- New reports from a human rights organisation and the
German press have substantiated charges that US troops, aided by local
and international allies, massacred thousands of defenceless Taliban in
the course of the war in Afghanistan.
-
- The international press first reported treatment of Taliban
prisoners that systematically breached the Geneva Conventions at the end
of November. At that time, American aircraft and helicopters quelled an
apparent revolt by prisoners at the fortress of Qala-i-Janghi near Mazar-i-Sharif,
which was bombed from the air. Several hundred prisoners died as a result
of the bombardment, with just 86 surviving the attack.
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- The victims were members of the Taliban, who had previously
surrendered in Konduz to troops led by the Uzbek general, Rashid Dostum,
an ally of the Americans. Having surrendered, the Taliban were prisoners
of war entitled to full protection under the Geneva Conventions.
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- From the approximately 8,000 fighters who surrendered
in Konduz only 500 to 800 were taken to Qala-i-Janghi. Soon information
emerged that other Taliban had been murdered.
-
- Last January and February, a team from the Physicians
for Human Rights (PHR), based in Boston, visited a number of graves in
the Mazar-i-Sharif and Sheberghan area. They established that two of the
mass graves that they investigated were of recent origin. The team quoted
testimony from inhabitants of the region, who claimed to have seen scores
of bodies unloaded from container trucks and buried in the desert by bulldozers.
-
- In a May 1 letter to the provisional Afghan president,
Hamid Karzai, the PHR wrote: ìThe forensic team also found evidence
of recently disposed human remains in two of the nine gravesites that were
visited. While we are not in a position to verify the provenance of the
remains in these sites, we heard speculation from well-informed international
observers that one of these sites, near the city of Sheberghan, could have
been a disposal ground of Taliban prisoners who had surrendered to the
Northern Alliance in November and December 2001.î
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- The report detailing the investigation (including photos)
by the PHR and its letter to Karzai are available on at: http://www.phrusa.org/research/afghanistan/report_graves.html#1
and http://www.phrusa.org/research/afghanistan/karzai_letter.html
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- Earlier this month, Irish documentary filmmaker Jamie
Doran screened his uncompleted film Massacre in Mazar in a number of European
cities. Witnesses appearing in the film gave more accounts detailing a
massacre of up to 3,000 Taliban.
-
- According to these witnesses, between 200 and 300 of
the prisoners from Konduz were packed into each of the containers, which
were ostensibly being used to take them to the prison at Sheberghan. En
route, approximately half of the captives suffocated or were killed by
shots fired by soldiers into the airtight containers. Others were executed
as the containers were unloaded into a mass grave in the desert. According
to the witnesses, American soldiers were present during this massacre.
-
- The German weekly newspaper Die Zeit recently sent two
reporters, Giuliana Sgrena and Ulrich Ladurner, to Masar-i-Sharif to carry
out their own investigation. Their report confirms many of the statements
made in the film by Jamie Doran.
-
- In the latest edition of Der Zeit, they write: ìIt
is not difficult to find people in Sheberghan who can relate what took
place in the desert of Dascht-i-Laili. Without exhibiting any degree of
excitement they tell of executions and Taliban suffocated in containers.î
-
- The reporters quote the inhabitant of a nearby village,
who said: ìI counted at least 13 containers. They were transported
on lorries. It was daytime when they arrived.î Asked how these men
died, the villager responded: ìWe were told that they had suffocated
in the containers, but some of the containers were splattered with blood.î
-
- According to the report in Die Zeit, the local population
was certain that the operation took place in the presence of American soldiers:
ìWe enquired further. No one doubted that the Americans had taken
part. Even at higher levels there are no doubts on this issue.î
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- Die Zeit, however, estimates the total of dead Taliban
to be somewhat lower than the figure given in the Doran film.
-
- Doran said that 8,000 Taliban surrendered in Konduz.
He bases his figure on the statement given by the Uzbek commander who led
the surrender negotiations. In an interview with the WSWS, Doran said:
"8,000 surrendered to Amir Jahn, who negotiated the surrender deal.
In the film he says he counted the prisoners one by one, and there were
8,000 of them. 470 went to Qala-i-Janghi. The assumption is that seven-and-a-half-thousand
went from Qala-i-Janghi to Sheberghan, and the result of that transport
was that, according to his words, "Just 3,015 are left. Where are
the rest?"
-
- According to the witnesses in the Doran film at least
1,500, but more likely up to 3,000, were massacred.
-
- Die Zeit on the other hand speaks of 'around 5,000 Taliban'
who surrendered in Konduz, without accounting for the difference between
their figure and that given by Doran. The paper estimates the number of
victims at Qala-i-Janghi to be around 600, and the number of prisoners
whose whereabouts remain unknown to be at least 1,000. The report concludes:
ìThat a proportion of the 1,000 have disappeared, while others suffocated
in the containers, is indisputable.î
-
- At the same time, Die Zeit refers to a further slaughter
involving the deaths of 570 Taliban. This ìcase of at the very least
astonishingly ruthless conduct of warî actually took place in the
town of Mazar-i-Sharif when it was occupied by troops of the Northern Alliance.
Taliban fighters had hidden in the Sultan Rasia school in the middle of
the town and were carrying out a bitter defence of their position. American
air strikes were called in to break their resistance. After the action,
the Red Cross collected a total of 570 corpses.
-
- The various reports emerging from Afghanistan present
a horrific picture of a ruthlessly conducted colonial war. These accounts
contrast sharply with the official image projected by the Pentagon and
the media, and indicate that the US military is guilty of major war crimes.
-
- There are increasing demands for a full and independent
investigation of what took place in Afghanistan. The Physicians for Human
Rights is demanding that the mass graves be protected to ensure no evidence
is removed from the site or destroyed. The United Nations has also taken
up this demand. However, neither the Afghan government nor Washington has
responded to these calls. The European parliament plans to discuss the
issue at the beginning of July.
-
- See Also:
- Why is the US media blacking out documentary on war crimes
in
- Afghanistan?
- [21 June 2002]
- Afghan war documentary charges US with mass killings
of POWs
- Showings in Europe spark demands for war crimes probe
- [17 June 2002]
- Interview with Jamie Doran, director of Massacre at Mazar
- [17 June 2002]
- More evidence of US war crimes in Afghanistan: Taliban
POWs suffocated
- inside cargo containers
- [13 December 2001]
- The Geneva Convention and the US massacre of POWs in
Afghanistan
- [7 December 2001]
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