The Elections Are a Mockery of Democracy with the Participation of Criminals
- Category: Articles
- Written by Said Rahim Sharifi
- Published: Monday, 07 July 2014
The bragging and boasting and lies of the eleven presidential candidates are continuously streamed by the media these days. The people with such grave and notorious pasts are trying to prove themselves as national figures who are looking for the best interest of their motherland, and these acts fill everyone with rage and hatred. The infected media is also taking these childish games seriously and are trying to keep the hype of the elections ablaze. The major media outlets are broadcasting the censored and well-rehearsed views of the people to poison the public opinion. They portray the people as if they are drowning in happiness for the presidential elections and are restlessly counting down to the day of voting. With slogans like ‘let’s build a bright future by participating in the elections’, ‘your vote, your future’, ‘one vote will determine your future’, they are trying to brainwash our people into believing that after the April 5th elections the doors of paradise will open for the Afghanistan and its people, and our country will find the road to building its future.
But the truth is that our people are tired and fed up of these repetitive and deceptive games and have understood better than those inert, Dollar-receiving analysts that they can have no expectations of ‘change’, ‘transition’, ‘reform’, ‘prosperity’, and other cheap slogans raised by these candidates as our people know them very well. When you talk to people, you hear things that show the depth of their understanding of these trickeries, but we cannot find our nation’s true words in the mainstream media. Our people have learned from experience that elections in the presence of criminals who have already given their trial and failed, who are traitors, corrupt and destroyers of our country will not change anything to benefit the people. If you talk to people in villages and cities and markets you will hear things like ‘the person the US wants will win’, ‘the next president has already been chosen’, and ‘I will not waste my time by voting’, hundreds of times.
Sipahi Gumnaam Square during the bloody and traitorous factional-infighting years.
This area was mostly destroyed by Gulbuddin’s rocket attacks. Kabul’s citizens had nicknamed Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as ‘Rocket-yar – Rocket-man’.
One issue that has angered the people is the presence of war criminals among the eleven candidates, especially Qutbuddin Hilal who is one of the top members of Gulbuddin’s fascist party. He is known as the second most senior member of this infamous and anti-national party, and has entered the turbulent market of elections while his party is still killing innocent people and has consistently taken responsibility for the criminal suicide attacks that target innocent people. The party that cries out for ‘war against occupiers’ has some of its most important members like Farooq Wardak, Hadi Arghandiwal, Waheedullah Sabawoon, Karim Khuram, Haleem Fidayee, Juma Khan Hamdard, Omar Daudzai, and others, placed in the most important positions in the puppet regime. All of them are working hard to implement the West’s policies in Afghanistan. With Hilal’s entry in the electoral process, there is no doubt left now that despite all its deceptive claims, this party is still in the cradle of the US and is playing the role of the ‘armed opposition’ in the US’s drama to authenticate its ‘war on terror’.
Seeing Hilal’s outdated face on Afghani televisions making deceitful claims of independence and other such white lies can sicken every healthy person. He himself claims to have a 54-year-old past in Hezb-e-Islami, and acts as if it was his own independent decision to contest for the Arg. In answer to a reporter of Bukhdi News (October 11, 2013) he said, “I am an independent candidate. I don’t know where Emir Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is and I have not spoken to Mr. Hekmatyar about my candidacy.”
Such opprobrious lies are outrageous. As the second most senior member of Gulbuddin’s party, he has ordered the killing and destruction and rocket attacks along with his sick ‘Emir’ and turned our people’s life into a burning inferno. Now he is disguising himself as an innocent dove and posturing as a democrat. Today he is parroting beautiful and agreeable lines in round-table discussions and debates on televisions, while yesterday he made frequent visits to the Arg - palace as part of Hezb-e-Islami’s delegation and enjoyed the luxurious comforts of Kabul with the government’s money. The same person shamelessly cries that he is independent!! The truth is that Hezb-e-Islami has been resting in the arms of the ISI for the past few years, and has entered this new game as decided by its Pakistani masters and probably on the advice of his most filthy supporter Hamid Gul.
A few days back, Gulbuddin, the bloodthirsty Emir of Hezb-e-Islami, announced in a statement that he had presented his terms to several presidential candidates but ‘no one other than Hilal had the courage to agree to those terms’ therefore asking the party members to vote for him. But is there such a foolish person in Afghanistan who knows the history of dealings, treachery, and crimes by the Hezb-e-Islami and still falls for this lie and accepts that Hilal is independent of the savage party?
As one of the important leaders of Hezb-e-Islami, Hilal cannot take a single step without the consent of Pakistan and Gulbuddin. But why is he playing secret and trying to appear independent? The reason is that even the leadership of this group knows that its criminal and stooge face is so notoriously infamous among our people that even the most unaware person has understood well enough that this gang is the agent of Pakistan’s ISI and has the duty to drag Afghanistan towards more devastation.
The green light given by the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan for Hilal and Sayyaf to run in the elections is enough to make the elections void and illegitimate. In an electoral process where war criminals are accepted should not be called democratic, it is the mockery of democracy.
