THE HANDSTAND

DECEMBER 2002

What follows is a speech given by the Taliban Ambassador
to the U.S.A. 2001. If you do not want your concept of the Taliban shaped by the mainstream media shaken, then pause.... But if you want to hear the Taliban side of the story, not filtered by the  media, then continue reading.
I think you will find what is expressed by the Taliban Ambassador interesting!

************************************************************
Sayyid Rahmatullah Hashemi, the
Taliban Ambassador's Speech in
the University of Southern California on
March 10, 2001


Respected Brothers/Sisters In Islam,
Assallaamu Alaykum Wa Rahamtullaahi Wa Barakaatuhu

Allah says: "O you who believe! If a rebellious evil person comes to you with news, verify it, lest you harm
people in ignorance, and afterwards you become regretful to what you have done." (Qur`an 49:6)
Sayyid Rahmatullah Hashemi recently visited the US. He has been active in giving lectures on the real
situation regarding the Taliban in Afghanistan throughout central and Southern California. The following is
the transcribed
lecture given by Sayyid Rahmatullah Hashemi at the University Of Southern California on March 10, 2001:



I was just coming from [a meeting with] a group of scholars, and the first thing we started on there was
the statues. And the first thing we started here was also the statues. It's very unfortunate how little we
see and how little we know. And it really confuses me, if people really know that little or not. Nobody
has seen the problems of Afghanistan; nobody saw their problems before. And the only thing that
represents Afghanistan today are the statues.

The problem of Afghanistan was not new. As you know Afghanistan is called, The Crossroads of Asia. So,
we are suffering because of our geo-strategic location. We have suffered in the 18th century, 19th century,
and we are still suffering in this century.

We have not attacked the British. We have not attacked the Russians. It was they who attacked us. So
the problems in Afghanistan, you see, are not our creation. That reflects the image of the world. If you
don't like the image in the mirror, do not break the mirror; break your face.

The problems in Afghanistan started in 1979. Afghanistan was a peaceful country and it was doing its own
job. The Russians, along with their 140,000 troops attacked Afghanistan in the December of 1979, just 21
years ago. They stayed there for a decade, killed one and a half million people, maimed one million more
people, and six million out of the eighteen million people migrated because of the Russian brutalities.
Even today, our children are dying because of the landmines that they planted for us. And nobody knows
about this.


After the Russians left and during the Russian occupation, on the other side, the American government,
the British government, the French, the Chinese, and all of the rest, supported the counter-
revolutionaries called the Mujahideen. They have 7 groups only in Pakistan and 8 groups in Iran who
fought the Russian occupation. And after the Russians left, these groups all went into Afghanistan.
Each of them had different ideologies, and a lot of weapon[s]. And instead of having a single
administration, they fought one another in Afghanistan. The destruction that they brought was worse
than the destruction the Russians brought. 63,000 people were killed in the capital, Kabul. Seeing all
this chaos, and the complete destruction of our country, and I don't have to forget to tell you that after
the Soviets left, another million people migrated because of the lawlessness that existed in Afghanistan.
We lost 7 million people altogether.

So seeing this destruction and lawlessness, a group of students called the Taliban, (Taliban is the plural
word of students in our language; it may be two students in Arabic, but in our language it means
students)... so, a group of students started a movement called the Movement of Students. It first started
in a village in the southern province of Afghanistan, called Kandahar. It happened when a war-lord, or a
commander abducted two minor girls, raped them, and the parents of those girls went to a school and
asked the teacher of the school to help them. The teacher of that school, along with his 53 students,
finding only 16 guns, went and attacked the base of that commander. After releasing those two girls,
they hanged that commander, and so many of their [the commander's] people were also hanged. This
story was told everywhere; and this was called the terrorist story of the Taliban, or the Students. BBC
also quoted this story. But seeing or hearing this story, many other students joined this movement and
started disarming the rest of the warlords, who were worse than these. I will not prolong this story. So
far, this one students' movement controls 95% of the country. They captured the capital, including the
four major cities. And only a bunch of those warlords are remaining in the northern corridor of
Afghanistan.

