'Taliban’s gender apartheid is Pakistani deep state’s conspiracy to condemn Afghans to perpetual poverty'

Afghanistan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, M Ashraf Haidari. Credit: Special Arrangement

Afghanistan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, M Ashraf Haidari, tells DH’s Anirban Bhaumik that Taliban’s gender apartheid has effectively condemned almost half of the population of his country to complete exclusion from any participation in the society, polity and economy. Haidari, an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Washington DC, warns that it is only a matter of time before attacks on India are orchestrated in or launched from Afghanistan.

The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. Do you think the Taliban in the past 17 months displayed any sign of ruling differently from its earlier stint in power?

Absolutely not! The Taliban as an ideological ethno-religious nationalist and terrorist group have only changed and evolved in more negative and dangerous ways than what they used to be in the 1990s: they’re now claiming to have defeated the world’s most powerful military alliance, NATO. Unfortunately, they believe this, even though NATO chose to completely withdraw from Afghanistan and hardly experienced any defeat in the country. Even with a residual force, the alliance could have maintained the Afghan forces to defend our developing democracy against regional and global terrorist networks. Sadly, this failed to materialize, emboldening the Taliban and further entrenching them ideologically. As a consequence, they have pursued and implemented such extremist, anti-Islamic and anti-humanity policies as the enforcement of a gender apartheid in Afghanistan. This has effectively condemned over half of our nation to complete exclusion from any participation in the society, polity and economy.

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We have recently seen the Taliban banning women from university education as well as from working for humanitarian aid agencies and other NGOs. We have also seen the senseless killing of Mursal Nabizada, a member of parliament of the erstwhile Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Is the worst fear that the Taliban’s return to power would reverse all the progresses made by Afghanistan in the past 20 years coming true?

We are the only country in the world where women and girls are denied their basic human rights such as education, work, and the freedom of movement. The Taliban recently extended the ban on women’s employment to those working with national and international NGOs, delivering life-saving humanitarian aid across Afghanistan. This has a direct and deadly impact on the female beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance, as aid organizations are no longer able to access female-headed households for urgent support. This and other inhumane policies of the Taliban, including the targeted killings and enforced disappearances of former civilian and military personnel of the Islamic Republic, constitute gross violations of the international human rights and humanitarian laws and principles. Of course, the implementation of such policies demonstrates that the Taliban have so far been successful in rapidly undoing Afghans’ hard-won gains of the past 20 years. Failure on the part of the international community to halt this ongoing tragedy in Afghanistan would have far-reaching implications for regional stability and international peace.

You have been monitoring the situation in Afghanistan. How did the Taliban fare in managing the economy and dealing with poverty and starvation? The international community is sending in food and other essentials to Afghanistan. But are the humanitarian aid packages reaching the people who need those?

The principal state-sponsor of the Taliban, Pakistan, never trained the Taliban as a narco-terrorist group to govern. They were trained to kill, maim, and destroy across Afghanistan, which they continue doing since the fall of the Islamic Republic in August 2021. Effective governance demands compliance with the Afghan Constitution’s core provisions, including the need to execute Afghanistan’s obligations under international laws that help maintain and govern world order. To the contrary, the Taliban and their state-sponsor grossly violated the United Nations Charter in the months before they forcefully toppled the democratically elected and still internationally recognized government of Afghanistan. It is because of the Taliban’s complete disregard for international laws and representation of foreign aggression that they are neither recognized nor are they viewed as legitimate by the suffering people of Afghanistan. At the same time, they have not only failed in preventing the economic collapse but they have actually brought about a growing famine across Afghanistan through enforcement of such draconian policies as gender apartheid that only deepens poverty and robs Afghans of any human security. In response, international aid has been little and hardly reaches millions in acute need. The world needs to seek a sustainable solution to the Afghan problem, and that is to help rationalize the status quo by tangibly enabling all Afghan sides to form an inclusive government acceptable to all Afghans consistent with our international obligations.

We have seen women leading the protests across Afghanistan in the first few months after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. There was hope that the Taliban would find it difficult to reverse the progress Afghan society made in terms of democracy and women empowerment. Is the optimism disappearing now? Is Afghanistan now staring at a bleak future?

Thank you for giving full credit to the Afghan women for standing up against the oppression of the Taliban. Afghan men must have joined them, and must do so now to resist all forms of oppression and aggression committed by the Taliban against a free-spirited nation determined to defend our homeland and our hard-won gains of the past 20 years that cost many Afghan and international lives, including Indians. Despite the daily atrocities and crimes against humanity committed by the Taliban to demoralize the Afghan people, we are known not to give up: national resistance in different forms has grown. Hundreds of Afghans have picked up arms against the Taliban, and more will join the resistance, as resources become available to enable them to fight for sustainable peace and freedom in Afghanistan. We encourage major stakeholders in the maintenance of regional stability and international security to support the Afghan people in our rightful resistance consistent with the United Nations Charter. We saw in the 1990s that the international negligence of the same and yet weaker Taliban brought about many human tragedies, including 9/11. Our region, including India, China, and Russia can hardly afford to suffer from similar terrorist attacks sooner or later emanating from Afghanistan. Indeed, now is the time for our region and the world at large to act against the status quo in Afghanistan and rationalize it, in accordance with international laws.

How do you view the international community’s response to the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan and its regressive and repressive rule over the past 17 months? Unlike the previous term of the Taliban, a section of the international community this time seems to be in favour of engagement with the new regime in Kabul, instead of treating it as pariah. But is this approach working? Can the international community make lives better for Afghans through its policy of engagement with the Taliban?

