IN THE CLUTCHES OF DEPRESSION-AFGHANISTAN
Posted on November 17th, 2019

ALI SUKHANVER

 Night raids and aerial strikes have led to mounting civilian casualties in Afghanistan,” says a detailed report recently issued by the Human Rights Watch. The report reveals that CIA-backed Afghan strike forces have once again made the lives of innocent Afghan citizens a hell. Night-time raids into homes in remote villages, forced disappearances, attacks on healthcare facilities and summary executions are the tools being used against the local people. In civilized societies such cruelties are termed as ‘atrocities’ and ‘war crimes’. The report has referred to at least 14 such cases across nine provinces over the last 2 years. Analysts are of the opinion that the basic reason behind this brutal behaviour of the Afghan troops is that most of them got their professional training from the officers of the US Army and of the US intelligence agencies. The training masters have taught them to show little concern for the local civilians’ life. That is why this training has made them callous and merciless to their own people. They don’t hesitate in shooting them direct in their heads when they are in their custody during the night raids.

is the title of an article written by Mohammed Harun Arsalai and Mohsin Khan Momand jointly penned down an article with the title ‘Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan Keep Climbing.’ The article was published in the Nation USA last August, 2019. The article narrated the murder story of Syed Wali who ran one of the only two shops in Sarkot village of Eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province. Wali sold sugar, soap, and cigarettes to everyone in town, including the region’s local Taliban members. A shopkeeper nowhere could stop anyone from doing purchases from his shop particularly when there are no other shops in the area. The article says that ‘The US-built’ National Directorate of Security (NDS) one night raided the Sarkot village and stormed the shopkeeper’s house. The officers in the raiding party blamed Syed Wali of doing business transactions with Taliban and before he could give them any answer, he was shot in head. And this way the story of Syed Wali’s life reached a pathetic ending.

Another incident of the same type was recently narrated by the Guardian also. The paper said, On 11 August this year, troops from one of the CIA-backed units accompanied by at least one US soldier and a translator – served as judge, jury and executioner for 11 men in Kulgago, a village in the south of Paktia province. Four were executed in the family compound of Dr. Ulfatullah, a pharmacist who lost two sons and two cousins.” According to media reports the young men in Kulgago were targeted as insurgents but the facts are otherwise. Shafiullah and Hayatullah were the government employees and they were working as teachers in the Education Ministry of Afghanistan. A witness said talking to the media-men, The Afghan soldiers who swept through Kulgago village one late August night shot three of Dr. Ulfatullah’s relatives carefully, a single bullet through their left eye, faces otherwise untouched as blood pooled below their bodies on the floor of the family home. However the last killing was less precise, and left the face of university student Ansarullah badly disfigured and deformed.”

Reports say that most of the time, the victims of the Afghan soldiers belong to the Pashtun tribes as most of the Taliban are Pashtun tribesmen. The foreign invaders know it very well that the Pashtuns would always remain a threat to their hegemonic designs as they are the hardest ones to be defeated. So the Afghan soldiers are being ‘misused’ in the process of making the Pashtuns weaker. The recent episode of harassing the Pakistani diplomats in Kabul is also a part of the same ‘Kill Pashtun Movement’ as the Trainers have convinced the Afghan authorities that Pakistan and Taliban are the two sides of the same coin. It means wherever the freedom fighters are fighting against the foreign occupation, they would be linked with Pakistan; be it the Indian Held Kashmir, the Khalistan, the Nagaland and even Assam. This blame game is not fair; most of the time the freedom movements are indigenous.

In principle, on paper, yes we have reached an agreement — that it is done but it is not final until the president of the United States also agrees to it,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, the American special envoy to Afghanistan talking to the Afghan channel ToloNews, just two months back. He further revealed that the United States would pull 5,400 troops from Afghanistan within 135 days of signing an agreement with the Taliban and this pulling out  would be the start of the expected gradual withdrawal of all 14,000 United States troops that could end America’s longest running war. Khalilzad had been leading nearly a year of talks with the Taliban. People were expecting something marvelous coming out of these talks but still the political scenario in Afghanistan is not very hopeful and encouraging; it is rather frightening and depressing.

One Response to “IN THE CLUTCHES OF DEPRESSION-AFGHANISTAN”

  1. Ancient Sinhalaya Says:

    How did you get rid of all the Buddhists in afganisthan? Oh, it was so easy we had children, children and more
    children and the country was ours. This was the crux of the problem in Buddhist Myanmar. Not just there in all
    the undeveloped countries. They all have too many people to fight for too little resources. Think about the
    problems too many mouths creating, think about the planet.

    Sri Lanka facing the same problem today thanks to multiplication. Does anyone think for a moment
    and wonder it is going to cause social unrest since people will be fighting for resources. Planet is a small place,
    its size is a grain of sand in the vast vast universe (NASA’s findings). So be kind to the planet, be kind to other people, life will be better for all.

    Less mouths means less problems we all agree. I’m sure all these countries struggling that should be the first step
    towards prosperity. China’s 1 child policy made them world leaders in no time. We all should try to do our bit for
    the planet rather than try to take over countries. They lead to unrest wars, riots etc. etc.. Population gets bigger
    and bigger, but the planet get smaller and smaller thanks to rising sea levels, global warming etc. etc. Two legged creatures haven’t been kind to the planet all this time, soon it’s going to strike back to send all of us into oblivion.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

 

 


Copyright © 2024 LankaWeb.com. All Rights Reserved. Powered by Wordpress