So our achievements are as follows. We are in a government for only five years, and the following things
that we have done, and many of you may not know:

* The first thing we have done is re-unify the fragmented country. Afghanistan was formerly divided into
five parts. The first thing we have done is to reunify that country. The United Nations, the United States,
everybody was confused as to how to reunify that country, and nobody could do it. The first thing we
have done is to reunify that country.

* Second thing we have done, which everybody failed to do, was disarming a population. After dealing
[with] the war of the Russians, and the Americans I would say, every Afghan got a Kalashnikov, and
even sophisticated weapon such as stinger missiles, and they even got fighter planes and fighter
helicopters. So disarming these people was impossible. The United Nations, in 1992, passed an
appeal asking for 3 billion dollars to re-purchase those arms, to start a process of repurchasing the
forgot about Afghanistan. So the second thing we have done is to disarm 95% of that country.

* And the third thing that we have done is to establish a single administration under Afghanistan,
which did not exist for 10 years.

* And the fourth achievement that we have that is surprising to everybody is that we have eradicated
75% of all the world's Opium cultivation. Afghanistan produced 75% of all the world's Opium. The
drug, you know that Opium? The Narcotics business? And last year we issued an edict asking the
people to stop growing Opium. This year, the United Nations Drug Control Program, UNDCP, and
their head, [Mr.] Barnard F., proudly announced that there was 0% of Opium cultivation. None at all.
And this was not good news for the UN itself because many of them lost their jobs. In the UNDCP,
700 so called experts were working there - they got their salaries and they never went into
lost their jobs. And this was our fourth achievement.

* The fifth achievement that we have, it's a little controversial... some of our friends will not know,
it is the restoration of Human rights. Now, YOU may think there is a violation of Human Rights,
fundamental rights of a human being is the right to Live. Before us, nobody could live peacefully
in Afghanistan. So the first thing we have done, we have begun [to give] to the people a secure and
peaceful life. The second major thing that we have restored is to give them free and fair justice;
you don't have to buy justice, unlike here. You will have justice freely. And you have criticized us
for violating women's rights; now, who knows what happened before us? Only some symbolic
schools, or symbolic posts were given to some women in the ministry, and that was called the
restoration of women's rights.

I can see some Afghans living here, and they will agree with me, that in the rural areas of
Afghanistan, women were used as animals. They were SOLD, actually. The first thing we have
done is to give self-determination to women, and it had not happened in the history of Afghanistan.
Throughout the history of Afghanistan, during all the so-called civilized kings or whatever,
they didn't give this right to women, so women were sold. ! They didn't have the right to select
their husbands, or to reject their husbands. The first thing we have done is to let them choose
their future. And you will know that throughout south Asia, women are killed under the title of
honour killings. It happens when a woman's relation is detected with a man, whether or not the
relation was sexual, they're both killed. But now this is not happening in our country. And the
third thing that happened only in Afghanistan, was women were exchanged as gifts; this was
not something religious; this was something cultural. When two tribal tribes were fighting among
themselves, then, in order to get their tribal issue reconciled, they would exchange women, and
then [they] would make, or announce reconciliation. This has been stopped. If we [had to give]
fundamental rights of woman, we had to start from zero; we couldn't jump in the middle.

