Biography

Siddiq Barmak was born in Panjshir, Afghanistan, on September 7, 1962. He got his M.A degree in cinema direction from the Moscow film institut (VGIK) in the year 1987.

He has written a few screenplays and has made a few short films and also his first feature film “Osama” in Afghanistan. He was the manager of the Afghan Film governmental organization from 1992 to 1996 and after the establishment of the new government he was once again chosen to manage the Afghan film organization. All his works were banned during the time of the Taliban.

Short films:

The Wall (1983), Circle (1984), Stranger (1986), Documentary, The disaster of withering (1988), Osma (2003) Farsi

Osama, Synopsis

A 12 year old girl, her mother and a boy (spandi) have survived the repressed demonstrations launched by Afghan women at the beginning of Taliban regime. The girl and her mother work in a hospital and soon become aware that the Taliban have dismissed all the people working there and have closed its gate.

The Taliban make sure that no women can get out of their houses without a legal companion (without any member of their family). If they do so they will be punished. To support the family, the girl’s mother, who has lost her job, decides together with the girl’s Grandmother to change the appearance of the girl in order to look like a boy. This decision terrifies the girl. She is afraid of what will happen if the Taliban finds out that she is a girl. To get a job, the mother and the girl go to the milkman who was an old friend of the girl’s slain father.

The next adventures begin from here….

The religious police of the Taliban force the people to go to masque for noon prayer. The girl who is still not familiar with these regulations makes mistakes during prayer session, which then causes a Taliban to become suspicious. On the next day all boys including the girl (looking like boy) are taken to the religious school called Madrassa, which is also the center for military training by the Taliban. After some adventures the Taliban discovers the real face of the girl. The girl is put in jail. The Taliban’s judicial court, which advocates stoning and execution, force the girl to marry an old Mullah. After they are married the girl discovers that she is the Mullah’s fourth wife…

Title: Osama
Directing, Editing, Script: Siddiq Barmak
Assistant Directors: Kaveh moeinfar, Homayon paeiz, Mirvais Rekab, Razi mohebi Cinematographer: Ebrahim Ghafuri
Assistant cinematographer: Reza Sheakhi, Mehdi Amiri
Still: Vahid Ramagh
Soundmen: Behrouz Shahamat, Farokh fadai,
Sound & mix: Mastaneh Mohajer, Hussein Mahdavi
Set Designer: Akbar Meshkini
Assistant Editing: Mastaneh Mohajer
Executive manager: Siamak Alagheh band, Abubakr Atef
Script girl : Agheleh Rezaei
Music: Mohammad Reza Darwishi
Laboratory: Studio Filmsaz
Casts: Marina Golbahari, Khwaja Nader, Arif Herati, Zubaida Sahar, Hamida Refah, Gol Rahman Ghorbandi
Producer: Barmak Film with cooperates with NHK (Japan) and leBrcoquy Fraser(Ireland).

Festivals:

The first is screening at Directors’ Fortnight section of Cannes
Film Festival, France 2003.

Barmak an interview on Osama, Cannes 2003

Question: Can you talk to me about Osama, about this project, about your desire of film maker?

SB: Osama is a bitter and tragic story of our life. The worst time which nobody had his/her own way to get decision. Osama is the story about identity of those who had lost their identity under Osama’s name. Osama is the story about scare, where people are afraid of even the sounds of the shadows. Osama is the story about the permanent and endless story of women in prison. Osama is the story about a little girl and all the injustice and religious nonsense that is being carried on her shoulder. It was one of my dreams to become a film projectionist. It was my dream to find something in this dark place where there is just one line of light towards the big white screen and now I believe that this line of light can be moved towards peoples minds and make them bright, especially in our country.

Question: How did you get the idea? By your work as documentarist?

SB: When I was in Pakistan, I was looking to make a short fiction film. I was trying to find some special subjects and characters in many different Afghan organizations such as the handicapped, street children and Afghan newspapers in Peshawar. Accidentally I read a letter from an old senior Afghan teacher that told a story about a little girl who had a burning desire to attend school during the Taliban regime, while it was forbidden for girls. So she changes her appearance to look like a boy by cutting her hair and wearing the boy’s outfits. Of course, it was the story that shocked my friends and me.

Question: You were living in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s administration?

SB: When the Taliban took control of the Kabul city, after two weeks I was obliged to escape from Kabul to Pakistan first, but very soon I left Peshawar to the north of Afghanistan. I have tried to make fiction or documentary film there, but all my dreams didn’t came true due to worst conditions of my life as bitter lives of my people in war! After two and a half years once again unwillingly I migrated to Pakistan.

