Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 8, 2002

Volume 30, Number 21

Former U.N. official calls for international
effort to help Afghanistan's displaced citizens

The international community must assist Afghans with the major reconstruction of their country to avert further crises there as some four million Afghan refugees begin making their way home, former U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata said during a campus talk.

That assistance should be focused on rebuilding the country at the community level, asserted Ogata, who delivered the annual Coca-Cola World Fund Lecture in the Yale Center for International and Area Studies' Luce Hall on Feb. 27. She noted that the entire infrastructure of the war-torn country needs rebuilding, from its transportation, electrical and water systems to its schools, financial institutions and government.

For more than a decade, Afghans have comprised one of the largest refugee groups in the world, Ogata told her audience. Many citizens of Afghanistan fled during the Soviet invasion of the country, and drought later forced many others to leave their homeland for the neighboring countries of Iran and Pakistan. When she took up her U.N. post in 1991, Ogata said, there were nearly 6.3 million Afghan refugees. Although many Afghans returned home after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, there were still about 2.5 million Afghan refugees at the end of 2000, she noted.

In addition to those who fled the country, Ogata said, another one million Afghans are still living there, but have been displaced from their homes. The safe resettlement of these people and the refugees should be one of the primary goals of both Afghanistan and the international development and humanitarian organizations assisting in the country's reconstruction, Ogata told her audience.

In her talk, titled "Human Security in the 21st Century," Ogata spoke broadly about issues of national and international security, saying the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have shaken people's basic assumptions about the role of the state in protecting its citizens. While terrorism has always existed, Ogata noted, "with the attacks on Sept. 11 terrorism manifested itself as a horrible new source of threat" that has "taken on different dimensions."

Furthermore, globalization has "added complications and potency to internal conflict and terrorism," she said, because "while creating wealth, opportunities for work and a better life, for many, it often impacted adversely on vulnerable strata of society." As a result, Ogata said, "those who felt marginalized, deprived or angered by what they perceived as injustices caused by poverty and inequity found new ways of grouping together."

The al Qaeda terrorist network, Ogata told her audience, is a product of the move toward globalization, and Afghanistan became a "hotbed for international terrorism" as a consequence of its lack of participation in the global economy.

The Afghan people, said the former U.N. official, have been the "greatest victims" of the war with the Soviets and the oppression of the Taliban during the past two decades.

"They suffered more than 20 years of killing, violence and displacement inside and outside their country," said Ogata, who now cochairs the Commission on the Joint U.N.-Japanese Human Security Commission and is the Japanese prime minister's special representative for Afghanistan assistance.

Today, Ogata said, "Afghans rank at the bottom of all measurements of human development in terms of life expectancy, mortality of women and children, health and nutrition, literacy and access to clean water."

The former U.N. official said that because of the suffering of the Afghan people, she was initially concerned when President Bush ordered military strikes in the country following the Sept. 11 attacks.

"What will happen to the Afghan people?" Ogata recalls asking herself.

She said she was relieved, however, when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell emphasized that the target of the strikes was Osama bin Laden and his terrorist cohorts, and not the Afghans.

Ogata, who made several visits to Afghanistan while working for the U.N., most recently visited the country in January. She said the Sept. 11 tragedy has resulted in a long-needed focus on the plight of Afghan people, including the millions of refugees and displaced people. At an international conference she cochaired earlier this year in Tokyo on the reconstruction of Afghanistan, Ogata said, some 60 nations and 20 international organizations pledged more than $4.5 billion to help Afghanistan with the "urgent task" of establishing national security and rebuilding its infrastructures.

"This demonstrates a commitment by the international community to Afghanistan as it begins its long journey," Ogata said.

She cited the establishment of an Afghan national defense and police force and the demobilization of former combatants to civilian life as essential steps to establishing national security in the country. "Establishing security is a basic condition for humanitarian and reconstruction work to begin," Ogata commented.

Ogata believes the international community should provide humanitarian service to help build viable villages in Afghanistan so refugees and internally displaced people can return. Shelter, health clinics, schools, seeds for growing crops and access to water are among the Afghan people's most vital needs, she told her audience.

The international community can also assist Afghanistan as it rebuilds its economy, said Ogata, noting that a top priority should be the control of poppy opium production and the establishment of drug enforcement agencies, as well as the launching of alternative economic opportunities.

Likewise, she said, efforts by U.N. personnel and some 5,000 trained Afghans to clear the country of land mines -- many of which were left by Soviet soldiers -- will have to be expanded and continued "for a long time to come," Ogata said.

Ogata said she was pleased to see hope in some of the young Afghan children she met while visiting the country in January. Girls, who had been prohibited from attending school under the Taliban, were preparing for the start of the new school year, which begins at the end of March. "They were elated by the prospect of returning to school," Ogata said. "One of the girls said she wanted to be a doctor; another said she wanted to be engineer. But when I asked the teachers what they wanted, there was a pause, and then one of them said 'Salaries.'" Such comments, she said, force those much better off to appreciate how Afghanistan is really building anew from scratch.

When she talked to displaced Afghans, they told her they wanted to "rebuild their houses, start planting in time for spring season and even go back to animal husbandry," Ogata said. "I saw a real step toward peace in these displaced people."

While she told her audience that Afghanistan will "be a constant reminder of what should not have been," Ogata said that with initial assistance from international community, the "victimized and vulnerable Afghan people" can be encouraged to "take their fate into their own hands."

"In reinforcing the security of the people in Afghanistan, the security of the state will be introduced," giving the country a more promising future in the 21st century, Ogata concluded.

-- By Susan Gonzalez

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Alumna is new director of Yale Center for British Art

Writer Salman Rushdie ponders the effect of fear . . .

Former U.N. official calls for international effort . . .

Professor Kazdin will head Yale Child Study Center

Funding renewed for program to attract students to sciences

In Focus: Project Assert

Psychologist examines the making of 'memories'

D.C. mayor heralds dawning of the 'century of the city'

International meeting will assess status of women in physics

Women's Health Research wins grant for community outreach

Commemorating the Birth of a Nation

Benjamin Clark Jr., former manager in Yale's Dining Halls, dies in Texas

Yale Books in Brief

Campus Notes