[1101] in peace2
bad news
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sanjay Basu)
Tue Oct 9 08:24:42 2001
Message-Id: <200110091224.IAA12110@melbourne-city-street.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 08:24:36 -0400
To: utr-announce@mit.edu
From: Sanjay Basu <sanjayb@MIT.EDU>
Cc: peace-list@mit.edu
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the summary:<br>
<br>
-at least 4 UN civilian workers have been killed by the bombings. u.s.
and british warplanes hit a mine-clearing facility and killed them,
essentially a move to prevent the UN from clearing heavily-mined civilian
areas.<br>
<br>
-AFP is trying to get a tally on the number of civilians killed. at this
point, it looks like the number is hovering near 100, mostly women and
children.<br>
<br>
-the world food program is stopping food distribution because of the
danger, and because u.s. forces won't inform them (even secretly) of
where they can safely deliver food. every major humanitarian aid agency
has pulled out of afghanistan.<br>
<br>
-none of the airdropped food and medicine is useful. all were dropped
without parachutes from 30000 feet, exploding into bits on impact.
essentially a propaganda measure...<br>
<br>
-UN offices came under attack by angry demonstrators in the Pakistani
city of Quetta today. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) office was burned,
and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office was stoned. Five
UN vehicles were burned. Damage was also reported at the office of the UN
Special Mission to Afghanistan in Quetta.<br>
<br>
some of the more detailed sources from which this information was
extracted:<br>
1. MSF press release<br>
2. NYTimes story<br>
3. AFP brief<br>
<br>
MSF:<br>
<font face="Verdana" size=5 color="#000000"><b>MSF rejects link of
humanitarian and military actions</font><font size=3 color="#000080">
</b></font></b><font color="#808080">Airdrops of food and medical aid
described as of 'negligible value' and 'potentially
dangerous'</font><font color="#000080"> <br>
<b>Press release, Islamabad, Oct 8, 2001</b>: The international medical
aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which has been working in
Afghanistan since 1979, today cast doubt on the so-called 'humanitarian
airdrops' by US and British military forces, which have accompanied the
military strikes against Afghanistan over the last 24-hours. Such action
does not answer the needs of the Afghan people and is likely to undermine
attempts to deliver substantial aid to the most vulnerable.<br>
<br>
MSF's Dr Jean-Hervé Bradol, speaking from Pakistan, explained that the
so-called 'humanitarian' action, was in fact a purely propaganda tool, of
little real value to the Afghan people. <br>
<br>
Moreover, the deliberate adoption by the military of a 'humanitarian'
purpose, was likely to cause real problems for truly independent
non-governmental aid organisations who are less likely to be perceived as
impartial actors in the future. <br>
<br>
"How will the Afghan population know in the future if an offer of
humanitarian aid does not hide a military operation?" questions Dr
Bradol. "We have seen many times before, for example in Somalia, the
problems caused for both the vulnerable population and for aid agencies
when the military try to both fight a war and deliver aid at the same
time."<br>
<br>
Dr Bradol explained that the real impact of the much-vaunted 37,500
single day rations on the burgeoning nutritional crisis within
Afghanistan was likely to be minimal. <br>
<br>
"What is needed is large scale convoys of basic foodstuffs, rather
than single meals designed for soldiers. Until yesterday the UN and aid
agencies such as ourselves were still able to get some food convoys into
Afghanistan. Due to the airstrikes the UN have stopped all convoys, and
we will find delivering aid also much more difficult."<br>
<br>
Doctors from MSF also expressed concern at the reported airdropping of
medical supplies. "Medical relief is not the same as dropping
medicines by plane. Unless they are administered by qualified medical
staff, medicines can actually do more harm than good", said Dr
Bradol. "Dropping a few cases of drugs and food in the middle of the
night during air raids, without knowing who is going to collect them, is
virtually useless and may even be dangerous".<br>
<br>
Médecins Sans Frontières therefore rejects the idea of a humanitarian
coalition alongside the military coalition, as requested by President
Bush and Prime Minister Blair, and calls for the imperative necessity of
independent humanitarian action. <br>
<br>
<br>
</font>NYTimes:<br>
<b>October 9, 2001<br>
<br>
<font color="#808080">THE ATTACK</font></b><font color="#000080"> <br>
</font><font size=5><b>4 U.N. Workers Killed in Initial Strike on
Afghanistan<br>
</font><font size=3>By PATRICK E. TYLER<br>
</b>Washington, Oct. 9 — The United Nations said today that four of its
workers were killed and four others were injured near Kabul in the latest
round of bombing by the United States against Afghanistan.<br>
At a news conference in Islamabad, the Pakistan capital, a spokeswoman
for the United Nations said that the workers were killed when a missile
destroyed a building housing Afghan Technical Consultancy, the agency
that oversees mine clearing operations in Afghanistan. The building is
several miles east of Kabul, the Afghanistan capital.<br>
The spokeswoman said that all eight of the workers were Afghans and were
civilians.<br>
It is the first independent report of civilian deaths resulting from the
United States-led military action since the attacks began on
Sunday.<br>
There was no immediate response from Washington on the deaths and
injuries to the United Nations workers.<br>
Afghanistan is one of the most heavily-minded countries in the world and
the United Nations began a mine-clearing program there last year.<br>
