Number 01-2021
André Cezar Medici[i]
August 15, 2021 will go down in history as the
day the Taliban men won the war against their country’s women. The women of
Afghanistan were supposed to have, as allies, men and women in many countries
around the world. But after 20 years of trying to ensure democratic
sustainability for the country, the United States of America (US), the nations
of the West and international organizations, which value gender equality as one
of the main hallmarks of 21st century democracy, were forced to abandon the
construction of a nation project that still deserved much international effort
to consolidate.
Before retiring from the World Bank in July
2020, I dedicated about three years of my life working in several countries in
the South Asia Region, and, among them, Afghanistan. Working in a country at
war, for an official of international organizations, is not an easy task.
Detailed practical training in security, self-defense and response to hazardous
situations (SAFE) provided by the United Nations by defense professionals
experienced in high-risk countries and situations of war or guerrilla warfare
is generally required in areas that simulate the conditions to be experienced
in these contexts.
Even with the SAFE training I conducted in the
Lake Naivasha region (Kenya), our ability to move about in Afghanistan during
the missions was very limited, with armored transport, armed security from the
airport to the embassy and closure in the Bank Representation (limited to a
small number of people) with few trips to the places where we would have
meetings with representatives of government and civil society, also covered
with maximum security. This condition was necessary, since during the missions,
which could not extend for more than five days, the head of security of the
representation - usually a military - gave us a daily overview of what was
happening in Kabul, with incidents, attacks, bombings, kidnappings and rockets
launched by the Taliban and other terrorist groups in the protected areas,
which on some occasions hit the Bank’s Representation compound. When leaving
the compound, we had to wear helmets and bulletproof vests and often, when the
alarms sounded, we went to the air-raid shelters or protected areas of the
Representation bunker. The same situation was repeated in embassies and other
offices of international organizations, mostly in the Green Zone, an area of
Kabul protected and guarded by national and international security.
In the years I have worked in the country, I
have participated in the Bank’s joint effort with various multilateral
institutions and bilateral cooperation offices of countries supporting the
reconstruction of post-Taliban Afghanistan. The task of our group was to
support, through studies, projects, loans and mobilization of resources and
consultancy, the construction of a health system that could bring better living
conditions to a population in highly precarious circumstances due to the war,
poverty, lack of public resources and, above all, submission of women to the
extreme rules of religious fanaticism, especially in regions and cities still
controlled directly or covertly by the Taliban.
This post is long and reflects, in part, what
I learned in this experience, in addition to my impressions about the difficult
saga of the liberation of the women of the country, whose living conditions
improved in the years following the first Taliban domination between 1996 and
2001. But there was still a long way to consolidate and bring conditions of
dignity, freedom, health and education that were minimally adequate for the
female population of that country. The civil war in Afghanistan has been first
and foremost a war against women. Nationalism and religious extremist arguments
are mere pretexts for avoiding knowledge, learning and the liberation of the
consciousness of the female population through better levels of education, job
opportunities and autonomy, freeing them from this cruel form of slavery.
Afghan Women and the Sharia Rules
With the victory consolidated in the week of
August 15th, 2021, Taliban men will be able to reinstate in the country the
medieval Islamic laws of Sharia, whereby women are inferior to men and
subjected to a kind of enslavement by them, and may suffer privations,
discrimination and punishment without justification[ii] .
The view of traditional Sharia, exacerbated by
Taliban religious practice, states that men were chosen by God to administer
women’s lives. In this sense, righteous women would be those who owe them blind
obedience. Many of these principles are directly written in the verses of the
Qur’an, but are also found in the so-called sayings of Muhammad (A hadith).
For example, according to the Qur'an, verse Q 4:34, husbands can beat their
wives if they "fear disobedience" (meaning that real disobedience
does not even need to occur for the beating to be justified).
The verse Q 2:282 of the Qur'an preaches that
a woman’s testimony is only half that of a man, and therefore in a situation of
judgement it would take the testimony of more than two women to break the
testimony to the contrary of a single man. According to verses Q 4:11 and Q
4:176, a woman can inherit only half of what her brother would inherit. And in
a marriage between an Islamic man and a non-Islamic woman, she would lose any
right to her husband’s inheritance. According to verse Q 65:4, men can marry
and have sex with women who have not yet had their first menstrual cycle, i.e.,
children.
Still according to the rules of Sharia law, a
husband can divorce his wife simply by declaring: "I am divorced",
three times in the presence of two mentally sane adult men. And even without
having to justify his decision, he will retain custody of all children to the
detriment of his wife. In contrast, such power is not given to the wife who can
never break the marriage bond and divorce without the acceptance of the
husband.
The original Sharia forbids women to rule
countries at all levels[iii] and for this reason they
could not be caliphs. But many Muslim countries broke this practice a few years
ago, as evidenced by Benazir Bhutto’s two-term governments in Pakistan (1988-90
and 1993-96) and that of Shikha Hasina who won the elections three times and
has held the position of Prime Minister of Bangladesh since 2009.
The original Sharia also allows male polygamy,
that is, a man may have several wives, but in many Muslim nations this custom
has been abandoned. In Afghanistan it continues to be tolerated, although it is not common, there has been a growth in this practice during
the first Taliban-held government (1996-2001).
Muhammad (in one of his Hadith) asserted that
women owe total obedience to men for being inferior beings, deficient in
intelligence and in religion. According to him, they curse and are often
ungrateful to their husbands and, for this reason, occupy almost the entire
kingdom of hell. A man who is not cautious and sensible would run a serious
risk of being led astray by them.
