POLITICS-AFGHANISTAN: Karzai Blames Pakistan for Extremism

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

OXFORD, Jun 6 2003 (IPS) - Terrorism took roots in Afghanistan as a result of Western and Pakistani policies to back religious extremism as a counter to Soviet occupation, President Hamad Karzai said at a lecture at Oxford Friday.

After the Soviet occupation ended and the Western powers lost interest in Afghanistan, Pakistan took its support to religious extremism even further, Karzai said.

President Karzai, who heads the transitional government in Afghanistan, spoke with unusual candour about the situation prevailing in Afghanistan, and how he thinks it came about. Karzai told an audience of mostly students and academics in a little hall at St. Antony’s College that this is the first time he had talked publicly and openly on this issue.

Karzai’s view of Afghanistan and what led to the present situation was seen by leading political analysts at the Oxford lecture as bold and controversial.

During the days of the Soviet occupation, "the West came to help us, the Muslim world did, our neighbours did," Karzai said. "That is where the trouble began. After communism, they pushed radicalism of the other kind on us. They thought that only the extreme elements will be able to fight the Soviet forces, and that moderates might do a deal with them. Promotion of extreme religious elements became legitimate."

Pakistan, he said, "in order to see the kind of Afghanistan it wanted, opted to support religious extremism, and the consequence was that everybody got together to support religious extremists."

The Soviet forces withdrew in 1989, and it took another three years to unseat the communist government. "We were left with extremists, neighbours and those in the Islamic world with an interest in supporting extremism," Karzai said.

"That brought in the Taliban, who were a group of resistance fighters in the south trained in the madrassas (Islamic schools of learning). Society was ready for a change, for freedom from terror and anarchy, and our neighbours thought this is the best opportunity to bring in the Taliban."

Responding to a question why Pakistan had wanted to support the Taliban, Karzai first expressed his gratitude to Pakistan. He said: "I was in Pakistan when the Taliban were being promoted and supported. There is a profound relationship between the two countries. Pakistan received millions of refugees from Afghanistan then, invited them like brothers and sisters. We lived like Pakistani citizens."

Karzai added, however, that the government in Pakistan came to the view "that extremism is good for Afghanistan, and good for the security of Pakistan." Karzai declined to elaborate. "I do not want to say too much about this just now," he said.

"When I retire I’ll talk more about it."

But he said that terrorism is today the work of gangs of criminals who have no ideology but who do have the backing of some governments. "I don’t think anyone is radical in Islamic society," he said.

"People in the Islamic society are as moderate and as sensible as those in your own. But radicalisation has arisen as a result of political manoeuvres. We have to address this in Pakistan, in the Arab world, in other parts of the world."

Karzai said: "To end terrorism you do not have to go to ideology, you do not have to go to society, you have to go to governments who have been tolerating them, using them against groups of countries, you have to fight the systems that have had uses for them now and then."

But the trouble was not all in the past, he said. "In Afghanistan there continues to be trouble because cross-border activity is still going on."

Karzai said he had received a hate call from a Pakistani on his current tour of Britain. "I was shocked to hear him talk of Osama bin laden as a Muslim," he said.

"I said to him I do not believe that Osama bin Laden is a Muslim."

Karzai said he had first heard of Osama bin Laden at the beginning of 1996 when a helicopter pilot talked to him about a tall man who had arrived in eastern Afghanistan. As the power of the Taliban grew with what became clear only later as support from Al Qaeda, Karzai said he travelled to Western countries again and again to warn them of the dangers from the situation.

"But their interest in Afghanistan was low," he said. That changed only after September 11.

Karzai said the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is essential until such time as "we are able to make our own institutions."

The first major step comes in June of next year when presidential elections are due, and "we move to the one man one vote way of life," Karzai said. People will be able to choose a President by direct vote and could be able to choose a parliament too, he said.