Question: How are you working? Do you have a special method?

SB: No doubt at first when I want to make something I always try to collect as much information as possible, especially the real experience I had in the and also people’s memory and their experiences. Regarding selecting of actors, the first two short fiction films that I made, was with non professional actors and actresses and especially children. To get them play in that way, I used many different styles and methods.

Question: What is your universe? Do you have big influences? Do you have some masters in cinema?

SB: My world is a poem about love which finds itself among the wars, smoke and dust. I love the poetry style of movie. In this case I can say the Andre Tarkovski, Sergei Parajanov,Angelo Polos Gorgain film style like Thingis Abuladza and Otar Eisilyani? of course very near to our language, Iranian film makers such as the great Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Abbas Keya Rustami.These masters have had a big influence on my way of filmmaking.

Question: How long was the shooting of Osama? Where and when did you shoot exactly? During or after the Taliban’s?

SB: More than one year was spent on the scenario. The project started from June 2002 and was completed in March 2003 in Kabul, a suburb of Kabul city after collapse of Taliban regime.

Question: You shoot with digital camera?

SB: No. It was shot by Arriflex 35 mm. B.L 4 cameras.

Question: How do you find your actors?

SB: Generally we decided to select nonprofessional actors and actresses. To find and select the main character we went to look for it in many different sections such as schools, orphanages, street children centers and refugees camps. We selected the majority of our actors and actresses from refugees camps but we found the main character (Marina) on the street.

Question: Big difficulties during shooting? And for editing?

SB: The major problem we had was finding the female actors. This is very understandable in the current situation. The other problem we had was unpredictable cold weather, especially for the first scene, sprinkling of water by machine on the women. We were not faced with any particular problem during editing because we were well prepared for the making of this film.

Question: In France we think authors and director must have real and complete control of their films. What are you thinking about this?

SB: To make a film of course every one can share their advices but one person should be the final decision maker.

Question: What is the cost of your movie? Low budget? Difficult to get the money? Difficult to produce? You made coproduction with Ireland and NHK? How was it possible?

SB: In Afghanistan it is one of the highest budget film productions. The economic situation of Afghanistan is not suitable for such a high budget production. In this regard I am really thankful of Makhmalbaf Film House that assisted us at early stages. No doubt that the synopsis of this film attracted the attention of NHK and our Irelands friends. Of course they found the theme and subject of the film very interesting.

Question: And now what is the future of Afghan cinema? You can take a big place for this & which money? Which help? Are you optimist?

SB: We have lots of things to say to our people and the world and we have a lot of talented filmmakers in our country. For this we have strong cultural bases and literature resources. To realize these dreams we need International assistance and we can now see these first steps being taken towards developing Afghan cinema. I am a big optimist about future of Afghan Cinema.

Question: What are you waiting about the selection of your film by Director’s fortnight?

SB: My expectation is and I hope our nations pain, sorrows and suffering shock the audience and change their mines and point of view about the future of the human being.

Question: Are you going to come to Cannes?

SB: Yes, of course, I want to be the messenger of aspiration and desire of Afghan Film makers in Cannes.

Six people have also been arrested for trafficking the Afghans, who were detained from Mehriz, a border city in Iran’s Yazd province, provincial authorities said.

The officials also seized four vehicles used to transport the Afghans to Iran, a major transit point for human smuggling from Afghanistan to Europe.

According to officials, the traffickers pick poor Afghans on the pretext of better jobs and livelihood, and smuggle them to European countries through Iran.

Earlier this month, about 50 people were found dead inside a container near Quetta, the capital city of Pakistan’s Balochistan province. These people were reportedly being transported from Afghanistan to Iran via Pakistan.

With the standard of living deteriorating in Afghanistan, which is plagued by growing insurgency, people in the war-torn country are trying to flee to other countries in search of a better living.

But, most of them fall prey in the hands of human traffickers who smuggle the poor Afghans to European countries for purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labour.

