RASC News Agency: A retrospective glance across the annals of human history reveals an unbroken saga of war, violence, and inhumanity a relentless cycle of massacres and atrocities defying all reason or justification. The Holocaust orchestrated by the Third Reich remains one of the darkest stains on human conscience; apartheid in South Africa represents an unequivocal crime against humanity, utterly indefensible. Yet, if we turn our gaze inward to the history of Afghanistan, the narrative is equally, if not more, tragic: a land scarred by persistent chaos, devastation, and bloodshed. As Dr. Spanta aptly described it, this is a “geography of killers,” a place where bitter tragedies and horrific bloodbaths have become grim hallmarks. Internal wars and bitter power struggles mark some of the most sinister epochs in Afghanistani history. For decades, this land has been tormented by ethnic land grabs, sectarian strife, discrimination, and political violence. Thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians have been sacrificed at the altar of greed and ruthless ambition those who wielded power cared little for the welfare of the people or the integrity of the nation.
This catastrophic cycle has deepened with every passing day. It cannot be excused or glossed over with demagogic slogans cynically wielded to deceive the public phrases such as “it’s war” or “there’s no sharing of bread and sweets in wartime” are shallow, superstitious rationalizations. Such rhetoric obscures the brutal reality: the savage ethnic hegemony and merciless quests for dominance that have produced appalling bloodshed and systematic inhumanity. War, massacres, mass killings, fratricide these are not mere aberrations but entrenched customs of a particular ethnic faction’s hunger for power. This faction has employed every conceivable means to suppress rivals and entrench its dominance. Democratic, civil, and popular governance mechanisms have been trampled underfoot. Ethnic chauvinism has persistently rejected universal democratic principles. Even when fleeting windows opened for Western-modeled democracy, this violent tribe unleashed venomous propaganda to discredit it. Ultimately, through collusion with internal conspirators and foreign backers, driven by narrow ethnic and fascist agendas, they tarnished and destroyed the possibility of democratic progress more comprehensively than any other force.
Meanwhile, when others have attempted to pursue power through civil and democratic means hoping to build lasting democratic institutions this monopolistic cabal has obstructed every effort, using a myriad of tricks, deceptions, and false pretexts. The democratic process has been stymied, mired in seemingly insurmountable obstacles. What stands out most starkly is the blood-drenched saga of the past five decades a brutal contest between competing factions for political and military supremacy, which has plunged the country backward, away from the path of civilization and progress. Thousands of innocent Afghanistani civilians have paid with their lives as collateral damage in this merciless struggle.
Groups like Khalq and Parcham, in their ruthless bid for survival and power retention, slaughtered hundreds in infamous places such as Pul-e-Charkhi and other locales justifying mass murder under the guise of protecting the “national interest.” After the fall of Dr. Najibullah’s autocratic regime and during the Mujahideen era, factional violence escalated, proxy wars engulfed Kabul, and the government collapsed another tragic chapter that must never be forgotten or whitewashed. The Taliban nightmare erupted on 6th Mehr 1375 (September 27, 1996), when these grim, monstrous militants stormed Kabul. Their reign was one of merciless brutality, repression, and savagery. The so-called “religious police” inflicted some of the worst violence imaginable under the pretext of “commanding good and forbidding evil.” They mercilessly whipped citizens with cables dehumanizing them without distinction, inflicting fatal injuries on many. Dozens died from these savage lashings.
The arrival of these crude, barbaric militants utterly ignorant of urban civility and culture marked the death knell of humanity in Afghanistan. Their five-year rule bore witness to tragic scenes evocative of the darkest medieval epochs and sorrowful memories of forced laborers constructing Egyptian pyramids. The horrors, broadcast worldwide, exposed the utter collapse of human dignity. This demagogic faction, cloaked in the rhetoric of religion and Islam, perpetrated some of the most egregious violations of human rights in Afghanistani history. They paid no heed to basic human dignity or rights. Despite repeated, urgent appeals by international human rights bodies to observe the laws of war and to treat civilians in accordance with Islamic ethical teachings, the Taliban remained indifferent. Men, women, children, the elderly none were spared their ruthless violence. This human catastrophe has persisted from their first regime through to their resurgence.
In the early days of their rise, the Taliban massacred hundreds en masse in northern provinces particularly in districts like Yakawlang (Bamyan), Balkh, Kapisa, Parwan, Sar-e-Pul, and elsewhere. With these and countless other crimes against humanity, they have repeatedly declared the death of human values, celebrating the demise of humanity itself. This brutal, regressive group has renounced every fundamental human value, slaughtering countless innocent civilians. If the Taliban truly believed in the Quran and Islamic faith, why have they so blatantly rejected its ethical injunctions? The Quran clearly states in Surah Al-Ma’idah, verse 32: “Whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land it is as if he had slain mankind entirely.” Yet this Takfiri group has cynically manipulated religious texts, distorting sacred Quranic teachings to justify their inhuman, ethnic-nationalist ambitions.
The most accurate characterization of the Taliban based on nearly three decades of ruthless actions is this: The Taliban represent a 21st-century incarnation of the Kharijites an extremist sect far more brutal and terrifying than those who emerged in early Islamic history disguised in Talibanist and ethnic nationalist garb.
