TIME: Afghans Say U.S. to
Help Wedding Victims
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
By MICHAEL WARE / KABUL
Although the U.S. military remains tight-lipped over
any liability for the July 1 incident in which a
number of Afghan villagers were killed at a wedding
celebration in the remote mountain district of Deh
Rawood during an American air attack on suspected
Taliban positions nearby, Washington may be letting
its money do the talking. "Verbally, at least, the
Americans have admitted the attack was a mistake,"
says Afghan cabinet minister Mohammed Arif Noorzai,
the man who headed the joint U.S.-Afghan
investigation into the killings. And, he says, in a
meeting earlier this week with Afghan officials in
Kabul they did much more than that โ they promised
cash to allow the victims to be compensated.
Noorzai says when General Dan K. McNeill, the U.S.
commander of operations in Afghanistan, and the
American ambassador Robert Finn came to President
Hamid Karzai's office they brought with them
guarantees of massive assistance. "It's not
compensation as such," says Karzai's spokesman Fazel
Akbar. "It's support of the nation." This support
consisted of $2 million dollars in cash to be given
to Karzai. "There was the promise of cash aid but
still we did not receive it," notes Akbar. The
Minister Noorzai told TIME the money is to be
distributed by the president "to the families
affected by the bombing who have already suffered too
much." As many as 48 people were believed killed and
around 117 wounded in the incident.
The State Department won't say whether a cash payment
is involved, but they will confirm some assistance is
forthcoming. "We have decided to target some of the
reconstruction assistance in that area," says State
spokesman Richard Boucher. Afghan officials say
villagers in the Deh Rawood district are soon to be
the beneficiaries of a number of building and
rehabilitation projects. American drilling teams are
scheduled to dig much-needed deep wells at twelve
district schools, and two high schools in the
province's capital, Tarin Kowt, are to be renovated,
as well as a small hospital in the dusty district
where the raid went wrong. Also, a 50-mile road
linking Tarin Kowt with the southern city of Kandahar
will be built, reducing the journey from a tortuous
five hours to less than 60 minutes. Aid to the area
will also include completion of a large bridge
spanning one of Uruzgan province's major rivers, a
project begun by the Taliban regime but which today
is marked only by a parade of concrete pylons across
the riverbed. Most importantly, says Noorzai, Uruzgan
dam will reach its full capacity with additional
U.S.-financed construction. Not only does he expect
the dam to fill the irrigation channels of local
farmers currently being encouraged to switch from
opium to corn and wheat, but it will be capable of
generating hydro-electric power, much like Kajaki dam
in neighboring Helmand province. "By starting these
projects," says Noorzai, "some of the people of this
province who are jobless will find work which will
obviously be good for the economy."
U.S. embassy officials in Kabul declined to comment
despite TIME's inquiries. But for an area of
Afghanistan where hold-out Taliban commanders still
roam free โ among them, it is believed, the
fundamentalist movement's leader, Mullah Omar โ U.S.
contributions in bricks and mortar may be the best
bet of bringing the locals in from the cold.