Afghanistan
This is a reproduction of the main part of an article published in the IWL web site (www.litci.org) on the 7/6/06
(?) Strong impact caused by TV images showing how a sector of the population of Kabul, capital and main city of the country, confronted heavily armed troops by means of stones and sticks?, they attacked embassies and offices of the UNO, government buildings and police premises to the cry ?Death to the Americans?, ?Death to Karzai? (head of the government). American soldiers shot at the crowd and produced at least 14 deaths and dozens of injured. It all began when a detachment of American armoured cars opened their way though the city traffic, collided with several civilian cars and killed five people. The response to that was a veritable popular uprising.
A little bit of history
The Kabul events do not constitute an isolated case but expresses a change in the situation of the country (?) In 2001, during the first military action? declared by Bush after the 11S raids, imperialist troops invaded the country and, in a swift military victory, defeated the Taliban regime? hated by a great sector of the population. In several cities, the invaders were received as liberators for the Talibans persecuted the minorities and exerted a great social and cultural oppression. After their defeat, remaining Taliban forces withdrew to the mountainous regions bordering with
The real profile of the occupation
The initial support offered by the population started wearing off as the fraud of the promised ?foreign support?, works and investments became evident. The state the schools, hospitals, etc are in is pitiful and most of the ?works? were nothing but a means to enrich imperialist companies under contract.
The weight of the occupation even created a UNO-administered ?parallel economy? in the great cities (?) were a tiny minority of foreign officials, many of them connected to NGOs and their Afghan employees earn much more than all the other Afghans and coexist with the squalor of the vast majority.
On the other hand, the Karzai administration remained supported by the
A change in the situation
After nearly 5 years of occupation, the country, imperialist troops and the puppet Karzai government are in a qualitatively different situation. The experience with the occupation made more and more sectors of the population turn against the occupation.
The change in the feelings of the population in these last months opened a space for a new resistance where various groups confront the occupants and the puppet government. Today there already exist entire zones where the government does not trespass and occupying troops only go if either there is a major military operation or they attack from air and are unable to station troops permanently. Journalist speak about ?liberated zones? in the provinces of Paktia, Khost and Zabul in south and southeast of the country where control has always been precarious, and in Helmand, strategic area of the country, where attacks have recently accrued and the Karzai administration may have lost effective control.
The increase of the resistance comes together with the recovery of the prestige by the Taliban leaders because they, right from the beginning , they have always been against the occupation. But it is important to say that resistance is not limited to them: a coordination between different tribes ad wings has started functioning and, not being Talibans, they are joining the armed struggle against the invaders, For example: Gulbudin Hekmatiar, former ally of Iran and a leader of the guerrilla against the occupation by the former USSR in the 1980s. This leader was a minister in the Karzai administration, he split away from him and declared to be against the occupation.
The
The awesome ?second front?
That is very bad news for Bush and imperialism as a whole: the ?second military front? they feared so much is opening in the region? barging against Bush?s policy who has been trying to find a way of sending some of the American troops back home transferring the weight of the occupation on to the shoulders of European imperialists through NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). The plan was that
This policy of Bush?s in need to concentrate on
This new snarl-up of imperialism and its institutions spell ?good news? for the workers and the nations of the world. The possibility of a military defeat of imperialism in