That Masood has survived to this day and that the United Front, largely as a result of his resistance, has continued to be viable are in themselves achievements for the Afghan people to be proud of and capitalize on.

Fortunately, Masood has been given a chance by the European Union to publicize his views, and through him, for the first time, the world is now hearing the side of the story that Pakistan for years kept hidden from the world

Signs of hope are observed and we are encouraged that many Afghans, especially Pashtoons, have realized the enormity of the danger to Afghanistan and are not very happy with the slow progress of the various "Processes". They seek more effective measures to strengthen the National Resistance front instead of waiting for a Loya Jirga which, as presently envisioned, might be exploited by the Pakistani Taliban.

Among the Pashtoon personalities, one highly regarded patriotic individual, Mr Sayed Shamsuddin Majrooh, expressed his views clearly when he wrote in a recent statement, "….But brothers, today when Pakistan has occupied Afghanistan, the first issue is driving back the foreign forces. It is the all-embracing uprising of the nation that should gain the independence of the country. After that, the Loya Jirga should be held to determine the future system of Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, there is no civil war, it is invasion and occupation by foreign forces."

Recent Developments --AAR Reporting:

EU's Solana meets Masood, urges Afghan dialogue

BRUSSELS, April 6 (Reuters) European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana called on Friday for "political dialogue" on the future of Afghanistan after talks with Ahmad Shah Masood, veteran commander of the Afghan opposition resistance.

Masood, whose forces control 10 percent of Afghanistan, has angered the country's ruling Taliban with his visit to Europe, where he has received a respectful hearing from officials in both Paris and Strasbourg, where he addressed the European Parliament.

"Military means cannot solve the crisis in Afghanistan. The innocent civilian population has already suffered enough," Solana said in a statement.

"The parties to the conflict hold the key to the future of Afghanistan as a country, and I believe it is their joint responsibility to start a genuine dialogue leading to a peace process under the auspices of the United Nations," he said.

Masood was driven out of Kabul in 1996 by the Taliban, whose radical Islamic policies exclude women from most areas of public life. The Taliban recently drew worldwide condemnation over its destruction of giant Buddha statues hewn into cliffs.

Masood told French and EU officials he would let women vote in free elections if restored to power. He also said he would respect human rights and would crack down on Afghanistan's highly lucrative drugs trade.

In Brussels, Masood also discussed financial aid for his country with a senior EU Commission official. The Commission, the EU's executive arm, is preparing fresh aid worth 13 million euros ($11.71 million) for the war and drought-ravaged country.

Pakistan denies helping Afghan Taliban

Pakistan on Friday rejected a renewed Afghan opposition allegation that it was giving military aid to Afghanistan's ruling Taliban Movement.

"There is no evidence to justify such an allegation," a Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters about the charge made by main opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood at a news conference in Paris on Wednesday.

Masood, making a rare trip to the West, accused Pakistan of aggression, which he said gave him "the right to seek aid everywhere."

The Pakistani spokesman, Riaz Mohammad Khan, speaking at a news briefing, said Pakistan was fully complying with a U.N. Security Council embargo on arms supplies to Taliban although it felt "the one-sided embargo will encourage the (opposition) northern alliance to push for a military solution" of the Afghan conflict. He said Pakistan, one of only three countries which have recognised the Taliban government, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, wanted a comprehensive settlement in Afghanistan.

The Taliban controls more than 90 percent of Afghanistan, but ousted president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who heads the opposition alliance, still holds the Afghan seat at the United Nations.

A second set of U.N. sanctions ordered last December were mainly aimed at forcing the Taliban to hand over Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden for a U.S. trial on the charge of masterminding the 1998 bombing of two American embassies in East Africa that killed more than 200 people.

The sanctions included an arms embargo that applied only to the Taliban and not to its opponents now holed up in northeastern Afghanistan.

France to Provide Aid to Afghan People

France will provide the Afghan people with food aid worth 23 million francs (about 3.1 million U.S. dollars) and humanitarian aid of 5 million francs(about 700, 000 dollars), the French Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

The aid, via international non-governmental organizations, will reach the Afghan people both under Taliban's rule and in the region controlled by opposition forces, said the ministry in a statement.

Ahmed Shah Massoud, chief commander of the anti-Taliban forces, is currently in France for talks with French and European high-level officials. It is his first visit to the West.

Following a meeting with Massoud on Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said France would continue the dialogues with all parties in the central Asian country.

A Need for Formation of a National Political Solidarity in Support of National Resistance Front

By: Dr. Sherief Fayez
Trans. From Persian by: Qasem Ghazanfar

Rationale for Defense of Identities

Western press defines the Taliban by these three words: Afghan, Pashtoon, and Moslem. The Taliban, too, consider themselves as a real image of Afghanness, Pashtoonwalai, and Islamism.

