wfn.org | Relief agencies call for bombing pause in Afghanistan

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6933 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05-November-2001
01414

Relief agencies call for bombing pause in Afghanistan 

'Time is running out' for 7 million starving Afghans as winter approaches 
 
by Chris Herlinger and Cedric Pulford 
Ecumenical News International

NEW YORK CITY - A number of prominent religious and secular relief
organizations are calling for a suspension of the United States-led bombing
of Afghanistan so that food can be delivered prior to the onset of
Afghanistan's harsh winter.

	In the United States, Oxfam America said it was issuing the call because
the bombing campaign had made it significantly more difficult for the agency
to do its work. Truckers and laborers were increasingly unwilling to drive
into Afghanistan or to work on relief convoys for fear of the bombing, the
agency said.

	"It is now evident that we cannot, in reasonable safety, get food to hungry
Afghan people," Oxfam America President Raymond C. Offenheiser said in a
statement. "We've reached the point where it is simply unrealistic for us to
do our job in Afghanistan. We've run out of food, the borders are closed, we
can't reach our staff and time's running out."

	The United Nations has estimated that more than 7 million Afghans need food
aid. If the bombing campaign continues and food aid cannot reach those who
need it, "we fear there will be huge loss of life and unspeakable suffering
this winter," Offenheiser said.

	Winters in Afghanistan - a nation with mountainous and desert terrain - are
harsh and usually begin in November, when snow cuts off isolated rural
areas, making it extremely difficult to deliver food to villages in
particular need of assistance.

  	Oxfam urged all military forces in Afghanistan - including the Taliban,
the Northern Alliance (the opposition forces fighting the Taliban) and the
United States and British-led forces - not to target or impede trucks and
vehicles trying to carry food into Afghanistan.

  	Church World Service (CWS), the relief and development agency affiliated
with the National Council of Churches in the USA, also called for a pause in
the bombing. At the least, the U.S. military "should identify and allow for
'safe corridors' for the delivery of humanitarian assistance," CWS said in
an advisory note for constituents.

  	Even during times of war and conflict, humanitarian agencies have
traditionally been given access to civilians who require aid, Rick
Augsburger, director of the Emergency Response Program of CWS, pointed out.

  	Jonathan Frerichs, a spokesman for Lutheran World Relief, based in
Baltimore, MD, said that poor security caused by the war had limited the
movement of aid truck drivers and aid workers. Bombings and seizures of aid
storage facilities and vehicles had also compounded the problems, and
distribution had become more difficult.

  	Meanwhile, as people are displaced from their homes, the need for food
assistance has risen by as much as 50 per cent, Frerichs told ENI - and less
than half the level of food aid is being shipped in today than was before
the current crisis.
 
	Pax Christi USA, a national Catholic peace movement has appealed to the
Bush administration to suspend the bombing.

	"The current conditions for civilians in Afghanistan as well as the
swelling refugee camps along the Pakistani border portend a human disaster
of cataclysmic proportions," the organization said in a statement. "The U.S.
bombing campaign has all but halted relief deliveries. The bombing
campaigning must be suspended immediately."

	In the United Kingdom, a bombing pause has been demanded by six British
development agencies: the religious-linked Christian Aid, CAFOD, Tearfund
and Islamic Relief, as well as Oxfam International and ActionAid.

	Christian Aid, which is supported by Britain's mainstream churches, warned
that "time is running out" to provide food for the population at risk during
the Afghan winter.

	Christian Aid spokeswoman Judith Melby told ENI on Oct. 31 that imports of
more than 8,600 tons of food per day were required to meet survival targets,
but that this level was not being achieved.

  	"There's only two weeks to go [before the expected onset of winter]," she
said. "Food is needed for stockpiling as well as daily requirements. When
winter comes two provinces will be completely cut off."

  	Keith Ewing of Tearfund, an evangelical aid agency, said the U.S. and
Britain were in breach of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their
protocols. These provided that relief should be available to civilian
populations.

  	"It applies to both sides. The bombing is obstructing the delivery of
relief," he told ENI. "The Taliban, too, have obligations, to see that aid
is not lost or commandeered."

  	An authoritative poll has indicated that more than half of Britons [54
per cent] want a pause in the bombing to allow humanitarian aid into
Afghanistan. The poll also found that support for the bombing campaign in
general is dropping in Britain, the United States' key military ally.

  	The poll of 1,000 adults by the ICM organization, published in the
Guardian newspaper on Oct. 30, found that fewer than two-thirds (62 per
cent) supported the bombing campaign - down 12 percentage points over two
weeks.
------------------------------------------
Send your response to this article to pcusa.news@pcusa.org

------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send an 'unsubscribe' request to

pcusanews-request@halak.pcusa.org