Weekly Round-Up - IRINCAS-38: 28-Dec-01
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: +92-51-2211451 Ext 484
Fax: +92-51-2211 450
e-mail: irin@irin.org.pk
Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 38
22 - 28 December 2001
CONTENTS:
AFGHANISTAN: Human rights situation needs to be monitored
AFGHANISTAN: Deployment of peacekeepers crucial to relief work
AFGHANISTAN: Kandahar slowly returning to normal
AFGHANISTAN: Human Rights body concerned about Pakistani fighters
AFGHANISTAN: Cold weather raises health concerns
PAKISTAN: Regional export boost
UZBEKISTAN: Aral Sea catastrophe remains unresolved
AFGHANISTAN: Human rights situation needs to be monitored
The new interim Afghan administration needs to extend its authority to
ensure that fundamental human rights are not infringed by warlords, human
right activists said on Wednesday. "A government has been installed in
Kabul. This government has to extend its writ to the provinces where
people are living under the warlords," Afrasiab Khattak, chairman of the
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) told IRIN from Peshawar, the
capital of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), on the border with
Afghanistan.
The interim government led by Hamed Karzai took control of Kabul on 22
December for six months as a first step towards a broad-based multi-ethnic
government in an effort to restore peace in the country. But Khattak
maintained that as long as the warlords were ruling parts of the country,
people could not feel safe. "They [interim government] have no mechanism
to safeguard rights of the citizens," he added.
Khattak said human rights were directly linked to the overall security
situation in the country and to aid agencies ability to deliver help in
remote regions. Millions of poor Afghans depend on food hand-outs to
survive and armed groups roam towns and major roads with impunity. "The
coalition against terror had started on a three-pronged strategy. They
were military, political and humanitarian," Khattak said, explaining that
whereas significant progress was made on the first two strategies, the
coalition had not done much on the third. "The humanitarian cause has
lagged far behind... We do not see much focus on it," Khattak added.
For full report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=18171&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Deployment of peacekeepers crucial to relief work
The establishment of peace and security through the rapid deployment of a
multinational force in the Afghan capital, Kabul, is vital to facilitating
humanitarian work, and paving the way for the country's reconstruction,
analysts and UN officials said on Monday. "Without creating a secure
environment, the interim set-up will start losing credibility with the
Afghan people," an Afghanistan analyst, Rahimullah Yusufzai, told IRIN
from Peshawar.
The new administration, led by Hamid Karzai, has daunting challenges ahead
of it. Besides security, Karzai's government needs to stimulate food
production, create jobs, launch a new education drive and improve the
economy. The political tasks ahead are equally critical for the
establishment of a broad-based government, which could bring peace and
stability to the volatile country for the first time in decades.
Last week, the UN Security Council in New York authorised an international
security force for Afghanistan - led by Britain, but also with troops from
Germany, Italy, Belgium and some other countries - to assist the interim
government in the maintenance of security in Kabul and surrounding areas.
Foreign troops could begin arriving in Kabul next week, but the bulk of
the multinational force is expected to take up to four weeks to deploy.
For full report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=18157&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Kandahar slowly returning to normal
Despite security concerns and inter-factional fighting continuing to
hamper relief efforts in and around the southeastern Afghan city of
Kandahar, things are slowly returning to normal, aid workers said on
Wednesday. The former Taliban stronghold and Afghanistan's second largest
city now awaits a stronger UN and humanitarian presence after falling to
tribal forces on 7 December. "The situation is stable, but tense," Alex
Jones, director of programmes for Mercy Corps, one of the few
international NGOs active and operating in the city, told IRIN on
Wednesday. While gunmen were seen in the streets in some parts of the city
and explosions continued to rock the city on a daily basis, traffic
wardens and rubbish collectors had resumed work in an effort to bring
order to the city, he noted.
"If you can call it that, this is a sign of a return to normality to some
degree," Jones said. While able to move freely within the city, he added
that he and his colleagues and also journalists were not allowed outside a
20-km security zone around the city. "Outside the city is quite
precarious. We still hear a lot of shooting," he said. The UN has yet to
fully reestablish itself in the city, pending security concerns.
