Front Burner - Afghanistan, one year after the Taliban takeover

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

One year ago, the Taliban effectively re-took control of Afghanistan. Chaos followed in the capital, as thousands of people desperate to get out of the country converged on the Kabul airport. As this was taking place, U.S. forces continued their withdrawal, which marked the end of a 20-year war. Today on Front Burner, we’re talking to Kabul-based journalist Ali M. Latifi about this iteration of the Taliban’s rule one year on, the ongoing impact of economic sanctions and what daily life is like for many in the country now.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. So a year ago today, Taliban fighters effectively retook control of Afghanistan. Entering the presidential palace in Kabul. Taliban fighters placing their guns on the desk, sitting behind the desk of the Afghan president. As then-President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and the government collapsed.

President Ashraf Ghani has gone. He's left the country as Taliban leaders push for what they say is a peaceful transfer of power in Kabul. transfer of power in Kabul. You might remember the images of chaos that followed. Thousands of people converged on the capital's airport, desperate to get out. There were harrowing scenes of people clinging to a U.S. Air Force jet as it prepared to take off. As the plane ascends, two objects or people appear to fall from the fuselage. All this marking the end of the U.S.-led coalition's 20-year war in Afghanistan. Today, I'm talking to Kabul-based journalist Ali M. Latifi about this iteration of the Taliban's rule, the impact of international economic sanctions, and what daily life is like on the ground now, one year on.

Hi, Ali. Thank you so much for coming back on to FrontBurner. Thank you for having me. So the last time that you and I spoke, it was a year ago, soon after the Taliban had taken control of Kabul. I remember the conversation very well. And I wonder if we could start today by you describing for me what life is like in the streets of Kabul now compared to when we talked last time in August or September of last year. It's very different now. It's not to say that things are necessarily okay or good or that

people feel confident in the way the country is going. But September of last year and definitely in August of last year, it felt like a ghost town. You know, I was gone from September 17th until May 22nd. So when I came back on May 22nd, I saw a very different city from the one that I left. I saw that people were going out or have a coffee or have a shisha or, just hang out. I saw that more people were on the streets. It's still much less women than it would have been a year and a half ago, but, there's more people in general going out. There's more cars going out. The city just seems more alive, I guess, more as close to normal as you can say.

Shops are open. Those who are able to go to work are going to work. Schools are back in session, except for teenage girls, obviously. Universities are back in session. It feels like a city again. You know, one of the things that struck me was, like, from the very first day I got back in May, I noticed, like, in people's clothing, like, for instance, for the guys, a lot of them went back to the way they used to dress in that, like a lot of them went back to wearing jeans and t-shirts and things like that. And I was just so shocked by that because, you know, when I was here before I had to leave in September, I was afraid to go out like that. I only did it two or three times and every

single time I was terrified. I remember actually you telling me about that last year, about you being essentially harassed for wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Why do you think that's happening now? Is it because the Taliban is acquiescing to it, or is it because people are defiant? I can't speak for the Taliban. I mean, everyone has their theories. But I think it is a show of defiance. It is a show of insistence, you know, that you tried to lock us up 20 something years ago. Do that this time,

you know. And when I came back, it was right after the Taliban had issued this order saying all women must cover their faces and they either have to wear a naqab or the blue chaudhari, you know, what they call the burqa in the media. The Taliban's latest decree is that all women in Afghanistan must cover their entire body when they're outside the home. If a woman is seen in public without head-to-toe covering, she, along with her husband or male guardian, could be punished. And when I came back, I saw some were dressed that way. Some were wearing the napalm, some were wearing the blue chadari, some were wearing like a COVID mask with like just a scarf. But then I

also saw a lot that were dressed like the way they used to, which was, you know, usually a very colorful scarf with like, you know, loose fitting clothes, but like, in color, you know, because the way that the Taliban had depicted it, you know, you either wore black or you already either wore blue if you're a woman, head to toe. I do think that that is a form of defiance. Same with the men, you know, with the men wearing like the jeans and the t-shirt and so on. It's another show of defiance. Same with the men, you know, with the men wearing like the jeans and the t-shirt and so on. It's another show of defiance. And I think honestly, even going outside and trying to go on with your normal life, knowing that things aren't normal, knowing that the economy is in tatters, that in itself is an act of defiance. That in itself is a statement. And I think they're important statements. And I think they're powerful statements. Because, you know, as you said earlier,

