Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 26, 2022
F.M. Shakil
![Image](https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Taliban-Afghanistan.jpg)
Despite the Taliban’s many shortcomings, only a unified, multilateral approach to negotiating with and recognizing the Islamic Emirate will safeguard the borders of neighboring states.
Following the withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan in August last year, the Taliban-led schismatic government in Kabul appears to have reached a diplomatic impasse. It seems like its neighbors, who had previously been eager to restore normalcy to the turbulent region, have given up on the Islamic Emirate.
More than a year after the country was handed over to the Taliban, not a single Afghan neighbor has officially recognized the Taliban’s government. But they do not seek to undermine it either, primarily because a power vacuum brought on by proxy battles could be advantageous to both the US and the foreign terror outfits – the two major players that Afghanistan’s neighbors consider their greatest threats.
The main reason for the ongoing diplomatic impasse is that the Taliban has failed miserably in honoring its commitments to the international community, and continues to harbor foreign militants accused of attacking its neighbors from across the border.
Instability begets insecurity
The world, and in particular, Afghanistan’s neighbors did not want to recognize the Taliban government because it could not form a “government for all” that included representatives from all religions, sects, ethnicities, and social groups.
Today, Afghanistan’s socioeconomic development is at risk from instability and inept governance which has had devastating geoeconomic and geopolitical ramifications for the entire region.
A number of key investment projects that sought to improve economic connections, trade, and transit between South and Central Asia – and stabilize Afghanistan in the process – have been put on hold or slowed down.
Large-scale regional projects that have suffered due to security concerns include the Central Asia-South Asia Electricity Transmission Project, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Gas Pipeline, and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan Power Interconnection Project.
Failing to stop foreign terrorists
The Taliban leadership appears reluctant to abide by the international standards outlined in the Doha peace accord, despite the major security challenges facing Afghanistan’s bordering states. The Taliban were urged by the Doha deal, which was signed earlier in 2020, to stop “foreign terrorist groups or individuals” such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS-K from utilizing Afghan territory to pose a threat to the US, its allies, and other nations.
The Doha Accord also underlined the significance of securing a comprehensive and long-lasting ceasefire before starting intra-Afghan engagement and talks. The Taliban, however, broke their promise of a ceasefire to start negotiations and instead took over Afghanistan through a military offensive.
China, Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and other surrounding nations have all encountered real challenges with the terrorist organizations that operate out of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda, Jamaat Ansarullah, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), the Islamic State of Kurdistan (IS-K), the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan have all established strongholds in Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s dilemma
Mansur Khan Mehsud, executive director of the Islamabad-based FATA Research Centre (FRC), an independent think tank, told The Cradle that taking concrete action against the TTP, ETIM, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Baloch insurgents will cause problems for the Taliban government.
For this reason, Kabul is unable to uphold promises to the international community that Afghan territory will not be used to spread terrorism and host militant groups that attack neighboring states.
“The fact is that these groups have been fighting the Afghan war alongside the Taliban for more than ten years against NATO and the Afghan National Army, so if the Taliban took action against them, they would run into problems with their foot soldiers and commanders,” Mehsud explained. “The Taliban leaders would interpret this as a ruse to placate the US and other western nations.”
International Recognition
According to Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based geopolitical analyst, “no country recognizes the legitimacy of the Taliban’s leadership over Afghanistan, but all regional stakeholders still pragmatically engage with it.”
“Russia even signed a commodity deal with them in September, which the group agreed to due to its desire to have Moscow function as a key player in its envisaged geo-economic balancing act, especially vis-à-vis Islamabad,” he added.
The majority of Afghanistan’s neighbors have begun to form bilateral relationships with the Taliban for geostrategic, geoeconomic, and personal security assurances, despite using the umbrella of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Korybko explains that Russia’s present stance has been to express disappointment with the Taliban’s failure to assemble a truly ethnically and regionally inclusive government and meaningfully fight against the drug trade:
“Russia thinks that the US freezing of several billion dollars of Afghan assets has contributed to this regrettable outcome. At the same time, it has always praised the Taliban for doing its best to keep ISIS-K in check.”
Concerning Islamabad’s deteriorating relations with Kabul, which have resulted in several border clashes with casualties on both sides of the divide, Korybko warns that Afghanistan’s unofficial support for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is spiraling out of control and risks becoming the most significant source of regional instability.
“As it stands, the Pakistani-Taliban security dilemma is brought about by Islamabad’s rapprochement with Washington, especially in its military dimension, and given the dearth of trust between Pakistan and the Taliban, there is little hope that it will be resolved anytime soon,” he said.
