Taliban say democracy has died in Afghanistan & nothing is left for democrats

Taliban on Friday defended the internal unrest situation stressing that they ‘inherited’ ethnic conflicts and there has been a death of democracy in Afghanistan. The regime witnessed upheaval and internal divide in the northern Faryab province after several Taliban commanders of Pashtun ethnicity were reportedly disarmed. Reacting to the reports of intra-Taliban conflict, spokesman of the Taliban, Inamullah Samangani, in a Twitter post said that the escalating ethnic conflicts in Afghanistan “was the biggest achievement of democracy in the country". He, however, reminded that democracy “is now dead in Afghanistan” and that “pro-democracy people are still striving to cause chaos in the region.” 

Taliban have said that the pro-democracy figures attribute the Taliban to a single ethnicity and hence create divergence among the Afghan population. This comes as protests emerged across the northern provinces as people accused the Taliban of ethnic discrimination and atrocities. Demonstrations were witnessed across Faryab just a day after the arrest of a local Pashtun Taliban commander in Balkh province by an Uzbek Taliban.

A situation similar to the 1990s

However, Taliban are blaming the pro-democracy figures for the ethnic conflicts across the regime. Taliban are largely Pashtun and after taking control of the political power, minorities and ethnic groups are susceptible to threat from the majority Pashtun ethnic Taliban. The situation is similar to what was witnessed in the mid-1990s, and during that time, there emerged an ethnic war within the regime. Uzbeks, Tajiks, and other groups dominate in the north of Afghanistan and oppose the Pashtun Taliban leadership. 

The ethnic minority fighters in the Taliban’s own ranks in the country’s north have taken to arms and rebelled against the Taliban. The alliance built by the regime in order to govern Afghanistan has been shattering as the country continues to reel under the aftermath of conflict and from the economic woes of the pandemic. At least four people were killed in the Pashtun and Uzbek Taliban fighting and several others were wounded in clashes, local residents told Afghan news outlets. “Now that they have nothing, the so-called democrats are struggling to come up with which ethnic group Talib is good and which is bad,” Samangani said, on Twitter.