Malalai Joya was one of the first women to be elected to Afghanistan’s parliament. Having denounced her warlord fellow MPs, she was subsequently banned. In the run-up to the 20 August elections, Joya speaks openly to journalist Lucinda Dunn about the Government, the Taliban, the war and the plight of her country’s women.
Photo by: Vahid Sadeghi Shirazi
Lucinda Dunn: You are wearing a badge saying: ‘Troops out of Afghanistan’…
Malalai Joya: This Government, the US and its allies are not being honest with the Afghan people. These troops are the victims of the policies of their Government, and to you democratic people I pay my condolences, on behalf of my people, to those families who have lost their sons.
They say Iraq is a bad war and Afghanistan is a good war. I say war is war. And if we support criminals, the situation will be worse
Seven years ago, the US and its allies occupied Afghanistan in the name of human rights and women’s rights, while at the same time they betrayed these values. They brought into power the Northern Alliance, who made civil war from 1992-6, and have turned the Taliban from mice into wolves.
We are now fighting against two enemies: those internal – the Taliban, many of whom are now in power – and those external, the occupying forces.
Malalai shows images of civilian injuries inflicted by a white phosphorous bomb, apparently dropped in Farah province in May (after Obama took office) by the allies. There were 150 civilian casualties, most of them women and children.
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