Carnegie Corporation, a US think tank, revealed in a recent study that Afghanistan’s neighbors are concerned about several issues, the foremost being the influx of foreign terrorist groups into the country.
Among other concerns are the Taliban’s weak and unstable power base, the country’s regressive social policies, the economic and humanitarian crisis brought on by the suspension of aid, the freezing of Afghanistan’s foreign assets, sanctions against Taliban leaders, and the government’s inability or unwillingness to deal with these issues.
Dushanbe Declaration
In mid-September 2021, just a month after the US pullout from Afghanistan, the SCO rushed to hold a summit meeting in Dushanbe, Tajikistan to discuss the Taliban’s ascension to power and the regional implications for the neighboring countries.
The Dushanbe Declaration observed that the security and stability of SCO space hinged on the earliest possible settlement of the situation in Afghanistan. Chief among its requests was for the Taliban to form a government that included people from all of the country’s ethnic, religious, and political groups. The SCO also stressed that Afghanistan needed to be free of terrorism, war, and drugs to become an independent, neutral, united, democratic, and peaceful state.
The primary objective of the Eurasian alliance’s geopolitical initiatives was to take over the watchdog function from the US-led NATO forces so that Afghanistan would not once again serve as a refuge for terrorist organizations. However, the SCO’s own internal differences, and its members’ efforts to negotiate with the Taliban on a bilateral basis, seem to have emboldened terrorist groups to regroup in Afghanistan.
The institutional strength of the SCO was weakened by some divisions within its purview, and attention was diverted from the imbroglio in Afghanistan to geoeconomic and geopolitical self-interests.
Overlooking differences
India, for instance, planned a regional meeting in 2020 to discuss the Afghan issue with SCO members. China and Pakistan did not attend the meeting and instead met in Islamabad with the US and Russian representatives of the “Troika Plus” group.
Similarly, in December 2021, Pakistan invited Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s acting foreign minister, as well as representatives from the US, EU, China, and Russia to a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Afghanistan held in Islamabad. India was not issued an invitation to the conference.
The third India-Central Asia Dialogue was held on the same day, and it brought together the foreign ministers of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Uzbekistan to discuss the evolving security situation in Afghanistan.
The summit’s attendees stressed the importance of “the creation of a truly representative and inclusive government, combating terrorism and drug trafficking, and ensuring that Afghan land is not used for sheltering, planning, or funding terrorist activities.”
In order to secure their own respective internal borders, Afghanistan’s neighbors must collaborate effectively to address their mutual security concerns.
Their inability to work together to develop a coordinated plan and push the Taliban to negotiate will worsen an already dangerous situation. Afghanistan will continue to bleed until its neighbors abandon their conflicting policies and objectives and establish a common framework to deal with the Taliban.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/12/ ... neighbors/
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Taliban bans women from attending universities in Afghanistan
Girls in Afghanistan have already been barred from secondary schools. Since the Taliban took power last year, they have gradually limited the access of women and girls to public spaces
December 22, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch
![Image](https://peoplesdispatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/afghanistan-taliban-women-education.jpg)
(Photo: UNICE/Mohammad Haya Burhan via UN News)
On Tuesday, December 20, the Taliban government in Afghanistan barred all women in the country from attending any institution of higher education. The decision has led to angry reactions from Afghans and international rights organizations.
The official order, signed by the Taliban’s minister of higher education Neda Mohammad Nadeem on Tuesday, asked both public and private universities to “immediately implement the order of suspending the education of females until further notice.”
The decision provoked strong reactions from Afghans. A small number of women organized a protest in Kabul on Wednesday after the decision was made public. Taliban forces quickly dispersed the protesters. Several other protests were also organized around Afghanistan.
Reacting to the news, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric called this policy “another broken promise from the Taliban” and “another troubling move.” He said that the Taliban has been gradually “lessening the space for women not only in education but access to public areas, their non-participation in public debate.” Dujarric openly wondered “how a country can develop, can deal with all of the challenges that it has, without the active participation of women and the education of women.”
The UN secretary general António Guterres said he was “deeply alarmed” by the news, saying that the move violated women’s right to equality and would have a devastating impact on the country’s future.
The decision has also led to angry responses from other sections in Afghanistan, including male university students. Some male students have been boycotting their classes in protest on Wednesday.
Several Afghan women have taken to social media to condemn the decision, with some calling it self-destructive and suicidal.
Gradual erasure of women from public spaces
The ban comes as a new blow to women’s rights in Afghanistan after the Taliban government recently barred women from public parks, gyms, and public bathing places, and has ordered them to cover their faces when in public.
