22 October 2001
Byliner: USAID Administrator Natsios on Humanitarian Aid to Afghanistan
(Cites long-term commitment to helping the Afghan people) (490)
[The following article is in the public domain]
Feed the People
By Andrew Natsios
(The author is the U.S. Agency for International Development
Administrator)
Let the world be clear -- the United States and other donor nations
have worked to feed the Afghan people since long before the Taliban
regime took control of Afghanistan -- and the U.S. is committed to
helping the Afghan people long after the Taliban pass away. In the
last year, prior to September 11, the U.S. government provided $174
million in humanitarian aid to the Afghan people.
The United States, partner nations, and international aid agencies are
engaged in the critical task of providing for a population now on the
brink of starvation. The United States alone provides 80 percent of
all food aid entering Afghanistan. We are committed to our role as the
lead donor of food aid to the Afghan people.
Even before the current crisis, civil war and Taliban misrule had
already created 3.5 million refugees. Three years of drought threatens
as many as seven million people with famine.
Let the world be clear -- the Taliban's actions in stonewalling relief
efforts, is making the delivery of life-saving assistance more and
more difficult. NGOs are now reporting increasingly persistent Taliban
interference with international aid distribution. Doctors Without
Borders reported that several of its compounds in Mazar-e-Sharif and
Kandahar were looted of medical and nutritional aid, in the process
cutting off six Afghan provinces from sorely needed assistance. The
International Organization for Migration also reported that its
offices in Mazar-e-Sharif have been looted, its vehicles stolen and
its local staff robbed and beaten.
Human Rights Watch reports attacks by the Taliban on other aid
agencies. The World Food Program reported October 16 that the Taliban
seized two of their six warehouses, storing almost 7,000 metric tons
of grain meant for distribution throughout Afghanistan. While the WFP
has regained control of its warehouses for now, there is no doubt that
the Taliban will continue to disrupt relief efforts.
NGOs, whose food aid comes largely from the United States, are
persisting in efforts to deliver food and medicines into critical
Afghan areas. Today, 165,000 metric tons of food, most of it from the
United States, are now enroute to Afghanistan, significantly boosting
the 48,000 tons now in the region.
We must persist in our efforts because the Afghan population is at
grave risk. The most vulnerable include small children, pregnant women
and the elderly. The United States and its coalition seek to address
the suffering of the Afghan people, and to lift the terrorist scourge
that blights the life of the Afghan nation.
[Preceding article is in the public domain]
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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