ICC Prosecutor Defends Dropping US from Afghan War Crimes Probe
Tolo News: The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor for Afghanistan has defended his decision to “deprioritize” the focus on the United States in an investigation of war crimes in Afghanistan, saying that the “worst crimes” were committed by Daesh and the Taliban. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghanistan’s Currency Falls to Record Low; One Dollar Equals 100 Afghanis
8am: Sarai Shahzada exchange market announced that one dollar was exchanged for 100 afghanis in this market today (Tuesday, December 7). This is the first time the value of a US dollar has risen to three digits against the Afghan currency since the publication of the current banknotes. Click here to read more (external link).
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Former Foreign Secretary Challenges Whistle-Blower’s Claims U.K. Abandoned Afghan Allies
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 7, 2021
A former British foreign secretary has defended his oversight of the evacuation of troops and civilians from Afghanistan following a damning whistle-blower’s report alleging that the operation was “dysfunctional” and “chaotic” and left U.K. allies abandoned.
Dominic Raab, who was transferred from the Foreign Office to his current post of justice secretary following the evacuation that ended at the end of August, defended his record on December 7.
Raab described as “inaccurate” claims made by Foreign Office staffer Raphael Marshall, who wrote to a parliamentary committee that, while he estimated that 75,000 to 150,000 people requested evacuation, just 5 percent of Afghan nationals who applied received help.
Marshall said that at times he was the only person monitoring the e-mail system set up to field requests for assistance, and that there were “usually 5,000 unread e-mails in the inbox,” some of them with headings like “please save my children.”
“It’s inaccurate in certain respects; the suggestion that junior desk officers were making decisions is just not correct,” Raab told the BBC.
“Some of the criticism seems rather dislocated from the facts on the ground, the operational pressures [that came with the] takeover of the Taliban,” he told the BBC. “I do think that not enough recognition has been given to quite how difficult it was.”
Marshall also told members of parliament that “thousands of Afghan friends of the U.K. at risk of murder” were removed from evacuation lists, and that limited capacity on planes deployed during the airlift was at one point used to transport animals.
Marshall alleged that soldiers were put at risk as a result of the decision to aid the evacuation of animals from a shelter at the request of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The operator of the shelter, former Royal Marine Paul Farthing, has accused Marshall of lying, saying “not one single British soldier” was used in the evacuation of the animals.
Raab told Sky News on December 7 that “we did not put the welfare of animals above individuals.”
More than 122,000 people, including soldiers and civilians who worked for the Afghan government or Western powers, were evacuated from Afghanistan in a combined effort carried out by the United States and its allies in the two weeks that followed the Taliban’s capture of Kabul on August 15.
Some 15,000 people were evacuated by Britain.
Based on reporting by the BBC, AP, Reuters, and Sky News
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Nobel Laureate Malala Urges U.S. To Bolster Support For Afghan Girls, Women
Malala Yousafzai
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 7, 2021
WASHINGTON — Human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai urged the United States to increase its support of Afghan girls and women.
“Afghanistan right now is the only country where girls do not have access to secondary education. They are prohibited from learning,” the 24-year-old said in Washington on December 6 standing alongside U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“I have been working together with Afghan girls and women’s activists, and there is this one message from them: that they should be given the right to work. They should be able to go to school,” she said.
“So this is the message of Afghan girls right now: We want to see a world where all girls can have access to safe and quality education,” she said as she presented a letter addressed to President Joe Biden from a 15-year-old Afghan girl named Sotodah.
According to Yousafzai, the teenage Afghan girl wrote in her letter that “the longer schools and universities remain closed to girls, the more it will shade hope for [their] future.”
“Girls’ education is a powerful tool for bringing peace and security,” the Pakistani-born Yousafzai added while reading the letter. “If girls don’t learn, Afghanistan will suffer, too.”
Since the Taliban took over the conservative Muslim-majority nation in mid-August, Afghan schools have reopened, but most for boys only.
“We hope that the United States, together with the UN, will take immediate actions to ensure that girls are allowed to go back to their schools as soon as possible,” Yousafzai said before a private meeting with Blinken.
As a 15-year-old in 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head on her school bus by Pakistani Taliban gunmen in her native Swat Valley, in Pakistan’s northwest, because she campaigned for the education of girls, which the militant extremist group opposes.
She recovered after months of treatment at home and abroad and was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her campaign supporting the education of girls.
Malala graduated from Britain’s Oxford University in 2020 and has since created a digital publication for girls and women and formed her own TV production company.
Blinken said Yousafzai “is truly an inspiration — an inspiration to us, an inspiration to girls and women around the world.”
“By her work, by her efforts, [she] is making a real difference,” he added.
“So, I’m very much looking forward to talking to her about the work that she’s doing, the work that we’re doing, and to hear from her, her ideas about how to be more effective at making sure — as we’re working for gender equity — that girls and women have access to education,” Blinken said.
With reporting by AFP and ABC
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
UN Indefinitely Delays Decision On Taliban, Burma Junta Recognition
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 7, 2021
The United Nations has indefinitely postponed the international recognition of Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and Burma’s military junta.
