed guards have raided the homes of members of the Hazara minority ("AFGHANISTAN Political Crisis and the Refugees."). Secular education never fared well under the N.A., either; the A.I. report continues, "Dozens of Afghan academics and professionals fled the country after the fall of the former regime in April 1992. Others continue to leave Afghanistan when they can," and, "Following the occupation of the Kabul University by the Shai’a party, Hezb-e Wahdat Islami...almost all university lecturers and their families have left Kabul. The University is reportedly still closed and neither the government [Jamiat-e Islami] nor Hezb-e Wahdat Islami have managed to provide adequate safety to allow students to enrol[l] and for lecturers to return to their posts," ("AFGHANISTAN Political Crisis and the Refugees."). More disturbingly, it states, "Armed groups belonging to Hezb-e Wahdat Islami have reportedly looted books and equipment from the university library, while armed groups belonging to Shura-e Nazar of Ahmad Shah Masood have looted the library of the Academy of Science in Kabul. Books have been reportedly sold to bulk paper traders in Pakistan to produce recycled paper," ("AFGHANISTAN Political Crisis and the Refugees."). Yes, the West’s saintly allies are oh-so environmentally conscious. Apparently turning books into yellow-lined paper is not profitable enough for the N.A., however; a report from RAWA’s website explains:

...Raheem, a commander affiliated to Hezb-e-Islami Hekmatyar, told the people "if you want more butter on your bread, start digging in Meersaka [a village where in 1947 a vast amount of silver and copper coins were found and moved to Kabul museum]. I will support you and will arrange your sale." So the people started digging untechnically and destroyed many ancient relics. Finally they found a big treasure of ancient relics in which many golden snake statues and bowls were included. These relics were sold to Pakistani and other foreigners for a throw away price. Now if some one wants to take a look to [the] relics, they have to pay Rs. 3,000.

("Looting Ancient Relics.")

In other words, a priceless chunk of Afghan history was sold like junk from a pawnshop. All of these were certainly heinous crimes against the liberties and culture of the Afghan people, but everything so far has really been the least of the Northern Alliance’s crimes. Now come the far more horrifying and gruesome misdeeds.

     Accounts exist of many past crimes done by the Northern Alliance that can only be called atrocities. These came about often because of the fighting between the forces of the different warlords. One example is the near perpetual enmity between Rabbani of the Jamiat-e Islami and Gulboddin Hekmatyar of the Hezb-e Islami. In their wars for dominance, both have killed countless innocent civilians remorselessly: "Government [Jamiat-e Islami] planes bombed areas under Hekmatyar’s control in the outskirts of Kabul, while forces loyal to Hekmatyar launched missiles against civilian centres in the city including schools and hospitals," ("AFGHANISTAN Political Crisis and the Refugees."). Further, "Indiscriminate bombings of homes of unarmed civilians, hospitals and mosques have killed hundreds of people, and has left thousands injured," ("AFGHANISTAN Political Crisis and the Refugees."). Amnesty International’s in depth report further declares that not long after the Mujahideen warlords and their forces arrived, major changes were made to Afghanistan’s legal and social systems to make them conform to Islamic law ("AFGHANISTAN Political Crisis and the Refugees."). Often, corporate media will dance in front of its viewers’ eyes the horrifying discrimination against and oppression of women enforced by the Taliban. In truth, the Taliban’s brutal policies were for the most part just a continuation of the system already established by the Northern Alliance. A.I. reports that just after the N.A. took over, Mujahideen soldiers raided homes where Islamic dress code was not strictly observed, raping and looting. Apparently, none of the soldiers who were involved in these attacks were punished ("AFGHANISTAN Political Crisis and the Refugees."). A.I. further explains that it received reports of hundreds of female doctors, nurses, teachers, and university lecturers whose husbands were badly tortured or killed. Various armed groups, including the Hezb-e Wahdat Islami, were reportedly the perpetrators ("AFGHANISTAN Political Crisis and the Refugees."). One of the saddest tales comes from an interview by RAWA of an Afghan mother. She begins her tale, "It was the 19th day of month of the Lion, the year 1371 (solar Islamic calendar: August 10, 1992). The battle was raging between the warlords, Gulboddin and Dustom in Kabul," (Afghan Mother). She continues,

About 7 O’clock in the morning, people were going to the bakery at the intersection to get bread...They had not yet gotten any bread, when a rocket from Gulboddin, the traitor, smashed right in the intersection; nearby the bakery exploded. A fragment hit my young son (Khwaja Farid) in the chest, ejected his heart out to the other side and killed him instantly. My son-in-law was injured too.

(Afghan Mother)

Later in the day, "About 6 O’clock in the afternoon out neighborhood was surrounded by Dustom’s fighters. A young boy of the neighborhood came over and said: ‘Hide the girls! Dustom troops are checking the houses.’" She expounds upon this: "Dustom’s men were searching the neighborhood going from roof to roof and climbing down to the houses where they could get something to loot or some one to rape." They apparently got what they wanted: "Later that night, they climbed down into some houses and plundered and raped girls," (Afghan Mother). The mother and her family wisely decided to leave the area; she describes how they left behind most of their possessions so they could walk out with their lives:

The next morning, my two children and my husband set out, with my brother, to go to his house. We left the keys of the entrance with a neighbor and told them that we’re going away. All rooms were left open, we took only one large suitcase with us.

