MARCH 11 ― While memories across the globe remain scarred by the humanitarian disaster in Syria, another humanitarian crisis is looming in Afghanistan where the nation is devastated by widespread hunger and collapsing healthcare. Only 2 per cent of the population have enough food, as was revealed by the World Food Programme under the auspices of the United Nations. Over 3 million children are grappling with malnutrition problems, while one million are expected to die from starvation.
Who crippled the economy?
International community, under the influence of West-controlled media, is quick to attribute the disaster to the Taliban rule following the fall of Kabul on August 15, 2021. But they remain chillingly silent on who virtually crippled the Afghan economy.
Perhaps the global memory is still fresh of the speedy collapse of the US-backed Kabul regime, earlier than Washington DC expected last year. The return to power of the Islamist Taliban, which remains on the sanction list of Washington DC, triggered an asset freeze on the Afghan Central Bank's reserves of US$9.5 billion (RM40 billion), a sizeable portion of which is in accounts with the New York Federal Reserve and US-based financial institutions. By so doing, the new Taliban Administration has since been totally denied its access to Afghanistan's reserves. But the move in turn starved all Afghan banks used by Afghan businesses and citizens of access to US dollars, thus plunging the nation's liquidity into immediate disarray.
The dystopian nation
Widespread poverty and dire need for food and fuel amid the winter cold presented the world with a dystopian scenario. Almost the entire population of Afghanistan is now teetering on the brink of poverty. The rate of poverty is expected to soar to 97 per cent by June 2022 from the alarming 72 per cent recorded last September, according to the United Nations statistics.
The situation is getting from bad to worse. While the US and its allies were determined to isolate the Taliban regime totally from the international financial system in the name of countering human rights abuses by the Islamist regime, the Afghan people at large are virtually made to bear the brunt of the punitive measures rolled out by the US.
The anticipated severe humanitarian crisis has since been unfolding under the close watch of the international community.
In mid-January 2022, the United Nations and its partners appealed for more than US$5 billion for the year ― the largest ever amount of aid funding appeal for a single nation. US$4.4 billion of the aid would be directed to shore up the collapsing basic services, which have left 22 million people in need of assistance inside the country.
The rest would be channelled to 5.7 million refugees requiring help in neighbouring countries like Iran and Pakistan. The appeal was made alongside assurances that funds would in no way be accessible to the Taliban authorities.
Butchery of the asset reserves
However this international intervention through aid fund appeal did not convince the US Administration to lift the asset freeze for humanitarian sake. Neither could the images of the devastated nation, flashing in the international media, deter US President Joe Biden from lifting the freeze for the wrong reasons. It was hardly a month after the aid fund appeal that the US president, through an executive order, decreed to have the US$7 billion worth asset, belonging to the Afghan Central Bank, unfrozen and split into two halves. One portion is to be allocated to a proposed American-controlled Trust Fund in the name of humanitarian aid to the Afghan people, and the balance distributed to the families or relatives of the 9/11 victims.
Both allocations are expected to take some time to roll out as was made clear by the Biden administration. In the latter, claims by the 9/11 victims' families complicate the matter further as it involves a lengthy judiciary process in the United States. But to the Afghan people, the rightful owner of the funds, the freeze lift is irrelevant to them as it contributes nothing to the alleviation of the prevailing humanitarian disaster by design.
The hegemon's hypocrisy
Yet the White House insisted that the presidential executive order is designed “to provide a path for the funds to reach the people of Afghanistan, while keeping them out of the hands of the Taliban and malicious actors.” In reality, the conspicuous delay of funds in reaching the Afghan people will only amplify the magnitude of their sorrow day by day.
Indeed the decision is baffling. No volume of political rhetoric from among the spin doctors in the West could ever conceal the US' hypocrisy and whitewash the ugly nature of this self-serving decision. Any sensible mind would have doubted what rights Washington has in determining the recipients of aid distribution amid the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan.
Furthermore, given the prevailing hostility between Taliban and the US, any contemplation to rely on the American network of aid organisations to distribute its humanitarian contributions in Afghanistan is simply unrealistic. In the current perspective, the exclusion of coordinated international aid, in the form of water and food, healthcare and sanitation services, under the auspices of United Nations agencies is glaringly baffling.
The reigning hegemon's “might is right” further prevails when the sorrow-stricken Afghan people are made to bear the monetary compensation payable to the families of 9/11 victims. The presidential executive order which demands US$3.5 billion of the Afghan Central Bank reserves be paid for the terror attack perpetrated by the al-Qaeda in 2001 has no clear justification to convince the world. White House has shown the world again how the hegemon could trample upon the needs and aspirations of a nation, which had fallen prey to its “ Regime Change”, with a mere stroke of a pen.
Double retribution
In retrospect, the Afghan people were first penalised for the wrong reason when the US started the “War on Terror” in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, albeit Afghans were not the perpetrators. The war succeeded in realising the US agenda of “regime change” by terminating the Taliban rule, but the anti-terror war remained raging for two decades in Afghanistan. And this sent the country's economy into freefall, thus unleashing a humanitarian crisis once asset freeze and economic sanction were imposed after the collapse of the US-backed administration.
It appears that the innocent Afghan people are destined to face the “retribution” of 9/11 twice. End of the “War on Terror” with the botched exit of the American troops has yet to end the sorrow inflicted upon the Afghan people. The latest White House decision to pay the 9/11 victims' families by use of frozen sovereign assets of Afghan reserves on American soil is clearly a blatant “retribution” imposed on the Afghans.
Be that as it may, the deafening silence on the plight of Afghans across the world seems to have endorsed the chilling connivance of Americans' “Might Is Right” under the present international order.
This is a gross travesty of justice in modern times. More so, when millions of lives are destined to perish soon under our watch amid global apathy.
* Tan Sri Ong Tee Keat is chairman of Centre for New Inclusive Asia, and former Malaysian transport minister
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or organisation and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
