U.S. MAY BOOST AID TO AFGHANS.
As it assembles a massive diplomatic, financial and military arsenal against terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden and his Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, the White House is weighting a proposal to deploy a much more basic weapon, targeted at the long-suffering Afghan people, reports the Washington Post (A1).
Under a plan drawn up by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Andrew Natsios, bags of American wheat would be air-dropped into the Afghan snow. Local merchants would be supplied with tons of U.S. commodities to take into the country by road from Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia to flood markets and drive down food prices in every major town and city.
For the first time, U.S. food also could be distributed to Afghan refugees in Iran, according to USAID and World Food Program officials who say Tehran has agreed to the proposal. Natsios said USAID has signed contracts with Mercy Corps, a non-governmental relief organization, to work with Afghan farmers on food production and irrigation projects.
U.S. President Bush is expected to announce a package of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan today. Sources said that it could total more than $100 million but that it was not clear whether the money would be used to fund Natsios's proposal.
Even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, about 4 million of Afghanistan's 27 million people were dependent on donated foreign food, most of it supplied by the United States and distributed by the World Food Program, an arm of the United Nations. With a drought now in its third year, and with winter and a possible U.S. military offensive approaching, the United Nations has estimated that 7.5 million Afghans soon will be living in refugee camps, displaced inside the country or starving in their home villages.
The AID proposal has won growing support inside the U.S. government as proponents have stressed the importance of convincing the Afghan people and Muslims worldwide that the U.S. fight is with the terrorists and not with them, sources said.
FRANCE PROPOSES E.U. ACTION PLAN FOR POST-TALIBAN AFGHANISTAN. France on Tuesday sent to Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel-whose country holds the current EU presidency-and to EU High Representative for Security and Foreign Policy Javier Solana a "plan of action" for Afghanistan, reports Le Monde (France, p.6). The six-point plan, which is due to be discussed at the EU foreign ministers meeting next Monday, outlines a plan to manage the transitional phase after the expected departure of the Taliban regime.
The proposals cover a range of subjects from emergency humanitarian aid to refugees and displaced persons to the coordination of international efforts to rebuild the war-ravaged country. "Whatever happens in the coming weeks, Afghans need to rebuild their country politically," the document is quoted as saying. "The conditions for this should be created. The Afghan people should be given a future and Afghanistan should be rebuilt."
Of immediate concern is for the likely fall of the Taliban not to leave a political vacuum in Kabul, which would lead to armed conflicts among factions. Paris is proposing that a temporary structure be set up that would involve the UN and Afghans, although the proposal falls short of calling for a UN administration along the lines of the UN transitional administrations in East Timor and Kosovo.
A "representative administration of the Afghan people" should be put in place to prepare democratic political options and economic reconstruction, the story says. The French action plan makes reference to the former king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, but not as the only recourse available. UN support would remain indispensable, the story says, in order to avoid an outbreak of clan wars and the imposition of a foreign power, which Afghans will be sure to reject.
The EU's role will concern the reconstruction program, in accordance with the UN's specialized agencies. First and foremost will be encouraging crop substitutes for poppy, which despite official bans continues to be one of Afghanistan's main resources. The international financial institutions would then be mobilized to support a medium-term development strategy, the story notes.
In a separate report, Le Monde (France, p.6) says several influential tribal chieftains in Afghanistan have continued over the last few days to affirm their support for the Taliban and their rejection of political solutions imposed from abroad, including a role for the Northern Alliance, who are seen as ex-communist generals. Twenty thousand new recruits from Pashtoon provinces have been incorporated into the forces of the Taliban recently.