U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central Asia

Tel: +92-51-2211 451 Ext 484 
Fax: +92-51-2211 450 
e-mail: irin@irin.org.pk


Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 1
6 - 12 April 2001


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: India says Taliban a threat
AFGHANISTAN: Food stocks dwindling in northeast
AFGHANISTAN: Fears of locust plague in north
AFGHANISTAN: Influx of displaced into Herat higher than ever
AFGHANISTAN: Northern Alliance leader returns from Europe
PAKISTAN:  Limited shelter materials get through to Jalozai
PAKISTAN: Bhutto set to return to Pakistan
PAKISTAN: Muslim conference attracts 'tens-of-thousands'
PAKISTAN: Population set to double within 25 years 
PAKISTAN: Eviction draws nearer for refugees
UZBEKISTAN: IMF chief departs Tashkent
TAJIKISTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Relations strained by deportees on border
TAJIKISTAN: Afghan refugees face death and disease
TAJIKISTAN: Deputy Interior Minister assassinated

AFGHANISTAN: India says Taliban a threat

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, on a visit to Iran on Tuesday,
described Afghanistan's Taliban rulers as a threat to regional stability,
according to media reports. During this first visit by an Indian prime
minister in eight years, Vajpayee told the Iranian parliament that the
recent destruction of the ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan was a "sin
that can not be forgiven". Speaking in Hindi, he said the Taliban was a
"great threat to societies that want peace and tranquility," the BBC
reported.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Kamal Kharazi, called
on Pakistan to work with Iran and India to resolve the Afghan problem. "We
will speak to our friends in Pakistan. There is a need to change policies
towards Afghanistan, and they must encourage Afghan groups to sit down and
negotiate," he said. Both Iran and India are opposed to the Taliban and
have been accused by the regime of assisting the Afghan opposition in its
military offensive.

AFGHANISTAN: Food stocks dwindling in northeast

The United Nations warned on Wednesday that food stocks in opposition-held
northeastern areas of Afghanistan were nearing exhaustion, forcing many
residents to eat animal fodder. "Very few people have wheat or potatoes
left to eat, which is why they are eating wild foods," Stephanie Bunker,
the spokeswoman for the Office for the United Nations Coordinator for
Afghanistan, told IRIN. "Many have eaten their seeds, making the prognosis
for the next harvest particularly bleak," she said.

Bunker's comments followed recent inter-agency missions sent to
Shahr-i-Buzurg and Ragh districts of northeastern Badakhshan Province to
investigate famine reports. The teams found both districts almost
exclusively reliant on rain-fed cereal cultivation, with food stocks
nearing complete exhaustion. Although outright starvation was not evident,
they recorded an alarmingly high level of infant mortality due to a
combination of diseases - mostly measles and acute respiratory infections
- and a varying degree of chronic malnutrition.

For more details:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/afghanistan/20010411.phtml

AFGHANISTAN: Fears of locust plague in north

Millions of locusts will cause havoc in northern Afghanistan and its
neighbours if aid organisations fail to boost meagre local campaigns to
eradicate them, Taliban agriculture officials in Kabul told AFP on
Tuesday. Clusters of locusts have already attacked agricultural land in
Afghanistan's seven northern provinces, and have now moved to the far
north - the country's food basket - after drought decimated their normal
food source of wild plants. The agriculture ministry warned that despite
being kept under relative control with limited resources, the insects
could soon wipe out crops in the northern region, as well as in
neighbouring Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Up to 30 percent of
crops in the region could be under threat from the plague, the worst in
four decades, an official maintained. He called on the UN Food and
Agricultural Organisation [FAO] and the former Soviet republics to come to
their aid.

