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The sequence lasts barely a minute. In apacked Kabul stadium, a woman in ablue burka, the suffocating headgear

imposed on women under Taliban rule, isforced from a car and made to kneel on thegrass. An militant approaches her with anautomatic weapon and shoots her in theback of the neck. He then kicks her lifelessbody. At first, both the BBC and CNNrefused to air footage of the 1999 murder ofthe woman named Zarmeena, a mother ofseven children charged with murdering herhusband in his sleep. It was considered “tooviolent.” The Taliban extremists in thestadium couldn’t have imagined the irony oftheir dress code. A woman determined toexpose their cruelty risked her life byfilming Zarmeena’s last moments. She’dhidden a video camera under her clothing.The woman belonged to the

Revolutionary Association of the Women ofAfghanistan (RAWA), whose members are

For 30 years, a revolutionary organization of Afghan women has resisted

the Soviets, the Northern Alliance, mujahideen and religious extremists

it claims still control the country. In a long interview, Maryam Rawi

denounces endemic rape, murder, corruption, U.S. complicity and

describes nation on the brink

RAWA: Rage Behindthe Burka

by Alessandra GarusiAFGHANISTAN

Members of RAWA are completely covered during press

conferences to avoid reprisals. Its founder was killed.

On the streets of Kabul, women are shielded from the

outside world.

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hardly new to such exploits. Since 1977,they have used film, stills and interviews todocument human rights violations inAfghanistan, including public amputations,stoning and summary executions by firingsquad. “Like Amnesty International andHuman Rights Watch, we patientlyaccumulate reams of witness statements inhopes of one day bringing the peopleresponsible for crimes to justice,” saysMaryam Rawi, a spokesperson for the group.“That a criminal such as [warlord FaryadiSarwar] Zardad was prosecuted in Britain in2004 thanks to our efforts gives us strength.”RAWA, she says, “is writing Afghan history.”Alessandra Garusi spoke to Rawi.

There are troops from more than 37 nationsin Afghanistan. How do you explain the lackof security?The West isn’t serious in its fight against

religious extremism. It’s playing adangerous game in Afghanistan. On the onehand, it’s done little more than replace theTaliban with the Northern Alliance, which isalso an extremist force; on the other, itdoesn’t want to exterminate what’s left ofthe Taliban. Given the advanced weaponryin the hands of the United States it would

take only a few days to close out the Taliban.But they need a reason to stay in Afghanistan,and there’s no better justification that “the waron terrorism.” In fact, what this is all about is awar to ensure the U.S. maintains economic,strategic and political control of Afghanistanand the region as a whole.

Mike Scheuer, the former CIA officials whoheaded the hunt for Osama bin Laden at thebeginning of the Afghan campaign, recentlylabeled the war “a terrible disaster for the U.S.and NATO.” Do you agree with his assessment?The United States and NATO agree that

only 30 percent of Afghanistan is under thecontrol of Prime Minister Hamid Karzai’sgovernment. The rest is out of their hands. Atthe same time, however, they say they don’twant to change their strategic approach, atleast for now. It’s the same game I alluded tobefore. They bemoan failures while at the sametime negotiating with the guerillas. Recentnews came out that the British governmentactually helped Taliban forces in the Heratprovince, and that they’re operating similarlyin other regions. Either they finally reach adeal or the fighting will continue. But, and Isay it again, it’s a dishonest fight. There’s nointerest in disarming.

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Is it true that 65 percent of the country’sparliamentarians are former warlords withIslamic tendencies, people that once foughtthe Soviets?The 65 percent figure is much too low.

That’s the number given by internationalhuman rights organizations. They agree thatfrom the start extremist religious leadersdominated the Afghan Parliament. If they’renot all warlords, they are most definitelypeople who were involved in thecommission of atrocities between 1992 and1996; they’re men who did, and do, thebidding of the extremists, and who are stillsupported by them both financially andmilitarily. That’s the reason you can saywithout hesitation that the majority of theKabul Parliament is composed of religiousextremists or pro-extremists.

They control the army, including thepolice and the secret services. Theyunderstand how to consolidate theirposition within Afghan society. In essence,they’re free to do whatever they please;commit any kind of abuse. It doesn’t matterthat this government lacks public consensusand that it doesn’t reflect the realities ofAfghan society.

