It was 1979. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. It provided
a golden opportunity for the United States to take its revenge on
the Soviets by humiliating Russians in Afghanistan just as the
Americans were in Vietnam. The US therefore resolved to fight the
Soviets to the last Afghan.
Knowing this urge of the Americans and realising that Pakistan was
the only country through which the US could get arms to the Afghan
resistance (called, the Mujahidden), the Pakistani authority must
have praised the Lord for their strategic location. Pakistan,
therefore, came forward and conveyed to the US and its allies that
it would serve as a conduit for the US' military assistance to the
Mujahideen under the conditions that they were given the right
price for their services; and that they were the ones who could
choose who among the Afghan resistance could get the Western arms.
Then for the US the end was more important than the mean. As long
as the weapon was delivered to some individuals who were willing
to fight the Russians why bother asking who they were; whether
they were sane or insane, extremists or moderate. Unfortunately,
this was the approach adopted by the United States.
Long before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Pakistan was
already training anti-Afghanistan Islamic zealots in its
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) camps and was already involved
in covert anti-state activities inside Afghanistan. After the
Soviets invasion of Afghanistan Pakistan made billion of dollars
by selling their trained bandits to the Western world. The Western
world and particularly the United States did not hesitate in
imposing those bandits on the Afghans as their leaders either. As
if the Pakistani trained zealots were not enough the CIA went
further and recruited proven Arab extremists such as Osama bin
Laden and brought then to Afghanistan to fight against the
Soviets.
To make sure that Afghan resistance was fully under its control,
Pakistan divided the Mujahideen into seven groups, putting enough
differences between them so that each one was more willing to cut
the throat of its rivals than that of the Soviets or its puppet
communist regime in Kabul. As a result infighting between the
Mujahideen was a common phenomena inside Afghanistan just as were
their attacks on the Soviets. The CIA imported Arab extremists,
however, operated independently and therefore were more organised
and focused.
The Soviet troops stayed in Afghanistan till 1989 and its puppet
communist regime survived for a few years after. In April 1992 the
Afghan resistance groups finally broke it into Kabul, the capital
Afghanistan and toppled Najeebullah, the then communist president
of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union was now long gone and thus the US
had no more strategic use for Afghans. It therefore abandoned
Afghans altogether.
Pakistan was now the sole master of the Afghans' fate. It gathered
all its trained Afghan Mujahideen "leaders" in Pakistan
and through an obscure formula imposed upon them a government for
Kabul. However, in the background Pakistan was already tapping on
the shoulders of the two rival Mujahideen groups of Ahmad Shah
Masood and Gulbadeen Hekmatyar for a show down for power in Kabul.
So even before the Pakistani made government of Afghanistan took
over, infighting erupted on the streets of Kabul.
Within a few months of infighting Kabul was literally levelled to
ground; some fifty thousand innocent civilians lost their lives on
the top of 1.5 million lives already lost to the Soviets'
invasion. Kabul, this once civilised and highly cosmopolitan Asian
capital became a cultural wasteland. Kabul's destruction led
an analyst to compare it to post-Hitler Berlin in which the Afghan
state was divided into several war zones controlled by different
warlords. The government in Kabul was barely in contact with the
warlords, much less able to exercise any political or economic
control. The already fragile Afghan economy literally collapsed.
The lack of legitimate sources of income forced many families to
grow poppy or join criminal gangs in order to survive. The already
enormous trade in smuggled goods was expanded even further and so
was the trade in narcotics as each warlord including the
government established contacts with international crime organizations
exporting heroin and hashish to the West. Afghanistan's entire
economy in effect was criminalized.
It was only after it become the world largest producer and
supplier of illicit drugs did Afghanistan got the West's attention
again. By now the huge oil reserves in the Central Asian states of
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were also discovered and Afghanistan
seemed the only economical and sensible route through which that
oil can be pumped to the West. There therefore was a need for an
end to the infighting in Afghanistan. Pakistan now the master of
all activities in Afghanistan could do that and again for the
right price. As a result they got stakes in the US sponsored
multi-billion oil pipeline from central Asia through Afghanistan
and perhaps some other economic help. Pakistan in return unleashed
on Afghanistan its trained "Taliban" - students from
Religious schools.
The helpless Afghan nation, fed up with the excesses committed
against them by the Mujahideen warlords, were now ready to welcome
anyone including the Devil who could put an end to the Mujahideen.
Thus in no time the Taliban were in control of most of
Afghanistan. As soon as the Taliban took over Kabul in September
1996, Pakistan, followed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirate (close allies of Pakistan) wasted no time to recognize
them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Till today these
remain the only countries in the world that recognize the Taliban
regime.
Taliban now owed it to Pakistan to obey as they were commanded.
They did not object to Pakistan's shifting its ISI supported
Kashmiri and Arab militant training camps to inside Afghanistan
and they seemed perfectly okay with extracting the Pakistani
favoured Kashmiri terrorists' demands in the December 1999
hijacking of an Indian plane. Over time, though, the Taliban
themselves directly got involved with the militant groups and now
with a sigh of satisfaction Pakistan could sit back and watch its
game paying off.
Last week on September 11th the whole world watched with utmost
horror and disbelief the most heinous acts of terror, devastation
and death to the innocent civilians of the United States of
America. Every human being no matter how insensitive he or she may
be was no doubt one way or another affected by those events. No
one, however, understand the evil of terror as much as the Afghans
do for we understand what it feels like to be innocent victims.
The Afghan nation has been a hostage to the very groups of insane
individuals who are suspected for the last week's heinous crime.
It has been terrorized and destroyed by them perpetually.
Also, no one understands as much as we the Afghans do the need for
the world's resolve to retaliate with great force against the
perpetrators, their network, their sympathizers and their
harbouring states for this horrendously barbaric attack on the US
soil. However, after reading numerous new articles that Pakistan,
the very creator of the Taliban and the mess in Afghanistan is now
"an ally" , "a partner" and "a good
friend" against terrorism and once again for a right price,
one starts to wonder how successful the new resolve could be.
As for the Afghan connection to the September 11th tragedies is
concerned there is none, except that the Afghan nation has been at
the receiving end of similar acts of terror by the same insane
imposed criminals on daily basis as the Americans were on
September 11th. Isn't it time and doesn't the free world owes it
to the Afghans, so instrumental in putting an end to the cold war
by bringing down the communist empire, to finally pay its dues by
liberating the Afghans from the selfish dangerous games played
repeatedly on them by the successive Pakistani authorities rather
then obliterating them for being victims of the exact same acts?
Omar
Zakhilwal teaches Economics at Carleton University and is a member
of the Managing Board of The Institute For Afghan Studies