Relief agencies call for bombing pause
in Afghanistan
'Time is running out' for 7 million starving
Afghans as winter approaches
by Chris Herlinger and Cedric Pulford, Ecumenical News
International
[11-07-01]
NEW YORK CITY - 5-November-2001 - A number of
prominent religious and secular relief organizations are calling for a
suspension of the United States-led bombing of Afghanistan so that food
can be delivered prior to the onset of Afghanistan's harsh winter.
In the United States, Oxfam America said it was
issuing the call because the bombing campaign had made it significantly
more difficult for the agency to do its work. Truckers and laborers were
increasingly unwilling to drive into Afghanistan or to work on relief
convoys for fear of the bombing, the agency said.
"It is now evident that we cannot, in reasonable
safety, get food to hungry Afghan people," Oxfam America President
Raymond C. Offenheiser said in a statement. "We've reached the
point where it is simply unrealistic for us to do our job in
Afghanistan. We've run out of food, the borders are closed, we can't
reach our staff and time's running out."
The United Nations has estimated that more than 7
million Afghans need food aid. If the bombing campaign continues and
food aid cannot reach those who need it, "we fear there will be
huge loss of life and unspeakable suffering this winter,"
Offenheiser said.
Winters in Afghanistan - a nation with mountainous and
desert terrain - are harsh and usually begin in November, when snow cuts
off isolated rural areas, making it extremely difficult to deliver food
to villages in particular need of assistance.
Oxfam urged all military forces in Afghanistan -
including the Taliban, the Northern Alliance (the opposition forces
fighting the Taliban) and the United States and British-led forces - not
to target or impede trucks and vehicles trying to carry food into
Afghanistan.
Church World Service (CWS), the relief and development
agency affiliated with the National Council of Churches in the USA, also
called for a pause in the bombing. At the least, the U.S. military
"should identify and allow for 'safe corridors' for the delivery of
humanitarian assistance," CWS said in an advisory note for
constituents.
Even during times of war and conflict, humanitarian
agencies have traditionally been given access to civilians who require
aid, Rick Augsburger, director of the Emergency Response Program of CWS,
pointed out.
Jonathan Frerichs, a spokesman for Lutheran World
Relief, based in Baltimore, MD, said that poor security caused by the
war had limited the movement of aid truck drivers and aid workers.
Bombings and seizures of aid storage facilities and vehicles had also
compounded the problems, and distribution had become more difficult.
Meanwhile, as people are displaced from their homes,
the need for food assistance has risen by as much as 50 per cent,
Frerichs told ENI - and less than half the level of food aid is being
shipped in today than was before the current crisis.
Pax Christi USA, a national Catholic peace movement
has appealed to the Bush administration to suspend the bombing.
"The current conditions for civilians in
Afghanistan as well as the swelling refugee camps along the Pakistani
border portend a human disaster of cataclysmic proportions," the
organization said in a statement. "The U.S. bombing campaign has
all but halted relief deliveries. The bombing campaigning must be
suspended immediately."
In the United Kingdom, a bombing pause has been
demanded by six British development agencies: the religious-linked
Christian Aid, CAFOD, Tearfund and Islamic Relief, as well as Oxfam
International and ActionAid.
Christian Aid, which is supported by Britain's
mainstream churches, warned that "time is running out" to
provide food for the population at risk during the Afghan winter.
Christian Aid spokeswoman Judith Melby told ENI on
Oct. 31 that imports of more than 8,600 tons of food per day were
required to meet survival targets, but that this level was not being
achieved.
"There's only two weeks to go [before the
expected onset of winter]," she said. "Food is needed for
stockpiling as well as daily requirements. When winter comes two
provinces will be completely cut off."
Keith Ewing of Tearfund, an evangelical aid agency,
said the U.S. and Britain were in breach of the Geneva Conventions of
1949 and their protocols. These provided that relief should be available
to civilian populations.
"It applies to both sides. The bombing is
obstructing the delivery of relief," he told ENI. "The
Taliban, too, have obligations, to see that aid is not lost or
commandeered."
An authoritative poll has indicated that more than
half of Britons [54 per cent] want a pause in the bombing to allow
humanitarian aid into Afghanistan. The poll also found that support for
the bombing campaign in general is dropping in Britain, the United
States' key military ally.
The poll of 1,000 adults by the ICM organization,
published in the Guardian newspaper on Oct. 30, found that fewer than
two-thirds (62 per cent) supported the bombing campaign - down 12
percentage points over two weeks.
