WITH the landing in Britain of the hijacked Afghan plane, it would appear that some chickens were trying to come home to roost.

With the departure of the British Raj from the Indian sub-continent, the people of Afghanistan were trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and were slowly succeeding. There were, however, religious fanatics - fundamentalists - who were totally opposed to any change from the almost-biblical way of life there.

With the arrival of the Cold War era, the Thatcher government was, among others, including America, those which supported and supplied arms to these fundamentalists.

Among them were heavy arms and thousands of land mines - very profitable for the manufacturers.

Helped by a smokescreen of propaganda by the British Government, the people here were not told the truth of what was going on there. All this helped the fundamentalists to gain power.

Would those holding the clock back have been helped, had their supporters known what a hell-hole was about to be created there by the ruling Taliban?

No education is allowed for women, who are also confined, most of the time, to their homes. Women doctors are severely restricted in practices. No TV or radio is allowed, nor is music.

The Taliban believe all these are the works of Satan. It's surprising that they haven't stopped air travel - but there's time for that yet.

ALBERT MORRIS, Clement View, Nelson.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.