Afghans need help

Tens of thousands of homeless Afghans in the northern districts of Rustak and Tahkar desperately need outside assistance and are not getting...

Tens of thousands of homeless Afghans in the northern districts of Rustak and Tahkar desperately need outside assistance and are not getting it. On February 4, an earthquake of the magnitude of 6.1 razed a dozen villages and aftershocks have destroyed several more. The first international relief plane arrived a week later and a mule train carrying UN supplies is expected shortly. A week is seven days too long for people to wait in freezing temperatures for blankets, food and medicine, and to bury their dead. Several factors can be blamed for the delay in sending help. The quake hit a remote area at the junction of the Hindu Kush and Pamir ranges. Communications and transport are primitive, administrative services crippled. The continuing civil war compounds problems, making access and reliable estimates of the loss of life and damage difficult. Indeed, so cut off is the area by politics and geography that during the two days it took for news of the disaster to reach Kabul, 280 km to the south, Taliban forceswere still bombing the vicinity from the air.

But even after all the difficulties in the way of mounting a quick and substantial international relief operation are conceded, it is clear much more could have been done and that not enough is being done even now. The world did not need to hear about the quake and its likely impact from former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani whose military alliance controls the area where disaster struck, or from nearby Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan, or from Kabul. Seismic stations as far away as Colorado in the US registered the earthquake. Many of the world8217;s capitals, and certainly Washington and Moscow with their long experience in Afghanistan, would have known sooner than Rabbani or the Taliban what to expect. It is ridiculous to wait for formal appeals for help from a war zone before beginning preparations for UN emergency assistance. By its delayed reaction and the small scale of the relief operation the world community displays a shocking callousness towards theAfghan people.

This is not to say everyone has been found wanting. Humanitarian organisations like the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders got to work quickly. But no government other than Pakistan8217;s has bestirred itself. For the rest, for governments and the media, it is one more Afghan disaster and there have been too many already. No one seems to want to know or care about what new traumas the people undergo. Compassion for Afghanistan and its people ran out long ago. As the UN aid coordinator for Afghanistan found well before the crises in the Gulf, White House and East Asia grabbed the headlines, Afghanistan is very low priority. Whether it is relentless poverty, the killings in the 18th year of civil strife, the millions of land mines left behind by Cold Warriors, or natural disasters, Afghanistan does not open purse strings or hearts. The US and neighbouring powers, including India, are busy building influence and oil pipelines in the region when their firstresponsibility should be towards the Afghan people. They are building in sand and will live to regret it.