wfn.org | POSITIVE, NEGATIVE SURPRISES IN AFGHANISTAN

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: Wendy McDowell, NCC News, 212-870-2227
Email: news@ncccusa.org  Web: www.ncccusa.org

28NCC3/15/99 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NCC STAFF REPORT POSITIVE, NEGATIVE SURPRISES
ABOUT CONDITIONS IN AFGHANISTAN

 NEW YORK, March 15 ---- As a possible breakthrough in 
peace talks in Turkmenistan has been announced by United 
Nations mediators, two National Council of Churches (NCC) 
staff members recently back from a week-long trip to 
Afghanistan report that conditions observed first-hand are 
worse than they expected but that they also witnessed 
glimpses of hope.

 "Even though I knew Afghanistan has been a war zone for 
20 years, I was still surprised to see the number of 
hospitals and houses which looked blown apart and to see 
rusty tanks left over from the War (with the Soviet Union)," 
said the Rev. Larry Tankersley, head of the NCC's Southern 
Asia office who traveled to Afghanistan for the first time 
Feb. 20-26 to visit medical clinics there.  "I didn't see 
any evidence that things are getting better in Afghanistan.  
Although peace talks continue and we are hopeful about this 
latest report, we were told that this is typical.  During 
the winter they talk, but during the spring and summer they 
start to fight again."

 A March 14 Associated Press report indicated that 
warring factions in Afghanistan "have agreed in principle on 
the creation of a coalition government to include all of the 
country's political forces."  According to the report, the 
Taliban religious army now controls about 90 percent of 
Afghanistan while the northern opposition rules the 
remaining 10 percent.

 "We had to get permission from the Taliban to go in and 
out, we were forbidden to take pictures, and because of the 
kidnapping problem, we traveled with an armed guard," Rev. 
Tankersley reported.

 "I've been in other places with oppressive governments, 
but I have never been to a country where seemingly everyone 
is carrying guns, including ordinary people and children.  
It was disconcerting to say the least," said the Rev. Dr. 
Rodney Page, Director of the NCC's Church World Service and 
Witness Unit, the NCC's human development, disaster relief 
and refugee assistance ministry.  CWS is one of the few non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) continuing to run projects 
in Afghanistan since the U.S. bombed Afghanistan in August 
1998.

 "We are only able to stay because we support partners 
based in Afghanistan and our projects are run by Afghans," 
Rev. Tankersley explained.  CWS implements its own health 
projects and also supports the health and education work of 
the Afghan NGO Shuhada, which is headed by an Afghan woman, 
Dr. Sima Samar.
 
 "Also, our area director Doug Bean has so far been 
able to travel in and out enough to monitor the programs," 
Rev. Tankersley said.  "It would not be safe for expatriates 
to remain there permanently."

 Yet at the same time Tankersley and Page witnessed much 
of Afghanistan in ruins and felt a pervasive tension, they 
also observed glimpses of life going on normally.

 "We went though areas with olive trees and vegetable 
gardens, where people were working the fields and life 
seemed to be carrying on normally," Rev. Tankersley said.  
"This was surprising to me, since I only had an image of 
rocky, barren hillsides."

"Despite reports from Afghanistan about the crackdown 
on women's dress and restriction on their movement and 
education, we found a different story in Jalalabad," said 
Dr. Page.  "We saw a lot of women not dressed in head to 
toe, full hijab and not wearing the burqa (veil).  As many 
women were without veils as with them," Rev. Tankersley 
added.

Although war and severed communications have not 
allowed NCC officials to obtain up-to-date reports from 
their projects in central Afghanistan, reports from June 
1998 indicate that the 28 schools supported by CWS in the 
Hazarajat area remain up and operating, Rev. Tankersley 
said.  Of the 1998 enrollment of more than 18,000 students 
in those schools, 6,200 are girls, he said.

Dr. Page and Rev. Tankersley said that the situation 
for women is undoubtedly worse in Kabul, the capital city 
and Taliban stronghold.  There also was evidence of enforced 
separation between the sexes, such as a curtain between the 
second and third seats of a VW bus in which clinic patients 
traveled, hung there so that women, who must travel in the 
back, could not be seen by men traveling in the front.

For both men, the most important impressions during 
their visit came from viewing the CWS-supported medical 
clinics they had come to visit in Nangarhar Province, 
located in the eastern region of the country.  Jalalabad is 
the provincial capital. 

"With only rudimentary equipment, they are performing 
extraordinary service in the community," Dr. Page said.  
Services include medical outreach workers who go door to 
door, ensuring that nearly all children in Jalalabad have 
been vaccinated. Both Dr. Page and Rev. Tankersley remarked 
that women were seen both working in the clinic and being 
treated there.  "The staff at two basic health units in 
Sorkh Rood is totally Afghan, and includes two women doctors 
and six other female medical people," Rev. Tankersley said.

"The head doctor, Dr. Ashraf Sharaf, single-handedly trained 
185 community health workers in 1998.  Between April and 
December of 1998, these health workers made 75,741 home 
visits, including to 870 pregnant women, and immunized 
25,000 people," Rev. Tankersley reported.  "Women and 
children make up 80 percent of the patients at the clinics."

"Health workers do not wait for people to come to the 
clinic, but go to them and talk about the health of their 
family," he said.  "This is based on a model program CWS 
supports in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border where there 
are eight units treating Afghan refugees."

 The clinics are desperately needed.  Afghanistan has 
the highest rate of infant, child and maternal mortality in 
Asia.  182 infants die for every 1,000 born; 257 of every 
1,000 children die before they reach the age of five, and 
1,700 mothers die for every 100,000 who give birth.

 "We visited two clinics, one which is housed 
temporarily in a former school built during the Soviet 
occupation," Dr. Page reported. "A farmer next door is 
donating a piece of his land so that a permanent facility 
can be constructed.  We are about to open a third clinic in 
a different location."

 Dr. Page and Rev. Tankersley said they were certain 
their ability to visit Afghanistan rested on the high regard 
with which the medical clinics are held by people, including 
government officials, in the region.  Both also stressed 
that severe sanctions would only harm the good work that 
has, miraculously, been able to continue.

 "Cutting off all aid will only harm the most 
vulnerable, including children, as it has done in Iraq," 
said Dr. Page.  "Constructive engagement is the best way to 
enact change, while still calling attention to human rights 
abuses."

 "In the midst of the horror of the situation in 
Afghanistan, significant things are being done to enhance 
the quality of peoples' lives," said Rev. Tankersley.  "This 
is not to downplay the oppressiveness of the Taliban, but to 
be committed to serving the needs of people who are 
suffering, especially women and children.  In spite of the 
restrictions that warfare, lack of security and the Taliban 
place on humanitarian work, we can still do something."

 "Afghanistan is one of the places our impact is most 
significant, because there are so very few NGOs there," Rev. 
Tankersley said.

 Meanwhile, Rev. Tankersley and Dr. Page pray that the 
war will end, as do the Afghan people they met.  "As a young 
Afghan doctor at UNICEF told our delegation, `It is time to 
stop this stupid war.'  The human costs have been tragic," 
Rev. Tankersley said.

"We need peace to rebuild our lives," said an Afghan 
acting in charge of the UNHCR Sub-Office in Jalalabad to the 
CWS delegation.

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