Let me be very blunt on this: those, who have pursued an engagement policy vis-à-vis the Taliban over the past 17 months, have continued failing the Afghan people. And they have failed their own taxpayers, while allowing the lives of many of their fallen soldiers to go in vain. They too have been quite disappointed by the pursuit of their own failed policy, which has only emboldened the Taliban to defy the international community, continuing to trample on all international laws, including the core principles of international human rights and humanitarian laws. The Taliban’s enforcement of a complete gender apartheid in the 21st century speaks to this fact. However, it is still early for the international community to reverse the deadly impact of their engagement policy on the Afghan people: international law provides for “the responsibility to protect” extremely vulnerable, stateless nations such as Afghans, who remain daily victims of a UN-sanctioned narco-terrorist group, sheltering over 20 other regional and transnational terrorist networks in Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in August 2021 was perceived to be a significant success of the ‘deep state’ of Pakistan, which has always been looking for a ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan. But why do you think Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan worsened over the past few months?

Afghans don’t believe Pakistan’s relations with the Taliban have worsened. Many of the events are fabricated to help enhance the legitimacy of the Taliban in the Afghan eyes, while disowning the destructive role the country’s military and intelligence institutions continue playing in Afghanistan. On many occasions, Pakistan’s leaders, including diplomats, have celebrated their victory in Afghanistan, which Afghans view as a gross violation of the UN Charter’s key provisions on acts of direct and indirect aggression. Afghanistan under the Taliban is essentially a foreign occupation, actively undoing Afghanistan’s strategic gains of the past 20 years. The exploitation of Islam by Pakistan’s “deep state” to exclude Afghan women from participation in anything is designed to condemn Afghanistan to perpetual poverty and dependence, denying Afghans any sustainable peace and development. The international community is obligated under the UN Charter to end Afghanistan’s occupation in defense of our sovereignty to be protected by international law. As I said earlier, the best and easiest way to do so is to help resume the intra-Afghan talks for a sustainable political settlement, whose outcome is the formation of an inclusive government acceptable by all Afghans consistent with our international obligations.

India had withdrawn its diplomats and other officials from Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in August 2021. But it also started engagements with the Taliban regime in Kabul and deployed what it called “a technical team” in its embassy in Kabul. How do you view India’s engagement with the Taliban? Are the fear of being left out and reluctance to allow Pakistan to gain a strategic advantage in Afghanistan prompting India to build a working relation with the Taliban?

Afghans remain strong friends with the people of India, on whom we still count. As the world’s largest democracy and as a primary victim of terrorism, emanating from the same sources, Afghans still hope that India would extend its own policy of making no distinction between terrorists and their sources of institutional support to Afghanistan both as the traditional friend and strategic partner of India. Any measure that accords legitimacy to the Taliban must be avoided strategically, for a terrorist group would ultimately oppose any democracy, especially India, which they have repeatedly attacked over the past decades. It is only a matter of time before attacks on India are orchestrated in and launched from Afghanistan, providing our neighbour the perfect “plausible deniability” they have finally achieved with the fall of the Islamic Republic. India’s strategic community remains divided on the “engagement policy” for many good reasons, and sound voices, some of whom have formerly served in Afghanistan, may be listened to for the mutual security benefits of the Afghan and Indian peoples. Any ISIS or Al Qaeda attack on India organized in and launched from Afghanistan would be an attack endorsed by the Taliban, by default. This must worry not just India but also China and Russia. And that is why these countries in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization must do a lot more together to help rationalize the status quo in their own backyard, now that their shared demand “NATO must go home” has come to full fruition.

India did not strongly condemn the Taliban’s restrictions on education of women or on the ban on their working for the NGOs. Is India, perceived to be a leader in South Asia, compromising on its fundamental values and risking the goodwill it earned among the progressive and democratic sections of the society in Afghanistan in order to continue its engagement with the Taliban? How does the democratic and progressive people of Afghanistan see it?

The suffering people of Afghanistan have been disappointed and feel unforgettably let down by major democracies. Upholding the basic provisions of international human rights and humanitarian laws in defence of the Afghan people would never harm any country’s national interests. It actually enhances their moral standing in the eyes of the international community, thus bolstering their soft power. India is a world leader in soft power, a status it must never allow terrorist groups such as the Taliban to undermine by the pursuit of policies that have already proven an utter failure. The Afghan people hold India in high regard, daily defying the Taliban to listen to and watch Indian music and movies banned under the Taliban. Every Afghan at home and abroad was saddened when we saw the last of our treasured Hindu and Sikh citizens, including their sacred books, forced to leave our shared beautiful homeland, seeking asylum in India. It was these same Taliban, who forced them to wear religious identity tags back in the 1990s, and later attacked their places of worship and killed and maimed many innocent Hindus and Sikhs. We will not forget and we will never forgive the Taliban and those that enabled them to do so. All Afghans, regardless of ethnicity, hope the world, especially democratic forces in our neighbourhood, see the Taliban for who they really are, for what they really represent: the strategic goals of their rogue state-sponsor exploiting Islam, Afghan culture, our diversity, and rife poverty to hold back Afghanistan from meaningful progress and to threaten the region and the world from such a geography of widespread destitution and hopelessness. India can help restore sustainable hope, peace, pluralism, and prosperity in Afghanistan. And together we can do a lot more to achieve our shared dream for an Afghanistan free from the threats of extremism, terrorism, and criminality. Afghans stand ready to do our part!