On Aug. 21, 1998, the day after Clinton visited biblical vengeance upon Afghanistan, Unocal issued a release that began:
As a result of sharply deteriorating political conditions in the region, Unocal, which serves as the development manager for the Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline consortium, has suspended all activities involving the proposed pipeline project in Afghanistan. We are discussing this suspension with the other members of the consortium. This decision to suspend activities is consistent with Unocal’s long-held position concerning its involvement in the project. For the past several months, Unocal has been reviewing this project with CentGas participants. We have consistently informed the other participants that unless and until the United Nations and the United States government recognize a legitimate government in Afghanistan, Unocal would not invest capital in the project. Contrary to some published reports, Unocal has not–and will not—become a party to a commercial agreement with any individual Afghanistan faction.26
Given the Sugarland episode, this last statement is at best contentious and at worst fallacious. Also, Clinton’s attack was not the decisive factor Unocal made it out to be. According to an editorial in Oil and Gas International, Unocal found the Taliban’s price to be too steep:
When the Taliban demanded more than the $100 million a year in rent for the pipeline route in the form of the construction of roads, water supplies, telephone lines, and electricity power lines, as well as a tap in
25. Cited in “Pipeline Dreams: One of the factors which led to throwing Ms Benazir Bhutto out of Power,” The Herald (Pakistan), June 1997.
26. “Unocal Statement: Suspension of activities related to proposed natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan,” Aug. 21, 1998, <www.unocal.com/uclnews/98news/082198.htm>.
the pipeline to provide oil and gas for Afghanistan, Unocal balked, and finally dropped its plans after the East Africa embassy bombings.27
In contrast to this “closed pipeline,” Bridas proposed an open line to allow the Taliban to draw gas for local needs. This is why the Taliban signed with Bridas instead of CentGas. On Dec. 4, 1998, Unocal officially withdrew from the consortium, and has steadfastly denied reports that it plans to return. However, Unocal Pakistan Ltd.’s president and general manager Richard Keller was quoted as telling Reuters: “We are hopeful that this is a temporary situation.”28
Other members of the consortium hadn’t given up. On April 29, 1999, Pakistan’s Petroleum Minister Nisar Ali Khan, Turkmenistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Batyr Sardjaev, and Afghanistan’s Minister of Energy and Mines Maulvi Ahmedjan met in Islamabad to revive the project. The meeting came just two days after an exchange of international visits between Russia and Pakistan that signaled a warming of relations despite Pakistan’s opposition to Russia’s support for India, and Russia’s opposition to Pakistan’s support of Islamists.
In place of Unocal, Delta Oil was reported to be taking over as lead partner, but the plan went nowhere. According to India’s Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses:
The pipeline from Afghanistan may remain a non-starter even in the longer term, for the simple reason that there exists a strong contradiction between the oil pipeline and drug-trafficking in the region of the Golden Crescent. According to Western estimates, the region generates revenue worth $45 billion (some give the figure of $90 billion) from drug-related activities. There are so many stakes involved in the region, which actually become the cause for perpetuating conflict in Afghanistan. In such a situation, it would be highly difficult for anyone to replace drugs with oil, especially when Afghanistan being only a transit state would receive not more $100 million per year in transit fees (i.e., no more than one-fifth of one percent of the drug revenue).29
OS T R A C I Z I N G T H E TA L I B A N—B I N LA D E N
In mid-to-late September 1997, the Taliban charged Iran with conducting more than 170 airdrops of arms and ammunition to anti-government forces in the Northern towns of Mazar-i-Sharif, Bamiyan, and Shebarghan, the region dominated by the Rabbani-led government and the Hezb-i-Wahdat (Unity Party) militia, which Iran supported.
27. Oil and Gas International, Oct. 29, 2001, op. cit.
28. Cited in “U.S. seeks Pakistan’s oil nod,” pakwatan.com, Jan. 26, 2002, <www.pakwatan.com/main/article_detail.php3?t1=402>.
29. P. Stobdan, “The Afghan Conflict and Regional Security,” IDSA (August 1999), pp.719- 747.
10. The Taliban and “petropolitics”
197The Taliban warned Iran to cease all recruiting, training, monetary and military assistance to the alliance, or it would reciprocate by arming and promoting local resistance groups inside Iran. Iran had never admitted aiding anti-Taliban forces—just like Pakistan never admitted to aiding and promoting the Taliban—but it couldn’t give in to threats without loss of face. Iran therefore hoped that Rabbani’s forces would be in a position to launch a quick and effective pre-winter offensive to reclaim most of the country.
On Aug. 8, 1998, the Taliban launched another attack on Mazar-i-Sharif. It not only succeeded in taking the town, but exacted a horrible vengeance on the Hazara, a Farsi-speaking Shi’ite minority who fiercely opposed Taliban rule. The Taliban went on a rampage of rape and mass murder that would be familiar to survivors of the 1982 Israeli/Phalangist massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. According to the report from Human Rights Watch:
A woman who lived in Kamaz camp, where persons who had fled Kabul and other cities were living, stated that a large number of Taliban came searching for men at the camp the first day. Most of the men were beaten and then taken away, but some were shot on the spot.
From one tent they took six boys. They were all 17, 18, or 20 years old. They just shot them dead in front of the tent. The bodies lay there for four days until the women could finally bury them. A medical student testified that the Taliban also searched the hospital looking for Hazaras. I saw two Hazara boys, one about thirteen years old and one about twenty. One had a broken arm. The Taliban wanted to take them away, but the director intervened. But they came back the next day and took them.
