Afghanistan: Taliban announce “amnesty” for state employees

Published on : 08/17/2021 – 11:33

As thousands of people tried to flee Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power, insurgents on Tuesday August 17 announced a general amnesty for all Afghan state officials, calling on them to return to work.

“A general amnesty has been declared for all (…), so you should resume your lifestyle with full confidence,” the Taliban said in a statement.

Since they entered Kabul on Sunday, after a dazzling offensive that in barely ten days allowed them to take control of almost the entire country, the Taliban have stepped up gestures of appeasement towards the population.

Life was slowly resuming its rights on Tuesday in Kabul under the new Taliban regime, even if the inhabitants, frightened, remained on their guard, while in Washington President Joe Biden resolutely defended the withdrawal of American troops.

Shops had reopened in the Afghan capital, car traffic had resumed and people were once again taking to the streets, where police were moving, the Taliban holding checkpoints. Few women, however, dared to risk themselves outside.

“People are scared”

But there were also signs that life would no longer be that of yesterday. The men have swapped their Western clothes for the shalwar kameez – the traditional loose dress of Afghanistan – and state television now broadcasts mostly Islamic programs.

For many Afghans, trust will be hard to gain. When they were in power (1996-2001), the Taliban had imposed an ultra-strict version of Islamic law. Women could neither work nor study, and thieves and murderers faced terrible punishments.

“People are afraid of the unknown,” a shopkeeper in the capital told AFP on Tuesday. “The Taliban are patrolling the city in small convoys. They don’t bother anyone, but of course people are afraid.”

Despite assurances from the Taliban, some reports seemed to suggest that they were continuing to search for government officials, with one witness saying that men of their own entered the house of one of these officials to take him by force. and that they took over the presidential palace, deserted by President Ashraf Ghani, on the run abroad,

The dazzling final triumph of the insurgents on Sunday sparked scenes of monster panic at the airport in the Afghan capital. A tide of people has rushed towards what is the only way out of Afghanistan, to try to escape the new regime that the Islamist movement, back in power after twenty years of war, promises to put in place.

Evacuation flights

Hours earlier, US President Joe Biden had defended tooth and nail the decision to withdraw US troops from the country.

“I am deeply saddened by the situation, but I do not regret” the decision to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan, where they had entered 20 years earlier to oust the Taliban from power, Joe Biden said in an address to the eagerly awaited nation.

Target of strong criticism, in the United States and abroad, after remaining silent throughout a weekend, he repeated that Washington’s mission had never been to build a democratic nation in an unstable country, but “to prevent a terrorist attack on American soil”.

Washington has sent 6,000 troops to secure the airport and remove some 30,000 Americans and Afghan civilians who have cooperated with the United States who fear for their lives.

From Madrid to The Hague, via Paris, Bucharest, London, several other countries are still working to repatriate their nationals from Afghanistan, a country already deserted by President Ashraf Ghani, on the run abroad.

With AFP