Source

Farida Nekzad on setting up a news agency in Afghanistan

Just 24 years old, journalist, translator, and coordinator Ajmal Naqshbandi was one of Afghanistan’s best “fixers”-people who help foreign media negotiate the treacherous landscape of personalities that includes ordinary citizens, Afghan government officials, and Taliban fighters. In Naqshbandi’s own words, “This work is very dangerous. I bring one enemy to meet another.” Fixer follows the close relationship between Naqshbandi and one of his clients, American journalist Christian Parenti. The intimate portrait of two colleagues shifts dramatically when Naqshbandi is kidnapped, along with an Italian reporter, by Taliban forces. The situation goes from bad to worse as foreign powers pressure for a fast resolution to the kidnapping, the Afghan government bungles its response, and the spectre of Taliban power looms in the background. What follows is the tragic story of one man forgotten in the crossfire. Ultimately, Fixer is an unflinching look at the problems facing a troubled and proud nation. Shannon Abel.

Co-presented with Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

Credits

Director(s) : Ian Olds
Producer(s) : Nancy Roth, Ian Olds
Cinematographer(s) : Ian Olds
Editor(s) : Ian Olds
Composers(s) : Growing

Subjects

FIXER: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi deals with the following subjects: Afghani Cultures & Issues, Journalists & the Media, War and Conflict

Screenings

7:15 pm Wed, May 6
The ROM Theatre
100 Queen’s Park
Note: inside the Royal Ontario Museum, at Avenue Road & Bloor St West

4:00 pm Thu, May 7
Innis Town Hall
2 Sussex Avenue

When Afghan-Canadian director Nelofer Pazira returns to Bamiyan, Afganistan for the screening of the award-winning film she collaborated on, The Giant Buddhas, she is shocked to see a crowd of 2,000, and astonished that many are women. Inspired, she decides to audition locals for a film. The men are eager, enthusiastically laughing and dying on command. The women are intrigued, but reticent, fearing retribution. When they do perform, it is with riveting authenticity. Pazira asks the men and women pointed questions, challenging their preconceptions and renegotiating the balance of power and control. Equal parts fascinating cultural intervention, exploration of the camera’s gaze, and homage to Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s ethically complex Salaam Cinema (Pazira starred in his film, Kandahar, loosely based on her story), this multilayered excavation of a society straddling two worlds uses cinema as a mirror to reflect the underlying tensions between power, tradition, ethics, and honour. Gisèle Gordon.

Credits

Director(s) : Nelofer Pazira
Producer(s) : Nelofer Pazira, Sarah Elton
Cinematographer(s) : Ghulam Reza Mohammadi
Editor(s) : Joel Roff
Composers(s) : Stephen Skratt, Chris Church

Subjects

Audition deals with the following subjects: Afghani Cultures & Issues, Films & Filmmakers, Religion & Spirituality, Rural Life, Sociology, Women’s Issues

Screenings

4:45 pm Sat, May 2
Isabel Bader Theatre

7:15 pm Sat, May 9
Isabel Bader Theatre

Featuring Habib Qaderi with his new album Closer

4501 Pleasanton Avenue
Pleasanton, California 94566

Afghanistan’s descent into conflict and instability in recent times began with the overthrow of the king in 1973.

Zahir Shah was in Italy for an eye operation when he was deposed in a palace coup by his cousin, Mohammad Daoud.

Daoud declared Afghanistan a republic, with himself as president. He relied on the support of leftists to consolidate his power, and crushed an emerging Islamist movement.

Defining moment

But towards the end of his rule, he attempted to purge his leftist supporters from positions of power and sought to reduce Soviet influence in Afghanistan.

It was this that helped lead to a defining moment in Afghanistan’s recent history - the communist coup in April 1978, known as the Saur, or April Revolution.

President Daoud and his family were shot dead, and Nur Mohammad Taraki took power as head of the country’s first Marxist government, bringing to an end more than 200 years of almost uninterrupted rule by the family of Zahir Shah and Mohammad Daoud.

But the Afghan communist party, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan - or PDPA - was divided, and splits emerged.

Ruthless leader

Hafizullah Amin, who had become prime minister, was opposed to Taraki, and in October 1979 Taraki was secretly executed, with Amin becoming the new president.

Amin, known for his independent and nationalist inclinations, was also ruthless.

He has been accused of assassinating thousands of Afghans.

To the Soviets in Moscow, he was looked upon as a threat to the prospect of an amenable communist government bordering Soviet Central Asia.

In a swift chain of events in December 1979, Amin was assassinated and the Soviet Red Army swept into Afghanistan.

Babrak Karmal was flown from Czechoslovakia, where he was Afghan ambassador, to take over as the new president, albeit as a puppet leader acceptable to Moscow.

Million killed

The Soviet occupation, which lasted until the final withdrawal of the Red Army in 1989, was a disaster for Afghanistan.

About a million Afghans lost their lives as the Red Army tried to impose control for its puppet Afghan government. Millions more fled abroad as refugees.

