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Afghan humanitarian org struggles with Pakis over aid distribution to refugees in Jalozai |
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Afghan humanitarian org struggles with Pakis over aid distribution to refugees in Jalozai
Courtesy of DAWN and The Nation,
two leading Pakistani daily newspapers
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Misappropriation in Afghan aid alleged
Complete story from DAWN, June 1, 2001
By M. Ilyas Khan
PESHAWAR, May 31: A US-based Afghan aid group has refused to distribute aid through the representatives of the refugees at Jalozai camp, saying it suspected that the aid might be misappropriated.
Suraya Sadeed, an Afghan expatriate who heads Help the Afghan Children Inc., HTAC, told a news conference Thursday the decision was conveyed to the Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees (CAR) following disruption in the distribution of aid by the refugee representatives on Wednesday.
"I would like to know when the last election was held, and who elected those representatives, because the refugee population is not very pleased with them," Sadeed said.
The distribution of 1,800 tents by HTAC was apparently disrupted following a meeting between the refugee representatives and the additional commissioner, CAR, Lt. Col. Abdul Hafiz, at the camp commander's office in Jalozai on Wednesday morning.
"Col. Hafiz told us three things," Sadeed said.
"First, that we intended to distribute tents to those refugees who were not registered. Second, that our tents were large and there was not enough land to pitch them on. And third, that we could distribute the tents on Saturday."
She wondered how Saturday would make a difference when there was no land available, or the refugee families identified by HTAC were not registered?
However, she profusely thanked CAR for issuing her the permission for the distribution of aid "within ten minutes of our request." She also lauded CAR for providing her team with security while conducting the pre-distribution survey.
Sadeed was the first Afghan expatriate to run aid to Badakhshan when it was hit by a massive earthquake in 1998. Last month she visited Herat to provide relief aid to eight camps housing internally-displaced persons from the drought-hit areas of Afghanistan.
"The camps in Herat have received only a fraction of the aid which has poured in for Jalozai refugees, but believe me, the conditions in Herat are far better than those at Jalozai," she said, adding, "I don't know where all the aid is going."
HTAC has carried out its own survey of the needy families at Jalozai. Over the past three days, it distributed 850 forms to be filled in by those families so as to receive tents. However, the representatives of the refugees picked up a row, saying the tents should be distributed through them.
Each of the 32 blocks at Jalozai camp has a representative. The CAR officials say those representatives are chosen by the people at each block. But there are complaints that refugees have no say in choosing their representatives, and that most representatives misappropriate aid with the connivance of CAR officials.
HTAC says it has distributed forms to the remaining 1,050 families on Thursday, and would go ahead with the distribution of tents on Friday, bypassing the representatives.
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US based Afghan NGO to distribute 1,800 tents at Jalozai
Excerpts from The Nation, June 1, 2001
From Shamim Shahid
PESHAWAR祐urreya [sic] Sadeed, Executive Director of the United States based "Help the Afghan Children" will start distributing some 1,800 tents amongst newly-arrived Afghan refugees at Jalozai camp from Friday (today).
The Help the Afghan Children was the first ever NGO which succeeded in reaching Takhar and Badakhshan provinces of Afghanistan which were badly affected by severe earthquakes in 1998. Similarly, recently when millions of Afghans from Northern and Central provinces were compelled to migrate to Pakistan and Herat, Surreya Sadeed with millions of rupees of relief goods rushed to these areas.
Commenting on her recent trip to Pakistan, Surreya Sadeed said that after coming to know about miseries of the Afghan refugees at Jalozai, her NGO decided to help them.
Answering to another question, Surreya Sadeed said that Help the Afghan Children is determined to continue its struggle for the relief of these war and drought affected Afghans.
On completion of tent distribution and digging of deep wells, they would go for adopting future strategies to help the affected people in getting primary health care and basic education.