AFGHANISTAN: Influx of displaced into Herat higher than ever

The influx of internally displaced people (IDPs) into the western city of
Herat is higher than ever, the UN regional coordination officer for
Afghanistan, Hans-Christian Poulson, told IRIN on Thursday. Between 300
and 400 families are arriving each day, up from 225 a day in the first
week of April, sorely testing the ability of aid agencies to provide
adequate assistance, he said. Currently the aid community is housing and
feeding more than 120,000 IDPs among the six displaced camps in Herat.  
Despite increased food distributions by the World Food Programme, Poulson
said, "the scale of the crisis seems beyond previous predictions." With
the spring planting season ending, and drought conditions worsening, many
people who were not able to plant crops opted to move to Herat instead. As
summer approaches, water and sanitation pose the main problems, with an
urgent need for wells, Poulson added.

According to a report by the United Nations Coordinator for Afghanistan on
6 April, as many as 700,000 Afghans have left their homes since 2000 due
to drought, conflict, or a combination of both, with the majority
remaining internally displaced within Afghanistan.

AFGHANISTAN: Northern Alliance leader returns from Europe Afghan
opposition leader Ahmed Shah Masud on Tuesday urged the West to press
Pakistan to stop supporting the Taliban, according to media sources. His
plea came during a short stopover in the Tajik capital Dushanbe after a
week-long tour of western Europe. Masud told reporters there would be no
peace in Afghanistan until Pakistan changed its stance. ``The main culprit
of the continuing war in Afghanistan is Pakistan and its special services,
who for the sake of achieving their goals in the region resort to radical
forces," he said. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are
the only countries to officially recognise the Taliban as the government
of Afghanistan. Masud, an ousted defense minister, spent the last week in
France and Belgium, appealing for aid to boost the fight by supporters of
former President Burhanuddin Rabbani against the Taliban. Masud said he
was pleased with his trip, his first visit to the West, and had very
successful talks with French officials and representatives of the European
Parliament. The Taliban have sharply criticised Masud's visit, accusing
the European Parliament of fanning tension with its invitation.

PAKISTAN:  Limited shelter materials get through to Jalozai

UNHCR officials told IRIN on Thursday that they have completed the
distribution of plastic sheeting to 3,000 of the 14,000 Afghan refugee
families living at the makeshift settlement of Jalozai, near Peshawar in
northwest Pakistan. Officials added that sanitary conditions had improved
somewhat, with a total of 750 latrines, up from 550 two weeks ago. The
situation in the settlement, where more than 70,000 Afghan refugees are
camped, was reported to be calm this week.

The UN has said more than a million Afghans are facing famine this year
due to a severe drought and civil war. Of the 700,000 displaced since last
year, some 170,000 have arrived in Pakistan, joining over a million Afghan
refugees who have settled in the country since the 1979-1989 Soviet war.
Pakistan has complained that it cannot support any more refugees and has
refused to give the UN permission to provide basic assistance to many of
the new arrivals. 

PAKISTAN: Bhutto set to return to Pakistan

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto announced on 6 April she
would soon be returning to Pakistan following a Supreme Court ruling
ordering her retrial and that of her husband, Asif Zardari. The ruling
suspended a 1999 conviction and jail sentence on corruption charges. 
According to a BBC report, Bhutto, currently in self-imposed exile,
described the ruling as "a great moment", and said her party would arrange
a date for her to return after local elections later this year.  "With
this verdict the judiciary has shown that they can stand up to the forces
of dictatorship and uphold the scales of justice," the report said.

Asked to comment on this latest development, spokesman for the military
government Major General Rashid Qureshi in the capital Islamabad told IRIN
on Tuesday: "She has never been exiled by the government, nor has the
government executive any ban against her returning. There are legal
processes and cases against her and the legal processes will take their
course as it would in the case of any other Pakistani citizen.  She must
submit to the court and the court will decide."

Bhutto and her husband had been found guilty in 1999 of taking huge
kickbacks for awarding a multi-million dollar public contract to a Swiss
firm, the BBC report said. 

