Emergency Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan

      MR. ROGERS: Well, thank you all for coming today. My name is Len Rogers. I'm the acting assistant administrator in AID's Bureau for Humanitarian Response. We provide disaster relief and food aid around the world. And I'm here to brief you on what we see as a worsening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. We are fearful that there is risk of either a major refugee migration or possibly a major famine in Afghanistan. And so I'm here to announce today several steps that the United States is taking initially to respond.

     As you're aware, there is fighting in the northern part of Afghanistan, and that is forcing people across the border into Pakistan. We estimate that there are 155,000 new refugees in Pakistan. This comes on top of a prolonged drought that has effectively destroyed domestic agricultural production in Pakistan. As early as last summer, the U.N. was estimating that there might be as much as a million tons needed of additional grain imports, cereal imports, into Afghanistan. And the international community has begun a response, but the response is nowhere near meeting the need. So we're very concerned about the impact of this drought.

     Around Herat in western Afghanistan, there are some 80,000 internally displaced who have come from the northern provinces in the country -- people who have lost their homes because they're no longer able to sustain themselves -- and they've moved to Herat, living in very difficult conditions. In fact, recently there has been a bitter cold snap, and some people that -- people on the site, U.N. observers, have estimated that as many as 500 people may have frozen to death, many of them women and children.

     So the humanitarian situation is a dire one. The United States will be mounting an airlift in order to attempt to respond -- to begin a response. We will have a flight which will be leaving for Peshawar, will arrive in Peshawar in Wednesday with tents, blankets, plastic sheeting. We'll also be supplying health kits and resources to the International Rescue Committee to do some local procurement of supplies for those refugees in Pakistan.

     Then, scheduled to arrive on Friday in Herat, we will also be sending a flight with 250 tents, 10,000 blankets and water jugs for relief of the situation around Herat. We expect this airlift into Afghanistan itself to take several more days over the weekend and the following week, perhaps to include as many as a total of three flights to provide assistance inside Afghanistan itself. In the later flights, we do expect to be providing high-protein biscuits -- BP5 biscuits which are very high nutrition and will provided some immediate sustenance, particularly for children.

     In addition, we are providing assistance to U.S. private voluntary organizations, Save the Children to work in Faryab, and Mercy Corps International to work in Takhar and Badakhshan -- these provinces in the Northern part of the country. We're providing $2.1 million for those two PVOs to provide relief assistance in that as well.

     And recently, last week the United States announced that we would also be providing 75,000 metric tons of wheat to the World Food Program. The value of this wheat is approximately $39 million. So the U.S. is providing substantial assistance to the people of Afghanistan. Last year, 2000, we were the largest donor to Afghanistan with slightly over $113 million, most of that food aid for the people of Afghanistan.

     As I said, it's a dire situation. Al, do you want to have a couple of introductory comments and then both of us would be happy to take your questions.

     MR. EASTHAM: Thanks, Leon (sp), I think you've covered the assistance part quite well.

     I would just add that from the perspective of the State Department we have seen several causes which underlie this humanitarian disaster which faces Afghanistan now. They are both natural and man-made. The largest is the natural catastrophe of the drought which has been underway for months and months in Afghanistan. The other, unfortunately, is the inability of a country in civil war to respond to the needs of its citizens. And that's why we are very pleased to be able to respond.

     There has been a great deal of attention paid over the past few weeks to the question of sanctions against Afghanistan which were imposed by the U.N. Security Council and which came into effect on January the 19th. This response, I think, is an indication that the sanctions do not block humanitarian response to a catastrophe of this magnitude in Afghanistan. We're very pleased to be of assistance to the Afghan people.

     We're very pleased to be of assistance to the Afghan people.

     Questions?

     Q Chida Rajghatta, of Indian Express. Can you throw some light on the reported offer by the Afghan foreign minister to hand over Osama bin Laden to a third country if there is recognition for the Taliban regime?

     MR. EASTHAM: I saw earlier today a flat denial of any such offer by the Afghan Taliban administration's foreign minister. They issued a press statement in Islamabad denying such a thing had ever been made, so the question doesn't arise.