Finally, according to Sharia law, rape of
women - especially enemies - is permitted and stimulated. According to verses Q
4:3, Q 4:24, Q 23:5-6, Q 70:22-30, of the Qur'an, women of the enemy can be
captured in war and become slaves. Having slaves like these is allowed to men even
if they are married.
Most modern Islamic countries are
progressively reducing gender inequality and adapting to the principles of
21st-century democracy. But Sharia law was the legal body used by the Taliban
who ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 and may be again at a time when the
Taliban are taking over the government of the country. To understand the impact
of this story on the lives and health of women in Afghanistan, it is worth
looking back.
The Troubled History of Afghanistan: from Monarchy
to the Taliban
Being a region of passage between East and
West and between South and North, the history of Afghanistan has been going on
for millennia, receiving influences from Hindus, Huns, Kushan, Persians,
Greeks, Mongols, and many other nations and civilizations. The main influence -
the Muslim - is also ancient and dates back to the 7th century. But the region
where the country is located only was consolidated as a state in 1880[iv], along a period of several
colonial wars against England.
Between 1880 and 1933 the country suffered
severe turbulence due to colonial conflicts with England, regional
insurrections, and border wars. In February 1919, unilateral independence of
Afghanistan from England was declared by Amanullah Khan, followed by a third
Anglo-Afghanistan war along 4 months. However, in August 1919, an armistice was
signed and the country became progressing under Amanullah Khan, first as
an Emir and after as a King, until his abdication in 1929 in favor of his
Ministry of War, Muhammad Nadir Shah, who reigned Afghanistan from
October 1929 until his assassination in November 1933.
Nadir Shah abandoned reforms launched by Amanullah
Khan in favor of a more gradual approach to modernization. In 1933, his son,
Mohamad Zahir Shah ascended to the throne and reigned until 1973, under some
political instability, composing distinct and ephemeral regional and
international alliances.
In 1964 he enacted a new liberal constitution
that transformed the country into a bicameral parliamentary monarchy and
defined the choice by a direct vote of two-thirds of the representatives of
Parliament, who were previously appointed by the king. In addition, the Constitution
established equality of all (men and women) in issues of rights to health and
education, which would be offered by the State. It was a period of liberation
and greater opportunities for women[v].
But amid accusations against the royal family
involving corruption and malfeasance, and by the poor economic conditions
created by the severe drought of 1971-1972, former Prime Minister Mohammad
Sardar Daoud Khan seized power in a non-violent coup on July 17, 1973,
abolishing the monarchy and repealing the 1964 Constitution. Daoud Khan
established a republic and named himself the country’s first president and
prime minister. Over the course of seven years, he tried to carry out economic
and social reforms that were unsuccessful, and his new Constitution,
promulgated in February 1977, also failed to contain the country’s chronic
political instability[vi].
In the face of discontent and political
instability, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA),
Marxist-Leninist in nature, even a minority, led, with the support of the
Soviet Union, a coup d'état in April 1978 that became known as the Saur
Revolution. The coup involved heavy fighting between military and civilian
groups and resulted in many deaths. Daoud Khan and his family were
killed and Nur Muhammad Taraki, one of the founders of the PDPA[vii], takes power as
President of the country and Secretary General of the PDPA.
The Saur Revolution was a significant event in
the history of Afghanistan, marking the beginning of the current 43 years in
which the country is in permanent conflict. The reforms proposed by the new
government involved a profound transformation of society, especially in
relation to the role of women. The PDPA was an advocate of equal rights for men
and women, introducing women into political life in an articulate way. Anahita
Ratebzad, an important Marxist-Leninist leader and member of the
Revolutionary Council, wrote in the editorial of the New Kabul Times of 28 May
1978[viii]: "The
privileges that women should have as right, are equal education, job security,
health services and free time to create a healthy generation and build the
future of the country ... Educating and enlightening women is now a matter of
great government attention".
But the reforms proposed by the PDPA,
initially well received by many who were dissatisfied with the Daoud
government, resulted in disagreements between the party’s internal factions and
lack of support from society. In August 1978, the discovery of a coup attempt
led the government to execute and arrest several cabinet members, including
General Abdul Qadir who had been the military leader of the Saur
Revolution. To maintain greater internal control in the PDPA and government,
Taraki appointed Hafizullah Amin[ix]
as Prime Minister in March 1979.
From the outset, the PDPA government sought to
maintain a moderate approach so that the reforms to be proposed were
progressively assimilated. Thus (probably instructed by the Soviets themselves)
the government declared that the coup was not communist, as a means to avoid
animosity and gain the membership of the Islamic population in the country.
However, Amin, as a strong man in the
government, did not seem to share this moderate view of reforms. Since October
1978, the government had launched measures that reached the socioeconomic
tribal structure of Afghanistan, such as changing the national flag from
traditional Islamic colors (black, red, and green) to a red flag similar to
that of the Soviet Union. Some reforms were largely encouraged by Amin’s
radicalism, such as restricting agricultural credit (the PDPA was against
usury) without creating alternatives for rural producers who depended on the
traditional banking system to finance their production, which led the country
to a major agricultural crisis. In a
rural country based on small production, the reforms confiscated land in a
disorderly manner benefiting no one and reducing food production. This led to
the creation of a popular resistance that was the embryo of the mujahidin
movement (term meaning engaged in Jihad) which originated in rural areas/ small
villages. In addition to these measures, the government under Amin’s leadership
promoted state atheism. Men were forced to shave; women were prohibited from
wearing the burka and visits and activities in mosques began to be restricted.