you know, have the Taliban acquiesced? Or is it defiance? No, I mean, we can't know for sure. But one of the theories is that look like there's 6 million people in Kabul now, there weren't nearly that many in 1996. You know, and Kabul was a devastated city destroyed by civil war, where warlords ran rampant. And so that allowed the Taliban to have a monopoly on power and to have this iron grip, you know, and their whole thing in 1996 was like, look, we'll rid you of these warlords but you just have to be extra um protective extra secure extra um closed off in the beginning and eventually we'll reopen everything not just closing down movie theaters but torching the film gutting music cassettes

smashing statues crushing the demon liquor, and forcing all men into the mosques to pray. Obviously, in the five years that they ruled, nothing ever opened back up. But this time, they couldn't do that because the city is not devastated anymore. You know, even with all of the problems and the corruption and the fraud and all of these things that went on over the last 20 years, there has been development, there has been reconstruction, society has moved on, you know, the entire world is online now. You know, you sit in a cab in almost any city in this country and the cab drivers are like scrolling through TikTok and young kids are on Instagram and they have YouTube channels and borrowing

people's Netflix accounts and they're watching pirated copies of Thor and the Avengers. And it's not the Afghanistan of the 1990s, you know, it came out of a Soviet occupation, then a civil war, you know, it came out of a Soviet occupation, then a civil war, you know, immediately one following the other. Right, right. So, you know, is it fair for me to say, essentially, that even though the Taliban are in power, you know, like you said, they don't have the kind of iron grip that they had over 20 years ago?

Fair? It doesn't seem that way. And again, the question is, do they not want to years ago. Fair? It doesn't seem that way. And again, the question is, do they not want to have that iron grip? Or are they unable to? You know, are there just too many people? Are they too disorganized to do it?

Or are they really sort of trying to put on a good face? Because you have to remember, for 20 years, they were seen as the suicide bombers. A number of people have been killed and injured in a Taliban suicide bomb attack on a police headquarters in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. Reports say at least 16 people have been killed. They were seen as the people who planted IEDs. The bombs are in plastic jerry cans

and can be detonated up to 500 meters away. Each has a black box marked with its own individual frequency. Once a safe distance away, the bomber then punches the same numbers into a radio control, which triggers the explosion. And so now, you know, the onus is on them to prove to us that they're not what we thought they were or what the former government was saying that they were. Having said all of this, there are lots of concerns about human rights abuses, right? I was just reading a UN-released report from last month. It documented well over 100 extrajudicial killings, similarly arbitrary arrests and detentions, dozens and dozens of instances of torture. And what do we know about who's being targeted by the Taliban here?

The ones that I know personally, that I've interacted with personally, that I follow personally, are journalists. You know, one of the very first reported cases of abuse against journalists, I covered only, literally only a few days after they took power. And it was a journalist who, a TV journalist who was standing outside a masjid, outside a mosque that's only like not even five minutes from my house, where day laborers, where they stand there and they wait, you know, for someone to hire them for the day, you know, like painters and construction people and things like that. And he was just interviewing them, an armored car full of Talibs pulls up. They start beating him and his cameraman.

They take their equipment, the camera, the phones, everything, and just start yelling at them and and harassing them for being journalists and all they were doing was asking day laborers about the economy that's it nothing else not nothing even remotely political and then obviously we also remember there was the case of the newspaper journalists who when they were covering one of these um women's protests and again it was a very small women's approach all the women's protests you And again, it was a very small women's protest. All the women's protests, you know, since August until now have been very small. A rare sight in the streets of Kabul,

several dozen women protesting Taliban rule. Demanding bread, work and freedom, things they say the regime denies women. And these newspaper journalists, you know, they covered it and I spoke to them after. So did every other media outlet in the world. And they published the pictures of the horrific abuse and torture that they suffered just for covering this women's protest. What about former government workers?

They're terrified. workers. They're terrified. All the ones we've talked to, you know, are essentially in hiding, you know, because they say they've received threats. They say, you know, they've had people call them and come to their homes. We also spoke to early on female judges and male judges have the same problem in that as the Taliban was taking province after province in 11 days in August, they went and they freed all of the prisoners from every jail in every province. You know, in their mind, they were freeing their prisoners, but they failed to realize that they were also, you know, freeing murderers and thieves and rapists and so on and so forth. you know, freeing murderers and thieves and rapists and so on and so forth.

And for a lot of these judges, their biggest fear is that people that they had prosecuted are now back out on the streets. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.