     Q And my second question is, can you give us a sense of how much of this problem, the refugee problem in Afghanistan, is because of the drought and how much of it is actually because of the civil war, the social tension and the persecution? And when a country goes to rack and ruin because of its own fallibility or a government, then is the United States obliged to come to their rescue? Is the world community obliged to bail them out?

     MR. EASTHAM: Want to take that one? (Laughter.)

     MR. ROGERS: I guess, sort of working backwards from the last question, I think that we -- the international community, the United States, does not blame the people of Afghanistan for the situation that they are in. Obviously, they are suffering while they are members of the society that is Afghanistan. I think we have to say that virtually all are innocent, particularly the women and children, and so it's our belief that we should provide assistance to those people. It has to be focused on those people, it has to reach the people who are in need, but it's been our policy for many years since the Reagan administration that a hungry child knows no politics, and so we will provide assistance to the people of Afghanistan to the extent we can understand the situation and do assessments or have people that we have confidence in, like the United Nations, do assessments, and to the extent that we can be sure our resources are reaching those they're intended for. So I think we do need to provide assistance.

     In terms of whether or not the government of Afghanistan bears some responsibility for this, I think the answer is you have to say yes, that they do; that governments have to be responsible for the consequences of their actions, and if they pursue policies which result in suffering for their people, they have to recognize that partly it results from their actions.

     And my sense is that in answer to your first question, that the conflict itself is perhaps not the bigger cause of the immediate problem, but it limits the ability of the international community to provide relief. It limits the ability of the community to do assessments, and it limits the ability of the community to actually deliver assistance in a timely fashion. So my view is the conflict is the greater problem here.

     MODERATOR: Next question --

     Q My name is -- (inaudible) -- from the Hindu newspaper. What kind of mechanisms are you leaving in place to make sure that this aid reaches the people who are in need of it most?

     MR. ROGERS: Well, we are giving assistance to operations that are managed by the United Nations in the case of the camps inside Pakistan and in the case of Herat. Then we are giving assistance to U.S. private voluntary organizations, which will be actually managing programs in the northern part of Afghanistan. So we have people on the ground that we have confidence in, and we can be reasonably well assured that they will manage the resources in such a way that they do reach those people. We would prefer to be able to send Americans in to have a better opportunity to assess the situation and to provide some oversight on the monitoring. We do send Americans in to difficult places like North Korea, which don't have good relations with us, and we'd prefer to have that situation. But in a pinch like this one, we are prepared to rely on the U.N. and private voluntary organizations.

     MODERATOR: Next question here.

     Q Omar Samaat (sp) with -- (inaudible) -- Radio. Two questions; one about the airlift. The route that the first planes are taking is going through Pakistan, to Pakistan. The second route, to Herat, is that overflying Iran or is it going also over Pakistan? And also, why not an airlift to the north of the country also, since the conditions over there seem to be pretty bad also?

     And the second question has to do with a news report concerning an American citizen that may have been arrested in Kabul by the Taliban a couple of days ago. What can you tell us about that? Is that true? Is that accurate? Do you know anything about the identity and the reason why that happened?

     MR. ROGERS: Al, do you want to take that latter one?

     MR. EASTHAM: Oh, sure. I'll consult with my colleague here on the -- (off mike).

     MR. ROGERS: Okay.

     MR. EASTHAM: We have seen the press reports regarding a purported American citizen under trial or in detention by the Taliban in Kabul. Unfortunately, we have not been able to verify those reports, and our Taliban contacts have yielded no information whatsoever about this gentleman or about the charges or trial that he may be facing. Obviously, if an American citizen is in detention in a foreign country by the authorities of that country, they have certain obligations with respect to informing us about it. So far, we have not been so informed, and in fact, the Taliban have said that they are unable to identify any person who is in this category. Obviously, we're very concerned, but so far have been -- the Taliban have not told us that there is a person who is under trial in Kabul.

     MR. ROGERS: In terms of the first two questions, the flight path will go from Italy to Turkmenistan and then into Herat. So we will not go through Pakistan on our way to Herat.

