Press Briefing by Manoel de Almeida e Silva
Spokesman for the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for
Afghanistan
Sunday, 22 September 2002, 10am, UNAMA

Talking Points

Today I am going to start with a note on New York and Geneva, issues that have been covered by some of your colleagues but which we thought was important to also put on the record here

· The General Assembly

The General Debate of the General Assembly ended last Friday. For those whoa re interested in statistics there were 188 speakers: 33 Heads of State, 14 Heads of Government, 14 Deputy Prime Ministers and 110 Foreign Ministers. As you will recall President Karzai spoke on the first day.
Upon closing the Debate on Friday, the President of the General Assembly, Jan Kavan, said that despite the progress Afghanistan achieved in one year, the country "faces major security challenges and is in dire need of continued humanitarian and developmental assistance."

The day before the General Debate closed, on Thursday, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, briefed the Security Council. Although your colleagues in NY covered his speech, I wish to put on record here in Kabul some of the points he made. By the way copies of his remarks are available. He noted that security and recovery are the twin challenges Afghans have and that the Transitional Administration "simply does not have the resources" to tackle them. He called on international public investment to fund projects that will
generate jobs for impoverished Afghans, returning refugees, to facilitate disarmament and demobilization and for alternatives to poppy cultivation.Among the many issues raised by Mr. Brahimi, the mass graves in the north. He said that the Transitional Administration and the Afghan Human Rights Commission have agreed that an "investigation of several sites, including one or more where the bodies were presumed to be victims of the Taliban, should now take place. "He noted that security for investigators and witness is of "paramount importance". He cautioned that the forensic part of the investigation "will probably be possible", but it is not yet clear "whether and when it will be possible to actually conclude the investigation."

We, UNAMA, are holding consultations on the sites to be investigated and once they are identified we will proceed to formalize assurances and arrangements for security to the sites where investigations are expected to take place.

We are also working with the Office of the HC for HR on the question of the forensic experts. At a press conference in Geneva on Friday, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the HC for HR, said that his office is in a position to "mobilize the experts very quickly," adding that they have already established
contacts with two such groups. He also noted that the key question is security.
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· Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation

Moving now to events taking place here in Kabul the Minister of Refugees and Repatriation, Minister Enayatullah Nazari, left yesterday afternoon for a European tour which will take him to London, Paris and Geneva where he will participate in the annual session of the Executive Committee of UNHCR.

As you know the Executive Committee brings together a number of countries to review UNHCR's programme around the world. Mr. Nazari will assess the situation of Afghans in the United Kingdom and France in order to finalise tri-partite agreements with those governments and UNHCR on the voluntary return of Afghans who are in those countries. He hopes that many Afghans currently living in Europe will opt to return voluntarily and participate in the reconstruction of their country. He of course, therefore, welcomes the plans prepared by many European governments preparing financial repatriation packages for those who opt to return voluntarily, while
insisting that returns will not be viable if the international community does not accelerate the assistance provided to the country to secure their reintegration and economic condition.

· Comprehensive Disabled Afghans Programme

Here in Kabul we have a Media Advisory on the Disabled, a subject we do not often talk about , but which affects the lives of many many Afghans. Although there are no national surveys available, indicators suggest that about five per cent of the Afghan population is disabled ? around one
million out of 20 million ? which is one the highest in the world.

A three-day workshop focusing on the rights of disabled Afghans and improving the coordination of services for these vulnerable people will be held in Kabul from September 28-30 at the Kabul Polytechnic. It is being put on by the Comprehensive Disabled Afghan Programme (CDAP), and will bring together all regional representatives of the Afghan Ministry of Martyrs and Disabled (MMD). We are told that either President Hamid Kharzai or Vice President Abdul Karim Khalili will open the workshop at 9:00 a.m. next Saturday and many members of the Afghan Cabinet are also expected to attend.

Twenty-three years of war have disabled thousands while some 200-300 people still continue to be taken to hospital each month with landmine injuries. If the disabled person is the main breadwinner in a family, the actual proportion of the population affected by disability is probably higher than
10 per cent.During the workshop a number of international agencies will provide intensive awareness training on the basis and benefits of rights for the disabled. The workshop will introduce a new database which can accurately track the disabled to ensure that services are provided in the places where they are most needed. CDAP is also working with the Joint Afghan Taskforce
on Legislation to develop new and comprehensive legislation for the rights of the disabled.

· UN Habitat begins reconstruction work of 3,000 houses in Shomali

This month, UN HABITAT, the United Nations Human Settlement Programme, in consultation with the Ministry of Rural Development and Rehabilitation, have begun work reconstructing 3000 houses in the Shomali area to benefit approximately 21,000 people.

