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

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Central Asia
IRIN-CAS Weekly Round-up 141
6 - 12 December 2003


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: MSF suspends activities at southern IDP camp
AFGHANISTAN: Homeless returnees face bitter winter
AFGHANISTAN: Profile of a provincial jail
AFGHANISTAN: Focus on rights abuses in Baghlan Province
AFGHANISTAN: Reintegration of disarmed combatants begins
AFGHANISTAN: First-ever livestock census indicates huge downturn
TAJIKISTAN: Interview with OSCE on human rights
TAJIKISTAN: Consolidated appeal launched amid humanitarian improvements
PAKISTAN: UNHCR to move Afghan refugees from camp by March
PAKISTAN: Polluted water supplied to 21 cities
PAKISTAN: ADB grant to strengthen financial management projects
PAKISTAN: Interview with leading activist on Human Rights Day
KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on dying mining towns
UZBEKISTAN: Bridging the digital divide
UZBEKISTAN: Rights groups slam government for cancelling capital 
  punishment conference
UZBEKISTAN: Focus on IDPs in Surkhandarya
KAZAKHSTAN: Eight haemorrhagic fever cases hospitalised
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap


AFGHANISTAN: MSF suspends activities at southern IDP camp

The international agency Medicins Sans Frontieres Holland (MSF) announced
on 6 December that it would suspend its activities in the Zhare Dasht camp
for internally displaced persons (IDPs) near the southern city of
Kandahar, in the wake of recent attacks on aid workers in the south of the
country. "The whole build-up of incidents made us decide that it was no
longer safe to travel on the 30-km road from Kandahar to Zhare Dasht IDP
camp. If we look at the incidents in the south, the majority have taken
place while travelling, therefore we decided not to take that road and
suspended our activities," Nelke Manders, the MSF head of mission, told
IRIN in Kabul on Monday, stressing that the measure was temporary and that
MSF was still operating in Kandahar and other parts of the country.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38286&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Homeless returnees face bitter winter

Shafiqah had to spend Wednesday night out on the hillside with her seven
children as recent rainfall had washed away the homeless returnee's tent
in the Jangalak mountain area of the capital, Kabul. "It is very hard to
pass the cold night out here with hungry stomachs," the mother of seven
who had returned from neighboring Pakistan told IRIN.  Shafiqah said hers
was one of hundreds of homeless families squatting in the 450-tent colony
with no employment and only minimal assistance from government or the
international aid community. "Food and shelter are the direst needs here,"
she said. Homeless returnees told IRIN that the chilling cold of Kabul was
exacerbating their vulnerability. "We are the least skilled people, and
since winter has already started, construction work and other wage labour
chances are considerably decreasing," said Faqir Mohammad, the
representative of Jangalak camp. Mohammad said they had not received any
regular assistance from either government or aid organisations except some
winter items just recently.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38371&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Profile of a provincial jail

The voices of people yelling "Food food, food, we want our rights," mixed
with the din of empty plates and dishes being knocked together rang out
from the tiny dark windows of the Pol-e Khomri provincial jail in the
northeastern Baghlan Province. When IRIN visited it, the inmates were on
hunger strike in protest against insufficient food and poor living
conditions in the antiquated and overcrowded facility. "We are sleeping on
water in the tiny collapsed cells with inadequate food and no medicine.
Every month, one room collapses and more prisoners are added to the number
in the other rooms. This is like the harshest torture," Nur Mohammad, 25,
a prisoner in the jail, told IRIN. Mohammad said there were 13 people in
his poorly ventilated, dark cell. Almost all of the cells were like
Mohammad's. The stench of human misery, the muddy floors and
sickly-looking prisoners shivering in their thin blankets complete the
picture. "We have had ministers and human rights people visiting here, but
there is no change," said Mohammad.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38372&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Focus on rights abuses in Baghlan Province

Mohammad Amin had to knock on many official doors during his struggle to
regain his farmland after it was confiscated by a local commander in his
village of Kaylahgay in the northeastern Baghlan Province. "After several
months of endeavour, I had to stop trying to get my land back, when the
final person I was referred to was the commander who took my land in the
first place," the 40-year-old farmer told IRIN in Pol-e Khomri, the
capital of Baghlan Province. Amin said he was one of tens of people whose
land had been forcibly seized by commanders in Baghlan Province. "They
[commanders] cultivate our lands by growing poppy and other crops for
their own business," said the father of seven, who had also been hounded
out of his village after his land was confiscated. "I was threatened with
death if I did not leave the village after the commander realised I had
officially complained about him."

