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Hamid Karzai in an interview about the new terror, the Taliban and the travel ban imposed by the new rulers. (Copy)

2022-08-08T15:01:39.340Z


Hamid Karzai is not allowed to leave his country. DER SPIEGEL traveled to Kabul to his private office to interview the former Afghan president about the return of al Qaeda in his country, the ban on education for women – and his fears for his own children.


For this interview, Hamid Karzai, 64, invites the journalist to his private office in the sprawling backyard of his home in the center of the capital city.

The politician has lived here with his wife and four children since the end of his term as president in 2014. He is still considered one of the most influential voices in the country.

But the ethnic Pashtun politician's years in office are controversial.

Time and again, he has criticized the United States' policy in Afghanistan.

At the same time, Washington accuses him of tolerating and encouraging corruption in Afghanistan.

Karzai, who is a big fan of Germany, gives a warm welcome.

The past months have been difficult for him.

His beard has turned snow white in the year that has passed since the last meeting with him.

After the Taliban seized control of Kabul in August 2021, they placed Karzai under a form of house arrest.

DER SPIEGEL:

Mr. Karzai, last Sunday, the United States killed the leader of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, Aiman ​​al-Zawahiri, in the middle of Kabul.

Does international terrorism once again have a safe haven in Afghanistan?

Karzai:

Afghanistan has been a victim of terrorism for so long.

We have suffered immensely from foreign terrorists and strongly oppose the presence of international terrorists.

The people of Afghanistan have suffered immensely at the hands of foreign terrorist elements and the fight against them.

DER SPIEGEL:

They say you are not allowed to leave the country and are under house arrest.

Are you a hostage of the Taliban?

Karzai:

I have visited a few places in the capital, but I am not allowed to leave.

In October, I wanted to go to a conference in Sochi, Russia.

The new leadership in Kabul did not allow this.

Later, I was to attend an event with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the Körber Foundation in Berlin, which was not approved.

Most recently, I planned to attend the condolence ceremony for the late President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa.

rejected

DER SPIEGEL:

Are you afraid of the Taliban?

Do you fear for your life?

Karzai:

No, I am not afraid.

Otherwise, I would have left Afghanistan a year ago.

I am much more concerned about this country and my children than I am about myself.

DER SPIEGEL:

The Parliament and the Women's Affairs Ministry have been closed, your name at "Hamid Karzai International Airport" has been removed.

Have the Taliban erased the past 20 years of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan?

Karzai:

The history of the republic has not been erased.

It is reflected in the number of educated Afghans we have today.

Millions of boys and girls have been educated, Afghan society has modernized, and it has experienced freedom of the media.

The greatest achievement of the republic is education and human rights.

They can't just take that away from the Afghans again.

DER SPIEGEL:

Today, the flag of the "Islamic Emirates" flies above the Presidential Palace.

Do the majority of Afghans feel represented by it?

Karzai:

The old national flag was hoisted all over the world for almost 20 years, it is the symbol of the homeland of countless displaced people.

The national flag is historic and was approved once again by the constitutional Loya Jirga in 2004, and it continues to exist in the minds of Afghans.

DER SPIEGEL:

The leadership of the emirates already held such a gathering of popular representatives in June to legitimize itself.

Karzai:

A Loya Jirga is an assembly of representatives of all Afghans.

That was not the case here.

DER SPIEGEL:

Girls over the age of 12 are no longer allowed to go to school.

Does it say anywhere in the Koran that women shouldn't read smart books?

Karzai:

Afghans want education, also for their daughters.

I know that, I talk to many Afghans.

They fully understand that the future of the country depends on education.

But education is under attack here, and the question is: Why is it under attack?

Who benefits from it?

DER SPIEGEL:

Perhaps traditional Afghan men who don't want to give up their comforts?

Karzai:

Behind this is the plan of a foreign power, namely Pakistan.

DER SPIEGEL:

You'll have to explain that.

It is true that Pakistan helped the Taliban to victory in order to exert influence in Afghanistan through them.

But why would your neighbor be interested in restricting women's education?

Karzai:

You see, Mr. Sirajuddin Haqqani...

