JALALABAD (Dispatches) – Scores of disabled persons staged a protest in Jalalabad, capital of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province on Tuesday, urging the United States to return Afghan assets.
The protesters described the freeze of Afghanistan’s assets in U.S. banks or giving them as compensation to the families of the 9/11 terrorist attacks victims as “unjust”, saying that Washington should return the assets to Afghanistan.
The disabled union’s chief Masoud Safi said in his speech during the protest “No Afghan was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America and therefore allocating Afghanistan’s assets to the families of the terror attacks victims is unfair.”
Afghans, by holding similar protests in different cities over the past week, have demanded the release and return of the assets to Afghanistan.
A day earlier, thousands of Afghans took to the streets in the central mountainous province of Bamyan, where demonstrators chanted vociferous anti-American slogans.
“Shame on America, let go of Afghanistan’s money!” and other slogans reverberated in the central Afghan province, with protesters terming it a “cruel act” and “betrayal of the rights of Afghans”.
The protesters also held placards, like the one reading: “We, the people of Bamyan want the United States to release frozen money of Afghanistan.
Biden signed an executive order earlier this month, allowing half of the $7 billion in frozen assets from Afghanistan’s central bank to be distributed among the 9/11 claimants.
The funds, held in the U.S., were frozen following the sweeping Taliban takeover of Kabul last August and the botched exit of the U.S.-led allied forces after 20-year long military occupation.
It has spawned what the UN agencies have termed a worst humanitarian catastrophe in recent history.
Almost 24 million people in Afghanistan – or 60% of the population – suffer from acute hunger, while millions have already been displaced.
Sayed Abdul Raziq Danesh, head of the Bamyan Disabled People’s Union and one of the organizers of the rally, called on the U.S. government to release assets belonging to Afghans as soon as possible.
He asserted that the U.S. policies were taking a devastating toll on millions of ordinary people in the landlocked South Asian country.
Bamyan protesters also passed a resolution calling on the United Nations to force the U.S. and its allies to release the confiscated assets. It further stated that in the current situation, aid organizations must cooperate with the disabled and the families of the war victims in Afghanistan.
The protests in Bamyan follow a series of similar demonstrations across Afghanistan in protest against the U.S. government’s decision.
According to media reports, half of the frozen assets -- $3.5 billion -- could go toward providing relief to people in Afghanistan, while the remaining $3.5 billion will be made available for victims of 9/11 attacks, who have been fighting in court for compensation using the frozen funds.
People in Afghanistan say they had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. The perpetrators came from Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan, and even the alleged mastermind Osama bin Laden was found in Pakistan.