Afghanistan, 2000

On my way to the

Assembly Hall, I was informed by the Supreme State

Council of the Islamic State of Afghanistan that in a

self-evident act of aggression hundreds of Pakistani

military personnel — army, plain-clothes personnel and

armed Taliban — are reported to have been positioned

in the Shah Salim pass dividing the Pakistan border

town of Chitral from north-eastern Afghanistan, bound

for an attack on Badakhshan province.

On behalf of my delegation, I take this

opportunity to congratulate you, Sir, on your

assumption of the major task of presiding over the

important millennium session of the General Assembly.

I would also like to congratulate the Minister for

Foreign Affairs of Namibia, Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, on

his excellent leadership of the fifty-fourth session of

the General Assembly, which set the stage for the

Millennium Summit.

Three years ago, I stood before the Assembly and

stated from this very rostrum that, as the crisis in

Afghanistan continued to unfold, we had to ask, and

answer, important questions. At the time, I spoke of the

dark and ominous movement known as the Taliban,

which, backed by cross-border troops, had invaded

Afghanistan. This year, at its millennium session, the

General Assembly indeed has to answer major

questions. One among many is the silence the world

has chosen to keep in dealing with the Taliban and their

Pakistani supporters. With the spread of Talibanism,

which has led to the abject misery of the Afghan

nation, massive insurgency and turmoil in the region

and beyond, is it not high time that the international

community put a stop to the Pakistani-operated Taliban

processing machine? Certainly, mere rhetoric and

inadequate reactions are not enough. It is with this

view that I should like to focus my statement entirely

on the situation in Afghanistan and its devastating

regional and international implications, within the

given time limit.

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A question arises: what has been the result of the

Talibanization of the occupied parts of Afghanistan? In

an age of information and globalization, it has been a

reign of terror imposed by a religious police, abuse in

the name of religion, the elimination of all freedoms

and civil liberties, massive violations of human rights,

degrading and tormenting treatment of men and

women, trafficking of women and girls, the forced

separation of women from their menfolk, the random

and deliberate round-up of individuals based on their

ethnic and religious origins, the practice of scorchedearth policy, the torching and total obliteration of

farmlands, orchards and other means of livelihood, the

contamination of water resources, the forcible dispatch

of children and adults to the battlefields, the removal of

all but rudimentary religious education — for male

students only — with the closure of all schools for

females, the deliberate denial of access to humanitarian

aid, the intensification of battles, an exacerbation of the

situation, widespread terrorism and the destruction of

the historical heritage and artefacts of Afghanistan in

order to alienate the Afghan nation from its ancestry

and historical identity.

The objective of the Pakistani military

intelligence establishment, known as Inter-Services

Intelligence (ISI), through the imposition of the socalled Islamic Emirate of the Taliban, has been to

create instability in Central and South Asia by means

of terrorism. This “Islamic Emirate” has instituted

Mullah Omar, the militia's leader, as the undisputed

Amir-ul-Mo'mineen, meaning “Commander of the

faithful” not only in Afghanistan, but in theory

throughout the Muslim world.

The process the Pakistani military intelligence

has chosen for the realization of its objective is to

transform the Afghan nation into an exhausted,

devastated, illiterate, ignorant and destitute nation

struggling hard for mere survival. Pakistan wants to

turn Afghanistan into its false front to mask illicit

activities of narcotics trafficking, terrorism and other

crimes, as well as religious extremism, by establishing

centres and bases for such activities. Attempting to act

as the champion of the Muslim world, Pakistan

continues to carry out these activities under the name

of Islam. It is therefore not a matter of astonishment

that such activities have led to the defamation of both

the noble religion of Islam and the image of Muslims

throughout the world.

In short, the Afghan nation has become the direct

victim of the diabolic dreams of the Pakistani

military's hegemonic interests in the region. These

diabolic dreams are pursued by the Pakistani military

intelligence, ISI, an evil and extremist institution,

while the implied risk and perilous consequences for

the very survival of Pakistan as a State in the future are

overlooked.

