SAN FRANCISCO - Afghan women's groups are calling for major changes from their government after the murder of a well-known female official in the southern province of Kandahar.

Safia Hama Jan, Provincial Women's Affairs chief for Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar. The assassination of Hama Jan, a top women's official in Afghanistan throws the spotlight on the precarious situation of women in the country after nearly 10 years of repressive rule by mujahedin and the Taliban.(AFP/Getty Images/File)

Safia Amajan, a 65-year-old grandmother who headed the provincial women's affairs department, was gunned down outside her home on September 25.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack but advocates say Amajan's crusade for women's rights may have made her a target for reactionary terrorists. As with most political killings since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, no one has been arrested.

''Our government and the many international actors working in Afghanistan have made many promises yet we still live in constant fear,'' a coalition of Afghan women's groups said in a statement issued in Kabul. ''Our police, our military, our legal system, and our government offer no protection from our enemies.''

The groups--the Afghan Women's Network, Agency Coordination Body for Afghan Relief, Afghan Civil Society Forum, and the Foundation for Culture and Civil Society--demanded drivers, bodyguards, and technology for community leaders to keep them safe from terrorists; financial support for the families of terror victims; and international aid to address what they called the root causes of social insecurity.

They also demanded military intelligence training for Afghan police and security officials, better pay for Afghan police, and more effective policing of borders with ''neighboring countries that support, harbor, and encourage terrorism.''

Afghanistan is going through some of the worst violence since the US-led invasion removed the Taliban from power five years ago.

Sonali Kolhatkar, co-chair of the Los Angeles-based Afghan Women's Mission, told OneWorld the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are at least partly to blame for the violence.

''No amount of security is going to address the main issue,'' she said. ''Violence in general is increasing because the house-to-house raids, bombings, and other tactics of the U.S. and NATO are deeply unpopular. Most of the people who are fighting and attacking are not even the original Taliban but people who are reacting to harsh U.S. tactics.''

Kolhatkar said she believes that has led to an increase in attacks against women because it is ''always the case that the same forces fighting the U.S. are the ones attacking women. The problem is that the U.S. tactics are giving credibility to certain groups. The attacks on women are a message to the U.S. and NATO that they want them to stop.''

NATO has acknowledged that the Taliban have made a major comeback in the south and east of the country.

On Sunday, General David Richards, the British officer commanding all 32,000-plus NATO troops in Afghanistan, warned of a ''tipping point'' and told the Associated Press that if life does not improve this winter, most Afghans could switch sides.

''They will say 'We do not want the Taliban but then we would rather have that austere and unpleasant life that that might involve than another five years of fighting','' Richards said.

Kolhatkar agreed but said improvement cannot take place as long as the United States and NATO continue to work with warlords who, while not being Taliban members, retain reactionary religious and political positions.

During the 1980s, the Ronald Reagan administration backed Islamic fundamentalists to dislodge the Soviets from Afghanistan. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush administration turned to many of these same warlords for help in ousting the Taliban.

These warlords--often referred to as the Northern Alliance--had enforced repressive measures in the past and it should come as no surprise that they should do so again now, Kolhatkar said.

''The Taliban did not invent any of these measures, they merely enforced them with more rigor,'' she added.

As an example of resurgent repression, Kolhatkar highlighted Fazl al-Shinwari, chief justice of the country's supreme court. She said he has appointed judges to lower courts who share his fundamentalist beliefs, refused to appoint women to high court positions, banned cable television in Afghanistan, and arrested journalists for alleged blasphemy.

The power of fundamentalists permeates the country, according to a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).

''If you go to the rural areas of Afghanistan,'' said Zowa, who, like other RAWA members, cited security considerations in using an assumed name. ''Each fundamentalist leader has power, money, and Kalashnikovs.''

They would crumble, she told OneWorld, if the United States and United Nations pulled their support from the Taliban's fundamentalist rivals and instead support ''democratic forces.''

''Democratic forces are so weak and nobody knows them, but if they received support from the U.N. and other governments they would be an alternative to choose,'' Zowa added. ''Unfortunately there's no choice for the people now.''

Copyright © 2006 OneWorld.net

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