Now you've asked me about the rights of women's education and the rights of women's work.
Unlike what is said here, women do work in Afghanistan. You're right that until 1997, I mean,
in 1996, when we captured the capital Kabul, we did ask women to stay home. It didn't mean
that we wanted them to stay at home forever, but nobody listened to us. We said that there is
no law, and there is no order, and you have to stay at home. They were raped before us,
everyday. So, after we disarmed the people, and after we brought law and order, women are
now working. You are right that women are not working in the Ministry of Defence, like here.
We don't want our women to be fighter pilot[s], or to be used as objects of decoration for
advertisements. But they do work.
They work in the Ministry of Health, Interior, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Social Affairs,
and so on. So, and we don t have any problem with women's education. We have said that
we wanted education, and we will have education whether or not we are under anybody's
pressure, because that is part of our belief. We are ordered to do that. When we say that
there should be segregated schools, it does not mean that we don't want our women to be
educated. It is true that we are against co-education; but it is not true that we are against
women's education. We do have schools even now, but the problem is the resources. We
cannot expand these programs. Before our government there were numerous curriculums
going on; there were curriculums which preached the king for the kings, and there were
curriculums which preached for the communists, and there were curriculums from all these
seven parties previously mentioned. So, the Students were confused as to what to study,
and the first we have done is to unify that curriculum, and that's going on today.



. But we are criticized, and we say that instead of criticism, if you just help us once, that will make a
difference. Because criticism will not make a difference. If you issue criticism from New York, thousands
of miles away, we don t care. But if you come here and help us, we do care. So, actually there are
more girl students studying in the faculty of medical sciences than boys This is not myself alone who is
saying this, it is the United Nations who has announced this. Recently we reopened the faculty of
medical science in all major cities of Afghanistan and in Kandahar, there are more girl students than
boys ! But they are segregated. And the Swedish committees have also established schools for girls.
I know they are not enough, but that's all we can do. So, that is what I say that we have restored. I don't
say we are 100% perfect, and nobody will say that they are 100% perfect. We do have
shortcomings, and we do need to amend our policies. But we can't do everything overnight.

* And the sixth problem, is it sixth or seventh? Seventh, I think the seventh problem that we are
accused of is Terrorism, or the existence of terrorists in Afghanistan. And
for Americans terrorism or terrorist means only bin Laden. Now you will not
know that Afghanistan, or bin Laden was in Afghanistan 17 years before
even we, the Taliban,existed. Bin Laden was in Afghanistan, fought the
Soviet Union, and Mr. Ronald Reagan, the president of America in that time
and Dick, Mr. Dick Chaney called such people freedom fighters or the
Heroes of Independence, because they were fighting for their cause. So
Osama bin Laden was one of those guys who was instigated by such media
reports,and in that provocation by these countries, to go to Afghanistan and
fight the Soviets there. Now, when the Soviet Union is fragmented, such
people were not needed anymore, and they were transformed into terrorists
from heroes to terrorists. So exactly like that, Mr. Yassir Arafat was
transformed from a terrorist to a hero. So we don't know as to what is the definition of Terrorism. We
do regret that the terrorists performed actually horrific acts and they were terrorist acts. But if they
are terrorist acts, what is the difference between those terrorist acts and the attacks on Afghanistan
when in 1998 there were attacks, cruise missile attacks, on Afghanistan. Neither of the two attacks
were declared and both of them killed civilians. So we are confused as to what is the definition of
Terrorism. If it means killing civilians blindly, both of them killed civilians blindly. And the fact is,
I m not going to be offensive or rude about this, I m going to be frank. And I think it's sometimes
honest to be rude. If the United States says that it has acted for its defence, lets see..... The United
States government tried to kill a man without even giving him a fair trial. In 1998,they just sent
cruise missiles into Afghanistan and they announced that they were trying to kill Osama bin Laden
We didn't know Osama bin Laden then. I didn't know him; he was just a simple man. So we were
all shocked. I was one of those men who was sitting at home at night, I was called for an
immediate council meeting and we all were told that the United States has attacked Afghanistan.
And, with 75 cruise missiles are trying to kill one man. And they missed that man; they killed 19
other students and never apologized for those killings. So what would you do if you were in our
status; if we were to go and send 75 cruise missiles into the United States and say that we were
going to kill a man that we thought, not believed, but that we thought, was responsible for
destroying our embassy, and we missed that man, and we killed 19 other Americans - what would
the United States do? An instant declaration of war. But we were polite. We didn't declare war.
We had a lot of problems at home; we didn't want further problem[s]. And since then, we are
very open-minded on this issue.

