CIVIL SOCIETY APPEAL TO EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS

In Afghanistan, the population suffered from war for over 40 years. The last twenty years of military occupation by NATO allied forces (2001 - 2021) have produced hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect victims of the conflict, due to firefights and bombings but also from hunger, lack of water and infrastructure necessary for the survival of the population. The proliferation of opium (both cultivation and trade) is another consequence of the war that has led to further impoverishment of the population because of the forced conversion of crops, the transformation of peasants who own land into exploited labor forced to work under threat, and widespread drug addiction. Started by the warlords at the time of the Soviet invasion, opium cultivation has experienced a surge during the two decades of Western occupation. Members of the Islamic Republic government (allied to the USA), were involved in it, and it is now primarily in the hands of the Talibans. Afghanistan is today a narco-state capable of controlling 90% of world opium production, which is sold internationally to ensure a constant supply of funds, weapons and ammunition. Production and trade have always been tolerated by the NATO occupation forces. The Taliban, now in power with their Islamic Emirate, are the most powerful narco - traffickers in the world.

The United States has also been acting covertly in the Afghan conflict since the 1980s, through a series of regional powers: first and foremost, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Their goal was (and still is, despite the momentary apparent retreat) to exert their influence in the area by competing for it for geo-strategic reasons with China, Iran and Russia. They have implemented their objectives by financing and supporting in various ways education that refer to the area of ​​Islamic fundamentalism, while declaring their desire to overthrow international terrorism and support the launch of a democratic process with the improvement of the condition of women at the center. Achieving through fundamentalism the three objectives described was an evident paradox that today reveals all the drama of its failure. While the US and NATO withdraw, Russia, China and Iran remain firmly on the ground, also showing the failure of Western foreign policies on a geostrategic level. The Afghan population is thus handed over to powers that have no qualms about human rights and are open to purposeful alliances with the Taliban themselves, now in power. Not to be underestimated is also the presence on the Afghan territory of ISIS - Khorasan, a faction of the Islamic fundamentalist Islamist movement, with the ambition to carry on the global jihad. If the Taliban favored attacks on institutional symbols, ISIS-K has shown cruel and unscrupulous willingness to attack the Afghan population, especially the Shiite minority.

As a consequence of the evolution of this long war, the flow of forced migrations from Afghanistan to Europe has been increasing, after having deposited most of the fugitives in neighboring countries. The areas of the refugee camps in Pakistan still represent a dangerous breeding ground for the same fundamentalist formations trained and tolerated by the Pakistani secret services in agreement with the US.

Europe, increasingly weak and politically disunited, has continued to identify itself in the interests of the United States, without any desire to focus on specific foreign policy objectives that correspond to its geostrategic position and to the values ​​of democracy, secularism and respect for human rights of which he declares to be the guardian. Its foreign policy towards the Middle Eastern and Central Asian chessboard leaves its hands free and strengthens the trafficking of arms, drugs and human beings, the financing of Islamic fundamentalist groups and terrorist groups, the indiscriminate exploitation of resources, and the militarization of borders for the containment of people fleeing conflict. Due to the general increase in the level of violence, illegality and corruption, the fate of democracy is highly at risk in all the countries of the area and in Europe itself. The possibility for the Afghan people to define their own democratic form of political management seems further and further away.

For over forty years in Afghanistan, there have been secular and progressive forces, often led by women, who carry out widespread political work despite foreign military occupations, dark periods of civil war and domination by warlords and fundamentalists. These democratic forces are expressing their firm will to continue their resistance, even during the extremely harsh Taliban regime of the Islamic Emirate. It stands today on the ashes of a government that has dissolved like snow in the sun as it served as a mere screen for the neocolonial and imperialist plans of domination by the United States and its allies.

