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Karl F. Inderfurth   Assistant Secretary for South Asian Affairs   Statement before the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations   U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee   Washington, DC, March 9, 1999

Afghanistan Today: The U.S. Response

Ten years ago last month, I was an eyewitness to history. I stood at the bridge over the Amu Darya River in Uzbekistan and watched the last Soviet troops depart Afghanistan. After an estimated 2 million dead, with their country in ruins, the valiant Afghan people were victorious over a superpower. I hoped this meant the end of 10 years of conflict and that peace at last was returning to Afghanistan.

Unfortunately this was not to be the case. The fighting continues today. Worse, Afghans are fighting Afghans in an increasingly ethnic war unprecedented in Afghan history. Thus internecine conflict continues to the detriment of the Afghan people, the region, and the world.

War shows no signs of abating. The Taliban occupy 85% of the country but do not exercise effective control, particularly in the North. Elements of the Northern Alliance continue to resist and have actually improved their position in recent months. We believe there is no military solution to this conflict, yet the Taliban has demonstrated no willingness to work for a political settlement, largely because they still believe they can win militarily. We and others in the international community are working to change this view.

Terrorism

Afghanistan is geographically remote from us, but the effects of 20 years of conflict are not. Key U.S. interests are endangered. Anyone familiar with the events of last August and the destruction of U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam knows the effect the Afghan conflict has had upon us.

Afghanistan has become a breeding ground for international terrorism. In the fight against the Soviets, the Afghan resistance did not resort to international terrorism, but today Osama bin Laden and others have taken advantage of the war and its dislocations to use Afghan soil for training, basing, and safehaven. Terrorists with links to Afghanistan, both veterans of the fighting and those who have received training or shelter there, have committed terrorist acts in the region, including Kashmir, and beyond -- in Europe, Africa, and even in the U.S.

We have urged all of the Afghan factions to stop sheltering terrorists and their training facilities and to expel terrorists from parts of the country under their control. We have stressed to the Taliban -- and those with influence over them -- the need to expel Osama bin Laden to a location where he can be brought to justice. We have told them he is still plotting acts of terrorism against us and that because the Taliban have provided him safehaven, we will hold them responsible for his actions.

Despite hollow protestations that Osama bin Laden is "missing," there is no evidence he has left Afghanistan. Our experts and other informed observers believe he remains in Taliban-controlled territory. The Taliban are playing a risky and unwise game in attempting to convince us otherwise.

Narcotics

Narcotics production and trafficking is another byproduct of the continued conflict. Afghanistan is now the world's second largest producer of opium and a major center for processing opiates. Narcotics produced in Afghanistan supply three million addicts in Pakistan and tens of thousands in Europe. Increasingly, heroin from Afghan-grown poppies is found in the U.S. Almost all the opium produced in Afghanistan comes from Taliban areas, but virtually every faction has been involved at every level with and benefited financially from relationships with drug producers and traffickers. Nobody has clean hands on this.

We and others have called on the Taliban and other factions to destroy opium crops and processing capability and urged cooperation with the UN Drug Control Program. Despite these calls, opium production increased 7% last year.

Human Rights

The human rights situation is abysmal. Our most recent human rights report documents violations by all sides. Taliban forces killed thousands in Mazar-i-Sharif last year, reportedly based in part on ethnicity. This is part of a cycle arising from the massacre of Taliban prisoners by northern forces in 1997.

The Taliban attempts to impose an extreme interpretation of Islam practiced no where else in the world on all individuals -- men and women -- under their control. We have received reports of religious persecution at the hands of the Taliban in prohibiting Shia prayer practices and converting Shia mosques to Sunni. They also have banned many traditional elements of Afghan culture, including music and kite-flying. But few practices have aroused more worldwide condemnation than Taliban treatment of women and girls.

Taliban Treatment of Women and Girls

Women and girls historically have been at a tremendous disadvantage in Afghan society. Only a small but growing number of Afghan women, almost entirely in urban areas, worked outside the home in nontraditional roles, as lawyers, judges, doctors and government officials. The status of women and girls in Afghanistan deteriorated rapidly with the resumption of fighting between the resistance factions in 1992. The trend significantly intensified with the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 1996 and the imposition of harsh social strictures. We have received recent reports that Taliban sympathizers in Pakistan, both Pakistani and Afghan, have attempted to apply similar restrictions both upon female inhabitants of refugee camps and upon Pakistani women too.

