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Letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on behalf of InterAction, regarding internally displaced persons and vulnerable co
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Categories
Countries of Focus:
Afghanistan
Program Areas, Sector:
Refugees and Displacement
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Posted Date: December 7, 2001
Letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on behalf of InterAction, regarding internally displaced persons and vulnerable co
The Honorable Colin L. Powell
Secretary of State
United States Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20520
December 7, 2001
Dear Mr. Secretary,
The undersigned humanitarian organizations are working with internally displaced persons and vulnerable communities inside Afghanistan and/or with Afghan refugees in neighboring countries. All are members of InterAction, the 160-member coalition of American NGOs working abroad in disaster response, refugee assistance, and economic development. Many of these agencies have been operating in Afghanistan and the region for a decade or more. Their personnel, both Afghan and international, have shared many of the hardships and dangers of the Afghan people.
Given the continuing fighting, banditry and general lawlessness within substantial parts of Afghanistan, many of these agencies find it difficult to provide consistent assistance to a great many of those millions of Afghans at risk of death by starvation and illness with winter arriving in the region. They therefore believe it essential that a stabilization force be dispatched to the region urgently.
We appreciate your support in principle for the creation of a stabilization force, and we recognize that creation of such a force has received the broad endorsement of the United Nations Security Council, as well as approval in a particular form by the Afghan leaders who attended the Bonn Conference.
Our concern is that this force be fielded as soon as humanly possible given the exposure of so many Afghans to death at the moment and in coming weeks. We would greatly appreciate your leadership, and that of your American government colleagues, in pressing for its quick dispatch.
Respectfully,
Air Serv
American Refugee Committee
Concern Worldwide
International Medical Corps
International Rescue Committee
Mercy Corps
Oxfam America
Refugees International
Save the Children
World Vision
Cc: Dr. Condoleezza Rice
Andrew Natsios
Ambassador John D. Negroponte
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