Fwd: Too Early to Declare Hunger Crisis Averted in Afghanistan

[Mark Pavlick]

>
>Institute for Public Accuracy
>915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
>(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa at accuracy.org
>___________________________________________________
>
>Wednesday, January 9, 2002
>
>Too Early to Declare Hunger Crisis Averted in Afghanistan
>
>The Associated Press reported yesterday that Afghan villagers in 
>Bonavash are starving while attempting to survive by eating grass. 
>The following statement, released today (Jan. 9) by the Institute 
>for Public Accuracy, is from James Jennings, president of the 
>humanitarian aid organization Conscience International. Jennings 
>will return to Afghanistan on Jan. 16 for the group's third mission 
>since May, bringing assistance with food, blankets and health care.
>< See: 
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10129-2002Jan7.html, 
>http://www.msnbc.com/news/682220.asp?0SB=I413 >
>
>Statement by JAMES JENNINGS [Contact: conscience at usa.com]:
>
>It is too early to declare a humanitarian disaster averted in 
>Afghanistan. Early in the Afghan campaign the U.S. recognized that 
>it was necessary to win victories on both the military and 
>humanitarian fronts. Yet while emphasizing that the war is not over, 
>Washington has already hailed an early victory over a looming famine 
>that threatened to kill millions.
>
>World Food Program emergency deliveries, using local Afghan 
>employees, have largely replaced the needed grain tonnage lost or 
>delayed by the war. But merely restoring capacity destroyed by the 
>war hardly constitutes a victory, because the time lost in fighting 
>hunger and malnutrition cannot easily be made up.
>
>The main concerns remain security and stability for the whole 
>country -- not just the capital; delivery of large-scale food 
>assistance to remote or inaccessible regions; and the scant 
>nutritional value of the food basket. Longer-term worries include 
>the fact that people have eaten their seed grain, the irrigation 
>system remains devastated, and farmers failed to plant winter wheat 
>during October and November because of the war and bombing campaign.
>
>I still expect preventable deaths to be very high, perhaps in the 
>lower range predicted earlier, but a deadline of next spring is 
>artificial. I don't think the higher numbers will be reached this 
>winter, but even the lowest previous estimate of up to 1 million 
>deaths is bad enough. What we are likely to see over time is a 
>continuum, a slow ticking of the clock extending far beyond May, 
>with death for many of the most vulnerable, especially children, as 
>a result. Severe malnutrition already exists among a significant 
>percentage of the population.
>
>The food budget for wheat purchases is adequate for the immediate 
>emergency, but a bread-only diet is certainly inadequate for the 
>neediest people. A complex emergency is just that: complex. People 
>die because of malnutrition, disease, inability to reach medical 
>care, enforced migration, exposure, and unhygienic conditions in the 
>refugee camps. Probably triple the amount now being spent by USAID 
>would come nearer to solving the problem. I would spend more on 
>transportation-related items, to make sure food aid reached the 
>people in the mountains, and reached them in time to survive the 
>winter. Then I would double the caloric value of the food basket by 
>diversification, primarily with more legumes and ghee.
>
>While USAID has done a fine job so far, last week USAID 
>administrator Andrew Natsios did some fancy footwork with the 
>numbers. They appear to be impressive, and indeed the December total 
>tonnage is impressive. But in my calculation, it merely makes up for 
>the amounts not delivered during the war. Still, it came a bit late. 
>Put the lack of seed grain together with the inability to plant in 
>October during the heaviest bombing, and the snows on mountain roads 
>and trails, and you can see that, to reach their targets, WFP is 
>delivering grain mostly to four cities: Mazar, Kabul, Jalalabad 
>(which has road access to food supplies anyway and hasn't suffered 
>so much in the drought) and Herat. Secretary Rumsfeld may think 
>things are infinitely better in Afghanistan than before the war, but 
>I doubt if most of the burka-clad beggars I regularly see there 
>would agree.
>
>For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
>Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; Norman Solomon, (415) 552-5378

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