15 May 2001

Afghanistan’s Plight in the ‘New Great Game’

By Rahab S Hawa

While the international community was quick to condemn the Islamic Taliban regime in Afghanistan for the senseless and vengeful destruction of the ancient Buddhist statues in Bamiyan, it has yet to act decisively on the impending disaster that is unraveling in the war torn, drought stricken nation.

In fact, the fatwa (edict) issued by the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to destroy Afghanistan’s ancient heritage is an act of desperation to draw the world’s attention to the situation of its people in the country.

In late April, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that ‘the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has reached alarming proportions and is likely to worsen’.

An agriculture survey in 24 Afghan provinces by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) released in late April said that one third of the impoverished farmers it surveyed will plant less than half of the land they normally sow because of drought and a lack of seed, according to a Reuters report on 26 April.

Aid workers say the lack of employment and economic ruin caused by 21 years of war and a 12-year long drought, the worst in 30 years, has forced half a million Afghans to become displaced.

According to Reuters, some half of the country’s 21 million people have been affected by the drought and nearly three million were dependent on food aid for survival, says Gerard van Dijk, WFP Afghanistan country director.

Latest UN figures showed that the numbers who have fled Afghanistan because of war or drought have exceeded 700,000 since mid-2000 alone. More than 200,000 have come to Pakistan. The latter hosts more than two million Afghan refugees and can no longer accept more, whilst Iran has started deporting refugees.

Afghanistan’s neighbours, Iran and Pakistan, are now home to nearly four million refugees who fled the Soviet Afghan war of 1979-89. Over the last 20 years, Afghanis have become the world’s largest refugee population.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans urgently need every basic human requirement - food, water, latrines, shelter, medicine and clothing. The UN predicts a major crisis if there is no immediate international help. In fact, it has received little from donors or to its request for assistance.

The international community, which does not recognize the Taliban regime, is increasingly reluctant to aid Afghanistan.

On top of this, the UN decision to cutback funding on demining operations will cost more lives and set back efforts to rebuild the shattered country. The decision in September 2000 to scale down by 50 percent its efforts through its Mine Action Programme will add to the ranks of amputees, beggars and widows in the world’s most mined country.

‘The decision is an injustice against our people,’ said Mohammad Ismael Yosufzai, Mine Dog Centre operations manager, one of the half dozen demining agencies funded by the UN, according to an AFP news report dated 7 September 2000.

He said this meant that agricultural land, irrigation canals, roads, schools and other facilities would remain off limits as Afghanistan struggles to cope with severe drought and ongoing ravages of civil war.

‘Meanwhile, new mines are being laid everyday as the ruling Taliban militia continue to battle opposition forces in various parts of the country,’ said AFP.

The news release added that: ‘Everyday, 10 to 12 Afghans fall victim to landmines laid during the 1978-1988 Soviet occupation and the ensuing internecine fighting between Afghan factions’.

In his report to the UN Security Council highlighting the humanitarian crisis, Kofi Annan has urged member states to contribute generously to the UN’s $250 million appeal for Afghanistan, saying they were partly to blame for the country’s plight.

‘The international community having failed to remain engaged in Afghanistan following the departure of the forces of the former USSR, bears a large share of responsibility for Afghanistan’s current plight,’ he said in an AFP press release on 25 April 2001.

The tragedy unfolding in Afghanistan is the result of the role played by the US and its Muslim allies in the internal affairs of the country.

Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on 24 December 1979, the US gave full support to the Islamic resistance against the Soviet-backed regime. Between 1979-89, the CIA poured some $5-6 billion in aid to the Islamic Afghan guerillas.

Washington’s aid of guns and money was to foster the appearance of warlords, warring factions, poppy production and trafficking in opium, chaos and anarchy and criminal elements indulging in plunder, kidnappings, killings and rape.

Whatever social order that existed in Afghanistan was destroyed such that five years after the Soviet army left, the Afghan freedom fighters had turned the country into ‘a breeding ground for drugs and terrorism’.

Out of this chaos, the Taliban emerged in the mid-1990s and by September 1996, they had seized Kabul, the capital, and today control more than 90 per cent of the country. When they came to power, they proved to be as ruthless as the Islamic factions they overthrew.

Although they brought some semblance of order into Afghan society, the Taliban have not endeared themselves to the international community with their brand of orthodox Islam, in their regressive policies towards women, their systematic and gross human rights violations, which were widely reported and their role in the narcotics trade. Until recently, Afghanistan was the world’s largest producer of opium, the source of much of the heroin sold in Europe.

Once the Soviet army left, the US not only washed its hands off Afghanistan, but imposed punitive sanctions on the Taliban regime as the anti-US Osama bin Laden, whom the US regards as ‘Public Enemy Number One’, is sheltered there.

Russia supports the sanctions because it claims that the Taliban are training Chechen separatists to fight the Russians. They are convinced that the Taliban are out to destabilise the former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

The second round of UN sanctions imposed in December was sponsored by the US and Russia. The most immediate effect of the sanctions will be to worsen the living conditions for the people of Afghanistan resulting in a humanitarian catastrophe. The ten years of Soviet occupation was followed by 12 years of civil war.

Observers say that the war and devastation coupled with the drought could cause the death of between 500,000 to one million people this winter.

The shortage of food and medicines will lead to more deaths and drive thousands into neighbouring countries, destabilising the region. But the international community has done almost nothing to halt the human tragedy.

Despite the deepening crisis, heavy fighting has erupted between the two sides marking the start of a new spring offensive.

Just as Afghanistan had been the pawn in the imperial struggle between the British Empire and Russia in the 19^th century, it continues to be fought over by economic and political interests using their Islamic proxies.

The ‘new great game’ in present day Afghanistan is the struggle for oil and gas pipeline deals involving the intrigues of its neighbours and the US, out to secure their economic and strategic objectives.

Afghanistan’s problems will endure so long as the economic and geopolitical stakes remain high in the Central Asian region.

Almost totally isolated internationally, the new round of UN sanctions can only drive the Taliban further into desperate and dangerous brinkmanship, while the long suffering Afghanis pay the price.