We were informed by the media today that the High Commissioner for UNHCR has entered Afghanistan via Iran today to assess the humanitarian needs of the country and its war torn and drought-and- famine-struck peoples. I, for one take this as a good omen.

We have a verse in Dari from long ago that says:

Sereshk az rukham paak kardan che haasel?
Elaajay bekun kz delam khoon nayaayad.

A broad translation of this verse could read: " There is no use wiping tears from my face. Stop my bleeding heart.

The poor poet may not have realized that the heart is the center for blood circulation through human body. He did, however, know and prayed for some kind of action that would stop man's misery and heartbreaking circumstances. More so, when these condition were not of his making and were brought down upon him by external forces beyond his control.

We in Afghanistan of a quarter century or so ago were doing fairly well. We were able to take care of our food needs without resorting to and/or seeking outside help for our livelihood. The international brand of communism, secretly imported into our homeland by the Soviet Union began our downfall. Very soon thereafter, the insatiable greed for expansion of the great world power to the north of us, brought its armies and war power into our land. Thus began the initial step of our nation's downfall to what and where we are today. From 1978 to the present time the world has witnessed our progressed downward in every aspect of our life. We have lost almost a quarter of our population to martyrdom, miseries of all kinds within the country and refuge into neighboring countries and the world abroad. A different kind of struggle within the leadership (?) of those who struggled to remove the yoke of Russian communism from our shoulders and strengthen our hold to Islam and our innate spirit of nationalism, wrought havoc upon us by destroying what the Russians did not do away with. This eruption of feudal type of leadership within the small confines of our country left us devastated. We now do not know just who is working for our good and who wouldn't care less so long as he sat upon the seat of power, however all-encompassing, and sought and got his own pleasure and contentment?

To top it all, even mother nature has begun playing her special kind of game with us. We are suffering from drought the likes of which we had not seen in the past thirty or more years. The drought has caused famine the likes of which we did not know even during the years of WWII. The internal war-mongers are waging their struggle for the gradual destruction of our Afghans all over our highlands and lowlands, leaving no one time to sow a few seeds for the next season, should mother nature cooperate, for the next season's crops. Our neighbors, too, have taken strong and serious measures to stop any further attempts by the poor Afghans to seek shelter in their countries. Not only that, but these neighbors are constantly returning refugees of many years back to Afghanistan to a bleak and miserable life in a land with no food and no hope for food commodities. One mostrecent report has it that Iran has forcibly returned some 20,000 Afghan families and Pakistan has done the same to 80,000 families.

This at time when within the country there is mass migration from the interior to such centers as Herat, Kandahar, and Jalalabad. Heart is deluged by an influx of about half a million people from such provinces as Badghis and Ghor. Some 170,000 have sought refuge in Kabul and Jalalabad. And nowhere in these centers there is enough shelter and food for these nomads who were residents of hamlets, villages and towns elsewhere in the country. It is stated time and time again, that these internal refugees number almost one million. Here comes the head of a department in the United Nations to study the conditions inside Afghanistan. This, in spite of the imposition of sanctions on Afghanistan and the tension created between Taleban and the UN over a problem that the US has with Taleban.

We are hoping that Mr. Ruud Lubbvers and his entourage really and truly look into the depth of misery of the Afghans at this juncture and bring back a realistic report to the United Nations with his plea that that world body do something to relieve what is left of the Afghan nation. Dear UN members: Please help save a nation that sacrificed so much to avert the threat of international communism from a very sensitive part of the world! Please do not let the war-torn and poverty stricken Afghans lose more lives to famine and deadly diseases like cholera and plague!

Please do not allow a brave nation with a proud history go to extinction!

April 30, 2001