Subject:
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Re: Hold your fire?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 8 Oct 2001 08:08:57 GMT
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Viewed:
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248 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,564137,00.html
>
> Is (was?) this analysis correct? What do people think? Is today's action
> likely to undermine any Taliban crumbling, or is it more of a "take out the
> air defenses so the aid aircraft won't get shot down" that won't strengthen
> Taliban resolve?
>
> I think it's an interesting article but I am not sure. I am also not sure
> that a Northern Alliance led government is likely to be any less barbaric.
Read around Larry, they are little better. They are know to rape women in
the towns they capture.
More here:
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/rights/articles/eav100301.shtml
==+==
While many Afghans are anxious to see an end to Taliban rule, they remain
feaful about the prospect of a return of the Northern Alliance, also known
as the United Front. When the factions that comprise the Northern Alliance –
together with some who have since been excluded – took power in Kabul in
1992, they turned on each other almost immediately, plunging the capital
into anarchy.
From 1992-95, Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, a warlord who was shunted aside almost
immediately after the alliance took power, repeatedly ordered his fighters
to rain rockets on Kabul, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths. Now,
Hikmatyar is threatening to mobilize Pashtuns against the United States,
which, ironically, supplied his mujaheddin forces during their resistance to
the 1979-89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, who remains with the Northern Alliance, was
responsible for ordering the massacres of hundreds of ethnic Hazaras. The
forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud, recently assassinated by Osama bin Laden
operatives, also engaged in the rape and murder of Hazaras and the
indiscriminate bombardment of west Kabul.
==+==
From: http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/afghan-bck1005.htm
==+==
The United Front's Human Rights Record
Throughout the civil war in Afghanistan, the major factions on all sides
have repeatedly committed serious human rights abuses and violations of
international humanitarian law, including killings, indiscriminate aerial
bombardment and shelling, direct attacks on civilians, summary executions,
rape, persecution on the basis of religion or ethnicity, the recruitment and
use of children as soldiers, and the use of antipersonnel landmines. Many of
these violations can be shown to have been "widespread or systematic," a
criterion of crimes against humanity. Although committed in an internal
armed conflict, violations involving indiscriminate attacks or direct
attacks on civilians are increasingly being recognized internationally as
amounting to war crimes.
Abuses committed by factions belonging to the United Front have been well
documented. Many of the violations of international humanitarian law
committed by the United Front forces described below date from 1996-1998
when they controlled most of the north and were within artillery range of
Kabul. Since then, what remains of the United Front forces have been pushed
back into defensive positions in home territories in northeastern and
central Afghanistan following a series of military setbacks. There have
nevertheless been reports of abuses in areas held temporarily by United
Front factions, including summary executions, burning of houses, and
looting, principally targeting ethnic Pashtuns and others suspected of
supporting the Taliban. Children, including those under the age of fifteen,
have been recruited as soldiers and used to fight against Taliban forces.
The various parties that comprise the United Front also amassed a deplorable
record of attacks on civilians between the fall of the Najibullah regime in
1992 and the Taliban's capture of Kabul in 1996.
Violations of international humanitarian law committed by United Front
factions include:
Late 1999 - early 2000: Internally displaced persons who fled from villages
in and around Sangcharak district recounted summary executions, burning of
houses, and widespread looting during the four months that the area was held
by the United Front. Several of the executions were reportedly carried out
in front of members of the victims' families. Those targeted in the attacks
were largely ethnic Pashtuns and, in some cases, Tajiks.
September 20-21, 1998: Several volleys of rockets were fired at the northern
part of Kabul, with one hitting a crowded night market. Estimates of the
number of people killed ranged from seventy-six to 180. The attacks were
generally believed to have been carried out by Massoud's forces, who were
then stationed about twenty-five miles north of Kabul. A spokesperson for
United Front commander Ahmad Shah Massoud denied targeting civilians. In a
September 23, 1998, press statement, the International Committee of the Red
Cross described the attacks as indiscriminate and the deadliest that the
city had seen in three years.
Late May 1997: Some 3,000 captured Taliban soldiers were summarily executed
in and around Mazar-i Sharif by Junbish forces under the command of Gen.
Abdul Malik Pahlawan. The killings followed Malik's withdrawal from a brief
alliance with the Taliban and the capture of the Taliban forces who were
trapped in the city. Some of the Taliban troops were taken to the desert and
shot, while others were thrown down wells and then blown up with grenades.
January 5, 1997: Junbish planes dropped cluster munitions on residential
areas of Kabul. Several civilians were killed and others wounded in the
indiscriminate air raid, which also involved the use of conventional bombs.
March 1995: Forces of the faction operating under Commander Massoud, the
Jamiat-i Islami, were responsible for rape and looting after they captured
Kabul's predominantly Hazara neighborhood of Karte Seh from other factions.
According to the U.S. State Department's 1996 report on human rights
practices in 1995, "Massood's troops went on a rampage, systematically
looting whole streets and raping women."
On the night of February 11, 1993 Jamiat-i Islami forces and those of
another faction, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf's Ittihad-i Islami, conducted a raid in
West Kabul, killing and "disappearing" ethnic Hazara civilians, and
committing widespread rape. Estimates of those killed range from about
seventy to more than one hundred.
In addition, the parties that constitute the United Front have committed
other serious violations of internationally recognized human rights. In the
years before the Taliban took control of most of Afghanistan, these parties
had divided much of the country among themselves while battling for control
of Kabul. In 1994 alone, an estimated 25,000 were killed in Kabul, most of
them civilians killed in rocket and artillery attacks. One-third of the city
was reduced to rubble, and much of the remainder sustained serious damage.
There was virtually no rule of law in any of the areas under the factions'
control. In Kabul, Jamiat-i Islami, Ittihad, and Hizb-i Wahdat forces all
engaged in rape, summary executions, arbitrary arrest, torture, and
"disappearances." In Bamiyan, Hizb-i Wahdat commanders routinely tortured
detainees for extortion purposes.
==+==
also here:
Taliban Opposition Known To Violate Human Rights
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGAKSNU7ISC.html
Scott A
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Hold your fire?
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| (...) <snip good ref material> My point exactly. They're just different thugs, not necessarily *better* thugs. If I had 4 choices: 1. do nothing and hope for the best. 2. politicoeconomic campaign that causes the Taliban to eventually fall (as the (...) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Hold your fire?
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| (...) Scott, I know of the work of Human Rights Watch, but who funds eurasianet? I couldn't find any references on their site. Thanks. There are dozens of tribes in the region and you can't tell who's doing what to whom without a detailed scorecard. (...) (23 years ago, 8-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Hold your fire?
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| (URL) (was?) this analysis correct? What do people think? Is today's action likely to undermine any Taliban crumbling, or is it more of a "take out the air defenses so the aid aircraft won't get shot down" that won't strengthen Taliban resolve? I (...) (23 years ago, 7-Oct-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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