AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Democracy Now! in Exile, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

After reports of heavy civilian casualties from the overnight bombing northwest of Jalalabad, the Pentagon decided to spend millions to buy the rights to satellite pictures of the area, preventing Western media from seeing the devastation. The Taliban has allowed Western media into the country only once since the conflict, and then only for a quick tour of a bombing site. Hundreds of reporters are gathered, cut off from the action, in a sliver of Afghanistan controlled by the Northern Alliance. The Pentagon has also refused journalists access to aircraft and staging bases they’ve had during most military actions. All of this makes it almost impossible for Westerners to see how the Afghan people are being affected by the U.S.attack.

What we do know is that thousands of refugees are trying to leave Afghanistan. More than 6,000 have crossed into Pakistan at the official border post at Chaman in the last three days, and thousands more are believed to be making their way along unguarded desert paths into Balochistan. Most of them are carrying wounded family members or friends. Around 50,000 refugees are thought to have entered Pakistan, but many more have fled to the mountains of Afghanistan to escape the bombing. One woman who reached Quetta in Pakistan yesterday said, “Everyone who can is getting out.” Aid agencies are warning of a catastrophe unfolding inside Afghanistan, with millions of people too poor or sick to undertake the grueling journey to the border.

We’re joined right now by an independent filmmaker from Canada, who was able to visit Afghan refugee camps last year and spent much of his time with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, known as RAWA. Velcrow Ripper joins us.

Welcome to The War and Peace Report.

VELCROW RIPPER: Hi. How are you doing?

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. When were you there?

VELCROW RIPPER: I was there about a year, a year and a bit ago.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about your trip with RAWA and who they are?

VELCROW RIPPER: OK. Well, I traveled through Pakistan to meet them, and they’re a group of — underground resistance group operating inside and outside of Afghanistan whose philosophy is really that education is more subversive than arms in the fight for struggle. And they work very hard to educate Afghan — especially Afghan women who don’t have access to education. They have secret schools inside Afghanistan and in the refugee camps outside of Afghanistan. And they also have mobile health clinics. They have eight mobile health clinics that operate throughout Afghanistan — or did. Right now that’s probably very tough. And they do outreach work, as well, quite a bit of that kind of stuff.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you introduce the first woman we’re going to hear?

VELCROW RIPPER: Sure. Well, she’s a member of RAWA who actually was raised in one of the RAWA orphanages, and she’s only 20 years old. And as you’ll hear, her story is a very sad one, but yet she’s been incredibly empowered by her chance to transform her experiences of grief from the war into a form of resistance.

RAWA MEMBER: I’m from Afghanistan, and I belong to an organization named Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, RAWA. I’m covering my face because all RAWA’s member are facing danger. We’re receiving death threats from Taliban and other fundamentalists. That’s why we are in a very dangerous position.

I am 20 years old. And since 20 years, the war is going on in our country, Russian war, and then the — when the fundamentalists seized the power, now our country has turned to a cemetery, and it’s not like a country. Now our people are like moving deads. They are not alive mentally. They’re alive physically, but not mentally. So there’s no beautiful things. There’s no happy experience that I can tell you.

We want women’s rights, human rights. We want a democratic government in Afghanistan. We want social justice and freedom and independence from the other countries. The situation of women in Afghanistan is horrible. The Taliban, in their jihadi pretense, don’t accept women as human. Our women now turn to beggary and to prostitution. The respectable women turn to these, even they have poet Ph.D. or in engineering, in law, but now they turn to beggary and prostitution. And according to the Taliban, all the institution of learning and schools for girls are gateways to hell.

RAWA was established in 1977 as an independent organization of women. We’re trying to serve our deprived women from the establishment of the schools, the clinics, orphanage literacy courses, handicraft courses, to organizing functions, demonstrations, press releases and press conferences to raise the awareness of our people, particularly women. And we believe that women are equal with men in every field. We have 13 mobile health teams in 11 provinces — in seven provinces of Afghanistan. And in the cultural field, we produce classes with anti-fundamentalist contents.

These fundamentalists are created and nurtured by other countries, foreign countries, and foreign countries impose these criminals on our people. And we understand from the word “fundamentalism” ignorance, reactionary and criminals, brutal and anti-religious. They’re the enemy of Islam. They’re not Muslim.