Faced with the growing popular resistance
stemming from these measures, Taraki seems to have been instructed by the
Soviets to remove Amin so that the PDPA would again count on the support of the
Islamic tribes in the countryside. Armed with these guidelines, Taraki tried to
weaken the cabinet led by Amin by removing him from the post of Prime Minister,
but Amin, with his powers and personal prestige strengthened among the military
cadres of the government, reversed the situation, removing Taraki from
presidential power and having him arrested and killed in September 1979.
The intra-wall communist disputes, in addition
to not satisfying the Soviets, threatened to destabilize the Afghan communist
regime in the face of growing Muslim resistance. Thus, in the fall of 1979, the
Soviets increased their military power beyond the border. On 25 December 1979,
the Soviet Army began the occupation of Afghanistan, and two days later,
organized a huge military air transport to Kabul, involving about 280 aircraft
and 3 divisions of almost 8,500 soldiers each. In two days, Soviet forces
seized Kabul, staging an assault on the Darul Aman Presidential Palace, where
elements of the Afghan army loyal to Amin opposed a fierce but brief
resistance, resulting in Amin’s death. Babrak
Karmal, another founder of the PDPA exiled by Taraki in Czechoslovakia
where he was collaborating with the KGB, was led by the Soviets to lead the new
government of Afghanistan.
It is possible that the preference of the
Soviets might have been to maintain a native allied regime, rather than the
invasion of the country, but Amin’s behavior and Moscow’s reluctance to risk
the Muslim threat to the communist regime led to a more drastic solution. On
the other hand, the provinces of Central Asia annexed by the Soviet Union were
also vulnerable to the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism and, with this,
keeping Afghanistan as the trigger for an Islamic revolution could set fire to
its entire "armory" of Central Asian states.
Karmal had the unconditional support of the
Soviets and tried to reverse the sentiment of the population that was contrary
to the PDPA. Between 1980 and 1987 the country was renamed the Democratic
Republic of Afghanistan and the national flag regained its traditional Islamic
colors. But the internal divisions of the PDPA led Karmal to leave the
government in 1986, assuming the presidency Mohammad Najibullah that
remained until 1992.
Soviet rule in the country was again one of
the most troubled periods in Afghan history. Between 1979 and 1992, when the
Soviet intervention ended, the Afghan government lost support and authority
among the population. As occurred in the second week of August 2021, in the
recent episode of the defeat of the Ashraf Ghani government by the
Taliban, Afghan soldiers deserted en masse throughout the period. Muslim
tribes, organized under the aegis of the mujahidin movement, subsidized
with weapons and financial resources from China, United States and Muslim
countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, resisted in the mountains against
more than 600,000 Soviet soldiers to the bombing of their villages. Among the distinct groups of the mujahidin
movement, the one led by Ahmad Shah Massoud[x]
stood out. About 5 million Afghans (almost ¼ of the country’s population)
became refugees in Pakistan and Iran, from where they also received support and
organized resistance, which led to the characterization of Afghanistan as the
"Vietnam of the Soviets".
To top it all, the Soviet Union, disintegrating
from 1986 under the aegis of Michael Gorbachev’s Glasnost, began to
organize the Afghan evacuation, in the face of the high human, military and
financial costs of the Mujahidin guerrilla war, the precariousness of
the health infrastructure and the corrupt administration of a country that
remained in tatters[xi]. The Geneva Accords led
by the United Nations (UN) set the timetable for the withdrawal of Soviet
troops and the return of the country to national groups. Attempts at peace
agreements, led by Pakistan, also contributed to this process throughout 1987
and 1988.
A new constitution came into force in November
1987 and the name of the country returned to be Republic of Afghanistan. The
Council of State was replaced by a National Assembly by which separate parties
could compete freely and Mohammed Hassan Sharq, a politician not tied to
the PDPA, was appointed Prime Minister. Najibullah’s presidency received new
powers, albeit with its temporality limited by a seven-year term. But after the
Soviet departure, Najibullah overthrew the shared government facade and removed
Sharq and other non-partisan ministers from his cabinet.
As a participant and one of the architects of
the international effort-coordinated eviction, Najibullah had to face the mujahidin
movement without the support of the Soviets at this time. But many countries,
including the United States, China, and Muslim countries, supported the mujahidin
movements economically and militarily and believed that Islamic resistance
could quickly retake the country and overthrow the still-existing communist
regime. Faced with the facts, the Soviet Union responded returning it support to
Afghanistan with a flood of military and economic supplies. Much of the
military equipment belonging to the Soviet units that evacuated Eastern Europe
after Glasnost was sent to Afghanistan. Soviet support amounted to more than $3
billion a year around 1990.
The period from 1987 to 1991 resulted in a
fratricidal war, in which the mujahideen groups proved incapable of defeating
the modern army left to the country as a legacy by the Soviets. They were
unable to coordinate tactical or logistical movements and maintain the
political cohesion (given the internal divergences among mujahideen groups)
needed to confront the national forces during the first three years of the
Soviet withdrawal. Very few areas of the country were captured or held under
the rule of mujahideen groups.
