Amy Liu, Press Corps 25
REVOLUTIONARY ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN OF AFGHANISTAN, Historical Crisis —
What little peace left in Afghanistan was wiped out at precisely 1:15 p.m. on February 18, when bombs detonated on Kabul, Afghanistan.
Two weeks later, a series of aerial bombs dropped on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Afghanistan is in a state of emergency and panic, and the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan immediately launched into action to respond to the crisis.
“RAWA’s focus needs to be on ensuring that we have rapid response sites in neighboring countries apart from Pakistan, but also in Pakistan, to make sure that when these kinds of emergencies occur, we can help women make sure that they can escape and get to safety,” Majid, an Afghan Airline attendant and RAWA’s foreign affairs manager, told the NAIMUN Daily.
During the first bombing, a fourth of Kabul had been taken over by Soviets and an eighth completely wiped out, resulting in thousands hospitalized and 30 deaths. At this time, the bomber is unknown but identifies as “Noor,” and is rumored to be funded by Cuba, Kate Clark from the BCC reports.
RAWA spurred into action, passing two directives. The first, the merged directive between “Safety” and “Slay-fty” gathered support from local groups, expanded funding for medical resources, created shelter zones and opened a chapter of RAWA in Pakistan. Directive “Boom Boom Boom” further focused on healthcare by opening local clinics and distributing aid to vulnerable communities.
"We have to dedicate more of our healthcare resources to the victims of this attack," Doctor Hajira said to RAWA.
The source of the second bombing is unknown. Although there were no casualties, RAWA leader Meena Keshwar Kamal, who was in hiding on the border following the assassination attempt on her, has been left alone and unprotected. In response, RAWA enacted five directives to rescue Kamal, provide aid to refugees, ally with neighboring cities and investigate the culprit of the bombing.
However, RAWA is not without its flaws. Differing opinions has increased disagreement in discourse, causing seven of 13 proposed directives to fail. More notably, only members of RAWA know Kamal’s location of hiding, meaning someone is working against the organization and continuing the assassination attempt.
“All our solutions for helping Meena are simply a band-aid,” Pakistani journalist Anis Haroon stated to RAWA. “We cannot pass ways to keep her safe. If we have a mole in this body, whatever action we take is just going to get leaked.”
Even with all this immediate action, RAWA has much more work to do before Afghanistan, and the organization itself, can return to normalcy.
“The long term goal is secular democracy and ensuring the rights for men and women in Afghanistan,” Majid said. “Hopefully, we'll have a new government that can ensure those values.”