The United Nations appealed for the protection of civilians in the
military strikes against Afghanistan.<br>
For a second day, B-2 stealth bombers flying from the United States
joined carrier-based aircraft on Monday to strike targets in Afghanistan
as anti-American demonstrations began to roil Muslim capitals and Bush
administration officials stepped up planning to oust the Afghan
regime.<br>
Monday's bombing campaign sent aloft only about half the planes that
President Bush ordered launched on Sunday in the first military response
to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. American warships
loosed Tomahawk cruise missiles in blazes of light over the Arabian Sea,
and B-1 bombers flew sorties from the island of Diego Garcia in the
Indian Ocean. <br>
Attacks seemed to be continuing on into daylight, however, suggesting
that the Taliban's antiaircraft defenses had been weakened. The
Associated Press reported from Kabul, the capital, that a bomb fell near
the airport after dawn today, followed by a missile screaming into the
eastern part of the city. Senior military officials have said that
attacks would continue night and day.<br>
In Britain, Defense Secretary Geoffry Hoon suggested that the first phase
of attacks on Afghanistan could be over within days.<br>
"I anticipate it is more likely a matter of days rather than
weeks," Mr. Hoon told BBC television. "This is the first phase
of our attacks on the Taliban regime, on bringing Osama bin Laden to
account."<br>
"It depends on how successful those attacks are and whether we find
further targets to address, but for the moment this is the
anticipation," Mr. Hoon said.<br>
British forces joined the Americans in the first strikes against
Afghanistan on Sunday, but there was no word that they had taken part in
the second day's raids. An unidentified Defense Ministry official in
London said they had not.<br>
At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said a preliminary
assessment of raids against 31 targets on Sunday showed that "we
have made progress" toward disabling military airfields and
"eliminating the air defense sites" that protect the Taliban
and the Qaeda terrorist network of Mr. bin Laden.<br>
Yet, he added, "we cannot yet state with certainty that we destroyed
the dozens" of military command and leadership sites attacked by
allied aircraft and missiles. He said it was unclear whether the allied
strikes had "fully disabled" the Taliban air force and air
defenses.<br>
Still, Pentagon officials said, no Taliban aircraft have been seen taking
to the skies in opposition to American pilots, and no American planes
have been lost. <br>
As the night sky over Kabul was sundered by the flashes of bomb strikes
and the arcing lines of tracer fire, Mr. Bush sought to bolster
antiterrorism forces at home by formally installing Tom Ridge, the former
Pennsylvania governor, as the head of a new cabinet post for homeland
defense. Yet there were concerns that Mr. Ridge would lack the
bureaucratic power to force dozens of agencies to coordinate
efforts.<br>
"The best defense against terror is a global offensive against
terror, wherever it might be found," Mr. Bush said at a swearing-in
ceremony for Mr. Ridge. "On all fronts, we are going to be ongoing
and relentless as we tighten the net of justice." <br>
Mr. Rumsfeld said American warplanes had attacked Afghan ground forces
associated with both Al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership under Mullah
Muhammad Omar. Many of those forces are massed north of Kabul where they
have been fighting the opposition Northern Alliance, which is believed to
be receiving covert assistance from Russia, Iran and — now — the United
States.<br>
Reports from Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold, said Mullah Omar's residence
at the edge of the city was destroyed during Sunday's opening attack, but
Taliban officials said he and Mr. bin Laden were alive.<br>
The Taliban authorities estimated the death toll from the first day's
raids at between 8 and 20. American officials had no comment on possible
casualties.<br>
Officers aboard the carrier Enterprise said their pilots had attacked an
underground bunker on a hillside that was heavily defended by troops with
small arms, but they declined to reveal the identity of the Taliban or Al
Qaeda leaders who they believed were taking refuge there.<br>
As the American-led campaign unfolded, Palestinians clashed on Monday
with on another in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian security forces shot dead
two students, one of them a 13-year-old, who were among up to 2,000
protesters demonstrating against the American-led military action in
Afghanistan. After the shooting, an angry crowd of Palestinians ransacked
police posts in Gaza City. <br>
The most widespread demonstrations against the American strikes occurred
in Pakistan, the world's second most populous Islamic nation and the
breeding ground for many of the Islamic militants who now form the
Taliban leadership in neighboring Afghanistan.<br>
The worst anti-American demonstrations occurred in Quetta, a city 60
miles from the border with southern Afghanistan. At least one person was
shot dead, and police reported that a subinspector had been kidnapped
when the central police station was burned in rioting that destroyed
several shops and movie theaters. United Nations agency offices were also
burned.<br>
Demonstrations occurred in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and in the
cities of Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi, as well as close to the Khyber
Pass border crossing into Afghanistan, where tribal leaders burned an
effigy of Mr. Bush.<br>
In Cairo, 10,000 students protested peacefully on three university
campuses, in one case chanting: "Our rulers, why are you silent?