Gorbachev’s departure from the Russian
government and the inauguration of Boris Yeltsin in August 1991 weakened
the material and financial support that the Najibullah government still
received from the Soviets. Yeltsin has agreed with the United States and the UN
a plan to cut back reciprocal economic and military support for both the
government and the Islamic resistance, and agreed that they should push for
elections in the country, weakening the support received by Najibullah, who
began interacting with some of his opponents, taking advantage of the internal
division of the mujahidin groups.
But the resources available to the government
for this interaction, now without support from the Soviets, were limited,
making it impossible to buy loyalties from these guerrilla groups. Thus, with
international and popular support for the government dwindling, the fall of the
Najibullah government took place on 17 April 1992 by the takeover of Kabul by
the mujahidin groups. The choice of a transitional government was proposed by Benon
Sevan, Secretary-General of the UN, with the aim of implementing a process
of democratic elections in the country.
Sevan sought to secure a peaceful exchange of power from the interim
government of Kabul, which replaced Najibullah on 18 April 1992. A transitional
government, represented by the forces of Ahmed Shah Massoud and Abdul
Rashid Dostam, was established but remained without a peace agreement,
given that the Northern Alliance mujahidin group, led by Massoud, was in favor
of policies contrary to fundamentalist practices, supporting work and education
of women, in addition to the abolition of those religious customs that
maintained a strong gender inequity. For these reasons, Massoud was strongly
opposed by groups who wanted an Islamic state tied to the radical principles of
Sharia law[xii].
Thus, the hope of a neutral and comprehensive
approach to a political settlement between the different Afghan mujahidin
groups has been dashed. In a week after the inauguration of the government lead
by Massoud and Dostam, a new civil war began between the winning groups and the
opposition militias, which lasted until 1996. Massoud was appointed Minister of
Defense as well as the main military commander of the Afghan government during
the 1992-1996 civil war. His militia fought to defend Kabul against other
militias led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other warlords and also
subsequently against Taliban forces[xiii], who besieged the
capital in January 1995, after the city saw fierce fighting with the death of
at least 60,000 civilians, forcing it, with its troops, to take refuge in areas
controlled by its political and military leadership.
Massoud was opposed to the Taliban on gender
issues. Throughout the troubled period of civil war that marked his
administration in the areas dominated by his militias, women and girls were not
required to wear the Afghan burqa. They could work and attend schools. Even
though it was a time of war, women’s schools were open in these localities. In
at least two known cases, Massoud personally intervened against forced
marriages so that women would make their own choices. In September 2000,
Massoud signed a Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women, drafted
by women’s liberation groups. The declaration established gender equality
before the law and women’s right to political participation, education, work,
freedom of movement and expression[xiv].
The Taliban, as a Sunni political-religious
group, emerged in 1994 and grew rapidly due to its radical religious appeal and
its authoritarian and repressive action against the customs inherited from the
secular and anti-Islamic government led by the Soviet Union. Supported by international
resources, especially from Pakistan[xv] and Saudi Arabia, the
Taliban seized Kabul in 1996 and ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, led by
the Supreme Council President and founder of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammed
Omar[xvi].
The Taliban government, known for its Islamic radicalism, has suffered a
reduction in its international support, although countries such as Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have officially recognized and
supported it, in some cases, clandestinely.
With a radical political regime, driven by
nonsense religious behaviors, and steel fists, the Taliban leadership imposed
strict Islamic edicts, denying women the right to work and education,
imprisoning them at home or forcing them to wear traditional garments that
sullied their comfort and self-esteem. During the period of Taliban rule
(1996-2001), women were punished for their transgressions with lashes,
amputations and executions[xvii]. Punishments and
executions for those who broke their rules were carried out in public as a way
to spread terror and ensure respect for the rules imposed, seeking to avoid
collective actions that weakened the processes of female oppression linked to
the regime.
During their government between 1996 and 2001,
the Taliban "forced Afghan women out of the public eye completely,"
according to writer Ahmed Rashid. Based on their particularly
conservative interpretation of Islamic practice, the Taliban banned women from
working and attending school after the age of eight. They were forbidden to
appear in public without the presence of a male blood relative and without
wearing a burqa. Women accused of breaking these or other restrictions have
suffered severe corporal or capital punishment, often in public, bringing
humiliation and leading a large part of this women’s population to a high
incidence of mental disorders[xviii].
The Taliban also harbored jihad and
anti-Western extremist movements, such as the al-Qaeda group,
established in 1988, but whose origins date back to 1979, when Osama Bin
Laden moved temporarily to Afghanistan before the invasion of the country
by the Soviet Union[xix]. Osama bin Laden, with
strong ties to other radical Islamic groups throughout the Middle East, has helped
organize mujahidin resistance in Afghanistan since that time.
With the Taliban government established in
1996, Osama Bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan, where he
established his headquarters there. Al-Qaeda, previously local and hierarchically
organized, has transformed itself into an international movement, with the
headquarters and safe haven in Afghanistan, from where, through international
franchising and militants scattered in various countries, organized and
financed terrorist operations against the West in the name of jihad.
The United States and the international
collaboration against the Taliban in Afghanistan
So far, we haven’t gone into detail about the
US’s relationship with Afghanistan. Going back to the 1970s, it can be seen
that the US was slow to respond to the Saur Revolution that placed Afghanistan
within the direct sphere of Soviet influence. President Jimmy Carter was
troubled by the assassination of Ambassador Adolph Dubs in Kabul
(February 1979), and although there is no evidence, it may not have been a mere
coincidence that Bin Laden arrival in Afghanistan and Dubs[xx] assassination happened
during same year. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan a few months later
(December 1979) aroused American suspicions that there was a major Soviet
strategy aimed at occupying a port in the Indian Ocean and controlling the flow
of oil into the Persian Gulf.
