Doha 3: the “first time” of the Taliban

Pretending it’s a normal thing: that’s how you accept and make others accept what once seemed abominable. Just don’t talk about it, don’t mention it, talk about something else.

Talking about banks, drugs, aid… “normal”, everyday things of life, thus making people forget the daily horror experienced by women in Afghanistan under the fanatic regime of the Taliban and their ideology, so extreme and aberrant that even other extremist regimes suggest a limit. Afghanistan has disappeared from the news and international politics; no one talks about it anymore, unlike after the Taliban took power when “donor” countries lamented the tragic situation of the starving people and enslaved women, giving away money and scandalized words, as they did during the twenty years of occupation when they supported governments so incapable and corrupt that they lacked credibility even for themselves.

The distracted moral condemnation and fake economic sanctions imposed on the Taliban government – every month the UN sends $40 million to Afghanistan – have not softened the cruel laws against women, and the UN today declares concern for the crimes against women and their resistance only to then push forward the urgent need to help the population and fight drug trafficking. Efforts are being made to get the Taliban to engage in dialogue with the so-called international community and ensure that Western interests in Afghanistan continue to be protected.

The Taliban ask and the UN consents

In this context, the III Doha Conference took place in recent days, an international meeting that marked a turning point in Western policies towards that country: organized by the UN to normalize relations with the de facto government of Afghanistan and officially reopen economic and political relations with Western economies, which in reality had never been interrupted for some countries like China, India, Central Asia, Russia, Iran.

The novelty was the direct participation of the Taliban, who had not agreed to participate in the two previous Doha Conferences, thanks to the acceptance of their conditions, previously always excluded, which imposed inviting only them as representatives of the Afghan people and not addressing the issue of the oppression and systematic exclusion of women from education and society.

Humiliating conditions, not only for Afghan women but also for the entire democratic international community, but accepted by the UN and all participating states (albeit with Canada’s dissent). Acceptance highly criticized by various Afghan women’s associations, human rights organizations like Amnesty, and even Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan (who did not attend the meeting), costing the UN significant credibility regarding its role as a defender of human rights. Even the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) expressed deep concern over the exclusion of women and girls from the Doha meeting.

The “first time” for the Taliban… a step towards recognition

Apparently, this conference did not produce significant results. There were no enthusiastic official comments at the conclusion of the meeting, no triumphal tones. Rosemary DiCarlo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peace Affairs, who chaired the meeting on behalf of the UN, held her press conference in a subdued tone, almost quietly.

She highlighted that there was no official recognition of the de facto government, that sanctions were not lifted, and thus the Taliban did not get what they asked for. She also stated that she had supported women’s rights in every way, both directly in talks with the Taliban and through meetings, held after the meeting concluded, with women who agreed to speak with her (some refused in protest), but without any results.

One might say the meeting ended with nothing achieved, as neither did the Taliban obtain international recognition of their government and the lifting of international sanctions, nor did the UN achieve the easing of decrees against women’s rights.

But instead, an important result was achieved: it is precisely what DiCarlo called, satisfied and proud, “the first time” for the Taliban, their first official contact with the UN, promising it will be just the beginning…

The real success, however, is all the Taliban’s, consisting precisely in being admitted to a meeting with the UN for the first time and on their terms, which the UN accepted just to have them in Doha, overlooking the apartheid suffered by women and so stigmatized by the UN itself. This “first time”, so opposed by women and human rights activists, represented a success even before the conference took place, for the very fact of being desired and sought by the UN.

While the UN sells out their rights, women in Afghanistan are even more oppressed

Bennett had well expressed the sentiment of all opponents of the de facto government of Afghanistan and women’s organizations, declaring that renouncing their rights was too high a price to pay in exchange for normalizing relations with the Taliban and entering the so-called international community.

Another important reflection of this international visibility that the Taliban have gained by sitting at the UN table on their terms is all internal. Women who resist and continue to protest at the risk of their lives will now be even more harshly repressed thanks to a de facto legitimacy that the international community has given to those who devastate the rights of women and their people.

But how does the UN justify this sale of women’s rights?

DiCarlo explained that unfortunately, the Taliban do not want to sit at the negotiating table if women are present, so the UN was forced to leave them out the door.

This phrase, which makes this choice seem like an act of realism, actually takes for granted the international community’s defeat in defending Afghan women, showing that they have already surrendered to the Taliban’s will, seeing no alternatives.

The real message emerging from Doha3 is to take for granted that the Taliban control the country and to recognize, in fact, their government, even if officially denied.

The UN justifies this with the need to promote Afghanistan’s economic development to help the starving population, as if merely dialoguing with the Taliban could convince them to start a “normal” governance process based on the people’s needs rather than sharia’s.

But the facts are not taken into account: all the aid sent to Afghanistan so far has been intercepted and extorted by the Taliban for the benefit of the state apparatus and their loyal officials while little or nothing has reached the intended recipients, demonstrating how little the Taliban government cares about the well-being of its people. It was evident, for example, how they behaved during earthquakes and floods that destroyed entire territories and took everything from the already exhausted population: as numerous sources reported, aid was null or delayed because the Taliban logic is to consider catastrophes as natural phenomena sent by God and therefore to be accepted as fate.

Can opening a dialogue with the Taliban really be enough to influence them to change their fundamentalist and theocratic vision and adopt a secular governance?

The frozen money by the US and European countries belongs to the Afghans, NOT the Taliban

The money of the Afghan Central Bank frozen by the US and European countries (about $9 billion), which the UN and various organizations (including Italian ones) are asking to be unfrozen, could certainly serve to give oxygen to a population exhausted by wars and misery, but handing these funds over to the Taliban would mean giving them to despots who only care about maintaining their apparatus and loyal supporters and who extort the population with levies, taxes, and blackmail (as well demonstrated by the report “Corruption And Kleptocracy In Afghanistan Under The Taliban”).

More direct forms of support to the population must be found, and the Taliban government must be hit for its responsibility in imposing a system of oppression on the entire population and gender apartheid on women.