Groups of Afghan Islamic fighters - or mujahideen - fought endlessly to try to force a Soviet retreat, with much covert support from the United States.

After nearly 10 years, the Soviet Union eventually withdrew, leaving in power President Najibullah, who had replaced Karmal as leader.

He hung on for three years after the Red Army’s departure, but fell in 1992 as the United Nations was trying to arrange a peaceful transfer of power.

The mujahideen swept victoriously into Kabul. After a short interim measure, Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani became president of the new Islamic Republic.

Infighting

But their victory was soon soured by infighting, as the mujahideen factions failed to agree on how to share their new power.

During the Soviet occupation it was predominantly rural areas that suffered military onslaught as the Red Army tried to flush out the mujahideen.

But when the mujahideen took over, it was the turn of urban areas to suffer from the conflict.

This was especially true of the capital, Kabul, about half of which was literally flattened. Tens of thousands of civilians lost their lives, and the country slid more and more into a state of anarchy.

It was towards the end of 1994 that the Taleban emerged in the southern city of Kandahar, heart of Afghanistan’s Pashtun homeland.

Their initial appeal - and success - was based on a call for the removal of the mujahideen groups.

Taliban years

At first they succeeded in gaining control of Pashtun areas with little fighting. Mujahideen commanders defected to their ranks.

But as their control spread to other, especially non-Pashtun, areas, the fighting intensified.

The Taliban went on to control about 90% of the country.

It was in 1996, as they captured Kabul, that much of the outside world first reacted in dismay to the Taliban’s extreme Islamic policies, especially towards the place of women in society.

As Taliban control spread, the Western world intensified pressure on the Taliban to ban the growth of opium poppies, Afghanistan being the source of most opiates reaching Europe.

The United States, in particular, also began their pressure on the Taliban to give up the militant Saudi, Osama Bin Laden, whom the Taliban described as their “guest” in Afghanistan.

Washington blamed Bin Laden for masterminding the suicide attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on 11 September 2001.

The following month the US and its allies began air attacks on Afghanistan which allowed the Taliban’s Afghan opponents to sweep them from power. Kabul was retaken in November and by early December the Taliban had given up their stronghold of Kandahar.

Road to elections

On 5 December 2001 Afghan groups agreed a deal in Bonn for an interim government, at the head of which Pashtun royalist Hamid Karzai was then sworn in.

The Bonn conference, held under UN auspices, forged a political blueprint leading to elections scheduled for summer 2004.

In June 2002 a loya jirga, or grand council, elected Mr Karzai as interim head of state. A second loya jirga in January 2004 adopted a new constitution.

In September, 2002, Mr Karzai survived an assassination attempt in Kandahar blamed on the Taleban. There have been other near misses since. A number of his ministers and other senior figures have been less fortunate.

Mr Karzai has been able to exert little control beyond the capital.

Turf wars between local commanders have been a feature of the post-Taliban period.

And the Taliban themselves have re-emerged as a fighting force, worsening the security situation first in the east and south-east, and then across much of the country.

Thousands have been killed in the violence in recent years, including many militants and foreign and Afghan troops, as well as large numbers of civilians.

Source

Dir(s): Havana Marking
Program: Special Presentations
Run Time: 90 | UK | Language: (Subtitled in English) Dari English Pashtun

9:15 pm Wed, May 6 at Bloor Cinema
506 Bloor Street West
Note: at Bathurst Avenue

11:00 am Fri, May 8 at The ROM Theatre
100 Queen’s Park
Note: inside the Royal Ontario Museum, at Avenue Road and Bloor Street West

Details
After 30 years of war and a ban on music and dancing under Taliban rule, pop culture is back in Afghanistan. Millions are watching Afghan Star, an American Idol-style vocal competition. You know the drill: thousands audition, a dozen make the finals, then viewers whittle down the roster of contestants until only one is left. But this is more than a glossy copycat show. Music holds special cultural import to Afghans, who have gone decades without art or public performance. So although Afghan Star is entertaining TV first and foremost, it also symbolizes freedom of expression and peace. Voting by cell phone is a novelty to many-their first encounter with the democratic process. When a female competitor dances on stage and drops her headscarf, there’s talk of retribution and threats of an honour killing. In Afghanistan, you risk more than YouTube humiliation when you sing; you risk your life. Angie Driscoll.

