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Powell Announces $43 Million In U.S. Aid For Afghans
WASHINGTON, May 17 (News Agencies) - The United States will contribute $43 million in new food and other humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan who are facing the worst drought in the country's history, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced Thursday.
"Afghanistan is in crisis," Powell said, appealing for other countries to boost their assistance to Afghanistan.
"If the international community does not take immediate action, countless deaths and terrible tragedy are certain to follow," he told reporters.
Powell noted that nearly four million people were at risk of starvation from the now three-year-old drought that has been exacerbated by Afghanistan's long-running civil war.
"The country is on the verge of a widespread famine," he said.
The new U.S. assistance, which includes 65,000 tons of wheat, five million dollars in other foodstuffs, such as vegetable oil and $10 million for refugees and internally displaced persons, brings to $124 million the amount of aid Washington is providing this year to Afghans.
The announcement of the new aid followed a visit to Afghanistan last month by three U.S. officials - the first to travel there in three years - to look into the drought conditions as part of a U.N. team.
It also came less than two weeks after 13 U.S. senators appealed for Powell to provide $30 million of emergency aid to Afghans.
The United States is the largest single donor of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan despite not recognizing the legitimacy of the country's ruling Taliban militia.
And Powell reasserted U.S. concerns about the Muslim group. "Our aid bypasses the Taliban who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed, have done much to exacerbate it," he said.
Washington was a co-sponsor of U.N. sanctions against the Taliban whom the United States accuses of sheltering, Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, alleged to have masterminded the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The sanctions are to remain in place until bin Laden has been turned over to face prosecution for the attacks, and Powell said Washington would be looking to the Taliban to cooperate as well as improve their human rights record, which has been widely decried for its treatment of women and young girls.
"We hope the Taliban will act on a number of fundamental issues that separate us: their support for terrorism, their violation of internationally recognized human rights standards, especially their treatment of women and girls, and their refusal to resolve Afghanistan's civil war through a negotiated settlement," he said.
At the same time he defended the U.N. restrictions which bar foreign travel by Taliban officials, international flights by Ariana Airlines and freeze assets, calling them "smart sanctions" that "do not hurt the Afghan people" or "affect the flow of humanitarian assistance for Afghans."
Powell said Washington would soon be announcing additional aid for Afghan refugees now living in camps in Pakistan and Iran.
Some 80,000 people are living in displacement camps around Herat, Afghanistan, having been driven from their villages by drought since July, while the numbers of displaced people in the north are estimated at around 100,000.
About 500,000 people were made homeless throughout Afghanistan due to the drought and fighting between the Taliban and opposition forces last year, while another 170,000 have fled to Pakistan.
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