You Cannot Stop the Coming of Spring – Mounting Security Concerns for Afghan Parliamentary Member Malalai Joya

LYS ANZIA - WNN Features

Recently, on March 20, 27 year old, Malalai Joya, one of Afghanistan’s youngest parliamentary members, faced a dangerous uphill battle. It was the battle for her own personal safety. During her recent month long tour in the US, Joya has continued to speak out in public on the same issues that have brought her and her family under increasing personal scrutiny.

Since Dec.17, 2003, Malalai Joya has been an elected member of the Loya Jirga, the Afghan General Assembly. For the past three years, Ms. Joya has strongly questioned the validity of including members to the assembly who are deeply connected to Afghanistan’s troubled past. Today, Malalai has brought international attention to the parliamentary members who are also suspected members of Afghanistan’s outlaw mujahedeen.

According to experts in international drug trade, the mujahedeen warlords have been integral leaders in the largest heroin production streams in the world. Their rise to power was outlined in a detailed 1997 Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times article by John F. Burns titled, How Afghan Stern Rulers Took Hold. In it Burns covered the grueling takeover by the Taliban outlining its violence and devastating effect on the war-torn country. In the 1997 article, Burns pointed directly to the connection between the mujahedeen and what he called, “the most wanted terrorist of all, Osama bin Laden”. It was in that article, in 1997, that a strong correlation was made between the first, Feb.1993, bombing of the World Trade Center and the covert dangers of the Taliban.

“They don’t really believe in democracy,” said Joya in reference to the warlords she claims who now occupy seats on the Afghan General Assembly. In a, March 17, 2006, Washington Post interview with Nora Boustany, Malalai goes on to say, “Now they are the biggest risk for the future of Afghanistan”.

Even the former Taliban leader and governor of Kandahar province, Mullah Mohammed Hassan has agreed to some degree with Joya’s view. He was quoted by John Burns, in the 1997 New York Times article saying, “We are the pariahs of the world.”

Speaking inside and outside the government agency in Kabul, Ms. Joya has received growing international attention from those who now wish to help her voice reach the public. She has also received, at the same time, dangerous attentions from those who wish to harm and silence her. Today, Malalai recognizes keenly, because she has been the only member of the General Assembly to speak out publicly about the warlords in her country, that her safety is not assured in any way from any location, even as she travels on tour inside the US.