All these factors led the US government to
support the mujahidin Islamic groups of resistance to the Soviet
occupation. In 1980 the Carter administration allocated $50 million to
mujahideen groups and this support grew during the Reagan administration. In
1985, allocated resources amounted to $250 million, with Saudi Arabia contributing
with resources in equal proportions, but not to the same mujahidin
groups. The US, in particular, trained and supported Massoud-led mujahideen
forces, which also included donating anti-missile weaponry and training for its
use. These factors were crucial in the weakening of Soviet positions and in the
victory of the resistance groups.
After the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1992,
a period of civil war began between Massoud’s forces and the Sunni mujahidin
resistance groups, which from 1994 were led by the Taliban. Between 1994 and
1996, domestic support for the Taliban was the result of a mystique about the
Taliban’s acts of heroism in defending their religion among rural villages that
grew as a gunfire and generated a massive recruitment of young converts to
jihad in support of their ranks.
On the other hand, withdrawing the Soviet
troops, the George Bush (father) government stopped allocating funds to
the militias of Afghanistan, policy that was continued to the beginning of the
government of President Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, other Arab countries,
including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, continued to donate nearly $400 million
annually to the Afghan mujahideen who resisted Massoud, especially from 1994
when the Taliban movement was established[xxi]. It also stands out the
support given by Pakistan, which, by having large swathes of its territory and
border population with a Sunni majority, speaking the same language (Pashtun),
had strong ethnic and religious identities with the Taliban.
The lack of financial support from the United
States to Massoud’s forces between 1992 and 1996 was a major tactical error of
the Americans. The overthrow of Massoud and the rise of the Taliban to the
Government of Afghanistan in 1996, with its broad permissiveness to al-Qaeda
terrorist actions in the country, represented a new challenge for the US. In
1996 Osama Bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan under the
protection of the Taliban, bringing with him about 2,000 well-trained, loyal
al-Qaeda militants. From there, he commanded several international terrorism
actions planned by al-Qaeda, which aroused the concern of US intelligence
agencies and redirected the country again to a less neutral and more cautious
foreign policy towards Afghanistan. A
modest return to US funding of some of the North Alliance’s resistance
operations under Massoud’s leadership occurred, especially from 1998 after
terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda against US targets. The interest in collaborating
with Massoud to track down and eliminate al-Qaeda has become essential to new
foreign policy objectives, but this would require far more resources, tactics
and training than those transferred by US intelligence-American to the North
Alliance until that moment.
Among the terrorist acts carried out by Al-Qaeda are the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998[xxii]. These attacks led the
US to enact international legal sanctions against the Taliban government, with
the support of the UN Security Council. President Bill Clinton, after
the attacks on US embassies, went on to demand from the Taliban government the
capture and extradition of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, but never
received a positive response. Other terrorist acts followed, such as attacks on
vessels USS The Sullivans (January 2000), and USS Cole (October
2000), culminating in the set of actions that resulted in the overthrow of the World
Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City and the attack on the Pentagon
in Virginia State (September 11, 2001) with over 3,000 lives lost and
estimated financial losses of over $1 trillion.
Massoud’s death occurred on 9 September 2001,
two days before the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, which marked
the tragic 11 September that year, considered a watershed in the course of
world history. Massoud had warned the European Parliament months earlier that
al-Qaeda was planning a terrorist attack of gigantic proportions on US soil,
which showed the capillarity of the information system he had, but certainly US
intelligence did not consider the issue with the seriousness that should have
been given.
The US war against Afghanistan begins
following the attacks of September 11, 2001, and is urgently authorized by
Congress on September 18, 2001. At that time, the Gallup Institute conducted an
international opinion poll in 37 countries, 34 of which were in favor of
bringing legal sanctions to the country that would lead to the capture and
extradition of al-Qaeda members responsible for the attack[xxiii] prior to the
implementation of military solutions.
President George W. Bush, before
attempting a military attack, reiterated the request made by his predecessor
Bill Clinton for the capture and extradition of Bin Laden, which was once again
denied by the Taliban government, leaving the United States the only option of
declaring war on Afghanistan to carry out the capture of Bin Laden. On 7
October 2001, with the support of the British government, the United States
launched Operation Enduring Freedom with air raids on Taliban forces,
relying on Northern Alliance ground support to the North Special Forces, leading
to the seizure of power and the overthrow of the Taliban government in Kabul on
12 November 2001. Much of the Taliban
and al-Qaeda have escaped across borders with Pakistan or have gone into hiding
in remote mountainous areas in the country, where they have organized their
resistance. In 2002, Taliban leader Mullah Mohamed Oman reorganized the
insurgency movement against the international forces that occupied the country.
In December 2001 the UN Security Council
joined the international war effort against the Taliban by creating a security
force for international assistance. At a conference held in Bonn (Germany),
they chose Hamid Karzai as the leader of the transitional government
that would prepare the country for democratic elections. In 2003, the war
effort was commanded by the military forces of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO)[xxiv]. The country was
renamed the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan after 2004, when general
elections were held and confirmed, by popular vote, the continuity of Karzai as
President of Afghanistan, where he remained until 2014.
