Kabul, Afghanistan – Afghan demonstrators on Saturday opposed President Joe Biden’s order freeing up $3.5 billion in Afghan assets held in the U.S. for families of America’s 9/11 victims. They claimed the money belongs to the Afghans.
Protesters told America has to compensate financially for the thousands of Afghans killed during the last 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
Biden’s order which was signed on Friday, allocates another $3.5 billion in Afghan assets for humanitarian aid to a trust fund to be managed by the U.N. to provide aid to Afghans.
Afghanistan’s Central Bank called on Biden to reverse his order and release the funds to the country. The bank issued a statement on Saturday that they belonged to the people of Afghanistan and not a government, party or group.
Torek Farhadi, a financial adviser to Afghanistan’s former U.S.-backed government, questioned the legality of Biden’s order. He said the funds are not meant for humanitarian aid but “to back up the country’s currency, help in monetary policy and manage the country’s balance of payment.”
White House officials said there is no simple way to make all the frozen assets available quickly to the Afghan people.
Sept. 11 victims and their families have legal claims against the Taliban and the $7 billion in the U.S. banking system. Courts would have to sign off before the release of humanitarian assistance money and decide whether to tap the frozen funds for paying out those claims.
In all, Afghanistan has about $9 billion in assets overseas, including the $7 billion in the United States. The rest is mostly in Germany, Switzerland and Middle East.
Biden’s Friday order generated a social media storm with Twitter saying #USA_stole_money_from_afghan was trending among Afghans. Tweets repeatedly pointed out that the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals, not Afghans.
Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center, called Biden’s order to divert $3.5 billion away from Afghanistan “heartless.”
“It’s great that $3.5B in new humanitarian aid for Afghanistan has been freed up. But to take another $3.5B that belongs to the Afghan people and divert it elsewhere--that is misguided and quite frankly heartless,” he tweeted.
Kugelman also said the opposition to Biden’s order crossed Afghanistan’s wide political divide.
“I can’t remember the last time so many people of such vastly different worldviews were so united over a US policy decision on Afghanistan,” he tweeted.
-AP