When the Taliban took control of Kabul they immediately forbade women to work outside the home, but gradually allowed exceptions for some female doctors and nurses. In urban areas, women are often barred from going outside the home unless accompanied by a male relative. The impact of Taliban restrictions on women is most acutely felt in cities such as Herat and Kabul, where there are numbers of educated and professional women who previously enjoyed far greater latitude. War widows -- an estimated 30,000 are in Kabul alone -- have been especially hard hit. Many of them are the sole providers for their families and have been reduced to begging to feed their children. There are credible reports that some women, now forcibly housebound, have attempted suicide by swallowing household cleaner, rather than continuing to live under these conditions of isolation.

We have heard much about the "burqa." Let me state what I know for the record. Women are enjoined from appearing in public, particularly in cities, unless wearing a traditional long robe called the "burqa" covering them from head to toe. A small mesh covered opening about five inches square provides the only means to see. Women have been beaten by the Taliban "religious police" on the street for failure to completely cover themselves in a burqa. Although many Afghan women wore the burqa before the Taliban took control, it was not an enforced dress code. Many women in Kabul typically appeared in public wearing scarves that just covered the head. In rural areas, women do chores, tend animals, gather water and fire wood and, when working in the fields, do not wear burqas and enjoy a greater degree of mobility than female city-dwellers.

The Taliban also restricted education for girls, particularly in Kabul. Kabul's private home-based schools, which had quietly continued to operate, were ordered closed last year, though we understand some were allowed to reopen since. Although the Taliban claims that it is not against female education and has requested resources for Afghanistan's minimal educational infrastructure, these claims ring hollow. The militia has taken little real action to provide for female education.

Women's and girls' access to medical services and hospitals has been drastically reduced. Although they reportedly are allowed to receive emergency care in all Kabul hospitals and non-emergency care in a few, women have died because male doctors were not allowed to treat them. The lack of ready access to medical facilities that do exist is further impacted by shortages of medicine and equipment. I commend Physicians for Human Rights for bringing this horrible situation to the attention of the world in its survey and report of women's health and human rights under the Taliban in Kabul.

The United States condemns Taliban policies publicly. Secretary of State Albright, during her visit to the Nasir Bagh refugee camps in Pakistan described the Taliban's treatment of women as "despicable." She said "We are opposed to their (the Taliban's) approach to human rights, to their despicable treatment of women and children, and their lack of respect for human dignity, in a way more reminiscent of the past than the future." At the Human Rights Day celebration last December, the First Lady recognized two Afghan women in the audience for their invaluable work on behalf of women and girls and also said "We cannot allow these terrible crimes against women and girls -- and, truly, against all of humanity -- to continue with impunity. We must all make it unmistakably clear this terrible suffering inflicted on the women and girls of Afghanistan is not cultural, it is criminal. And we must do everything we can in our power to stop it." The President also pledged continued assistance to the women suffering under the Taliban regime.

In international fora, we also speak out. We drafted the country resolutions on Afghanistan for this year and last year's annual meeting of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Along with other U.S. officials, I have personally raised the issue in meetings with senior Taliban and Pakistani officials.

I note the campaign instituted by the Feminist Majority and other human rights and women's organizations designed to raise our consciousness and to help Afghan women and girls. The State Department looks forward to working with them in this endeavor.

My colleague, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugee and Migration Affairs Julia Taft, will inform you later in this hearing regarding what we are doing on the ground in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to help all Afghans, but specifically Afghan women and girls, despite difficulty caused by the continuing conflict, security problems, and pressure from the Afghan factions, including the Taliban. The United States, as the largest individual contributor to Afghan relief, has a record that we all can be proud of.

Regional Stability and the Search for Peace

I want to move to a broader area of concern -- regional stability. The ongoing conflict has affected the entire region and beyond, spilling over into neighboring countries. I have spoken of drugs and terrorism. Let me also mention the refugees, arms-trafficking, ethnic and religious conflict, and the obstacle the ongoing fighting poses for those who want to see Afghanistan regain its traditional role as an important trade route between Central and South Asia.

Events in Afghanistan rightfully have alarmed its neighbors. Terrorists trained in Afghanistan operate in neighboring states. The conflict itself threatens to spread. Last year, we saw a danger of a wider war when, following the killing of Iranian officials in Mazar-i-Sharif by Taliban forces retaking the city, Iran increased troop deployments on its border with Pakistan and Afghanistan and held largescale maneuvers. Fortunately, the UN was able to defuse this crisis, but as long as the fighting goes on, there is a danger it will draw in neighboring countries.

We all agree the war has gone on far too long. The question arises what we are doing to bring it to a close, both bilaterally and through the UN-led peace effort.