     And then in terms of whether or not we would consider assistance directly to the northern part, we have considered that but the U.N. told us that they felt the greatest need was in Herat and with these refugees in Pakistan. And so that's where we've focused our attention initially. However, we will continue to review the situation in Afghanistan to see what's necessary.

     Q Ben Bangua (sp), Guinea News, Washington. (Inaudible) -- suggested that the U.N. economic sanction on the Taliban regime is likely to worsen the living conditions for people in Afghanistan. As a part of this humanitarian operation, do you see necessary to ease those sanctions?

     MR. ROGERS: Well, I'll let Al deal with the specifics, but we are convinced that in fact the sanctions do not have an impact on the humanitarian situation and they don't have an impact on our ability to respond to the humanitarian situation. They're very closely tailored.

     MR. EASTHAM: The sanctions are very carefully targeted on the Taliban and the Taliban leadership and certain activities of the Taliban and the Taliban leadership.

     We have been unable to identify, working closely with the U.N. and other humanitarian organizations with whom we have discussed this matter, with whom we did discuss this matter, prior to the enactment of the sanctions by the Security Council -- we've been unable to identify any specific impact of sanctions upon the Afghan people, on their ability to conduct business in a more or less normal way.

     The one impact which has been identified is the absence of air cargo shipments directly from outside into Afghanistan. It's worth noting that there is no bar on shipments by land of commodities into and out of Afghanistan, and that there is an exception to the sanctions for humanitarian relief operations. There have been a great number of humanitarian waivers granted to organizations which intend to fly supplies into Afghanistan for relief purposes.

     Similarly, there have been a large number of waivers granted by the Sanctions Committee for flights out of Afghanistan for Afghans who wish to undertake the hajj, pilgrimage, when it comes up in a few weeks' time.

     So we are confident that there has not been a measurable humanitarian impact of these sanctions.

     With respect to the sanctions, there are very clear and precise conditions laid down for Taliban compliance, which will lead to the lifting of those sanctions. And the Taliban know what those are.

     MODERATOR: We have a question up in front.

     Q Sergey Khabotin, Tass News Agency. Do you plan any meeting with somebody from the Taliban leadership in the nearest future?

     And if yes, what are you going to discuss with them? Thank you.

     MR. EASTHAM: We have a -- from the political point of view, a fairly precise and well-defined agenda with the Taliban. First and foremost on that agenda is the question of compliance with U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1333 and 1267, which require similar sorts of actions from them.

     There are other items on the agenda as well, which includes narcotics production and trafficking out of Afghanistan, the situation of human rights in Afghanistan as well.

     With respect to particular meetings scheduled with senior Taliban officials, there are none scheduled at this time. We will be having an interaction with the Taliban representative in New York later in the week. But there are presently no plans for discussions with senior Taliban figures.

     I might note that they are captured by the sanctions and are subject to special procedures for approval of their travel outside Afghanistan.

     MODERATOR: Is there another question? Here.

     Q Penny Dixon (sp) of Voice of America. Is there any -- can you see problems with the Taliban accepting aid from the United States? I mean, given the circumstances -- I mean, do they let it in? Do they have a difficulty with that?

     MR. ROGERS: We have no indication --

     MR. EASTHAM: No, we've never -- there has never been a problem of aid flows into Afghanistan, into Taliban-controlled territory or, for that matter, into territory controlled by the other factions in Afghanistan.

     MODERATOR: Yeah?

     Q Parasuram, Press Trust of India. What kind of cooperation do you get from Pakistan on the enforcement of the sanctions by the U.N.?

     MR. EASTHAM: Well, the Pakistan government has affirmed its intention to enforce the sanctions, which were -- which have been passed in the U.N. Security Council.

     We have no reason to doubt Pakistan's statements or its intentions in that regard and are quite confident that Pakistan will comply with the mandatory sanctions as enacted in the Security Council.

     MODERATOR: Any other questions? Closing thoughts?

     Thank you very much.

     MR. EASTHAM (?): Okay. Thanks much.

 END.

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