Co-presented with Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

Credits
Director(s) : Havana Marking
Producer(s) : Havana Marking
Executive Producer(s) : Mike Lerner, Martin Herring, Jahid Mohseni
Cinematographer(s) : Phil Stebbing
Editor(s) : Ash Jenkins

The war in Afghanistan will be “much tougher than Iraq” regarding efforts to achieve peace and security, U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan has told an international security conference.

“It’s going to be a long, difficult struggle,” Richard Holbrooke said at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday.

“In my view, it’s going to be much tougher than Iraq,” he said. “I have never seen anything like the mess we have inherited.”

“We cannot afford failure in Afghanistan,” Gen. James Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, told leaders gathered in Munich.

“That’s why the Obama administration will work closely with NATO and with the Afghan and Pakistani governments to forge a new, comprehensive strategy to meet achievable goals. This will be a shared effort with our allies. Afghanistan is not simply an American problem. It is an international problem,” he said.

In an effort to strike at a key income source for Taliban militants, the top NATO commander said Sunday that operations to attack drug lords and labs in Afghanistan will begin within the “next several days.”

Gen. John Craddock, who also heads the U.S. European Command, also said that the U.S. and its allies are making progress in their efforts to fill the need for more troops, equipment and intelligence-gathering in Afghanistan.

He would not disclose any specific commitments he received this weekend at the security conference.

NATO defence ministers at the conference differed on whether the focus in Afghanistan should be military or civilian.

The new U.S. administration plans to double the number of American troops in the country to about 60,000 in the next 18 months.

Canada has about 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan, mostly based in the south around Kandahar. The military mission is slated to end in 2011.

NATO currently has about 55,000 troops in Afghanistan, almost half of them from the United States.

Germany has balked at sending more soldiers, saying reconstruction should be the focus.

German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said Sunday that more efforts should be paid to enhance security and reconstruction in Afghanistan amid calls from the United States to its allies to contribute more in the military aspect.

“I think it is absolutely necessary that we should implement the [security and reconstruction] process in Afghanistan even more effectively. There can be no development without security, but there can be no security without development, either,” Jung told the conference.

“We will not win by military means alone,” he said.

Source ]]> http://www.randompurpose.com/afghanistan-tougher-than-iraq-us-envoy-holbrooke-38.html/feed http://www.randompurpose.com/a-brief-history-of-afghanistan-31.html http://www.randompurpose.com/a-brief-history-of-afghanistan-31.html#comments Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:32:57 +0000 Kitty http://www.randompurpose.com/?p=31 By Adam Ritscher

This was delivered as a speech at a Students Against War teach-in in Duluth, Minnesota (USA)

The story of Afghanistan is in so many ways a very tragic one. Afghanistan is one of the most impoverished nations of the world. It is one of the most war-torn, most ravaged, and most beleaguered of nations. It is a nation that has been beset by invasion, external pressure and internal upheaval since before the time of Alexander the Great. Its people are a people who have endured more than most of us can ever imagine. In fact, for many Afghanis, all that has changed in the last one thousand years are the weapons which have been used against so many of them. It is therefore with great sadness and respect that I tell the story of Afghanistan.

First of all, who are the Afghanis? Afghanistan has historically been the link between Central Asia, the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent. It is therefore a nation made up of many different nationalities – the result of innumerable invasions and migrations. Within its current borders there are at least a dozen major ethnic groups – Baluch, Chahar Aimak, Turkmen, Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Nuristani, Arab, Kirghiz, Pashai and Persian.

Historically the Pashtun nationality has been the most dominant. The term Afghan, for example, generally is viewed by other peoples in the country to refer to the Pashtuns. The royal families of the country were Pashtun, and today the Pashtun represent about 50% of the total population. Tajiks come in second with 25%, and the rest make up considerably smaller percentages.

Within the country there are tiny Hindu, Sikh and Jewish communities, but the vast majority of this people are Muslims – and in fact many ethnic groups consider Islam to be one of the defining aspects of their ethnic identity. This is true of the Pashtun for example.

Islam was brought to Afghanistan during the eight and ninth century by the Arabs. Prior to that the nation had been ruled by various Persian, Greek, Sassasian and Central Asian empires. Following a subsequent break down in Arab rule, semi-independent states began to form. These local dynasties and states however were overwhelmed and crushed during the Mongolian invasions of the 1200s – conquerors who were to remain in control of part or all of the country until the 1500s, despite much resistance and internal strife. Following the collapse of Mongol rule, Afghanistan found itself in a situation much like what has continued into modern times – caught between the vice of two great powers. During this time it was the Mughals of northern India and the Safavids of Iran that fought over the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan. Armies marched to and fro devastating the land and murdering the people, laying siege to city after city, and destroying whatever had been left by the invading army that preceded it.