PAKISTAN: Muslim conference attracts 'tens-of-thousands' Tens of thousands
of Muslim men attended a three-day international Islamic conference in
northeastern Peshawar on Tuesday. The rally, designed to show the
worldwide unity of Muslims, drew delegates from Chechnya, Libya, Kosovo,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and several Arab states. Party
leaders said the 'Deobandis' conference was also designed to send a
warning to western countries that they should stop atrocities against
Muslims.  Meanwhile, confusion surrounded a statement allegedly issued at
the conference by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, wanted on terrorism
charges in the United States. Conference delegates said a recorded message
from bin Laden, calling on the Muslim world to support the Taliban, was
read out to them.  But organisers denied this: "There are only rumours
about Osama... but there has been no message from him," a conference
spokesman, Mohammad Rahim Haqqani, told Reuters. According to press
reports, bin Laden's message was said to have urged the gathering to
influence young people to go to Afghanistan for military training. Bin
Laden is wanted in the US to face charges in connection with bomb attacks
on US embassies in East Africa. The military government of Pakistan denied
showing favouritism towards Islamic groups by allowing the huge three-day
gathering, despite a ban on rallies. A government spokesman said it was a
purely religious gathering and these were permitted. During the
conference, Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar attacked the United Nations
as a western tool and urged resistance from a united Muslim front,
according to media reports. CNN reported that Pakistan blocked
Afghanistan's Taliban leaders from crossing the border to attend the
conference because the Taliban had not complied with rules laid down by
the UN Sanctions Committee. These rules state that Taliban officials have
to get permission to travel outside of Afghanistan. 

PAKISTAN: Population set to double within 25 years

The need to address the population boom is perhaps the single most
important health issue in Pakistan today. Despite a slight decline in
population growth rates, current estimates predict that Pakistan's
population, currently over 140 million, will double within 25 years,
putting unprecedented pressure on the country's already stretched
resources.  Using different growth and fertility rates, demographers
predict that the population could surge to anywhere between 230 to over
300 million people by 2025. 

For more details: 
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/pakistan/20010405c.phtml
PAKISTAN: Eviction draws nearer for refugees The refugees of Nasir Bagh, a
densely populated community of 120,000 Afghans in the provincial capital
of Peshawar in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) look set to
be evicted at the end of June. In a recent announcement, the governor of
the province, Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, said that on 30 June the refugee
camp must be razed to make room for a planned township, and delays would
not be tolerated.  Nasir Bagh is one of the oldest refugee communities in
the town. First established in the 1980s, most of the refugees residing in
the camp arrived following the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in
December 1979. The planned township project has been in the pipeline for
years, but previous governments lacked the resolve to implement it. This
governor has ordered implementation to be accelerated. According to a
report by the Pakistani daily 'The News' on 17 March, he wants the Nasir
Bagh refugees shifted to the Shamshatoo refugee camp, 30 km from Peshawar
and already home to 52,000 people. "Afghan refugees have to know that
their stay at the new site will be entirely provisional, as they will have
to go back to Afghanistan as early as possible," the governor warned.
UNHCR senior programme officer Zivan Dimato told IRIN: "If you are talking
about evicting 120,000 people without compensation, you could very well
have an uprising that could turn violent and very ugly." For more details: 
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/pakistan/20010410.phtml

UZBEKISTAN: IMF chief departs Tashkent The International Monetary Fund's
(IMF) senior representative in Uzbekistan, Christoph Rosenberg, left the
capital Tashkent this week, ending his three-year term in protest against
the government's failure to introduce a unified exchange rate. After his
departure, the fund said it would only maintain a minimal presence in the
country - one that would serve coordinating functions and not service a
full IMF assistance programme.  However the IMF action may have jolted the
Uzbek government into action on long-promised fiscal reforms. On 30 March
President Karimov wrote a letter to the IMF, reportedly reaffirming the
country's commitment to monetary reform. Karimov's letter requested that
an IMF delegation visit Uzbekistan in May with the aim of restoring
relations. If the IMF accepts Karimov's invitation, it is likely to make
naming a new Tashkent representative conditional on Uzbekistan's adoption
of a single currency exchange rate, EurasiaNet reported.  Earlier
Rosenberg told IRIN that the lack of current account convertibility was
stifling economic activity in Uzbekistan. "It reduces consumer choice and
satisfaction, provides opportunities for corruption, hinders competition
and, by distorting proper price incentives, does not enable the country to
identify the industries where it has a comparative advantage," he said. 
TAJIKISTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Relations strained by deportees on border Relations
between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have been strained following the
deportation last month of 56 ethnic Uzbek people to Tajikistan, according
to UNHCR. On 10 March, the Uzbek authorities deported 12 families to the
Tajik border as part of a security operation aimed at preventing militant
activity this year in the border provinces. Stopped by Tajik officials at
the border, the families have been forced to live in makeshift tents in
no-man's-land. 

