[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 135 (Wednesday, October 10, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H6493-H6494]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    UNITED STATES SHOULD NOT ALLOW MILLIONS TO SUFFER NEEDLESSLY IN 
                              AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, I hope the international community is not 
once again going to sit back and allow another giant humanitarian 
disaster to unfold. U.N. agencies have warned that the humanitarian 
crisis in Afghanistan is fast approaching historic proportions. The 
situation in Afghanistan grows worse by the day.
  Incredibly, the scale of the Afghanistan humanitarian crisis is now 
exceeding even the scale of the monumental refugee disaster which 
followed the 1994 Rwanda genocide. I cannot believe that just 7 years 
after Rwanda, we are now preparing to allow millions of innocent men, 
women, and children to perish in Afghanistan.
  The World Food Program now estimates that 6 million Afghan men, 
women, and children will require food aid inside Afghanistan from 
October 2001 until the end of March 2002. The U.N. estimates that as a 
result of the military operations, a further 1.5 million Afghans will 
flee into Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan and place the 
aid agencies in those countries under yet more pressure.
  The greatest tragedy is that the children of Afghanistan are being 
forced to bear the greatest burden of this war. Almost 1.5 million of 
the at-risk population are children under the age of 5 years; and for 
them, hunger, illness, and cold conditions can easily lead to death. 
Even before the September 11 attacks, UNICEF had estimated that one in 
four children born today in Afghanistan could expect to die before 
their fifth birthday. Save The Children Fund confirms that the lives of 
Afghans and especially the hundreds of thousands of Afghan children 
aged under 5 years are at risk of dying during the coming winter 
months.
  The World Food Program believes that they need to deliver a total of 
493,000 metric tons during the next 6 months in order to feed an 
estimated 6 million people. They have asked for roughly $250 million. 
Our Armed Forces have deployed and are using military assets including 
three aircraft carrier battle groups, including destroyers, escorts, 
submarines, and other support ships, B-1 and B-2 Stealth bombers, 
dozens of F-14s, F-15s, F-16s, and F/A 18s, together with helicopters, 
AWACS, and heavy lift transport, all worth billions of dollars. The 
World Food Program asked for $250 million or the cost of 15 cruise 
missiles. That is the amount that we fired on the first night, or maybe 
the cost of just two wings of one B-2 Stealth bomber.
  The tragedy is that while our military celebrates its precision 
bombing, millions in Afghanistan suffer.
  In Rwanda, up to 1 million people died in the genocide as the U.N. 
Security Council and member states stood by and cut U.N. troops back 
from 2,000 to 400. After the worst of the killings were over, 
international troops were deployed in neighboring Zaire to deliver aid 
and smile for the cameras. But once the cameras left, hundreds and 
thousands of Congolese and Rwandan refugees were left helpless. It is 
now estimated that some 3 million Congolese have died from 
malnutrition, disease, and other preventable diseases. That amounts to 
a staggering 7,000 civilian deaths each and every week for the last 3 
years, and the number is still counting.
  We love our children and we know that the Afghan people love theirs 
as well. What will they do and all the nations surrounding Afghanistan 
if the

[[Page H6494]]

United States and Britain allow so much needless suffering to unfold in 
the name of the war against terrorism. Millions of Afghans are going to 
starve and perish and yet, what we will have is another generation 
rising up in bitterness and hatred against us.
  Mr. Speaker, the United States and Britain do not need that, and we 
should not allow untold millions to suffer needlessly in Afghanistan.

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