{"id":775243,"date":"2022-08-12T15:52:49","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T15:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=cbeae94c6eae7884eb1688ea7e3873ee"},"modified":"2022-08-12T15:52:49","modified_gmt":"2022-08-12T15:52:49","slug":"us-sanctions-worsen-afghanistans-humanitarian-crisis-as-taliban-targets-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/08\/12\/us-sanctions-worsen-afghanistans-humanitarian-crisis-as-taliban-targets-women\/","title":{"rendered":"US Sanctions Worsen Afghanistan\u2019s Humanitarian Crisis as Taliban Targets Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

One year after the Taliban seized power again in Afghanistan, we look at the new government\u2019s crackdown on women\u2019s rights while millions of Afghans go hungry. We speak to journalist Matthieu Aikins, who visited the capital Kabul for the first time since the U.S. evacuation one year ago. He writes the country is being \u201ckept on humanitarian life support\u201d in his recent article for The New York Times Magazine<\/em>. The Biden administration\u2019s economic sanctions are causing Afghanistan to spiral into a financial crisis, making the U.S. \u201cat once both the largest funder of humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan and one of the main causes of the humanitarian crisis with these sanctions,\u201d says Aikins.<\/em><\/p>\n

TRANSCRIPT<\/h2>\n

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Monday will mark one year since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan as the U.S. withdrew troops nearly two decades after the 2001 U.S. invasion. Afghanistan today is facing what the United Nations says is the world\u2019s largest humanitarian disaster, with more than half the country\u2019s residents facing starvation. Meanwhile, the Taliban continues to crack down on human rights and has barred girls from attending high school for the past year. The Taliban is also facing accusations of harboring leaders of al-Qaeda. Last week, the United States announced it had killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in downtown Kabul. This all comes as Afghanistan is facing a dire economic crisis, in part because the Biden administration seized $7 billion of Afghanistan foreign reserves held in U.S. banks.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re joined now by the award-winning reporter Matthieu Aikins, who has reported on Afghanistan since 2008. He was in Kabul last year when the city fell to the Taliban, and he returned to Afghanistan in May to report on current conditions. He\u2019s just written a piece<\/a> for The New York Times Magazine<\/em> titled \u201cThe Taliban\u2019s Dangerous Collision Course With the West.\u201d Earlier this year, Matt Aikins published his first book, The Naked Don\u2019t Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Matt Aikins, welcome back to Democracy Now!<\/em> Why don\u2019t you lay out your findings as we mark this first year of Afghanistan\u2019s fall to the Taliban?<\/p>\n

MATTHIEU<\/span> AIKINS<\/span>:<\/strong> Well, hi, Amy. Thanks for having me, as always.<\/p>\n

I went back in order to understand what had happened during the Taliban\u2019s first year in power. And as you recall, the girls\u2019 school issue was really a litmus test for whether they had changed, whether they would govern differently this time than they did during their first government in the ’90s, where they didn’t allow women to be educated. And they did allow girls to go back to elementary schools, to universities, but they hadn\u2019t opened girls\u2019 public high schools yet. They had promised to do so. They said it was just temporary. And this was going to happen on March 23rd, which was the first day of class for Afghan schools. And the girls went to school. They were filmed going to class, because this was supposed to be a hopeful day. And then word came out that day that, no, the schools wouldn\u2019t open. The girls were sent home crying. It was an embarrassing debacle for the government. And I remember at the time not just being \u2014 not only being very disappointed and heartbroken, but baffled. Why would the Taliban change their mind at the last minute like this? So that\u2019s what I went back to find out.<\/p>\n

And in my interviews and meetings with Taliban officials in Kabul, including at the Education Ministry, what I actually discovered was that many of them had been in favor of reopening the girls\u2019 schools. They saw it, you know, as something that was very much in their interest, not least because the international community was spending billions of dollars to avert humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan. So they had prepared a plan to reopen the schools, but at the last minute word came from Kandahar that the schools would not reopen, because it turned out that it wasn\u2019t really up to the officials in Kabul. The true power in the movement lies in Kandahar with the supreme leader and the Leadership Council.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> So, who really controls what\u2019s happening in Afghanistan within the Taliban?<\/p>\n