It was not until 1747 that Afghanistan was able to free itself. This was the year that Nadir Shah, an empire builder from Iran, died and left a vacuum in central Asia that a former Afghan bodyguard, named Ahmed Shah, was able to fill. Ahmad was a Pashtun, and his Pashtun clan was to rule Afghanistan, in one form or another, for the next 200 years.

Ahmad was able to unify the different Afghan tribes, and went on to conquer considerable parts of what are today eastern Iran, Pakistan, northern India and Uzbekistan. His successors though proved unable to hold his vast empire together, and within 50 years much of it had been seized by rival regional powers. Within the country there were numerous bloody civil wars for the throne, and for many Afghanis it meant little that their lives were now being uprooted and destroyed by ethnic kin, as opposed to foreign invaders.

Beginning in the 1800s Afghanistan’s internal affairs became dramatically aggravated by the increasing intervention by two new imperialist powers – the British Empire and Czarist Russia. The British were expanding and consolidating their colonial holdings on the India sub-continent, and were looking at the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan as a natural barrier to prevent invasion by rival imperialists. The Russians, for their part, were expanding south and east, swallowing up several formerly independent sultanates and emirates in Central Asia. The two great powers essentially engaged in a race for Afghanistan, and their fiendish seizures of land, overthrow of indigenous nations and reckless interference into the affairs of the remaining independent states in the region became known as “the Great Game.”

Imperialists often give such trivial, and even humorous, sounding names to their interventionist schemes, but don’t be fooled into thinking that the peoples of the region experienced the consequences of these actions in a manner that they in any way would have interpreted as a game. For them the consequences were devastating. The arrival of European imperialism into the region simply accelerated, and made more devastating, the wars, poverty and material destruction that had already wracked the region.

During this time, on two separate occasions, British armies from India outright invaded Afghanistan in attempts to install puppet governments amenable to British economic interests, and that would oppose the economic interests of Czarist Russia.

The first, which became known as the First Anglo-Afghan War, took place in 1838. Outraged by the presence of a single Russian diplomat in Kabul, the British demanded that Afghanistan shun any contact with Russia or Iran, and that it hand over vast tracts of Pashtun inhabited land to British India (regions that are today party of Pakistan). Dost Mohammad, the Afghan ruler, agreed to these humiliating demands, but the British still invaded the country. The British seized most of the major cities in Afghanistan with little resistance, but their heavy handed rule soon resulted in a popular uprising by the people which resulted in the massacre of the entire British army of 15,000, save one.

British outrage over the uninvited arrival of a Russian diplomatic envoy in Kabul in 1878 resulted in the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Again the British were able to occupy all of the major cities, but unlike the last time, the British got wind of an impending rebellion against their occupation, and brutally crushed it in a pre-emptive move. They did subsequently withdraw, but not before they set up a puppet ruler and forced the country to hand over control of its foreign affairs to Britain.

Afghanistan would remain a British protectorate until 1919. Then, following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the wave of popular rebellions that rippled through Asia subsequently, the then king of Afghanistan, Amanullah, declared his country’s full independence by singing a treaty of aid and friendship with Lenin, and declaring war on Britain. After a brief period of border skirmishes, and the bombing of Kabul by the Royal Air Force, Britain conceded Afghanistan’s independence. Stung by this turn of events though, Britain conspired with conservative religious and land owning elements with the country who were unhappy with Amanullah’s attempts to secularize and reform the country. The outbreak of an uprising and civil war forced him to abdicate in 1929. Different warlords contended for power until a new king, Muhammad Nadir Shah took power. He was assassinated four years later by the son of a state execution victim, and was succeeded by Muhammad Zahir Shah, who was to be Afghanistan’s last king, and who would rule for the next 40 years.

Zahir Shah’s rule, like the kings before him, was one of almost total autocratic power. The word of the king was the word of law. And while advisory councils and assemblies were sometimes called to advise the king, these bodies had no power, and in no way represented the people of Afghanistan. These bodies were made up of the country’s tribal elders – a nice sounding term that in reality referred to the brutal land owners and patriarchs. And while some history books refer to this time of Afghanistan’s history as one where attempts were made to “modernize” the country – all this really meant was newer rifles for the army, the purchase a few airplanes for a token air force, the creation of a tiny airline to shuttle the ruling elite around, and some telegraph wires to allow the king to collect this taxes more promptly. Under his rule political parties were outlawed, and students were shot and killed when they protested.

