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Kehidupan di Jaman Taliban vs Jaman sekarang
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March 17, 2008 Mazar-i-Sharif - Secuplik Masa Lalu
by Avgustin, Categories: About Afghanistan
"Sekarang semua serba mahal. Waktu zaman Taliban, semuanya murah," Obaidullah (32 tahun), kakak Naqeebullah memulai selasar kenangannya tentang kehidupan Mazar di masa lalu. Harga barang yang terus melambung tinggi belakangan ini menjadi bahan kegelisahan hampir semua orang. Roti nan yang tahun kemarin masih 5 Afghani sekarang sudah jadi 10 Afghani (sekitar 2.000 Rupiah). Harga sepiring nasi di Salang sekarang 100 Afghani, dua dollar.
Obaid berkumis tipis, berkaca mata, dan bertubuh besar. Sekarang bekerja sebagai insinyur di sebuah NGO lokal bernama CHA (Coordination for Hummanitarian Assistance). Bahasa Rusianya bagus sekali karena ia melewatkan waktu bertahun-tahun sebagai insinyur di Uzbekistan dan beberapa bulan di Turkmenistan. Sering kali ia lebih suka berbicara dalam bahasa Rusia daripada bahasa Dari dengan saya. Bahasa Inggrisnya pas-pasan.
"Waktu zaman Taliban dulu, sewa rumah tak sampai 40 dolar. Sekarang, sudah ratusan dolar per bulannya." Keluarga Naqeeb dan Obaid adalah etnis Tajik, suku yang menjadi mayoritas di Afghanistan bagian utara. Taliban adalah orang Pashtun, berasal dari selatan. Bahasa mereka sama sekali berbeda. Orang Tajik berbahasa Dari (atau Tajik, atau Farsi, atau Persia, sama saja istilahnya), sedangkan orang Pashtun berbahasa Pashto, yang susah sekali dipelajari. Kedua bahasa ini adalah bahasa nasional Afghanistan tetapi tidak semua orang bisa kedua bahasa ini sekaligus.
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Some in Kandahar Mourn the End of Taliban Rule
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By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, January 16, 2002; Page A12
Kandahar, Afghanistan, Jan. 15
Every day, mourners slip into the Taliban cemetery at the edge of the city, stooping to caress the smooth white stones covering the graves or quietly contemplating the headstones that relate the history of Taliban heros. One tall slate stone, surrounded by flags fluttering on bamboo poles and carved in Afghan Pashto script, honors Yar Mohammad Akhund, a former anti-Soviet fighter and later a Taliban governor of several Afghan provinces. The tribute recounts the high points of his life, and death.
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Di Kandahar sebagian berduka-cita atas berakhirnya Pemerintahan Thaliban
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Oleh Pamela Constable
Bagian Peliputan Berita Luar Negeri (harian) Washington Post
Rabu, 16 January 2002, Hal A12
Kandahar, Afghanistan, Jan 15
Setiap hari, para peziarah membanjiri pemakaman Mujahidin Thaliban di sudut kota, mereka membungkuk untuk mengusap-usap batu putih halus yang melapisi pemakaman atau merenungi batu -batu nisan yang berhubungan dengan sejarah para pahlawan Thaliban. Sebuah batu tulis tinggi, dikelilingi oleh bendera-bendera yang berkibar pada tiang bambu dan diukir dengan huruf Afghan Pasthun, penghormatan bagi Yar Mohammad Akhund, seorang Mujahid anti soviet dan berikutnya menjabat sebagai Gubernur Thaliban di berbagai propinsi Afghanistan. Penghormatan ini mengisahkan puncak tertinggi dalam hidup dan wafatnya.
"These boys died here alone, in a foreign country. They were our Muslim brothers and we weep for them," said Sher Mohammed, 65, a horse cart driver who was visiting the Arab cemetery Monday. "It is the duty of every Muslim to see they are buried with respect."
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"Pemuda-pemuda ini syahid di sini dalam kesendirian, di negri asing. Mereka adalah saudara Muslim kami dan kami menangisi (kepergian) mereka." kata Sher Muhammad, 65 tahun, seorang kusir sado (delman) yang mengunjungi makam Mujahidin Arab hari Senin. "Ini adalah kewajiban setiap Muslim untuk menyaksikan bahwa mereka dimakamkan secara hormat."
