Ghulam Ghaws

Ali Sujad Mawlai

 

The Keshwar News team has interviewed Lynne O’Donnell who is a Journalist and Columnist of Foreign Policy Magazine. Recently Ms. Lynne was detained and accused of spying by the Taliban.

In this interview many issues have been discussed including the current conditions of Afghanistan, the future of the country under Taliban rule, the activities of international terrorist groups in country, the National Front Resistance (NRF), the issue of the national asset reserves, the situation of human rights and journalists, the threat from Afghanistan soil under Taliban to the region and the world.

 

Keshwarnews:

Thank you for taking the time to interview with us today.

The Taliban de facto regime spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid has tweeted that you’re a spy, why did they accuse you spy and what have you done?

Lynne O’Donnell:

Thank you for having me.

Well, I think the most interesting thing about that is that they have changed the story. The day after I was interrogated, which was Tuesday, 19^th. I left the country, on the 20^th.  The man who calls himself Abdul Qahar Balkhi (not his real name) tweeted that I had been treated well. He said that I was not asked to leave the country but I told I could stay in the country and report freely, and that I had chosen to leave on my own free will.

On Friday, Zabiullah Mujahid completely changed the story and accused me of being a spy. He said, I was masquerading as a journalist that they had hunted me down and found me in hiding, and that the Taliban expelled me from the country forever.

None of that was true. But I to believe that calling someone a spy is very dangerous. It’s very dangerous for all the people I met with. They have arrested my driver who had been a driver. He was detained for three days.

They beat and tortured him and they deprived him of sleep. Initially it looked like they were going to keep his phone and his car but yesterday he told me that they returned his belongings. They could easily accuse him of spying. They also detained some other people that I met with, after they locked onto my phone and started tracking my movements. They interrogated them also and said this is not the end of it. So who knows what comes next, but it’s the spy allegation. This really gives them authority of sort, with the “national security” excuse.

 

Keshwarnews:

How do you evaluate Kabul after 11 months under Taliban control? What do you think what has changed?

Lynne O’Donnell:

I wanted to go back to see for myself what changes have taken place and what the situation is. That was my motivation for going back. What I found was a city that I feel like I know quite well, because I spent some years there as a correspondent, but a city hollow in comparison to the way it had been before.

So what I found when I went back a year later, was no joy, a real fear and a real uncertainty about the security situation and about the future. As people described to me spontaneously use the words reign of terror. And that’s really about fear. If the only thing that the Taliban have to control people, is fear, then it’s not sustainable. It’s a phony illegitimate regime.

 

Keshwarnews:

You use the term of violent peace. So what do you think? How could you explain that if you tell me more about the term that you use?

Lynne O’Donnell:

On the surface, everything looks quiet. Underneath it there is fear. And fear is instilled by the threat of violence. I believe that this is not real peace. Intimidating citizens with guns, weapons, prisoning and tyranny is not peace; It is violence.

I think making people afraid is violence. The violence is making you afraid. And you’re afraid because I’ve got the guns. I’ve got the jails. I’ve got impunity.

 

Keshwarnews:

The Taliban claimed that peace and security have been established in Afghanistan for the first time and with this saying, they asked engagement and cooperation of the international community. How did you find the Tashkent summit?

 

Lynne O’Donnell:

I just think the Tashkent conference will be the last opportunity for the Taliban and last chance of the international community.

I mean there is no pressure on the Taliban, to do the right thing and to become a government to treat people properly to create an economy, to give people jobs, to give people a stake in their country. And none of them are happening.

I saw the Tashkent conference until Monday afternoon I thought this could be an opportunity to hold the Taliban accountable. The UN Security Council just recently released a report that said every terrorist organization in the world is now present in Afghanistan. I’ve been writing about that for Foreign Policy, and others for years. Now nobody has any excuse for not knowing this. Oh, my God, really? It just happened? No, it’s been there for the potential since 9/11. We know what happened.

Do we wait for another 9/11? So what the Taliban is doing and saying thank you to all of these organizations that helped them when they fought beside them for 20 years. And they’re saying thank you for coming and living in Afghanistan. And they’re all there. They’re all in Afghanistan.

And I believe the inevitability that global terrorism uses Afghanistan, to plan, plot, carry out attacks.

