Kabul warms to more detainee visits

The aid workers have been detained in this building in Kabul

By staff and wire reports

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Eight jailed foreign aid workers accused of promoting Christianity in Afghanistan are preparing for more diplomatic visits amid new concerns.

The World Food Program was forced to discount claims U.N. staff may be at risk of similar charges.

WFP executive director Catherine Bertini said Tuesday that her agency has nothing to fear from the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan who have suggested the U.N. agency may be involved in preaching Christianity.

"There is nothing to find for (Taliban) investigators. WFP is not in any way or shape or form an ideological or religious organization," said

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Afghanistan's hard-line Islamic Taliban rulers have accused eight foreigners and 16 Afghans working for Shelter Now International, a German-based Christian aid organization, of trying to preach Christianity.

After arresting them, the Taliban said their investigation uncovered evidence that other aid groups were doing the same thing, including the WFP.

As three Western diplomats met Taliban officials Tuesday, the parents of two American women jailed on charges of preaching Christianity waited for permission to see their children a second time.

"After seeing the detainees yesterday, today we have started discussions with the ministry of foreign affairs in order to monitor the upcoming procedure and hopefully we might have other talks," said German diplomat Helmut Landes.

"We have arranged other meetings with the detainees but I don't know whether it might be today or tomorrow," he said.

After being turned away on a previous visit, three diplomats were allowed on Monday to meet the detainees held by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban since early August.

The diplomats, accompanied by parents of two of the aid workers, reported that the detainees were in good condition.

Foreigners caught preaching Christianity in Afghanistan face three to 10 days in jail and expulsion. But for Afghans, the penalty can be death. The foreigners in detention are two Americans, four Germans and two Australians.

Bertini said the possibility of aid workers being put to death is "really impossible to comprehend."

"It would be so terrible. I would rather not even speculate about that horror," she said. "I would suspect that would never happen with people of goodwill making those decisions."

Bertini stopped short of saying whether executions could force aid agencies to pull out of Afghanistan, leaving its hungry citizens to their own devices.

She said the WFP is providing food to some 3.8 million Afghans stricken by civil war and drought. WFP distributes aid through more than 150 NGOs, one of them Shelter Now.

But Shelter Now is one of the smaller recipients. It received only 2,300 tons of food out of a total of 140,000 tons of wheat distributed so far this year to aid groups in Afghanistan.

John Powell, the WFP's Asia director, said NGOs are a key component of WFP's operations.

"If you imagine 23 years of civil war and you imagine third years of a chronic drought," he said.

"The only outreach you have is essentially through NGOs as partners in delivering to the poorer segments. So partnerships with NGOs is absolutely crucial," he said.

Powell said operating in Afghanistan is linked to the changing moods of the Taliban.

"In terms of difficulties in working with authorities, the situation changes almost day to day, season to season, area to area. That's the reality of the work in Afghanistan," he said.

In 2000, WFP was the largest provider of U.N. assistance to the stricken country. Besides its life-sustaining relief activities, it also supports 24 women-run bakeries in Kabul, the capital, employing 360 women.