Now that the Taliban rulers have been replaced by an interim government that includes a hodgepodge of unruly ethnic militias from other parts of Afghanistan, many residents of Kandahar are openly mourning the end of the previous era, which they say brought seven years of peace, stability and ethnic respect.
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Sekarang Penguasa Thaliban telah digantikan oleh Pemerintah sementara yang terdiri dari milisi etnis gado-gado yang sulit diatur dari berbagai bagian Afghanistan, sejumlah penduduk Kandahar ada yang terang-terangan meratapi berakhirnya era pemerintahan sebelumnya yang mereka katakan telah membawa tujuh tahun kedamaian, stabilitas, dan penghargaan atas etnis.
Despite the presence of more than 3,000 U.S. troops here, Kandahar residents from all walks of life said they now live in fear of armed militia members and gunmen roaming the streets. They expressed deep mistrust of the new provincial governor, Gul Agha Shirzai, a controversial figure who held the same post in the early 1990s during a period of arbitrary violence and lawlessness.
"During the Taliban time, you could walk the streets safely day and night. Now we have to sleep with guns for pillows because we can be robbed at any time," said Abdul Haddi, 35, a car dealer.
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Walaupun ada 3 ribu pasukan Amerika di sini, namun penduduk Kandahar dari berbagai tingkat sosial kehidupan mengatakan bahwa saat ini mereka hidup dalam ketakutan akan anggota milisi bersenjata dan orang-orang bersenjata yang bolak-balik di jalan-jalan. Mereka menunjukkan ketidak percayaan mendalam terhadap Gubernur baru, Gul Agha Shirzai, tokoh kontrovesial yang pernah duduk di posisi yang sama di awal 1990-an pada periode kekerasan kesewenang-wenangan dan tiada hukum.
"Pada masa Era Thaliban, anda bisa berjalan di jalanan dengan tenang dan selamat baik siang maupun malam. Sekarang kami harus tidur dengan senjata sebagai bantal, karena kami bisa saja dirampok setiap saat." menurut Abdul Haddi, 35 tahun, seorang dealer mobil.
At a nursing school on the grounds of Mir Weis Hospital, female students and teachers this week expressed grave concern for their safety in the streets. Saying they feared being accosted and molested by gunmen, they begged the school's director for door-to-door bus service so they would not have to walk or wait outdoors.
During the Taliban era, the school received special permission to teach girls after agreeing to follow strict Islamic rules, with no men allowed on the premises, no music or parties and special curtained buses bringing veiled students to class. Now, the girls said, the atmosphere inside the school is more relaxed, but the conditions outside are far more frightening. "We are so confused and worried. There are gunmen everywhere, and there is no stability," said Khatira, 18, a nursing student. "I hate guns, and I only want to study. I was born in a time of fighting, and I never saw any stable conditions except with the Taliban. In the time of extremism, I could study safely. Now I can't."
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Di sebuah sekolah perawat di wilayah Rumah Sakit Mir Weis, pelajar wanita dan gurunya minggu ini mengungkapkan kekhawatiran mendalam akan keselamatan mereka di perjalanan. Mereka takut dihampiri dan diganggu oleh orang-orang bersenjata, mereka memohon Kepala Sekolah untuk mengadakan bus antar jemput pintu ke pintu, sehingga mereka tidak perlu berjalan atau menunggu di luar rumah.
Selama Era Thaliban, sekolah ini memperoleh ijin khusus untuk mengajar kaum wanita setelah menyetujui aturan Islam yang 'ketat', tidak ada lelaki diijinkan berada di lokasi belajar mengajar, tidak ada musik atau pesta-pesta, dan bis-bis bertabir khusus yang biasa membawa para pelajar berjilbab menuju ke kelas. Sekarang, para wanita mengatakan, kondisi di dalam sekolah terasa agak santai, tapi kondisi di luarnya jauh lebih mengerikan/menakutk
A number of Kandahar residents said they wished the U.S. military forces now stationed in the area would do more to help provide law and order to their communities, rather than focusing their efforts on hunting down Arab fighters, suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and former heads of the Taliban.