MATTHIEU<\/span> AIKINS<\/span>:<\/strong> Well, you know, it\u2019s really interesting how mysterious and opaque some of this decision-making is. Even some of the senior Taliban officials that I spoke to admitted to me in private that they weren\u2019t fully sure how these decisions were being made or what exactly the role of the supreme leader, Sheikh Hibatullah, was.<\/p>\n

But, in essence, to understand how power works in the Taliban, you have to look back at the first government in the \u201990s, when you had sort of two governments. You had the formal cabinet in Kabul, and then you had another government led by the \u2014 then the supreme leader, Mullah Omar, who never left Kandahar, who stayed in Kandahar and governed with a close council, or shura, of other senior Taliban leaders, a kind of shadow government. Now, that became the leadership of the insurgency for the last 20 years when they went underground in Pakistan, became known as the Quetta Shura. And then, after the Taliban suddenly seized power last summer, which is something that surprised even them, that government became grafted onto the current Kabul administration.<\/p>\n

So, you have the supreme leader in Kandahar. You have a small group around him that operates based on consensus. And some of the hard-liners in that group, who are opposed to reopening girls\u2019 schools, essentially were able to block what much of the officials in Kabul, including some of the deputies, like Siraj Haqqani, Mullah Yaqoob, the defense minister \u2014 they were in favor of reopening girls\u2019 schools, but the hard-liners, in essence, blocked it.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Talk about Afghanistan overall, Kabul and the more rural areas, and what this divide looks like, how it\u2019s playing out. And then we\u2019ll get into this humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, perhaps the worst in the world, as so much of the country faces hunger.<\/p>\n

MATTHIEU<\/span> AIKINS<\/span>:<\/strong> So, the Taliban, again, in their first government in the ’90s, they were really trying to bring back this idea of the virtuous village lifestyle. This was a time of chaos and corruption in the civil war. And in these rural villages, which are very conservative, particularly in the south, in Pashtun areas, women don’t really leave the house. It\u2019s a very strictly gender-segregated society. And this is the model that they tried to impose across Afghan society as a whole in the \u201990s with a lot of repression and brutality.<\/p>\n

And today there\u2019s a battle playing out within the movement over whether that vision still holds. And the fact of the matter is that even if the Taliban haven\u2019t changed, Afghan society has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. You know, millions of girls have gone to school and been educated. Their families have seen the benefits of that education. And some of the more pragmatic Taliban that I spoke to in Kabul, they really understand that that reality has changed, and they are trying to adapt, as well. They have their own strict Islamist vision, but they see that girls can go to school, they can go to the office, as long as they\u2019re veiled, as long as they\u2019re separated from men.<\/p>\n

So, that is essentially the tension between, you could say, the city and the countryside that\u2019s playing out within the Taliban movement itself. And unfortunately, for now, we see the hard-liners have won. But it is important to remember that there is, you know, these internal dynamics within the movement, that hopefully could lead to more reform in the future.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> According to the United Nations, nearly 1.1 million Afghan children under the age of 5 are expected to experience severe malnutrition this year. This is Melanie Galvin, the chief of nutrition at UNICEF<\/span>, speaking in Kabul.<\/p>\n

\n

MELANIE<\/span> GALVIN<\/span>:<\/strong> I think we need \u2014 in the longer term, we\u2019re still going to need a great deal of funding to just treat these children. In 2023, I will have a problem \u2014 I will have a gap in supply, for example, if there isn\u2019t additional resources that come into the country. So, we\u2019ve done everything we can with the donations we\u2019ve had, and we\u2019re so grateful for them, but this need will continue. It\u2019s not going to stop.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> So, according to the U.N., half the population faces hunger. Talk about the resources the Taliban have access to \u2014 for example, the U.S. freezing billions of dollars of Afghan money, and what that means, how that plays out in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

MATTHIEU<\/span> AIKINS<\/span>:<\/strong> Sure. Well, I think it\u2019s important to understand that even though the U.S. and its allies spent more than $100 billion on development aid in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, it remained one of the poorest and most aid-dependent countries in the world. And that was, in part, due to all the corruption that flourished with this uncontrolled spending, much of it by contractors.<\/p>\n

