The Kuchi Issue

The Rumi posts a story about Kuchi Pashtuns terrorizing an area near Kabul:

"Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, the representative Hazara (Shia Muslim) in the parliament has been on a hunger strikes almost a week in order to get attention of the government and stop killing his innocent people.

"Kabul government sent police forces to stop the Kuchis but in this video you can see the kuchi-armed groups dressed in Taliban style are walking in front of National Police. Why the police forces cannot take their weapons? What is so special for the kuchies to be armed while the rest of the ethnicities are disarmed?

"The Kuchis have been busy killing animals, student boys with their school backpacks, older men and women, raping girls of Hazara people in Behsood villages.

"The Afghan National TV has been censoring the condition as well as not broadcasting single news, because the Minster of Cultur & Information is a nationalist Pashtun who wants to protect his Kochi brothers. .

"Karzai himself who is also related to Kochi tribes keeps client and allows them to do whatever they want in Hazara Land instead of solving the problems as a President of the country. President Karzai who is thinking of to win next Presidential Election, uses the power of Western countries and NATO forces supporting his Pashtun Nationalistic ideologies and terrorizing the non-Pashtun ethnicities.

"A month before President Karzai warned Pakistani government to stop Al Qaeda entering the borders and he added that it’s my responsibility to take care of Pashtuns people, no matter what country they lives. Karzai as a President of a multiethnic country, is allowed to talk in such a manner? America wants to stop the terrorists by going to Pakistani borders but Karzai wants to take advantage of this circumstance establish a greater Pashtunistan in two sides of the borders."

I don't know what the other side to this story might be, but it does illustrate two major points. One is that anyone who claims the Taliban represents a Pashtun resistance to a non-Pashtun government doesn't know what he or she is talking about. At one time the Kabul government was dominated by the Northern Alliance, which was mostly non-Pashtun. However, it no longer is, and in fact for the past couple of years Afghanistan's non-Pashtun leadership has been in opposition in parliament, not holding the levers of power. The Taliban movement cannot be explained using ethnicity theory, which isn't really applicable to Afghanistan anyway.

Another point is that if Afghanistan is to become a stable country, a lot more is going to have to happen that defeating the Taliban insurgency.

(Crossposted to American Footprints)