To a certain extent, Taliban sympathies here also extend to Arabs who lived here and fought alongside the Taliban against its armed domestic opponents in northern Afghanistan, and who later were killed or wounded in the U.S. bombing campaign.
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Sejumlah penduduk Kandahar mengatakan bahwa mereka berandai-andai kalau saja tentara Amerika yang sedang berada di daerah mereka dapat melakukan lebih banyak hal untuk membantu mengadakan hukum untuk komunitas mereka, daripada memfokuskan usaha mereka memburu Mujahidin Arab, tertuduh pemimpin 'teroris' Usamah bin Ladin, dan bekas pemimpin Thaliban.
Pada tingkatan tertentu, simpati thdp Thaliban di sini berlanjut kepada simpati terhadap para Mujahidin Arab yang tinggal di sini dan berjuang bahu membahu dengan Thaliban melawan milisi-milisi lokal yang bersenjata di bagian utara Afghanistan, dan mereka inilah yang kemudian hari banyak terbunuh dan terluka akibat serangan bom-bom Amerika.
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Tale of an American Taliban
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BY COLIN SOLOWAY
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Dec. 1 - Abdul Hamid is tall, thin and barefoot in a filthy black tunic. A prisoner of the Northern Alliance, he sits with his elbows bound behind his back with a strip of cloth, his right leg and left foot bandaged for gunshot wounds. Hamid's face is almost entirely covered in dirt and black soot, but it is quickly apparent that he is not just another beaten and frightened Taliban warrior. Abdul Hamid, age 20, is an American. He is not a naturalized citizen or disaffected Arab-American youth rebelling against Western culture. He is a white, educated-sounding, apparently middle-class American, a convert to Islam who came to Afghanistan six months ago to help the Taliban build a "true Islamic state."
'He's a really good boy' Exclusive: The parents of the American Taliban describe their son A video image of American Abdul Hamid
Dec. 2 - The parents of the so-called American Taliban expressed shock and disbelief at the news that their son, missing for seven months in Pakistan, had turned up in a fortress in Northern Afghanistan, as a prisoner of the Northern Alliance and a survivor of a vicious prison uprising that left one American CIA agent and hundreds of foreign fighters dead.
ABDUL HAMID, who spoke with a Newsweek journalist on Saturday afternoon in the fortress of Kala Jangi in Northern Afghanistan, has been identified by his parents as John Phillip Walker Lindh, 20, of Northern California. Walker (he uses his mother's last name), was taken into custody by U.S. Special Forces late Saturday night at a hospital near Mazar-e-Sharif, in Northern Afghanistan. He is the only American to be captured fighting for the Taliban. His parents have contacted officials at the U.S. State Department and the U.S. embassy in Pakistan but say they have been given no word on his condition
or location.
Marilyn Walker describes her son as a "sweet, shy, kid," who had wanted to work with poor people and perhaps go into medicine. "Everyone who knows him loves him," she says. "Everyone expected him to become a scholar."
Walker said on Sunday that the photo of her son that appeared on Newsweek. MSNBC.com was the first indication that she had of his whereabouts since he left a religious school, or Madrassah, in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, where he had been studying the Quran, seven months earlier.
"I last talked with him at the end of April," she says. "He said he was going to be moving somewhere cooler for the summer."
She never heard from him again. Instead of going to study in the mountains of Pakistan, John Walker told Newsweek he had traveled across the border to Afghanistan to help the Taliban build a "pure Islamic state." He told CNN that he had gone to the Afghan capital Kabul and volunteered with the Taliban. Because he didn't know the local languages, he said, the Taliban told him to contact forces supporting Osama bin Laden. He said he had received combat training at a camp in Northern Afghanistan, had fought with the Pakistani allies of the Taliban in the disputed region of Kashmir and then returned to fight recently with the Taliban at Konduz.
Marilyn Walker paints a portrait of her son as an intelligent, articulate young man with a gift for languages and a commitment to social justice. John Walker was born in Washington, D.C., in February 1981. He is the second of three children of a home health care worker and a lawyer, Frank Lindh. His mother says he spent the first ten years of his life in the Washington suburbs of Maryland. His family moved to Northern California in 1991.
