U.N. Rapporteur Tells of "Evidence of Widespread Human Rights violations" by Taliban Accuses "External Forces" of Interference and Calls for "Total Comprehensive" Solution

By Omar Samad

WASHINGTON, November 4, 1999 - AAR - Kamal Hossein, Special Rapporteur for the United Nations Commission for Human Rights came to Washington Wednesday, and during a revealing, yet diplomatically correct presentation at a Capitol Hill forum, painted a stark picture of the humanitarian situation in Taliban-occupied Afghanistan. Drawing upon his year-long experience and work at the helm of the U.N.'s Geneva-based office charged with gathering evidence and facts on the human rights condition in Afghanistan, he asked the international community to "do more" by addressing the underlying "causes" of "widespread human rights violations" inflicted on the Afghan people by the Taliban regime.

Following brief introductory remarks by former U.S. Congressman Don Ritter, currently chairman of the Afghanistan Foundation, an Afghan-American activist, Sima Wali, spoke on behalf of Afghans for Civil Society, and asked the U.S. government to assist "democratic movements to empower the Afghans." Calling Afghans the "most oppressed people in the world," she identified Pakistani interference in Afghanistan as a "deterrent to a peaceful solution."

Coinciding with a new appeal this week by Amnesty International for the world community to act responsibly and "end the human rights catastrophe in Afghanistan," Hossein touched upon the same issue and said, "the U.N. and the world need to take a comprehensive and total view." He added, "it is not enough to address the symptoms of violations," but rather to look at the "causes." The Rapporteur said, "my approach is that these violations are systematic, not just individual acts."

Amnesty International's latest report faults the U.S. and other powers, specially neighboring Pakistan and Iran, for neglect of the Afghan crisis they helped create. Amnesty warned that increased targeting of Afghan ethnic minorities such as the Tajiks and Hazaras by the Taliban is becoming a driving force in the conflict.

Hossein, formerly foreign minister of Bangladesh, also echoed the same concerns. Following three trips to the region this year, including stop-overs in Kabul and the Taliban stronghold in Kandahar, he presented a powerful interim report to the member-states of the U.N. General Assembly at the end of September. Going deeper into the heart of the issues than his initial report released at the start of the year, the Special Rapporteur presents dramatic facts about this year's Taliban offensives against Bamyan in May, and the latest attacks on the Shamali plains North of Kabul during July and August. In his first report, the Rapporteur had said that "the people of Afghanistan continued to be virtual hostages in their own land, where externally armed forces seek to rule without the effective participation or consent of the people."

In both cases, documented Taliban violations included "forced involuntary displacement of civilians, deliberate burning of houses and crops, summary execution of noncombatants, arbitrary detentions, family separations and deportation of women, forced labor and other atrocities." The U.N. estimates that more than 230,000 people have been displaced by the military offensives in seven provinces this year. The number of dead and wounded is not known but easily runs into the thousands. A U.N. relief coordinator Thursday accused the Taliban of blocking supply routes and warned that about 150,000 people (half of whom are recent refugees) in the opposition-held Panjshir Valley face a serious winter disaster if supplies do not reach them by the end of November.

The Rapporteur voiced his support for the human and women's rights campaign under way in the West since the rise of the Taliban. "I am impressed by the news coverage . . . especially the coverage the women' situation is getting . . . that is very important," because it has generated a degree of interest in Afghanistan, he said.

The UN commission's report also cited other grave breaches of human rights such as aerial bombardments and laying of mines. But according to Hossein, one of the most troubling aspects of the Afghan conflict is the "widespread deployment of non-Afghan combatants, many from neighboring countries, who have demonstrated a propensity for committing atrocities against the civilians." He told the forum, "I have no doubt that this level of conflict cannot be sustained without external supplies and support." When asked about Pakistan's role, he said "in a formal sense the Pakistanis do not admit, but according to media reports there are corpses (of Pakistanis) coming back home." He added, "it's almost accepted as given that this kind of support is going on." Pointing to a critical aspect of Pakistan's role in support of the Taliban, the U.N. official added "the only source from which fuel [to sustain military operations] can reach Afghanistan is from the South." The report also alleges that contrary to the commitments given by countries such as Pakistan at the Ashkabad and Tashkent U.N.-sponsored peace conferences this year, "significant logistical support and supplies were being delivered to those forces which enabled the Taliban to carry out a large-scale offensive with successive rounds of aerial bombardment," during the July-August Taliban offensive North of Kabul.

Contrary to unsubstantiated claims by some self-serving aid workers, business profiteers, and biased scholars who say that the overall situation is improving for Afghans, specially for women, under the Taliban, the Special Rapporteur denied any drastic improvement had occurred, and said that the situation can only change when the Taliban repeal some of their controversial edicts. Meanwhile, the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF), a group spearheading a campaign for the restoration of women's rights in Afghanistan, Thursday lashed out at the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan based in Pakistan for giving "misconstrued and false depictions of the reality of the tragedy of Afghanistan under the Taliban." The FMF statement said that following several recent surveys and fact-finding missions, "there has been no progress in either the gender or human rights situation."

Hossein also vented his frustration as a Moslem about the Taliban restrictions imposed on Afghans under the guise of Islamic "edicts" or Afghan traditions. "I have engaged the Taliban leadership on these issues," he said. "This form of interpretation of Islam is not only incompatible with international covenants . . . but also, there is no justification for this in the history of Islam, in the history of Afghanistan or in culture and tradition," he added. The former diplomat, who had fond memories of a peaceful and progressive Afghanistan from a previous trip in 1967, said that during one of his visits this year, "the Taliban told me, we do not tell Americans how to treat their women in California . . . They shouldn't tell us what to do in Afghanistan." He then added, "I told them, wait, I was in Kabul 32 years ago and women were not treated like this, they worked as professionals, even professors, studied and lived normally."

The UN official agreed that the Afghan people have been "disempowered,' and "pushed out" of their country and communities since the Soviet invasion in 1979. He said that the outflow of people continues to date, "from Kabul in 1996, Mazar(i-Sharif) in 1998, Bamyan in 1999." The Special Rapporteur appealed for "a total comprehensive approach" by the world community to tackle the Afghan imbroglio. He prescribed a "framework acceptable to all Afghans to bring about a multiethnic, broad-based, representative transitional government," which would reflect the people's consent. "This is a basic concept," he said, "where people are no longer ruled on the basis of military conquest or the use of coercive methods to maintain order." In reply to a question about the US stance, Hossein said the US should adopt a comprehensive approach not just a "single issue" such as Bin Laden.

[Azadi Afghan Radio] v.2, 11/4/99, 18:20.

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