Public opinion, both American and
international, following the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the
Taliban’s refusal to accept an international legal solution, such as the
capture and extradition of Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda members has come to be
openly supportive of US attacks on Afghanistan. At the domestic level, opinion
polls conducted in October 2001 showed that 88% of Americans were in favor of
military action by US troops. At the
international level, research conducted by the IPSOS-Reid Institute between
November and December of the same year indicated that the majority of the
population of Canada, France, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom supported the
Taliban air strikes conducted by the USA at the end of 2001, although the
majority of the population in other countries such as Turkey, Spain, China and
Argentina disapproved of it.
The US and international forces war against
the Taliban, starting in 2001 last 20 years. It was complex, intense and prolonged, having
gone beyond the borders, with the incursions carried out in countries like
Pakistan. It was the longest war the Americans were involved in. According
to the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs of Brown University[xxv],
it resulted in the deaths of approximately 71,000 civilians from its inception
until April 2021 (47,000 in Afghanistan and 24,000 in Pakistan). About 136 press professionals and 550
professionals involved in international humanitarian activities were killed. In
addition, about 6,300 US military personnel (career and contractors), 1,000
Allied troops, and 78,000 Afghan soldiers and police lost their lives in the
conflicts. About 84,000 Taliban fighters and other resistance groups were
killed in combat. To the loss of life, we add the direct and indirect
expenditures of US$2.3 trillion of the US public budget, not counting the
expenditures made by allied troops, international organizations and
humanitarian aid.
Another important aspect is the issue of the
integrity of the Afghan government after the inauguration of Karzai and during
his term as president of the country, between 2001 and 2014. Much of the
international influx of external resources has been diverted by the corruption
of the country’s public and military bureaucracy, making Afghanistan the second
most corrupt country in the world after Somalia, in 2009, according to
Transparency International data[xxvi]. This increased the
international perception that the huge external funds mobilized to support the
country development and for the war effort were being diverted for private
enrichment. Karzai was not reappointed and Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai was
elected President of the country in February 2014.
The Taliban received economic aid and veiled (sometimes military) support from countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and others in the Sunni Muslim sphere. International support the Afghan government to fight the war and move on the reconstruction of the country’s governance was losing its influence and prestige in the formation of consciences that could lead Afghanistan to a Western-style democracy. According to opinion polls conducted by the BBC, the acceptance of international forces by the Afghan population fell from 87% in 2005 to 69% in 2009.
As a result of the war, Al-Qaeda moved its
operations from Afghanistan to Pakistan between 2002 and 2003, settling in
mountainous areas around the border and further northwest, where it joined
Kashmir’s terrorist groups, with operations aimed at carrying out attacks in
India. Although international efforts against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in
Pakistan were not as intense as in Afghanistan, this did not prevent the
continuation of terrorist-free trafficking between the two countries. From
Pakistan, Al-Qaeda continued to lead many terrorist attacks at the global level
with the links it has established with its international terrorist network[xxvii]. But the C.I.A. and other military
intelligence agencies in the United States carried out a good long-term
tracking work that resulted in the attack and death of Osama Bin Laden
by US special forces at the Abbottabad (Pakistan) compound on May 2,
2011, during the Barack Obama administration. As of 2014, in addition to
al-Qaeda, the presence of ISIS militants has been detected, although its
opposition to the Taliban[xxviii].
Even if the allied troops had substantial resources to finance the resistance war, the Taliban was still able to mobilize many resources, most of which coming from taxes on poppy production, opium trafficking and the production and sale of heroin by illegal Taliban-controlled laboratories in the country. These resources were estimated to amount to $100 and $400 million per year. The funds that financed the Taliban’s operations also came from taxes on the illegal exploitation of minerals, such as lapis lazuli and others (around US$50 million per year) and clandestine external financial for war support from countries and private sympathizers that add up to around US$500 million a year. These resources have been sufficient to finance a well-armed army of 60,000 Taliban militants[xxix]. Smuggling illegal goods across borders, especially tobacco products to Pakistan and Iran (as production and import were not taxed in Afghanistan), is another powerful source of funding for the Taliban, with funds that can reach tens of millions of dollars[xxx]. This would be one of the reasons that would make tobacco taxation one of the subjects that not only benefits the Afghan population by increasing their health condition, but also would reduce the resources of tobacco smuggling used to finance the actions of the Taliban[xxxi].
Social Policies and the Female Condition in
Afghanistan: Precariousness, but with Advances
Despite the negative impacts of the war,
significant improvements for the Afghan people start to be noted after the
intervention of international forces in Afghanistan. In the health sector, between 2001 and 2021,
the life expectancy at birth, despite being still low, increased from 56 to 64
years. Maternal mortality rate was halved and 89% of the urban population had
access to drinking water by 2021, compared with 16% in 2001. The mortality rate
of children under 5 fell from 191 to 50 per 1,000 live births from 2006 to
2018, while at the same time the proportion of health units with female employees
increased.
Birth deliveries assisted by qualified health professionals among the lowest-income quintile increased from 14.9% to 58.8% between 2003 and 2018. Vaccine coverage of PENTA 3 (a combination of five vaccines in one, covering poliomyelitis, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, anemophilous influenzae type b and hepatitis B) doubled between 2002-2018 from 29% to 61% among children aged 12-23 months in the lowest income quintile[xxxii].
