Afghanistan may have achieved freedom from Taliban a while ago, when the US led Allied forces ousted the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in 2001, Afghani people are still living a substandard life even after the six years of independence, for lives of local residents in Afghanistan are given less importance than their foreign counterparts residing in the same territory.
Despite the freedom and democracy in the nation, most of the Afghanis are doomed to live a subdued life. The recent example of substandard treatment of the Afghani government came to fore, when they failed to liberate Ajmal Naqshbandi, an Afghan interpreter and a freelance journalist who was detained by the Taliban on March 5 together with journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo of the Rome-based La Repubblica newspaper.
While Mastrogiacomo was liberated in an exchange for five captive Taliban militants, whereas, Naqshbandi was executed by the militants, perhaps due to the shoddy attitude of the government towards local citizens.
Shahabuddin Aatil, speaker for the Taliban’s top military commander, alleging the government with the double standards for foreigners and local natives, asserted,
In exchange for the Italian journalist, the Afghan government and foreigners together handed over five Taliban. He was a foreign journalist. When we asked for an exchange of two Taliban commanders for the Afghan journalist, the Afghan government did not respond, and they didn’t try to negotiate for Ajmal’s release.
In a latest demand, on Monday Talibani militants threatened to kill four Afghan medical personnel, a doctor, three nurses and their driver, which they claim to seize on March 27 in Kandahar province, if the government refuses to free two Taliban commanders in exchange. The Karzai government once again, after it failed to release Naqshbandi from Taliban, is in the firing line as pressure is reinforced by local Afghani groups.
Comments
very relavant point. But what I wanna ask you is that do you think the karzai government will ever reach that stage where it would be willing to stand up for its own people? In my view, the answer to this lies in the instrinsic reason as to why it failed to do so this time. What I mean to say is that did the Karzai government refuse because of its own bias, or was the Italian journalist deal made under severe pressure? Maybe if given the choice the Afghan government would not have made that deal either?