14Dec03-The Oberserver-UN agencies threaten to quit war-torn Afghanistan
James Astill in Islamabad
Sunday December 14, 2003
The Observer
The UN yesterday warned that its agencies will pull out of Afghanistan if American and other Western troops cannot stem a tide of violence that has recently seen 15 aid workers murdered by resurgent Taliban fighters, and most foreign aid workers withdrawn to Kabul.
US military officials in Afghanistan admitted the Taliban had adopted the same devastating roadside bombing technique employed by guerrillas in Iraq, from which the UN has already mostly withdrawn.
'Countries that are committed to supporting Afghanistan cannot kid themselves and go on expecting us to work in unacceptable security conditions,' said the UN's senior representative in Kabul, Lakhdar Brahimi.
'They seem to think our presence is important here. Well, if they do, they have got to make sure the conditions for us to be here are there,' said Brahimi. 'If not, we will go away.'
Brahimi called for more peacekeepers to beef up a 5,500-strong Nato-led force that is restricted to Kabul. America also has 10,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, forming the bulk of coalition forces hunting Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in the south-east of the country.
Last week, US forces launched their biggest operation, codenamed Avalanche, and expected to involve 2,000 soldiers. According to US officials in Kabul, the operation had so far failed to uncover any Taliban forces.
Southern Afghanistan, the Taliban's traditional stronghold, is seething following the killing of 15 children in two bungled US air strikes.
In response to Brahimi's warning, a US government spokesman in Washington praised the work of American troops in Afghanistan and said he hoped the UN would be persuaded to remain. 'Our military and those working with us there as well in the coalition efforts have done an outstanding job to improve the security situation,' said Scott McClellan.
The UN withdrew all foreign staff from Afghanistan's impoverished provinces last month following the killing of a French staffer with the UN refugee agency by Taliban assassins. Bettina Goislard, 29, was shot dead in the southern city of Ghazni by two gunmen riding motorbikes.
In Iraq, all foreign UN workers were withdrawn after a bomb attack on its Baghdad headquarters claimed 23 lives in August.
Brahimi's statement was understood by many Western diplomats in Kabul as a last-gasp attempt to halt Afghanistan's slide by a man expected to retire early next year.
In Kabul - a haven of peace amid the general lawlessness - the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai is preparing for a Loya Jerga to approve a new draft constitution. American officials said it was a measure of the coalition's success that 500 delegates had been able to travel to the conference without dying.
But yesterday an influential thinktank, the International Crisis Group, slammed the draft constitution for failing to guarantee the basic rights of most Afghans.
'If adopted, this constitution would allow religious and central government powerholders to ... accumulate more authority at the costs of democratic forces,' the group said in a report released yesterday.
'No meaningful power-sharing is envisaged, either within the national government or between central and provincial governments.'
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