UNHCR head in Tajikistan, Taslimur Rahman, told IRIN on Tuesday that Uzbek
authorities had initially deported 56 people, but there were now 39 people
stuck at the border. He explained that many ethnic Uzbeks had left
Tajikistan between 1992 and 1996 to settle with relatives across the
border. "These people are not refugees. They are ethnic Uzbeks with Tajik
passports, and they left Tajikistan a long time ago. Uzbekistan sent them
out, and the government here is unsure what to do," he said. The refugee
agency and Tajik authorities had provided assistance to the group, he
said. 

For more details: 
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/tajikistan/20010412.phtml


TAJIKISTAN: Afghan refugees face death and disease

The health status of 10,000 displaced Afghans camped on the Pyandj river
flood plains on the Tajik-Afghan border has "significantly deteriorated"
since the cessation in March of UN-sponsored humanitarian assistance
stopped in March, a British NGO told IRIN on Wednesday.

Medical Emergency Relief International (Merlin), the lead health agency
providing assistance to the population, warned that the conditions of the
displaced had "worsened", and that unless some food was distributed soon,
there would be an increase in disease and deaths. The Afghans, mainly
women and children, have been living on the flood plains since November
when they fled the Taliban's advance into northeastern Afghanistan.

UNHCR's relief operations for the displaced were suspended on 13 March for
fear of supporting armed fighters of the Afghan opposition Northern
Alliance living within the population. Initial relief efforts targeted the
most vulnerable, but it was found that assistance was also reaching
combatants, constituting a misuse of relief supplies intended solely for
civilians. A high-level UNHCR mission from Geneva which visited the flood
plains in February concluded that the refugee agency would only re-engage
in future assistance if the Tajik government met three conditions: that
the combatants be clearly separated from the civilians; that the civilians
be moved to a safer area; and that the Tajik authorities provide free and
unrestricted access to the Afghans by UN and NGOs. Aid workers however
told IRIN they were sceptical the conditions would be met. 

For more details: 

http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/asia/countrystories/tajikistan/20010411.phtml

TAJIKISTAN: Deputy Interior Minister assassinated

On 11 April, Tajikistan's Deputy Interior Minister, Habib Sanginov, was
killed in a terrorist attack. Sanginov's car was shot at by a group of
unidentified people near his house in a residential area of the capital
Dushanbe. Sanginov's driver and one of his bodyguards were also killed in
the attack. Media reports are conflicting as to whether a second bodyguard
was seriously injured or was killed in the gunfire. The Minister of
Interior, Lieutenant General Khumdin Sharipov, told Asia-Plus news agency
that Sanginov had been heading a special operation to crackdown on
criminal groups in Tajikistan and he said the terrorist act was the
"handywork of criminal elements." Tajik President Rahmonov has taken the
investigation of the assassination under his personal control, Sharipov
added. 

Sanginov, 51, was appointed First Deputy Minister of Interiors in 1999.
Prior to this he was based in Moscow where he headed the 'Umed'
foundation, providing support to Tajik refugees.


IRIN-Asia: Tel: +92-51-2211451 Ext 484 , Mobile +92-300-8501-307
Fax: +92-51-2211 450 or +92-51-2211475 email: irinasia@irin.org.pk


[This item is delivered in the "asia-english" service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or
to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or Web:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post
this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2000
 

distributed by
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International Disaster Information
Volunteers in Technical Assistance
                                          web: www.cidi.org
                                     listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Central Asia                       www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/casia