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Afghanistan
Afghan minorities fear peace talks with Taleban
2010-11-14
PANJSHIR VALLEY, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai’s moves to make peace with the Taleban are scaring Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities into taking their weapons out of mothballs and preparing for a fight.
"Outta my way, Ma! I gotta find me my shootin' irons! The Pashtuns are coming!"
Mindful that KarzaiÂ’s overtures come with NATOÂ’s blessing, and that US and NATO forces will eventually leave, they worry that power will shift back into the hands of the forces they helped to overthrow in 2001.

Some mujahedeen — commanders of the Northern Alliance of minority groups that fought the Taleban — are taking no chances. They speak openly of the weaponry they have kept despite a UN disarmament drive.

In the Panjshir Valley, heartland of the Northern Alliance, Mohammed Zaman says that when the UN came looking for weapons, ‘the mujahedeen gave one and hid the other 19.’

‘We have plenty of weapons, rocket launchers and small arms and we can get any kind of weapons we need from the gun mafias that exist in our neighboring countries,’ he said. ‘All the former mujahedeen from commander to soldier, they have made preparations if they (the Taleban) come into the government.’

Somah Ibrahim, a UN spokesman, said 94,262 small arms and 12,248 heavy weapons were collected by the time the disarmament program ended in 2005. But fewer than half of them were destroyed; some went to the army and police, which many of the militiamen joined.
So as to be reunited with their weapons. How convenient ...
The Hazara, a mainly Shia ethnic group, are also worried.

‘We have lots of weapons but they are not modern weapons. They are simple weapons,’ said Abbas Noian, a Hazara legislator. ‘It is very bad, America announcing they will leave Afghanistan. It has given more power to the militants, more energy. Already we minorities are afraid. We want peace but we are afraid of a strong Taleban.'
It works like this, Abbas: Obama doesn't care about you, he cares about himself ...
In late 2009, President Barack Obama spoke of starting a gradual pullout in July 2011 if conditions allowed, but then clarified that he was not envisaging a mass exodus at that time. Lately, attention has lately shifted to 2024 2034 2044 2014, when Karzai expects his forces to be ready to take the lead in securing Afghanistan.
"♪♫ In the year, Twenty-Five Twenty-Five ♪♫"
Fahim Dashti, a Tajik, says the minorities began rearming about 18 months ago.

‘The reason is because we don’t know who President Karzai is talking to and what he is saying, but we feel the agenda of the government is to Pashtun-ize the government, the re-Talebanization of the system,’ he said.

Most Taleban are Pashtun, the countryÂ’s majority ethnic group.

‘We are afraid,’ Dashti said. ‘We have the experience already of the Taleban. We know who they are and what they have done to other ethnic groups.’
Posted by:Steve White

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