http://www.boston.com/dailynews/168/world/U_N_Taliban_resolve_dispute_ov:.shtml

U.N., Taliban resolve dispute over bakeries catering to the poor

By Amir Shah, Associated Press, 6/17/2001 08:28

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) The United Nations and Afghanistan's Taliban rulers resolved a dispute Sunday, allowing 130 bakeries that provide food for poor Afghans to reopen, militia and U.N. officials said.

The bakeries had closed Saturday after the Taliban failed to meet a June 15 deadline that would have let the World Food Program to hire women to conduct a poverty survey.

Both Taliban and World Food Program officials confirmed that the aid group agreed to the Taliban's key demand: to use women already employed by the Taliban health ministry to conduct the survey.

''We are very happy about this agreement because our people are very poor,'' Saaduddin Saeed, the Taliban's Planning Minister, told The Associated Press.

The bakeries' closure had deprived about 282,000 impoverished Afghans of a key food supply and was met with anguish Saturday among people who stood outside waiting for bread.

It was not immediately clear why the World Food Program decided to accept the Taliban's terms for hiring women. Earlier, the U.N. agency had said it wanted to hire its own employees to conduct the survey in the interest of impartiality.

World Food Program spokesman Khaled Mansour insisted the agency had not ''given in'' to the Taliban, saying the agreement took both sides' demands into account and that the women conducting the survey will follow the agency's standards.

''We have received assurances from the Taliban that the survey will be conducted in a way acceptable to us,'' Mansour told The Associated Press by telephone. He gave no further details.

The dispute centered on the bread recipient list, which the World Food Program says does not represent the most vulnerable people. The purpose of the survey is to assess Kabul's poor and create a new list.

The survey must be conducted by women because only they may enter homes to assess poverty. The Taliban, who espouse a strict brand of Islam, prohibit men from viewing women who are not their relatives, and women must cover their bodies in public.

Gerard van Dijk, the World Food Program's representative for Afghanistan, confirmed that an agreement had been reached and that flour would be brought to the capital, Kabul, on Sunday so that the bakeries could reopen by Tuesday.

Saturday was the first time in five years that the World Food Program did not provide subsidized bread to needy residents in Kabul.

The closure of the bakeries, where 46,000 cardholding families could buy 4½ pounds of bread a day at one-tenth of the market price, was seen a major blow to humanitarian operations in Afghanistan.

It also underscored rapidly worsening relations between the Taliban and international aid organizations, which have accused the ruling militia of harassing aid workers and hampering relief operations.

-- Anonymous, June 17, 2001