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TITLE: RAWA Urges World Community To Stop Backing Taliban, Rivals |
AUTHOR: Zakir Hassnain |
PUB: The Statesman |
DATE: April 28, 2001 |
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The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) has called upon the international community to dissociate itself from the Taliban, Ahmed Shah Masood and other Jehadi outfits for the sake of regional peace. Saima Karim, the RAWA chief, said that they had warned the entire world long ago not to support and side with Prof. Burhanudin Rabbani, Gulbadin Hekmatyar, Ahmed Shah Masood, the Taliban and other Jehadi forces for what they had done to the innocent Afghan people, but she added, the countries backing these forces ignored their pleas and continued their support. "Supporting factions headed by these Afghan leaders is a crime as they have committed atrocities on innocent Afghan people," said Saima The RAWA head was Addressing newsmen on Friday at the press Club here.Saima said that the association had decided to stage a demonstration in the City to protest the Russian invasion of Afghanistan on April 27, 1979, and subsequent takeover of Kabul by the Jehadic on April 28, 1992, after the fall of the communist regime of Dr Najibullah. She said that the RAWA had requested the district administration of Peshawar to grant it permission to observe these days, but despite assurance that the demonstration would be peaceful, the district administration refused, citing security as reason. Saima said that they did not want to create any law and order problem for the Pakistani authorities. The proposed demonstration was aimed at expressing Afghan women's concern over things happening in their homeland and sending a message through the media t hat they wanted nothing but peace. Coming back to the Afghan problem, Saima asked as to who were behind atrocities committed on the Afghan people and who were backing elements producing heroine in the war-ravaged country. The RAWA chief was of the opinion that 90 percent of the Afghan were suffering from depression because of the dreadful ordeal they had gone through. She asked as to why Ahmed Shah Masood had been invited to visit Europe. The inviters had made a blunder as the crimes and atrocities committed by Masood and Hekmatyar against the Afghans in general and the women in particular could never be forgotten, she maintained. Saima said that Masood wanted to cheat the Europeans, adding that in case he was replaced with the Taliban, it would also not be in the interest of the Afghan nation. Saima said that when the army government came into power here, it said that there was no representative government in Afghanistan, but later, she went on to say, it started supporting the Taliban, she said that the Afghans were a peaceful nation wanting democracy in the country. She appealed to all the countries to sever all kinds of relations with Masood and the Taliban and slap sanctions on them. The RAWA head said that the Afghans neither accepted the Taliban nor they would accept the Jehadis, warning that they would soon rise up against the Taliban as they were misfits in their culture. END |