Afghans have staged protests against a decision of the US administration
to use $3.5 billion dollars of their country’s frozen assets to help settle
lawsuits by the families of 9/11 victims.
The US continues to maintain a strong economic blockade of
Afghanistan and its central bank by not easing the mounting humanitarian crisis
in the country.
The protesters say the money belongs to the Afghan people
stressing they are the ones who should be compensated by the US for 20 years of
occupation that brought about terror, destruction, poverty, and killing of a
countless number of civilians.
Demonstrators have also gathered outside Kabul's Eid Gah
mosque making similar demands of reparations from the US.
Civil society activist Abdul Rahman had this message for the
US administration, “What about our Afghan people, who gave many sacrifices and
thousands and thousands of losses of lives?''
Afghan activists have also pointed out that none of the
hijackers that staged the 9/11 attacks were Afghan nationals and say they will
never forget the destruction left behind by America.
Aid groups have condemned the move saying the money legally
belongs to the Afghan people and nobody else is entitled to it.
Addressing a press conference in Kabul, former Afghan
President Hamid Karzai slammed Biden’s decision. He called on Washington to
immediately return the US$7 billion in frozen assets which he says “belong to
no government, but to the people of Afghanistan”.
The Taliban’s senior spokesperson, Mohammad Naeem Wardak,
wrote on social media, "The theft and seizure of money owed by the United
States to the Afghan people represent the lowest level of human and moral decay
of a country and a nation”.
Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations,
Munir Akram, says the money was critically needed to revive the economy of the
war-battered country. Akram says, “We have consistently joined the calls of the
international community as well as the senior UN officials and the international
humanitarian actors to unfreeze Afghanistan’s reserves”
Critics have also denounced the White House for doing so
little to address underlying factors driving Afghanistan’s massive humanitarian
crisis after 20 years of American occupation.
A financial advisor to the former Afghan government, Torek
Farhadi, questioned the White House’s decision saying "these reserves
belong to the people of Afghanistan, not the Taliban... Biden's decision is
one-sided and does not match with international law”
Farhadi also says that “no other country on Earth makes such
confiscation decisions about another country's reserves”.
Policy Analyst and Afghan Researcher, Mohsin Amin, strongly
denounced the move; writing on social media that "the U.S. dropped 85,000
bombs on Afghanistan. Even if one bomb killed 3 people, it's 255K. The last
U.S. airstrike killed 10 (7 children), "97 percent of [Afghanistan] is
starving, 3.2m children are malnourished, yet the US wants to throttle the
economy and steal the hard-earned savings of Afghans”.
The Policy Advisor to the UK Minister of Afghan
Resettlement, Shabnam Nasimi, wrote on social media "as more than 23
million people are on the brink of starvation, it is unjust & immoral for
@POTUS to want to use billions of Afghanistan’s frozen assets to pay 9/11
victims. The horrific 9/11 attacks had nothing to do with the people of
Afghanistan, & they should not be punished”.
Adam Weinstein, a researcher at the Quincy Institute, also
added to the chorus of condemnation online saying the move will "go down
in history as a travesty. Punishing an entire people for a crime they did not
commit & kneecapping them into forever dependence should offend every
American”.
On Sunday, the Afghan central bank called on the U.S.
administration to reverse the decision.
In a statement, the Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) said
"blocking Foreign Exchange (FX) Reserves and allocating them to irrelevant
purposes, is an injustice to the people of Afghanistan and [the DAB] will never
accept if the FX reserves of Afghanistan is paid under the name of compensation
or humanitarian assistance to others and [the DAB] wants the reversal of
the decision and release of all FX reserves of Afghanistan”.
"As per the law and relevant regulations, FX reserves
of Afghanistan are used to implement monetary policy, facilitate international
trade and stabilize financial sector”.
The statement added that “the real owners of these reserves
are the people of Afghanistan. These reserves were not the property of
governments, parties, and groups and have never been used as per their demand
and decisions”.
When Kabul fell to the Taliban in August 2021, Afghanistan
had over $9 billion in reserves held on behalf of the country’s central bank
abroad.
This included $7 billion in foreign currency reserves held
in the U.S., and the rest mostly in Germany, the UAE, Switzerland, and a few
other countries.
The Biden administration has decided to release $3.5 billion
of Afghanistan’s money held in America towards families of victims of the
September 11, 2001 attacks and it has also agreed to allocate the other $3.5
billion towards a trust fund that will be used to send humanitarian assistance
to Afghanistan.
However, a senior U.S. administration official told
reporters that it will take a long time before the money is even released for
humanitarian relief in Afghanistan claiming “we have to go through a judicial
process here, it is going to be at least a number of months before we can move
any of this money, right? So this money isn’t going to be available over the
next couple of months regardless“.
The remarks come as acute malnutrition is spiking and over
90 percent of the country is facing serious food insecurity, problems that
disproportionally affect women and girls; while Afghan children are starving to
death nearly every day.
Advocacy group Human Rights Watch says “even if implemented,
the decision would create a problematic precedent.. directing $3.5 billion to
humanitarian assistance for Afghans may sound generous, but it should be
remembered that the entire $7 billion already legally belonged to the Afghan
people”.
The rights group highlights that even if the U.S. gives the
remaining money to “a humanitarian trust fund, current restrictions on
Afghanistan’s banking sector make it virtually impossible to send or spend the
money inside the country”.
It added that more important to addressing Afghanistan’s
current crisis “are ongoing efforts by the United Nations and humanitarian
organizations to convince the U.S. and World Bank to ease economic restrictions
to allow Afghanistan’s economy, which is near complete collapse, to stabilize.
Current restrictions on Afghanistan’s banking system are driving the population
toward famine”
On multiple occasions, humanitarian organizations have
warned that keeping an economic blockade on the country will only make things
worse.
Organizations and groups that are trying to offer assistance
need access to banks.
Human Rights Watch says “without them, the UN’s own
humanitarian activities have become exceedingly difficult; some have had to
cease operations altogether”.
Aid group Refugees International has also issued a statement
saying they are concerned Biden’s administration’s decision will
exacerbate the suffering of the Afghan people.
The organization said "millions are already facing a
dire and life-threatening humanitarian crisis this winter. Using part of
Afghanistan’s reserves to help provide badly needed relief aid and essential
services will no doubt help save lives”
It added, "We are concerned that this action could
further cripple the country’s financial system and thereby perpetuate the
suffering of the Afghan people."
Analysts say the mounting condemnation of the US administration
will add to America’s disastrous policies and mistakes Washington committed and
is continuing to commit again the people of Afghanistan.