A resolution adopted by consensus without a vote by the General Assembly on December 6 effectively held off any decision on recognition for at least the next 10 months.
A week ago, the Credentials Committee recommended to “defer its decision on the credentials pertaining to the representatives” of Burma and Afghanistan during the current General Assembly session, which ends in September 2022.
For Afghanistan and Burma, also known as Myanmar, there have been competing applications for accreditation at the UN from old and new regimes.
The Taliban government, which seized power in Afghanistan in mid-August, has not been recognized by any country or the UN.
Afghanistan’s new rulers have come under intense international pressure over human rights violations and the lack of rights of women to education, employment, and participation in political and social life.
On September 14, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the UN, Ghulam Isaczai, who had been appointed by ousted President Ashraf Ghani, submitted a request to remain at the world body.
The Taliban on September 20 asked the UN to accept Suhail Shaheen — a former spokesman for the Islamist group — as the country’s new representative.
The Taliban assailed the UN committee for not confirming its chosen ambassador.
“The Credentials Committee decided yesterday that for now, the seat of Afghanistan at UN be not given to the new government in Afghanistan. This decision is not based on legal rules and justice because they have deprived the people of Afghanistan of their legitimate right,” Shaheen wrote in a tweet.
Burma was rocked by a military coup on February 1.
Wunna Maung Lwin, the foreign minister of Burma, on August 18 appointed former military commander Aung Thurein as the UN envoy.
But Kyaw Moe Tun, who was appointed by deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi, defied the military rulers by staying at his post. On August 21, he asked the UN to allow him to remain accredited.
AP quoted unnamed UN diplomats as saying the decision to delay the requests by Burma’s junta and the Taliban had wide support because of the actions of the countries’ new rulers.
With reporting by AFP, Reuters, and AP
Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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UN Launches Historic $2 Billion Humanitarian Appeal to Save Afghan Children
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
December 7, 2021
ISLAMABAD — The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) launched its largest ever single-country appeal Tuesday to urgently respond to the humanitarian needs of “over 24 million people in Afghanistan, half of whom are children.”
The relief agency said the appeal for $2 billion would help avert the imminent collapse of health, nutrition, education water, sanitation and hygiene as well as other social services for children in the country where families are struggling to heat their homes and keep their children warm in harsh winter conditions.
Alice Akunga, UNICEF country representative, noted in a statement that the current humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is dire, especially for children. She said without additional funding, her agency and partners will not be able to reach the children and families that urgently need relief assistance.
“As families struggle to put nutritious food on the table and health systems are further strained, millions of Afghan children are at risk of starvation and death,” warned Akunga.
She urged donors to support Afghanistan’s children through its humanitarian appeal to keep children alive, well-fed, safe and learning. “It won’t be easy but with the lives and wellbeing of so many children at stake, we must rise to the challenge,” she said.
UNICEF estimates that one in two children under five in Afghanistan will be “acutely malnourished” in 2022 due to the food crisis and lack of access to key social services.
In addition, 10 million children are at risk of dropping out of school if teacher salaries are not paid and crippling poverty levels continue, according to the U.N. agency.
The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in mid-August following the United States-led Western military withdrawal from the country and the ensuing punitive international financial sanctions on the Islamist group have increased humanitarian needs to unprecedented levels. The humanitarian crisis stems from years of war, high levels of poverty and a nationwide drought.
The worsening economic and humanitarian crisis is prompting desperate Afghan families to try to flee to neighboring countries.
Up to 5,000 Afghans are crossing into neighboring Iran daily, using illegal border routes between with the help of human smugglers, and more than 300,000 people have crossed into Iran in the past three months, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“The Afghan state is collapsing after the world responded to the Taliban takeover by freezing state assets, cutting aid and offering only limited sanctions relief for humanitarian purposes,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) said Monday.
The ICG noted in its report that Afghan government employees lack salaries, basic services are not being delivered, the financial sector is paralyzed, and the economy is in freefall.
“The rising number of people fleeing the country could provoke another migration crisis. State collapse would mark a terrible stain on the reputation of Western countries, which is already tarnished by chaotic withdrawal,” the ICG said.
The Taliban are losing the fight against Islamic State
The Strategist: So brutal is this Taliban war with IS-K that the hospital in Jalalabad, Nangarhar’s provincial capital, treated more casualties in November than it treated during the war between the Taliban, NATO and the Afghan government. Given that many of those being disappeared and murdered are not IS-K operatives, the Taliban’s campaign may only serve to increase IS-K recruitment, and there’s little evidence that it’s having any impact on the group’s operations. Click here to read more (external link).
Takhar Residents Complain the Low Quality of WFP Aid
8am: The aid reportedly included primary foods, including flour. The flour distributed by this agency cannot be cooked, therefore, they have been forced to give it to livestock, the families stressed. Click here to read more (external link).
At Meeting With PM Modi, Putin Says Concerned Over Afghanistan Situation
Putin
NDTV: “We are certainly worried about everything related to terrorism and the fight against it. Terrorism is also fight against drug trafficking and organized crime. In this regard, we cannot but worry about the situation and how it is developing in Afghanistan,” Putin said at the 21st India- Russia Annual Summit at the Hyderabad House. Click here to read more (external link).