Military

DATE=11-28-01

TYPE=Dateline

NUMBER=7-35622

TITLE= Dateline: Rebuilding Afghanistan

BYLINE=Pat Bodnar

TELEPHONE=619-0720

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Nancy Smart

CONTENT=

INTRO: The Northern Alliance and the U.S.-led coalition is continuing its fight against remaining Taleban forces and the al Quaida terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden. To date, thousands of Afghans have fled the fighting, resulting to a vast humanitarian crisis in the country. Some, according to observers, are already beginning to return. International aid agencies will be called upon to help feed, clothe and house those Afghan refugees, while working with the successor government to rebuild the country. Pat Bodnar has more on the challenges facing these international agencies in this Dateline report.

PB: While the military effort continues on the ground in Afghanistan, the international community is looking ahead to reconstruction of the country. The retreat of the Taleban has created an opening to provide massive relief for war-weary civilians. Heading the relief efforts are the U.S.-led coalition and international aid agencies. In addition to food, there is a need for water, sewage systems, de-mining operations, health and education. International experts estiamte that rebuilding Afghanistan, already ravaged by years of war, will take years and cost billions of dollars. Andrew Natsios, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, is helping coordinate the relief effort for the Bush Administration. Mr. Natsios just returned from Afghanistan.

TAPE: CUT 1, NATSIOS ACT :16.

"If you drew a line through the center of the country east to west, the northern half is where seventy-five percent of the people are at risk, either from the famine because of the drought, or internally displaced from the conflict. That is where we need to focus our attention now and the Taleban is practically gone from those areas."

PB: The United Nations Development Program has already drawn up reconstruction guidelines that will span a period of five to eight years. The head of the U-N Development Program, Mark Malloch-Brown says the commitment to rebuilid Afghanistan must begin now.

TAPE: CUT 2 MALLOCH-BROWN ACT :31

"It is extremely important to get a five-year plan covering recovery and reconstruction, and get as close to "bankable" (reliable) commitments now for the five-years if possible. The real costs come in years three, four, and five. So I am anxious to get an early credible figure that covers the full five-years and try to get commitments to that figure from donors."

PB: Rebuilding Afghanistan is not just a charitable act, but a part of the administration's strategy to help Afghans live better lives. In a major policy speech in Kentucky recently, Secretary of State Colin Powell explained how the United States is helping the relief effort.

TAPE: CUT 3 POWELL :48

"Compare the Taleban's deprivations with the response of the international community to the plight of the Afghan people. We are feeding millions of Afghans put at risk by drought, famine and Taleban mis-rule. Before we were able to go in on the ground, we dropped food from the air. Now we are using airplanes, trucks, barges, even donkeys, anything that will get food into these destitute people before the winter arrives in force. We are working with the international community and the Afghan people to help them rebuild their country."

PB: Hiram Ruiz of the U.S. Committee for Refugeesone of the non-governmental aid agencies working in Afghanistan--says efforts to help the country are complicated by the various factions that are looting and stealing relief supplies.

TAPE: CUT 4 HIRAM RUIZ :30

"In the north, prior to the Taleban's collapse or withdrawal, the Taleban was one of the main sources of problem on the ground, they were seizing vehicles and looting offices of international organizations. Now that the Taleban are gone, I think there is less of that happening, but there is still a lot of banditry. There are a lot of armed groups out there that are not loyal to anyone in particular and they still pose a threat."

PB: As the first harsh blasts of winter begin to strike the country, half-a-million or more Afghans remain homeless and half-starved inside their own country. Those who have the means fled across the border to Pakistan. Pakistan, in the eyes of some observers, became a reluctant host to roughly two million Afghans. VOA's Ayuz Gul visited one makeshift camp in southern Pakistan (Quetta) where many women and children have taken refuge from the fighting between the Taleban and coalition forces.

TAPE: CUT 5 GUL CR 5-50423 EDITED 1:23

"Many of the refugees are being received at a temporary camp the United Nations has set up near the town of Chaman, about two kilometers from the Afghan border. The area is dusty, inhospitable and has a limited supply of water. The United Nations is expected to move the camp's two thousand residents to a more suitable site. But they are worried about the number of new arrivals arriving at the makeshift facility every day.

(SFX/Workers processing new arrivals, fades under)

Most of the refugees who are being registered here come from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and neighboring regions, an area that has been heavily targeted by U-S airstrikes. Refugees like Jameela Bibi say it took them several days to reach the Chaman border crossing.

BIBI ACT IN PASHTO, FADE UNDER

'She says the U-S was bombing, that's why they left Kandahar. Her five-year-old son was killed in one of the attacks, and she says each and every resident of the village has left. Many of the families arrive in Pakistan after traveling for several days, with few of their possessions. Many of the elderly and children are sick or malnourished."

PB: VOA's Ayuz Gul reporting from a makeshift refugee camp on the Afghan-Pakistan border. These refugees may return when a post-Taleban government is established in Afghanistan and the international relief effort is underway. But if the commitment is short term, says refugee agency spokesman Hiram Ruiz, then countries like Pakistan and Iran, which have cared for Afghanistan's displaced, will want to push them back into the country before it is ready.

TAPE CUT 6: HIRAM RUIZ :40

"Afghanistan cannot cope with or absorb, within months or even a year, all those millions of people. It is going to have to be gradual and planned. In order for that to happen, the countries Pakistan and Iran will have to be convinced the international community is making a five to eight year commitment, and they will not be gone in a year or two. If Pakistan particularly thinks international involvement will only be a year or two, then they will push for the return of those refugees and that will be disastrous."

PB: And, Mr. Ruiz says, as relief agencies and non-governmental organizations or NGO's -- work now to help civilians with the basics of life, the multi-faceted long-term reconstruction process must quickly follow.

TAPE: CUT 7 HIRAM RUIZ, :44

"Now, both the international communities and the NGOs however, must turn their attention at the same time to the futurethe reconstruction needs, the repatriation possibilities for refugees. And it is important that planning begin now, and there be significant commitments. Primarily the international community must understand and commit to. The international community cannot see this as an intense one year commitment and turn away as they did in the past."

PB: Reconstruction talks for a post-Taleban Afghanistan have already begun. A conference on rebuilding Afghanistan was held in Pakistan this week. Last week, the United States and twenty-one other nations agreed to spend billions of dollars on reconstruction of Afghanistan following the fighting. There are further talks on the horizon. The World Bank will host a gathering in Islamabad later this month and the Afghan Support Group of donor countries is expected next month in December. At an international conference convened Tuesday to forge a broad-based post-Taleban government, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer promised the people of Afghanistan they will not be left on their own. But the international community wants to see a broadly-based interim government in Afghanistan that protects human rights. That will be a challenge for all parties concerned in the rebuilding effort, from both inside the country and out. For Dateline. I'm Pat Bodnar.

MUSIC: MIDDLE EAST MUSIC SNEAK, BRING IN FULL TO TIME.

Neb/pb/nes