According to the UN, hundreds of thousands of
Afghan civilians face starvation as the harsh
Afghan winter sets in over the bruised and
battered country…Unfortunately, aid
organizations cannot effectively distribute food
to those in need because of the vast pockets of
lawlessness left in the Taliban’s wake…Aid
organizations are calling for the immediate
deployment of UN-sponsored security forces to
Afghanistan, to ensure the safety of aid workers
and food convoys…It is important that the
security forces be deployed NOW, before hundreds
of thousands of people starve.
According to Adrienne Leicester Smith, our contact
at Oxfam, one of the largest NGOs working to
bring humanitarian relief to Afghanistan, the
latest figures show that at least 3 million
people face starvation in the North of the
country alone.
“The security situation
remains the largest obstacle to getting food out
to the remote villages, as traveling on roads is
very dangerous now that there is no government
whatsoever,” commented Ms. Smith.
Aid
organizations must renegotiate food distribution
on a town by town basis because in most cases
local Taliban leaders, with whom agreements on
food distribution had been previously made, have
been removed from power.
According to the
latest briefings from the World Food Program, the
humanitarian relief arm of the United Nations:
“volatile security has prevented the United
Nations from positioning international staff at
Mazar-i- Sharif in northern Afghanistan.”
This deficiency in staff has led to the
distribution of food to only 15,000 of the
estimated 250,000 people in Mazar who require
assistance.
No aid at all has been able to
reach Kandahar, which is the site of continued
fighting.
According to WFP, an estimated
238,000 people are in danger of starvation there,
and Oxfam reports that another 150,000 refugees
are stranded on the road from Kandahar to Quetta,
Pakistan without any food or shelter.
Hundreds of thousands more are in need throughout
the country, particularly in the Central
Highlands, where deteriorating weather and
security concerns have rendered important roads
impassable to aid convoys.
Oxfam and other aid
organizations have been calling for the immediate
deployment of a UN force to secure aid
distribution and some semblance of political
stability for almost two weeks.
Britain has
set aside at least 6,000 troops for this purpose,
but they have been on standby for almost three
weeks.
France has also pledged thousands of
troops for an UN-organized security force, and it
is thought that Muslim nations like Turkey and
Indonesia would participate as well.
Perhaps
the largest stumbling block for the deployment of
a more extensive peacekeeping force has been the
United States, which is concerned that the
presence of such forces in Afghanistan could
interfere with its protracted hunt for Osama bin
Laden.
The hunt for bin Laden may take years
and the Afghan people need food and stability
now.
Please take a moment to send an email to
your country’s mission to the United Nations,
asking for the immediate deployment of
UN-sponsored security forces to Afghanistan, by
following the link below:
(You can send our prewritten email or write your own):
http://www.9-11peace.org/un.php3
[ also see related items:
Behind the Jargon Lie Thousands of Dead – http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1581
War on Terror: False Victory – http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1563
Al-Jazeera TV Leads the New Arab Free Press – http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1555
Channel 4 News Special Reports: Oil Rush – http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1537
US ‘Planned Attack on Taleban’ – http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1528
The Oil Behind Bush and Son’s Campaigns – http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1513
Author: Eli, David and the 9-11peace.org team
News Service: 9-11peace.org – December 6, 2001
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