As the world is gradually awakening to the

creeping Taliban threat, it is a matter of dismay that

some “civilized” nations, on certain occasions, have

preferred to deal with the reclusive and defiant Taliban,

an entity which has failed to meet the minimum

standard of being considered civilized, while having

championed terrorism, human rights violations and

crimes against humanity. It is no surprise that only

Pakistan's military junta has continuously given its full

blessing to the movement.

At least until early May of this year, the official

position of Pakistan, from what its diplomats and

officials strangely claimed, was that it maintained

contacts with both parties to the conflict. However,

Pakistan's News Network International (NNI) news

agency reported on 25 May 2000 that General Pervez

Musharraf claimed that Pakistan's pro-Taliban policy

was “in accordance with Pakistan's national interest.”

Advocating that Pashtoons should be on the side of

Pakistan, the General was quoted as saying, “We have a

national security interest, both demographic and

geographic.” He further stated that in the realization of

this security interest, “Pashtoons should be on our side

and they”, meaning Pashtoons, “are represented by

Taliban.”

The world must know that in a flagrant violation

of recognized international norms and principles and in

clear contempt of the United Nations Charter, the ruler

of the Pakistani military junta, under the outrageous

pretext of national security interest, has claimed the

right to impose a certain ethnic group through the

invocation of an ethnically provocative mandate at the

cost of the sovereignty and political independence of

Afghanistan, a Member of the United Nations and,

prior to that, of the League of Nations, long before

Pakistan was even born.

It is important to remember that terrorist training

camps operating from the Taliban-held territories of

Afghanistan, including those established by the

infamous Osama bin Laden, whose dismantling has

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been repeatedly called for by the United Nations and

the entire international community, have been

established by Pakistan's military intelligence through

the Taliban mercenaries and other extremist networks.

They continue to utilize these territories as a ground for

training, sheltering, planning and dispatching elements

seeking to commit hostile acts against countries of the

region and beyond. This is done under the guise of

Islam, but, in fact, it is mainly in pursuit of Pakistani

hegemonistic objectives directed towards Afghanistan

and the Central Asian Republics. Recent events and

activities by extremist groups in Kyrgyzstan and

Uzbekistan are manifest examples of the spillover of

the Pakistan/Taliban-supported agenda in the region.

The Islamic State of Afghanistan believes it is

high time that the Security Council, in accordance with

relevant resolutions, undertook appropriate

enforcement measures against Pakistan, which is the

prime source of sponsorship of these activities.

The Security Council, in its unanimously adopted

resolution 1267 of 15 October 1999, explicitly

demanded that the Taliban mercenaries refrain from

sheltering, supporting and training terrorists and

planning terrorist acts from Afghan soil against other

countries and that it extradite to the requesting States

those indicted for committing international acts of

terrorism.

The recent upsurge of terrorist activities in

Central Asian countries and beyond, emanating from

the Taliban-occupied parts of Afghanistan, requires

drastic measures by the Security Council against the

militia and its Pakistani supporters. The consideration

of the imposition of further targeted sanctions and the

expansion of the scope of resolution 1267 (1999),

which must include the end of terrorist activities in all

forms and manifestations in the Taliban-held parts of

Afghanistan, could adequately, among other things,

serve the cause of peace and security in the region.

Here I would like to welcome the proposal by the

Republic of Uzbekistan for convening an international

conference, at the earliest possible time, to debate the

evil phenomenon of terrorism.

In spite of the current devastating drought in

Afghanistan — the most severe in 30 years —

Afghanistan remains the leading producer of narcotics.

The production of illicit drugs, and their trafficking by

the Taliban and the politico-military mafia of Pakistan,

account for considerable revenue, which is used to

finance the prolonged war in Afghanistan. This leads to

considerable transnational organized crime, while

adding to the number of addicts, both at home and

abroad.

