The West has caused disaster damage to Afghanistan and its own reputation by imposing hunger policy in the country, according to David Miliband, former British Foreign Secretary and Chief Executive of the International Rescue Committee.
If we want to create a failed state, we cannot have a policy mixture that is more effective than we have today,” he told the Guardian.
Miliband has been at the forefront of those who lobby Biden and World Bank administration to release cash not only for humanitarian assistance but also to start reconstructing the economy.
I just don’t understand the lack of urgency to move this thing. It really makes me confused that we should let this be much worse with so fast,” he said.
He warned that the crisis was very deep so that the UN appeal for $ 4 billion this year, which will be aimed at the pledging conference next month, is likely to rise to $ 10 billion next year.
There were reports that the World Bank Council could meet in March to release as many as £ 1 billion so that so far refused to release it.
On his first visit to London in two years, he said: “What we did did not make it worse for the Taliban, it made it worse for people. We did not punish the Taliban. It is a regular Afghanistan who pays a peaceful price. This is not Only disaster choices, but a reputation disaster. This is a hunger policy. “
Fresh from testifying to the investigation of the Senate foreign relations committee on the scale of the crisis, Miliband challenged those who believed that cutting assistance would produce a more compound Taliban.
He said: “There is absolutely no evidence that people who have spent 20 years against America and winning the war will now be vulnerable to leverage that they have not been vulnerable for 20 years. The choice is very brutal. This is not ‘Do you help the Taliban or not?’ “Do you help people or not? ‘. This is a government where 75% of its expenditures come in the form of international assistance and have spent. “
He said the four problems needed to handle immediately if the country would survive the remaining winter.
“There is no money to pay a salary. Some teachers and hospital workers have not been paid since April. What must change.
US sanctions continue to have cold effects on commercial activities even though there are carvings in US and international sanctions for humanitarian purposes. Carvings do not touch commercial entities so if you are an agricultural importer or private food that must touch the government on the border in a certain way you are afraid you will be trapped In sanctions.
Then there is a liquidity crisis, so there is no capital that supports the banking system so that no one can lend or pay import. Finally there is no technocrat or expertise in the central bank – they all leave. All of this can be done without having to enter the problem of the Taliban recognition.