For a full copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=18179&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Human Rights body concerned about Pakistani fighters
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Thursday reiterated
concern for what it believes to be as many as 2,000 Pakistani nationals
languishing in prisons throughout Afghanistan. The commission said most of
the men, some still in their teens, were not professional fighters, but
had only joined the Taliban against Northern Alliance forces since the
US-led retaliatory strikes on the country began on 7 October.
"Of the 4,000 prisoners being held, approximately 1,000 to 2,000 of them
are believed to be Pakistanis," HRCP Chairman Afrasiab Khattak told IRIN
from Peshawar. Khattak maintained these people were different from the
committed fighters who made up the bulk of the Taliban's forces. He said
most had not emerged from the madrasahs (religious schools), nor were they
members of militant organisations. "They were inspired by the fiery
speeches of the mullahs in the wake of the US bombings," he said. "Half of
the Pakistani nationals being held come from Malakind division in northern
NWFP, an area noted for religious fervour," he noted.
For a full report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=18234&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN: Cold weather raises health concerns
With the onset of winter, vulnerable sections of the Afghan population -
women, children and displaced people - face respiratory diseases, a major
cause of mortality in most of Afghanistan. The World Health Organisation
(WHO) has reported the death of some 164 people, mostly children, in the
displacement camps around the northern city of Konduz. "We have received
verbal reports from the authorities in Konduz that some 164 people died in
displaced people camps since its fall to anti-Taliban forces four weeks
earlier," Dr Rana Kakar, an emergency relief official with WHO told IRIN
on Wednesday in Pakistan's capital Islamabad.
She added that the situation in Konduz was not much different from the
rest of Afghanistan, where pneumonia and other respiratory infections were
a major cause of death, particularly in children. Afghanistan has one of
the highest mortality rates in the world with some 250 children out of
every 1,000 dying before they reach the age of five. "Apart from
respiratory infections, maternal and infant mortality and diarrhoea are
the major health problems in Afghanistan," she said, adding that the
prevalence of malaria had gone down after peaking in summer and late
autumn.
For full report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=18182&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN
PAKISTAN: Regional export boost
Islamabad has decided to encourage exports of several key items to
neighbouring Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries by availing
export incentives to help boost trade and to reduce prices, officials and
trade sources told IRIN on Thursday. "Those countries need those things,
the people over there need these items," Ishaq Subhani, an official of the
Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said from the port city of
Karachi. The items include pesticides, poultry feeds, veterinary
medicines, surgical instruments, processed and packed foods, milk, mineral
water, cooking oil and several others.
Government officials say the list of duty-free export items is being
expanded for Afghanistan to include all these items, which can help the
people of Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries. "This is part of
the package the government had in mind when it announced an aid package
for Afghanistan's reconstruction," a government official told IRIN.
Pakistan announced on 22 December that it would provide aid worth US $100
million for reconstruction and humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan.
Officials said at the time that they would also lift some restrictions on
the export of items badly needed by Afghanistan, and that these could also
be sent farther north into Central Asian states.
For full report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=18235&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN
UZBEKISTAN: Aral Sea catastrophe remains unresolved
While world attention focuses on events in Afghanistan, experts maintain
that no progress has been made in addressing one of the greatest
socio-environmental disasters in the world - that of the Aral Sea basin.
After decades of Soviet exploitation of desert rivers to increase cotton
and rice production, former head of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in
Uzbekistan, Ian Small, told IRIN that the international community had yet
come up with a comprehensive solution to the crisis. Small said there was
no common understanding of the crisis, while new studies continued to
rework old, discredited solutions. Meanwhile, the onus has been on the 4
million inhabitants of the basin to prove the link between a devastated
environment and sharply deteriorating public health conditions.
For full report see: http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=18147
IRIN-Asia
Tel: +92-51-2211451
Fax: +92-51-2292918
Email: IrinAsia@irin.org.pk
[This Item is Delivered to 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.irinnews.org . 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 2001
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