Robinson warns of humanitarian crisis

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, OCT. 13. Amid growing anxiety that six days of relentless bombing of Afghanistan has produced nothing but misery, there have been calls for a pause in strikes to allow food to reach the civilians with aid agencies saying that it is becoming increasingly difficult to deliver aid because of heavy bombardment.

In an another development, it was announced that the Palestinian leader, Mr. Yasser Arafat, would be here on Monday in what is seen as a new initiative by the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair to restart the peace talks in West Asia, something he regards as crucial to his efforts to mollify the opinion in the Arab world.

Anti-war protesters, meanwhile, took out a march through central London today demanding an end to the bombing, as the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner (UNHCR), Ms. Mary Robinson warned of a looming humanitarian crisis if the aid effort was not stepped up. ``There is a desperate situation for hundreds of thousands - perhaps up to two million - of the Afghan civilian population who desperately need food,'' she said, though she denied a statement in which she had been quoted as saying that ``We must have a pause in order to enable huge humanitarian access and to allow a number of Afghans to come across the borders.'' A British newspaper carried her ``statement'' on the front page saying she made it on Ireland's RTE radio.

Her concern over the human aspect of the Afghan crisis was supported by organisers of the ``Peace and Justice for All'' march, in which activists from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Green Party and Muslim groups took part. ``With six million people at risk of starvation, the priority must be aid - but aid on this scale cannot be delivered in the context of (continued) bombing,'' a Green Party spokesperson, Ms. Margaret Wright said.

Ms. Carol Naughton, chairperson of CND, spoke of the ``futility'' of the bombing in Afghanistan and said its real victims were the innocent civilians who had nothing to do with terrorism. Today's was the biggest demonstration in London since the military strikes in Afghanistan started a week ago. Appeals for peace came as Britain's Secretary of State for International Development, Ms. Clare Short, a critic of military action, said that reaching food to the people in Afghanistan before the onset of winter was a priority. A vociferous anti-war campaigner, Ms. Short has been forced to tone down her comment since becoming a member of Mr. Blair's ``war cabinet''. She said on Saturday that relief operations were ``racing against time'' and admitted that more than a quarter of Afghanistan's population was ``already hungry'', which observers called ``shorthand for starvation.''

The UNHCR and international aid agencies were reported to be angry and frustrated at the slow pace of the aid effort with an Oxfam official questioning the ``political will'' to deliver food in time. ``Our Afghan staff have told us that as of today they have no more food to distribute - not a sack of grain,'' said Oxfam's Mr. Matt Granger, while a senior UNHCR official was quoted as saying that his organisation was not receiving the kind of regional or international support it needed. ``We are in a real race against time and we are losing,'' he said. Reports from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border indicated that the supplies reaching the beleaguered country was a ``fraction'' of what was required.

Meanwhile, official claims here and in Washington that bombardment has been strictly ``targetted'' have been belied by media reports of civilian casualties. Eye-witness accounts of people being killed and injured in bombing have been widely reported on T.V. and in newspapers. There was reported to be some nervousness in official circles over the Taliban's decision to take foreign journalists on a guided tour of civilian targets which have been hit. They are to be taken to a village where nearly 200 people are alleged to have been killed in the U.S. bombing.

The Guardian said the Taliban's ``propaganda initiative'' was an ``alarming prospect'' for Britain and the U.S. which were already reeling from the widespread backlash in Muslim countries. ``The U.S. and Britain fear that the sight of dead Muslims could be the catalyst for more serious and more widespread rioting,'' it said. Ministers, however, dismissed reports of casualties as ``exaggerated''.

In yet another article for the Muslim media, he has warned that Osama bin Laden poses a threat to moderate Muslim governments. ``If we don't take a stand against Osama bin Laden and his puppet regime in Kabul, he will seek to overthrow other Muslim States and put in place regimes of fear, terror and intolerance,'' he wrote.

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Section  : International
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