UN staff leave Kabul ahead of sanctions vote

UN staff leave Kabul ahead of sanctions vote
ASSOCIATED PRESS

DEC 15: The United Nations has further reduced its international staff in the Afghan capital ahead of an expected UN Security Council vote on a resolution imposing more sanctions against the country's Taliban rulers.

For ordinary Afghans, devastated by two decades of relentless war and now a drought, the prospect of more UN sanctions has them anticipating the worst - despite UN assurances that the measures are intended to target only the hard-line Taliban religious militia, which controls almost all of the country.

On Thursday, another employee of the UN Special Mission on Afghanistan left Kabul, bringing to eight the number who have left this week, UN officials in the Afghan capital said on condition of anonymity.

About seven international UN staff remain in Kabul.

The request for additional sanctions came from Russia and the United States, which co-sponsored a resolution to impose an arms embargo on the Taliban, limit travel by Taliban officials, and reduce Taliban diplomatic missions. The Security Council is expected to approve the new sanctions next week.

The United Nations is concerned about a potential backlash against aid workers in the country by Afghans suffering after 20 years of civil war, the worst drought in decades and international isolation from existing UN sanctions.

UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Tuesday that despite existing security arrangements with the Taliban, "it is likely that the risk to UN personnel, premises and property might increase" if new sanctions are adopted.

"If this were to be the case, the United Nations would be compelled to reduce the numbers of staff in the field - or even to evacuate international staff," she said.

The aid group Oxfam echoed the concerns. "The threat of sanctions has already led to aid operations in some parts of the country being halted, and food supplies being interrupted," said Oxfam Head of Advocacy Phil Bloomer.

"Further reaction against sanctions inside Afghanistan will make it difficult or impossible for humanitarian agencies such as Oxfam to continue their work providing food to the people hardest hit," he said.

The United States and Russia say the sanctions are intended to press the Taliban to hand over suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden for trial. On the streets of Kabul, residents were fearful about the consequences of new sanctions.

"For more than 10 years the gates to our schools are closed, we have nothing," said Abdul Khaliq, who had set up a makeshift stall to sell his household goods. "All we hear about is sanctions, and that the main thing the UN cares about is Osama. But we don't know where he is living and we have nothing to do with him."

On many streets, Kabul's poorest were selling their blankets despite frigid temperatures.

Farida Bibi stroked a pile of tattered red curtains, her wedding gift from more than 20 years earlier. They were for sale.

"They are very precious to me. They are my memories," she said. But her husband was in jail, her home destroyed by war. "I have no choice," she said. "I don't know why the UN is doing this to us. We have nothing."

In the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, Andrew Wilder of Save the Children said that sanctions only make people feel isolated and add to their already desperate conditions.

He said the humanitarian community in Afghanistan is united against further sanctions. "The timing is terrible," he said. The last round of UN sanctions imposed in November 1999 banned international flights by the country's national airlines and froze Taliban assets overseas.

A UN study said the sanctions made Afghans feel isolated and ignored by the international community.

The Taliban refuse to hand over bin Laden, saying they have no proof of his involvement in terrorist activity.

Bin Laden is wanted by the United States in connection with the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. US investigators are trying to determine whether bin Laden is linked to the suicide bombing of the USS Cole off the Yemeni port of Aden that killed 17 American sailors.