Hunger and Terror

["Ken Hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following text with a few additions by my scanner comes from the
Manitoba Co-operator Sept. 20, 2001

What if the response were to use just a few of the resources gathered in the
area to fly over Afghanistan dropping food supplies, seed, agricultural
equipment and supplies. Also, propaganda leaflets in Arabic with the
following text:

We too believe God is great
That we have an obligation to help and protect the poor.
God has favored us
and given us this surplus
to help you in your need.
We are in sorrow and anguish at what
has been done to us...
but we believe that in this horror there is a lesson....

Those who kill innocents will have their innocents killed in turn...

With you we believe it is right to protect our people
When attacked.
We too believe in Jihad.

So this is our Jihad you see
dropping  from the skies.

Cheers, Ken Hanly

Hunger and terror

Last week's horror in New York left many of us feeling powerless, including
those of us normally in the business of commenting on th~ events of the
world around us. What can anyone say, let alone add tc what has already been
said over the past week, especially when we are writing for a farm audience
?
In searching for those words we came across something that was said before
the tragedy, and which perhaps gives a clue to understanding the environment
in which terrorism festers. The following, reprinted in full, is a press
release issued August 10 by AC1; a church-based organization in Geneva.

The ACT members in Afghanistan, Christian Aid (CA), Church World Service
(CWS) and Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) express strong concerns about the
deteriorating situation in the country. The current drought is the worst
since 1971- 72. Almost half the country is affected, but the north and
northwest is worst hit.
Crops wither away in the fields and wells dry out, hundreds of thousands of
people are leaving their villages and walking towards camps around bigger
cities or in Pakistan. Only a huge relief effort now, before the winter sets
in, in November, can help mitigate a potential crisis. The U.N. describes
the situation as the worst humanitarian disaster in the world.
About half of Afghanistan's provinces are directly affected by the drought.
The U.N.'s World Food Program (WFP) estimate that four million to five
million of the country's 21 million people need food assistance at present
and up to eight million will need assistance this, winter. Among the most
needy are the 800,000 drought- and war-displaced. However, those in villages
need urgent assistance so that they can stay in their homes over the winter
rather than being forced to squalid displaced camps around the cities. In a
recent report U .N . agencies warned that the situation is getting rapidly
worse and that famine now is a real threat to significant portions of the
population.

Afghans already make up one of the largest refugee populations in the world
(2 million in Pakistan,1.5 million in Iran) but in the last year
 a further one million people have been displaced as a result of the drought
and ongoing conflict in Afghanistan - 700,000 of those remain within
Afghanistan, in lOP camps such as those outside I Herat. I The legacy of 20
years of conflict and ongoing fighting in the northeast of the country has
led to the destruction and dilapidation of rural infrastructure and has
increased vulnerability levels particularly I' of rural livelihoods.
Eighty-five per cent of Afghans are directly dependent on agriculture to
survive, and the failure of rains for the past three years has led to very
poor or no harvest on rain-fed and reduced harvests on irrigated crops. Most
rain-fed crops, accounting for over 70 per cent of all cultivated land in
western and northwestern provinces, have failed altogether in 200 1.
The situation will deteriorate over the corning months: no significant
harvest is expected until August 2002, increased displacement, starvation
and health crises will make the situation worse.
Urgent needs are food, water and seed. Many parts of Afghanistan are
inaccessible from late November: adequate food stocks need to be built up
before then to allow the population to survive over winter and prevent
further displacement.

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