Friends or Foes?

by: Mohammad Khalid Roashan

Some time back I wrote about the Afghan problem with Osama Ben Ladin. I remember I expressed a wish that this so-called lover of the Afghans and their helper during the bad days of Afghans'struggle against the evil forces of Russian communists and their stooges, finally call it quits and leave that war-torn land and find himself another place. I stated that because any friend or enemy of the Afghans must know a great deal about their world-famous characteristic of "Pashtanwali or Pakhtoonwala." One special point in Pashtanwali is to protect the person who has sought refuge among them (Such a person) shall be protected by the Afghans with their lives, if needs be. No Afghan of any economic or social status will ever refuse refuge to such a seeker of help. The West must know of this through the writings of numerous British authors. Even an enemy is not denied protection by the Afghans.

Taleban are predominantly Afghans of Pukhtoon origin. Osama, apparently, was thrown out of various Islamic countries in the past. He finally came to Afghanistan and was received by Taleban as a brother in Islam. Now there is a threat against him elsewhere and he is wanted as an alleged criminal. Taliban, based on their Pashtanwali, cannot and will not throw him out of their land. The issue, however, is not laid to rest. There has been pressure brought upon Afghanistan to hand him over to the USA. Afghanistan has been a target of scores of bombs from across Pakistan in the US efforts to kill or capture him. And more recently, the UN has even threatened to impose sanctions against the Taliban if the latter do not deliver him in the hands of the world body. Afghanistan still refuses to let Ben Ladin fall in UN or US hands.

Afghanistan is no longer the self-sufficient little country in the heart of Asia that it was. It has been almost totally destroyed by external and internal forces who have found it necessary to crush the Afghan nation. Lately even the neighbors to the west and south, who at one time harbored them, have tried all means and ways at their disposal to cause the Afghans to kill each other now that the Russian forces have been withdrawn (mainly thanks to the sacrifices of the Afghan nation as a whole.) That destruction notwithstanding, Afghanistan is now facing more hard times with the new threat of sanctions by the US and the UN.

Is Osama so dumb, so cruel and so heartless that he allows Afghanistan and its millions of hungry and poor nationals suffer more hardships on the account of one single refugee? Can he not care for the safety and the very poor livelihood of the Afghans? Does he continue to see more bloodshed and death by starvation at the hands of nations who once were willing to help rebuild their country?

Last night Lakhdar Brahimi, United Nations' special envoy for Afghanistan, announced that he was resigning his post for lack of progress over a period of two years to bring the warring sides to resolve to bring peace to Afghanistan. At one point, Mr. Brahimi said that Afghanistan's neighbors were fueling the conflict by allowing weapons and supplies to reach the warring parties while paying only lip service to peace efforts. "Pakistan is with Taliban. But what about the other side? Who supports it?.Iran is very active.and the most important neighbors are Iran and Pakistan," Brahimi is claimed to have said on October 20th. "This war could not have developed as it had without foreign intervention."

"This intervention could not have come except from or through neighboring countries because Afghanistan is a landlocked country and not a single tank can enter except through the territories of neighboring countries or through the airspace of its neighbors," Brahimi said. Many months ago in another article I pointed to Iran's intervention in prolonging the Afghan internal war. It also goes without saying that Pakistan is also very much involved in further deterioration of Afghanistan by weakening the latter through this senseless internal self-destruction of the Afghans.

There are those who blame only the Taliban. The opposition, the so-called Northern Alliance, is equally responsible. Don't they know that their foreign supporters only want to destroy Afghanistan as a viable force in the region? Are Tajikistan, with its communist government, and Russia for that matter, supplying tanks and instruments of warfare to the Northern Alliance for selfless humanitarian reasons or is it that they too want a week and dependent Afghanistan as instruments at their disposal to deal with in whatever way it suits them best?

Why can't the Afghans on both sides of this accursed fight see the real reason behind these so-called friends? Indeed, why are all these nominal friends of Afghanistan, be they single individuals such as Osama Ben Ladin, or great big countries such as Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Russia and others, not taking hands off stances in Afghan affairs and allow the Afghans to come to terms among themselves in the way they have done time and again during their long history? Why must everyone be or try to be our foes? We do not need or want foes and by all means we do not need or want "lip service" friends who have hidden agendas of their own at our cost.

We have a long history of solving our problems, including feuds, through Jargas and our national problems through our traditional Loya Jargas. Let us once again set up a Loya Jarga composed of all sectors of our nation and seriously settle our differences, big and small, once for all. Let us cut outside hands and shy away from outside influences for the good of the Afghan nation. For we are one nation and we have been so for many centuries. It was the Soviet ill intent that created x number of "nationalities" among us that even the British could not do so with their policy of divide and rule all over the subcontinent of India and in Afghanistan. No new tribe or sect or group has joined our nation over the years. It was the same collection of tribes and sects that were collectively known as Afghans. It is still the same collection today with one difference: A loss of almost two million souls of our nation at the hands of the Russians and their stooges over the past couple of decades.

We want to go forward, not backward. We want our entire nation to have the privilege of modern education and to get seriously involved in rebuilding Afghanistan. Let us work side by side, young and old, men and women, each within his or her limit of ability to make up for our losses during the past one score and more years. We cannot afford any more dilly-dallying on the subject of catching up with the Joneses. Only through a national, all inclusive effort can we hope to achieve this goal. There is no other way. Let us not deceive ourselves. Let us not be deceived by others. Let us say "Allahu Akbar" and "Char Yari, Ya char Yar" and strive ahead for development of our country and not for its further destruction.