IN THIS ISSUE:
- A growing enforcement of behavioural and dress codes by the hard-liners within the Taliban impacts on the Hindu and Sikh communities and on humanitarian aid staff.
- "International" radicals make their presence increasingly felt in relation to the staff of western agencies.
- A US official describes the drought situation as "apocalyptic" following an assessment mission.
- A donor commission confirms that the Taliban opium ban has taken effect.
The political climate
There have been further indications of a progressive hardening of attitudes within the Taliban as a result of the growing power of the more radical elements. This has been compounded by what appears to be a greater level of influence on the part of the "international" radicals in Afghanistan, namely those from Pakistan, Chechnya, the Middle East and other parts of the Islamic world.
This trend has manifested itself in more determined efforts by the religious police to impose behavioural and dress codes on the population and this renewed clampdown is also being extended to humanitarian agencies, who have found themselves subject to regular monitoring to establish that their staff are conforming to the regulations. One consequence was that an Italian hospital, only recently opened in Kabul, closed on 18th May, after an incident in which several staff were beaten following a claim by the Taliban that the male and female staff were eating together, a claim that the hospital authorities denied. The UN Coordinator, Erick de Mul, also reported on increased interference by Taliban officials in the work of UN personnel, adding that some of his staff had been arrested, harassed and even physically abused by the Taliban. He said that he was particularly concerned about the mistreatment of Afghan nationals working for his office, who formed the backbone of the UN operation. He noted that all staff were facing threats from what he termed "non Afghan foreign guests of the Taliban". He has recently held talks with the Taliban but important matters remain to be resolved.
This increased hostility towards western humanitarian agencies is occurring at a time when western governments are beginning to attach greater importance to the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and to reflect on the efficacy of sanctions as a solution to their security and other concerns felt in relation to the Taliban. The US, in particular, is said to be considering a greater level of engagement with the Taliban.
This raises the question as to whether the international community has left it too late to modify the denunciatory approach that was evident in the US air strikes of August 1998 and the UN sanctions of November 1999 and December 2000. Clearly, the hard-liners are now very much in the ascendant and have been visibly strengthened by the growing numbers of "internationals".
It is theoretically possible that the intense pressures now being placed on humanitarian agencies are being expressly orchestrated by these more radical elements in order to free Afghanistan of the western presence, even if many within the leadership would tend to favour a continuing role for the UN, ICRC and NGOs. Humanitarian agencies, therefore, need to move with considerable care in negotiating an appropriate way forward.
It is interesting, in this context, that the Taliban have recently approached the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to ask its members to provide increased humanitarian aid. However, with funding from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf having declined in recent years, it is far from clear that the Taliban would be successful in securing sufficient resources from OIC members to compensate for any significant loss of western aid.
The renewed focus on behavioural and dress codes has also resulted in a decision which has provoked international outrage, that Hindus and Sikhs should identify themselves by wearing or carrying yellow pieces of cloth. The Taliban have argued that this renewal of a regulation issued over a year ago is intended to free Hindus and Sikhs from the imposition, by the religious police, of the behavioural and dress codes that the Moslem population is expected to conform to. The Taliban justification may be considered a reasonable one, in their terms, in the absence of any history of serious persecution of the Hindu and Sikh minorities in Afghanistan. However, the regulation has inevitably aroused memories of Nazi Germany within the international community and prompted the Presidency of the European Union to issue a declaration in which it noted that "forcing persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities to wear distinctive clothing or identity marks is a form of discrimination which is prohibited by international human rights law".
The humanitarian situation
In an interview this month, the Refugee Coordinator for USAID in Islamabad stated that the recent humanitarian mission to Afghanistan, in which he had participated, had been "genuinely alarmed and surprised" by the severity of the humanitarian crisis and had found Afghanistan to be "on the verge of a widespread famine", the potential for which he described as "apocalyptic". He commented that, when resources hit "rock bottom", which, in his view, was imminent, there would be a precipitous drop in the health and nutritional status of the population, leading to a significant increase in death rates and "massive displacement".
The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, announced on May 17th, in response to the mission, that the US would contribute $43m in new food and humanitarian aid. This was said to include 65,000 tonnes of wheat, $5m dollars in other foodstuff and $10m dollars for refugees and internally displaced persons. This would bring the total value of food aid provision by the US this year to $124m, as compared to $114m last year.
