EuropaWorld 15/6/2001 Kabul Bakeries Set to Stay Open

Almost three hundred thousand poor Afghans living in the capital, Kabul, came close to losing their bread supplies this week. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) runs the bakeries in Kabul which produce this bread and for some weeks they have been in dispute with the ruling Taliban authorities about conducting a survey of how the bread should be distributed.

To make this bread, WFP have to import flour in convoys of lorries over the mountains. The operation is expensive and there are many hungry people in need of humanitarian assistance. WFP are therefore determined to ensure that the food goes to those most in need of it. This means mounting an independent survey - something that the Taliban have resisted all along, particularly as the WFP proposed to employ local women to staff it.

This issue was taken to the brink. WFP had announced that they would close the bakeries on 15 June unless the Taliban backed down on the survey issue. And close them it did at the end of that day. But the prospect of an end to bread supplies to a such a large number was clearly sufficient to focus minds and there followed rapid agreement between the agency and the Taliban. WFP "believes the agreement will allow it to conduct the survey in an impartial manner," said UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva.

However satisfying the resolution of this particular problem may be, the general news from Afghanistan remains deeply and horrifyingly depressing. The Taliban forces, now in the full swing of their summer offensive, recently took the town of Yakawlang. UN reports speak of indiscriminate bombing, including attacks on the District Hospital and local aid agency facilities, and violence against civilians.

Even the cautious Kofi Annan, called these reports alarming; "the Secretary-General is dismayed at the persistent failure of the warring parties to abide by international humanitarian norms and to hold those responsible for gross violations of human rights accountable for their actions," said his spokesman.

The reports also describe the widespread burning of homes and other property as well as the detention of a large number of civilians. The UN hold these to be especially alarming in the context of past human rights abuses by Taliban commanders.

There is still no sign of any movement in the UN sponsored peace process, which the Taliban have boycotted ever since the Security Council took a less than even handed decision to tighten sanctions on them but not on their opponents. The Secretary-General's Personal Representative for Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell, has just completed yet another round of talks with leaders of Afghanistan's neighbours, this time Turkmenistan and Iran, but there are few encouraging signs that anything will be achieved without the direct participation of both sides in the Afghan Civil War - something that appears to be as far away as ever.

Meanwhile, the UN have announced that Afghanistan is to have a new Country Co-ordinator. The new Co-ordinator is the Australian, Mike Sackett. He replaces Erick de Mul, who left Afghanistan last week to take up a new post as UN Co-ordinator for Angola.