At the age of 16 he converted to Islam. His mother says she does not know why John embraced the religion. Although he was raised as a Catholic, his mother says he was exposed to her following of Buddhist teachings. "It's very inclusive of all people and [has] a sense of social justice," she says.
John's father Frank Lindh, who is divorced from Marilyn Walker, says that his son took to Islam naturally. "I told him once that maybe he was always a Muslim, because he had clearly found something important for him there," Lindh told Newsweek.
At age 18 John traveled to Sinna, in Yemen, to learn Arabic. He then moved on to Pakistan and a Madrassah in the village of Bannu, where in addition to working to memorize the Quran, he taught himself some of the Urdu and Pashto languages. Frank Lindh says his son's study of languages and his dedication to his religious studies makes him proud.
"I support him and his studies," he says. "He's learned Arabic, and is memorizing the Quran. He's a very good scholar."
John Lindh told Newsweek that in the course of his studies in Pakistan he had met Taliban members and some of the former teachers of the Taliban leadership. These encounters may have helped to convince him that, as he said, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan was the only true Islamic state in the Muslim world.
His mother said that in some ways, his fascination with the Taliban could have been a quest for purity. "In studying Islam he wanted to study somewhere where it is practiced in its purest form," she says.
But Walker says she was shocked by her son's statements of support for the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. She says he had never expressed any interest in the Taliban or a any other militant version of Islam.
She pointed out that he went to Pakistan with an Islamic humanitarian aid group as part of his commitment to working with the poor.
"That's where his heart is," she says. "I think if he got caught up with Taliban people, it's because they sucked that part of him in."
Even harder for her to fathom is the idea of her son as a volunteer fighting for the Taliban. "I can't imagine him in the uprising (in the prison)," she says. "This is a kid who would freeze [out of fear]. This is my shy kid. He's totally not streetwise."
To CNN, Walker described himself as a "jihadi," a holy warrior. "People he knew from the mosque here are just shocked," she says." They just can't believe it."
Now that they know their son is alive, Lindh and Walker are desperate to find out where he is. His parents say they are working to find legal representation for him. They do not know if he has been, or will be, charged with a crime, or if so, in what jurisdiction he will be tried. No matter what, says Lindh, they will stand by their son.
"I'm proud of John," he says. "He's a really good boy. A really sweet boy."
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"Operasi Syahid" di benteng Kala Janghi Mazar-i-Sharif
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Mujahidin, pejuang Taliban dari Kunduz yang tertawan pada hari Ahad, 25 November 2001, melakukan "Operasi Syahid" di benteng Kala Janghi Mazar-i-Sharif. Para Mujahidin itu telah berjihad di Jalan Allah dengan jiwa mereka. Taliban "Operator Syahid" itu terdiri atas 210 Pakistan, 90 Uzbek, 13 Arab, 1 Amerika (White American Taliban) dan sisanya Afghan.
Menurut azzam.com yang dipublikasikan pada 29 November 2001, Mujahidin Taliban di Kunduz telah memulai evakuasi dari Kunduz sejak 23 November 2001. Mereka membentuk dua kelompok.
Kelompok pertama, terdiri dari 1640 mujahidin yang terdiri 400 pejuang Taliban dari luar seperti Pakistan, Uzbek, Arab dan juga dari Afghan. Mereka menempuh rute yang berbeda untuk keluar dari Kunduz, karena sebenarnya Kunduz tidak terkepung secara penuh sebagaimana diberitakan. Aliansi Utara hanya menguasai jalur-jalur utama untuk masuk dan keluar Kunduz. Mujahidin menggunakan jalur pegunungan yang sudah dirintis sebelumnya. Kelompok kedua ini terus melakukan perjalanan sampai menemukan tempat yang relatif aman di bawah pimpinan Mullah Dadullah, seorang komandan Taliban, yang sebelumnya bertahan di Kunduz, setelah Taliban menarik diri dari Mazar-i-Sharif.