And so, when that aid was suddenly cut off after the Taliban seized power last August, it had the predictable consequence of causing an economic collapse. Government salaries are going unpaid \u2014 teachers, medical workers. So the country is now facing a dire economic crisis. It\u2019s being kept on humanitarian life support by a massive humanitarian surge. There\u2019s now more aid workers working for these agencies in Afghanistan today than there was before the collapse of the government last August, the withdrawal of U.S. forces. And that means that the U.S. and its allies are actually funding these humanitarian efforts. They\u2019re cooperating with the Taliban.<\/p>\n

But, of course, the U.S. did also seize the Afghan bank assets that were held in the U.S., $7 billion, and they\u2019ve earmarked half of that for victims of 9\/11, their families. Now, that puts the U.S. in a funny position, because it is at once both the largest funder of humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan and one of the main causes of the humanitarian crisis with these sanctions.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> So, what is the U.S. doing with that money?<\/p>\n

MATTHIEU<\/span> AIKINS<\/span>:<\/strong> Right now it\u2019s on ice. And there is talk about returning the other $3.5 billion to the Afghan \u2014 you know, to Afghans. Now, they haven\u2019t \u2014 they\u2019re not going to give it to the Taliban, but they\u2019re in negotiations right now to set up maybe some sort of trust fund, or something like that, that could be used to recapitalize the financial sector.<\/p>\n

But one of the big problems facing Afghanistan today is that its economy is paralyzed by these sanctions, and a lot of other knock-on effects. You know, other banks don\u2019t want to do business with Afghan banks because of some very genuine concerns, for example, over terrorism and money laundering. But what that means, in essence, is that the Afghan economy isn\u2019t able to stand on its own feet. It\u2019s dependent right now on external aid. The U.N. is actually flying in pallets of $100 bills, more than a billion dollars to date that they\u2019re flying into Kabul, and that\u2019s essentially keeping the economy on life support.<\/p>\n

But, you know, one of the interesting things that I realized after this last year since the collapse of the republic is that, in a sense, for the U.S. and its allies, the crisis in Afghanistan has been contained somewhat. You know, it\u2019s been contained through this massive humanitarian surge through these agencies that are cleaning up after political messes, not just in Afghanistan but in places like Somalia or Yemen. It\u2019s feeding Afghans hand to mouth. The migration flows of refugees to Europe have been contained by all the border walls that have helped cage Afghans inside their country. So, even despite the massive suffering in Afghanistan, I think that there\u2019s a sense it\u2019s been contained. And in a strange way, the Taliban have played a stabilizing role in that. And I think there\u2019s been, actually, a normalization of the relationships with a lot of countries in the region, who see the Taliban as possibly just keeping a lid on things in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Talk about the U.S. drone killing of Zawahiri \u2014 were you surprised by this, the killing of the al-Qaeda leader? \u2014 and the fact that he was in a house owned by Haqqani, and what that means.<\/p>\n

MATTHIEU<\/span> AIKINS<\/span>:<\/strong> Yeah. I mean, I used to go jogging, basically, right by that street every morning when I was in Kabul \u2014 the mornings I got up early enough, anyways. And so it\u2019s right in the middle of the city. And it was surprising to see the drone strike there, in a house that used to be rented by USAID<\/span> contractors, actually, and in area that was occupied by warlords after 2001.<\/p>\n

But this really does show the limits of that containment strategy that I just spoke about. And the fact of the matter is that if Afghanistan again becomes a threat to its neighbors, as it did in the \u201990s because of groups like al-Qaeda, then you could see a, you know, intervention on the side of the armed resistance to the Taliban that could spark a new cycle of the civil war.<\/p>\n

But at the same time, I do think that it\u2019s important to remember that these groups have a long-standing relation with the Taliban. They got closer, actually, when they jointly resisted the U.S. occupation over the last 20 years. And so, the Taliban are in kind of a tricky place, where they can\u2019t reject these groups, but they can\u2019t send them elsewhere, obviously. So, it\u2019s possible that by keeping al-Zawahiri in Kabul, it was a way of keeping him under supervision. But we really don\u2019t know the details. I was told by a senior U.S. official that, according to their information, much of the Taliban leadership was actually unaware that al-Zawahiri was in Kabul, and that it was the work of a faction connected to Haqqani, the Interior Ministry, in sheltering him.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Again, al-Haqqani is the interior minister.<\/p>\n

