Will the world keep its word? Afghanistan is still waiting for freedom from hunger, disease and violence. (Afghanistan).

Afghanistan was in the spotlight for a few months last year. Today it is no longer `catchy' or `newsworthy'. Yet in April 2002, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) estimated that 6.1 million Afghans--one in every 3.5--are in danger of immediate death and in need of food, clean drinking water and basic medical services.

The Taliban may be gone, but the violence and misery has continued. A new government has been put in place in Kabul, but what does this really mean for the millions of refugees and internally displaced people? What does this mean for the ravaged land, struggling to breathe after four years of drought? The questions are endless.

For the last seven years, I have spent a minimum of three months a year working in camps for refugees and internally displaced people in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 2001 I left Peshawar a month prior to when the US bombs began to fall, and the summer of 2002 was the first since 1995 1 did not go back.

In spite of the time that has passed, the images of the human suffering I saw in the camps are in my mind all the time--individual and collective suffering so profound that no human beings should have to endure them. They are as vivid and fresh as if I saw them yesterday--perhaps because I know that Afghans are still suffering now. Many think that all is well in Afghanistan now, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

UNEXPLODED BOMBS

The United States bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001. As a result, immeasurable destruction occurred throughout the country. According to a detailed study by Professor Marc Herold * of the University of New Hampshire, between 3,125 and 3,620 civilians died between 7 October 2001 and 31 July 2002. People are still dying and an updated civilian toll is being calculated. `The critical element remains the very low value put upon Afghan civilian lives by US military planners and the political elite, as clearly revealed by US willingness to bomb heavily populated regions,' Herold writes.

In addition, the US dropped a reported 5,800 cluster bombs which did not explode and are now littered throughout Afghanistan--a new worry for Halo Trust, a British non-profit organization that has for years taken on the heavy burden of demining Afghanistan. Eighty-three deaths have been reported, but experts suggest that the unreported deaths caused by unexploded cluster bombs are much higher.

When the US `liberated' Afghanistan, aid agencies estimate that 1.7 million refugees returned home from Iran and Pakistan, and some 900,000 from camps for the internally displaced. Most had been lured back by the grand promises of foreign aid to reconstruct Afghanistan. They returned to a ravaged land with little or no assistance as yet.

Many of these millions have ended up in squatter settlements with conditions far worse than those in the camps they left. One 29-year-old old male returnee addresses the aid agencies: `Tell them that we don't have anything to eat, we have no money to buy food, we have nothing.' Another says: `We love it here because it is our home, but when we do not have food or water, how can we live here?' The governments who pledged money to rebuild Afghanistan, and the media, not only fooled the rest of the world into thinking that Afghanistan was taken care of, but they also fooled Afghan refugees. This is unconscionable.

Two billion dollars were pledged in Kyoto, Japan, in January 2002 to rebuild Afghanistan. By October 2002, according to Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, only half of this money had been delivered, with most of that going to UN agencies and their luxurious personal budgets. Very little aid money has flowed beyond Kabul into the most devastated areas of Afghanistan.

Tommy Thompson, US Secretary of Health and Human Services, had pledged $500,000 for much needed drugs to Afghanistan. Most of the donated drugs were inappropriate: they were not up to international standards or their short expiry dates were incompatible with the logistics of distribution.

It was recently reported that the Afghan government has a $166 million budget deficit. An article in the New York Times quotes an Afghan trader, Abdul Samad: `If Western countries stop talking about giving us billions in reconstruction and actually begin delivering the money, that's when the economy will start to recover.' In fact, most of the pledged money received has gone into relief rather than reconstruction.

In addition to these pressing economic burdens, violence continues. Mass graves of Pashtuns have been found in the north, where rival factions clash, killing dozens daily, despite agreements to disarm. Afghanistan's infant and maternal mortality rates are the worst in the world. Too many are at risk of immediate death. What is the future?

COMMITMENT NEEDED

Freedom in Afghanistan continues to be measured only by a superficial Western standard of how many up-turned burqas were seen on the streets of Kabul immediately after the removal of the Taliban. (Incidentally, most women continue to choose to wear the burqa.) How about measuring freedom in other ways as well, as economist Amartya Sen would measure it? In terms of how many people in Afghanistan have the freedom to `satisfy their hunger'? Or to `obtain remedies for treatable illnesses' or to `enjoy clean water and sanitary facilities'?

Afghanistan needs continued commitment, financially (not loans!) as well as in other ways. US Secretary of State Colin Powell recently said: `We (the US) have an obligation to meet our commitments to provide what we said we would provide.'

If nation-states once again fail to live up to their promises, we must make sure that individuals and civil society do not fail the people of Afghanistan. There are many individuals and organizations, such as Mahboba Rawi in this issue of FAC, that are doing their part. Despite the above-mentioned challenges, I have every faith in the people of Afghanistan and in the individuals who have committed themselves to work toward a truly free Afghanistan.

* For Herold's studies, see www.cursor.org and www.guardian.co.uk

Anila Daulatzai is an American-born citizen of Pakistani-Afghan descent. She has a Masters in Public Health and an MA in Islamic Studies, and is currently studying for a doctorate in anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. She invites people interested in Afghanistan to contact her at: [e-mail]