Jonathon Burch and Yara Bayoumy
6 November 2009
Kabul — The United Nations (UN) yesterday said it would evacuate hundreds of its international staff from Afghanistan for several weeks due to deteriorating security, a setback for western efforts to stabilise the embattled country.
Spokesman Aleem Siddique said the UN would relocate about 600 of its roughly 1100 international staff, with some being moved to safer sites within Afghanistan and the rest temporarily pulled out of the country.
The move, a week after five UN foreign staff were killed by militants in Kabul, complicates US President Barack Obama's counter-insurgency war strategy, which foresees an influx of civilian assistance alongside extra troops.
Obama is due to decide within weeks whether to approve a request from his commander in Afghanistan for tens of thousands of additional troops. US forces in Afghanistan have already doubled in the nine months since Obama took office.
The UN said the evacuations would not disrupt its operations in the country. "We're doing everything we can to minimise disruption of our work during this period," the UN's special envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said in Kabul. "We are simply doing what we have to do, following the tragic events of last week, to look after our workers ... while ensuring that our operations in Afghanistan can continue."
Eide, who openly backed Karzai in the election, said some staff would relocate to Dubai where the UN has a facility and where it is "inside the mission area".
Siddique said the UN staff would return in three to four weeks after its security measures are changed.
"It will be a consolidation of staff. At the moment we have 93 guest- houses across Kabul and there will be a consolidation of those guesthouses so that we can provide better security in fewer places," he said.
The UN mission played a critical role in organising elections in the country this year, and agencies such as Unicef run health, education and other programmes.
In last week's attack, Taliban suicide bombers hiding explosive vests under police uniforms entered a guesthouse used by UN staff, killing five foreigners and prompting a security review by many of the international agencies in the country.
A second round of the presidential election, which was to be held tomorrow , was cancelled after President Hamid Karzai's only opponent withdrew, citing insufficient safeguards against fraud.
Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah's decision not to stand meant Karzai was declared the winner, even though more than a quarter of his votes from the August 20 first round were thrown out after a fraud investigation.
The tainted election has hurt Karzai's standing among western states with troops fighting in Afghanistan.
"We can't afford any longer a situation where warlords and power- brokers play their own games. We have to have a political landscape that draws the country (to) significant reform," Eide said.
The chairman of the US military's joint chiefs of staff, Adm Mike Mullen, said on Wednesday that Karzai's legitimacy among Afghans was "at best in question right now and, at worst, doesn't exist".
We are simply doing what we have to do, following the tragic events of last week, to look after our workers
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