Among the many deliberate violations and

instances of absolute disregard for international

humanitarian law and the numerous crimes against

humanity committed by the Taliban and their outside

supporters in the year 2000, one could mention the

following cases: the cold-blooded killing on 11 May of

198 young Uzbek and Hazara men imprisoned as

hostages in Taliban jails; the brutal killing on 5 August

of the United Nations mine-clearance employees

affiliated with the Organization for Mine Clearance and

Afghan Rehabilitation; the deliberate denial of access

to humanitarian aid that, according to the European

Union, in the light of the devastating drought

constituted a breach of international humanitarian law;

the forced blood-drawing and organ removal of

innocent civilians along the Tagab-Nijrab route in

August; the forced deportation of the civilian

populations of the city of Aibak on 31 July 2000; the

closing down in August, as part of the ongoing fouryear campaign by the Taliban to keep women from

working, of all bakeries run by the United Nations

World Food Programme in which widows were paid to

make bread that was then sold at a subsidized price to

other widows, who number at least 25,000 in Kabul

alone; the indiscriminate aerial bombardment of

civilian neighbourhoods at Taloqan on 15 August; and

the forcible displacement of hundreds of thousands of

people throughout the north due to renewed Taliban

military onslaughts.

We believe that the commission of those heinous

crimes by the Taliban militia was largely attributable to

the lack of adequate response by the Security Council

and the international community to bring to justice the

perpetrators and others involved in incidents at

Bamyan in 1997, at Mazar-e-Sharif and Bamyan in

1998, in the north of Kabul in 1999, and in the killings

of Iranian diplomats, a journalist and the military

adviser to the United Nations Special Mission to

Afghanistan (UNSMA) in 1998.

It is significant to note that the Taliban continue

to deprive women of their fundamental rights,

including the right to education, which affects over

100,000 female students in Kabul alone. Women are

still barred from employment by the Taliban. While the

predictable results will speak for themselves, present

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and future female generations of Afghanistan will be

illiterate. The cultural and social impact of that

criminal act on the country's future generations will be

enormous.

Pakistani military intervention in Afghanistan is a

fact well known to the international community. The

hundreds of Pakistani prisoners captured while fighting

alongside the Taliban and now in the custody of the

Government; the mortal remains of hundreds of

Pakistanis in the battlefields and the documents and

identification cards obtained from their pockets; the

intercepted radio transmissions; and the massive

logistical support and the overt supply of large

quantities of military hardware and ammunition, all

prove the direct involvement of Pakistani army

personnel in Afghanistan. In fact, Brigadier General

Rustam of Pakistan's armed forces, who is currently

stationed in Afghanistan's Kunduz province,

commands the Pakistani-Taliban-bin Laden operations

in the north. He has been assisted by two of bin

Laden's henchmen, Abu Wara and Hubab. All of them

were involved in the recent occupation of Taloqan and

in the atrocities committed against the civilian

population. It is important to mention that the

November/December issue of Foreign Affairs

magazine has estimated the total number of Pakistanis

having fought in Afghanistan since 1994 to be in

excess of 80,000.

A breakdown of Pakistani nationals fighting in

Afghanistan include the following: Pakistani armed

contingents, including units from the North-West

Frontier Corps and different commando units, have

actively participated in battles on various occasions;

Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officers involved in the

planning and command and control of both intelligence

operations and logistical support; ex-commissioned

officers in charge of tactical operations, artillery

support and logistics; frontier militia units;

paramilitary members of extremist terrorist groups

affiliated with the ISI, such as the Sipah-e-Sahaaba, the

Sepah-e-Tayeba, the Harakat-ul-Ansar and so on; and

the so-called volunteers from Pakistani madrassas, or

religious schools.

