[1028] in peace2
Plight of Afghanis
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (auyeung@alum.mit.edu)
Tue Sep 25 08:24:11 2001
Date: 25 Sep 2001 05:21:58 -0700
Message-ID: <20010925122158.27213.cpmta@c014.sfo.cp.net>
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To: peace-list@mit.edu, peace-women@mit.edu
From: auyeung@alum.mit.edu
Cc: hungerfellows2002@yahoogroups.com
X-Sent-From: peace-by-peace@justice.com
Afghans Do Not Support The Taleban or bin Laden
Anne E. Brodsky
The Washington Post
BALTIMORE On Sept. 11 many Americans received phone calls and e-mail messages from family and friends asking if they were okay. I received those e-mails as well, including one from RAWA, an Afghan humanitarian and women's organization that works in Pakistan and Afghanistan against the effects of the Taleban and the fundamentalist oppression.
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RAWA's e-mail to me was the same kind of frantic message I have written to the women of RAWA numerous times over the years, when I would hear news of yet another Taleban atrocity committed against the Afghan people or of terrorist attacks by fundamentalists in Pakistan, and I'd wonder if they and their loved ones were safe. Just a month ago I was in Pakistan, talking with scores of Afghan refugees in refugee camps and urban communities. Of the hundreds of Afghans I spoke with no one supports the Taleban, the fundamentalist faction that controls Afghanistan by violence, threats and terror. No one supports Osama bin Laden or his non-Afghan followers who exploit Afghan soil and bring world condemnation and sanctions to a country in dire need of humanitarian assistance. And neither, by their reports, do the vast majority of Afghans - people held captive in Afghanistan, with no resources to leave and nowhere to flee as all neighboring countries close their borders to the largest re!
fugee population in the world.
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In the United States we now have our own experience of terror and fear, but I cannot forget the voices of the Afghan women, children and men as they told me of 23 years under war and violence and now fundamentalist oppression - of the massacres; the destruction of their homes; the kidnapping, torture and disappearance of their husbands and fathers and brothers; the rapes and forced marriages of their young daughters; the acts of daily terror and violence to enforce edicts that keep women under house arrest - unable to go to school, work, be seen or heard in public.
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We now have more in common with the Afghan people and others around the world who are victims of terrorism, fear and human rights abuses on a daily basis. I am hoping that this will give us empathy and bring us together against a common enemy, rather than tearing us further apart.
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Hatred, fear and blame are the calling cards of terrorists. If we give in to this, they have won. I am deeply afraid that our fear and the clamor for retribution will mean that in the future I will again be the one sending the frantic e-mail, wondering about the safety of my Afghan friends, only this time the actions of my own government will be the reason.
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The writer is an assistant professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She contributed this comment to The Washington Post.
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RAWA statement on the terrorist attacks in the US
September 14, 2001
The people of Afghanistan have nothing to do with Osama and his accomplices
On September 11, 2001 the world was stunned with the horrific terrorist attacks on the United States. RAWA stands with the rest of the world in expressing our sorrow and condemnation for this barbaric act of violence and terror. RAWA had already warned that the United States should not support the most treacherous, most criminal, most anti-democracy and anti-women Islamic fundamentalist parties because after both the Jehadi and the Taliban have committed every possible type of heinous crimes against our people, they would feel no shame in committing such crimes against the American people whom they consider "infidel". In order to gain and maintain their power, these barbaric criminals are ready to turn easily to any criminal force.
But unfortunately we must say that it was the government of the United States who supported Pakistani dictator Gen. Zia-ul Haq in creating thousands of religious schools from which the germs of Taliban emerged. In the similar way, as is clear to all, Osama Bin Laden has been the blue-eyed boy of CIA. But what is more painful is that American politicians have not drawn a lesson from their pro-fundamentalist policies in our country and are still supporting this or that fundamentalist band or leader. In our opinion any kind of support to the fundamentalist Taliban and Jehadies is actually trampling democratic, women's rights and human rights values.
If it is established that the suspects of the terrorist attacks are outside the US, our constant claim that fundamentalist terrorists would devour their creators, is proved once more.
The US government should consider the root cause of this terrible event, which has not been the first and will not be the last one too. The US should stop supporting Afghan terrorists and their supporters once and for all.
Now that the Taliban and Osama are the prime suspects by the US officials after the criminal attacks, will the US subject Afghanistan to a military attack similar to the one in 1998 and kill thousands of innocent Afghans for the crimes committed by the Taliban and Osama? Does the US think that through such attacks, with thousands of deprived, poor and innocent people of Afghanistan as its victims, will be able to wipe out the root-cause of terrorism, or will it spread terrorism even to a larger scale?
From our point of view a vast and indiscriminate military attacks on a country that has been facing permanent disasters for more than two decades will not be a matter of pride. We don't think such an attack would be the expression of the will of the American people.
The US government and people should know that there is a vast difference between the poor and devastated people of Afghanistan and the terrorist Jehadi and Taliban criminals.
While we once again announce our solidarity and deep sorrow with the people of the US, we also believe that attacking Afghanistan and killing its most ruined and destitute people will not in any way decrease the grief of the American people. We sincerely hope that the great American people could DIFFERENTIATE between the people of Afghanistan and a handful of fundamentalist terrorists. Our hearts go out to the people of the US.
Down with terrorism!
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) <www.rawa.org>
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