In 1973, the king was overthrown and a republic was declared. But this in reality represented very little. For the king had simply been overthrown by a prominent member of his own family, Daoud, who decided to title himself president instead of king.

Under Daoud a certain liberalization took place, meaning that some of the most draconian realities of the monarchy were rolled back, but by and large whatever hopes and expectations arose among the people – little was done to satisfy them.

Daoud had seized power with the help of an underground party named the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan – a pro-Moscow communist party. The PDPA had aided and collaborated with Daoud in exchange for government posts. Once he had consolidated power though and felt he no longer needed these controversial allies, he ditched them, and ordered a crack down upon the party.

In 1978 the PDPA seized power from Daoud in a military coup. After seizing power they began a series of limited reforms, such as declaring, more or less, a secular state, and that women were deserving of equal treatment of men. They sought to curtail the practice of purchasing brides, and tried to implement a land reform program. They quickly met with fierce opposition from many sections of the deeply religious population though. The PDPA’s response to this was very heavy-handed, aggravating the situation. Soon several rural areas rose in open armed rebellion against the new government.

At the same time, the party’s long history of factionalism came to a bloody head as the more radical wing of the party sought to wipe out the more moderate leaning wing.

Immediately following the PDPA coup, the Soviet Union took an active interest in the so-called socialist revolution unfolding in its backyard. Dismayed by the clumsiness of the radical faction of the PDPA, the Soviet Union invaded in 1979 and handed power over a man named Karmal, who was the leader of the more moderate faction of the PDPA.

Though perhaps this was not the Soviets original intent, once inside Afghanistan, they found themselves forced to commit more and more troops and material to prop up the unpopular PDPA government. Several Islamic fundamentalist groups sprang up and began waging guerilla warfare, many of them operating from camps set up by the CIA and Pakistani Intelligence within Pakistan, from which they could strike into Afghanistan, and then beat a hasty retreat over a guarded border.

For its part, the United States government initially paid little attention to the PDPA coup in Afghanistan; its attention was instead focused to the west, where a popular revolution has overthrown their most valuable Middle East ally, the brutal and autocratic Shah of Iran. This changed of course once the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan.

At that point the United States took an active interest in the Islamic fundamentalists waging war on the PDPA and the Soviets. The CIA began providing military training to the Mujahadeen – the name the Islamic guerillas came to be called. They provided what in the end amounted to billions of dollars worth of weapons, including sophisticated anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles that allowed the guerillas to take out modern Soviet tanks and jet planes.

After offensive after offensive, year after year, gradually the Soviet military became discouraged. They were able to occupy and hold all of the major cities, just at the British imperialists had been able to the century before, but they were unable to subjugate the countryside. Soviet causalities began to mount dramatically, and with the CIA’s providing the Mujahadeen with Stinger missiles, even their control of the air was becoming a costly affair.

At the same time the CIA kept increasing and updating the Mujahadeen’s supply of weaponry, the Saudis and Persian Gulf Emirates contributed billions of dollars to their coffers, and thousands of Arabs responded to the Mujahadeen’s call for jihad, or holy war, against the secular Soviets – including the wealthy Saudi playboy, Osama bin Laden – who quickly became one of the CIA’s most important operatives in its proxy war against communism.

In 1989 the Soviets withdrew, leaving the PDPA government to fend for itself. The CIA soon lost interest in its mercenary forces now that they had accomplished their mission of bleeding the Soviets white. The misc. Mujahadeen factions began fighting as much with themselves as with the PDPA forces, resulting in increased suffering and bloodshed. It wasn’t until 1992 that Mujahadeen fighters were able to topple the remnants of the PDPA government – ending the Stalinists attempts to bring revolution to the people of Afghanistan at the point of a gun.

Different Mujahadeen warlords occupied different cities and regions of the country. Burhanuddin Rabbani, the same Northern Alliance warlord who recently took Kabul from the Taliban, was the warlord who ruled over the city from 1992 until his ouster in 1996. During his reign over 60,000 people were murdered and thousands of women were raped. Current Northern Alliance warlord Rashid Dostum who is in control of the city of Mazar –E – Sharif, also ruled over it from 1992 until his ouster in 1997. Similarly the warlord Ismail Khan again rules the city of Heart, which he also ruled from 1992 to 1995; and warlord Yunis Khalis is back in control of Jalabad, which he ruled from 1992 to 1996.