"This is the money of Afghans and must go to Afghans," she remarked and called upon the world community to fulfill its responsibilities regarding the war and drought affected Afghans. ><
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Help the Afghan Children, Inc., established in 1993 is the
foremost Afghan-run aid organization in the world. HTACI is a
grassroots, non-profit, non-partisan organization, dedicated to
helping Afghan children. Through fund raising activities in the
Afghan community in the United States and abroad, HTACI has been
able to establish and operate several primary health care clinics,
as well as educational and vocational training centers and
home-based education programs in Afghanistan. In addition, HTACI
participate actively in delivering humanitarian emergency aid to
different cities of Afghanistan.
HTACI's mission:
"To create centers for children that provide basic health care, education and vocational training, affordable and within reach of everyone. Our projects help alleviate human suffering, provide basic social services, with emphasis on assisting the most vulnerable group of the Afghan society, the children. To provide home-based education for young girls, that would create jobs for female teachers as well."
Through the efforts of its executive director Ms. Suraya Sadeed and her colleagues, HTACI has succeeded in securing the trust of Afghans in the United States and abroad by remaining faithful to its noble mission. Most importantly, unlike any other Afghan aid organization, HTACI maintains rigid, accurate and detailed records of its activities. That has ensured the legitimacy and probity of HTACI, and donors are certain that their donations get to the needy.
HTACI has been endorsed by the United Nations, the American Muslim Council, and sustains good standing with the Better Business Bureau.
In its endorsement letter, the UN confirmed HTACI's "critical and professional assistance in support of vulnerable groups in Afghanistan," and encourages "an expansion of [HTACI] activities."
To donate, contact HTACI at:
Help the Afghan Children, Inc.
8133 Leesburg Pike, Suite 310
Vienna, VA 22182, USA
Tel: (703) 848-0407 Fax: (703) 848-0408
Email: htaci@msn.com or suraya@helptheafghanchildren.org
Web: www.helptheafghanchildren.org
or www.htaci.com
The quest for Afghanistan by defining afghaniyat
By Mir Hekmatullah Sadat
Afghanistan and Afghans are famous for many things, but civil discourse is no one of them. Currently, we are witnesses to a political culture oddly reminiscent of the Cesarean death duels, with its outlandish tabloids, bizarre characters and predictable finales. By not relying on their intellect, Afghan political pugilists strike far more painful force with their emotional tongues than did the swords of coliseum warriors.
As such, many knowledgeable Afghans are discouraged from taking part in the healing process of Afghanistan. In fact, most Afghans have formed mental associations between politics and fighting. For example, if you appraise a certain leader/group/government's policy, whether they be the policies of the president, clergyman, king, or other, there will be some intransigent who will think you are attacking that person/organization's clan, tribe, ethnicity, etc. Worse yet, you are quickly misjudged and labeled either as an anti-"you fill-it in" based on certain criteria: ethnic, clan, linguistic, political, religious, region, or family. Yet, it is a fact that once people enter the public world by actions, writings, or words, they become the public equity and it becomes fair game to judge and hold accountable those leaders. Unfortunately, we have not realized this because we are very "inteqad-nah-pazir" (very reluctant to take any form of assessment). Hence, it has become a common scene that whenever people are in a conversation the debate quickly becomes divisive in nature.
Although the history of Afghanistan was a source of pain for generations that came before, it is also for many a source of hope for generations still to come. Even though we cannot change the past, what we can change is the future. It is time to rebuild our community, families, and nation -- based on the heterogeneity of religion, ethnicity, language, political beliefs, and region. As Afghans, most importantly as human beings, we should seek to heal the wounds of a bitter war.
