Britain: War Pause Not Necessary
By ROBERT BARR
Associated Press Writer
LONDON - Humanitarian aid can flow into Afghanistan without a pause in the U.S.-led military campaign, a British official said Thursday, rejecting calls from some assistance organizations for a moratorium.
"It isn't true to say if the bombing stopped there wouldn't be any problem in moving humanitarian supplies. To say we can't do anything until the bombing stops is factually not true," said Clare Short, who is secretary for international development in the British Cabinet.
"It is not true to say that the only thing holding up relief ... is the bombing," Short said in a British Broadcasting Corp. radio interview from Pakistan, where she is visiting.
"There is also the way the Taliban behave, the pressure they put on local staff, the fact that we haven't got international staff, the fact that local staff are threatened with loss of their life if they use telephones," Short said.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has rejected a halt in the air strikes, told his Cabinet on Wednesday that a pause would be a "short term fix" that would prove a humanitarian set back in the longer term, his official spokesman said.
"The only way of tackling the humanitarian issue in the medium and long term is to stabilize the situation, and that means clearing the obstacles that the Taliban put in the way," the spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. "The sooner we make progress militarily, the sooner we can stabilize the situation."
Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam, said Wednesday that it had become impossible to get aid through to Afghanistan, in part because aid workers were too afraid of attack by U.S. forces.
"We have not taken this decision lightly," Stocking said, "but we can't stand by and allow tens of thousands of people to die this winter and let millions more to go through unimaginable suffering."
On Tuesday, Roger Riddell, international director of the British charity Christian Aid, also called for a bombing pause.
French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Doctors Without Borders, said the international coalition against terrorism needed to move on from the bombing campaign.
"I think we have to change our strategy," he told BBC radio. "That is not to say that it was not useful and was not evident that we had to bomb, but now I think that the second step would be very welcome."
A group of Muslim parliamentarians from Blair's Labor Party said in a statement Wednesday that they supported military action in Afghanistan.
The five _ Khalid Mahmood and Mohammed Sarwar from the House of Commons, and Lord Ahmed, Lord Patel and Baroness Uddin _ said the action was essential.
"Even if no British citizens were killed, even if no Muslims had been killed, we should still take the same view of the atrocities, for they were an attack on the whole of humanity," the statement said. "Osama bin Laden and his followers do not speak for Muslims here or abroad."
|