MATTHIEU<\/span> AIKINS<\/span>:<\/strong> That\u2019s right, yeah, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is, you know, long been held to be one of the fiercest opponents of the U.S., was responsible for many attacks, is designated as a terrorist by the FBI<\/span>, has a bounty on his head \u2014 and also happens to be one of the most socially, quote-unquote, \u201cprogressive\u201d of the Taliban. He and the group around him who occupy many ministries in Kabul have been some of the most vocal proponents of letting the girls go back to school, have helped out a lot of aid agencies, and they\u2019ve had trouble with other elements of the Taliban over their female workers. So, it just shows the very difficult contradictions that play in the country and, I think, the need for understanding better the dynamics there.<\/p>\n

MATTHIEU<\/span> AIKINS<\/span>:<\/strong> Yeah, so, that\u2019s the irony, in essence. Because they only need women to deal with women, they need women doctors, which means you need women teachers. And so, there will always be this core of educated Afghan women. Even in the \u201990s, the Taliban allowed doctors, female doctors, to continue working in some areas.<\/p>\n

So, today you have women working \u2014 you have a lot of women working in Afghanistan. I thought that was important to show. I went to this hospital which is being supported by the Red Cross, the ICRC<\/span>, and I met these women doctors who are doing heroic, lifesaving work. They\u2019re helping women who are coming in now from more distant rural areas because there\u2019s peace in Afghanistan, at least. There is security on the roads, and so women are coming in in really rough condition from places where they would have just died at home. They\u2019re saving their lives. These women are working hard.<\/p>\n

But the fact of the matter is, is if you don\u2019t allow girls to go back to high school, then you\u2019re not going to have girls in university, you\u2019re not going to have girls in medical school school, and eventually this pipeline of Afghanistan\u2019s nurses and doctors, women doctors, is going to run out. And so, that\u2019s really, I think, the most compelling reason. It\u2019s not for international aid or Western approval that the Taliban should allow girls to go back to school; it\u2019s for the own country\u2019s interest. It\u2019s for the sake of their own daughters.<\/p>\n

And I think that there are some people in the Taliban who understand that. They\u2019ve been blocked by the hard-liners. But we can only hope that, especially with internal pressure from the many Afghans who are speaking up in favor of women\u2019s rights, that they will see the light and allow the girls to go back to school.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Finally, Matthieu Aikins, 20 years \u2014 more than 20 years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, they left, and left it, would you say, in worse shape than the U.S., when they invaded Afghanistan? And how do Afghans feel about this?<\/p>\n

MATTHIEU<\/span> AIKINS<\/span>:<\/strong> Look, I think it\u2019s unfair to say that it\u2019s in worse shape than it was in 2001, when the country was ravaged, destroyed, impoverished. There have been a lot of gains over the last 20 years. Afghans have rebuilt their country themselves. But it came at such a high price in terms of bloodshed and suffering, the damage that the war did to the fabric of society, the refugees.<\/p>\n

So, the fact of the matter is that today Afghanistan is again in crisis, but we don\u2019t have the same tools to deal with it. And we\u2019re not occupying it anymore militarily. Afghan girls are no longer the poster children for our war there. And there\u2019s a limit to what we can accomplish, but I don\u2019t think that means that our obligation to the country has disappeared. I think that we still need to keep the spotlight on Afghanistan. We still need to do all that we can to support Afghans outside the country and especially inside the country, who are still struggling. And that includes the girls who want to go to high school. And so, we absolutely need to keep our relationship alive with this country.<\/p>\n

AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Matthieu Aikins, contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine<\/em>, author of The Naked Don\u2019t Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees<\/em>. We\u2019ll link to your new article<\/a>, \u201cThe Taliban\u2019s Dangerous Collision Course With the West.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming up, a jury in California has convicted a former Twitter worker of spying for Saudi Arabia by providing the kingdom private information about Saudi dissidents. We\u2019ll speak with the sister of an imprisoned Saudi man who was tortured and jailed for running a satirical Twitter account. It was anonymous. Stay with us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Finally, you spend a good amount of time in your piece<\/a> highlighting maternal healthcare. The Taliban has a contradiction, because, on the one hand, many in the leadership, a number, don\u2019t want girls and women educated, but they only allow women doctors and nurses to deal with women in maternity hospitals. Talk about this.<\/p>\n