In doing so, we will capture the true essence of Afghans: their afghaniyat. We should seek human and civil rights for all Afghans because religious, political and individual freedoms are most crucial in the development of our community. This shared suffering has given our country and its people a relationship unlike any other. Due to the conflict, Afghans are refugees in neighboring countries, inside Afghanistan itself, and have called Europe, the U.S., and other countries their home. At times, Afghans in America seem to care more about events like the Monica Lewinsky scandal or the O.J. Simpson trial than their once respected and revered Afghanistan. Why is it that while people in Afghanistan are shedding blood in a struggle against foreign aggression, we will not even shed a single tear? Has the life of an Afghan become so cheap to us?
Only Afghans can decide how to weave individual liberties and human rights into the rich and strong fabric of Afghan identity. However, in a few years if the matter of national integrity and identity does not get resolved for Afghans, we will not be a nation, as today we are not a people. Blood, soil and memory unite us, but how weak those bonds are baffles me. It is fair to say, "We are an intolerant, stubborn, judgmental and hot-blooded people." Our greatest weakness is that we have no common ideals and no shared Afghan piety.
Instead, we are citizens of an ethnically, linguistically, politically, regionally, and religiously divided community which is doomed to be permanently asunder by incompatible judgments about matters of ultimate importance. Although we were once a great people especially in those trying times as exemplified by the noble purposes and sacrifices of our forefathers; today's failure of most of the political, social, and cultural establishment to live up to these sacred ideals is a crying shame for Afghanistan and an insult to the term afghaniyat. It is a collective "we" that is to be blamed for our lack of rededication to our afghaniyat and Afghanistan.
The wildly exaggerated rhetoric, the inflammatory lies, the bizarre claims, and the voice of hatred against any segment(s) of the Afghan community should be recognized for what it is "bigotry." Hatred and bad faith must be relentlessly repudiated. Many claim to be betaraf (non-aligned) but nobody claims to be mainstream or moderate. Is our non-aligned philosophy really neutral like that of Austria or Sweden? Our afghaniyat is the only factor that is shared cross-sectional among Afghans and can serve as a common ideal.
Of course, all of this common history has been obscured in the last two decades by the conflict. Almost all Afghans may view every single event from various lenses. Today, people all across the world trade more, travel more, know more about and talk more with each other than ever before. Even as people take pride in their national independence, we are being divisive. We just cannot seem to get the objective overall big picture --possibly because our lenses are so clouded, our views so narrow. Still, there must not be discrimination based on which lenses are used but we must also expand our lenses as well to include more Afghans in it.
Foremost, we must stop those that spread the evil vile of hatred and bigotry. The French philosopher Voltaire once said, "It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster." This monster not only fragmented the lives of Afghans but also shattered the recent Buddha of Bamyan. Let us stop the monsters in Afghanistan and the in-the-closet monsters that are living among us in the Western Hemisphere.
While Afghanistan is suffering from a brain drain phenomena and no intellectuals remain that can voice their opinion or a solution, in the Western Hemisphere we have disallowed and discouraged intellectuals to conduct a proper dialogue. This is worrisome because it raises the question: Who shall then conduct and engaged in these dialogues?
At this chapter of our book of sorrows, all Afghans must remind our children and ourselves of our afghaniyat. Otherwise, the afghaniyat we so proudly displayed will be washed away into melting pot of our host country, then who will speak of an Afghan heritage?
In my opinion, we need to remind our children and ourselves that as Afghans we must unconditionally love all Afghans regardless. Shouldn't you want to be known as the generation that set an example for the second immigrant generation of Afghans that are reaching their intellectual formative years? If so, then you need to encourage this generation if you are to shape their afghaniyat. You need to instill in them an afghaniyat that unites diverse ethnicities, languages, religions, and political groups around shared commonalties. Pluralism is the only way out of this quandary. This might be a hard task but it has to be started. This means that you might have to break bread with someone you scorned before you decided that your afghaniyat was more important than your pride. However, this is a truly a small price to pay for the preservation of your afghaniyat and the first step in the direction of healing Afghanistan.
Don't we owe this much to our distraught people? ><
Mr. Sadat is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics/Education at Claremont Graduate University in California. ><
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