March 2022

Due to the abrupt and irregular manner in which the Taliban came to power and uncertainty about how they will govern and deal with terrorism, human rights, minority rights, and women’s rights, the U.S. ordered a global freeze of all assets belonging to Afghanistan. This included the funds and assets of the Afghan Central Bank, which were always managed by U.S. and European banks, totaling over 9 billion dollars; the country’s Special Drawing Rights with the IMF; and access to designated funds in the World Bank Trust Fund for Afghanistan. The overseas companies that print the Afghan currency, the Afghani, also fell under the ban. 

This order brought to a near-immediate halt the country’s ability to function. Wages, not just for government employees but for workers and staff across the board, could not be paid. Due to the cash shortage, banks were forced to restrict the amount of money people could withdraw from their savings. Merchants, from small shopkeepers to mid-size and large businesses, could not order inventory and even if they could have, people had no cash with which to buy it. All of this caused inflation to rise astronomically, with price increases for basic food staples sometimes increasing several times in just one day. Food was in short supply, and for many people, it was unaffordable. NGO’s wanted to help, but they too were obstructed by the USG order. No one could risk falling afoul of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), but the rules were not clear and exemptions were often granted only verbally. Humanitarian aid such as food distribution was allowed, but international organizations were equally stymied by the absence of currency and the lack of liquidity.

Thousands of civilians with no ability to support themselves or their families still had to perform their essential jobs in the health, waste management, education and other public sectors. This is where Unfreeze Afghanistan had its beginnings: we were shocked that Western governments were clamoring for schools to stay open and girls to be educated, while preventing teachers from being paid. Fortunately, this resonated and exemptions were found to support education and health-care – although so slowly that between August 2021 and February 2022, little had actually reached the designated recipients.

Police, national military, and Taliban soldiers are also not being paid. We may not want to fund the Taliban, but this is a recipe for trouble. Armed individuals without food for themselves and their families are likely to eventually turn to looting and theft, or to be recruited by ISIS in exchange for subsistence pay.

International NGOs in possession of millions of dollars earmarked for aid to Afghan women and other civilians, including emergency humanitarian aid, are still facing enormous difficulties transferring funds into the country. Even when funds are successfully transferred, they often can’t be withdrawn, since Afghan banks have run out of cash notes.

Under ordinary circumstances, now that the war is officially over and U.S. and NATO troops have withdrawn, Afghanistan should be commencing with a gradual, but essential, post-war recovery. By all accounts, security has improved significantly across the country. NGO’s and civil society organizations report that they can now travel, and overland at that, to areas that were no-go zones for the past many years. Internally displaced persons have been returning to their farms and villages now that the fighting has ended. These people now need to repair their homes, restore their irrigation systems, and prepare their farms for the coming planting season. Shops, schools, clinics, roads, wells, and residences all need to be rebuilt or repaired. Materials have to be purchased and laborers hired. None of this is possible under the current sanctions and freeze orders.

Instead, Afghanistan is poised to become a permanent charity case, dependent each winter on food donations flown in from overseas. This is more than paradoxical, given the country’s $9 billion in reserves – $7 billion in U.S. banks and $2 billion in Europe. The U.S. deposits are now dependent on decisions in the U.S. court system, where lawsuits by a small subset of the families of 9/11 victims are claiming – wrongly, in our view and that of many legal experts – that these assets belong to the Taliban. In fact, these are the same assets that have been in that same Central Bank for the past 20 years, some of which  dates back to the time of the Afghan monarchy. They belong to the nation and its people – people who are not responsible for the events of 9/11 and who have suffered gravely from its consequences for decades now.

We believe that it’s time for all of this to be over: for the Afghan civilians to rebuild their lives and address their social and economic issues for themselves, with the support of their friends in the outside world but without overbearing commands and unwarranted punishments.