DER SPIEGEL:

... the radical acting Taliban interior minister in Kabul and leader of the militant Haqqani network, in whose home the al-Qaeda leader was allegedly killed ...

Karzai:

... is in favor of girls going to school, for example.

He said that publicly in an interview with CNN.

And he is serious about it.

Other Taliban leaders I spoke to are also of this opinion.

It has nothing to do with Islam.

DER SPIEGEL:

Then what does it have to do with?

Karzai:

The end of schooling for girls means an isolated Afghanistan that cannot stand on its own two feet.

Without educated women, we are a dead country.

DER SPIEGEL:

But it is the Taliban who imposed the ban on girls' education!

Karzai:

This is not a religious issue.

It's a political decision.

DER SPIEGEL:

If that's the case, then why doesn't the powerful Mr. Haqqani just let the girls go to school?

Karzai:

Pakistan took in the Taliban in 2001 after they fled from the Americans.

They harbored them there, just as Pakistan harbored us many years ago as mujahedeen against the Soviets.

This increased Islamabad's influence on Afghanistan enormously.

Pakistan's goal is a defenseless, weak and poor Afghanistan that poses no challenge.

DER SPIEGEL:

However, the takeover by the Taliban also ended 20 years of war against them.

How many of the 39 million Afghans are happy about that?

Karzai:

The majority of the people want security and lasting peace.

But happiness requires a bit more than that, namely the possibility of having a decent income, education, freedom.

One can see in people where there is happiness.

The economic hardship is appalling.

Millions of people are leaving the country.

DER SPIEGEL:

So, should the international community work with the Taliban after all?

Karzai:

The Taliban government should work intensively toward its international recognition ...

DER SPIEGEL:

Isn't the exact opposite happening right now?

The United Nations recently criticized attacks by the Taliban against journalists and activists, there are arbitrary arrests, torture and targeted killings.

Karzai:

Such incidents happen again and again.

And if then also girls are not allowed to go to school, you cannot hope for international recognition.

Moreover, the Taliban are being fought internally by different groups.

So, they have to work on both issues – international recognition and internal acceptance.

Otherwise, there will be neither development nor peace.

DER SPIEGEL:

The US has frozen $7 billion of Afghanistan's state assets stored in the United States.

US President Joe Biden now wants to give part of it to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as reparations.

Can you understand that?

Karzai:

There are certainly many reasons to sanction this country.

But why is the US taking away our assets because of this?

These are our foreign exchange reserves that we have been saving since 2003 as collateral for our new currency, the then freshly printed Afghani.

This money belongs neither to the Taliban, nor to the old government, nor to the Americans.

It is the money of the Afghan people.

I think it is despicable to take money away from one victim to give it to another victim.

We share the pain of those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks.

But aren't Afghans the biggest victims of terrorism, more than any other nation?

Mr. Biden should take that into account.

Karzai has green and black tea, coffee and Afghan mocha served, a celebration of Afghan hospitality.

"You have to try these cookies," he suggests, getting up to personally serve his visitor.

"Germans really do work too much," he jokes.

DER SPIEGEL:

The Taliban have promised a general amnesty, yet former army and government members are still being persecuted.

People are picked up and return dead.

Why is this happening?

Karzai:

Well, the Taliban have repeatedly assured that no one has anything to fear, but many people are taking revenge.

This has to stop.

The government has to make sure that the amnesty is enforced.

DER SPIEGEL:

Are the Taliban too weak or unwilling?

Karzai:

I know from Mr. Anas Haqqani...

DER SPIEGEL:

... another leader of the Taliban's militant Haqqani network, who is now supposed to enforce the amnesty ...

Karzai:

...that he is working hard on it.

But so far, the integrity of former government officials is not guaranteed.

DER SPIEGEL:

You meet regularly with Taliban leaders.

How united are they on the internal distribution of power and their policies?

Karzai:

As in any organization, they have their disagreements.

DER SPIEGEL:

It is said that some Taliban leaders follow orders from Pakistan, while others prefer to emancipate themselves from Islamabad.

Is that true?

Karzai:

The Taliban are Afghans, even if they were in exile in Pakistan and fought us from there.

But now they are here, and many of them are patriots and want to work for their country.

