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Afghan officials confirm
US
role in massacre of
Taliban prisoners
[Courtesy Afghanistan-sl list]
March 17, 2003
On March 6, the German television programme
Panorama presented fresh evidence
implicating US troops in the massacre of Taliban
prisoners during the 2001
war in Afghanistan. Shown on the ARD channel, the
programme presented footage,
including interviews with two Afghan government
ministers who confirmed the
presence of American troops during the
transportation and killing of
surrendered
Taliban prisoners.
A documentary film made by Scottish director
Jamie Doran shown in an
uncompleted
form to members of the European Parliament and
other selected audiences in
Europe last June presented the first public
charges of American involvement
in war crimes in Afghanistan.
Doran's film documents events following the
November 21, 2001 fall of Konduz,
the Taliban's last stronghold in northern
Afghanistan. The film presents
a series of witnesses who testify that American
military forces participated
in the armed assault and killing of several
hundred Taliban prisoners in
the Qala-i-Janghi fortress. Witnesses also allege
that, following the events
at Qala-i-Janghi, the American army command,
together with troops of the
Northern Alliance, were complicit in the killing
and disposal of a further
3,000 prisoners, out of a total of 8,000 who
surrendered after the battle
of Konduz.
Hundreds of prisoners died of suffocation in the
course of transportation
in closed containers to the prison of Shibarghan.
The transport finally ended
in a stretch of desert known as Dasht-i-Leili,
near Mazar-i-Sharif, where
dead bodies were unloaded and several hundred
prisoners who were still alive
were shot to death.
The US State Department has consistently denied
any American involvement
in the massacre of prisoners in the desert near
Mazar-i-Sharif by forces
loyal to the commander of the Northern Alliance,
General Rashid Dostun. Dostun
was the closest ally of American forces in
November 2001 when fighting in
Afghanistan reached its peak.
Following the showing of the rough cut of Doran's
film the Pentagon issued
a June 13, 2002 statement denying US complicity
in the torture and murder
of POWs. The US State Department followed suit
with a formal denial one day
later.
In December of last year, Doran's completed film
Massacre in Afghanistan. Did
the Americans Look On? was shown to German
audiences. The film has already
been shown in Britain and Italy and has been
bought for showing in a total of
11 other countries. The American
media
has blocked virtually all coverage
of the film and its allegations. The film was
recently released, however,
on video titled Afghan Massacre Convoy of Death,
available from Doran's
production
company at
www.acftv.net.
Prior to the German broadcast, a State Department
spokesman, Larry Schwartz,
declared: "It is a mystery to us why a respected
television channel is showing
a documentary in which the facts are completely
wrong and which unfairly
depicts the US mission in Afghanistan." Following
the December transmission,
State Department officials once again denied any
involvement by US troops
in the killing of Taliban prisoners.
Now the allegations raised in Doran's film have
been confirmed for the first
time by Afghan government officials. German
reporters accompanied a small
team representing the German parliamentary
committee for Human Rights to
Afghanistan on a trip to investigate the
background to the events in
Mazar-i-Sharif.
In the course of their research, the reporters
were able to briefly interview
Rashid Dostun, who now occupies the post of joint
Deputy Defence Minister
of Afghanistan.
In the interview, Dostun acknowledged that the
killing of prisoners had taken
place. He was not prepared to be drawn out,
however, on the role played by
US troops in these killings. Dostun shares the
deputy post at the Afghan
Defence Ministry with another general, Atig ullah
Barialei, who was much
more forthright and conceded that American troops
were in attendance at this
massacre.
Barialei stated in an interview with Panorama
reporters at the Defence
Ministry
that, in his opinion, what had taken place in the
desert was a war crime,
and he confirmed that "at all the incidents which
took place, American troops
were present."
Barialei's charge was confirmed by Afghanistan's
Interior Minister Taj Muhammed
Wardak. Wardak acknowledged that unarmed
prisoners had been killed in an
operation that he called an "accident". Wardak
went on to acknowledge that
US troops were present during both the
transportation and killing of the
prisoners. Shortly after his interview with
Panorama, Wardak resigned his
post as interior minister for reasons that remain
unclear.
In a comment for the Panorama programme, Christa
Nickels, representing the
German parliamentary committee for Human Rights,
stated that she was convinced
beyond any doubt that a massacre of prisoners had
taken place. The prisoners
had previously been disarmed, and their killing
was in blatant violation
of international law. She added that the
statements made by Afghan government
officials served to reinforce allegations that
American Special Forces
troopswere present during the killings.
The United Nations had agreed to organise a
fullscale investigation of the
events at Mazar-i-Sharif this spring, but
according to a representative of
Physicians for Human Rights interviewed in the
Panorama documentary, there
is little chance of such a probe ever taking
place. No agreement has been
reached with the government of Afghanistan for
the protection of those who
would do the investigating, and the UN is
displaying little willingness to
ensure on its own that suitable protection be
made available.
Since Doran's film was completed, two of the
eyewitnesses who testified on
camera to seeing US soldiers at the scene of the
killings have themselves
been murdered. Other witnesses and co-workers of
the filmmaker have received
death threats.
The Panorama documentary ends with recent footage
of the desert where the
massacre took place. There are indications of
digging suggesting that an
attempt is underway to destroy the evidence of a
war crime. The film's narrator
warns that a forthcoming war in Iraq, with all
its new attendant horrors,
could serve to finally distract all attention
from the involvement of US
forces in the war crimes carried out at
Mazar-i-Sharif.
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2003-03-19 Wed 07:56ct