VELCROW RIPPER: And how can that be? Because they claim to be the true Muslims, you know, because they say they go to the core of the Qur’an.

RAWA MEMBER: Because they created their own Islam. This is not the real Islam. They’re wrapping the girls. They’re wrapping even the grandmother of 70 years and a girl of 4 years. So this is not Islam. They’re cutting the hands of our women for stealing bread for their children. It’s not Islam. They’re stoning, executing, killing, torturing our people. This is not Islam. We want from all the people of the world and from all the gatherings of the world to have a pressure on United Nations that we want to the United Nations impose sanctions on those countries who are supporting these criminal bands of fundamentalists. And we want to stop the intervening of other countries in internal affairs of our country. We hope that one day will come that we came an Afghanistan with a democratic government, and we will be happy in our country.

AMY GOODMAN: RAWA member that Velcrow Ripper interviewed in Islamabad, member of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan. Her own mother was killed?

VELCROW RIPPER: Mm-hmm, yeah, and her mother was a RAWA member, as well. And then she was raised in the RAWA schools in the RAWA orphanages and actually received an excellent education, as you can tell from her English. And I think that it’s given some of these orphans — and we’ll be talking to some orphans soon — have given them a chance to have some hope, and instead of being — often the chances are that they would be sold, that they would become — fall into prostitution. They’d be really lost. And thankfully, they’ve been able to find a sanctuary.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you introduce this next clip we’re going to hear? And for those who are watching this on public access stations around the country and on DISH Network channel 9415 of Free Speech TV, the image of the RAWA member, she was completely shrouded. Was she afraid to be seen?

VELCROW RIPPER: They can’t be seen. They’re constantly under death threats. And for their identities to be revealed, it could put them at great risk.

AMY GOODMAN: These orphans are where?

VELCROW RIPPER: They’re in — these ones are in Peshawar in a refugee camp that’s been there for over 15 years. And wave after wave of refugees have left Afghanistan, first the Russians, then the jihadis and then the Taliban. So we see people who have been waiting and waiting and waiting to go home.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s listen.

SAHER: I’m Saher, and my father was a doctor. His name was Dr. Joey. And he was killed in 1993 by mujahideen. Hezb-e Gulbuddin. It was about 2:00 in the morning when they came. I don’t know. My father had no fault, and they just came and killed him without any reason. They took my only brother, about 22 years old. My mother — my mother could not see the situation, and she became mad. She could not talk now She’s really — her situation is very bad. She is living with my uncle, and I was with her about two years before. And my uncle’s situation is very bad, tensive. He sells vegetables and other things in the streets of Kabul. And he wanted me to sell to someone else, and he did not know how to do it. Then he asked one of his friends what to do about me. And he said that “I will talk to someone else.” To whom should they sell me? Then they were in contact with RAWA, and they brought me here. I’m very happy that I’m here. My own life would be now very miserable if I was sold to anyone else in Kabul or to another country. Now I’m very happy here. I have very bad life — I had very bad life, but now I’m very happy because the RAWA members are very good. They are very kind. They help us.

ORPHAN 1: [translated] One day, I and my brother played, and we were playing and outside the house, when a rocket came to our house, and my parents died during this.

TRANSLATOR: She’s crying.

VELCROW RIPPER: I wanted to ask her to tell us one special moment before, when things were normal, if she still feels like.

ORPHAN 1: [translated] And when my mother and father was alive, we have a good and happy house and life.

ORPHAN 2: [translated] We want freedom for our country, and the other countries must help us. And because our people are living in hunger, they have nothing to eat and are dying because of lack of doctors. And that’s why I want — I would like to be a doctor in the future.

AMY GOODMAN: And that is the sound of RAWA orphans, the orphans who are being taken care of by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, filmed by Velcrow Ripper, Canadian filmmaker. When we return from our break, we’ll find out what is the film that he’s making here from Afghan refugees in slums and then a demonstration. You’re listening to The War and Peace Report. Back in 60 seconds.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to The War and Peace Report, Free Speech Radio. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our conversation with Velcrow Ripper, Canadian filmmaker. Who are you doing this film for?