We have said, that if this man really is involved in the Kenya/Tanzania acts, if anybody can give
us proof or evidence about his involvement in these horrific acts, we will punish him. Nobody gave
us evidence. We put him on trial for 45 days and nobody gave us any kind of evidence. The fact
is that the United States told us they did not believe in our judicial system. We were surprised as
to what kind of judicial system they have.... They showed us what they are doing to the people,
they just tried to kill a man without even giving him a fair trial. Even if one of us here is a criminal,
the police are not going to blow his house, he must go to a court first. So, that was rejected.
Our first proposal, despite all these things, was rejected. They said they will not believe in our
judicial system, and we must give him up to New York. The second proposal that we gave after
the rejection of this first was - we are ready to accept an international monitoring group to come
into Afghanistan and monitor this man's activities in Afghanistan. So that he does nothing. Even
that he [Osama] has no telecommunications. That proposal was also rejected. And the third
proposal we gave, six months ago, was that we were ready, that we were ready to try, or to accept
a third Islamic country's decision, or the trial of [Osama] in a third Islamic country, with the consent
of Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, that was also rejected. So we don t know, as to what is the problem
behind this. If bin Laden was the only issue, we are still very open minded, and for the fourth time, I'm
here, with a letter from my leadership that I'm going to submit to the state department hoping that they
will resolve the problem. But I don t think so [that] they will solve the problem. Because we think, and I
personally think now that maybe the United States is looking for a Boogy Man always. Do you remember
what Gorbachev said? He said, that he's going to do the worst thing ever to the United States. And
everybody thought that he's going to blow-up the United States with nuclear weapon[s]. But he said,
I'm going to remove their enemy..... And then he fragmented the Soviet Union. And he was right. After
he fragmented Soviet Union, a lot of people lost their jobs in the Pentagon, in the CIA, and the FBI,
because they were not needed anymore. So we think that maybe these guys are looking for a Boogy
Man now. Maybe they want to justify their annual budget, maybe they want to make their citizens feel
that they are still needed to defend them.

Afghanistan is not a terrorist state; we cannot even make a needle. How are we going to be a terrorist
state? How are we going to be a threat to the world? If world terrorism is really derived from the word
"terror", then there are countries making weapons of mass destruction, countries making nuclear
cannot even make a needle; how are we going to be a threat to the world? So as I said in the beginning,
the situation in Afghanistan is not our creation. The situation in Afghanistan reflects the world's image.
"If you don t like the image in the mirror, do not break the mirror; break your face."

Now, we are under sanctions. And the sanctions have caused a lot of problems, despite that we are
undergoing so many other problems. 23 years of continuous war, the total destruction of our
infrastructure, and the problem of refugees, and the problem of land mines in our agricultural lands.
All of a sudden the United Nations, with the provocation of Russia, is imposing sanctions on
Afghanistan. And the sanctions have been approved; we are under sanctions. Several hundred children
died a month ago, here it is (holds up pamphlet). Seven hundred children died because of malnutrition
and the severe cold weather. Nobody even talked about that. Instead, everybody knows about the
statues ! For us, we are surprised, that the world is destroying our future with economic sanctions, when
they have no right to worry about our past. Everybody is saying that "they are destroying their heritage",
they don t have any right to talk about that. They are destroying the future of our children with economic
sanctions, so how are they going to justify talking about our past? I know it's not rational and logical to
blow the statues for... for retaliation of economic sanctions. But this is how it is. I called, after this
announcement, I called my headquarters, and I found out, I was really confused. I asked them, why
are they going to blow the statues, and I talked to the head of the Council of Scholars of the People,
who had actually decided this. He told me that UNESCO and a NGO from Sweden, or from one of
these Scandinavian countries Norway, Sweden, one of these, they had actually come, with a project
of rebuilding the face of these statues, which have worn by rain. The Council of People had told
them to spend that money in saving the lives of these children, instead of spending that money to
[restore these] statues. And these guys said that, No, this money is only for the statues. And the
people were really pissed off. They said that, If you don' t care about our children, we are going to
blow those statues.