Other categories of foreign fighters in

Afghanistan include Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda

group and its affiliated units from around the Persian

Gulf, the Middle East and Africa, and extremist groups

from Central Asia, South Asia and the Far East. In

addition, thousands of Afghan refugees who were

educated and trained in Pakistani religious schools are

dispatched to the battlefronts of Afghanistan. Finally,

there are conscripted and forcibly recruited persons

from around Afghanistan who are deployed as canon

fodder.

In this context, the Islamic State of Afghanistan

appeals to the Security Council to mandate the United

Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan to dispatch an

investigation team to Afghanistan to verify and report

to the Security Council on the presence of Pakistani

armed men and Arab fighters who are working

shoulder-to-shoulder with the Taliban mercenaries.

This would break the silence that has thus far

encouraged further Pakistani intervention in

Afghanistan.

I should like to remind the Assembly that only

those Afghans conscripted and forcibly recruited will

be immune from prosecution by the Islamic State of

Afghanistan for war crimes, crimes against humanity

and genocide. The rest shall be subject to indictment.

One must conclude that the failure of the Jeddah

indirect negotiations in particular, and of other peace

initiatives at large, derive from the sad reality that

peace has no place in the Taliban agenda.

While striving for the realization of noble human

values and principles — the institution of a democratic

system, the observance of human rights, including

those of women and girls, civil liberties and

elections — the Islamic State of Afghanistan reiterates

its firm position to strive to reach a peaceful settlement

of the conflict and hereby declares its full readiness for

the formation of a broad-based, multi-ethnic and fully

representative Government through a workable

mechanism such as the traditional grand assembly, or

loya jirgah, or any other representative forum under the

auspices of the United Nations. Meanwhile, as long as

Pakistan continues to directly and massively intervene

in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, the Islamic State

of Afghanistan considers the task of defending the

territorial integrity, national unity and political

independence of Afghanistan its immediate priority.

The Islamic State of Afghanistan has high

expectations that the United Nations and the

international community will exert pressure on

Pakistan to immediately cease its intervention in

Afghanistan and to withdraw all its military personnel

and armed nationals from Afghanistan; that the

Security Council will address the question of foreign

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intervention, the existence of terrorist networks in

Afghanistan and the effective implementation of

relevant Security Council resolutions; that the

Organization of the Islamic Conference will clarify its

view of the Taliban's words and deeds — spoken and

carried out in the name of Islam — which we believe

distort, and are contrary to, the true spirit of Islam, its

tenets and injunctions; that the United Nations Drug

Control Programme will assist the Islamic State of

Afghanistan in the fight against the production and

trafficking of illicit drugs; that the United Nations and

the international community will step up their efforts

for an early and peaceful settlement of the Afghan

conflict; and that the international community will

provide humanitarian assistance to the war-stricken and

drought-hit civilian population of Afghanistan. Here I

should like to mention that the current drought, the

most severe in 30 years, will have tremendous

humanitarian repercussions.

We remain thankful for the statements made by

the heads of delegation at the Millennium Summit and

in the General Assembly expressing their legitimate

concerns over the dangers emanating from the

Pakistani Taliban-occupied territories of Afghanistan.

We deeply appreciate and support the

indefatigable efforts of Mr. Francesc Vendrell, the

Secretary-General's Special Representative for

Afghanistan and head of the United Nations Special

Mission to Afghanistan (UNSMA), who has left no

stone unturned, and no party to the conflict or countries

concerned out of communication, in finding a peaceful

solution to the Afghan conflict.

I should like to conclude by stating that the

United Nations cannot embark on the new millennium

without appropriately addressing the issues enshrined

in its Charter, among others, the question of noninterference. Neither can this international body

advocate globalization in its true sense when

Talibanization is threatening regional stability in our

part of the world. Certainly the Pakistani military junta

will remain the prime actor in this dreadful and

immense tragedy in Asia.

Like many others afflicted with the Taliban

plague, we wonder how far the evil threat of

Talibanism will spread, how many more souls it will

bury and how many new borders it must cross before

the conscience of the international community is

awakened, not just to consider but to adopt immediate

and drastic preventive measures.