VELCROW RIPPER: It’s an independent film. It’ll be distributed through such alternative — sorts of alternative channels like Arte in Europe, Channel 4, those sorts of places.

AMY GOODMAN: And what is it called?

VELCROW RIPPER: It’s called Scared Sacred, and it’s based on going to — one aspect of it is based on going to some of the trouble spots of the world, past and present, such as Hiroshima, Bosnia, Auschwitz, the Nevada nuclear test site, Chiapas, Afghanistan and New York.

AMY GOODMAN: And what are you doing?

VELCROW RIPPER: Well, I’m looking for stories of survivors. And I’m looking for human stories in the face of big history and stories of transformation, hope and resistance.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about these Afghan refugees, where you interviewed the next people we will hear.

VELCROW RIPPER: Mm-hmm. RAWA took me out to the slums of Islamabad, where a number of refugees have ended up without any kind of infrastructure, any kind of support, and they’re living in tar paper shacks. And this particular group that I ran into were living in an abandoned house. And we were just really walking by, and they just pulled me in and just started talking all at once, really, and just really wanted their stories to be heard.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s listen.

AFGHAN REFUGEE 1: [translated] I had a good life, and now complete of Kabul. I had garden, chickens. I collect all my fruits, like grapes and other, banana, all things. But they’re in house of all of them burned. Taliban hit, bomb and rocket from one side, and mess with troops, hit or fell rocket or bomb from the other side. All of their gardens, houses, all of their life burned. So they are begging. They are women, women, children, all of them begging. And their husband, maybe they’re killed, or maybe they are in jails of Taliban. And some of them, like these people, migrate into Pakistan here.

AFGHAN REFUGEE 2: [translated] We have only one message to all the people of foreign countries, that we don’t want the interference of foreign countries, like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, America and all of these countries. We want a real public government, not like jihadis’ government, not like Taliban government, because they are all the puppet of foreign countries. And they’re objects. They’re puppet objects, or they’re Pakistan objects, America objects. We want the government that there will be election in Afghanistan, and our own people select their government, their own government, the government that want democracy, freedom and social justice for people of Afghanistan.

AMY GOODMAN: Afghan refugees in the slums of Islamabad. Velcrow Ripper was taken to speak with them by RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, who cannot be seen doing their organizing. But they do have flash demonstrations.

VELCROW RIPPER: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. I actually went specifically for their demonstration. And they’re taking a great risk at doing that, as well, of course, but they — some of them choose to cover their faces during the demonstration. The last — the demonstration before the one I was at was actually attacked by the Taliban. And I think the Taliban expected them just to turn tail and flee, because they’re just a group of women, probably, in their eyes. But to their surprise, they actually had a bag full of sticks, which were instantly distributed, and they chased the Taliban away. They ran with their tails between their legs.

AMY GOODMAN: And are they just women?

VELCROW RIPPER: Women, and there are male supporters, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s take a listen.

RAWA MEMBER: We had a demonstration in Piar, and at that time Taliban attacked our demonstration. In that moment, I felt that I have the power to resist against this, even I had no gun in my hand or anything else, but with my ideas I can resist against them. I was about 14 years old when I lost my mother. And my mother was also a member of RAWA. And then I studied in RAWA’s school in Quetta, one of the cities of Pakistan. And after that, now I am graduated from school, and I love and I want to work with RAWA.

AMY GOODMAN: The sounds of a RAWA woman describing one of the demonstrations. And this one that we heard took place in?

VELCROW RIPPER: Islamabad, Pakistan.

AMY GOODMAN: As we are now in the midst of the bombing — when you did this, we were not bombing — we have also spoken with RAWA women who talk about the Taliban and also say that the Northern Alliance are as bad when it comes to abusing human rights. And now we see the U.S. government in secret meetings with CIA in Pakistan, and the prime minister — foreign minister of Afghanistan, looks like they’re setting up a coalition government of the Taliban, Northern Alliance, etc.

VELCROW RIPPER: Yeah, no Afghan — most Afghans would definitely deplore that. They really want — as you can see from the refugees themselves, they really want democracy. They want a real government, no more puppets.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much, Velcrow Ripper, for joining us, Canadian filmmaker. I look forward to seeing the final film.

VELCROW RIPPER: Thanks.