Save the Children (US), reporting on a survey it carried out, in April, in Kohistan, a district of southern Faryab, noted that under-five mortality rates were "excessively high", adding that many villages were being abandoned while others accommodated only the poorest and most vulnerable who lacked the resources to leave. A recent survey by MSF in southern Faryab found many cases of scurvy.
There are inevitably concerns that the growing constraints on humanitarian programmes, arising out of tensions with the Taliban, will have a serious impact on the delivery of aid at a time when the effects of the drought are thus reducing the coping capacities of much of the population to the very margins.
Provision for those in acute need may also be seriously affected by a continuing impasse in discussions between the Taliban and WFP with regard to the large-scale food distribution programme in Kabul. WFP is requesting authority to draw up a new list of beneficiaries to take account of the significant movement of people into the capital since the last list was produced, out of concern that considerable numbers of people who are in acute need are currently excluded. WFP is also seeking to employ women for the registration process. On both counts the Taliban have, so far, refused to give permission and WFP has indicated that the programme, which currently provides for 282,000 people, will close on 15th June if agreement has not been reached.
Humanitarian agencies continue to be denied access into parts of the Hazarajat, even though fighting has resulted in the displacement of an estimated 60,000 people, together with most of the population of Yakawlang. Most of those displaced from Yakawlang have remained within the area, taking refuge in the remoter villages.
WFP is reported to have provided 10 tonnes of food to the 10,000 people who have been living on a border island between Tajikistan and Afghanistan for some months. Provision for this group has been complicated by the presence of armed fighters within their midst and the requirement on the UN to only provide for civilian victims of conflict.
The military situation
Fighting has taken place on a number of fronts over the past month, generated, in part, by the wish of the Taliban to recover Yakawlang, which has changed hands several times over the past few months, combined with their ongoing determination to complete their conquest of Afghanistan and, in part, by the strategy of the opposition to force the Taliban to operate on several fronts at the same time so as to weaken their offensive in the north-east.
The Taliban were successful in re-capturing Yakawlang on 5th May but would appear to have lost ground in the north-east through the opposition capture of the Farkhar Gorge on 30th April. Other opposition offensives have been reported in Balkh, Ghor, Sar-i-Pul, Dara-e-Souf and Ghorband, in the north and centre of Afghanistan and Kunar in the east . An offensive in the small district of Zaare, to the south of the town of Balkh, was reported to have been launched by the combined forces of Masoud and the former Uzbek leader, Rashid Dostam.
Refugees
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, was not able to achieve any breakthroughs in his visit to Afghanistan from 30th April to 3rd May, in which he held meetings with former President Rabbani, with the Taliban Foreign Minister, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil and with the Taliban Governor of Kandahar, Mullah Hassan. His call for a cease-fire, to allow the UN to deal more effectively with the humanitarian crisis, was firmly rejected by the Taliban while the opposition only agreed to give it their consideration. In his subsequent visit to Pakistan, he failed to persuade the Pakistan Government to permit the registration of refugees at Jalozai camp. In a press conference given at the end of his visit, he asked Pakistan to halt the forcible return of Afghans and reiterated his request to allow a joint team of UN and Pakistani officials to screen the refugees in Jalozai as a first step towards registration and eventual relocation.
The dramatic change in the attitude of the Pakistani authorities to Afghan refugees was also the subject of talks, held on 9th May, between the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, and Pakistan's Interior Minister, Moinuddin Haider. Mullah Zaeef raised the issue of "arrests, maltreatment and harassment of Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan by police and other law-enforcement agencies". He was said to have expressed his concern that those arrested included Afghans with legal refugee documents and that people were now hesitant to even purchase food items in the market, or visit the doctor, in case they were arrested. He added that many Afghan refugees were not in a position to bear the costs of obtaining passports or travel documents.
The Governor of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, Iftikhar Hussain Shah, has announced that, following a screening process planned for June in Nasirbagh, Jalozai and Shamshatoo camps, those found to be in the country illegally will be repatriated. However, the Pakistani Foreign Office was quoted by the Pakistani newspaper, Jang, as stating that any refugees found to be genuine as a result of the screening process at Jalozai would be offered "temporary asylum" by the Pakistan Government.
