It is now nearly six years since the fall of the Khalqi and Parchami fifth-columnists that our beloved country is blazing in the conflagration of Islamic fundamentalist tyranny. Little could the world community believe that a nation which had brought the Russian superpower to its knees would be snared so easily in the tentacles of criminal ignorance. Few may be aware of the depth of the tragedy in Afghanistan where in consequence of the domination of Jihadi and Taliban fundamentalist creatures our homeland has been turned into a complete ruin and Afghan women --half the population-- have been deprived of the right to work, to learn and to come out of the confines of their homes. The pangs of poverty and deprivation have forced many Afghan women, particularly in Kabul, to sell off their dear children in the hope of giving them a better chance of getting food into their mouths. The absolute vulnerability of Afghan women and the terror of being dishonoured by psychopathic fundamentalist rapists has driven many of them to suicide. In a country where there are few educated females, women do not have the right to approach male doctors and the rare female doctors have been ordered to stop working outside the house. Upcoming priest-boys trained in Pakistani seminaries find release from the tensions of their morbid psychological complexes by publicly flogging and humiliating respectable women for the "grave offence" of not wearing Islamic veils according to their strict specifications, for their "un-Islamic gait" or because some lecherous gust of wind exposed the women's bare ankles or a tuft of their hair! To all those incredulous of the veracity of such "allegations" we extend the invitation to come to Kabul and see for themselves.

In Afghanistan women are officially and "legally" stoned to death for alleged immorality. Women have been the prime victims of religious fascists in their inter-fundamentalist dog-fighting over religious, ethnic, lingual and regional antagonisms. All this against the backdrop of the universal agony of the people of Afghanistan where in addition to the throes of extreme pauperisation, hyper-inflation, religious inquisition, inhuman torture subsequent to arbitrary detentions and executions, there are routine public beatings and humiliation of the male population for the mere offence of not having a beard "according to Sharia". The Taliban are past masters in hypocrisy. Most cases of immorality and prostitution and nearly all cases of burglary, drug dealing and all other shades of vice and corruption that have come to light since their take-over invariably involve Taliban big or small fry, but they hypocritically cut off the hands of "convicted" thieves and stone to death innocent men and women on charges of adultery or other acts they consider immoral.

Agonised mothers and sisters,

Our benighted country is going through a dark chapter in its history and extreme impoverishment, systematic humiliation, the universal atmosphere of fear and the lack of security have driven the people to desperation. As has been evinced, no international entity has until now been able to play a beneficial role in the Afghan conundrum. As we have pointed out time and again, the impotent efforts of the UN organisation --restricted to sending special envoys-- can never hope to achieve anything because the UN, indifferent to the needs and wishes of the people of Afghanistan, is bent upon bringing about an "understanding" between heads of vampire fundamentalist gangs. Bitter past experience has shown time and again that due to the fundamentalist vultures' subservience to different interested foreign powers and their irreconcilable antagonisms amongst themselves they cannot and will not sit down on common ground, and secondly, that if they ever do somehow manage to put aside their antagonisms, the abominable consequences of their ganging up together does not stand in need of too fertile an imagination to conjecture. Their laying aside of their differences will inevitably result in their "combined" and unfettered treason to the motherland, joint perpetration of accentuated atrocities, violations of the Afghan people's lives, honour, dignity and wanton pilferage of their national and individual properties. Until such time as the brokerage of the UN is directed towards bringing about a rapprochement and reconciliation of fundamentalist warmongers it can neither hope to achieve any progress nor muster the trust and support of the Afghan people. The UN will be taken seriously only if and when its approach to the Afghan problem is based upon the principle of dropping fundamentalists from its peace and power-sharing formulae and its efforts are directed towards bringing these elements to account for their crimes against humanity. UN efforts will bear fruit and will be backed by popular support when they are perceived to be in line with the aspirations of the people of Afghanistan.

The Tehran and Isphahan conferences in Iran on peace in Afghanistan were too devoid of value and seriousness to merit any comment. Iran only wanted to show Pakistan that she too has her chained dogs which she can unleash whenever she sees fit. Pakistan must know that at a time when she is striving to walk upright into the 21st century she cannot hope to impose a mediaeval, anti-democratic, misogynic and myrmidon regime the like of the Taliban on our people.

Compatriots,

The key to the emancipation of Afghanistan from the fetters of fundamentalism lies in our united struggle. Our people now understand full well that lackeys like Rabbani, Masoud, Sayyaf, Golboddin, Dostom, Khalili and Taliban mullahs are nothing but power craving protégés of foreign powers whose only commitments are to their foreign masters and could not care less about devastating Afghanistan and tearing it asunder in their lust for "power". As long as the curse of fundamentalism lies on the land, Afghanistan can never be free. Liberty, unity, national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Afghan homeland is only conceivable when the abomination of fundamentalism has been eradicated and the cessation of foreign interference becomes possible through the annihilation of their chained dogs.

We are gathered here to mark the International Women's Day and to once again raise the rallying call that the road to salvation of the motherland and realisation of women's rights in Afghanistan lies only in our resistance and irreconcilable struggle against the perfidious fundamentalists and their masters. It devolves upon all champions of liberty, democracy, women's rights and all patriotic individuals and forces of all categories in our country to cast overboard all vestiges of conservatism and cowardice and by taking serious practical steps strive ever more intrepidly towards the formation of a united anti-fundamentalist front. Only thus can the star of liberty, peace and democracy appear on the horizon of the future of our trampled homeland.