Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Pages 48-49

Human Rights

RAWA Representative Challenges U.S. Narrative

Zoya, a 28-year-old member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), travels the world to speak out against the Northern Alliance, the Taliban, and the U.S./NATO occupation of her country. Representing RAWA’s Foreign Committee, Zoya spoke at the Des Moines, IA Public Library on Oct. 6.

“I want to focus on the eight years of occupation by the United States and NATO countries,” she began. “Unfortunately, the West’s impression that Afghanistan has been liberated by the United States, that Afghanistan is a free country, that we are enjoying freedom and democracy in our country is untrue,” Zoya stated.

“Yes, Afghanistan is free for the warlords. Afghanistan is free for drug lords. Afghanistan is free for rapists to rape children and women. Afghanistan is free for United States troops to kill our civilians, our children, our women, day by day, in so-called mistakes,” she said.

Currently living as a refugee in Pakistan, Zoya uses a pseudonym when traveling and speaking because her life has been threatened by fundamentalists. She also asked that her face not be photographed.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in pursuit of its geopolitical, economic, and regional strategic goals and to build military bases there, said Zoya, “not to liberate women.”

Freedom, democracy and justice cannot be exported and forced on other countries at gunpoint, she argued, but instead are achieved over time, through a long and arduous process.

“Those who claim to donate these values to the Afghan people through force will only push our country into slavery. It is our responsibility to stand up to fundamentalists and occupations,” Zoya said.

Founded in 1977, RAWA is the oldest political and social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy, and women’s rights in an Afghanistan blighted by fundamentalism. The organization calls for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops.

Zoya’s presentations at the University of Iowa and in Des Moines were sponsored by the University of Iowa Antiwar Committee, the University of Iowa Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, the Des Moines Catholic Worker, American Friends Service Committee-Des Moines, and the International League of Women Voters-Des Moines.

   —Michael Gillespie