NEW DELHI, Nov 30 (UNI) For years members of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) were forced to go underground by the regime of the Islamic militia Taliban, but now when freedom is near there is no rejoicing.
The organisation, which saw two of its senior leaders killed by the Tliban, struggled during the brutal regime educating girls in a clandestine manner in hundreds of home-based classes in the country and helping people with their health-care mobile teams.
But the future does not seem bright enough for the 2000 women activists of the organisation to come overground.
The Northern Alliance is as misogynous, criminal and brutal as the Taliban.
They are a force that has committed inhuman crimes, worse than the Taliban.
More than 70 per cent of Kabul was destroyed by them.
Thousands of people were killed and many women committed suicide for fear of being dishonoured by them.
They treated people like animals, RAWA representative Seher Saba told press persons here today.
The extent of danger and difficulty they faced in doing this can be gauged from the fact that establishing one home-based class for ten people constituted a task of several months.
The RAWA representative was in India to address the recently concluded national conference of All India Democratic Womens Association (AIDWA) in Vishakhapatnam, and also visited Kolkata.
About the ongoing talks in Bonn to discuss the political future of Afghanistan, she said she was not very hopeful as the groups representing Afghanistan there did not represent the Afghan people.
The women attending the talks, two of whom are in the Northern Alliance delegation, do not represent Afghan women and they never had any clear position against any of the fundamentalist groups, she said, adding that they cannot ensure the just participation of women in the future political set up in the country.
Ms Saba had also pointed out in Kolkata yesterday that the decision of the Northern Alliance commanders to not allow a rally by women activists in Kabul proved that they were equally anti-women .
The RAWA representative, who is a Pashtun from Jalalabad, blamed the United states for the condition of Afghanistan.
She said they had warned the US against supporting dangerous groups like Taliban.
But they (the US) had to pay to realise this.
But again they are supporting the Northern Alliance.
However, the common people of America have given us support and sympathy.
Even in the last few months, we have got thousands of letters, e-mails and faxes from the US to support our work.
About the political direction Afghanistan should undertake, she said for many afghans the reign of former king Zahir Shah was paradise.
This does not mean we are pro-monarchy.
But he is the only option right now.
He can pave the way for democracy, along with the united nations.
The UN should now play its role in Afghanistan, otherwise the Northern Alliance commanders would start fighting again for getting a share in power.
The UN peace keeping force must disarm the warring people and then pave the way for democracy, Ms Saba said, adding that how long they took in doing this would depend on how active they would be.
About the peace keeping force being constituted of Islamic countries, she said if these countries are Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, it would not be any good as people from these countries could start functioning with their fundamentalist support groups in Afghanistan instead of doing what our people want them to do .
We want to ultimately see a free, democratic, peaceful and secular Afghanistan.
Religion should be an individuals private matter.
For women in Afghanistan, the best time for them was the time of the former king, although even then there were a lot of issues to be raised, she said.
But what happened after 1979 and especially after 1992 you could not raise your voice, talk loud or laugh.
With guns everything is possible.
It wasnt the wish of the Afghan people.
Islam couldnt be blamed for this, Ms Saba held, adding that the root cause was that fundamentalists misused Islam and they also had the guns to enforce their ideas.
Otherwise, even thirty years ago, Afghanistan was a Muslim country under the king, but it wasnt oppressive, she pointed out.
RAWA, the only sources of income for which are contributions by individual supporters around the world and income generating projects like carpet weaving, also runs more than ten schools for Afghan refugees in different parts of Pakistan.
Ms Saba has herself been teaching in these schools, which believe in education with political consciousness, for the past seven years and she said she loves teaching.
The RAWA representative also said, at least so far there has been no change for us.
We cant think of coming overground, pointing out that Pakistan has been the base of the fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan.
She also said that the Afghan refugees would definitely want to go back to their country if they got peace, security and a little bit of freedom to work, move around and so on.
Living in refugee camps was infested with social and economic drawbacks and the existence was not much better than that in Afghanistan about the plan of action of the organisation, she said they would try to make the world understand the problems of the afghan women and continue raising the issues of their education, health and the like.
She also said rawa would definitely want to come up as a political party in the event of restoration of democracy in afghanistan.
Ms Saba thanked the womens organisation in India for their support and sympathy and the people of the cities she visited for their great response.
From India Ms Saba would go to brussels, where she will be the only RAWA representative at the two-day Afghan women summit for democracy, beginning December four.
As many as 50 Afghan women from different parts of the world would participate in the summit, which would decide the role of women in the future of Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, AIDWA general secretary Brinda Karat said AIDWA would also pressurise the Indian government to raise the concerns of Afghan women in various international fora.
