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Text File | 1994-05-02 | 21KB | 403 lines

<text> <title> Afghanistan: Human Rights Watch </title> <article> <hdr> Human Rights Watch World Report 1992 Asia Watch: Afghanistan </hdr> <body> Human Rights Developments Prospects for peace in the thirteen-year-old conflict in Afghanistan, which appeared dismal by the close of 1990, gained new momentum in late 1991. However, despite the decision by the United States and the Soviet Union to cut off arms to the warring parties, the conflict appears unlikely to be over soon. Human rights abuses continued, including indiscriminate attacks against civilians by both government forces and elements of the Afghan resistance, the mujahedin, resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives. Despite hopes for a U.S.-Soviet statement agreeing to a political settlement at the December 1990 meeting between U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, the talks remained stalemated over the timetable for an arms cutoff. The December 20 resignation of Shevardnadze, prompted in part by the Soviet army's insistence on a greater role in foreign policy including continued military support for Afghan President Najibullah further set back the negotiations. As the two powers were distracted by the Persian Gulf war, U.S.-Soviet negotiations over a transition process leading to elections in Afghanistan remained stalemated. The deadlock centered on the interim role to be played by Najibullah. The Soviet Union continued to insist that Najibullah remain in power and that the powers of a transitional body be limited to organizing elections. The United States argued that Najibullah's command of communications and the security forces gave him an unfair advantage, so the transitional body should have control over these institutions during the election period. Although the anti-Iraq alliance built during the Gulf crisis included most of the countries that had been at odds over Afghanistan, their cooperation in the Gulf war did not immediately bring them any closer to agreement about Afghanistan. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia remained committed to supporting a military victory by the mujahedin. The Saudi government moved toward public support for a political settlement in Afghanistan, spurred by the decision of some mujahedin parties, notably the Hezb-e Islami (Islamic Party) of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Ittehad-e Islami Bara-ye Azad-e Afghanistan (Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan) of Abdul Rabb Rasul Sayyaf, to denounce the Saudi position in the Gulf war. However, Saudi private and government sources continued to fund radical mujahedin elements, even though these groups had opposed the Gulf war and expressed support for Saddam Hussein. The stalemate on the Afghan battlefield was broken briefly at the end of March when the eastern city of Khost fell to the mujahedin. Despite initial statements by the U.S. Administration that the fall of Khost signaled a new unity among the rebels, the military success was in fact more a result of Pakistani intervention than coordination among mujahedin commanders. However, the battle did exhibit some improvements in the mujahedin's respect for international humanitarian law. For the first time, captured government soldiers were seen promptly by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and there were no confirmed reports of summary executions. However, the city, or what was left of it, was rapidly looted by mujahedin and allied tribal militia, and the victory changed little in the political arena. On May 21, U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar issued a public statement outlining in broad terms the framework for a political settlement of the Afghan conflict. The statement reportedly reflected a consensus among the five external powers involved in aiding various groups in Afghanistan: the United States, the Soviet Union, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The plan called for a settlement based on an internationally assisted "transitional mechanism" which would enable the Afghans to hold "free and fair elections, in accord with Afghan traditions," accompanied by a cessation of hostilities and an end to military assistance to all Afghan parties by all external parties. The statement did not specify a role for Najibullah. Following further negotiations later in the year, Najibullah did express his willingness to step aside so long as his retirement was part of a peace package and his Watan Party was permitted to participate in the transitional government. Meanwhile, abuses continued by both the Afghan government and mujahedin forces. Journalists reported that following the battle for Khost, and later during an assault on Gardez, a city sixty miles south of Kabul, the Afghan government launched Scud missiles into populated areas in the east and northeast of the country and also around Herat in the west, causing heavy casualties. The mujahedin also continued to fire rockets indiscriminately into Kabul and other cities, killing civilians. In one such attack, rockets that landed in residential areas of Kabul on January 19 killed eleven people, five of them children, according to press reports. On August 14, rockets struck a crowded bus in Kabul, killing thirty passengers. (See "Eleven Reported Slain in Kabul, The New York Times, January 20, 1991; "Rebel Raid Reportedly Kills 30 on Bus in Afghan Capital," The New York Times, August 15, 1991.) Throughout 1991, the Afghan government continued to make pronouncements about democratic reform. In October, Najibullah called for provincial and local elections to be held in both government- and mujahedin-controlled territory, before the conduct of the national elections currently being negotiated through the U.N. Special Representative. He also called for the formation of an interim government to include the mujahedin, and for U.N. mechanisms to control the flow of arms to both sides. The relaxation of strict press controls permitted some criticism of the government, but officials continued to demonstrate an unwillingness to allow government critics in Kabul genuine freedom of speech or the press when it came to discussion of the war or of fundamentalist mujahedin leaders. On August 12, Ghulam Sakhi Ghairat, the editor of a new and reportedly outspoken biweekly newspaper Azadi (Freedom), was arrested and charged with "war propaganda" under Section 138 of the Constitution, which is frequently invoked to censor the press. Ghairat reportedly had published an article quoting the radical fundamentalist mujahedin leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Ghairat was tried, given a suspended sentence and released on August 26. Almost immediately he became the co-founder, along with thirteen other intellectuals, of a new political organization called the Movement for the Freedom, Democracy and Unity of Afghanistan. In its first statement on September 17, the group demanded, among other things, the abolition of the Ministry of State Security which President Najibullah formerly headed. Ghairat's arrest attracted international criticism, which may have prompted officials in Kabul not to interfere with his new organization so long as it limited itself to criticisms of the current government and was not seen to advocate radical alternatives. This reflects a tendency of the government to permit criticism when it supports the government's general message of reform. By the end of 1991, the ICRC, which has access to sentenced prisoners held by the Afghan government, had still not been granted access to government detainees under interrogation. Most of those under interrogation are captured mujahedin, or those suspected of supporting the mujahedin or of being involved in the March 1990 coup attempt. Most arrests are carried out by the Ministry of State Security, and there are few safeguards against arbitrary arrest and torture. In his 1991 report on human rights in Afghanistan, U.N. Special Rapporteur Felix Ermacora stat