I can only urge them to do everything they can to help Afghanistan achieve true independence and sovereignty in the national interest.

For this, all Afghans must join hands, the Taliban among themselves and also those Afghans who are now out of the country and unhappy.

Otherwise, it won't work.

DER SPIEGEL:

What does Islamabad expect in return from the Taliban for its decades of support?

Karzai:

In return, Pakistan wants control over Afghanistan, of course.

But the patriotic Afghans must not allow that.

DER SPIEGEL:

How successful have you been with your appeal to the Taliban to break away from Pakistan's influence?

Karzai:

In times of war, the Pakistani people offered us hospitality, and we are grateful for that.

But we also are aware of the damage that the Pakistani military and the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) did to us.

DER SPIEGEL:

The Pakistani intelligence service is alleged to have provided intensive support for the Taliban's fight against the government in Kabul.

In the recent years of war, hundreds of thousands of Afghans have lost their lives through bombings or attacks.

Your father and brother were also murdered.

Can there ever be forgiveness after so much bloodshed?

Karzai:

This has to stop one day.

Preferably today.

During my tenure, the country had almost come back together, only the Taliban were left out.

That was a mistake.

The Taliban should now learn from this and try everything to bring back the opponent before it is too late.

I can already see dangerous signs gathering.

Unfortunately.

Karzai's young daughter suddenly appears in the office.

The five-year-old is wearing a yellow T-shirt and snuggles up with her father.

He introduces us.

She speaks a few words of English.

Then Karzai gently sends her back to the house.

Karzai has all the appearances of the doting father.

DER SPIEGEL:

Is the country on the brink of civil war again?

Karzai:

I hope not.

What we need now is a dialogue between Afghans.

In the end, a Loya Jirga of the Afghan people should decide on all the important issues, on the flag and the government of the country and the form of government.

That is the only way out.

If that does not succeed, the conflicts will become rampant.

DER SPIEGEL:

Afghanistan's economy was kept going artificially, also because countless aid organizations were working there.

The army's salaries came from the US All that no longer exists.

How are the Afghan people getting by today?

Karzai:

There is abject poverty.

The middle class that we built up during my time in office is essential for the country's growth - it is disappearing The lecturers at the universities, the teachers, the businesses, the people in the administration, they have left.

But that was the class that held this society together.

So, I appeal to the current government to provide every possible incentive so that the people who are still working will stay.

And again: If women are not part of the workforce, then there will never be security in Afghanistan.

DER SPIEGEL:

What do you mean?

Karzai:

These well-educated women must go back to work, they are part of Afghan progress.

The Taliban government must ensure that they do not once again become a neglected group that symbolizes regression.

DER SPIEGEL:

We just came from a patrol by the Ministry "for Virtue and the Prevention of Vice."

Koranic scholars stop women in the street and force them to veil their faces.

Is the face veil part of Afghanistan?

Karzai:

Well, that is for the religious scholars to discuss.

But the clerics I asked all said the hijab means covering, but it does not mean covering the face and the hands.

That's how I have known it since childhood.

So, I would leave it at that.

DER SPIEGEL:

With all due respect, you also represent the traditional Pashtun patriarchs – your wife never appeared in public.

Karzai:

But she has worked.

She is a gynecologist.

When we lived in Pakistan, as refugees, she worked.

Only during my term as president was she not working in the hospital, because of the cumbersome security arrangements.

She always wears the hijab, but no face veil.

She traveled alone to Pakistan, to Iran and other countries.

She meets people and goes out whenever she wants.

DER SPIEGEL:

Your son Mirwais has been living in Germany for a little over a week now.

Why did you decide to get him out of the country?

Karzai:

Back in 2020, my son Mirwais was offered the opportunity to study in Germany, but as parents, we thought it would be better at the time if he completed high school in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, the situation here has become so difficult that we decided to send him to Germany now for security reasons.

DER SPIEGEL:

Do you also fear for the lives of your daughters?

Karzai:

Yes, they are still small and regularly leave the safe confines of our house.

And it is no longer safe out there.

DER SPIEGEL:

Mr Karzai, we thank you for this interview.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-08-08

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