Diversion of frozen assets, branded theft, spurs growing calls for justice

An act of theft and injustice, let alone a violation of international law: the charge sheet drawn up against the White House for a decision to hive off around half of the $7 billion in Afghan assets held by the United States is damning.

The cries of anger heard in Kabul reverberate just as loudly to the west, in Teheran, and to the east, in Islamabad. Academics, business people and officials have maintained a steady chorus of opposition to the US action that is set to worsen a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

"The US and its allies have occupied Afghanistan's airspace for the past 20 years, killing thousands of innocent Afghans and disabling and displacing millions of others. These acts are considered a war crime under international law," read a resolution reached by the Afghan Teachers' Union at a special meeting in Kabul on Saturday.

The resolution said the US should compensate the Afghan people for the suffering caused by the conflict.

After the US completed its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, the US led other nations in actions that froze nearly $10 billion in assets of the Afghan central bank held in Western countries. The bulk of the funds are held in US banks.

In a decree issued on Feb 11, US President Joe Biden ordered the allocation of $3.5 billion from the frozen assets as damages for victims of the 9/11 attacks and set aside $3.5 billion for Afghans in humanitarian aid.

On Feb 13, a statement by the central bank, called Da Afghanistan Bank, said: "DAB considers the latest decision of USA on blocking Foreign Exchange (FX) Reserves and allocating them to irrelevant purposes, injustice to the people of Afghanistan and will never accept if the FX reserves of Afghanistan is paid under the name of compensation or humanitarian assistance to others, and wants the reversal of the decision and release of all FX reserves of Afghanistan."

The real owners of these reserves are the people of Afghanistan, the bank added.

The Afghan Teachers' Union called on the international community, international organizations, human rights organizations, and the people of the US and Afghanistan to stand against the injustice.

Academic Mohammad Akbar Mir told the Kabul meeting that: "This is a US decision to steal, oppress and violate the rights of the Afghan people." His comments were reported by the Frontier Post website.

'Moral decay'

Najibullah Amarkhel, deputy chancellor of Kabul Medical University, said at the meeting that the US decision, motivated by hatred, amounted to extortion of the Afghan people, according to the Frontier Post.

Many major cities in the country have been demonstrations denouncing Biden's decision.

"Don't spend our money to make yourself look generous," read some of the placards held aloft at a protest in Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province, on Feb 15.

Mohammad Naeem, a spokesperson of the Taliban political office in Qatar, tweeted: "Stealing the blocked funds of Afghan nation by the United States and its seizure is indicative of the lowest level of human and moral decay of a country and a nation."

Farah Naz, assistant professor with the National University of Sciences and Technology of Pakistan, said the US' move is an "unethical" decision that breaks international law and possibly the UN Charter on national sovereignty.

"This decision sets an ugly precedent and leaves behind Washington under theft charges for stealing the Afghan assets," she wrote in the Pakistan Observer.

Xinhua contributed to this story.