We strongly support the UN's efforts, particularly the work of the Secretary General's special envoy Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi. We participate enthusiastically in Ambassador Brahimi's group of Six-plus-Two -- composed of Afghanistan's six neighbors -- Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China, -- Russia and the United States. I have participated in Six plus Two meetings in New York. The group represents an effort to have influential countries press the Afghan factions toward a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement. The Six-plus-two includes the key external players and it also provides a means by which, under the aegis of the UN, we work constructively to bring peace to the region.

The Six plus Two developed a series of Points of Common Understanding at its September 21 meeting in which Secretary of State Albright represented the United States. These points were communicated to the various factions. The call for a ceasefire and a settlement was unfortunately not taken up by the Afghan parties, particularly by the Taliban, which at that time had made several major military advances against its opponents and believed that it would inevitably be victorious.

Circumstances today are different. We believe resistance to the Taliban is growing. There is organized opposition to them in the newly-occupied areas in the North and in the Hazarajat, and even in Pashtun-inhabited areas there have been violent cultural clashes and protests against conscription. Masood's forces also remain in the field. It should be clearer to all there is no military solution in sight. The UN now hopes to move the factions, including the Taliban, further along the road toward peace. Ambassador Brahimi is in the region now, meeting with all the factions and Afghanistan's neighbors in an effort to advance the process, particularly by narrowing differences between Pakistan and Iran, the principal supporters of the Taliban and the Northern Alliance respectively. The UN efforts, coupled with those of the Government of Turkmenistan, have had some initial success. Representatives of the Taliban and the Northern Alliance are due to meet in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, tomorrow, March 10, in direct negotiations. Ambassador Brahimi sounded a note of caution saying, "I won't say this is the last chance, but I would appeal to them -- referring to the warring parties -- not to disappoint the Afghan people once again." He urged the parties, on behalf of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, to go to the talks with "a spirit of compromise and understanding, patience and a constructive approach." We agree with these sentiments.

The Six-plus-Two also has endorsed a proposal by Uzbekistan to host a meeting of deputy foreign ministers in Tashkent that would engage the Afghan parties in a concerted effort to end the fighting. Work is ongoing in New York on a political declaration but more groundwork will be needed to ensure a successful meeting. In particular, all Six-plus-Two members must accept that the ongoing conflict is in no one's interest and act accordingly. It is a fact that some Six-plus-Two members rendered or facilitated assistance to their favored Afghan clients, providing arms, munitions, economic help, and military advisers.

On the bilateral level we maintain contact with the Afghan factions and other key interested countries in an effort to promote peace. This evening I plan to leave Washington for our regular consultations with Russia on South Asian issues in which Afghanistan will play a prominent part.

We also are in contact with neutral Afghans currently attempting to organize a dialogue aimed at convoking a grand national assembly -- loya jirga -- designed to bring a peaceful end to the war. I met in Peshawar on February 2 with several distinguished Afghan moderates including former president Mojaddedi, Pir Gailani, and Hamid Karzai. We have supported this effort publicly and privately to get Afghans involved directly in the search for peace. We have also been in direct contact with His Majesty Zahir Shah, the former king of Afghanistan, who retains the admiration and good wishes of many inside and outside his country. I met with him in Rome on November 16.

We admire those Afghans who are striving to bind their nation's wounds. Moderate Afghans have often been under threat from extremists for their efforts and these threats are indeed real. We condemn the despicable murder in Peshawar, Pakistan earlier this year of the wife, son, and bodyguard of prominent neutral and war hero Abdul Haq. We extend to him and to his family our deepest sympathies. This was a cowardly act of terrorism of the worst sort.

U.S. Policy

Let me conclude by summarizing U.S. policy with respect to the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. The United States supports no individual Afghan faction but maintains contacts with all to further progress toward a peaceful settlement. We recognize none of the contending factions as the Government of Afghanistan and have no plans to do so. We would be prepared to recognize a Government of Afghanistan that was broad-based, multiethnic, and representative and respected international norms of behavior on issues of concern to the world community including terrorism, narcotics, and human rights, particularly the rights of women and girls and minorities. We believe that only such a government could bring peace to Afghanistan and gain the acceptance of other nations and represent Afghanistan effectively in international organizations. But while we are neutral regarding the factions, we are emphatically not neutral regarding their behavior and criticize or encourage them as we see fit. Unfortunately there has been little of an encouraging note in recent years.

Thus we continue to be actively engaged in this effort on several fronts, in the UN, in Washington, in the region, and elsewhere. Our efforts have not yet met with success. The fighting continues, the Afghan people suffer, the effects of the conflict spill over into neighboring lands and beyond. But as I have said before, without our direct involvement, this conflict will likely only continue to fester causing even greater damage to our own interests and to those of the Afghan people.

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