Kelompok kedua, yang memiliki fisik bagus, menjadi pelindung bagi Mujahidin yang mengundurkan diri dari Kunduz. Kelompok pertama inilah yang pelaku "Operasi Syahid" tsb. Mereka melakukan gerakan ke arah Khanabad dan bertempur selama dua hari untuk memberikan kesempatan kelompok pertama keluar dari Kunduz. Mereka terus bertempur sampai kehabisan amunisi. Kemudian mereka melakukan negosiasi dengan musuh. Tapi sebelumnya merencanakan "Operasi Syahid" jika situasinya tepat. Kelompok inilah yang "ditawan" di benteng Kala Janghi Mazar-i-Sharif.
Dalam "Operasi Syahid" di benteng Kala Janghi Mazar-i-Sharif itu mereka berhasil membunuh sekitar 500 tentara Aliansi Utara, termasuk 5 orang jenderal, 35 personel tentara Amerika dan pasukan khusus Inggris (SAS), termasuk satu orang anggota CIA, yaitu John Mike Spann (korban pertama AS dalam perang Afghanistan)
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Capture by the Taliban
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Yvonne Ridley (born 1959?, Stanley, County Durham, England) is a British journalist and Respect Party politician best known for her capture by the Taliban and subsequent conversion to IslamRidley came to prominence in September 2001 when she was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan whilst working for the Sunday Express, and held hostage for 11 days. She said she was treated with respect during her captivity, and promised to read the Qur'an after her release, and later did, partly to find out why the Taliban treated women as they do. She converted to Islam in the summer of 2003. She was visited by a cleric who asked if she wanted to convert to Islam. She refused but said that she would read the Koran if she ever got out." She was horrible to her captors. "I spat at them and was rude and refused to eat. It wasn't until I was freed that I became interested in Islam."
Ridley is the author of In the Hands of the Taliban: Her Extraordinary Story soon to be re-published by Islam Channel 2006, detailing the 11 days she was held captive by the Taliban; as well as Ticket to Paradise (Dandelion Books, LLC 2003), a novel with fictional characters based on the real backdrop of 9/11. It was written before she converted to Islam and friends say it was never published in the UK because she was too embarrassed by its risque content. She is the presenter of The Agenda, the Islam Channel's politics and current affairs show, broadcast Europe-wide and available for download at the Islam Channel website. She also writes a regular column for the New York-based Daily Muslims and other publications.
Since her conversion to Islam, Ridley has increasingly come under criticism for her allegedly controversial stances. In particular surrounding her apparent support for suicide bombings, which she insist on calling martyrdom operations. As another example, she is reported to have said that, "I hate the term 'suicide bombers' it's an offensive term which was invented by the West to ridicule what many people regard as 'martyrdom operations' and you have to look at each one in context." On 21 September 2004 she described radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri as "quite sweet really," while her former captors, the Taliban, had suffered an "unfair press."
Her vocal support for causes involving Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya and Uzbekistan have made her a popular speaker in anti-war circles. At a debate at Imperial College London on 16 February 2006 she outlined a viewpoint that is "pretty much in line with that of Hamas." She described Israel as "that disgusting little watchdog of America that is festering in the Middle East" and further that her party, the Respect Party, "is a Zionist-free party. if there was any Zionism in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists", while both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties are "riddled with Zionists."
At the "Muslimer i Dialog" conference in Copenhagen in September 2005, Ridley was asked if she didn't see it as a problem that militant Islamists distribute recruiting videos of Iraqi insurgents killing hostages. She replied that it was necessary for Muslims to have these videos at home as an alternative form of news to what she perceived as the propaganda of Western media. At the same meeting she compared British Prime Minister Tony Blair with Pol Pot. She returned to Copenhagen in May 2006 to take part in a conference on Islamophobia and was given a standing ovation after urging Muslims not to "kneel before their enemies" or "kiss the hand that slaps them."
Pengakuan Yvonne Ridley: "Aku luluh dengan apa yang kubaca. Tak ada satupun yang berubah dari isi kitab (Al-Quran) ini, tak satu titikpun, sejak 1400 tahun yang lalu. Aku bergabung dengan apa yang ku anggap sebagai keluarga terbesar dan terbaik yang ada di dunia ini. Kalau kami bersatu, kami betul-betul tak tertahankan.
