UN chief warns of danger signals

UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan Erick de Mul on Tuesday compared the war-torn country to the ‘Titanic’, referring to the liner’s perceived “invincibility”, its officers’ reluctance to take note of danger signals, and their total neglect of possibilities for rescue.

De Mul’s remarks came during the opening session of a two-day joint United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] and World Bank conference in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, to explore ways of bringing analytical work more into the mainstream of assistance programmes for Afghanistan.

His comments and the timing of the international conference come amid mounting concern over the Taliban’s restriction of the humanitarian operating environment in Afghanistan.
Increased harassment of aid workers has been followed this week by the cancellation of UN-scheduled flights to Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, the cutting of electricity to the UN office in Jalalabad, and the closure of a regional school. The Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has increasingly engaged in indiscriminate arrests.

“The latest incident was when a bunch burst into Herat hospital, taking doctors out, including one who was operating on a patient - who subsequently died,” de Mul said. Surprisingly, hospital staff, medical students and civilians took to the streets in demonstration, he added.

Prominent Pakistani writer and author Ahmed Rashid has predicted that the Taliban are on the verge of wanting all foreigners and NGOs out of the country. “The Taliban are trying to create a situation where you [the UN] will leave on your own. I easily foresee a situation where they will seize all assets of the UN, including vehicles, and will seize WFP food and seed. It is quite feasible we are looking at a completely new situation for the UN,” Rashid said.

He maintained that these were “real issues that could be faced by the UN agencies in the next few weeks”. Such an ultimatum could be triggered on the battlefield or by the 15 June deadline for the Taliban to reconsider their refusal to allow the WFP to recruit women to conduct a survey of Kabul’s “most needy” recipients of its long-time bakery project, Rashid said.

De Mul stated there was no doubt that the Taliban’s position over the past 18 months had “hardened tremendously”. The war effort has been stepped up with 30,000 fighters massed in the northeastern Taloqan area who were not “regular” soldiers, but were prepared to sacrifice their lives.
Moreover, fighters of the opposition Northern Alliance have been reinforced, to the extent of matters potentially culminating in what de Mul forecast as “enormous” casualties and collateral damage.

If sustained fighting continued, he expected “a number of civilians killed and a number of civilians on the move”. The humanitarian coordinator estimated that the number of displaced Afghans would top one million in the coming months, a cumulative effect of war and drought, with the number of refugees also likely to increase.
Despite this prognosis, there is still a very clear neglect by authorities to deliver “basic services” to the Afghan people.

“The only investment we see is in roads and communications, which serves the war effort,” de Mul maintained. The smuggling industry also benefits by such investment, allowing traffickers to stay in business and to continue paying taxes to the Taliban authorities.

The UN-led peace process has foundered, with little willingness by either warring side, especially the Taliban, to take negotiations seriously. “It is getting worse. The possibilities for dialogue are now worse due to the UNSMA [UN Special Mission to Afghanistan] closures, and the Taliban’s refusal to take part in a peace process brokered by the UN,” de Mul said.

Ultimately, the UN was “stuck on all sides”, the humanitarian coordinator concluded. The only way forward, he believed, was to close the current chapter and begin a new initiative.
One such proposal was to invite Afghanistan’s neighbouring states into a collective forum on Afghanistan. “It could be an attempt to better inform these countries on the Afghan situation,” he said.

While de Mul pointed to the influence of “super-radicals from Gulf countries and Arab states” on the increasingly hard line adopted by the Taliban, he said the international community had also played a role. After an eight-month absence, the decision to return international staff, but to make an exception of US and UK citizens, lost credibility for the UN, he maintained.

“This was the first blow to [bring] the Taliban [to the realisation] that the UN was not a neutral organisation. This was followed by sanctions. They were followed by smart sanctions, then a non-response to the ban on poppy [cultivation]. Then the glorious visit of the leader of the Northern Alliance to Europe. If we had wanted to irritate people and make engagement more difficult, then this is the recipe that should have been followed,” he said.

Meanwhile, the situation for the Afghan people is deteriorating. In this third year of drought, and facing a potential fourth year, the majority of civilians are at the stage at which it is becoming “difficult for them to survive”. The ability of the UN and NGOs to get relief to rural areas, in order to stem the flow of movement to neighbouring cities, is “limited”. “It has been possible to only just keep ahead of the situation in the IDP [internally displaced people] camps.

Not only the agriculture sector is directly affected [but] we are seeing increasing problems in the water sector. Drinking water is scarce, water for agriculture is not available,” he said. The UN expects the recovery of the water tables to take between three to four years. This diagnosis, together with the time it will take to reconstitute the devastated livestock sector, adds up to a “terrible situation”.
The good news, however, is that the Taliban are now “considering the reality” of the bakery closures, with the 15 June deadline imminent. The rumour was that the authorities had approached Saudi dissident and Taliban supporter Usama bin Ladin for financial support in the event of the bakeries closing, de Mul said. He said he was encouraged by indications that Bin Ladin had agreed to the proposal, the result of which would be to divert money used for the war away to meet the needs of the Afghan people.