RAWA’s APPEAL
to all partisans of justice and human rights

Respected friends,

What is happening in Afghanistan today and what has happened in this most ravaged country on earth during the past two decades is in need of no depiction or elaboration. Through an interplay of external and internal conspiracies staged against the backdrop of superpower utilitarianism, mercenary politico-military forces, each more venal and more criminal than its predecessor, have succeeded each other on the Afghan scene dripping with the blood of thousands upon thousands of innocent Afghan men, women and children. Patriotic players championing national independence, democracy, human rights and human values who look to the future and not to the past have been and are being vehemently pushed aside from the stage.

RAWA, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, is an organization founded by Meena and comprised of women who since the Association’s inception in 1977 have been in the fore front of the struggle for freedom, democracy, social justice and inalienable human rights of women in Afghanistan. During the two decades of its existence, RAWA has unflinchingly stood up against Russian invaders and their stooges, and, during the past five years, against the most morbid, most tyrannical and most obscurantist fundamentalist forces to seize the destiny of any nation on earth. In the process of its struggle RAWA lost its founder and leader (Meena) who in 1987 was butchered together with two of her nearest aides by agents of KHAD (the Afghan branch of the KGB) in connivance with the Hezb-e-Islami of Gulbaddin Hekmatyar.

From its inception, RAWA has on the one hand enjoyed the support of nearly all patriotic pro-democracy Afghan groups and circles while on the other it has been the constant target of terrorist threats, assassinations, libel, aspersion and political strangulation by fundamentalist and reactionary forces. This has been the fate not only of RAWA but of all secular pro-democracy forces in Afghanistan. Had RAWA and other patriotic secular and democratic forces in Afghanistan enjoyed a modicum of support from the champions of "freedom fighters" our unhappy country would not have been at the mercy of such an achronistic fundamentalist savages, nor would the criminal jihadis been replaced by the morbidly misogynic and mediaeval Taliban.

In consequence of the blinkered view of the Afghan scenario during the past two decades, international humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan have been channeled through NGOs who, irrespective of ulterior motives, have found it convenient and pragmatic to funnel their deliveries through obscurantist religious parties or through dubious "apolitical" local organizations and bodies. Consequently, and as penalization for its principled stand on irreconcilable opposition to fundamentalism and religious fascism, RAWA has constantly been ignored and deprived of all significant long-term aid. For this reason, some of educational, health care and income-generation projects run by RAWA in Pakistan and Afghanistan are facing imminent shut-down for lack of funds and support. Closure of these centers spell collapse of educational and health services provided by RAWA for Afghan refugee women and children, as well as material aid and social support particularly for families of victims of fundamentalist terrorism.

We appeal for your support and help. Help to RAWA is urgent, especially for the continuation of the work of its hospital and schools. Succor to RAWA is succor to the only women’s organization in Afghanistan with a principled anti-fundamentalists and and with the courage to stand up and actively fight the bigotry and fanaticism of Afghan fundamentalist relgio-fascists through organizing and mobilizing women, staging protest and demonstrations and through exposure of the fundamentalists’ hypocrisy, backwardness and criminality via publications and through the media. Support for RAWA is homage to the overlooked, decimated, yet tenacious movement of secular pro-democracy forces in Afghanistan and shall be a concrete expression of solidarity with the movement of the most miserable, most tyrannized women in the today’s world. You will be supporting a force which raises the slogan of social progress and democracy in conditions of the most heavy-handed oppression against women imposed by the most backward, most anachronistic mercenary band of criminal religo-fascist it has been the misfortune of contemporary world history to witness.

We invite your donations to be deposited to the bank accounts given under. Thanks you for your contribution and for your solidarity with the martyred women of Afghanistan.

With sisterly salutations.

March 1998

RAWA Takes Part in Reconstruction of Villages
Slideshow of RAWA schools
RAWA Literacy Program for Afghan Women
RAWA aid package to earthquake victims in Nahrin
RAWA's Malalai Hospital was inaugurated in Pakistan
RAWA medical team for earthquake victims in Nahrin
RAWA's aid to earthquake victims in Nahrin
RAWA's aid to earthquake victims in Samangan province
RAWA's Aid to Maslakh and Shaedaia Camps in Herat
RAWA's aid to biggest Kabul Orphanage
RAWA distributes 8000 quilts among Afghan refugees
RAWA Eid Package for new refugees in Peshawar | in Islamabad | in Rawalpindi | in Quetta
RAWA distributes flour and ghee in Akora Khattak Camp
RAWA distributes flour bags among refugees
RAWA distributes ghee among refugees in Akora camp
RAWA distributes quilts among refugees
RAWA distributes medicines among refugees (Reflection in the press)
RAWA in the Jallozi camp (photos)
Afghan refugees eating grass, freezing temperature kills many children
Afghan women worst sufferers in living graveyard
RAWA distributes relief goods among Afghan refugees