Why is the killing of civilians in the provinces of Panjshir, Baghlan, and Takhar a genocide?
Author: Farid Ahmad, editor-in-chief of Sangar
The question of the genocide of Tajiks this year has arisen because, as a result of three major terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, about 600 Tajiks were killed and injured - about 80 people in the Puli Khishti mosque, 300 people in the mosque or khanaqah (Sufi's monastery) of the Calipha in Kabul and 210 people in the mosque or khanaqah in the Imam Sahib district of Kunduz province.
This month also saw horrendous killings of Hazaras, which are seen in the context of religious motives, as well as the particular hostility towards the Shiites of the Takfiri terrorist group ISIS. How these events can be described and classified as a massacre or genocide is another matter that requires even more discussion.
But why are the Tajiks being killed, who are not Shiites, but Sunnis and today make up almost the main part of the ranks of ISIS? We can connect these killings with the enmity of the Takfiris with the Sufis, but why not attack the Sufi monasteries or schools of other ethnic groups, for example, the Pashtuns?
Hundreds of other Tajiks in Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat, Parvan, Kapis, Takhar, Badakhshan, and... since the Taliban came to power were killed on purpose and because of their ethnicity during wars, explosions, on the streets, even at work in the fields and wherever they were caught.
According to reliable sources, in the province of Panjshir alone, where the fiercest fighting has taken place and is taking place today since the Taliban invasion in September last year, about 500 people were killed, more than half of them civilians from the valley, and the rest of the resistance fighters and Tajiks from other provinces.
In recent days, in the fighting in the provinces of Panjshir, Baghlan, and Takhar, all unarmed victims (more than 30 of whom are documented) were Tajiks killed by Pashtun, not non-Pashtun Taliban. They were teachers, drivers, peasants, students, builders, in general, ordinary people who had nothing to do with the resistance forces.
Their killing methods are also barbaric. Everyone was shot and even one person in Panjshir was torn to pieces with an ax. In the village of Aymand, Versage district, Takhar province, a 60-year-old gray-haired man named Mohammad Azim was detained, who was first shot in the arm, leg, and thigh in front of people. Then they loaded him into the Ranger and played on his head like a drum. Then they took him to the police station and tortured him for about an hour. In the end, they shot him in the forehead and threw him on the side of the road.
There are many photographs and video evidence of the atrocities of the Pashtun Taliban describing these war crimes and atrocities in the mountainous Tajik regions of Afghanistan.
Isn't this all genocide?
Genocide is “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, any national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” This is what we see today in Afghanistan against Tajiks and Hazaras.
Khazars are killed for religious reasons and Tajiks for ethnic ones. If Uzbeks, Turkmens, or other ethnic groups in Afghanistan rise up, they will be massacred too.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time. And this is not a new phenomenon. The first act of Amir Abdulrahman (1901-1880), the Pashtun ruler of Afghanistan, was to repress and oppress non-Pashtuns. “I shot Tajik and Uzbek prisoners. In just three years of the uprising, more than 5 thousand people were punished in this way. The number of people killed by my troops amounted to about 12 thousand people, ”he writes in his memoirs with pride.
Regarding other wars against the Uzbeks, the emir states: “3,000 of the enemy were destroyed on the battlefield ... We took 600 prisoners. I ordered the erection of minarets from their heads to strike terror into the hearts of those who are alive.”
Amir Abdulrahman about the inhabitants of Badakhshan: “I put them in the muzzle of cannons. During the three years of unrest (in Badakhshan), the number of people killed by me in this way amounted to about five thousand, and the number of people killed by my army was ten thousand people".
In the battles of Kataghan (provinces of Kunduz, Takhar, and Baghlan): "I ordered eight captains to be inserted into the muzzle of cannons." “I ordered to put Badakhshan merchants, of whom there were 50 people, at the muzzle of cannons...”.
Let's not talk about the Hazaras, who claim that Abdurahman massacred about 65% of them.
But in this story of killings and oppression of Pashtun rulers, Tajiks always stand out the most because they saw Tajiks as a fundamental threat to themselves and their Pashtun power and to impose their culture and language on non-Pashtuns. It got to the point where they even sacrificed the highest human and Islamic values for their own purposes.
Naderkhan (1929-1933), another Pashtun king, broke his oath with the Holy Quran to trick his Tajik rival Khabibullah Kalakani into Kabul and hang him. Under the pretext of suppressing a popular uprising, he sent a 25,000-strong army of the Pashtun tribes of the south to kill and plunder Shamali, the Tajik provinces of Parvan, and Kapisa, which were the people's base of Habibullah Kalakani. Mir Ghulam Mohammad Ghubar, author of Afghanistan on the Path of History, writes that “during this war, houses were looted, walls and gardens destroyed, and castles burned. They tortured, insulted, and humiliated the living. The women were threatened that if they did not give them money or weapons, they would stick a needle in their chests.”
During the first appearance of the Taliban, we also witnessed the massacres in Mazar-i-Sharif and Yakawlang and the "scorched earth policy" in Shamali. If not for Ahmad Shah Massoud and his resistance, only God knows what would have happened to the Tajiks. And at that time, Mullah Omar sacrificed his homeland - Afghanistan because of Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda.
What is the difference between these events and what is the Taliban doing today in Panjshir, Andarab and Takhar? The same crimes, the same genocide, are systematically repeated in Afghanistan.
The Tajik question is a special one. Their problem was that they never pretended to be oppressed and, like the Armenians and Jews, the American Hindus, and the Muslims of Kosovo and Bosnia, they did not bring the issue to international attention. No case compares to the Tajik genocide throughout history. History testifies that Genghis Khan killed more than 20, and Timur Lang killed more than 17 million Tajiks, razed their cities to the ground, and created minarets from their heads.
So far, no one has raised their voice. But now is the time to raise this issue at the international level.
Meanwhile, resistance is and remains the only way for the Tajiks and other non-Pashtuns to fight against this genocide, something that both the Taliban and their international patrons must take into account.
