Maryam Namazie
Published in Hambastegi English
November 26, 2001

The fall of the Taliban is being marked by a wave of celebration and joyous outbursts by the long-suffering people of Afghanistan. Women are throwing off their burqas and men are shaving off their beards; cinema houses are being reopened and TVs and satellites are being dusted off. While the fall of the Taliban is being celebrated throughout the world, though, the people of Afghanistan are still living under Islamic reaction. The Taliban war criminals have been replaced by Northern Alliance war criminals that also have a known track record of raping, torturing, killing and executing people. A few days have not passed since their entry into the city of Kabul and they have already deemed illegal a protest of several hundred women demanding their rights.

On Tuesday, November 27 in a meeting in Bonn, Germany, the UN and Western and regional governments will attempt to legitimise and impose another reactionary religious and ethnic government on the people of Afghanistan. Any attempts to impose another regime made up of reactionary religious and tribal leaders put together by the CIA and Pakistani and Iranian secret forces must be strongly condemned. The people of Afghanistan must have the right to choose their own political system in free elections. They must at a minimum be able to live in a secular society with full civil rights.

While bombings, civil war, drought, famine, Islamic reaction, sexual apartheid and rights violations continue, many governments and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are going ahead with plans to ‘repatriate’ refugees and asylum seekers and ‘encourage’ them to return to ‘rebuild’ Afghanistan. This policy must also be strongly condemned. Afghan refugees and asylum seekers must be given full protection and rights. The decision to return voluntarily to Afghanistan (if any such decision is ever made) lies with individual Afghans alone.