Pakistan ke perbatasan Afghanistan untuk melakukan tugas jurnalistik. Ia menututurkan pengalamannya di Afghanistan saat ditangkap Taliban yang justru membuatnya masuk Islam bahkan menyebutnya sebagai keluarga terbesar dan terbaik didunia.
Alkisah, mantan guru sekolah Minggu yang juga mantan peminum itu masuk Islam setelah membaca Al-Qur?an usai dilepas oleh Taliban. Ia pernah ditahan, diinterogasi oleh pasukan pemerintah Taliban di Afghanistan. Sosok yang selalu digambarkan "kejam" oleh media AS. Ia ditangkap pada 28 September 2001 dan dibebaskan pada 8 Oktober 2001. Sinar mentari pagi menyelinap perlahan-lahan dari balik teralis jendela, membangunkanku dari tidurku yang tidak pernah lelap. Hari ini aku akan ke Afghanistan! Kalimat itulah yang selalu menghantui pikiranku sepanjang malam. Nama Afghanistan, dan hanya Afghanistan, yang senantiasa bergema di seluruh penjuru otakku. Tegang, takut, semangat, antusias,?, semuanya bercampur menjadi satu.
Aku sudah kenyang meliput berbagai kawasan konflik, aku diutus Sunday Express ke perbatasan Pakistan-Afganistan
Taliban - yang disebut Presiden George War Bush sebagai rezim syetan. Dan dorongan utamaku adalah untuk membuktikan image yang kerap mangkal di benakku sendiri, bahwa pria Taliban sangat membelenggu dan
meminggirkan wanita. Aku tak punya agenda politik, aku hanyalah reporter. Aku hanya ingin menjadi orang pertama menyaksikan invasi terhadap negeri ini. Talentaku inilah yang mendorongku untuk bisa masuk ke wilayah Afganistan.
Perjalananku memang terbilang nekad, tak berpaspor dan tak punya visa. Walaupun ditemani dua orang guide professional, namun tidak bisa dipungkiri bahwa aku tengah mengalami ketegangan hebat. Tiba-tiba tustel mini milikku terjatuh. Maka penyamaranku ketahuan juga. Di desa Kama yang sepi, tentara Taliban mengarahkan moncong senjata, dan memaksaku turun dari punggung keledai. Entah darimana asalnya, tiba-tiba kerumunan lelaki berjenggot tebal mengitariku. Dan akupun diangkut mobil pick up tua. Aku ditahan di desa Kama dekat Jalalabad di sebuah tempat yang seperti bekas tempat peristirahatan musim dingin Raja Shah. Ruangan itu berpendingin udara dan aku diberi sebuah kunci
untuk mengunci diri di malam hari.
Aku sadar bahwa aku tak pernah diculik oleh Taliban. Aku ditangkap karena masuk ke negeri itu secara ilegal tanpa paspor dan visa. Aku tahu persis apa kesalahanku. Tentara Taliban menuduhku sebagai mata-mata Amerika. Aku langsung berpikir, tak mungkin lagi bisa melihat matahari. Aku mengira akan mati dan walaupun para penahanku bersikap
baik, pengalaman itu sangat menakutkan.
Aku mempercayai propaganda bahwa orang-orang ini adalah bagian dari rezim paling kejam di dunia. Segala hal buruk yang pernah terjadi di penjara Abu Ghraib, Bagdad, kutakuti akan terjadi padaku. Aku terus menunggu kapan saatnya orang jahat yang membawa alat penyetrum muncul, tapi itu tak pernah terjadi. Salah satu pengalaman paling sulit bagiku
adalah terisolasi secara total dari dunia luar. Walaupun aku hanya ditahan selama sepuluh hari, aku sama sekali tak tahu apa yang terjadi di luar sana dan mengira bahwa aku akan segera dilupakan.
Kecurigaanku kepada Taliban membuatku berkali-kali yakin bakal dicambuk atau dieksekusi. Itulah yang membuatku kehilangan kendali, marah, memaki-maki. Eh, bukannya siksaan atau hukuman mati. Kaum Taliban malah tersenyum mendengar makianku. Mereka bilang, aku adalah tamu dan saudari mereka.
