The policies adopted by UNAMA, specifically in dealing with the Taliban, have become controversial for the frustrated majority of the people of Afghanistan. The opinions of the majority of people and political circles are not reflected in the media, because the restrictions imposed by the Taliban require so. But social media has at least provided a space for the opinion exchange between people who came from different steps of life. Many people, these days, ask the question what is UNAMA’s policy toward the Taliban?
In the eyes of many Afghan people, UNAMA’s approach toward the Taliban is based on caring and giving blessings so as not to offend the Taliban leadership. UNAMA’s behavior toward the Taliban suggests that the Taliban should be praised for their achievements, specifically the regaining of power in Afghanistan last August.
This is a critical perception of UNAMA’s performance among figures in Afghanistan’s political circles inside and outside, and it constitutes one of the basic questions. The people of Afghanistan ask, if the performance of the Taliban with the people of Afghanistan, according to the criteria in valid international conventions, which apparently should be guarded by the UN missions, was done in any other country, what amount of commotion, pressure, punishments, sanctions and reprimands did follow?
What is the position of the United Nations toward the Taliban? Toward a group that imposes itself on the people by using arms and employing explosion and suicide as war tactics and has a history full of destruction; a group that takes a desperate nation hostage, spreads poverty, censors the media, forces the elites of the country to flee the country, deprives women of their most basic rights, makes academic environments a breeding compound for uneducated fighters, makes a mockery of the scientific standards of universities, turns schools into extremist centers, responds to any sort of movement against it with a military campaign; a group that the drug mafia was part of it fund, secretly looted the country’s mines, interfered in the most private affairs of people’s lives, officially ignored all civil rights, and moved violent foreign fighters to different regions of the country.
Afghanistan’s politicians believe that some of UNAMA’s senior staff in Afghanistan use the name of the United Nations as a cover for other missions, inconsistent with their official duties. A thorough research is needed to find out to what extent this perception is valid and documented. But with each passing day, the public opinion in Afghanistan loses its faith in the role of UNAMA and gets the impression that Afghanistan’s population is not important as equal as the Taliban and their supporters for this UN-affiliated agency. The people of Afghanistan ask why the Taliban were represented in Qatar for many years at the height of their threats to a civilian administration in Afghanistan, but other groups of Afghan people are not given the slightest opportunity to express themselves. Is it their weakness that they don’t wage war against a civilian administration, refusing to carry out suicide attacks on civilian facilities?