LONDON: The chair of the UK Parliament’s Defence Select Committee has been criticized by fellow Conservative politicians, a Labour Party candidate and Afghan activists for suggesting that British authorities should establish diplomatic ties with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
In a two-minute video posted on Twitter on Monday, MP Tobias Ellwood said the UK should “rethink and reengage” with the Taliban, and argued the regime had achieved a peace “not seen since the 1970s.”
The “first step” for the UK should be to reopen its embassy in the country, he added, and the second is for Westminster to “get real,” because otherwise the future for Afghanistan “could be war again or life as a Chinese vassal.”
However, critics said Ellwood was ignoring the plight of women in the country, whose freedoms and rights have been greatly restricted, along with that of journalists and activists, who reportedly have been imprisoned and tortured by the Taliban.
“Last night, following a visit to Afghanistan, (Ellwood) posted an utterly bizarre video lauding the Taliban’s management of the country — something which was described by a fellow member of the Defence Committee to me, barely an hour ago, as a ‘wish you were here’ video,” Conservative politician Mark Francois, who is also a member of the committee, told the House of Commons.
“He made no mention of the fact that the Taliban was still attempting to identify and kill Afghan citizens who helped our armed forces, and also makes no specific mention of the fact that young girls in Afghanistan don’t even have the right to go to school under that government.
“I wish to make plain, on behalf of the committee, that he was speaking for himself even though he used the title as chairman of the committee in a number of associated articles. Not in our name.”
Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith described the video as “not a very welcome statement,” The Independent reported.
Tom Hayes, the opposition Labour Party’s prospective candidate for Ellwood’s Bournemouth East constituency, said “the clock is being turned back” on progress in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime and added: “It is deeply concerning that any British MP, let alone the chair of the Defence Select Committee, should be doing PR for a brutal, medieval dictatorship that oppresses women, restricts press freedoms and attacks civil and political rights.
“Girls are banned from attending secondary schools. Women are banned from attending and teaching at universities. Women are prevented from working.
“When the current MP talks about advocating the importance of reestablishing diplomatic ties with the Taliban, I’d love to know how much engagement he has had with the girls and the women who are being treated not as second-class citizens but as fourth-class citizens.”
Shaharzad Akbar, an Afghan human rights activist and chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said: “I guess critical-thinking skills are not a requirement for MPs. It is past time for visiting officials to talk to women, to detained and tortured journalists and activists, to members of marginalized groups when they visit Afghanistan, and to not deny the ongoing ‘gender apartheid.’”
In a message posted on Twitter, Zehra Zaidi, an Afghan activist and lawyer, wrote: “Were Afghan women spoken to before the trip to Afghanistan and did they engage with women whilst there? This video comes across as promotional material for the de facto authority. Women are erased from public life.”
Ellwood defended his comments, saying he was “far from being a Taliban appeaser” but that during his recent visit to Afghanistan he had to “grapple with the harsh reality of the West’s strategic missteps.”
