Kiren Lakhani
On March 11, 2014 the people of Kabul witnessed firsthand the terrors of democracy as pistol fire clapped and blood ran in the streets. People in the upscale neighborhood of Wazir Akbur Khan, a diplomatic area that is favored by Westerners, screamed and ran in fear while chaos took over the city. When the smoke cleared, a Swedish radio journalist, Nils Horner, lay dead – the 51-year old man having come to cover the elections in Afghanistan.
The Taliban did promise to use “full force” to disrupt the elections. March 11th marked the day when we all figured out exactly what they mean by that statement. We quickly learned the hard way that “full force disruption” meant killing off those whose only weapons were their minds and voices.
The Taliban denied being involved until after the fact, as the extremist wing, Fedai Mahaz Tahrik Islami Afghanistan, proudly took responsibility. Their justification for the chaos was that they believed Horner to be a spy for British Intelligence, although they had absolutely no proof of their ridiculous claims. It is not uncommon for unfounded allegations of spying to circulate among members of the Taliban. After all, this is a group that once hanged a 7-year-old boy for espionage before beheading two teenagers for supposedly being spies.
Swedish radio journalist, Nils Horner, shot dead in Kabul, Afghanistan
It seems as though Horner’s murder has more to do with electoral politics than anything else. The Taliban has pledged to disrupt the Afghanistan elections and so it is using scare tactics to keep democracy out of Afghanistan. Election workers have been kidnapped; villagers have been tortured and killed. Just recently, the Taliban took credit for killing a campaign worker for Abdullah Abdullah and a suicide bomber attacked Ismail Khan, the vice-presidential candidate.
“We have given orders to all our Mujahadeen (holy warriors) to use all force at their disposal, to disrupt these upcoming sham elections, and to target all its workers, activists, callers, security apparatus, and offices,” the Afghan Taliban warned in a recent statement. “The actual election has already taken place in the offices of the CIA and Pentagon; and their favorite candidate has already won”, they continued. It seems as the Taliban is the leading force in the area, regardless of how violent or unjust they may be.
Still, there is no real evidence that the April 5th elections are going to be rigged in any way; and furthermore, the Taliban did not say who this “favorite candidate” might be.
The Taliban so far have been targeting the police, prominent businessmen, public health workers, election officials, and even ordinary citizens. Fears seem to be well-founded, especially since the Taliban is challenging elections for the simple fact that they do not believe in a stable democracy for Afghanistan. In fact, the Taliban’s version of Islam outright opposes all deliberate bodies that happen to be in favor of a one-man ruling system – perhaps because the Taliban itself came into power as a result of instability.
Unfortunately, the Taliban rose to power as a popular movement because they brought stability, law, and order to a chaotic area. For a while, the Taliban presence seemed to decrease crime rates, but strict enforcements resulted in abductions, kidnappings, and hostages taken for ransom. Order was lost for these self-proclaimed “Men of God” and this has made them very dangerous.
- Reports of Taliban executing large numbers of civilians during conflicts with the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan in the Faryab province
- Targeting of ethnic Hazaras and ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks by Taliban
- An estimated 2,000 – 5,000 people reportedly killed by Taliban in Mazar-i-Sharif
- Taliban killed an estimated 500 people in its recapture of Bamiyan
- Reports of an estimated 300 civilians (including women and children) killed by a Taliban official in the southeastern province of Zabol
- Human Rights Watch advocates have documented massive violations under the rule of Taliban
- Taliban attacks on the Hazarah Shi-ah population resulted in an estimated 2,000 civilian deaths
Shortly after taking Kabul the Taliban enforced the most drastic interpretation of Sharia Law ever seen including bans on music, movies, television, women’s magazines, pigeon keeping, haircuts, dancing, and kite flying. Ignorantly, television sets, radios, cassettes, and photographs were destroyed by the Taliban in an effort to bring out their ideal society. Unfortunately the hammer fell the hardest, as usual, on the women.
Even the United States Department of State thinks the Taliban has adopted a “blood and circuses” approach to criminal/political justice. People found to be in violation of the edicts are subject to punishment on the spot. This often includes beatings, unwarranted detention, and public executions that sometimes took place in front of over 30,000 people in the center of Kabul Stadium. Because of the Taliban some women suffered being stoned to death for committing adultery while caught homosexuals had walls toppled on them because of their sexual transgressions. As a result, tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in search of protection.
Women no longer have the right to adequate education under Taliban rule. Girls over the age of eight cannot even attend school. Sadriqa, a young but wise woman living in Kabul, candidly stated, “The Taliban has clamped down on knowledge and ignorance is ruling instead.” What do the women and other citizens have to look forward to next? An attack on healthcare?
Under Taliban rule, women are to be given only the most rudimentary access to healthcare and medical attention. In most hospitals, male physicians could only examine a female patient if she had all her clothes on. I ask, what sort of meaningful diagnosis or treatment can be administered to a woman who has been examined in such a slipshod way? It can’t; and that is why Afghanistan has the world’s second worst rate of maternal death during childbirth. In fact, about 16 out of every 100 women die giving birth in that country!
The upcoming elections would be a monumental benchmark for Afghanis and perhaps even for the entire part of South Asia. The question remains whether or not people will join the 21st century by implementing something stable such as democracy or whether they will go back 800 years to be ruled by the whim of some self-righteous religious dictator. The Taliban cannot stop the elections by launching the same kind of battle that drove them to power in the first place, so the terror attacks are quickly becoming bolder.
Recently, the Taliban has been mounting attacks on military bases, killing twenty-eight people so far as they took their frustrations out on a Polish base in Afghanistan. Hell, there are even attacks being made on restaurants. Suicide bombers stormed local establishments and killed the patrons inside, removing twenty-one people from their earthly families.
Nils Horner was just another tragic loss in the mounting number of murders being perpetuated by the Taliban. In fact, the Swedish radio reporter was simply standing near the ruins of one of those targeted restaurants on that day in March. He was planning to meet and interview a survivor of the actual attack. Instead, Horner got killed as he stood there, oblivious to the gunman behind him. He never got the interview, he never told the story of the survivor; and so soon, the truth about the whole situation will become nothing but a part of forgotten Afghani history.
The author is a recent business graduate, a social media enthusiast and a freelance writer. She can be reached at kiren82@gmail.com
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