Author:
Publication: Spiegel.de
Date: May 18, 2009
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-625495,00.html
Resuming the schooling of Afghanistan's girls
became a much-celebrated post-Taliban achievement for the international community,
but that success is now at risk. Six schools in the northern region of Kunduz
closed following Taliban threats in recent weeks. The German army says it
can't protect them.
One of the most significant and widely-touted
successes in the rebuilding of Afghanistan -- schooling for girls, which was
banned under the Taliban -- is at risk after six girls' schools were closed
in the northern province of Kunduz following threats from Islamic terrorists
in recent weeks.
The schools received letters threatening acid
and gas attacks, and teachers and pupils responded by staying home. The Afghan
authorities finally decided to shut the schools altogether.
The affected district of Chahar Darreh in
the province of Kunduz is largely under the Taliban's control -- some of the
Pashtun people who live in the area support them.
The German army, which has led a reconstruction
team in Kunduz since 2003, doesn't feel able to protect the schools, and the
German government doesn't know how to respond to the threats.
It's not just threats -- last week, a girls'
school in northeastern Afghanistan was hit with an apparent poison gas attack,
requiring the hospitilization of 84 students and 11 teachers who collapsed
with headaches and nausea. The case marked the region's third alleged poisoning
at a girls' school within roughly two weeks.
Militants in southern Afghanistan have assaulted
schoolgirls in the past -- spraying acid in their faces and burning down their
schools. Afghan girls were forbidden to attend school under the Taliban's
rule and many conservative extremist groups continue to oppose the idea.
Providing schooling for Afghan girls has been
one of Berlin's main arguments for justifying the military mission, which
is increasingly unpopular among German voters. Germany has about 3,800 troops
in Afghanistan and Berlin has resisted pressure from allies to send German
soldiers to the more dangerous south of the country, where allied forces are
battling the Taliban. Most of the German soldiers are in northern areas.
Recently, Chancellor Angela Merkel included
the "six million schoolchildren, among them very, very many girls"
as one of the "creditable successes" of the German reconstruction
team. "During my visit to the northern part of the country, I was able
to see that for myself," she told reporters.
Merkel was at the German military bases in
Kunuz and Mazar-i-Sharif at the beginning of April and visited a school there.
The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development announced it
had "great concerns" regarding the closure of the schools. The advancement
of girls is "one of the focal points of the German development cooperation,"
a representative said.
The Afghan government "must do everything
they can so that girls can regularly and safely go to school."