Girls in Afghanistan have already been barred from secondary schools. The Taliban government went back on its promises to reopen the schools in March this year. It had shut them immediately after taking control of the country in August 2021 but claimed that the closures were temporary, until the necessary logistical arrangements had been made.
Ever since the Taliban took control of the country in August 2021, women’s participation in universities has only been permitted with strict segregation. Women would have to sit separately from men and only women or older male professors were allowed to teach them.
Even before Tuesday’s ban on higher education, several universities in Afghanistan had barred women from attending classes, leading to protests.
The decision on Tuesday comes despite the fact that the government had allowed women to give university entrance exams just a few weeks earlier, albeit with limited options. This had raised hopes that university education for women might continue.
After assuming power for the second time last year, the Taliban had promised that it would respect women’s rights. It had also promised that restrictions related to education and jobs were temporary in nature. However, as Obaidullah Baheer, an assistant professor at the American University of Afghanistan, writes, “there is little reason to take Taliban at their word on the temporary nature of the bans.” Now that the Taliban has gone back on all the promises it made when it took power, he says that the people of Afghanistan must show that they stand against this decision.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/12/22/ ... ghanistan/
Several NGOs suspend work in Afghanistan following Taliban order banning female employees
The Taliban also banned women from attending universities and higher educational institutes last week, inviting widespread protests and condemnation
December 26, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch
![Image](https://peoplesdispatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Female-NGO-workers-banned-Afghanistan.jpg)
(Photo: WFP/ Massoud Hossaini )
A number of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in Afghanistan have announced the suspension of their work in the country after the Taliban government ordered them to fire their female employees or face consequences.
Three such organizations – Save the Children, Norwegian Refugee Council, and CARE International – issued a joint statement on Sunday, December 25, announcing the suspension of their work in Afghanistan, claiming that the nature of their work in the country made it impossible for them to continue without women workers.
“We cannot effectively reach children, women and men in desperate need in Afghanistan without our female staff… We are suspending our programmes, demanding that men and women can equally continue our lifesaving assistance” in the country, the statement read.
Another NGO, International Rescue Committee (IRC), working in Afghanistan since 1988, also announced suspension of its activities on Sunday. It claimed that it heavily depends on female employees to deliver its services and cannot function without them. It said that out of its approximately 8,000 Afghan employees, 3,000 are women.
Afghanaid, another NGO, also suspended its work saying that it was “forced” to do so following the government’s decision to disallow women employees. It demanded the “immediate revocation” of the decision.
The Taliban government, in a notice sent to all NGOs working in the country on Saturday, December 24, imposed an indefinite ban on women working in local and international NGOs. This is days after the Taliban banned women from attending universities. In its order, Taliban’s Ministry of Economy cited female employees’ “failure” to observe the dress code issued by the government for its decision. It said that those NGOs who refuse to comply with the order would face action and have their licenses canceled.
Global condemnation
Several other NGOs have issued statements raising concerns about the future of their work in Afghanistan. Various human rights groups have also issued condemnations of the decision. The UN called it a disturbing decision. Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson of UN General Secretary António Guterres, said that the decision will hamper humanitarian work in the country. “The effective delivery of humanitarian assistance requires full, safe and unhindered access for all aid workers, including women,” he said.
The UN humanitarian coordinator’s office issued a statement saying that the decision “would violate the most fundamental rights of women, as well as be a clear breach of humanitarian principle,” adding that it has sought a meeting with Afghan officials to seek further clarification on the matter.
According to the UN, over 90% of Afghanistan’s population of nearly 40 million lives in poverty, and around 28 million depend on humanitarian aid.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid called the criticisms “foreign interventions” in Afghanistan’s internal matters. He said that all institutions “wanting to operate in Afghanistan are obliged to comply with the rules and regulations of our country.”
The Taliban government issued a ban on women attending universities and higher educational institutions in the country last week on Tuesday, December 20. The decision has invited global condemnation and led to protests across the country, with male students also having been seen boycotting classes in solidarity with their female colleagues. The Taliban has not responded to the condemnations and protests so far.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/12/26/ ... employees/
The above Russian commentator nailed it, ' the Taliban's hostile acts towards women's rights is directly related to the US withholding billions in Afghani government assets and the suspension of ongoing aid. Perhaps self-defeating as it hands the US a big propaganda stick to beat them with but maybe to only course of action they can see other than capitulation.
In order for a less 'fundamentalist' faction to lead they have got to have something to show for 'concessions', which the US is denying them, thus allowing the US to continue to punish the Afghani people for their rejection of Uncle Sam's 'love'.
The US does not take rejection lightly and as we see in the cases of Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and Nicaragua will punish people's rejection of US dominion remorselessly for decades.