'People's money': Afghans protest Biden's order to give €3.1bn to 9/11 victims
On Saturday, demonstrators in Kabul condemned President Joe Biden's order freeing up around €3.1 billion in Afghan assets held in the US for families of America's 9/11 victims — saying the money belongs to Afghans.
Protesters who gathered outside the Afghan capitol's grand Eid Gah mosque asked the US for financial compensation for the tens of thousands of Afghans killed during the last 20 years of war in Afghanistan.
Biden's order, signed Friday, allocates another €3.1 billion ($3.5bn) in Afghan assets for humanitarian aid to a trust fund managed by the UN to assist Afghans, splitting the US-based holdings in half.
The country's economy is teetering on the brink of collapse after international money stopped coming into Afghanistan with the arrival in mid-August of the Taliban.
At the same time, Afghanistan is in the throes of mass famine.
Overall, almost 24 million people in Afghanistan suffer from acute hunger -- or 60% of the population.
A severe drought is one cause, but also, more and more people simply cannot afford to buy food.
Torek Farhadi, a financial adviser to Afghanistan's former US-backed government, questioned the UN managing Afghan Central Bank reserves. He said those 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".
He also questioned the legality of Biden's order.
"These reserves belong to the people of Afghanistan, not the Taliban [...] Biden's decision is one-sided and does not match with international law," said Farhadi. "No other country on Earth makes such confiscation decisions about another country's reserves."
Afghanistan has about €8 billion in assets overseas, including the €6.2 billion in the US. The
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