It’s a cry in the desert, a wake-up call about a country that no one wants to hear about anymore. On Tuesday 11 February, the United Nations announced that it needed immediate “$ 5 billion” (4.4 billion euros), to prevent Afghanistan from collapsing as a result of one of the “Most serious humanitarian disasters in its history”. Without this help, said UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths, “There will be no future for this country”. Two days later, neither the amount of funds requested, never reached on behalf of a single country, nor the alarmist remarks made by the UN will have moved the great powers of the planet.
Since the arrival in mid-August of the Taliban in power in Kabul, Western democracies, led by the United States and France, with the notable exception of Germany, have refused to come to the aid of a country led by Muslim fundamentalists who drove them out ruthlessly in the summer of 2021. Even if it only involved humanitarian aid, they consider that this would amount to reinforcing a hated regime that humiliated them and made ignoring the basic rules, particularly in terms of respect for human rights, to which members of the international community are bound.
Nor did the UN’s thunderous announcement make the mullahs’ friendly countries blink, foremost among which are China, Pakistan and Russia. For months, these nations have been calling on them to forge political relations with the new Afghan government and to lift the economic sanctions against this regime which came to power by force while a peace process was underway under international auspices. However, these same countries have, to date, refrained from recognizing the regime or accompanying their encouragement with any significant financial assistance. They are content to call on Washington and Brussels to release the frozen funds of the Afghan central bank.
“Purely humanitarian” aid
To avoid seeing its action assimilated to a political endorsement of a regime ostracized from the nations, the UN insisted on the dimension “Purely humanitarian” of its $ 4.4 billion in aid for food delivery, support for agriculture, health services and education. Mr. Griffiths promised that these funds would be managed by NGOs and UN agencies alone. If nothing is done, according to the UN, nearly 22 million people, or more than half of the population, will very quickly be in danger.
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