In 2007, the Afghan Parliament approved alaw on national reconciliation. What wereits worst consequences?A free pass for such people as Khalili,

Sayyaf, Rabbani, Fahim, Muhaqiq, Qanoni,Ranjbar, and Mullah Rokitee. These peopleand their accomplices were behind thedestruction of Kabul between 1992 and1996, and later on. Their hands are stained

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with rapes, murders, sackings, kidnappingsand torture. Thanks to the nationalreconciliation law they are immune fromprosecution. RAWA has massive dossiers onthese people, including witness testimony.But it’s all too late.Granted, if such a law had been enacted by

an honest and representative government itmight have been seen as a positive event. Butthe Afghan Parliament is anything but honestor representative. All the laws it passes areintended to tend to its own interests andmaintain the power of the governing elite.That’s why most people opposed the idea

of national reconciliation. Not because itwants an endless continuation of thefighting but because the country is led inessence by very powerful military criminalsthat can strike them down anywhere and atany time. In many Afghan regions, themilitias led by warlords (editor’s note:warlords represented in parliament) oftenfind themselves in skirmishes. It’s thecivilians that always pay the price, of course.

In April 2008, a parliamentarycommission formulated a law that harkedback to Taliban rule. One of the articlesreads: “Young women are obliged not touse makeup, to wear appropriate clothing,and to wear veils at work and in school.”Has the law passed, and if not do youthink it will in the end?No. It hasn’t passed yet.

We don’t know what will happen with it.That’s why on the one hand I say it’s aparliament composed of religiousextremists that wants to show a progressiveface to the international community.Maybe the proposed law is a shot across thebows. Something like, “This could be a lawsoon, so you’d better start wearing burkasand stop going to school; it would also be agood idea if media and TV went lowprofile.” Whatever happens with the law,the extremist spirit seems determined tocontinue, if not in Kabul then certainly inthe provinces. In some of them, laws of thiskind are already the norm.

AFGHANISTAN

RAWA: Profile of Women’s Resistance

RAWA (Revolutionary Association of Women ofAfghanistan) is an independent social and politicalorganization dedicated to ensuring human rights andjustice for local women. Kabul-born poet Meenafounded RAWA in Kabul in 1977. She wasassassinated in February 1987 in Quetta, Pakistanwhere she’d traveled to inaugurate the MalalaiHospital for women (since closed due to lack of

funding). Her murder, at age 31, was tied to the Khad,the Afghan KGB and a radical extremist Afghan exilefaction (Hezb-e-Islam) led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.Despite an oppressive political environment, RAWAhas effectively worked for more than 30 years in manyphases of social life, particularly education. It set upand held landmark underground elementary schoolcourses in villages. It has also assisted in health care,promoted egalitarian political causes and assistedjournalists in investigative reports.In 1981 it founded the bilingual magazine Payam-e-Zan (“Woman’s Message”), which comes out inUrdu, for ethnic Pashtuns, and English. Membersbased in the West work to keep the organization’sWebsite (www.rawa.org) updated. It continues todisplay footage of Zarmeena’s horrific 1999 death,as well as other information relevant to women andAfghan rights.For security reasons, the organization has no office inKabul. In Pakistan, it often takes no credit for eventsit has organized to reduce ongoing threats fromIslamic radical groups. In meetings with reporters,members of the organization release on their givennames, often pseudonyms.

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Why would the United States back agovernment composed of former warlords?Didn’t they know what they were up against?Of course they knew (laughs). The truth

about these people goes back a long way.The Americans just don’t care if they’redealing with war criminals that areresponsible for massive human rightsviolations. What they do care about is thattheir strategic interests are protected andthat the people that matter work for them.If the Taliban hadn’t in effect eluded U.S.control, at least up to a point, America mostlikely would have backed them indefinitely,considering them a valuable ally in astrategic place. Even though the situationwas getting worse by the day.The question that hasn’t been answered

is another: If the United States reallyopposed terrorism, if it really wanteddemocracy and the rule of law, and so on,why didn’t it do anything during the 10long years in which Afghanistan sufferedunder extremist Taliban rule? I don’tconsider it impossible that a Taliban-oriented group would run in the nextelection and actually make it intogovernment. The United States and theWest don’t care about the true identity ofthose running for office.

