A good Afghan is a silenced Afghan

While on tv, radio, papers and magazines we are bombarded with news, opinions, analyses, etc on what happened, is going on and what will be, the Afghans are doomed to silence. Not only the Taliban, also Afghans who fled from their country are censored.

Last Friday Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and other officials contacted "Voice of America" to express concern on eventual airing a rare interview with Mullah Mohammad Omar, leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban. The Voice of America was set up in 1976, is funded by the US government and broadcast "accurate, objective, and comprehensive" through radio, satellite television and internet in 53 languages.
After the Washington Post reported on the incident and said the VOA staff was angered and quoting one journalist saying this was against "every principle of journalistic ethics", State department spokesperson Richard Boucher said: "We didn't think it was right. We didn't think that the American taxpayer, the Voice of America, should be broadcasting the voice of the Taliban." He said also that the interview would be "inappropriate for a number of reasons" and added, "One is that his commentaries have already appeared on other broadcasters" and "no news or anything newsworthy" (sic).
In the interview, translated by the agency from Pashto, Mullah Mohammad Omar, says: ""America has created the evil that is attacking it. The evil will not disappear even if I die and Osama dies and others die... The U.S. should step back and review its policy. It should stop trying to impose its empire on the rest of the world, especially on Islamic countries."

Meanwhile what is happening with the Afghan asylum-seekers banned from Australia?

The Afghans' search for asylum began long before last week's attacks on New York and Washington but they are not aware of what is happening in their country or in the rest of the world.

While on the navy ship that took them on board from the Norwegian cargo, they received no news from the outside world. "Conditions on the ship were not good for us," yelled one Afghan man as he walked past reporters.

Conditions on Nauru will not be comfortable also. The Australian navy has erected the camp, building plastic and tin housing and toilet blocks. Under the tin roofs of the camp huts, the temperature easily reaches 40 degrees and coupled with tropical humidity is almost unbearable.

The ‘no news' politic is continued also. Placed off-limits behind wire fences, last week Wednesday September 19, they still were ignorant of a possible U.S.-led attack on their homeland. When asked whether they knew about the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington or the pending retaliation by Washington, one Afghani man said: "I can't comment, I don't know anything."

On the other hand, the 150 Afghans who will be taken in by New Zealand should not hope for better information or treatment. The asylum-seekers arriving in a chartered aircraft from Nauru on Wednesday will be told their legal rights, but also that they can not talk to the media. The media will not be allowed to meet them when they arrive at Auckland's international airport. The asylum-seekers will be taken to the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre in buses with covered windows.

Marie Sullivan, the Immigration Service's manager for refugee services said: "We are absolutely making the decision for them". The service's chief operating officer Andrew Lockhart said that the asylum-seekers would be stressed and exhausted when they arrived in New Zealand and their privacy needed to be protected. Also if they were photographed or interviewed it might prejudice their claim for refugee status in New Zealand. In addition, Lockhart concluded that if their claims for refugee status were approved they could then talk with the media, but that could be at least two months away.

To be able to settle in Australia and New Zealand they have to prove to be genuine refugees.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)