I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I want to ask you a little bit more about how life has changed

for women. Of course, we talked about the decrees for women to fully cover themselves and how some women have been defying that. But how else has day-to-day life changed for women in the last year? So in this country, the government has always been the biggest employer. And it was very true for women too. So shortly after the Taliban took power, they told all women who worked for the government to stay home because they said they can't guarantee that their soldiers will treat them properly on their way to work or in the office or whatever. And then shortly after that, they said, okay, well, wait, they realized you need female

doctors, you need nurses, you need female health workers. So they said, okay, female workers from the Ministry of Public Health can return to work. Then they realized you need female police officers and like women to search women. So then the Ministry of Interior, and then later, I think the Ministry of Education. But that's it. Beyond that, all the other women who work for the government are staying at home. They are being paid a fraction of their previous wages, but they have no idea when they'll be allowed to return to work. And there was a report that, for instance, like in the Ministry of Finance, apparently the ministry told the women, you know what, just send your male relatives in your place, which is a ridiculous notion, right?

Because you couldn't send your brother or your cousin in your place to host the show, right? Because they wouldn't know what they were doing. struggling to deal with the multitude of issues it's facing has lost a vast amount of its, you know, skilled labor force simply because they said all female government employees can't return to work. What about school? So school, the biggest issue is for teenage girls between 7th and 12th grade. So most of the schools were closed because of COVID already when the Taliban came to power. And then shortly after coming to power, they reopened all the schools except for high school for teenage girls. And now, since August 15th, since they came to power, they haven't reopened those schools at all. On March 23rd, they said they would reopen them. You know, thousands of girls reported to

school. And as soon as they got there, the Taliban on the ground told them, sorry, you got to go. We changed our mind. Like, it's not ready yet. The day started so well for these girls in Kabul as they returned to school for the first time in seven months. But a few hours later, the Taliban-led government suddenly ordered most secondary schools for girls to close. Students packed up their bags and headed home. And that day was famous for seeing footage of, you know, these teenage girls just crying, leaving their school.

I was happy and excited when I found out I was going to school. But we were hardly there for 30 minutes when they kicked us out and shut the door and left us hopeless. They threw our dreams in the dirt. We are girls and we want to become doctors or engineers, but they don't want us to study at all. want us to study at all. Is it a sin that we are girls? Is it a sin that we study? And throughout this time, the Taliban has given any number of excuses, vague excuses.

At one point, they said the uniforms were the issue. Then they said the curriculum was the issue. Then they said it's a cultural matter. Now they're saying it's a religious matter. You are an educated man. You're a doctor. You are the health minister. You have studied and worked alongside women as well. Don't you find this appalling, a red line? Don't you find this appalling, a red line? Look, the thing is that education is as important for the men, it's also important for the females, for the girls. Yes, it's not the thinking of a man, it's the teaching of the Islam, that it's equal for the men and the women.

It's the one thing and it's very clear. But we are not just only working on the infrastructures and the arrangement of the staff. We are also some concerns about the slaves and we have some concerns about the hijab and some concerns, some concerns about the separate system. There have been a lot of both high and low level Taliban who have come out and said, we need to get all girls back to school as soon as possible. You know, like this is an Islamic right. We can't take that away from them.

We have to we have to restart schools. It hasn't happened yet. You know, what is the holdup? Do you get the sense that there are struggles within the Taliban itself over what it stands for and what it's going to be moving forward? Yeah. But the question is, how big is that struggle? Because like some people say, oh, it's like a couple people that are the holdouts. And then there are others who say, no, it's like 40 people who are holdouts. That's a big, big question that we clearly don't know the answer to. Paint a picture for me of the economic situation right now in Afghanistan one year after the Taliban take over.

So today I went to Logada province, which borders Kabul. It's about 40 minutes away. And I was covering this exact issue. And it's the same issue whatever province you go to. Amid an economic crisis identified by the UN as the world's worst, 70% of households are unable to meet their basic needs. The International Labour Organization said that in the last year, one million people have lost their jobs, including tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of women. At the same time, you know, we're cut off from the global financial system, you know, so we can't transfer money from here to, you know, someone else outside properly. When people try and send money here through things like Western Union and MoneyGram, they face all kinds of issues.

It's very ad hoc. It depends on where you go. It's very ad hoc. It just depends on where you go. You know, Afghanistan's sovereign assets that were in the central bank, something like 9 billion of it, is stuck in the US and the UK. And they're not sending that back. They're not releasing that. And then there are sanctions on this country, which means that a lot of support cannot come in. And there's a lot of things that this government can't do either.

