The money America owes the Afghan people

To the Afghans facing abject poverty, the wealthiest country in the world has denied $3.5 billion, saying it wants to use the money for its own

The US President, Joe Biden, announced this week that the $7 billion the United States owes Afghanistan would be split between the families in the Taliban ruled country and those in the US, affected by the 9/11 tragedy. This news has predictably evoked extreme reactions, including from human rights organisations and the far-right groups. It is being speculated that the money America has withheld so far, if released, will flow directly into Pakistan's hands, which presumably holds the strings of the puppet Taliban government. I spoke to a few political and regional experts and discovered my own truth.

Why does America have control over $7 billion, which belongs to the people of Afghanistan? It so happened that when the rulers of the country fled, leaving behind the control of the country in the Taliban's hands, they also left $7 billion in central bank assets on deposit at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. This money came from deposits made by the Afghanistan Central Bank and from donors the world over, who wanted a better future for the Afghans. This is the money that has now been unfrozen and would be split between the 9/11 victims' families and the Afghans.

First, let's focus on the background of this pot of money. The United States stormed into its old playground, Afghanistan, to fight an enemy it had indirectly helped create – the Taliban. Readers will remember that the US, after its tete-a-tete with its Cold War adversary, the USSR, had handed a cache of weapons to the rebel group in Afghanistan during its exit. This Frankenstein is who the United States went after in the winter of 2001, by which time the terrorist group was called the Al Qaeda, shielded by the Taliban, who ruled the country then. The US forces stayed in Afghanistan and went through their own set of presidents – George W Bush, Barack Obama, Donald J Trump and the current, Joseph R Biden.

Also Read | Six months of Taliban: Afghans safer, poorer, less hopeful

It took America twenty years and close to $6 trillion, as estimated by Brown University, to pull out of its forever war. The Brown report further says that the US lost 2,400 officers, while the number of Afghan civilians killed is estimated at 46,000. This is quite a price to pay for a war the Afghans did not choose to engage with. The person the Americans were looking for was found not in the caves of Tora Bora but enjoying a welcome stay in a mansion in Abbottabad, a military town 60-miles away from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. Afghanistan continued to pay for what the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden had committed it to for another decade after the Al Qaeda chief was killed in 2011. World's only superpower took two decades and spent $6 trillion to remove one Taliban government and pave the way for another one.

For comparison's sake, Jeffrey Sachs, one of the leading development experts, says it would take $175 billion annually for two decades, a total of $3.5 trillion, to end world poverty. Every single person in the world to earn more than $2 each day would take approximately half of what the United States spent in Afghanistan in two decades. This is a very humbling statistic but does put things in perspective – of what the world's wealthiest countries are capable of and what they are doing to bring equity and equality in the most impoverished parts globally. Afghanistan is now one of them, sadly. Once hailed the 'Paris of Central Asia', Kabul has since been firmly delegated to the capital of one of the poorest countries in the world for the unforeseeable future.

The Afghanistan that the United States left behind is now ruled, again, by the Taliban. After the initial buster, the Mullahs have reverted to their old ways, subjugating the women and children to stone age laws. It's not that the Taliban are imposing laws of their own. In 2009, the US-installed President, Hamid Karzai, signed a bill that approved marital rape and forced women to be all but slaves to their husbands. Karzai also allowed for very young girls to be married off to older men. Other than a few human rights voices, not much attention was paid to this turn of events. Some said it was a 'return to the Taliban era'. The Afghans had hoped the United States would help ease these laws and make the lives of women better in the country. Not much happened in the ensuing decade and more, even as the government changed, and the last one flew away, leaving the country in the Taliban's hands.

Also Read | Afghans protest US order to give $3.5 billion to 9/11 victims

The humanitarian agency, Save the Children, estimates that 82 per cent of Afghan homes have lost their source of income since the Taliban took over in August 2021 and have had to send their children to work to sustain themselves. That makes it over a million children who are now at work, and not in schools, where they originally belong. The New York Times reports that Afghans are forced to sell their kidneys for 150,000 Afghani (approximately $1,500) or, in extreme situations, their children, for an equal amount to survive. The humanitarian agencies say the donors have turned away, as they fear their money will somehow land in the Taliban's hands. Scores of Afghanis have taken to begging, and the odd jobs the teenagers and women can find earn them a maximum of $0.5 or $1/day. The United Nations claims 97 per cent of the Afghans will confront poverty by mid-2022. The Taliban, however, say this is a myth created by the western powers, who continue to deny them legitimacy. Some of the ministers in the Taliban government still find themselves on the most-wanted lists.

To the victims of this chaos, the richest country in the world has denied $3.5 billion, saying it wants to use the money for its own. How long before the situation becomes so dire that the world cannot close its eyes to it? But then, are we not used to the mayhem in other parts of the world, in Syria and in Yemen, where we continue to look the other way?

The United Nations, which is requesting the world to donate $5 billion towards the humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan, may want to negotiate with the United States to create a process on the ground which guarantees the money will not land with the Taliban or their

friends in Islamabad. This is the least the UN, with its massive bureaucratic machinery and presence in the country, can do.

(The author is a former Chief of Communications with the United Nations in New York, where he worked for more than a decade.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.