Pakistan has lost control of the Afghan Taliban and now they have a civil war on their hands, because the Afghan Taliban are using their relationship with the TPP against the Pakistani state. So everything has fallen apart. So all of these countries wanted America gone. Right? China, Russia, the Central Asian states, Iran, Pakistan, they all wanted America out. America’s gone and now they’ve got the Taliban.

And they don’t know how to handle it. And so Tashkent was an opportunity to say for the Taliban leadership, whatever they are, you have to do this and you have to do that with some sort of conditionality.

We want to see you open up schools and the same curriculum for all students equally. In return for continuing for the next stage of negotiations for the release of their central bank reserves, central bank reserves have become a lightning bolt issue. The Taliban have billions of dollars of their own money, they’ve been dealing drugs and minerals for the last 20 years, they’ve got money. Stop asking me for my money and use your own money, feed people you know and stop blaming me as in the West. I represent the west now stop blaming the other people for the problems that you’re not dealing with.

 

Keshwarnews:

There were a few meetings between Taliban delegates and Thomas West US Special Representative for Afghanistan peace in regard to Afghanistan frozen money.  What do you think? Will the US unfreeze the money?

 

Lynne O’Donnell:

I have to think eventually they have to make it conditional but I do not know what will be. The other thing is that we should remember that on August 20th the travel ban exemptions are up for renewal or extension. Do you know about that? So these guys (Taliban) are all listed as terrorists. As a terrorist until 2019, they were not allowed to travel internationally. Then the peace process started. The travel bans were exempted for most of the listed terrorists so that they could go on private jets to Norway, Moscow and Beijing, they traveled a lot for the peace process, right? How did that work out? These travel ban exemptions come up on the 20th of August for renewal. What I believe is that this presents another opportunity for the international community to send a serious message to Taliban leadership that there are consequences for their actions. How was that possible? Right. So there has to be a ban that already exists. Re-impose the ban on all of these people and see how they like it and start sending their families back to Afghanistan to see how they like it. You want to be there. You want to oppress other people, you want to make money and you want power?

 

Keshwar news:

Why are international community want to engage with Taliban despite Taliban not change and violate the human rights?

 

Lynne O’Donnell:

I sorted out that a lot. I do think about that. I think what we were saying we were talking about before Afghanistan is now the containment for international terrorism. That’s useful. The Taliban regime is not being it’s only just staying alive. It’s like on a life support system in a hospital right. It’s on a drip. It’s nearly dead but not quite dead. Are you alive? Yes. You know, the knife under the Yep, still alive. I think that there may it’d be an argument for saying that the United States, the Biden administration, saw the Trump deal as an opportunity to get rid of the last bad government. So much money, so much corruption, no leadership, no strategy and nothing. You know when I first got to Kabul in May last year, I rang up everybody and said can I come and see you? Ministers, deputy ministers, high level officials, they sent me their cars. They drove me through traffic it you know, the sirens the lights flashing into the palace no searching you know, VIP limb? Because they had nothing else to do. Their phones didn’t ring. Or they put their phones on silent and didn’t answer the calls. And I would say to everybody what’s the plan? There was no plan.

And so how can you continue to with that? It looked to American taxpayers and most people in NATO countries I think like it was a pointless exercise to keep this going. So maybe that was the calculation of the Biden administration because they all know Afghanistan very well.

 

Keshwar news:

We have talked about the situation and let’s discuss the National Front Resistance (NRF). This movement exists in some parts of the country. What do you think about the future of this movement? Could this movement be an alternative for the Taliban regime?

 

Lynne O’Donnell

Well, I do not know. I do not really see very much real depth of policy coming from them yet. Also Ahmad Masood is outside the country and I understand why. I would like to see some serious effort at thoughtful policy for dealing with the situation as it exists now. I do not see that I see a manifesto for future governance but I do not see any ideas, imagination and engagement with the situation as it exists. Why isn’t the NRF pressuring Tashkent summit on how to deal with the Taliban? They are not. So they need to grow up a little bit as well. I do see that Masood could be a very good centrifugal point for a political movement in the future. With him as a figurehead leader. You need and that he is recognized abroad people like him. The French love him. But at the moment the international community is not going to fund.

No one has got the appetite for it and there are other groups as well. There’s lots of little groups all over the country so the time is coming where they have to start thinking and planning properly if they want to be taken seriously.

 

Keshwar news:

I am grateful for the interviewing with you today. You have given us a clear overview of the current situation and your invaluable insights for Afghanistan.

Lynne O’Donnell:

Thank you and my pleasure.

 

Note: This interview has been done before the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri.