Central Bank Immunity, Afghanistan, and Judgments Against the Taliban
Lawfare: Afghan central bank assets in the United States were frozen by President Biden following the Taliban’s takeover of the government in August 2021. As discussed on Lawfare and the Transnational Litigation Blog, half of those assets have been transferred to the “Afghan Fund” in Switzerland to be used for the benefit of the Afghan people as well as to keep them out of the control of the Taliban (which the United States does not recognize as the government of Afghanistan). This article focuses on the other half—the approximately $3.5 billion in Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) assets that U.S. victims of terrorist attacks seek to satisfy judgments that they hold, not against Afghanistan, but against the Taliban. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban to Continue Launching Clearing Operations in Kabul Despite Criticism
8am: Residents of this neighborhood in Kabul city told Hasht-e Subh on Wednesday, February 1, the Taliban even stop pedestrians on the sidewalks to search their mobile phones during these operations. No female officers reportedly accompany the Taliban’s searching teams and male Taliban members enter people’s houses and search their belongings. Criticizing this Taliban practices, they said that they are fed up with the continuation of door-to-door searches. Click here to read more (external link).
Iran-Afghanistan Tensions Now Rising Over Water
Fair Observer: The dispute over the Helmand River between Iran and Afghanistan is an old one. In the 1870s, when Afghanistan was still under British control, the border between the neighbors was drawn along the main branch of the river. Helmand is a lifeline for both countries. It is Afghanistan’s longest river and it runs into Hamoun Lake. In March 2021, the Kamal Khan Dam finally opened after years of setback on the lower Helmand. Naturally, it was met with animus in Iran. In 1973, the two signed the Helmand River Treaty. The agreement guaranteed Iran with a monthly allocation of water from the river. But Tehran insists that its neighbor has consistently failed to hold its end of the deal. Click here to read more (external link).
‘Our Situation Is Terrible’: Ex-Afghan Military Officers Stuck In Limbo In India
By Sana Kakar
Fayeza Ibrahimi
Abubakar Siddique
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
January 31, 2023
Just weeks before its collapse, the Western-backed Afghan government sent dozens of army officers for training to India, a close ally. Among them was Captain Obaidullah Zahir, a rising star in the Afghan National Army, which was battling the Taliban insurgency.
After the militant group seized power in August 2021, the Afghan officers were stuck in India, unable to return to their homeland out of fear for their lives and left to fend for themselves by the Indian authorities.
That neglect led to Zahir’s death, according to his former comrades. The military officer died of cancer in New Delhi earlier this month.
“He died because of the long delay in getting treatment,” Behzad, another ex-Afghan army officer who did not reveal his real name due to security concerns, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
Behzad said he and other Afghan military officers initially funded Zahir’s treatment. Despite repeated requests to Indian officials, no help arrived. By the time the authorities sent Zahir to an Indian military hospital, it was too late. He died just a week later, Behzad said.
“We all contributed to arranging his funeral and sending him back to be buried in our homeland,” said Behzad, who also resides in New Delhi.
Zahir’s death has put a spotlight on the plight of the scores of former Afghan military personnel who remain stranded in India, some 16 months after the internationally recognized Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan.
The former combatants fear returning to Afghanistan, where human rights groups have documented the killings, torture, and disappearances of hundreds of former members of Afghanistan’s security forces by the Taliban.
“I fear returning to my country will cost me my life,” said Behzad, who along with Zahir was among the 120 military officers sent to India in July 2021.
Several dozen Afghan officers have returned to Kabul after completing their one-year training courses in India. The Taliban had guaranteed them safety and jobs. But it is unclear if they are now working for the Taliban.
Radio Azadi reached out to some of them for comment, but they refused to answer questions about their safety or employment.
Legal Limbo
New Delhi is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or the related 1967 protocol intended to eliminate restrictions on who can be considered a refugee. But, in the past, India has granted asylum to refugees from Afghanistan, mostly members of that country’s tiny Sikh and Hindu minorities.
Many former Afghan military personnel are on temporary visas and ineligible to work or receive government help. Some have been offered one-year military courses.
Behzad said India should follow the example of Western countries that have granted asylum or agreed to resettle former Afghan military personnel to third countries.
“As a longtime friend of the Afghan people, India should provide us with material support until the situation in Afghanistan changes,” he said, referring to Kabul’s close historic relations with New Delhi.
India has not commented on the fate of ex-Afghan military personnel residing in the South Asian nation. But the Afghan Embassy in New Delhi, which still represents the previous government, said it is in contact with the authorities.
“Together with the Indian authorities, we want to find a lasting solution to their problems,” the Afghan Embassy said in a statement sent to Radio Azadi.