The rate of child marriage was reduced by 17%
between 2001 and 2021, allowing for an increase in school attendance,
especially for girls. In 1990, 34% of secondary students in Afghanistan were
female. This proportion reached 17% in 2005, after years of Taliban domination,
but recovered progressively until 2019, when it reached 36% again. In 1990,
around 56% of primary teachers were female. However, this proportion down to
10% in 2000 under the Taliban regime. By 2019, the proportion of female primary
teachers had been recovered to 36%. It is also worth noting that the proportion
of girls attending vocational training courses increased from 3.6% in 2004 to
13.1% in 2019, but the participation of women in the work force is persistently
low, despite having grown from 21% to 25% between 2012 and 2019.
As a result of women not being able to leave
their homes to be assisted by male doctors, according the Sharia rules
interpretation by the Taliban, maternal mortality rates in Afghanistan were
1450 per 100,000 live births in 2003, but this proportion was reduced to 638 in
2018. This represented a significant decrease, even considering that they are
among the highest global maternal mortality rates. The percentage of pregnant
women receiving at least one prenatal consultation, which reached 16% in 2004,
increased to 65% in 2019.
The adolescent fertility rates, which were
stationed among 161 children per 1000 adolescents aged 15 to 19 years between
1990 and 2000, began to fall, reaching 127 children in 2010 and 61 children in
2019. Contraceptive coverage is still low, but increased from 4% in 2000 to 17%
in 2018.
The number of children attending school
increased from 1.2 to 8.2 million between 2001 and 2013, and in the specific
case of girls, increased from 50,000 in 2001 to 3.2 million in 2013. Literacy
rates increased from 8% to 43% in the same period. Even so, 44% of children
between the ages of 7 and 17 did not attend school in 2021.
But women’s awareness of their state of
oppression, even after nearly a decade and a half of the overthrow of the
Taliban, was still very low. According to World Bank data, from a survey
conducted in 2016, 59% of women in the country considered that their husbands
had the right to assault them if they raised their voice to them, and 67%
believed their husbands could beat them if they went out home without asking
permission.
Since 2001, 5.7 million refugees have returned
to the country, but in 2021 it is estimated that 2.6 million refugees are still
out, many of whom linked to Taliban families who immigrated to Iran or
Pakistan. The civil war has made Afghanistan one of the countries with the
largest internal population displacement in the world, with an estimated
500,000 being displaced each year. In the first half of 2021, it was estimated
that about 200,000 people had migrated internally to escape from the
Taliban-occupied regions.
Afghanistan’s economy, over the 20 years since the defeat of the Taliban in 2001, has failed to have a development project that would allow the country to improve living conditions to its population. The economy grew in the early years, causing per capita income to have grown from $149 to $642 between 2002 and 2012. However, per capita income has declined over the past 8 years, falling to $509 in 2020. The country has great growth potential, as it is an area of passage. Roads between Kabul and the Persian Gulf would facilitate the export of mineral products and, in addition, the country occupies a strategic position on the "silk route", planned to connect China and Europe by road. But no such investment has taken place in the last twenty years.
China, since 2010, has made large investments on
mining and highway sectors along the country and has ambitions and potential to
contribute to the stability of the country[xxxiii], but the United
States has barely planned or provided similar investments.
The political deterioration of recent years
For many of these reasons, international and
national public opinion, since the second half of the last decade, has opposed
the continuation of the war. An opinion poll conducted in 47 countries in June
2007[xxxiv] showed that 44 of them
already opposed the continuation of NATO operations in Afghanistan. As a
result, between 2009 and 2011 many allied countries began to reduce troop
contingents at NATO army in Afghanistan, including South Korea, Canada, the
Netherlands, Japan, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland and France.
In 2010, 60% of Democratic Party
representatives in the United States voted to organize a plan to withdraw US
troops from Afghanistan and lobbied for a reduction in military spending on the
federal budget in 2011. But even so, President Barack Obama continued to
send more troops into the country. The death of Osama Bin Laden by
special forces in Pakistan brought to the American population the feeling that
the war was being won, but this sentiment was short-lived. In the same year,
world leaders gathered in Bonn to discuss the future of the war and the process
of rebuilding the country and consolidating democracy, with a timetable for
troop withdrawal.
In 2014 Barack Obama declared plans to
end the war and withdraw troops from Afghanistan. But the renewed attacks by
the Taliban on Afghan, NATO and US national troops have prolonged the presence
of the Americans in the country. With the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017,
the US government began to recognize that the United States was losing the war,
but considered that its objectives had already been partially achieved. He
recognized the country’s frustration at continuing to lose national lives and
investing public resources in an endless war, but considered that there was a
need to carry out with caution a withdrawal plan not to create a power vacuum
and overthrow the efforts hitherto undertaken in the country. From 2018 to 2019 Trump opened and conducted
peace talks with the Taliban leadership. Elections in Afghanistan were
scheduled and postponed successively, but were held in February 2020. Ashraf
Ghani was re-elected, but with only 50.6% of the vote, amid fraud contests
by opposition candidates.
Political instability has increased since this
time but, once Ghani was re-elected, Donald Trump attempted pacification
agreements establishing his commitment to withdraw US troops by May 2021 and promising
amnesty for Taliban war crimes in exchange for more lasting political
stability. Trump’s agreements addressed four issues: (i) reducing violence;
(ii) withdrawing foreign troops; (iii) negotiations between the Taliban and the
government of Afghanistan to maintain democratic stability, and; (iv) a
guarantee that Afghanistan will not once again become a refuge for terrorists.