The secular and democratic forces of Afghanistan are asking western civil society for two things: to support the self-determination of the Afghan people since democracy cannot be imposed on them from the outside, and to create a large network of support for their resistance in Europe. The red thread that connects Kabul to the European capitals is not only the one of many fleeing people traveling along the Balkan route, but also the common resistance for democracy, self-determination and the end of the wars imposed by the neo-colonial politics of the West.

The European civil society organizations that adhere to this coalition, collaborating in joint campaigns for a radical change in current foreign and migration policies, demand that the governments of their countries and the institutions of the European Union:

Do not provide any recognition to the regime of the Islamic Emirate and do not negotiate any form of migration restrictions with a government composed of leading personalities in international narco-trafficking who have declared that no democracy is possible in Afghanistan;

Recognize as political interlocutors the Afghan secular and democratic forces such as RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, http://www.rawa.org/index.php) and Hambastagi (Solidarity Party of Afghanistan, http://hambastagi.org / new / en /) and initiate support actions towards them, liaising with the European civil society organizations that have maintained positive relations of mutual collaboration with them for years. Act quickly and effectively to protect their exponents in case of danger;

Initiate support actions for the Afghan secular and democratic forces, liaising with European civil society organizations that have maintained positive relations of mutual collaboration with them for years. Act quickly and effectively to protect their exponents in case of danger;

Stop the migration containment policy based on the externalization and militarization of borders implemented through the financing of undemocratic regimes such as Turkey, now also present in Afghanistan. These policies often end up reinforcing religious fundamentalism, undermining the survival of secular and democratic organizations in the countries that play the role of guardians of the European borders. As a consequence, in these places there is a progressive reduction of civil rights, as we saw with the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention against gender violence decided by Erdogan. We are witnessing today in the European space a worrying increase in the activism of religious fundamentalisms of all kinds and their integration with populisms, sovereignties and nationalisms. We are also witnessing with concern, the progressive weakening of Europe itself which is increasingly blackmailed by governments which, thanks to the funding received, use migrants as a means of extorting additional funds to be used for detention within their own borders.

Stop, including in the countries to which they have delegated the control of migratory flows, any king of illegal practice of refoulement, readmission and detention. Stop border control practices based on the use of violence against defenseless people as reported by many documented reports drawn up by civil society along the routes. Organize humanitarian corridors and air bridges for the immediate evacuation of populations subjected to indiscriminate violence, starting with that of Afghanistan;

Promote policies based on women's self-determination and a resolute fight against violence against women everywhere in the world, starting with Afghanistan, and in Europe itself. Strongly support the rights of women crushed in many countries, including in Europe;

Block, through the progressive disinvestment in the arms industry, the perverse cycle of "endless wars" that imprisons Afghanistan and a large part of the populations of the Middle East: the industries, economies and politics of nations - as both George Orwell predicted, both President Eisenhower - have now become so dependent on the production and use of weapons that wars are no longer fought with the intention of winning them, but to ensure they never end;

No longer comply with US diktats which lead only to more fundamentalism, more wars, more forced migration flows, more poverty and violence as we see throughout the Middle East;

Establish, again in collaboration with European and Afghan civil society, a special observatory for monitoring violations of human rights in Afghanistan. It should monitor the continuing violations and bring them to the attention of the competent institutions for serious crimes against humanity, treasuring the documentation already submitted to International Criminal Court for examination;

Recover in the political action the founding values ​​of a common Europe and pay the utmost attention to justice, equity and social cohesion, respect for civil rights and freedoms and secularism.

The resistance that we will carry on in Europe is fundamental to the defense of civil rights and the freedom of expression of dissent of European civil societies. This resistance concerns all forms of repression of these rights towards European citizens, people on the move (citizens of the world like us, but condemned to be subjected to restrictions of all kinds) and peoples who demand respect for their self-determination. This resistance is expressed through forms of solidarity aid and civil disobedience actions inherent in the anti-fascist and anti-Nazi values ​​that are the basis of European democracy. As European citizens, we will defend them with determination, while supporting the resistance of the Afghan secular and democratic organizations.