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09/11/2003: "Kandahar Chronicles #4 - 01/09/2003"

Two weeks after the bombing in Baghdad of the UN headquarters, which left twenty people dead including the organizations top envoy to the mission, aid agencies have been reconsidering their position in that country. A few days after, BBC World announced that the ICRC (International Community of the Red Cross) had decided to suspend their operations in Iraq as they feel that the risk to the security of their staff was too great. The decision to halt humanitarian activities is never an easy one for any organization and the line that separates acceptable operational risk from evacuation is often grey and blurred. An attack on one agency quite often has to be perceived as an attack on the aid community as a whole.

Incidents such as this attack are watched closely by the international aid organizations in Afghanistan. Iraq and Afghanistan share certain similarities, a common religion, both their recent histories have been marred by war and both are host to Coalition and Peacekeeping forces. In spite of this the aid work carries on and security measures are constantly re evaluated. In the central Afghan provinces of Uruzgan and Zabul, the need for aid is desperate but because of insecurity it’s impossible for any agencies to expand their operations into those regions. It’s frustrating to have the human and material resources in place and yet be forced to operate below capacity by some of the very people that would benefit from this.

Kandahar is a political hotspot but in general we’ve been left to get on with our business. The largely Pashto people living here are proud and hospitable but we don’t expect friendly waves wherever we go. We are foreigners and although we try to be culturally sensitive and keep a low profile we stick out like a sore thumb in our white land cruisers. All we can do is maintain strict neutrality, stay away from military as much as possible and rely on our mission to be our shield. Like in Iraq, there are some factions in the country that believe anything western is a valid target. We can only hope our work transcends this hemispheric categorization and appeals to a universal sense of humanity.