By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 20 2000 (IPS)

The 15-member UN Security Council has virtually defied Secretary-General Kofi Annan by imposing new sanctions against the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Asked about its impact, Annan told reporters that sanctions were “not going to facilitate the (UN’s) peace effort (in Afghanistan) nor its humanitarian work”.

Speaking hours before the sanctions were imposed, the secretary- general said he gave “adequate information” to the Security Council about the possible repercussions of the new sanctions.

But once the Council takes a decision, he said, he has no choice but to undertake the necessary measures to implement the resolution. “I am not a spokesman for the Council. It is the Council’s decision,” he added.

At a meeting Tuesday, the Council decided on the new sanctions by a vote of 13 in favour to none against, with two abstentions (China and Malaysia).

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one Third World ambassador told IPS: “I think the secretary-general is very upset about the sanctions”.

Annan has continued to express strong reservations about the effectiveness of UN sanctions in general – which are primarily designed to punish political leaders and governments for their erratic behaviour or for defying the international community.

“Just as we recognise the importance of sanctions as a way of compelling compliance with the will of the international community,” he said last year, “we also recognise that sanctions remain a blunt instrument.”

Annan has made the distinction between “smart” sanctions and “dumb sanctions”, the former impacting on political leaders, and the latter on innocent population.

The United States and Russia, in a rare team effort, joined hands in pushing for new sanctions, including a ban on the transfer of weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment and spares.

The United States has accused the Taliban of providing safe haven to Usama bin Laden, who has been indicted in US courts as an “international terrorist” for allegedly masterminding the bombings of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in August 1998.

Russia believes that the Taliban is providing funds, weapons and military training to Muslim rebels fighting for a separate state in the Russian province of Chechnya.

The resolution, drafted primarily by the United States and Russia, also urges all 189 member states to “immediately and completely” close all Taliban offices in their territories.

Additionally, it has urged all States that maintain diplomatic relations with the Taliban “to significantly reduce the number and level of the staff at Taliban missions and posts and restrict or control the movement within their territory of all such staff who remain”.

Currently, only three countries, namely Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, recognise the rigidly Islamic Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. The UN seat is presently occupied by the former Burhanudin Rabbani government because the world body has refused to recognise the Taliban government.

The resolution also urges member states to deny any aircraft permission to take off from, land in or over-fly their territories, if the aircraft has taken off from, or is destined to land at, a place in the territory of Afghanistan under Taliban control.

In anticipation of a possible backlash, the United Nations Monday withdrew all of its international staff, numbering about 50.

Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, the New York-based representative of the Taliban, said the sanctions against the Taliban is a violation of the UN charter and its commitment to peace and humanity.

“Our people suffered enough at the hands of Russia and its warmongering cohorts. They will suffer even more with these new sanctions,” he said.

“The Afghan people, after two decades of devastating war, with over half of them now facing famine, will keep seeking peace, national integrity and understanding with the world community – but not through the United Nations,” he added.

Last week the New York based Human Rights Watch was critical of the one-sided arms embargo. In a letter to members of the Council, Human Rights Watch urged the adoption of an arms embargo against all combatants, not only the Taliban.

The resolution, it said, does not directly address the ongoing civil war in Afghanistan, which has been accompanied by a severe humanitarian crisis.

The letter also called on the Council to remove the ban on the Taliban-controlled Ariana Afghan Airlines on the ground that it interferes with the delivery of medicines and other needed aid to civilians.

The Afghan civil war is between the Taliban and the five-party Northern Alliance, formally known as the Islamic and National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan.

The Taliban continues to control most provinces in the south, south-west and south-east, including the capital Kabul, and the cities of Kandahar, Herat and Jalalabad.

The Northern Alliance, which operates from the provincial capitals of Mazar-i-Sharif, Bamyan, Talogan and Maimana, is in control of the provinces in northern and central Afghanistan.

The original sanctions on Afghanistan, imposed in November 1998, banned all international flights by the Kabul-based Ariana Afghan Airlines, and a freeze on the bank accounts of the Taliban regime.

But after a two-month field investigation last August, the United Nations concluded that economic sanctions imposed on Afghanistan had caused severe hardships on the people – not on the country’s political leaders who were the real targets.

“The population of Afghanistan is highly vulnerable and has little capacity to cope with any further economic shocks,” the study noted.

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