IRIN Interview with Taliban Foreign Minister

With the second round of UN-imposed sanctions coming into force on 19 January, Moulvi Wakil Ahmad Motawakil, Foreign Minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, was interviewed by IRIN on Friday in Islamabad on the current situation in Afghanistan and what effect the upcoming sanctions would have on the country and the Afghan people. The Taliban, which evolved through the country’s Islamic ‘maddrassah’ schools to become a military force and claims legitimacy as the government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, now controls some 95 percent of Afghan territory. It is recognised as the national authority of Afghanistan by just three countries: Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. QUESTION: UN sanctions are set to be implemented on 19 January. How will these sanctions affect your country? ANSWER: Before these sanctions the Afghan people were tortured through other ways. Natural disasters like earthquakes, the continuous drought, the previous sanctions, and the war before all of them, have kept the Afghan economy in shambles. We see and the Afghan people see, that despite assistance to them, they (the UN) are even snatching their own food from them by imposing sanctions against them. So instead of helping us they are just torturing us now. Instead of assisting the Afghan people, they are snatching their own food from them by imposing sanctions. Q: The Americans and others have argued that the sanctions are aimed at the Taliban movement itself, and not the common people of Afghanistan. How do you react to that? A: The Afghan people know that they will definitely suffer from these sanctions. It is unacceptable for somebody... illogical to say that the people will not suffer. There is a saying that if you make a hole in a ship and you say to two people that they will die and the rest will live - this is impossible - the whole ship will sink. All of the people on the boat will suffer. It is something they always say, but in fact... if they ban us from travelling abroad - how does this help us? What about people from the agricultural and irrigation departments? All of them are working for the people. If they can’t go outside the county then the people will directly suffer. Q: What is the present situation in your country and how are you coping? A: It is a catastrophe. People are suffering from many things. The people are suffering from the drought, from the internally displaced problem, malnutrition, diseases, and they are dying... children are dying. The people have lost almost all their livestock. They are even going outside their country to other countries like Pakistan. All these things make this a humanitarian catastrophe. Q: Since September last year, over 60,000 people have fled Afghanistan seeking refuge in Pakistan. What is your government doing to alleviate this immense flow of humanity? A: Before sanctions, the economy was actually improving and peace was returning. In addition, many returnees came back - Afghans that had repatriated back to their own country. However, now because of the sanctions and the economic situation, and economic aggravation, people are now going back to Pakistan... so it is directly that the people are suffering from the sanctions and the drought. Q: Is the Taliban government in Kabul doing anything to alleviate this flow of people? A: We have tried in Jalalabat to have camps for them, but we are giving them assistance which is not sufficient for them. They need even more. We are trying our best - our Red Crescent is trying to help them. We would like the United Nations to work inside Afghanistan and give these people whatever they are giving them here (Pakistan) so that they can at least stay in the country. Once they go outside of Afghanistan their problems will triple as they will have further problems in another country. Q: There is talk about more IDP camps being established within Afghanistan to deal with this. Can you confirm this? A: Yes, this is right. We have tried and we have also asked the UN agencies there to ask the people to stay inside Afghanistan... to give them this help and assistance inside Afghanistan so that they will not leave. This is something we have tried to tell them (UN) so many times. Then they tell us they don’t have enough funds and have only emergency funds... that they don’t have the resources for so many people. Again it’s a catastrophe. We are working on this to convince the UN to give them the assistance inside of Afghanistan. Q: There has been a great deal of political resolve on the issue of Osama bin Laden both inside Afghanistan and in the West. In fact, there are many people who would argue that compliance with UN demands to extradite bin Laden is a far better alternative than the imposition of further sanctions. What are your thoughts on this? Why don’t you simply release him to the Americans? A: They mustn’t dictate to us and ask us to turn over this man. This is impossible. If they want to prove the crimes of this man ... please ... they can give us something and we will welcome to punish him inside and discuss further issues. They have not yet given us anything to prove the crimes of this man. They are so arrogant they don’t even think about whether this is another country or not. If they have their own rules or not, if they have their own laws or not. They don’t care. They just want to dictate. Q: How important is the humanitarian community to the plight of the Afghan people and given the sanctions issue, what measures is your government taking to safeguard those humanitarian workers currently working in Afghanistan? A: We have tried to tell them that everything is safe and sound for them... that we would protect them. We have even asked the Afghan people for restraint from conducting any strikes, as well as patience in this regard. So... if humanitarian workers are going outside the country for safety reasons this is an individual decision, but we have tried to convince otherwise. Q: How would you describe human rights in Afghanistan today? A: Universal human rights which are in all religions and all sects... the right to live, to be independent, the right to a livelihood. Such rights are universal in all religions and throughout the world. Q: And they are implemented in Afghanistan? A: Yes Q: Journalists this week reported that Deputy Chairman of the Taliban Islamic Movement’s Council of Minister, Mawlawi Abdul Kabir said education for women in Afghanistan would be allowed... if and when peace came to Afghanistan. Can you confirm this? A: That’s right. After achieving peace in Afghanistan we have to do a lot and this is part of it. Women’s education, government, and having a good infrastructure are all on our agenda. But before this we must have peace. Unless we have peace, we cannot achieve these things. Q: So are you anticipating women having greater rights in Afghanistan in the future? A: All the rights which are given by Islam and education is one of those rights. There were previously very strange traditional rules in Afghanistan. Women were married to people they previously didn’t even know. We have now restored this right to women. They can now reject this and affirm that they are not willing to marry this person. But this remains a tradition... nobody has resolved this. Previously women were exchanged when two tribes were fighting among themselves... for reconciliation... they were exchanged between them... and these poor women were suffering like animals. We have, however, stopped this practice in Afghanistan. Furthermore, before divorced women and widows did not have any rights... they were like slaves to their in laws’ families... we have now restored these rights. So you see... there are some things that you people do not see. Q: Afghanistan, in addition to intense fighting, is in the grip of the worst drought to hit the country in 30 years. What is your government doing, if anything, in terms of response? A: We are doing our best to alleviate the effects of the drought, but there isn’t enough external assistance in this regard to Afghanistan. We are trying our best to give whatever we can with our resources to the people and we have asked the UN and other agencies to help the Afghan people in whatever means they can... [Motakawakil noted:] We banned poppy cultivation, but after that no one is going to help us. These are things that make us pessimistic. We are still asking the international community to help the Afghan people. Q: What are your thoughts on the UN-mediated peace efforts between yourself and Rabbani’s Northern Alliance? Are you hopeful? A: So far the UN has shown that it is not impartial or neutral. If someone else takes the mediation role, then we will welcome to talk to the opposition. Q: Then you are not hopeful for UN-mediated peace talks? A: We have rejected this. Q: What does the future hold for your country? A: We see a bright future once we are able to remove the internal conflicts from Afghanistan. Only then will we be able to open a better era for the Afghan people.