From this viewpoint, those Afghans defend the Taliban who look at them as images of Afghan values; those Pashtoons defend them who consider them as defining the Pashtoon ethnic values; and those Muslims defend them who see the Taliban as standardbearers of Islamic values. Of course, the numbers of such Taliban supporters are few and their understanding of Afghanness, Pashtoonwalai, and Islamic values is at the point of extreme and an aberration from common standards.

But most of those people who are against the Taliban have risen to defend those identities and values that the Taliban have either already distorted or are in the process of destroying. The righteousness of the challenge and struggle against the Taliban resides in the fact that the Taliban are shamefully destroying these identities and values. Why some Pashtoons support the Taliban may be due to the fact that they regard the rule of a Pashtoon Talib more important than the destruction and distortion of these values. But after the destruction of the ancient cultural icons of Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban, there has come about in a majority of Pashtoons the idea that the protection of the Afghan Islamic and cultural identity takes precedence to the continuation of Pashtoon rule in the monopoly of a group such as the Taliban.

This confusion in choosing between continuation of Pashtoon rule by an infamous and ignorant group that has, more than anything else, damaged the Pashtoon identity and the country's national and cultural values has divided the Pashtoons into two groups of for and against the Taliban which has led to the silence, or in their view not taking sides, of the majority of Pashtoons. The present writer believes that this lack of a clear and active position of some Pashtoons against the Taliban crimes and their opposition to culture has created a serious political crisis in the areas of Afghanistan's military and political will. However, great personalities such as Afghanistan's former King and Professor Majrooh with the popularity and respect that they have among large segments of people can become centers of our national unity and end such passing political crises.

Maliciousness and enmity with culture which has in the first stage targeted especially the Tajiks and the Hazaras, in the long run can deal serious and unredeemable blows to the totality of Afghan identity in the people of Afghanistan. Those ethnic groups that at this point are standing against the Taliban are not just defending their own cultural and historic identity but the identity of the other ethnic groups in the country. Then, what should bring all of the Afghans to the same fighting front against the Taliban should be the defense of the same and shared Afghan, Islamic and cultural identity that is threatened to extinction by this cultureless, ignorant group.

Rationale of Defense of Human Rights.

What places us more than anything else in opposition to the Taliban is defense of human rights especially the rights of Afghan women who make up more than half of the Afghan population. Taliban enmity with democracy and tools of modern civilization, their blocking the nation's access to sciences and the arts can make any civilized and freedom loving human being unhappy and very angry. This is why the role and leadership of intellectuals in defense of cultural identities and values, especially in promoting human rights and values of democracy, have a special place.

Although hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have turned into internal and external refugees because of the inhuman Taliban attacks and plunders have more basic and life-centered defensive reasons in fighting the Taliban, they, however, are today faced with hunger and varieties of ailing conditions arising from the Taliban war-mongering and hegemonism, conditions of struggle for survival that can't allow one to expect much from them.

Is a Mulla Omar who says he is ready to destroy the other half of the country and the rest of its population so he can defend his Deobandi religious dogma a man of compromise and is he one to listen to words of logic? This man knows nothing but strict dogma and possesses nothing but a stone age mind.

Rationale of Using Force Against the Taliban

The uncompromising "religious" edict of these reactionary and ignorant Mullas to destroy the unique ancient heritage of Afghanistan and of humanity proved that the way to deal with the Taliban is not logical argument. If the least amount of pliability existed in them, then surely it would show itself at the end of all the sustained international pressure to stop them from their infamous deed.

Therefore, from a political perspective, the destruction of the statues was a death knell to all myths of political solutions to the question of Afghanistan. Indeed, when the Taliban in the face of all these pressures including pressures from their bosses did not change, and considered the edict of their mad leader more important than the clear message from the Qur'an which says "Do not curse other people's gods so they should not curse the one and only God," and instead of God's edict accepted their treacherous leader's edict, then one cannot talk of political solution to the problem of Afghanistan.

It is because of this that politically active individuals, groups, and processes should deeply study in solidarity with inside resistance the country's military condition, and should use their every possibility and power in strengthening the two united political and military fronts.

While in the mind of the Taliban and their Pakistani supporters power and sovereignty wrongfully grabbed are legitimate, and while they consider ninety percent of the Afghan land legitimately theirs, how can the Rome Process or the Cyprus Process convince the Taliban to sit down and agree to an elective system? It is clear that the Taliban would do the opposite of what the personalities involved in these processes hope to achieve. The Taliban will never agree to share power and sovereignty with others.