That is little comfort for many of the Afghan officers.
“We don’t have a clear future,” said Javed, a former Afghan army officer who did not want to reveal his real name for security reasons. “My only wish was to return to my country and to serve it, but that is not possible now.”
Javed said many of the officers have family members and relatives in Afghanistan, a reality that fills them with dread. The Taliban has targeted the family members of former security personnel in Afghanistan.
“Our situation is terrible,” he told Radio Azadi, adding that they are also “worried about what our families are going through back in Afghanistan.”
Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Tolo News in Dari – January 31, 2023
Taliban Vandalize a Painted Image of Abdul Ali Mazari in Kabul
Mazari
8am: The Taliban vandalized a painted image of the former Hazara leader, Abdul Ali Mazari, in west Kabul. Sources in west Kabul shared photos of a gate decorated with Abdul Ali Mazari’s image on Tuesday, January 31, confirming to Hasht-e Subh that the Taliban had ruined his image. In the photos shared, it can be seen that the Taliban have pierced the image of Abdul Ali Mazari on top of the Pul-e-Sukhta area in Kota-e-Sangi. Click here to read more (external link).
Time for Elon Musk’s Starlink to Save Afghanistan’s Women
Khaama: Mark R. Whittington, a renowned space exploration author, has discussed Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite that how best can help Afghan women who are banned from education by the Taliban, the Hill reported. The Starlink system can offer access to high-speed Internet in remote areas without installing cables or constructing a significant amount of new infrastructure. Mark stated that Afghanistan is now in a situation that needs Starlin[k] the most. He further argues that this has been the consequence of the abrupt military withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan, which led to the brutal suppression of women in the country. Click here to read more (external link).
Central Asian Universities Enrolling Afghan Women Amid Taliban College Ban
By Farangis Najibullah
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
January 30, 2023
With the Taliban government banning women from attending universities in Afghanistan, an EU-funded project is being revived to bring dozens of Afghan girls to study in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.
More than 100 Afghan girls who were awarded five-year scholarships are already in the host countries to begin their studies, the organizers said.
The project to help empower Afghan women was initially launched in 2019, when a Western-backed government was still in power in Kabul.
The initiative aims to provide Afghan women an opportunity to study abroad and have better career opportunities when they return home as skilled professionals.
In its first phase, the project granted full scholarships to 50 girls to study in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan through 2025.
Participants for the second phase of the program were selected just months before the hard-line Taliban returned to power in Kabul in August 2021, throwing the future of both the project and the students into disarray.
The Taliban-led government has since banned girls’ education after primary school and prohibited women from attending university. Women have also been excluded from many workplaces and banned from working for nongovernmental organizations.
Despite the Taliban’s stance on women’s education and work, the project organizers have managed to bring the 105 second-phase participants to Central Asia.
Sources told RFE/RL that the Kazakh Foreign Ministry played a crucial role in “negotiating with all sides” to arrange the women’s trip from Afghanistan.
The UN Development Fund (UNDP) office in Kazakhstan, which runs the project, told RFE/RL on January 27 that Kazakh universities will host 50 of the students. Thirty others will study in Uzbekistan, and 25 in Kyrgyzstan, it said.
The women are expected to complete their studies in 2027.
The EU has allocated some $5.5 million for the academic project’s first and second stages. It’s not yet known if the program will continue beyond that.
Asked about the future of the project considering the current situation in Afghanistan, the UNDP in Kazakhstan said, “key decisions, including a potential expansion, is a subject for close consultations with the donor.”
Contacted by RFE/RL on January 26, the Taliban-led government’s chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said he wasn’t aware of any agreement being reached between the officials in Kabul and the host countries or other parties involved in the project.
Mujahid said he would respond after discussing the issue with Afghan education officials and other relevant authorities, but had not done so as of the time this article was published.
What Does The Future Hold?
If the program goes according to plan, the 155 students in Central Asia will receive diplomas in fields ranging from agriculture, finance, and mining, to engineering, marketing, and computer science.
When it was first launched, project organizers envisaged that the women would return to Afghanistan as highly skilled specialists to help build up both their communities and their country.
With the Taliban in power, the women are unlikely to find work and a career when they go back to Afghanistan. Some of them may not want to return, fearing security risks and other hardships associated with living in an isolated country where women’s rights are severely curtailed.
The UNDP said “the final decision to return to Afghanistan remains at each graduate’s discretion.”
“An intention to return to [Afghanistan] is indeed encouraged by UNDP, but in no way requested as per the principles of do-no-harm,” the agency told RFE/RL.
“The program organizers must think about what these girls will do once they finish their studies,” says Barna Kargar, an Afghan woman who graduated from the Almaty University of Power Engineering and Telecommunications in 2021.
