BAMYAN (SW) – Dozens of Bamyan residents took to the streets on Monday demanding the US to unfreeze Afghan state assets.
Dozens of Bamyan residents staged a protest march in the provincial capital before noon on Monday, demanding the release of the Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves kept frozen by the US government.
Protesters in Bamyan, expressing concern and chanting anti-US slogans such as “Shame on America, let go of the nation’s money,” said the US seizure of the country’s foreign exchange reserves has led to an unprecedented spread of poverty and hunger. They believed that if these assets are not released soon, there will be a humanitarian catastrophe due to poverty in the country.
Sayed Abdul Raziq Danesh, head of the Bamyan Disabled People’s Union and one of the organizers of the rally, said that residents of the province, especially the disabled community and the families of war victims, call on the US government to release Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves as soon as possible.
According to him, the main victims of the current situation due to the seizure of the country’s foreign exchange reserves by the United States are the disabled and the families of war victims in the country.
“We urge the US government not to embezzle our foreign exchange assets and to release them and return them to our country,” he said. “We also call on the ruling regime to use these assets to pay the salaries and benefits of the disabled and the families of the martyrs, and to address other issues such as poverty and hunger fairly.”
Mohammad Ali and Gul Bakht, two other protesters, said the US government, led by President Joe Biden, should release Afghanistan’s money and not use it to pay compensation to the relatives of the victims of the 9/11 attacks because no Afghan citizen took part in those attacks.
Bamyan protesters finally issued a three-article resolution calling on the United Nations to force the United States to release and return Afghanistan’s state assets. Article 3 of the resolution states that aid and human rights organizations in the current difficult situation must cooperate and assist the disabled and the families of the victims.
It should be noted that with the establishment of the Islamic Emirate in the country, the US government led by President Joe Biden seized about $ 10 billion of the country’s foreign exchange reserves in its banks and about two weeks ago Biden signed a decree splitting some $ 3.5 billion of these assets for the 9/11 victims’ families.
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