POLITICS: UN Sanctions Loom for Afghanistan

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 15 1999 (IPS) - The UN Security Council Friday threatened to ban airline flights to or from Afghanistan and impose further sanctions unless the ruling Taliban movement produced Saudi financier Osama bin Laden for trial on terrorism charges.

The Taliban, a radical Islamic group which has ruled most of Afghanistan since 1996 – but is not recognised as its government by the United Nations – has one month to comply with the Council’s demands to turn bin Laden over for trial.

If this was not done by Nov. 14, the Council ruled, the Taliban would face the freezing of its overseas funds and all nations would be ordered to deny permission for travel on all Taliban owned or operated aircraft.

In practise, the flight ban would halt the activities of the Taliban-run Ariana airlines, currently flying internationally only to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

To underscore its concern, the Council voted unanimously in favour of the resolution. The Muslim nations of Bahrain and Malaysia voted with China, a staunch opponent of sanctions, in agrreing to the embargo against Afghanistan.

Both Bahrain and Malaysia, however, noted that the Council had one month to review whether to impose sanctions, and if so, how to implement them to affect only the Taliban leadership rather than the Afghan people as a whole.

US Ambassador Nancy Soderberg said as the vote passed that the Council had sent a strong message to terrorists: “You cannot run, you cannot hide – you will be brought to justice.”

The United States has charged bin Laden, head of the Islamic ‘al-Qaeda’ organisation, with planning the Aug. 7, 1998, bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in which more than 200 people were killed.

Several of bin Laden’s associates have been indicted for involvement in the bombing, with trial proceedings scheduled to begin in New York by September 2000.

Bin Laden, regarded by the Taliban as a “guest” living in Afghanistan, helped organise resistance to the 1979-90 Soviet occupation of the country. He lives under armed guard in an undisclosed location.

Laili Helms, a spokeswoman for the Taliban in New York, told IPS that the Islamist movement did not understand why bin Laden is regarded as a threat, given that the Taliban monitors his actions and has restricted his involvement with the outside world.

That argument, which has been made repeatedly by the Taliban ever since the United States responded to the Aug. 7 attack by bombing targets in Afghanistan two weeks later, has not convinced the US government.

“Our information confirms that bin Laden’s organisation, working with other terrorist groups, continues actively to plan attacks on Americans and others,” Soderberg said. “We also have reliable evidence that bin Laden’s network seeks to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons.”

Yet Helms argued that bin Laden and his associates have not been proven to commit any crime. “We haven’t received any evidence of his involvement” in last year’s embassy attacks, she said.

Still, Helms said, the Taliban – which is only recognised by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as Afghanistan’s government – is willing to negotiate with US officials on bin Laden’s fate.

One option, she said, was to hand bin Laden, a Saudi national, over to Saudi judges for a trial – but she added that Washington has so far rejected that option.

Nevertheless, the US State Department was considering plans to talk with Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, the Taliban’s New York representative, possibly by next week, Helms added.

Mujahid recently downplayed the effect of any sanctions, arguing last month that the United States had not provided any significant level of commerce with Afghanistan in recent years. US President Bill Clinton cut off US trade with Afghanistan on Jul. 5, citing the Taliban’s harbouring of bin Laden.

Many UN diplomats also doubted how much effect the sanctions would have on the Taliban, a group which has some close ties with Pakistan but is isolated from all its other neighbours, including India, Iran and Tajikistan.

One Asian diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, argued, “Countries simply don’t have much leverage in Afghanistan, and I don’t think this (resolution) will change that reality.”

Much of Afghanistan’s money from outside comes from already- illegal exports of opium and heroin, according to UN estimates. This year, the United Nations reported, Afghanistan produced some 4,600 metric tonnes of raw opium – the largest amount ever recorded for one nation.

Another worry, voiced privately by some diplomats, is that sanctions on Afghanistan may further aggravate the crisis in Pakistan following Tuesday’s military coup, led by army chief Gan. Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistan and, ironically, the US Central Intelligence Agency were alleged to have helped form the Taliban and Pakistani military officials retained ties with the Islamist movement.

Consequently, some officials here have warned, sanctions on the aliban could further isolate Pakistan at a time when the military there has seized sweeping powers.