For instance, the Afghani, the Afghan currency has never been printed in Afghanistan. It's always been printed in Europe somewhere. And right now, there is a shipment of Afghanis that needs to come in. But because of the sanctions, the government cannot send that money to get our physical paper money in, which means people are just recycling old notes. At the same time, government workers, you know, they've had their wages reduced, most of them by like 70, 80%. And at the same time, food prices are doubling or even tripling over the last year. There is no hope. May God have his mercy on the poor people. The prices have gone up. The shop rents are high. There is no work, no business. We are baffled. And then you also had in the initial days, so many like private offices, NGOs, media outlets, they all closed, you know, because either like the people in charge left the country or because they weren saw last month the World Food Program reported that about 19 million people,

so half the population of Afghanistan, is now acutely food insecure. And that 90% of the population has faced some kind of food insecurity in the past year. And so what does that look like on the ground? So for instance, like there's a World Food Program distribution center only about five minutes from where I live. And every day, every time I pass by, there's probably 100 people just waiting out there. And these are urban classes. These are people who lived in the cities. A lot of them had jobs before or currently have jobs, but aren't making the kind of money they used to. You know, there's always been rural poverty in this country, unfortunately, massive rural poverty.

But now it's hit the urban classes. Here in Kandahar city, entire families are struggling to feed themselves. This mother's eight-month-old son died from malnutrition just weeks ago. Now she fears for her other children. The government hasn't helped us at all. No one has asked us if we're hungry or have something to eat or not. If someone doesn't help or support us, I fear my other children will also die of hunger.

Like last winter, people were able to get through because whatever money they had left, they could rely on or they could sell their property or they could sell their physical belongings. But this year, this winter, that cushion probably will not be there. So the fear is that the real danger, the real food insecurity, the real crisis of poverty will be this winter. will be this winter. These sanctions, the fact that the U.S. and other countries, as well as the World Bank, revoked the credentials of Afghanistan's central bank, billions of dollars in international assistance have been cut. Like, what are foreign governments and international agencies saying the Taliban would need to do? I mean, they talk about human rights. You know, they bring up what you said about the

different human rights reports, the treatment of women, the restarting of high school for teenage girls, getting rid of certain cabinet members that are on international terrorist lists that have bounties on their head. But the one thing that should be made clear to them is, fine, you don't like the taliban government believe me a lot of people in this country don't either but what you're saying your sanctions are not making the interior minister who has something like a 10 million dollar bounty on his head poor he's fine his family is fine the foreign minister is for all the entire leadership of the taliban is just fine who is suffering is 38 million people. The young girl, the boy who's studying

computers, the woman who was a police officer, you know, these are the people being affected. And I think that that's the most important message to send to the world. Ali, when you're talking to people, like regular people on the ground, who do they think is to blame for all of this hardship? Western governments or the Taliban? Both. Obviously, people see that the Taliban could solve a lot of their problems with what seem like very simple steps, right? I mean, a lot of them are just basic human rights. It just sort of seems like the Taliban is being stubborn to be stubborn. But then also, there's a lot,

lot, lot of anger at the West, particularly at Joe Biden, because you have to remember that throughout the 20 years of occupation, different countries were accused of any number of abuses towards Avalon civilians. So people were already fed up with the Western occupation for a long time, not to mention the fact that they felt like these countries were enabling corrupt leaders who were essentially just stealing from the Avalon people. Because again, you know, billions and billions and billions of dollars came into this country. And with that amount of money, there's no reason that, like, for instance, an hour ago, I didn't have electricity in the middle of Kabul. So there's a lot of frustration with that, too.

And then the ultimate sort of nail in the coffin was with the withdrawal. When Joe Biden announced his withdrawal. I concluded that it's time to end America's longest war. It's time for American troops to come home. He gave no conditions on the former government. He also gave no conditions on the Taliban, as far as any of us knew. And then the actual withdrawal and the actual evacuation was such a mess. It was so disorderly. Those things people cannot forget. sanctions and these aid cutbacks, the Taliban is doing fine. It's the people who are hungry. It's the people who are, you know, selling their blood to make money or donating their kidneys to make money. So there's a great, great deal of anger towards the West, but particularly Joe Biden.

Ali, thank you. Thank you so much for this. It's always really great to talk to you. I learned, I learned a lot today. No worries. All right, so before we go today, last month the Canadian government announced it would be winding down its special immigration program for Afghanistan, meant to prioritize former employees of the Canadian government or military and their families. They said that they were processing the last 18,000 applications, but so far only 7,025 Afghans have arrived in Canada through the program. Opposition parties and advocates have criticized the government for putting a cap of 40,000 in the first place on this program, and also for a slow and seemingly disorganized response. There's a lot more to talk about on this angle for sure, so please stay tuned.

That's all for today, though. We'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.