Fawzia Koofi
August 15, 2022, marks the one-year anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
On September 12, 2020, 21 representatives of the Afghan government convened with Taliban members in Doha, Qatar to negotiate Afghanistan’s future following the withdrawal of U.S. troops. As the vice president of the Afghan parliament, I attended the negotiations as one of only four women, out of 42 total negotiators. From the beginning, my female colleagues and I faced obstacles to participating in the talks. While we had successfully participated in dialogues with Taliban members in both Moscow and Doha, this time, Taliban members were reluctant to greet us or even make eye contact with us. There was a common sentiment among many people that because men participate in wars, they should be the ones making the peace deals. I felt obligated to speak up and represent the women of Afghanistan.
At the time of the negotiations, the Taliban had promised they would not launch offensives in big cities and swore that their forces would remain in the villages where they had been previously stationed. In direct violation of the Doha Agreement, the Taliban disregarded these commitments began carrying out attacks. Negotiations began amid increased fighting and violence in Helmand and some of the northern provinces. The negotiations started with discussions about the procedures, principles, and rules that would serve as the basis for the talks. The two parties disagreed about whether the Doha Agreement or the Afghan constitution should be used. The Taliban wanted the Doha Agreement—a peace agreement between the U.S. government and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan—to serve as the basis of the negotiation, because while the United States did not formally recognize the Taliban, it was still mentioned in the document. The representatives from the Afghan government proposed that the constitution should be used, arguing that the will and interests of the people of Afghanistan should underpin the negotiations. A compromise was eventually reached to use the Doha Agreement while also including the Afghan constitution, which clearly outlines Afghanistan as a republic. The debate over which document to use lasted two months, stalling the negotiations, all while people lost their lives in Afghanistan.
The 2020 U.S. election also stalled the negotiations. The Taliban were eager to see who would win the election. Afghan government representatives were in Qatar at the negotiations for three months, from September to December 2020, but the Taliban refused to join. In February, the negotiations finally began. The Taliban believed the new U.S. administration might have not felt attached to the Doha Agreement and could have reversed the exit strategy from Afghanistan.
In February and March 2021, there were serious talks about the future of the Afghan government. The Taliban wanted an Islamic government, but government negotiators wanted them to elaborate on what they meant specifically—an Islamic government could be a republic, or it could be something else. By the end of March, the parties had come to a consensus on a draft format of the agreement, the protection and promotion of security forces, and potential reforms for the security forces and other things.
Despite this progress, the concept of an Islamic government remained a point of contention. There were talks of moving the negotiations to a conference of senior leaders in Istanbul—without consultation from the negotiating parties. The United States and Turkey announced publicly that they would host a round of negotiations with senior leaders from the Taliban and Afghan government in Turkey. Both parties were hesitant because they were anxious to get a result from the negotiations and had both invested a lot of time in Qatar. Nevertheless, both groups agreed to attend. The negotiators and U.S. government special envoy were going back and forth between Kabul and Qatar. Amid all this, the U.S. government announced its unconditional withdrawal from Afghanistan, a victory for the Taliban.
Looking back on it, whatever political settlement that could have been achieved in the negotiations would have been better than the insurmountable challenges Afghanistan now faces. After the announcement, the Taliban began expediting their battlefield movements, based on the presumption that they would win militarily. Districts began falling one after the other. The security forces were demoralized. The political and public sentiment was that this was the end of negotiating. The negotiators were still trying to remain hopeful and continue the negotiations.
At the same time, there was a vacuum of leadership in Afghanistan. The president was not sure about his place or what he was doing. He was appointing people in different positions, but it was too late. The surrendering had started in some districts, and once it started, it was so hard to stop the security forces from succumbing to the Taliban. The heart of many capital cities were in the hands of the Taliban by July.
If the withdrawal had been delayed, even slightly, and had been carried out in a more transparent, systematic, and responsible manner, the Afghan security forces may have been able to handle the situation more effectively. Moreover, if the negotiations between the U.S. government, the Taliban, and the Afghan government had been handled with more discretion, considering the political sensitivity of the country, it would have been possible to avoid the absolute collapse of Afghanistan’s institutions.
As the Afghan government continued to lose authority and control over territories in August 2021, senior Afghan leaders held a meeting with the president. They warned that before the situation worsened, President Ghani needed to give more authority to the senior leaders so that they could make more impactful decisions in Qatar, and he agreed.
The decision was to agree on a transitional power-sharing agreement in 20 days or a month’s time. This is why the delegation was supposed to go to Doha. Ghani said on August 12 that the Afghan government had the power to carry out such an agreement. Things changed on the morning of August 15 when he left the country. Chaos ensued, and the Taliban, of course, saw no reason to negotiate further.
On August 15, when the Taliban captured all of Afghanistan, there was a rush to escape, but people did not know where they were escaping to. Kabul was full of traffic, cars were queued across the city, everybody was out of their homes. Many families shared updates about the Taliban’s whereabouts on WhatsApp.
Since the takeover, the Taliban has issued countless policies eliminating women’s rights, millions are now at risk of poverty, and active battles in parts of Afghanistan continue. Before Ashura, a religious celebration, 150 people were either killed or injured in attacks that ISIS claimed. Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed a few days later in Kabul, which is an indication that Taliban did not keep their promise of disassociating with al Qaeda and other military extremists. Above all, the fact is that the Taliban continue to deny the transformation of women’s rights over the last years and decade. They should acknowledge that transformation and adapt.
Should the Taliban remain in control of Afghanistan, there are concerns that citizens will start to question democratic values. The Afghan people need constitutional order to be restored and a government that is able to represent them. Political dialogue could prove essential in restoring these elements.
Such dialogue is also crucial as former Afghan officials and begin the process of mobilizing themselves or remobilizing themselves as politicians. The Afghan people are very upset with many of the country’s politicians, as citizens claim that politicians have abandoned them, and that the Taliban were only able to take over due to politicians’ failures and corrupt acts.
Looking back on the last year, the result would have been different if the withdrawal had not been unconditional, carried out with such haste, more time was given for negotiations, and if there had been a series of serious talks between the U.S. government, the Taliban, and Afghan society. Instead, the Afghan people have completely lost control over both the present and the future of their country.
The United States can now help Afghan political and civil society get together and develop a political settlement so Afghans can return to their country. If the international community solely focuses on women’s rights and forgets the context and complexity of the situation, then women’s rights will be even more fragile and will be used as leverage by the Taliban. The Taliban are currently weaponizing religious ideology to justify the subjugation of women.
The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and the subsequent eradication of citizens’ rights and freedoms, particularly women and girls, is a microcosm of the fight for human rights globally. Should the Afghan people continue to allow the Taliban to retain absolute control of Afghanistan with no accountability, this would result in severe economic, social, and political consequences that would reverberate across the world, empowering anti-women’s rights leaders and movements. Such a regression cannot be allowed to occur and countries must collaborate with the Afghan people to restore constitutional order and the rights of all citizens, especially women and girls, in Afghanistan.
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