[Person from the Audience yells, Takbeer! ]

[Audience responds, Allahu Akbar! ]

I don't say that he's right or wrong, the decision is yours. Think of it yourself. If you had such a
problem, what would you do? If your children are dying in front of your eyes, and you are under
sanctions, and then the same people who have imposed sanctions and are coming and building
statues here? What will you do? So, I talked to my Headquarters today, and they said that the
statues have not been blown so far. But the people are so angry. They are really angry, they want
to blow them. And there is Kofi Annan is going,... you know Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of
the United Nations? He went to [--], to Pakistan, and he said he's going to meet our representative
there. This man never bothered to enter, to talk about these children, he never bothered himself to
talk about six million refugees, and he never talked about [the] poverty of Afghanistan. He only
goes to that region because of these statues. And the OIC is also, they've also sent a mission
to go to Kabul and talk about those statues. So we are really confused.... That the world is really
caring about the statues, and that they don't care about human beings. I don t say we have to
retaliate in blowing the statues; we have not done that. But if we were to destroy those statues!
, we would have destroyed them three years before now, because we captured those areas
three years before now. We didn't want to blow them. And now the situation has come, and it's
not our decision. This is the decision of the Scholars and the People. And that is the decision
has been approved by the Supreme Court. We cannot reject this decision. So these guys are
there, the OIC and some, even I think some Ministers from different countries are there to
save the lives of these statutes. I think they will not be blown because of the concerns of these
people. But it is really, really ridiculous. These people do not care about children, about people
who are dying there, about the foreign interference that still exists, they only care about the
statues. And I'm sure they don t care about our heritage. They don't care about our heritage; they
only care about their picnic site one time. Maybe they'll have a good picnic site there, seeing
those statues. They don't care about our heritage, I'm sure. If they were to care about our past,
they wouldn't destroy our future. And I'm sure these sanctions which are imposed on our
government will never change us, because for us, our ideology is everything. To try to change
our ideology with economic sanctions will never work. It may work in the United States, where
the economy is everything, but for us, our ideology is everything. .... And we believe that it is
better to die for something than to live for nothing.

We are still open-minded. We are, we still have our doors open for negotiations, but our offices
are closed everywhere. Our office was closed in New York a week ago. They are trying to shut
our offices in other countries, trying to isolate us, and they don't know that isolation is
counter-productive. Because they don't have experts; the only experts they have are those
people who speak English. They don t even speak the language. Those experts who are
advising the sanctions, or the sanction committee have not even been to Afghanistan. And
they are setting benchmarks for us to achieve.

I'm prolonging this speech, I'm sorry, because I have been repeating it everywhere, so I may
have left some thing in it, and I will let you ask me questions.

Afghanistan Ambassador's Speech at
The University of Southern California on March 10, 2001

The lesson of history: Afghanistan always beats its invaders; Robert Fisk

On the heights of the Kabul Gorge, they still find ancient belt buckles and corroded sword hilts. You can no longer read the insignia of the British regiments of the old East India Company but their bones – those of all 16,000 of them – still lie somewhere amid the dark earth and scree of the most forbidding mountains in Afghanistan. Like the British who came later, like the Russians who were to arrive more than a century afterwards, General William Elphinstone's campaign was surrounded with rhetoric and high principles and ended in disaster. George Bush Junior and Nato, please note.

Indeed, if there is one country – calling it a nation would be a misnomer – that the West should avoid militarily, it is the tribal land in which Osama Bin Laden maintains his obscure sanctuary. Just over two decades ago, I found out what it was like to be on an invasion army in that breathlessly beautiful, wild, proud plateau. Arrested by the Russian Parachute Regiment near the Salang Tunnel, I was sent with a Soviet convoy back to Kabul. We were ambushed, and out of the snowdrifts came the Afghans, carrying knives. An air strike and the arrival of Soviet Tadjik troops saved us. But the mighty Red Army had been humbled before men who could not write their own names and whose politics were so remote that a mujahid fighter would later insist to me that London was occupied by Russian troops.

"The Taliban Are Well Liked"
A Japanese doctor's up-close observations contradict overseas reports
By MUTSUKO MURAKAMI
http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/daily/foc/0,8773,180342,00.html

Thursday, October 18, 2001
Web posted at 03:20 p.m. Hong Kong time, 03:20 a.m. GMT

Japanese doctor Tetsu Nakamura works with leprosy patients and refugees in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's a job that keeps him in touch with the raw reality of life in that troubled country. And he says that from what he has seen, the Taliban are being wrongly portrayed internationally.

"There's something wrong with the media reports," he says. "This talk of the Taliban being vicious and disliked doesn't fit with reality." Nakamura says the fundamentalists have wide support from the population, particularly in rural areas. "Otherwise, how can they rule 95% of the country with
only 15,000 soldiers?"

Villagers around Nakamura's Peshawar base hospital and 10 clinics in both north-western Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan were pleased to see peace established under Taliban rule, he says. The Pushtun people, who make up two-thirds of the Afghan population, can accept strict Muslim codes because they have lived by them all their lives, he says. Women are not deprived of education or jobs, as far as he can see. In fact, half the local doctors at his clinics are women.

So why are the people of the capital, Kabul, reportedly hoping to see the Taliban overthrown? "The Taliban may act differently there," he told me when we met recently in Tokyo. "They're obliged to fix the corrupt urban life. The people most vocal in criticizing the Taliban are upper-class
Afghans who have been deprived of their privileges." Nakamura's words reminded me of news footage I have seen several times since the attacks on New York and Washington. Shot by French journalists in Afghanistan, it showed Afghan women speaking critically of the Taliban. Significantly,
they are dressed in shiny silk-like costumes, with large rings on their fingers.

Nakamura, 55, says the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance are not the freedom fighters some journalists describe them as. Villagers are frightened of them because they are more violent and cruel than the Taliban, he says. They execute innocent people in horrific ways, though not in public as the Taliban do as a warning to others.

Nakamura works for Peshawar  kai Medical Services, a Japanese aid agency based in Fukuoka City that has been operating in the Peshawar district for 17 years. He first visited the area as an alpinist when he was still a medical school student in Fukuoka. Shocked by the lack of medical care in the area, particularly for leprosy patients, he volunteered to work at a local hospital in l984. He says: "I spent most of my time not in straight medical work but in trying to understand my patients, their lifestyles and values -- what makes them weep or what matters most for them. "Luckily, I can eat anything and sleep anywhere," he grins.

Nakamura has seen foreigners visiting Afghanistan and returning home to criticize the Muslim culture -- from a Western perspective. These people may be "heroes or heroines in London or New York," he says, "but they contribute nothing to the welfare of Afghans." As for suggestions the
Taliban have cut the country off from the world, Nakamura says the Afghans are perhaps better informed than the Japanese, as they listen daily to BBC radio in their own language.

The doctor's greatest concern is the fate of millions of starving refugees in and around Afghanistan. Over one million of them are suffering from hunger, he says, while up to 40% are bordering on starvation. He thinks 10% could die during the winter. Nakamura and his staff stopped focusing exclusively on leprosy in the l980s as they had so many refugees to deal with, many suffering from malaria, diarrhoea, infections and fever. Severe draught in recent years created hundreds of thousands of refugees. And now the American bombing and the fear of an invasion has brought more. His aid agency helps to dig wells not only to provide water but also for irrigation for farms, so that the refugees can return to their villages.


Back home in Japan temporarily and thinking of his base area in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Nakamura says: "It's all like a mirage far off in the desert." He fondly recalls the red-brown soil of Afghanistan fields, the villagers sharing their joy about water from newly dug wells, and the friendly
faces of Taliban soldiers helping villagers. "I have one simple question," he says. "What are the big powers trying to defend by attacking this ailing, tiny country?" It's a good question.