The heart-breaking attack on Ukraine by Russian troops has distracted our attention from the tragic misrule (or failure to properly rule) of the Taliban in Afghanistan. An Afghan official I worked with over the last twenty years, who was able to leave Kabul on one of those final fights at the end of August 2021, sent me the following report on conditions in Kabul. I am not revealing his name for his safety and the safety of his family.
“The economy is getting worse day by day, businesses facing many problems, shopkeepers complain less sales, poor people hardly find one time meal, hunger is increasing, at DAB [the central bank], the payment system has been stopped, APS, FID and many other depts are paralyzed, they haven’t managed to print new banknotes, girls’ high school still closed, bomb blasts occurred in many mosques recently during Holy Month of Ramadan and only poor civilians killed, and many more problems.
God help people of Afghanistan.“
Indeed. Over the last twenty years Afghanistan gradually developed and strengthened its institutions of government. After toppling the elected government of Afghanistan, my hope, and the hope of the West, was that the Taliban would form an inclusive government that would build on that progress. It hasn’t happened. The new Taliban “government” has not even been able to solidify itself. If it fails, Afghanistan will suffer another (or continuing) civil war. “Nation building in Afghanistan”
The former Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan, William Crosbie, commented that: “Hope is certainly receding that the TB will work towards a political settlement to make its military takeover a lasting peace. Our argument to those neighbouring countries and non-Western partners (e.g. China) has been that the TB regime is not sustainable as a Pashtun, TB clique relying on fear. Quite apart from the economic devastation of a non-functioning government and private sector, the ethnic and tribal rivalries and other extremist groups will resort to the tactics that the TB used so effectively. And they will prove just as destructive.”
God help the good people of Afghanistan.
Warren's space 