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38336&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: Reintegration of disarmed combatants begins

Ahmad Mursal is a 42-year-old ex-soldier who has recently exchanged his
AK-47 assault rifle for a plough. After a quarter of a century in the
military, he is adjusting to his new job as a farmer just outside the
northeastern city of Konduz. Mursal, who still has his militia scarf
wrapped around his head, handed in his rifle last week during a pilot
disarmament programme in the region, receiving in return US $200,
household food, wheat and fertilisers. His package included the a cow, as
part of the UN-backed Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR)
programme. "It is promising, and so far so good, I hope the situation will
let us continue this new life and new career," the father of six told
IRIN. Mursal said he was happy because now at least he had control over
his future; before he had been a virtual slave to his commander.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38314&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: First-ever livestock census indicates huge downturn

An historic livestock census in Afghanistan shows that livestock,
devastated by four years of drought and many more of war, could take up to
10 years to regenerate naturally, according to the UN's Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO). "It is the first-ever livestock census in
Afghanistan," Etienne Careme, an FAO information and liaison officer, told
IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul, adding that an earlier exercise,
conducted by the FAO in 1995, had been just a survey. "The particularity
of the 2003 livestock census is that it is a census," Careme explained,
pointing out that the collected data covered 3,044,670 families in 53,214
communities across 36,724 villages. Preliminary results show that there
are 3.7 million head of cattle in Afghanistan, 8.8 million sheep, 7.3
million goats, 1.6 million donkeys, 180,000 camels, 140,000 horses and
12.2 million units of poultry, an earlier FAO press release said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38281&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN

TAJIKISTAN: Interview with OSCE on human rights

Since gaining independence after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991,
Tajikistan, an impoverished nation of almost 7 million, has faced
innumerable challenges on its way to peace and stability. Tajikistan's new
role in the global campaign against terrorism served to attract greater
international attention and created space for some important human rights
reforms. To coincide with Human Rights Day on Wednesday, Riccardo Lepri,
Human Dimension Officer for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, shared with IRIN his
insight into the state of human rights in the country.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38333&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN: Consolidated appeal launched amid humanitarian improvements

The local launch of the Consolidated Interagency Appeals Process (CAP) for
Tajikistan for next year comes amid gradual signs of improvement in the
former Soviet Republic, where over 83 percent of the population lives
below the poverty line and a full 17 percent are considered destitute.
"This is a transitional appeal," Paul Handley, the officer-in-charge of
the Tajikistan branch of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told IRIN in the capital, Dushanbe on
Thursday. "Although we acknowledge there are remaining humanitarian needs,
given the progress and continuing improvements in the country's stability
and economic development, this approach has been premised on longer-term
sectoral strategies we have developed with the government."

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38359&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=TAJIKISTAN

PAKISTAN: UNHCR to move Afghan refugees from camp by March

Just over 10,000 Afghan refugees sheltered in a remote refugee camp in the
Khyber Agency, about 70 km from Peshawar, the capital of the North West
Frontier Province (NWFP), are to be offered a choice between repatriation
and or relocation to another camp in Pakistan by March, according to an
official of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) official. "The decision to either repatriate or relocate
the people in Shalman Camp has been under discussion for several months
with both the refugees and the government of Pakistan," Jack Redden, a
UNHCR spokesman, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Friday.
Shalman Camp, which had to be supplied with water by tanker trucks
provided by UNHCR, was plagued by unbearably hot summers and bitterly cold
winters, a UNHCR press release said. The decision to move the 10,000
refugees from Shalman, had been influenced by the fact it is sited in a
waterless valley near the Khyber Pass and by the logistical difficulties
faced in providing it with humanitarian services, it added.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38393&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: Polluted water supplied to 21 cities

A national water-quality monitoring survey has shown that at least 21
Pakistani cities supply polluted water unfit for consumption, according to
an official. "Actually, this report covers just the first phase of what is
a five-year project," Aslam Tahir, the director of the national
water-quality monitoring programme at the Pakistan Council for Research in
Water Resources (PCRWR), told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad. The report
listed the various pollutants found in the water supplies of 21 major
cities country-wide and found that the available water was unfit for human
consumption, he said. "In the report, we have made our recommendations
and, if some implementing agency takes up our recommendations, they can
improve the quality of supplied water," he added.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38395&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: ADB grant to strengthen financial management projects

A technical assistance (TA) grant of US $150,000 is to be awarded to the
Pakistan government by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to help it
strengthen the financial management capacity of project management units
at the federal and provincial levels, according to an official. "Most
development projects need quite substantial input in terms of efficient
management of accounts, so that projects can be delivered more efficiently
and help us achieve our goal of poverty alleviation and social
development," Marshuk Ali Shah, the ADB country representative, told IRIN
in the capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday. The TA had three major components -
financial management, audit and training - with each implemented by a team
of experienced domestic experts who would work closely with staff from key
Pakistani government departments, such as that of the auditor-general and
that of the controller-general of accounts, in conjunction with ADB
resident mission staff, an ADB press release said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38313&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: Interview with leading activist on Human Rights Day