What precisely is the U.S. role in today’sAfghanistan?The United States has strategic interests in

Afghanistan. That’s the reason they stay. It’sclear thatWashington doesn’t put a premiumeither on democracy or human rights. In anycase we don’t believe these values can be“donated” by another nation. It’s the Afghanpeople that have to fight to obtain them. Thewar against religious extremism, poverty,ignorance, and in favor or education, that’sour war to fight. But the U.S. continues to say,“In the last six or seven years everything haschanged in Afghanistan: Now women canwalk unhindered, free of dress codes in thestreets, there are political parties, free media,etc. It’s unadulterated propaganda.The fact is that suicide bombings by Taliban

forces are rising, just as NATO attacks withcivilian casualties are also up. The economy isin tatters.Work has become a mirage. Cases ofviolence against women are growing. But noneof these daily problems are dealt with byAmerican troops. They’re involved only in the“war on terror.” From the start, RAWAasserted that the “war on terror” couldn’t belimited to a military campaign. It had to be aportion of a concerted effort to reinforce thebasis of democracy. That’s the best way ofgetting rid of terrorism once and for all.

RAWA: RAGE BEHIND THE BURKA

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Does the leadership of Iranian PresidentMamoud Ahmadinejad have an impact onAfghanistan?Very much so. Tehran backs our

intellectuals and has made important inroadsinto the media. In the last three decades, bothIran and Pakistan have heavily weight onAfghan internal affairs. The Hizb-I Wahdat-I Islami-yi Afghanistan Party (Islamic UnityParty of Afghanistan) has close tied withIran, both financially and militarily.We’ve also noticed that large sections of

the Afghan intelligentsia have studied at theUniversity of Tehran and have receivedpolitical and financial assistance. Thoughthey may live in Kabul, they’re still indebtedto and favor the policies of their sponsors. It’sas if the same religious radicalism thatcharacterizes the Iranian regime were beingimported into Afghanistan and was graduallyworming its way into society as a whole.It’s difficult to explain what’s happening,

but here’s an example. The Farsi languagespoken in Afghanistan is markedly different

from Iranian Farsi. Unlike the Iranians, wehave many words of Pashtun origin. Thatsaid, many Afghan intellectuals would liketo take the Iranian linguistic style, cultureand tone and transfer it wholesale toAfghanistan. Most people resist this becausethey know means more than just a changein vocabulary. Behind it is the power of theTehran regime pressing on local politicalparties, on the Karzai government, and onall intellectual life. The Iranian regimealready owns many Afghan papers,magazines, educational centers, and so on:They’re all backed by Iranian money.

What’s your view of the attack on PresidentKarzai last April? Why did it happen in frontof so many people?The occasion was the celebration of the so-

called liberation, which is to say theMujahideen advance into Kabul on April 28,1992. That was perhaps the darkest time inour history. People suffered terribly. Atrocitiesand crimes of every kind were committed. Inany event, from time to time the anniversarydate is still cheered as some kind of a“national independence day” or “birth of theIslamic government in Afghanistan day.”Different names have been given to the day. Itprovides a platform for all the radical religious

Hijab-clad women are the norm in the streets of all Afghan cities

aside from Kabul, where there is a foreign population. RAWA

says legislation liberalizing respect for women is regressing.

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parties that spent four years fighting oneanother (1992-1996). Though they still havedifferences of opinion, they’re now moreunited than ever. Their mentality and politicsare the same: all of it based on religiousextremism. But they have different foreignbenefactors, which means they still fight. Eachone has a strong ethnic component. That’sanother feature that separates them.From the Taliban perspective, the attack on

Karzai was little more than a show of force.As if to say, “We could hit Karzai at any timeand at any place.” I don’t think they wanted tokill him, just to demonstrate his vulnerability.Almost immediately the names of theattackers came out and they were killed. Thename of the others who died, includingcivilians, never saw the light of day. Thepeople learned a less: the Karzai governmentis incapable of acting independently.

In 1992, when the Pashtun grand council(Loya Jirga) picked Karzai as the interimpresident he was a popular figure. Thesame was the case in October andNovember of 2004 when he was electedpresident with 55 percent of the vote. Doeshe stand a chance for re-election in 2009?