Have you got orders from America?"<br>
In Sudan, protesters in Khartoum shouted, "Long live bin
Laden!"<br>
American embassies, schools and other facilities closed throughout the
Middle East as security alerts warned American citizens abroad to
exercise extreme caution.<br>
Although Iran expressed unusual sympathy for the United States in the
aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and its Shiite Muslim leaders have no
liking for the Sunni Muslim regime of the Taliban, the country's
spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, condemned the American strikes.
<br>
"America is lying when it propagates the aims of its attacks against
Afghanistan to be a struggle against terrorism," he said. "But
this is not a struggle against terrorism. Why do they lie to the people
of the world? Why don't they express the true aim — power and
domination."<br>
In his briefing on Monday, Mr. Rumsfeld said an American objective is to
assist Afghan forces "interested in overthrowing and expelling"
the Taliban. <br>
"The United States is interested in the elements of the Afghans on
the ground that have it in their mind that they would like to end Al
Qaeda's role in Afghanistan and end the senior Taliban's leadership
role," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "And the Northern Alliance and the
tribes in the south and others are among those." <br>
The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said it was "not the job
of the United States to engage in nation building" by seeking to
orchestrate the shape of a future Afghan government. He reiterated
administration policy, saying, "We do not want to choose who rules
Afghanistan, but we will assist those who seek a peaceful, economically
developing Afghanistan, free of terrorism."<br>
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee,
said that "the Taliban is effectively already gone."<br>
Mr. Biden, appearing on the CBS News "Early Show," said the
Taliban had "lost the support of all the surrounding neighbors,
adding: "It does not have any place to go. And the question now is
for me just a matter of how long, not if, and what replaces
it."<br>
European Union foreign ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, declared that
"the Afghan people deserve a government which is truly
representative and which responds to their needs and aspirations,"
and stressed that the United Nations had an "essential" role to
play in establishing such a government.<br>
The French foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, said there was consensus on
a French proposal that Afghanistan's 86-year-old exiled king, now living
in Rome, could play a key transitional role. <br>
Relief operations in Afghanistan suffered a blow on Monday when the
United Nations World Food Program announced that it was suspending food
distribution in the country during the bombing campaign. <br>
American officials said C-17's flying at 30,000 feet again dropped more
than 35,000 food and medicine packets, but some international aid
organizations criticized the effort.<br>
"It's an act of marketing, aimed more at public opinion than saving
lives," Thomas Gonnet, head of operations in Afghanistan for the
French group Action Against Hunger, told Agence France-Presse. <br>
But Mr. Rumsfeld bristled at such criticism, pointing out that the United
States had made a $320 million relief commitment to Afghanistan. One of
the purposes of the bombing campaign, he pointed out, was to make the
country safe for relief operations to resume.<br>
At the United Nations, the American representative, John Negroponte,
submitted a letter to the Security Council saying the United States may
find it necessary to carry its military campaign into other nations,
without specifying which ones. <br>
"We may find that our self-defense requires further actions with
respect to other organizations and other states," the letter said,
raising the question of whether the Bush administration was laying the
groundwork for attacks against terror groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and
other countries identified as harboring terrorists.<br>
Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, suggested that there was an
agreement between London and Washington to defer actions elsewhere until
the Afghanistan problem was solved. <br>
"The agreement at the moment," Mr. Straw said in Luxembourg, is
that military strikes "are confined to Afghanistan." He added,
"That is where the problem is, and that is the military action in
which we are involved."<br>
Mr. Hoon, the British defense secretary, told reporters in London that
"the use of ground troops" was among the options that American
and allied planners were preparing for later stages of the antiterrorist
campaign in Afghanistan. <br>
Canada said that it would contribute 2,000 troops, most of them commando
forces, along with six ships and six aircraft to the American-led
coalition. And Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany, who has been keen
to cast his nation as a dependable Atlantic partner with a military
contribution to make, announced that he planned to visit Mr. Bush in
Washington on Tuesday.<br>
<br>
AFP brief:<br>
<b>KABUL, Oct 9 (AFP) - </b>Four civilians working with an Afghan
demining agency were killed during US-led strikes on Kabul, UN officials
said, as the Taliban's supreme leader narrowly escaped a raid close to
his home in Kandahar. <br>
The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salem Zaeef, said Tuesday that
the US and British bombing raids and cruise missile attacks which began
on Sunday had killed "tens of civilians" in Afghan cities.
<br>
<br>
</font>
<BR>
<div>------------------------------------------------------</div>
<div>Sanjay Basu </div>
<div>MIT</div>
<div>450 Memorial Drive </div>
<div>Cambridge, MA 02139 </div>
<div>(617) 225-9497 (H)</div>
<div>(208) 246-3519 (fax)</div>
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<div>
<a href="http://web.mit.edu/sanjayb/www" EUDORA=AUTOURL>http://web.mit.edu/sanjayb/www</a></div>
<br>
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