One witness stated that he saw bodies that had been left in the city’s cemeteries. We passed by the cemetery at Dasht-i-Shour. The cemetery is along the main road. There are also shops along the road. These shops were built with the dirt taken in the same area. So there are many holes left along the road. All these holes were filled with bodies.30
On the second day of the takeover, the new Taliban governor of the province Mullah Manon Niazi declared open season on Hazaras for their opposition to the Taliban:
Hazaras are not Muslim, they are shi’a. They are kofr [infidels]. The Hazaras killed our force here, and now we have to kill Hazaras. If you do not show your loyalty, we will burn your houses, and we will kill you. You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan.31
In a UN report, all killings were described as “systematic, planned, and very well organized.” Approximately 3,000 Hazara were murdered in their
30. “The First Day of the Takeover,” Afghanistan: The Massacre in Mazar-i-Sharif, Human Rights Watch, November 1998, Vol. 10, No. 7 (C), <www.hrw.org/reports98/afghan/Afrepor0- 02.htm#P98_20660>.
homes, or indiscriminately shot in the street during the first six days of the Taliban takeover. The total estimated number of dead ranges from 5,000 to 8,000; 10,000 to 12,000 fled Mazar-i-Sharif on the first day.
Later that month, bin Laden was suspected of being behind the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The civil war showed no signs of ending, which meant time was up for the Taliban. Clinton had thought that the Taliban would improve their humanitarian record and ease up on the repression of women in expectations of receiving a $100 million annual rent from CentGas. Given the austere religious orientation of the Taliban, and the U.S./Unocal hands-off attitude toward domestic repression, this notion was pure delusion.
In late 1997, the U.S. began throwing its support behind the Northern Alliance, which was led by warlords Rabbani, Masoud and Dostum—the same warriors who slaughtered 50,000 people in Kabul during the 1992–1996 civil war, and committed the May 1977 massacre of Taliban fighters at Mazar-i-Sharif. These were also the same warriors the U.S. wanted the Taliban to destroy in the name of Unocal and national stability.
To add to the absurdity of this scenario, the alliance was backed by Iran, Russia and Uzbekistan. After getting involved in Afghanistan to fight Russia because of the fall of the shah, the U.S. was now supporting Russian and Iranian surrogates.
If support for the Taliban was cynical and unethical, it was at least understandable in the context of traditional U.S. petropolitics. The decision to ostracize and punish the Taliban when he did made no sense, since Clinton could have acted against bin Laden at any time from 1996 onward. An editorial in Afghanistan’s Omaid Weekly made the point most poignantly:
Is Osama bin Laden all that matters to the U.S. when it comes to Afghanistan? Are the cries of millions of Afghanistan’s orphans, widows and beggars drowned out by the voice of an outcast Saudi hermit? Or is it that Clinton cannot bear to face up to what his administration has helped to create—the near annihilation of Afghanistan at the hands of a barbaric horde mothered by the CIA- trained ISI, fathered by the U.S.-backed Saudis and cheered by Uncle Sam—so he seeks to focus on Osama, a scapegoat of Washington’s own creation?32
On Feb. 3, 1999, Assistant Secretary of State Karl E. Inderfurth and State Department counter-terrorism chief Michael Sheehan met the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister Abdul Jalil in Islamabad, and warned that the U.S. would hold the Taliban responsible for any further terrorist acts by bin Laden. On July 10, 1999, Clinton followed up with unilateral trade sanctions against Afghanistan for its refusal to hand over bin Laden. This made no sense,
10. The Taliban and “petropolitics”
199especially since Afghanistan had not appeared on any U.S. State Department list of terrorism-supporting countries.
Afghanistan is desperately poor, and depends on international food relief agencies to fend off starvation. What’s worse, two massive earthquakes struck northern Afghanistan in 1998 (Feb. 4 and May 30). The first quake measured 6.1 on the Richter scale, killed 4,200 people, and destroyed 30 villages; the second, in a more remote region, measured 6.9 and killed 150.33 The $24 million-worth of exports at stake, mostly gems and carpets, was insignificant to the U.S., but important to Afghanistan. Bullying them would only make them more defensive and dependent on bin Laden’s largesse.
Second, the U.S. Congress had acknowledged that unilateral sanctions have little or no effect. In fact, the House was preparing to deal with 23 pieces of legislation designed to stop precisely this kind of one-sided economic warfare.34
Third, Afghanistan is a sovereign nation, and according to Article 2 of the United Nations Charter is guaranteed the same rights of equality and independence as any other state. Punishing the Taliban for something bin Laden might have done only served to fuel bin Laden’s image as a champion of oppressed Muslims. In his Declaration of War, Bin Laden made much of the West’s mistreatment of Muslims and the international community’s moral double standard.
On Oct. 15, 1999, Clinton took his crusade against bin Laden and the Taliban to the United Nations. The Security Council unanimously passed U.S.-sponsored Resolution 1267, which compelled the Taliban to surrender bin Laden by Nov. 14. Failure to comply would lead to an international flight ban on any aircraft owned, leased or operated by or on behalf of the Taliban, as well as a freeze on all Taliban-related funds and investment in Afghanistan.
The resolution’s specious moral and legal legitimacy can be seen in the seventh clause to the preamble: “Noting the indictment of Usama bin Laden and his associates by the United States of America for, inter alia, the 7 August 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and for conspiring to kill American nationals outside the United States, and noting also the request of the United States of America to the Taliban to surrender them for trial.” The indictment, as we saw earlier, was invalid on its face and built on speculation and imputed guilt.
Resolution 1267 received unanimous support from other council members like Russia and China, both of which have Muslim minorities and therefore a vested interest in suppressing Islamist activism. As expected, the Afghan regime refused to comply with this edict. Four days before the
33. “Afghanistan quake survivors face new peril,”, Feb. 10, 1998, and “Earthquake hits northern Afghanistan,”, May 31, 1998, Seattle Times.