AAP General News (Australia)
08-24-2011
FED:Afghanistan needs books, not bombs:
By Rashida Yosufzai
SYDNEY, AAP - Mahboba Rawi's voice wavers as she describes the lines of Afghan widows
who waited for food outside her charity house in Kabul.
The women had heard the 46-year-old founder of Australian-based aid agency Mahboba's
Promise had returned to her homeland after a two-year hiatus and was handing out basics
like flour, vegetable oil and sugar.
"I had only brought supplies for the 500 widows who were sponsored, but another 200
were still waiting right into the night, pleading for food. They kept saying, `call the
Australian government for help'," Rawi said in her native Dari.
"It was unbelievable."
Poverty in Afghanistan, Rawi says, has only increased in her homeland despite the billions
of dollars in official aid and development being poured into the country over the past
decade.
"It is really hard to see the country going backwards," she said.
"The money that has been spent on Afghanistan in the last ten years has gone mostly
to the war - for the foreign soldiers, their food, water and temporary housing.
"There has been a lot of infrastructure built simply for war, but what are the everyday
people going to do with that? Afghanistan is still as poor as it was 10 years ago."
This October will mark a decade since Australia joined US forces in Afghanistan as
part of the war on terrorism.
During that time Rawi has led her own personal crusade to help Afghanistan's orphans
and widows with donations received from Australians at home.
But she says the presence of the foreign troops is only holding progress back, not aiding it.
"As soon as I walked into Hope House, (an orphanage Rawi set up) there was a widow
whose husband had died in crossfire between the US (forces) and the Taliban," she said.
"She was pleading for money because she could not afford to buy her husband's coffin.
"This is the reality now for the Afghan people, they do not have enough money to bury
the dead of this war. And nobody says, `we are responsible for killing your husband'.
"People need to understand that there are consequences to this war, there are women
and children who have lost their fathers or brothers, and they are the ones left behind,
the widows and the orphans. Who looks after them?
"They are sick and tired of war. They need people with healing hands, not guns."
Adrian Morrison, Charge d'Affaires at the Australian Embassy in Afghanistan, says there
is much more work left to be done.
"We will be a long term partner for Afghanistan's development. Prime Minister Julia
Gillard has stated that Australia will be engaged in Afghanistan for the next decade at
least," Morrison told AAP.
The next stage of the policy shift will be to focus on development, Morrison says.
"The current ISAF strategy is a joined-up civil-military strategy which acknowledges
that conflict in Afghanistan cannot be ended by military means alone," he said.
"Australia has a substantial diplomatic and development engagement with Afghanistan
to match our military commitment."
But many ordinary Afghans are slowly tiring of the foreign intervention.
"You don't expect your next door neighbour to interfere with your domestic problems.
Afghanistan doesn't need that," Rawi said.
"I believe education is going to change Afghanistan. They don't need more gunmen."
This is not to discount the achievements of the diggers who are currently training
up the 4th brigade of the Afghan National Army.
"Afghans don't dislike the Australian soldiers there, they're viewed positively because
they help people, they are educated, they have good hearts and Afghans can see that. People
there said to me, `Australian soldiers are a lot different to American soldiers'," Rawi
said.
Over the past decade Rawi's public profile has soared, having been handpicked by then
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a 2020 summit delegate in 2008. She's also worked with entrepreneur
Dick Smith to build a school in Afghanistan, and more recently, received Governor General
Quentin Bryce as a patron of her charity.
Despite minimal government funding, she is proud to call her charity independent.
What started out 13 years ago in the living room of her Sydney home can now count a
total $A2.5 million raised since its inception.
Rawi's message to governments - both Afghan and Australian - isn't just to express
opposition to the war.
She wants Hope House to be a model for how development efforts should be approached
- by educating Afghanistan's future lawyers, accountants and journalists, who in turn
train the next generation.
"We have set up a model in Hope House for the whole of Afghanistan - from (Afghan President)
Karzai, overseas aid organisations, to governments. If you want to see change in Afghanistan,
you (should) follow my (lead).
"I am a drop in the ocean of poverty. I am one woman, if I can do something as little
as this, why can't they?"
AAP ry/jlw
KEYWORD: SEPT11 MAHBOBA (BACKGROUNDER) (WITH FACTBOX)
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