Human rights in Pakistan has not fared well since General Pervez Musharraf
seized control of the government in a bloodless coup on 12 October 1999.
There has been little improvement in the plight of the country's
impoverished population of 140 million. Civil society remains weak and
opposition to military rule is quickly stifled. As the world celebrates
Human Rights Day on Wednesday, IRIN interviewed Afrasiab Khattak, one of
the country's most outspoken activists in his office in Perhawar,
provincial capital of North West Frontier province (NWFP). The articulate
former chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), and now
senior leader of the opposition Awari National Party (ANP), painted a
bleak picture of rights in Musharraf's Pakistan.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38347&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN

KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on dying mining towns

Life in small industrial towns in southern Kyrgyzstan continues to ebb
away in the face of an ongoing crisis in the country's mining industry.
Nayman is an urbanised settlement, named after the nomadic tribe that used
to live in this part of Kyrgyzstan, some 70 km west of Osh, was founded at
the end of 1950s with the primary aim of housing workers in the local
mining industry. It was built, like other similar towns in Soviet times,
by prisoners. Nayman also had plants to produce mercury, fire-bricks and
shoes. Today, however, all this has gone, and half the town is in ruins
due to the recession affecting the mining industry. "Industrial buildings
are dismantled for bricks - everything is sold, houses and buildings are
condemned," Shakhzada Jakypova, a 35-year-old local resident told IRIN in
Nayman.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38335&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KYRGYZSTAN

UZBEKISTAN: Bridging the digital divide

As delegates sit down in Geneva at the World Summit on the Information
Society on Wednesday, in Uzbekistan the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) along with the government, NGOs and the private sector
are busy trying to bring information and communications technology (ICT)
to more Uzbeks outside the capital, Tashkent.  Strolling through the
capital's centre, with an Internet cafe on virtually every corner, it is
easy to gain the impression that despite its poverty and landlocked
isolation, Uzbekistan is becoming a wired society. But in common with many
middle-income developing societies, appearances are deceptive.
"Connectivity is a huge issue outside the capital," Nazar Talibjanov, the
manager of the Uzbekistan Development Gateway Programme (UDGP), told IRIN.
He pointed out that prestigious educational facilities like the University
of Nukus, in the west of the country, were battling with one, slow,
dial-up line in order to get connected to the Internet. Other
institutions, government or otherwise, even in the capital, are in a
similar position.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38345&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN

UZBEKISTAN: Rights groups slam government for cancelling capital
punishment conference

International and local human rights groups have criticised the Uzbek
government's recent decision to disallow the holding of a conference to
discuss capital punishment in the country. "We were told that the
conference was banned 12 hours before its [scheduled] beginning," Tamara
Chikunova, the head of Mothers Against the Death Penalty and Torture, a
local rights group, told IRIN from the capital, Tashkent, on Monday,
adding that they had been told on 4 December at 19:00 local time that the
authorities decided to disallow it. The rights group had been planning to
hold a conference under the theme: "The Death Penalty: Analysis,
Tendencies and Realities" in Tashkent on 5 December, sponsored by the
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the British
embassy, Freedom House and the OSCE's Warsaw-based Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights, Chikunova said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38282&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN

UZBEKISTAN: Focus on IDPs in Surkhandarya

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Istiklol village, 60 km away from
Termez, the administrative centre of the southern Surkhandarya Province,
face real challenges this winter, having to live as they do in derelict
houses with electricity and gas supplies sporadic and access to potable
water limited. "Every day my daughters go to nearby fields to work for
farmers to earn something that we could use for food this winter. Sons go
up to Termez town to find a job," said Jumakul Muhitdinov, 62, the
chairman of the Istiklol Mahalla [locational] Committee, who is
desperately worried about his family's future. "Today they worked at the
butchery and were given offal - a cow's head and intestines," he added. He
has 12 children; four sons now live separately with their own families in
the same village. But he still has to take care of the others, as his
youngest son is only nine years old.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38284&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN

KAZAKHSTAN: Eight haemorrhagic fever cases hospitalised

Eight residents in districts of Western Kazakhstan Province bordering on
Russia have been hospitalised over the last two months having been
diagnosed as suffering from haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS).
"We have eight cases in November and December. The districts where these
cases have been registered are part of an extension of the disease's
natural breeding ground in the border districts of the Russian
Federation," Albert Askarov, the head of the Kazakh health ministry's
epidemiological inspection department, told IRIN from the capital, Astana,
on Tuesday. He also noted that there had been an increase in the rodent
population in the region this year, this being the main factor responsible
for local people being infected.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38311&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=KAZAKHSTAN

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on 6 December
urged Kazakhstan, which has been enjoying one of the highest GDP growth
rates among the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS),
to diversify its economy beyond the Caspian oil and gas sector in order to
ensure long-term stability. "You have to provide Kazakhstan with the
capacity to face future commodity price shocks, you have to provide new
opportunities outside the oil sector," said Jean Lemierre, president of
the EBRD. His comments followed criticism that a substantial part of
Kazakhstan's population had yet to benefit from the burgeoning oil
industry investment and revenues. According to some sources, nearly
one-third of Kazakhstan's 15-million population lives in poverty, with
around a million of them reliant on untreated river water for drinking.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38403&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA


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