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24-10-2021
By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies
DUBAI /KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan will shortly collapse into chaos unless the international community acts rapidly, Pakistani and Swedish ministers warned on Saturday.
Afghanistan plunged into crisis after the Taliban drove out the Western-backed government in August triggering the abrupt end of billions of dollars in assistance to its aid-dependent economy.
Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry told Reuters that direct engagement with the Taliban was the only way to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, and called for billions of dollars of Afghan assets frozen overseas to be released.
“Are we going to push Afghanistan into chaos or are we going to try and stabilise the country?” he said in Dubai.
Engagement would also encourage the protection of human rights and the establishment of an inclusive, constitutional government, he said.
Swedish development minister Per Olsson Fridh echoed the sentiment, but cautioned against release of money to the Taliban.
“The country is on the brink of collapse and that collapse is coming faster than we thought,” he told Reuters in Dubai.
He said economic freefall could provide an environment for terrorist groups to thrive, but that Sweden would not channel money through the Taliban, instead boosting its humanitarian contributions through Afghan civil society groups.
Many countries and multilateral institutions have halted development assistance but increased humanitarian aid since August, reluctant to legitimize the new Taliban rulers.
Sweden’s Fridh said the Taliban had so far failed to prove they had shed the oppressive policies that marked their previous period in power from 1996-2001.
He also said conditions were not right for European countries to reopen embassies in Kabul. Instead, more diplomatic activity would take place in Qatar, an important interlocutor between the West and the Taliban.
Fridh met Qatari officials in the capital Doha this week but Chaudhry said it was time the United States, China and other major powers set out a framework for formal recognition of Afghanistan’s new rulers and for the removal of United Nations sanctions on Taliban members, including some members of the new government.
This, together with direct economic assistance, was the only way to avert instability, he said, adding: “The watch on this bomb is already clicking.”
A number of officials of the former government along with mujahideen leaders recently announced the formation of a new political movement called the “High Council of National Resistance of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan,” which sparked reactions from the Islamic Emirate.
Abdulrab Rasul Sayyaf, a Jihadi leader, and Atta Mohammad Noor, leader of the splinter faction of Jamiat-e-Islami, announced on Facebook the formation of a new political movement, saying it consists of a number of political mainstream groups in the country.
The new movement in a statement insisted on reaching an agreement with the Islamic Emirate via dialogue, but it warned that if the Islamic Emirate does not talk with them, they will take up weapons.
Islamic Emirate spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, reacting to the new movement, said no one can threaten the people of Afghanistan in the name of resistance or anything else.
“No longer is there a need for making fronts. Anyone who establishes a front will not gain good results,” he said.
“It would be better for the Islamic Emirate to pave the way for all its political opponents to come inside the country and share their views,” said Sayed Ishaq Gailani, leader of the National Solidarity Movement of Afghanistan.
The new council was formed under the leadership of Sayyaf, although it is not known in which countries the members of the council are living.
Meanwhile, poverty, unemployment and sever economic problems in different areas in Afghanistan have led the child marriages and a number of families are letting their underage girls marry middle-aged men in exchange for money, weapon or livestock Raha Press reported.
Some shocking stories have come to light where families have sold their one-year old daughters for money, livestock weapons, report said.
The buying and selling rate of an underage girl is usually between 100,000 and 250,000 Afghanis in the Ghor province.
According to the report, such incidents occur more in the remote districts of the province than in the national capital.
Buying and selling of girls or child marriage in exchange for money common before, but after the fall of Afghanistan government and the ensuing economic turmoil, more families are forced to take this route.
Habiba Jamshedi, a woman’s rights activist in the west of the country said women from half of the society’s population and they should not be treated inhumanely or in a non-Islamic manner.
Jamshedi said that families that are ignorant about girls and women’s statutes, abuse them.
Jamshedi emphasized that one of the reasons of child marriage is the lack of proper awareness of the role and position of women, the report said.
Taliban officials in Ghor province refused to comment on the issue.
It is further mentioned here for our readers’ record that PMI and Messenger have already been reporting regarding the early and underage marriages, purchasing and selling of boys and girls, exchange of money and weapon in the name of jihad and forced marriages and buying and selling of underage and young girls and boys by Taliban in Pakistan during last three decades but neither Taliban or other jihadis feel it bad nor the present or former governments or rulers took any action against Taliban yet while, majority of the parliamentarians, politicians, religious scholars can’t speak, resist, or comment on it just because of the their personal benefits or vote bank and strongest feudalism system of the country.
