To Bring Peace, Taliban Must Join The Government

INTERVIEW - Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, member, High Peace Council executive

Abdul Hakeem Mujahid has worked with various governments in Afghanistan. He was a diplomat in Islamabad under the Mujahideen reign, Afghanistan’s representative in the United Nations during the Taliban regime, and is now a member of the executive of the High Peace Council. Excerpts from an interview:

How do you look back at your career, which was a good time for the country?

The Taliban regime was good in many ways. The security then was something Afghanistan had never experienced before or after. Poppy cultivation was down to zero. There was territorial integrity and national unity.

We had accountability. I was part of a minister-led delegation that went to the US for one month when Taliban was in power. We were given $10,000 by the government for the trip, of which we spent just half and returned the rest. We had been taken care of by Afghan-Americans. Compare that with a minister under the [Hamid] Karzai regime who went on a week long tour of the US and ran up bills of $1,50,000.

Taliban was notorious for human rights violations.