His popularity is vastly diminished,that’s the first point. But it’s not up to us toguess at the result of the coming elections.The last elections showed us that the vote inAfghanistan is pre-arranged. It’s set up to goas it goes by the United States. According tosome reports, the former U.S. ambassador toIraq, Zalmai Khalilzad, who also holdsAfghan nationality, could be among thecandidates. If he is a candidate, he stands agood chance of winning.The second point is that the people will no

longer back Karzai. He’s been unable to keephis electoral promises: improved security,increased employment, a greater availabilityof produce. Most statistics suggest thesituation in Afghanistan has deterioratedfrom every point of view and continues toworsen. The reconstruction effort —millionsof dollars were spent in Afghanistan — hasstalled; the government is among the mostcorrupt on the planet; it controls nothing.A few years ago the people “wanted,” if

you will, to back Karzai, to believe in him; nolonger. In any event, I repeat that electionshere can be neither free nor honest. They willalways face extreme pressure. It’s as if somemajor play was always being enacted.

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Bearing in mind all that you’ve said, what’sthe situation of Afghan women. Do they stillwear burkas?That depends. Village life is profoundly

different from life in Kabul. While the burkais less prevalent in the capital, in the rest ofthe country, women still prefer to use it.They feel more protected. Rapes andkidnappings, which remain commonplace, nolonger even make headlines. Last April theson of a member of parliament raped a 14-year-old girl. Her response to what hadhappened? “I’m poor, I have no means, Iexpect no justice.” The youth was released afew days after the rape, very likely withoutfacing charges.The judicial system works on behalf of

the extremists that form the government.Which means, as a natural consequence, thatcrimes against women go mostlyunpunished. Only eight percent of thewomen in the provinces — not Kabul —

ever go to high school. For security reasonsmost families don’t feel comfortable lettingthem out of their sight.American propaganda relentlessly insists

that the condition of women in the countryhas improved over the last six or sevenyears. They cite new schools and otherpositive factors. But if you dig deeper yousee that isn’t quite the case. Yes, new schoolswere built, and inaugurated with pomp andcircumstance, but there are no desks, chairs,reading material, teachers. In April Kabulwas paralyzed by a teachers strike. Theyhadn’t received paychecks for months.Paychecks, I might add, that amount to €50a month. They unfurled slogans that read:“We also have to live…We have families tosupport.” The government replied by sayingthat the delay was a result of pay hikes theywere proposing. A farce.

Is it true that suicides are up inAfghanistan? Are there any reliable figures?No. There are no statistics. All we do

know is that suicides among women are onthe rise. In Kandahar province, where suicidewas never an issue, we’re been told of cases.It’s becoming a more regular occurrence.

RAWA alleges that most members of the Aghan

parliament maintain ties with the ousted Taliban.

It considers Karzai a foreign puppet.

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The hospitals in Herat province, forexample, say they receive three or fourcomplaints daily, usually women with burnsor other signs of self-inflicted wounds. Fewof these cases are ever reported in the media.Even when the issue is one of domesticabuse, the husband’s family does everythingin its power to stop the information fromgetting out.

RAWA was created in 1977. What wouldyou say are your greatest satisfactions overthat time?That we’ve been able to reach some of

our goals despite extremely modest funding.Obviously we’re still in no position toundertake majestic projects. We get nofunding from the government orinternational organizations.What we dowe’re able to do thanks to private donations.But we have support groups all over theworld. Our Website (www.rawa.org) is nowavailable in many languages and is regularlylooked at by people interested in thecountry.We’re able to get information andphotos out well ahead of most.

Do you think some of the material you’vegathered concerning killings and torture couldbe used at a war crime’s trial in the future?That’s part of what RAWA is all about:

To bring criminals to justice. Internationalhuman rights organizations have alreadygathered proof against some of the worst

offenders. Whether the material is ever useddepends on the big powers, such as Britainand the United States. Will they actuallyallow some of the people to face aninternational tribunal? If they don’t,everything will take much longer. We’re nottalking about the (relatively) few criminalswho are actually in the government now,but what happened over a period of 30years, from three different periods: theTaliban era, the Northern Alliance era, andthe Soviet occupation.

Do you have a dream?I believe so deeply in what I’m doing that

my only real desire for the time ahead is tocontinue the work. Tragedy has alwayssurrounded my life, since the murder of myfather and other members of my family. Thatand all the other stories I’ve heard. For thatreason I dream about a secure life. I wantvery little, really. I don’t care about success.When I’m traveling I sometimes havenightmares of something terrible happeningto my son or my husband. Anything canhappen in Afghanistan. I repeat, for now, all Idream about is a safe life.

Demands that Afghan government “criminals” be made

to stand trial for human rights abuses over the last three

decades has failed to gain support from the United

States, Britain and Europe.

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