Written by: Haroon Samoon
The United Nations Security Council, unjustly and contrary to reality, extended the mandate of the sanctions monitoring committee on Afghan officials and Afghanistan as a whole for another year. These sanctions target Afghanistan’s financial and banking sector, trade, officials’ travel, and also the country’s development and welfare sectors. These sanctions have been imposed on Afghanistan for nearly the past five years, causing the most harm to the general public, traders, investors, and returning refugees, significantly negatively impacting their lives. Now, the continuation of these illegal and inhumane sanctions for another year shows that the United Nations, and especially the Security Council, are treating the people of Afghanistan with double standards and are the main culprits behind the current poverty and economic problems in Afghanistan.
The United Nations sanctions have also received mixed reactions; some anti-Afghanistan and anti-Afghan groups have welcomed them and are pleased that the millions of people residing in Afghanistan should be further reduced, as they can no longer conduct the same level of business and trade with the people as they used to. This group consists of individuals who have inflicted irreparable damage on Afghanistan and its people for a long time and are now residing in foreign countries, spreading negative and toxic propaganda against Afghanistan and its people, and plotting to disrupt the current stability and security.
The second group of people believes that these sanctions prolong the suffering of the current population of Afghanistan and that the goals the Security Council aims to achieve thru these sanctions will not be realized in any way. They believe that in this sensitive time, Afghanistan and Afghans should be supported, assisted, and helped with issues like migration, alternative livelihoods, strengthening stability, safeguarding common interests, and overall prosperity of Afghanistan and the region. They advocate for cooperation with the country without any conditions, or at least not creating problems for it, so that Afghanistan can stand on its own feet in every aspect. The current Afghan government has also condemned these sanctions and called them a prolongation of the suffering of the Afghan people.
The noteworthy thing is that the same United Nations and Security Council publish reports on Afghanistan almost every month, calling it a host of a humanitarian crisis and shedding crocodile tears over it. Sometimes, they say this country poses a threat to us and the world. Sometimes, they express concerns about refugees, and sometimes, they make one excuse or another. But despite these problems, they impose cruel sanctions on Afghanistan, restrict its trade, impose sanctions on its banks, weaken its economy, send refugees to it, and overall create problems for Afghanistan and Afghans, not giving them the opportunity to stand on their own feet. They are the main culprits of this humanitarian crisis and poverty, which they claim exist in Afghanistan.
Overall, it can be said that the current unjust, illegal, and meaningless sanctions on Afghanistan are against all human and humanitarian principles and are in conflict with the current realities; this is a double standard treatment toward Afghanistan and its people. These sanctions only make the lives of Afghan children, women, elderly, returnees, disabled, and the general public bitter. These sanctions only benefit a few individuals and groups who want Afghanistan to be weak, dependent on the rest of the world, reliant on others, corrupt, extensively cultivating opium and other narcotics, and without a central government.
With such sanctions, the world can never impose its demands on Afghanistan, nor can it accept its orders. The world has used military pressure for this purpose and has imposed economic sanctions for the past five years, but the result has been zero; no one accepted their demands or yielded to their orders. This is not just the stance of the current Afghan government, but a united stance of all Afghans, and it has been proven in every time and every field. So the international community should look at the current realities of Afghanistan with open eyes, view Afghanistan as a competitive country, benefit from its current stability, security, and potential, see Afghanistan not as a threat and enemy but as a major economic driver and force, and utilize the existing opportunities for the stability, trade, economy, and infrastructure development of the region and the world.
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