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LIES ABOUT TALIBAN
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WESTERN MEDIA PROPAGATES LIES ABOUT TALIBAN, SO THAT US OR ITS STOOGES CAN PERMANENTLY STAY IN PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN TO CONTROL THE MINERAL RESOURCES OF CENTRAL ASIA.
By MUTSUKO MURAKAMI
Thursday, October 18, 2001
http://www.asiaweek
Japanese doctor Tetsu Nakamura works with leprosy patients and refugees in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's a job that keeps him in touch with the raw reality of life in that troubled country. And he says that from what he has seen, the Taliban are being wrongly portrayed internationally. "There's something wrong with the media reports, " he says. "This talk of the Taliban being vicious and disliked doesn't fit with reality." Nakamura says the Taliban has wide support from the population, particularly in rural areas. "Otherwise, how can the Taliban rule 95% of the country with only 15, 000 soldiers?"
Villagers around Nakamura's Peshawar base hospital and 10 clinics in both north-western Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan were pleased to see peace established under Taliban rule, he says. The Pushtun people, who make up two-thirds of the Afghan population, can accept strict Muslim codes because they have lived by them all their lives, he says. Women are not deprived of education or jobs, as far as he can see. In fact, half the local doctors at his clinics are women.
So why are the people of the capital, Kabul, reportedly hoping to see the Taliban overthrown? "The Taliban may act differently there, " he told me when we met recently in Tokyo. "They're obliged to fix the corrupt urban life. The people most vocal in criticizing the Taliban are upper-class Afghans who have been deprived of their privileges." Nakamura's words reminded me of news footage I have seen several times since the attacks on New York and Washington. Shot by French journalists in Afghanistan, it showed Afghan women speaking critically of the Taliban. Significantly, they are dressed in shiny silk-like costumes, with large rings on their fingers.
Nakamura, 55, says the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance are not the freedom fighters some journalists describe them as. Villagers are frightened of them because they are violent and cruel, he says. They execute innocent people in horrific ways, though not in public.
Nakamura works for Peshawarkai Medical Services, a Japanese aid agency based in Fukuoka City that has been operating in the Peshawar district for 17 years. He first visited the area as an alpinist when he was still a medical school student in Fukuoka. Shocked by the lack of medical care in the area, particularly for leprosy patients, he volunteered to work at a local hospital in l984. He says: "I spent most of my time not in straight medical work but in trying to understand my patients, their lifestyles and values -- what makes them weep or what matters most for them. "Luckily, I can eat anything and sleep anywhere, " he grins.
Nakamura has seen foreigners visiting Afghanistan and returning home to criticise the Muslim culture -- from a Western perspective. These people may be "heroes or heroines in London or New York, " he says, "but they contribute nothing to the welfare of Afghans." As for suggestions the Taliban have cut the country off from the world, Nakamura says the Afghans are perhaps better informed than the Japanese, as they listen daily to BBC radio in their own language.
The doctor's greatest concern is the fate of millions of starving refugees in and around Afghanistan. Over one million of them are suffering from hunger, he says, while up to 40% are bordering on starvation. He thinks 10% could die during the winter. Nakamura and his staff stopped focusing exclusively on leprosy in the l980s as they had so many refugees to deal with, many suffering from malaria, diarrhoea, infections and fever. Severe draught in recent years created hundreds of thousands of refugees. And now the American bombing and the fear of an invasion has brought more. His aid agency helps to dig wells not only to provide water but also for irrigation for farms, so that the refugees can return to their villages.
Back home in Japan temporarily and thinking of his base area in Pakistan andAfghanistan, Nakamura says: "It's all like a mirage far off in the desert." He fondly recalls the red-brown soil of Afghanistan fields, the villagers sharing their joy about water from newly dug wells, and the friendly faces of Taliban soldiers helping villagers. "I have one simple question, " he says. "What are the big powers trying to defend by attacking this ailing, tiny country?" It's a good question.