The Rationale of Political Processes Merging with the Resistance

The basic problem with peace processes under the country's prevailing difficult military conditions is that these processes proudly act independently from the resistance inside the country. They do not pay heed to the fact that without direct support from the strength of the National Resistance, these processes have no power to implement any of their plans inside the country.

If process makers and process leaders of Rome and Cyprus think that they can remove a dictator such as Mulla Omar by their various "Jirga"s, a Mulla Omar who considers himself the Caliph of God on earth and law-giver of the true religion, they must be deeply in error.

The question is this. While the world with all its sustained pressures and ultimatums could not stop the Taliban from the destruction of the statues, then these political processes and political organizations that think of themselves as separate and independent from the Resistance inside, how can they solve the basic question of the country, a question which at its core involves the political continuance or the demise of the Taliban?

Maybe the reason for these Processes to speak of themselves with pride is a hidden goal, that of creating a government in exile. If this should be the case, one has to raise a legitimate voice of worry because a government that may be the outcome of their future "Jirga"s in its first step will weaken the Resistance and in its second step will take away legitimacy from the government of the Resistance.

Maybe these Processes without solidarity with the inside Resistance after spending their last shred of power, the holding of failing "Jirga"s, will remain with no effect or turn into some political outside group like the many organizations. We hope this assessment of ours of the Processes is not right.

We have the evidence of history so far that what the Taliban have listened to have not been the words and ultimatums of the UN or the ultimatums of the U.S. Instead it has been the voice of Resistance guns that speak the Taliban language. Today, this voice is echoing from the heights of Hindu Kush, Bamian, Nangarhar to Ghor and the villages around Heart.

Twenty years of fighting and heroic sacrifice by Commander Masoud and Amir Imael Khan against two invasions, Red and Black! Aren't these enough to trust them and to come to their side and cooperate with them in trying to free the nation from this inhuman invasion and dictatorship of ignorance and religious Fascism?

Are not six years of cruelty, terror, and infamous crimes of the Taliban with their last dangerous actions of cultural genocide enough to recognize the nature of their system as the understanding we have of Hitler, Pol Pot, and Khmer Rouge? Should't we prefer resistance against them to doing nothing?

Are twenty years of repeated nonsense from the UN Special Representatives, especially in the last ten years when, except for human assistance, they have shown no originality in dealing with the political dimension of Afghanistan and have with optimistic speeches and statements kept our people hopeful and waiting. not enough to make us not be fooled by such useless

Is not the ungentlemanly treatment we received from the U.S. in its escaping from responsibility when its enemy, the Soviet Union, left us with immeasurable pains and terror, enough to make us not expect much good from this country? And furthermore, can we have any reason to expect much from Washington, whose copulation with Arab and Panjabi whores created a child worse than anything imagined, a criminal, reactionary, evil entity, the Talib? Should we still seek the balm for our pain from outside sources?

Are the Rome and Cyprus Processes, processes that up to now have had no tangible effect on reducing the extent of occupation and dictatorship in the country, holding only conferences, forming committees, having defeats and divisions within themselves, in a position to end the occupation of our country on their own without military resistance? Do they not know that Hitler, Pol Pot, and other dictators in the course of history were not defeated by political talk, that only the resistance sword was their answer?

The Basic Rationale of Strengthening the Resistance

The tragic condition in Afghanistan which cannot be confronted with indifference should be the most important motivating force to move the Afghans in the direction of defending their land and its indigenous values. Today, Afghanistan is at a very dangerous stage militarily. If such military condition leads to total Pakistani victory and the dictatorship of the Taliban, then the country of Afghanistan will be plunged into the hell of Talib reactionary regime for decades. If the national Resistance is able to free even some of the land, it will make possible one of these two conditions: The Taliban and Pakistan may begin to talk peace and reconciliation or they may opt to fight to end trying to fully occupy the country. But if the balance of power and the possessions of land by the fighting forces lead to a relative parity, maybe Afghanistan will be divided into two poles of ethnic and religious divides which of course will continue to be in conflict and opposition along the lines of differences of opinion and values.

Complete liberation of the country can come about only if the forces of National Resistance are sufficiently strengthened militarily that they can enhance the present military condition to a level that could bring about complete freedom and independence for the country. This is why the way to final and sustained victory is the formation of a wide ranging and active political machine which should include the intellectuals and key personalities from all ethnic groups. These personalities could actively guide the National Resistance with constructive criticism to lead it to final victory for the nation.

A Poem by the late Ustad Khalilullah Khalili

Bitter Fruit Falling