The collapse of the PDPA government did not mark the end of Afghanistan’s civil war. The Mujahadeen warlords continued to bring death and destruction upon the country as they fought over the spoils, and sought to enlarge their new fiefdoms at the expense of their neighboring rivals.

While the CIA, after having done such a fine job of instigating unrest and warfare in the 1980s, could care less about the aftermath, Pakistani Intelligence forces maintained their interest. Seeking to end the civil war which threatened the stability of their own country – itself a prison house of many nationalities – Pakistani Intelligence aided in the creation of a new Islamic fundamentalist movement, the Taliban. The Taliban was born in the Islamic schools that had sprung up inside the Afghan refugee camps inside Pakistan. Its leadership and the bulk of its initial ranks, were made up of young religious students, primarily Pashtuns, motivated by the zeal of religion and the belief that they were ordained to bring stability and the ways of Allah back to their war torn land. They railed against the corruption, greed and factionalism of the contending Mujahadeen factions inside Afghanistan, and when they mounted a military push to conquer the country, they were initially well received by certain sections of the weary population. Their ranks were filled by rank and file Mujahadeen fighters and young idealists from inside the country, and city-by-city they were able to occupy most of the country. In 1996 they captured the capital city of Kabul, and had forced most of the remaining warlords into a small pocket in the far north of the country. These warlords subsequently formed a defensive alliance termed the Northern Alliance. By the time of the start of the current war, Taliban offensives had reduced their enclave to a mere 10% of the country.

Once in power the Taliban sought to create a theocratic state based on their interpretations of the Koran. Though already severely repressed by the various Mujahadeen warlords, the plight of Afghanistan’s women was made even worse under the new regime. The veil became the law of the land, and women were forbidden from attending school or holding employment outside of the home. Television was banned and an effort was made to purge the country of any signs or remnants of secular or Western influence. The country became politically and diplomatically isolated.

Then came the current war. Following the September 11 World Trade Center bombings the United States accused Osama Bin Laden of the crime. Bin Laden, who had left Afghanistan following the defeat of the Soviets, had returned after falling out of favor in Saudi Arabia, and being pressured to leave his first nation of refuge, the Sudan.

The U.S. government demanded that the Taliban hand over Bin Laden. The Taliban’s response was to demand proof of Bin Laden’s guilt, and after receiving none, they refused to hand him over.

Within a few weeks the United States began bombing the impoverished country, as well as providing active support to the Northern Alliance warlords. Following weeks of devastating bombing, and several failed offensives, the Northern Alliance succeeded in breaking out of its northern enclave, seizing the city of Mazar – E – Sharif, and then moving on to take Kabul. This set in motion a series of defeats for the Taliban, which began surrendering and abandoning almost every major city in the country, and retreating into the mountains. The U.S. meanwhile has continued its bombing campaign, and now has Marines on the ground hunting for Bin Laden. All the while the people of Afghanistan continue to suffer.

The United Nations, hardly a radical source of information, has estimated that up to 8 million Afghanis may starve this winter due to a shortage of food, made all the more severe by the intentional U.S. disruption of humanitarian aid, and bombing of Red Cross and other humanitarian aid facilities inside the country. At least hundreds, and more likely thousands, have been killed by U.S. bombs, and many more are dieing as the Northern Alliance and Taliban warlords fight it out. Hundreds of thousands of land mines and unexploded cluster bombs lay scattered across the nation’s landscape. And there is no end in sight to the misery.

It’s hard to say how much longer the Taliban will continue to fight, or when the U.S. will end its war. Afghanistan’s future, like its past, looks very dark indeed. Currently Northern Alliance warlords, southern Pashtun warlords, opportunistic émigré politicians, and even supporters of the aging deposed autocrat King Zahir Shah, are arguing about who will be the exploiter-in-chief of the devastated land. Most likely they will come up with some sort of coalition government – that will perhaps hold the different factions together, perhaps not. In the end it matters little, since none of the figures involved represent the people of this country, and none of them seem to have ever had their interests at heart.

What is the solution for Afghanistan? What will end the suffering of its people? The most immediate thing would be for the United States government to end its bombing, withdraw its troops, and respect the Afghan peoples right to self-determination. And while this alone would not end all of the bloodshed and the fighting, it would create a situation where the workers and farmers of Afghanistan would be more able to cast off the warlords and petty feudal tyrants, take control of their destinies, and create a society that is based upon cooperation and solidarity. Towards that end let us redouble our efforts to stop the U.S. bombing, to stop the U.S. war on the people of Afghanistan!