The 25-year-old native of Afghanistan’s Balkh Province received her diploma in the same month as the Western-backed government collapsed in Kabul. She changed her plans to return home and decided to stay in Kazakhstan.
Kargar says her life has been in limbo ever since. Her request for asylum in Kazakhstan has been rejected, leaving her with no legal right to live and work in the country.
“Too scared to go back to Afghanistan,” Kargar has appealed the court decision. Kargar is not a participant in the EU-funded project, but arrived in Kazakhstan with a scholarship from the former Afghan government in 2016.
“Afghanistan today is not a safe place for a woman who has studied in a foreign, modern country, and plans to have a career,” Kargar said.
Authorities in Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian host countries have not said whether they would offer asylum or other forms of residency if needed by the Afghan students once they graduate.
In Kabul, 23-year-old Rahila Yusafzai says she read online about the resumption of the program for Afghan girls to study in Central Asia.
Fluent in English, Yusafzai is keen to get a university education abroad and constantly searches for scholarships, grants, and other opportunities being offered to Afghan women.
“So many [female Afghan] students have had their studies cut short after the Taliban banned them from [attending university] last month. I hope there will be at least some scholarship programs for them to study abroad,” she told RFE/RL.
“We shouldn’t worry too much about what will happen after they graduate,” Yusafzai said. “Many things might happen, many things could change [in the next] five or six years.”
Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Humanitarians Await Taliban ‘Guidelines’ on Women Aid Workers
Margaret Besheer
VOA News
January 30, 2023
NEW YORK — The U.N. humanitarian chief said Monday that he is awaiting a list of guidelines from Taliban authorities to allow Afghan women to work in the humanitarian sector, following a decree last month that has restricted their work.
“Let’s see if these guidelines do come through; let’s see if they are beneficial; let’s see what space there is for the essential and central role of women in our humanitarian operations,” Martin Griffiths told reporters at the United Nations in New York, following his visit last week to Kabul with the heads of several international aid organizations.
On December 24, the Taliban announced a ban on Afghan women working with domestic and international aid groups, leading some international NGOs to suspend their work.
Griffiths, along with a senior UNICEF official, the president of Save the Children U.S. and the secretary-general of Care International, went to Kabul last week, where they met with nine senior Taliban officials. Griffiths said they included the de facto foreign minister, economy minister, minister of interior, and the first and second deputy prime ministers. Since ousting the previous government in August 2021, the Taliban administration has not received any formal international recognition.
After the December 24 decree, the de facto health minister said it would not apply to his sector. There were also some exceptions made in the education sector, although women and girls have been banned since last month from attending school past the sixth grade.
“In addition to making clear our grave concern about the edict itself, we then also said, OK, if you’re not rescinding the edict now, then we must expand these exceptions to cover all the aspects of humanitarian action,” Griffiths said his delegation told the Taliban.
He said in their meetings, they were told that “such arrangements would be forthcoming” and they should be “patient.”
“Everybody has opinions as to whether it’s going to work or not,” Griffiths said on whether the guidelines will be helpful. “Our view is that the message has clearly been delivered that women are central, essential workers in the humanitarian sector, in addition to having rights, and we need to see them back to work.”
Humanitarian crisis
Afghanistan is currently in the midst of one of its coldest winters, which comes on top of severe drought, decades of conflict and economic decline. The U.N. says 28 million people are in dire need of aid, while 6 million Afghans are a step away from famine.
Local and international NGOs carry out 70% of the humanitarian response in Afghanistan, said Sofía Sprechmann Sineiro, secretary-general of Care International, who joined the news conference remotely.
“So let there be no ambiguity; tying the hands of NGOs by barring women from giving lifesaving support to other women, will cost lives,” she said.
Without local women on their teams, humanitarians cannot provide services to millions of children and women.
“We won’t be able to identify their needs, communicate to female head of households, of which there are many in Afghanistan, after years and years of conflict, and to do so in a safe and culturally appropriate way,” said Janti Soeripto, president and CEO of Save the Children U.S.
She noted that women make up one-third of the 55,000 Afghan nationals working for NGOs in the country.
“Many of them are sole breadwinners. So if they don’t work, they have no money to support their families,” Soeripto added.
Griffiths said that without more exceptions to the bans it would be a “potential death blow” to many vital humanitarian programs in Afghanistan.
“The case has been made, and we are waiting for the judge to come out with a verdict,” he said of their meetings with the Taliban officials.
The visit by Griffiths and his colleagues followed one by Deputy U.N. Secretary-General Amina Mohammed and the head of U.N. Women. They also met with several Taliban leaders and lobbied them to reverse the edict restricting access to education for Afghan women and girls.