Before the intersection, Dustom soldiers stopped us. They said; "Don’t go through the intersection, some rockets might come this way. It is safer to go through the back alley." As we entered the back alley, they started robbing us. First they pulled my sons watch from his wrist and then my husband’s and my brother’s money pouches. With unspeakable difficulties and great risks, going from one back alley to another, we made it to my brother’s house.

Later we learned that Dustom troops broke the main door to our house and pillaged everything we had, broke many mirrors in the rooms, broke open all suitcases.

(Afghan Mother)

One mother’s tragedy; countless others have had similar experiences, all thanks to the N.A. Another story comes from a report on RAWA’s website about a young woman who was a teacher was followed by a commander in Dustom’s forces. The commander and his men stopped the woman and ordered her to get on their jeep. The woman knew what they wanted of her, spat in their faces, and told them what she thought of them. The commander immediately pulled out a gun and shot her to death. That same night, they broke into her home and abducted her entire family so that no one would be left to press charges or spread allegations ("Dostum Commander’s Crime."). Doubtless, this was the commander’s idea of tying up loose ends. Most warlords and their underlings took a stand as casual as this in killing, raping, looting, etc. The worst problem was that the simple act of leaving was difficult or impossible because traveling in Afghanistan was even more dangerous than staying home and waiting for a missile to turn your neighborhood into a crater. Amnesty International describes the problem best:

A warlord is usually affiliated to one or more of the main Mujahideen parties, but in the daily affairs of the area which he controls, he has total autonomy and is not accountable to any authority. People traveling across these autonomous administrative divisions have testified that they had to pass through numerous chek posts and had to bribe armed guards to avoid the risk of being tortured or killed.

("AFGHANISTAN Political Crisis and the Refugees.")

In other words, warlords only answered to themselves in everyday life, and so people who want to cross their individual turfs have to pay up or be gunned down or worse. A report from RAWA’s website shows how one man learned this the hard way: he details how, while carrying goods from Kandahar to Kabul, he was stopped at a check post belonging to Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami. The guard at the post told him to get out of the truck, and then asked for money. When the driver showed him what he had, he told him that he would convince him of otherwise. The guard showed the man a headless corpse and informed him, "This one also did not have much. What was the use of him having a head on his shoulders?" The driver, now quite shaken, protested that he had nothing more. The guard promptly shot him in the shoulder, "only a friendly jehadi warning" as the man calls it. Left with no choice, the man told the guard where he had hidden his "little fortune of Afs.800,000 (then something near Rs.5,000)." He was left free to go find treatment for his wound, but says, "I am haunted by the memory of that headless corpse," ("The Value of Life in Jehadis’ View."). Living is hard, but leaving is harder; this was practically the motto of the Afghan people under the N.A. And Western corporate media has the nerve to tell us that these people will save Afghanistan?

     The horrifying years of the Afghan people’s pasts will repeat themselves if Afghanistan is left in the clutches of the Northern Alliance. The warlords who make up the N.A. showed cruel indifference to innocent civilians during their reign, and their minions ran rampant through the country looting, raping, and killing with complete freedom. Most importantly, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that they have changed; as it happens, the facts argue the exact opposite. First, if the N.A. actually cared about Afghanistan, they would have protested the US’s bombing campaign; instead, they happily watched as the B-52s blew away their enemy the Taliban and apparently did not care too much about the Afghan civilians whose lives were either ruined or ended. Even more decisive are the reports from a UN Press Briefing; one such report is, "Several sources on the ground in Mazar-i-Sharif have corroborated to the Humanitarian Coordinator’s Office that more than 100 young Taliban recruits who had been hiding in a school in that city were killed by Northern Alliance forces on Saturday," ("DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL."). Considering how the briefing says the report was made to the Humanitarian Coordinator’s Office, and the description of the recruits and their actions, one can guess that the recruits may have surrendered but were killed needlessly. Not very surprising, considering how the N.A. had no qualms about making their former political enemies "disappear," no matter how cruel and inhumane the act. The briefing further reports, "The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), meanwhile, reported the overall security situation in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif as unstable, marked by the random movement of armed people. Yesterday, a UNICEF sub-office in that city was looted by armed men after its capture by the Northern Alliance," ("DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL."). How likely is it that the N.A. would have left any "armed men" not of their own alive, considering what they did to the Taliban recruits? In other words, the N.A. quite frankly could not wait until it had the chance for more looting. What all of this means is the N.A. has basically been posing as angelic heroes in front of Western media, all the while waiting until the US turns away before continuing as it did from ’92 to ’96. It has not even done a very good job of posing; it even looted a UNICEF sub-office, as if the UN wouldn’t notice! In light of all of this, the course of action is obvious: the Northern Alliance must be prevented from dominating Afghanistan with the military might; otherwise, the innocents living there will suffer nameless atrocities while the world turns a blind eye; the Afghan people would burn because of our inaction and indifference.


Works Cited