KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghans and foreign aid workers disagreed Saturday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's assertion that the latest sanctions against the Taliban regime have had little effect on ordinary lives.
Annan said in a report released Friday in New York that the price of basic food items in Afghanistan was unchanged since the December 2000 vote by the U.N. Security Council to impose fresh sanctions.
Many Afghans disagree.
In Kabul, where women hidden beneath voluminous burqas squat in the middle of the street to beg and children scavenge through rocket-ruined buildings, prices have increased considerably since the sanctions. Afghans here say they are paying more for staples like rice, sugar, cooking oil, diesel and kerosene.
"Everything is more expensive. There are problems for the ordinary people," said Mohammed Ishaq, who works as a cook in Kabul.
The sanctions were imposed to press the Taliban, who rule 95 percent of Afghanistan, to hand over suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden. The United Nations wants bin Laden to stand trial on terrorism charges either in the United States or a third country.
The Taliban have refused but say they are willing to try to negotiate an end to the stalemate over bin Laden.
Since December, the value of the nation's currency, the Afghani, has dropped from 70,000 to the dollar to roughly 80,000 to the dollar.
Residents say they pay 20 cents for a pound of sugar compared with 16 cents before December. For rice, residents now pay 22 cents a pound compared with 18 cents.
Even a slight increase is backbreaking for Afghans, most of whom are unemployed. Those who do have jobs make on average of $10 a month.
The U.N. sanctions deny Taliban traveling rights outside their country, freeze their assets abroad and impose an arms embargo on the ruling regime.
The devalued Afghani has driven up prices because most commodities are imported, largely from Pakistan.
International aid workers, who asked not to be identified, said the sanctions have sent a signal to ordinary Afghans that the international community has abandoned them. They say the sanctions have also emboldened hard-liners among the Taliban and further marginalized more moderate voices.
The sanctions may have weakened the position of those within the Taliban who opposed a decree to destroy all statues, including two towering statues of Buddha hewn from a cliff face in central Bamiyan in the 3rd and 5th centuries, some say.
The Taliban espouse a harsh brand of Islamic law that denies women most rights, including the right to work and be educated. It forces them to wear the all enveloping burqa.
It also requires men to wear beards and pray at the mosque. Most forms of light entertainment also are outlawed in Afghanistan by the Taliban, who say it distracts people from prayer and worship.
"Sanctions are only affecting the poor people. Before the sanctions the Taliban drove around in the latest model vehicles and now they are driving around in the latest model vehicles," said Sher Aga Ahmadzai, director of an Afghan organization that assists the country's minority ethnic groups.