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Kekalahan AS dan Kebangkitan Kembali Taliban di Afghanistan
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Jumat, 12 September, 2008 11:21
Rakyat AS tidak akan pernah melupakan peristiwa yang terjadi tepat pada tanggal ini, 11 September delapan tahun silam. Setiap tahun mereka memperingati hancurnya menara kembar World Trade Center di New York akibat serangan teroris, yang akhirnya mereka tuduhkan ke kelompok al-Qaidah. Invasi AS ke Afghanistan pasca peristiwa 11 September dilakukan menganggap Taliban melindungi pimpinan al-Qaidah Usamah bin Ladin. Taliban menolak tuntutan AS agar menyerahkan bin Ladin, Taliban malah meminta bukti bahwa al-Qaidah terlibat dalam insiden 11 September 2001.
Dimulailah kampanye "Perang Melawan Teror" yang dimotori oleh Presiden AS, George W. Bush ditandai dengan invansi AS ke Afghanistan bulan Oktober 2001 dengan dalih mengejar pimpinan al-Qaidah, Usamah bin Ladin. Di Afghanistan, pasukan penjajah AS berhasil menumbangkan Taliban yang saat itu menguasai pemerintahan Afghanistan, namun tak pernah berhasil menangkap bin Ladin, target nomor satunya yang ketika itu diduga berada di Afghanistan.
Setelah kota Kandahar jatuh ke tangan pasukan koalisi AS pada tanggal 7 Desember 2001, para pimpinan Taliban menyingkir ke daerah-daerah pedalaman di dekat perbatasan dengan negara Pakistan . Taliban mulai menampakkan diri lagi setahun kemudian, tepatnya tahun 2000. Mereka muncul dengan melakukan aksi-aksi serangan bom. Kebangkitan kembali Taliban dalam tiga tahap. Tahap pertama tahun 2002-2003 adalah tahap Taliban melakukan restrukturisasi, karena saat fokus AS sudah terbelah ke Irak. Tahap kedua tahun 2004-2005 adalah tahap pengembangan taktik serangan, pengembangan senjata dan pengerahan pasukan ke sejumlah wilayah di Afghanistan . Tahap ketiga tahun 2006-2007 adalah tahap kembalinya Taliban secara utuh dan menyeluruh di mana Taliban mulai mengintensifkan serangan-seranganny
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AS Mengaku Kalah
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Perang belum berakhir. Delapan tahun sudah AS menjajah Afghanistan , menimbulkan kerusakan, penderitaan dan korban nyawa di kalangan rakyat sipil Afghanistan . Ironisnya, hari ini, ketika rakyat AS sedang mengenang para korban Black September, para petinggi militer AS mengakui bahwa dari sisi militer mereka sebenarnya sudah kalah dalam perang menghadapi Taliban dan al-Qaidah di Afghanistan . Kekalahan itu diakui oleh Menteri Pertahanan AS Robert Gates dan Kepala Staff Pasukan Gabungan AS Mike Mullen di hadapan Komite Militer DPR AS. "Saya tidak yakin, kita akan menang di Afghanistan. " papar Mullen. AS jelas sudah tidak sanggup lagi menghadapi perlawanan dari al-Qaidah dan Taliban yang belakangan ini makin intensif. Itulah sebabnya, Presiden AS George War. Bush merasa harus mengalihkan sebagian pasukannya yang akan ditarik dari Irak, ke Afghanistan. Serangan-serangan Taliban yang membuat pasukan internasional pimpinan AS kewalahan, menunjukkan kelompok ini makin kuat dan maju dalam taktik perlawanan.
Ada sejumlah alasan yang mendorong perlawanan-perlawan an keras Taliban terhadap pasukan internasional yang dikomandoi AS. Alasan itu tak lepas dari kondisi internal dan eksternal Afghanistan . Kondisi internal antara lain, lemahnya performa pemerintahan Afghanistan bentukan AS, makin dalamnya intervensi asing, pembunuhan yang dilakukan NATO terhadap warga sipil serta makin menguatnya kelompok Taliban sendiri baik dari sisi keanggotaan maupun struktur perjuangannya. Sedangkan kondisi eksternal yang mendorong kebangkitan kembali Taliban, antara lain karena adanya dukungan diam-diam dari Pakistan . Badan Intelejen Militer Pakistan (ISI) ikut berperan dalam memperkuat Taliban. Pengaruh eksternal lainnya adalah, eksistensi al-Qaidah yang mengadopsi cara-cara perlawanan di Irak ke Afghanistan dan bantuan dari Iran .
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