Recognition and economy, the challenges of the Taliban in 2022

After the departure of international troops and the Taliban seize power, Afghanistan will have as a challenge during 2022 to achieve recognition of the new regime despite the great doubts and rejection that it has, while looking for options to face a serious crisis that could lead the country to famine.

Since they entered Kabul (August 15, 2021), the lack of support and recognition, international and United States economic sanctions to prevent the access of Taliban leaders, several of them considered global threats, to the international financial system, isolated to the nation.

The Taliban want official recognition from the UN and claim that they have the right to represent their country because they have total control of the territory and given the power vacuum left by a government that fled. The decision is currently in limbo.

“The action of the Taliban establishes a new geopolitical position in the region that, for the moment, has received recognition from China and Russia, countries that seek to generate a position in the region, which displaces NATO members and the position from the West, which failed to secure an allied government, which is key at the present time, ”says Michel Leví, from the Andean Center for International Studies at the Simón Bolívar Andean University.

Leví adds that the immense amount of funds to create a democratic country structure that was invested, mainly the United States, did not give clear and visible results during the last twenty years. Now this becomes a burden at the political, military and international level, which must be evaluated and limited to the maximum.

Economically, the freezing of billions of dollars in financial assets by the international community, including 10 billion dollars held by the US Federal Reserve, as well as the loss of value of the Afghan currency against the US dollar or the lack of cash in banks and the financial system, along with the arrival of winter, They threaten to plunge the local population into famine and chaos.

The World Food Program indicated that 95% of the Afghan population does not have access to enough food and around 23 million people face serious losses.

The support provided by the international community and the reactivation of reconstruction funds, to face the serious crisis, were suspended after the fall of the previous government.

Something key in a country where hehe aid from the international community represented around 43% of the country’s GDP, according to the World Bank.

For now, the G20 countries have agreed on a series of aid and both the United Nations and the United States have announced exemptions for the sending of humanitarian aid, he recalls EFE.

Politics and women

Another issue that is addressed when talking about Afghanistan is the reimposition of harsh rules on women and their rights.

The fundamentalist regime has insisted since coming to power that women will be able to return to their jobs or school in the future, but first a framework must be created to take this step within the limits set by sharia or Islamic law. .

“The Taliban, as we well know, is a de facto regime, regardless of whether they grant more or less powers or rights … they increasingly restrict women’s freedoms or simply grant them to the extent that they can have control over them. This also implies the invisibility of women, an important transgression of fundamental freedoms and rights ”, says Catalina Saire, from Ladies of Liberty Chile, an organization that considers that Afghan citizens, especially women and children, are subjected to harassment and that the world is not it must make the situation invisible.

“The only hope is finally disappearing, leaving everything to the discretion of activism, movements and mobilizations, which as we know a few days ago there were shots at a women’s demonstration,” adds Saire.

Journalism has also disappeared in the country. This, without counting that according to the International Press Institute (IPI), six journalists have died.

The Taliban are criticized for forming a government with a religious majority, also belonging to the Pashtun ethnic group and without representation of other minorities. This has raised fears that Afghanistan is heading for a new civil war like the one that raged across the country in the 1990s, after which the Taliban first came to power in 1996.

After regaining power this year, they declared a general amnesty, but lhe UN Office for Human Rights denounced in mid-December that the regime executed at least 72 people linked to the previous government and its security forces, in many cases using brutal methods such as hangings and beheadings.

Dialogue to avoid further extremism

For the former Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Luis Gallegos, what happened this year in that country is the closing of a chapter that began with the fall of the Twin Towers (2001) and that caused a series of conflicts in the Middle East.

“It is very important that there is a realism analysis and that it is about maintaining a dialogue … I think it is important what the Government of Qatar is doing to dialogue with the Taliban and seek a negotiation with them for incorporation into the international community. regulated by international laws. Isolating them creates a power vacuum and … when a country is under siege from powers that limit its access to markets, all it usually does is encapsulate itself, live with what they have and radicalize. What is at stake here is to avoid extreme radicalism … (that is why) it is important to have a clear conversation with all governments that terrorism is unacceptable and groups that have the use of terrorism as a norm cannot be accommodated or supported. terror against civilian populations ”, says Gallegos.

It is in the Taliban’s interest to have learned from the first defeat and they need to access international markets and have relationships with other nations.

They also have an internal risk: the Islamic State terror group, which has claimed responsibility for the worst terrorist attacks in Afghanistan since the Taliban took control. (I)