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CNN Live Saturday
Decision to Support U.S. Triggers Unrest in Pakistan
Aired September 22, 2001 - 13:10 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's check on Pakistan and its decision to support the United States in its war against terrorism. In Pakistan, that has triggered widespread protests throughout the nation. Some have been violent, but in Peshawar, the protests were mostly peaceful. And that's where we find our Mike Chinoy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Pakistani troops patrolling the border with Afghanistan, a border that remains sealed, blocking entry to what aid officials describe as a potential tidal wave of Afghan refugees.
Reports from inside Afghanistan speak of cities virtually empty, with large numbers of people on the move. Some heading to relatives in the countryside; others hoping for sanctuary in Pakistan ahead of an expected U.S. attack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fear, absolute fear. Fear and uncertainty about what is coming. Everybody inside of Afghanistan are expecting that Kabul and Kandahar and certain of the eastern provinces, in particular, Khost, will be targets.
CHINOY: Thomas Thompson heads a Danish relief agency here in Peshawar. Until now, the only contact he's been able to have with local staff inside Afghanistan has been through e-mails sent on satellite phones, but not anymore.
This weekend, the Taliban banned aid workers from using all electronic communications equipment on (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of death. It's a devastating blow to a relief effort already under siege.
With the borders sealed, emergency supplies aren't getting into Afghanistan. The world's food program says that stocks of basic food stuffs will start running out in two to three weeks, even as unknown numbers of people remain stranded in desolate frontier terrain without food, water or shelter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the conflict really escalates and the borders remains closed, then it remains impossible to get humanitarian assistance across the border. There is no doubt that we will be looking at a humanitarian catastrophe of quite immense proportions.
CHINOY: But after more than 20 years in which it welcomed over two million Afghans, this time Pakistan is taking a tough line. Pakistani officials say their impoverished nation simply can't cope, and they're expressing fear that agents of the Taliban or Osama bin Laden will slip into Afghan settlements here, like this one, and launch terror attacks in the wake of the Taliban's threat to go to war with Pakistan for siding with the United States.
The key resources and personnel on this side of the border, and those most in need on the other, international aid agencies are mapping out a massive emergency relief plan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're putting together all the staff members that we need, stockpiling goods, tents, kitchen items, relief items that refugees on the move would need if they came into Pakistan as refugees.
CHINOY: In this Afghan refugee community here, there are many with relatives en route to join them. But as conditions across the border deteriorate, their anxiety is mounting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I last heard from my family in Kabul five days ago. Since then, there has been no news, and with the frontier crossing shut, I am really worried.
CHINOY (on camera): The Afghan people have suffered so much in the past two decades, from Soviet invasion, civil war, drought, famine and the cruelty of the Taliban, that it's hard to imagine things getting even worse. But it now appears that is almost certainly what is going to happen.
Mike Chinoy, CNN, Peshawar, Pakistan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: It is not only refugees that are problematic for Pakistan, there is also the political situation. Some even suggest the prospect of civil war.
To get more on what is happening there, we are joined live now by Nic Robertson in Quetta -- Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Martin, today we have been talking with some of the CNN staff we left behind inside Afghanistan. And they describe to us a situation where people are disturbed. It's characterized as well as being a state of preparedness, if you will, for attacks.
What they say is that it's a very, very tense situation. And in many ways, they say, almost the first wave of missiles, because the say the people are so expectant now of attack, they say the first wave of missiles would, in fact, be a relief -- that it will relieve some of the pressure.
Afghanistan really now beginning to face extreme international isolation, the UAE today breaking ties with Afghanistan. And Pakistani diplomats also being pulled out of their main offices in Kabul and in the Taliban spiritual heartland, Kaputworth (ph), Kandahar.
The Taliban keep an ambassador in Pakistan, and a spokesman today for the Pakistan Foreign Ministry describe this as perhaps the best way for the Taliban to be exposed to world views and to hear world views, perhaps the only conduit left for getting message to the Taliban.
Speaking with Taliban government officials today, however, they tell us there is no diplomacy going on this time whatsoever -- Martin.
SAVIDGE: Nic, as you cross the border there from Afghanistan to Pakistan, what is the mood, and what is the activity happening, if any?
ROBERTSON: There's certainly tension at the border, and there certainly are people gathering on the other side of the border. Where we came across three days ago, there were a group of men on the border, perhaps several -- 300 or 400 men, getting quite irate with the Pakistani border guards, throwing stones at them. That's a situation that's being repeated there as the days go by.
The border is essentially closed. It is officially sealed, but officially perhaps is the best way to describe it. In fact, the border is relatively porous, even at these main checkpoints. Vehicles and people that have the proper paperwork, Pakistani officials tell us, are allowed to cross over the border.
The concern, of course, for international humanitarian aid workers, now in Pakistan forced out of Afghanistan, is that they really want to be able to ensure that relief supplies can get into Afghanistan at this time. Their fear is that as the country becomes more isolated, more people will begin to flood out as relief aid. There's so much needed by such a large proportion of the Afghan population -- a quarter of the population, about four million people. As those people begin to see their relief supplies dry up, they are going to begin to move towards the border -- Martin.
SAVIDGE: Nic Robertson, joining us via videophone from Quetta, Pakistan -- thank you very much.
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