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UN official seeks Afghan rebuilding
11/30/2001
By GREG MYRE KABUL, Afghanistan — Walking through war-ruined streets Friday, the U.N.
official overseeing Afghanistan's reconstruction said a multibillion-dollar
campaign should begin before the world's attention drifts away from the
impoverished nation. Fighting still rages in southern Afghanistan, but Mark Malloch Brown, head of
the U.N. Development Program, said he was pushing to secure commitments for a
mammoth rebuilding program in a country ravaged by more than 20 years of war.
``I think it's enormously important to lock the donors into a multiyear plan
now while the political will and commitment is at its highest point,'' Malloch
Brown said. ``The extraordinary events have created a completely unexpected
opening in the recovery and reconstruction areas.'' That plan will cost anywhere from $6.5 billion to $25 billion over five
years, Malloch Brown said. He acknowledged that events in Afghanistan had moved
so swiftly since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States that there was
no U.N. plan for rebuilding. The aim is to have more precise figures by January.
Afghanistan has been so devastated by the protracted fighting that it needs
help on virtually every front. The initial phase will focus on urgent,
short-term projects to put Afghans back to work — repairing homes and buildings,
cleaning up debris, restoring water and electricity, reopening schools.
Big-ticket items will have to wait, he said. ``The nature of rebuilding highways is that it takes time, whereas with the
right kind of intervention you can get schools open very quickly,'' Malloch
Brown. Women teachers and girl students were barred from the classrooms during the
Taliban's five-year rule. For boys, there was a heavy emphasis on Islamic
religious instruction at the expense of other subjects. As Malloch Brown walked along one of Kabul's most badly damaged streets, he
was encircled by a group of curious boys, and he asked them if they wanted girls
back in their classrooms. ``Yes, yes, we want them back,'' the boys replied. But it's not that simple. Can boys and girls of the same age sit in the same
classroom if the girls are several years behind? Malloch Brown's stroll took him down a major thoroughfare in the southwest
part of the city where every building for more than a mile had either been
flattened or abandoned because it was so badly damaged. The crumbling remnants resemble an ancient archaeological site, but all the
damage was inflicted during the 1992-96 faction fighting by many of the groups
now forming the northern alliance, which has taken control of Kabul. The brick
walls that still stand have large holes punched by rockets, and are badly
scarred by bullets. Hundreds of buildings would have to be razed and
reconstructed. The billions of dollars Afghanistan needs will not be forthcoming without a
stable, multiparty government, Malloch Brown said. Afghan groups are meeting in
Germany this week in an attempt to form the basis of an interim government. Just a short while ago, the prospect of a massive rebuilding campaign in
Afghanistan was unthinkable, Malloch Brown said. ``If I read the documents prepared by my staff just a couple months ago, it
was about what to do when there is no longer a nation state,'' he said. ``People
had given up on the idea of an Afghan nation state.'' But if Afghanistan can regain a measure of stability, the international
community should not abandon the country as happened a decade ago after Soviet
forces withdrew and the communist government collapsed. ``If you really believe that a failed state harbors terrorism, then you don't
just target those terrorists with a military campaign,'' Malloch Brown said.
``You have an absolute obligation to reconstruct that failed state.''
Associated Press Writer