By Afshain Afzal

The year 2025 will witness focus on NGOs; friends from nonprofits? American Secretary of State announced this December about settlement of Afghans of a particular faith by Welcome Corps, a program that empowers American citizens to act as sponsors for refugees in their communities in all 50 states to the United States. The plan is quite clear, “Our friends from nonprofits, from resettlement agencies have worked across the United States to support refugees – enrolling kids in local schools; connecting people to English classes; offering sometimes just a friendly smile, a warm meal; showing a new family around town. Finally these new American would return to their native country to take over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and many Muslim countries, leaving others as unprivileged workers class. Afghanistan entered into new year, “2025” with fears that future operations would go beyond 1.6 million cold blooded murders of innocent Afghan women, children and men during two decades of Western intrusion of Afghanistan. This time they have a long-term plan to get Afghan majority to turn into minority so the Westerners hands are free of any blood strains.

Propaganda about security situation is intentionally been created to develop hatred against Taliban and projects others as innocents. In the latest development, despite clear proofs that all international donors, and organizations including NGOs claims to be supporting the Afghan people without involving or providing details to the Taliban interim government, all blame is leveled on the Doha compromised faction of Taliban interim government for the socio, economic, political and security situation in Afghanistan. On 31 December 2024, the UN human rights chief Volker Turk said, “Afghanistan's governing Taliban authorities must reverse their ban on Afghan women working for NGOs. In the same statement, he said, "I am deeply alarmed at the recent announcement by the de facto authorities in Afghanistan that non-governmental organizations’ licenses will be revoked if they continue to employ Afghan women. This is absolutely the wrong path being taken". He added, "For the future of Afghanistan, the de facto authorities must change course." One would also like to recall, the statement of Ms Alison Davidian, UN Country Representative in Afghanistan, “The fate of Afghan women determines the fate of women everywhere.” Did the United Nations or any other entity really sit down with Taliban Afghan Interim government to resolve the issue or mere strong statement and warnings would suffice to bring a paradigm change?

Taliban’s fears and apprehensions fits, ‘once bitten twice shy’ that is based on events immediately before the 11 September 2001 attacks and announcement of US war on Afghanistan. Although, at that time the Taliban agreed to allow for the construction of schools for boys and girls, and to permit women to work in the NGOs especially the education and health sector, in July, thirty-five international NGOs operating in Kabul withdrew their expatriate staff from the country rather than comply with a Taliban demand to relocate to and rehabilitate a dilapidated dormitory that lacked electricity and running water. The Taliban ultimately agreed to allow the NGOs to return to their former offices, with the understanding that the relocation would take place in the near future. Among the groups affected were Save the Children, Care International, and Médecins du Monde. Some groups, including Care, were allowed keep some programs and projects running using local staff. Further negotiations between the NGOs and the Taliban were put on hold following the US airstrikes.

Last year, in September 2023, Taliban interim government detained 18 staff of an international NGO, International Assistance Mission (IAM) including an American woman, possessing numerous documents and audios, which proved that they were inviting people to convert to Christianity. They were detained from Ghor province of central Afghanistan, and taken to the capital Kabul for deportation. The point of view of IAM was that their organisation is founded on Christian values, but that it does not provide aid according to political or religious belief. As an immediate after affect, a report from the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), said it found that the Taliban benefit from American-funded education programming through the generation of tax revenues and from more “nefarious” methods like the establishment of fraudulent NGOs and extorting and infiltrating existing NGOs to obtain or direct international donor aid.

During hearing before the Committee on Oversight and Accountability US House of Representatives on 19 April 2023, John F. Sopko Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction highlighted, “due to the refusal of State and USAID to fully cooperate with SIGAR, I cannot report to this Committee or the American people on the extent to which our government may be funding the Taliban and other nefarious groups with US taxpayer dollars. We simply do not know since the Department of State, USAID, the UN and other agencies are refusing to give us basic information that we or any other oversight body would need to ensure safe stewardship of tax dollars. More troubling, State and USAID have instructed their employees not to talk to SIGAR, and in one recent instance, State told one of its contractors not to participate in a SIGAR audit. I note in passing that DOD’s refusal to respond to SIGAR’s inquiries in 2022 caused months of delay in responding to this committee’s requests. Unless this changes, we will face another summer of delays and noncooperation. On 13 March 2023, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs asked SIGAR to examine 14 specific areas of US assistance to the Afghan people—among them, whether US funds benefit the Taliban. This will of course require the full cooperation of State, USAID the UN and all of their implementing partners and subcontractors.

Since the Taliban's return to power in August 2021, women have been progressively empowered to fill public spaces but most of the women especially who worked for the Americans refused to work in Afghanistan as they were offered better opportunities to settle abroad if the denounce Taliban rule and speak against Sharia. In the same regard, most of the findings for Afghanistan secretly go to anti-Taliban factions especially women for their settlement in various countries. An Afghan woman with initials ‘Ms MF’, who worked for me in Islamabad for some time has now acquired European nationality and settled with her children. Taliban have also arranged high school and university education n for the girls but schools are closed till March on account of winter vacations but negative propaganda is being rumoured. One wonders in such an environment how women will get empowered and adjusted in the society… isn’t it a planned conspiracy against Afghan nation?

Official record provides that since August 2021, US $8 billion was provided or made available to the Afghan people by the United States alone. Where is that money gone? We know that US authorized transfers of $3.5 billion from the Afghan central bank reserves to a new international fund created with the hope of stabilizing Afghanistan’s economy but both US taxpayers and Afghan nation are ignorant where is that money? Similarly another $2 billion was earmarked for human rights, humanitarian and development efforts but there is lack of transparency and accountability. When the Taliban government asked these NGOs and international organizations for audit that should bulk of heavily paid women getting huge salaries through fund money. A huge sum of nearly $2.8 billion is claimed to have been to transport, house, and feed Afghan allies who have been evacuated from Afghanistan to safer location... does this make sense? It is high time that UNO must intervene to scrutinize all the findings for Afghanistan and make all NGO transparent and accountable through rigorous audit. The Taliban authority as well as the world has the right to know where funds for Afghanistan have gone and why an Afghan class is being created ‘Foreign nationality holders’ to let Afghanistan bleed permanently. It is high time that the UNO and other International Organizations, the European Union and others must compel the NGOs and aid agencies to allow complete audit and working as per the lawn enforced in Afghanistan.