The agreement was only the first step in ending the 18-year war that killed
over 157,000 with costs for the United States exceeding $2 trillion.
Considering the conditions of the agreement
negotiated by Donald Trump, it turns out that the only one who advanced in its
fulfilment was the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country by the Joe
Biden government. The other conditions that depended on the will of the Taliban
have not moved forward and the violence of the Taliban has intensified over the
past 18 months. The Taliban have not attempted serious talks to reach a peace
agreement with the office of re-elected President Ashraf Ghani. Protests
from the population and attacks from the Taliban have continued against a weak
and demoralized government[xxxv], and there has been
inadequate monitoring by both the US government and the Afghan authorities, to
take concrete steps to ensure that the Taliban fulfilled their part of the
agreement. But even so, the Donald Trump
government transferred to his successor the commitment to withdraw the troops
in May 2021.
Joe Biden, once elected at the end of 2020,
reaffirmed on April 14st, 2021 that he would maintain the
commitments of full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan before September
11 of the same year, initiating, on May 1st the progressive
withdrawal of military personnel from the country. On 6th July, the
largest US air base in Afghanistan (Bagram Airfield) was evacuated.
However, the Taliban did not respect the peace agreement negotiations, as some
analysts expected, and in August the government of several provincial capitals
began to fall into the hands of the Taliban, while the guerrillas' encirclement
of the capital Kabul increased. On
August 15th, 2021, President Ashraf Ghani left the country on the
grounds that he wanted to avoid a bloodbath before the Taliban guerrilla groups
took Kabul. Part of the Afghan 300 thousand equipped and trained national army and
its special forces (more than three times the size of the Taliban troops) were
disbanded, either by desertion or by voluntary incorporation into the Taliban
cadres.
Joe Biden, even before running for president,
had always been in favor of the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan
and, even keeping the Donald Trump’s commitments to the Taliban, he was also
following his own instincts and convictions. But he was surprised by the rapid
takeover of the country by the Taliban, who would no longer respect the
democratic rules established in the country. The American population also had
an interest in the withdrawal of troops, but did not expect the country to be
delivered so quickly into the hands of the Taliban, leaving the US, other
countries and the allies who worked in the process of rebuilding the country in
a precarious situation, without a consistent plan for its withdrawal from the
country.
This situation increases the risk that the
last of Donald Trump’s commitments to the peace agreements with the Taliban -
preventing the country from becoming a refuge for terrorists again - will not
be fulfilled. Further terrorist attacks by the presence of ISIS and al-Qaeda
may return, as terrorist groups will surely have more security to host their
operations in Afghanistan. And the main element of this tragedy could be the
reversal of the gains and achievements of the female population over the last
20 years.
The latest news and footage from the seizure
of Kabul, the attempted flight of thousands of people from the country, the
violence imposed by the Taliban around Kabul Airport, the difficulty of the US
government on planning an executing a peaceful and risk-free exit and the ISIS-K
terrorist attacks killing 13 American troops and thousands of nationals from
Afghanistan are just a taste of what could happen in the coming years in the
country under the disorderly and undemocratic rule of the Taliban. And despite
statements by local leaders that they will respect women’s rights and
opponents, recent practices do not seem to demonstrate this. As the Americans
and the West lose interest in continuing to invest in political reforms in
Afghanistan, the Taliban may embrace economic agreements with China and the
Sunni Arab countries without receiving political pressure from these partners
to re-establish either democracy or gender equality.
END NOTES
[i] This article was originally published in Portuguese in the blog
“Monitor de Saúde”, Edition 122, Year 16, August 22nd, 2021. I would express my gratitude to Camila Medici (my daughter) to the incentive on publishing this post in
English and to her contributions in the review and translation of the original
text. The original link of this article is https://monitordesaude.blogspot.com/2021/08/a-guerra-dos-talibas-contra-as-mulheres.html
[xviii] United States Congress, "Afghan Women and Girls: Status and Congressional Action" in "In Focus - Congressional Research Service", Updated in August 12, 2021, Link: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11646
[xxiv] NATO is an international military agreement formed by 28 European countries, two from North America (United States and Canada) and South Korea in Asia. After NATO took command of the war, some of the US military forces became aligned under its command, but the vast majority of military troops in the country continued to be administered by the US military.
[xxv] Link: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/human-and-budgetary-costs-date-us-war-afghanistan-2001-2021
[xxvi] See https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/nov/17/corruption-index-transparency-international
[xxvii] Among al-Qaeda’s operations after the 2001 Afghanistan invasion by the US and NATO forces, stand out the following; (i) the participation in terrorist actions in Kuwait of a US military vessel in Malaysia and Kenya (all in 2002), (ii) in North Africa (region known as Maghreb), from 2002 to the present, involving countries such as Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia, in Jakarta-Indonesia (2003), (iii) resistance during the Iraq war, from 2003 to 2011, (iv) terrorist actions in the North West Region of Pakistan (since 2004), Saudi Arabia and Turkey (2003), Qatar and Indonesia (2005) and the North West Caucasus (since 2009), (v) participation in the Syrian war (since 2011) and (vi) participation in Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen (since 2015). Also noteworthy are the in Western countries, such as the Madrid train bombing (2004), London metro bombing (2005) and Charlie Hebdo shooting in France (2015), only to mention the most known cases.
