During my recent trip to Afghanistan, I
never heard Afghans calling for a runoff election. Yes, they were
furious that the U.S.-sanctioned election in August was fraught with
fraud, and they knew (with the current election commission) only fraud
could again result. Their hopes had been dashed on the rocks once,
and they didn't want it repeated. Yet Senator John Kerry, Chairman of
the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations-talked Karzai into a "runoff
election." Did Senator Kerry ask the Afghan people if they wanted
one? Apparently, this didn't matter. When Karzai's "opponent" Abdullah
Abdullah (the war criminal) stepped down from the run-off election
contest, he became the people's hero for ending the farce.
Fundamentalists, warlords, drug lords, jihadists, and yes, Taliban,
have been empowered by the U.S.-backed former Northern Alliance.
Nowhere in this war-torn nation do we find a focus on principles that
the United States claims to prize so much. The people I met with
didn't ask for a new election: they asked, "Where is the democracy?"
One of the many flaws in the August Afghan election was the
silencing of women. CODEPINK met with various groups who worked on the
election, and we were shown that most of the voting areas designated
for women were not staffed, yet were full of votes. Women's inequality
in Afghanistan results in widespread proxy voting by male relatives,
used by unscrupulous ballot box-stuffers as a target of opportunity.
We need to be supporting the voices of women to nurture change in
Afghanistan.
Women's rights (which are, in fact human rights) will never rise
from a corrupt, fundamentalist government. Many members of Karzai's
government have perpetrated crimes-murder, theft, corruption, rape-and
if they are even charged, they are often not tried, or they are
pardoned. Malalai Joya, Afghan parliamentarian now on tour in the
United States, has survived assassination attempts and risks her life
to bring to light her expulsion from the Afghan parliament when she
exposed the warlords and pushed for true democracy. From Joya's book A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice:
"The Afghan people have been betrayed once again by
those who are claiming to help them. More than seven years after the
U.S. invasion, we are still faced with foreign occupation and a
U.S.-backed government filled with warlords who are just like the
Taliban. Instead of putting these ruthless murderers on trial for war
crimes, the United States and its allies placed them in positions of
power, where they continue to terrorize ordinary Afghans.
"I am the youngest member of the Afghan parliament, but I have been
banished from my seat and threatened with death because I speak the
truth about the warlords and criminals in the puppet government of
Hamid Karzai. I have already survived at least five assassination
attempts and uncounted plots against me. Because of this, I am forced
to live like a fugitive within my own country.
"The sad fact is that in Afghanistan, killing a woman is like
killing a bird. The United States has tried to justify its occupation
with rhetoric about 'liberating' Afghan women, but we remain caged in
our country, without access to justice and still ruled by women-hating
criminals."
Meddling in Afghanistan's elections and U.S. failure at every turn
to deliver security and justice is increasing the potency of the
Taliban. We are aiding in the creation of a power vacuum and
undermining the possibility of Afghanistan to move forward as a
sovereign country. We must push for our troops to come home. We must
support a fully funded 'Marshall Plan' for Afghanistan. And we support
bringing women to the table! If we take care of the women and children,
the country can heal and their homegrown form of democracy can take
root and grow.