Brussels, 09/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Wednesday, the European Parliament provided a platform for experts - NGOs, representatives of humanitarian organisations and international institutions, as well as European political decision-makers - on humanitarian aid in Afghanistan. The public hearing, organised by the Committee on Development and Co-operation, had as goal , according to the latter's chair, Joaquim Miranda (Portugal GUE), to examine the humanitarian situation and identify the needs of the Afghan populations refugees or displaced inside Afghanistan so as better to respond to them in co-operation with the neighbouring countries, and to begin to reflect, "over and above emergency aid, more important than ever, on the country's longer-term reconstruction".
"Rest assured, the European Parliament will take the utmost account of your observations and testimonies. It will spare no effort in ensuring that aid by the EU, which, since 1991, has been Afghanistan's largest donor, is increased to meet the scale of the problem", Nicole Fontaine declared, assuring all humanitarian organisations of the EP's support.
At a press conference, the American, William Garvelink, Deputy Assistant Administrator of the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Response, stressed the gravity of the situation of a country where 5 to 7.5 million people were seriously in danger of death, 1 million of whom totally dependent on food aid. According to him, food resources are not the problem (with 50,000 tonnes of provisions delivered every month, the United States has almost attained its goal), but the difficulties of getting it through. He referred to co-ordinating American humanitarian aid with other donors, as demonstrated by his talks with Commissioner Poul Nielson, "pre-11 September", and his meeting, the day before, with Costanza Adinolfi, Director of Echo (the Community's humanitarian office).
With the current level of commitments of $504 million (184 million before 11 September and 320 million after), the United States remains the largest provider of aid, he recalled, and, with the European Union (320 million for 2001, 100 million of which managed by the Commission), together they provide 85% of world aid to Afghanistan. According to him, the American humanitarian assistance strategy rests of five axes: a) reduce the level of mortality; b) reduce the movements of the population stemming from the famine and provide as much food as possible to villages and rural areas (the dropping of provisions represents less than 1% of food aid through the American contribution under the World Food Programme, he stipulated); c) stabilise prices on the Afghan food market; d) guarantee that aid reaches those it is intended for; e) begin a rehabilitation programme based on the re-building of roads, the provision of seeds and the repair of the irrigation system. Questioned on the impact of the bombing on the movements of the population, he replied that the regions most affected by these movements (North and West) were not those where the conflict was being conducted.
Speaking to the press, Nicole Fontaine stressed the urgent need to create humanitarian corridors and to "build a future for the country, notably by creating a democratic regime that guarantees women's participation to ensure that they are not the forgotten ones in the post-Taliban era. The future of Afghanistan passes through the fall of the odious Taliban regime that discredits tolerant Islam", said Fontaine, greatly pleased that the Americans should have slightly altered their strategy and that they understood the need to provide aid to the troops of the Northern Alliance to reverse the relationship of force on the ground. The idea of urgently convening a United Nations conference on aid to the refugees and populations in Afghanistan is, she said, "a positive initiative for increased co-ordination and greater awareness-raising, in the world community, to the fate of a people too long forgotten". "The demands of women go well beyond their role in the future political life of the country. Deprived of the most elementary rights, they have themselves described themselves as the living dead", she added.
Asked about the possibility of the European Parliament demanding a break in the American bombing, Nicole Fontaine replied that she did not want to prejudge the vote in her institution. To a reporter who wondered about the realistic nature of women's participation in the future political life, given their privation of the right to education, several Afghan women, including Shoukira Haidar, President of the Association for the Support of Women in Afghanistan, recalled that the Taliban, "who are not a political group to have emerged from Afghan society, but Pakistani armed militia", had not always been there, that "in the North of the country there are schools for girls and women teachers", that "Afghan women are not minors" and that "many are educated". Stating that "some may certainly play a political role and that there will be no democracy without women's participation", Sabira Mateen of the NGO Rawa (Revolutionary Association of Afghan Women) called on Parliament to support her association. Commissioner Poul Nielson, for his part, stressed "the readiness of the European Commission to support, in the limit of its budgetary resources, the enormous effort at reconstruction and rehabilitation that will be required in the post-Taliban era", while noting that, "for now, humanitarian assistance remains the absolute necessity". According to the latest information from Echo, 2 million Afghans are said to be displaced in the country and 135,000 refugees are said to have left the country since the beginning of the American air strikes, he stipulated.