Work has been carefully organized around the full participation of the local communities. Representatives from the District shuras have formed Management Committees, each of which has a technical consultant from HABITAT. The technical officers from the UN then accompany the district shura to each household in order to identify the necessary materials required to re-build each home.

HABITAT have also set up local workshops with cash donations of $2,000USD. This will allow craftsmen to buy material and employ apprentice workmen, while serving their own communities. This project is part of the National Area Based Programme and is able to operate following the allocation of $1.5 million USD from the Italian Government.

There are indications that following the beginning of work, returning refugee families that were staying with friends and relatives in Kabul have begun returning to that area. Work is expected to take a further two months to provide shelter before the winter sets in.

· Press Conferences

I have two announcements here that we have been asked to make by two different groups.

You may recall at the last briefing on Thursday, we announced that this Saturday, a four day seminar, entitled, 'International Conference on Kabul and the National Urban Vision' organized by the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing along with UN Habitat ( The United Nations Human Settlements Programme) began yesterday. One of the participants to the conference, the Japan Society of Civil Engineers, has prepared a document entitled, ' Afghanistan Draft Reconstruction Vision' which addresses reconstruction and development in the country until 2010. They have brought the papers which they prepared for this conference. Some of them are also
here so if you would like, you may speak to them after the press conference.

Finally, we also have an announcement to make from the Nangahar Province. It is an invitation to a Press Conference which will take place on September 23 at 10.00am and that will be at the Abdul Qadir's house, Road 10, Street 5, Wazir Akbar Khan. The press conference will be by Hajidin
Mohammad who is the Govenor of Nangahar. He will give an outline of a strategic plan to develop the province. The plan is the result of the Nangahar Reconstruction and Development Strategy and Planning =Seminar which was held in Jalalabad between September 11-15. Something very recent
which the key authority in the province is making public here, and you are all welcome to attend.

· UNHCR ? Latest figures ? Ragnhild Ek

The voluntary return from neighbouring countries slows down. The number of returning refugees is continuing to slow down as the night temperatures drop. This past week's returns were down to 20,000 people from Pakistan and Iran. Some 12,200 returned from Pakistan and 7800 came from Iran. As we look back at its peak in May this year over 100,000 Afghans were returning
every week from Pakistan alone. So the numbers have gone down dramatically.We now only have one voluntary repatriation center remaining open in Pakistan, the Takhtabaig centre in the Northwest Frontier Province. All other centers have been closed down. The mobile repatriation teams working in two refugee camps in the northwest frontier province, Jalozai and Kacha
Gari (on the outskirts of Peshawar town), stopped working last Friday, September 20, 2002. We still have mobile repatriation teams in Karachi registering families wishing to return to Afghanistan, but the repatriation center here has also closed. The whole voluntary return operation is expected to come to a virtual halt by the end of October and then resume in the spring.

The total number of refugees that returned with assistance since March 2002 is over 1.7 million (1.702,666). If we compare back , the largest numbers were ten years ago in 1992 when we had 1.2 million returning from Pakistan and some 300,000 returning from Iran, and that brings a total of almost 1.6 million. This year we have 1.5 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan and 203,000 from Iran. In addition, some 9,200 Afghan refugees have also repatriated from Tajikistan in regular return movements. The latest UNHCR-assisted repatriation from Tajikistan took place on Wednesday, when some 50 persons were helped home. Some 3,000 refugees remain in Tajikistan.

I should also mention that at least another 400,000 internally displaced people have returned home but we still have over 900,000 people displaced inside Afghanistan.

Questions & Answers

Q: Does the figure regarding the disabled include landmine victims?
UNAMA: I believe that number would include both. Please understand that that number is an estimate.
Q: Are the number of returns from Tajikistan part of the 1.7million returnees?
UNHCR: No, it adds another 9,200 to the figure. With Pakistan and Iran it is 1,702,666 if you want the exact figure.

Q: Returns from other countries as well?
UNHCR: It is minimal. People are starting to return. IOM has some programmes for assisting people back, but we don't.

Q: The 1.7 million who have returned, where have they returned to?
UNHCR: Almost half of those are in the Central region, in Kabul Province and surrounding provinces. Quite a large number are also in Nangahar.

Q: On the issue of security of the mass graves sites, are they being guarded now?
UNAMA: No, they are not being guarded now. As you know that is one of the recommendations of the experts when they came here on a mission that we sponsored together with the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights at the end of April, beginning of May, that the sites should be protected. That protection mechanism is not available. We the UN do not have the
capacity for that, so what we're doing as an alternative, of course, not the ideal one, is that we have people from our office in Mazar visiting the site regularly. They can report back of any tampering with the site. We have not had indications of that as of yet.

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