WFP recently carried out a one-off food distribution of 650 tonnes of food in Jalozai camp to supplement the charitable handouts provided by Jemima Khan, which have included 5,400 tents, and others. However, conditions remain extremely grim in the camp because of overcrowding and exposure to intense heat, against which the many makeshift tents made from bin liners offer little protection. Three heatstroke and rehydration units have been set up following an increase in the death rate in the camp.
International policy
It would appear from a number of indicators that the US is now attaching much greater importance to the Afghan situation than was apparent under the Clinton administration. Although the humanitarian crisis is arousing high-level concern within the US, it is clear that the US is also taking more energetic steps to respond to the potential threats to global security arising from the Talibanisation process in Pakistan and the increasing presence of "international" radicals in Afghanistan.
It is also clear that the US does not accept Pakistan's denials that it is not providing resources to the Taliban. In its annual report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism" for the year 2000, issued on 30th April, the US Government stated: "Credible reporting indicates that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with materiel, fuel, funding, technical assistance and military advisers. Pakistan has not prevented large numbers of Pakistani nationals from moving into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban. Islamabad also failed to take effective steps to curb the activities of certain madrasahs, or religious schools, that serve as recruiting grounds for terrorism". The US is, nonetheless, thought likely to take a constructive approach towards Pakistan, including support for IMF loans, in an effort to combat the radicalisation process that is growing apace within the country.
More regular contacts between the US and the countries of the former Soviet Union may have been instrumental in the issuing of a statement, on 25th May, by the six signatories to the Collective Security Treaty, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, in which they indicated their willingness to cooperate closely "with the international community in neutralising the seat of tension in Afghanistan". Agreement was also reached to create a rapid reaction force to combat external aggression, carry out "anti-terrorist" activities and undertake military manoeuvres.
A 13-member delegation from the European Union visited Afghanistan during May to present EU policy on Afghanistan, as expressed in the EU Common Position on Afghanistan of January 22nd 2001, to both the Taliban and the opposition. Following the talks with the Taliban, the EU Ambassador was quoted as saying: "We would have liked the Taliban to understand that this is a balanced approach, but I don't think we got our message through on this". This may indicate that the Taliban have been influenced, in their attitude towards the European Union, by the positive welcome given by a few members of the European Parliament and two government Ministers to the opposition leader, Masoud, when he visited Europe earlier in the year.
The peace process
Reporting on his first 14 months in post, the UN Peace Envoy, Fransesc Vendrell, commented, on 1st May, that the national interests of the countries involved in the Afghan conflict - in particular the neighbouring countries - were not mutually incompatible and added that the various national interests would be best served "by the establishment of a unified government that was in keeping with the wishes of the Afghan people, and the views of all ethnic groups". He expressed the view that progress in the peace process also required the international community to broaden its understanding of the conflict and to move beyond a consideration of Afghanistan in isolated compartments "be it terrorism, narcotics, refugees".
The Taliban announced, on May 9th, that it had ordered the closure of the UN's political offices in Herat, Jalalabad, Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif, in retaliation for the closure of their New York Office. The Kabul Office is to remain functional. This decision will result in some weakening of UNSMA's capacity to engage with the Taliban at the local level with regard to the peace process but, with the prospects for peace particularly bleak at present, the closure cannot be expected to have a major impact.
Drugs
Among the examples of the more constructive approach being adopted, of late, by the international community was a donor assessment mission undertaken, from 25th April to 3rd May, to analyse the situation and needs of farmers in established opium poppy growing areas and to assess factors that would prevent their resumption of opium poppy cultivation in the short and medium long term. The mission also set out to assess the commitment of the appropriate Afghan authorities to wider social, economic, trade and migration policies necessary to sustain a long-term reduction in cultivation; to consider ways of delivering assistance to former opium poppy farmers; and to examine ways of securing the verifiable destruction of opiate stock-piles. An official of the US Drug Enforcement Administration subsequently confirmed earlier reports by UNDCP that the opium ban had taken effect. However, concerns remain that significant stockpiles of opium and heroin are thought to be present in Afghanistan amid reports that the average price of opium in Afghanistan jumped from 28 dollars a kilo last year to 280 dollars a kilo in February.
This report is published by the British Agencies Afghanistan Group (BAAG) Project, based at the Refugee Council, London. The Project is funded from a number of sources, including the UK Government's Department for International Development and individual British NGOs operating in Afghanistan. However, the views expressed are those of the BAAG Project and do not represent any official view of its funders.
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