In a more humane society, Hilal would have been prosecuted as the killer of thousands of our compatriots. Hilal borrowed Sayyaf’s argument and said in one the debates that ‘no one can prove that I have directly been involved in bloodshed’. If this ignorant Ikhwani reasoning is taken as the criterion of innocence, then Hilter, Pinochet, Khomeini, Suharto, and other historic murderers will all be innocent, since none of them have directly killed anyone, only ordered the killing and destruction to be carried out.
Hezb-e-Islami is not honest to its word or promises like all other fundamentalist gangs. In its decades old history, this party has always changed itself according to the situation of the country and colluded openly and secretly with the most bloody and filthy factions and governments.
April 27, 1992: A civilian injured during fighting between Hezb-e-Islami and Junbish-e-Islami in southern Kabul. (Photo credit: Robert Nickelsberg)
In the days when our entire nation was locked in a battle against the Russian invaders and their Khalqi-Parchami stooges, Gulbuddin made connections with KGB and secretly conspired with them to strike down his political rivals. In a report, the US House Republican Research Committee criticized Pakistan’s intelligence agency for continuing its support for Gulbuddin’s group despite knowing about its secret ties with KGB.” (Irane Syasi, March 11, 2002)
During the anti-Soviet resistance, this party was the most popular creation of the CIA and received the biggest chunk of the US’s financial and military aid. The CIA built slaughterhouses for this filthy gang party in Pakistan and helped it eliminate national, democrat, and independence-seeking figures in a wave of terror. For two decades, the thinkers and national figures of our country have been terrorized one after the other by Hezb-e-Islami, so that the way was paved for the anti-national leaders and lackeys of other countries to rule, and eventually allow the invasion and plunder of the US in an Afghanistan devoid of national and progressive movements.
Gulbuddin had promised the abhorrent Pakistani dicatator Zia ul Haq that he would help his party when he comes to power in Afghanistan, and that if he did become victorious to abolish the border between the two countries and form an Afghanistan-Pakistan confederation, in which Pakistan would have the dominant role.
General Hamid Gul, the former ISI chief wrote a letter to Zia ul Haq in July 1988 and stated:
“The leaders of the seven-party-alliance are completely dependent on us. Some of them have worked with us and promised their firm support… Pakistan should allocate all the military and political aid it can to this seven-party-alliance, especially to Hekmatyar’s group which is the main one and is very influential, powerful, and reliable… Our main aim at the moment is to form strong factions for the future Islamic government in a free Afghanistan, which supports Pakistan and would voluntarily agree to form a confederation of Pakistan and Afghanistan where Pakistan will have the main role… Borders must be abolished in this confederation and a joint financial structure be established… Therefore, for our political aim, the idea of the creation of such a confederation must be proposed by the Islamic government (of Hekmatyar) of Afghanistan…” (‘The Years of Jehad and Resistance’ by Mohammad Ikram Andeshmand)
This destructive and treacherous party stabbed our nation’s struggle against the Russians and their lackeys, from behind. Once, Gulbuddin famously issued an open letter which was exposed later, in which he asked his commanders to push back all their rival groups from their areas of influence, and to join hands with the Russian puppet regime to eliminate them if they found them to be stronger.
And when Najib’s puppet government was on the verge of its downfall, he formed an alliance with the Khalqis under the leadership of Shahnawaz Tanai, who had killed thousands of our compatriots. Gulbuddin took Tanai in his arms and introduced him to the ISI.
During the dog-eat-dog fighting between the factions in Kabul, Gulbuddin turned Kabul to ruins along with Jamiat, Junbish, Wahdat, Ittehad and other parties, and presented whatever Kabul had to his Pakistani masters. Hell broke loose in Kabul city with all the rockets Hezb-e-Islami blindly fired, a nightmare our people still cannot recover from after two decades.
In accordance with the plans of the CIA, Hezb-e-Islami took the US’s money and sent hundreds of Afghans to the catastrophic wars of the Central Asian Republics, especially in Azerbaijan, and nurtured the fundamentalist bacteria there too.
These are just a few examples of the thousands of anti-people activities of this reactionary and mercenary party. And now Gulbuddin’s right hand man who had a central role in all these evils speaks of ‘democracy’, ‘justice’, ‘women’s rights’, ‘freedom’, and others, and mentally tortures our ill-fated people by appearing in the media every day.
Curse upon all those ‘experts’, ‘analysts’, and ‘intellectuals’ who have lost their conscience and coax our people to participate in the ‘democratic process’ despite all this. They ignore the above facts and cloak the fake, mafia, and fraudulent nature of the April 5th joke.
On May 16, 2013, a suicide attack in the Shah Shaheed area of Kabul city killed 9 civilians, including 2 children. Haroon Zarghoon, spokesperson of Gulbuddin’s Hezb-e-Islami took the responsibility of this attack in a phone call to Reuters. (Photo credit: AFP)