Brussels, 09/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - André Brie, German PDS MEP and member of the United Left group, recently briefed the EP's Foreign Affairs Committee about the EP delegation's visit to Afghanistan on 11-17 June.
After twenty-three years of war, Afghanistan is still subject to insecurity, political instability, terrible poverty and destruction, explained Brie. The presence of warlords and their private armies was hindering the formation of a national army and police force, and the influence of the Pakistani secret services was also causing problems. They are omnipresent in the country, he explained. Women's rights had improved, but only in the capital Kabul. In the country as a whole, only 30% of girls go to school.
Another serious problem, in André Brie's eyes, is increased production of drugs, feeding the power of local war lords and instability. Austrian ÖVP MEP Ursula Stenzel said Afghanistan has become word's leading opium and heroin producer. She commented that one cannot criticise farmers for getting $500 for a kilo of opium rather than $5 for a kilo of barley. The MEP welcomed the EU's pledge to contribute EUR 10 million in 2003 to stem the production of opium. The EU is Afghanistan's biggest donor, providing EUR 1 billion in aid over five years. But Afghanistan has very little capacity for absorbing funding, noted Brie, because of the lack of security. He could see no solution to this problem at the moment.
Brie expressed great scepticism about the adoption of a Constitution (expected in the autumn), thinking it was unlikely to come into force before the 2004 elections. Stenzel took the same pessimistic view, suggesting the elections were postponed for at least six months given the problems of getting citizens informed in Afghanistan (because of the lack of means of communication). Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, British Liberal Democrat, pointed out that there could not be elections without women having the right to vote.