Forgotten War

Afghanistan’s institutions are fragile; the Afghan administration cannot take on the task of rebuilding them without the involvement and support of the international community

AFGHANISTAN will soon mark the 25th anniversary of the start of a war from which it is still trying to recover. What to do with the memory of the suffering that is both collective and selective - as every Afghan has a particular tale to tell about the pain and loss endured - is something Afghanistan's people will grapple with for a long time to come. How the Afghans deal with the past is a matter for them to decide. Some would argue that whether they do so at all is of no concern to the rest of the world. They are wrong. Whether and how they do has consequences for the security of the Afghan state and its people, and so is of vital interest to the international community.

Before Afghans can approach the question of transitional justice, or how to come to terms with the legacy of the past, they need international assistance in establishing the historical record. There is little documentation of what happened during much of the war. Afghanistan's institutions, including its new Human Rights Commission, are not equipped to take on such a demanding and sensitive task alone, although of course they must be part of it. An international commission of inquiry is required to provide Afghanistan with the necessary expertise and support to conduct a mapping exercise of grave human rights violations of the past that would run parallel to national consultations on how to address the issue.

On 5 December 2001 the United Nations-sponsored talks in Bonn, Germany, culminated in the signing of an agreement on a provisional arrangement to provide a framework for Afghanistan's administration during the transitional period before a new constitution is drafted and elections held.

The Bonn Agreement, as it came to be known, contains a number of specific human rights clauses, including provisions binding the new Afghan authorities to international human rights standards during the transitional period, securing political participation for women, providing for the establishment of an independent human rights commission, granting the right to the United Nations to monitor human rights, conduct investigations and recommend corrective action, and calling for a national programme of human rights education in Afghanistan.

The Human Rights Commission (HRC) was established in June 2002, and following the terms of the Bonn Agreement, has become the focal point for a national human rights programme. One of the HRC's responsibilities is to organise a national process of consultations on how to address the question of transitional justice in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has also taken a number of important steps signaling the government's intention to abide by international conventions. On 10 February 2003 Afghanistan became the 89th country to ratify the Rome Statute. As of 1 May 2003 Afghan warlords who commit war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity can face prosecution by the International Criminal Court. Afghanistan has also ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

More important will be to see if Afghanistan is able to implement reforms in the judicial system, police and penal institutions to ensure better protection of the human rights of its citizens. Reforms at the political level, including the demobilisation of former soldiers, represent a formidable challenge but will be essential if Afghanistan is to bring security (and with it the possibilities for human rights protection and justice) to its people.

Afghanistan's war years represent a catalogue of some of the worst of which human beings are capable, yet much of what happened to Afghans during this time escaped notice by the rest of the world. Global attention to Afghanistan was limited to two distinct periods: The 1979 Soviet invasion and occupation sparked international condemnation and a proxy Cold War confrontation as the US and others backed the resistance forces, or the mujahidin, with tonnes of sophisticated weaponry. The rise to power of the Taliban in the mid-1990s drew international criticism because of their repression of women (their war crimes, including massacres of Shia civilians largely escaped notice) and because of their increasing involvement with the forces of al-Qaeda.

But Afghanistan's war began more than a year and a half before the Soviet invasion - a period that saw some of the worst state sanctioned violence. In the months following the coup of April 1978, forces aligned with the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) launched a campaign of terror to eliminate opponents of their radical social and economic policies. The regime crushed opposition in the cities and revolts in the countryside by jailing thousands in overcrowded prisons or summarily executing them. During the Soviet period a few international human rights organisations published reports on the systematic violations of human rights carried out by the Soviets and their Afghan clients in the cities, including mass arrests and torture, and the grave violations of international humanitarian law that characterised the Soviet campaign to crush resistance in the countryside. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed in the indiscriminate bombing and shelling of villages.

The mujahidin, also committed violations of international humanitarian law. Descriptions of some of these incidents, including the assassinations of Afghan political figures and intellectuals in Pakistan, and massacres of civilians can be found in publications of Afghan exile communities in Pakistan and elsewhere, and occasionally in international press and human rights reports.  

The 1988 Geneva Accords that resulted in the withdrawal of Soviet troops made no provision for accounting for war crimes. After efforts to establish a coalition government failed, Kabul became engulfed in a civil war that saw a third of the city destroyed. Internecine fighting, mass rape, "disappearances" and summary executions were widespread during the 1992-1995 period as changing alliances of armed groups fought for control of Kabul and carved the rest of the country among themselves.

The Taliban emerged in 1994; in seven years they steadily consolidated their control over most of the country while continuing to fight areas of resistance in the central highlands and far northeast of the country. Like their communist predecessors, the Taliban adopted police-state measures in the cities and scorchedearth policies in the countryside to quell opposition, including massacres of civilians and summary executions of prisoners. But few journalists and even fewer human rights groups reported what was happening.

Virtually any Afghan who remained in the country throughout the war can testify to a personal experience of the war's horrors; those who sought asylum outside the country can testify to some part of it. But it is characteristic of the Afghan conflict that very little of this testimony has ever been written down. Moreover, there has been no effort to collate what is known from the little documentation done by Afghan, regional and international human rights organisations and other NGOs.

Need for an Independent Investigative Body

Afghan human rights organisations have had a tough time of it. Throughout the war, none could operate freely inside the country, though courageous individuals did document some incidents. Those based in Pakistan for most of the war operated under serious constraints, liable at any time to be targetted by agents of the government in Kabul, or by agents of mujahidin intelligence or the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI.  

Those fears have eased only a little. In her recent report, the UNHRC's special rapporteur on extra-judicial executions, Asma Jahangir, notes that even now "there is a climate of fear, and those who leak information on violations of human rights are threatened." This climate of fear also makes it difficult if not impossible for the Afghan HRC to undertake confidential investigations. As a result, there is no public record available to Afghans as they try to come to terms with the past.

In her report, Jahangir has called for an international commission of inquiry to be established to "undertake … a stocktaking of grave human rights violations in the past that could constitute a catalogue of crimes against humanity." Such a commission would not seek to include every incident, but to establish a public, official record to be used in any effort that Afghans may undertake in the future, and would incorporate wide levels of consultation with the Afghan civil society and authorities.

Afghanistan's institutions are fragile, and this is not a task that the Afghan administration or the HRC can take on without the involvement and support of the international community. If crimes against humanity have taken place, it is in fact the obligation of the international community to take the lead in putting them on record and supporting appropriate mechanisms for transitional justice.

It is critical that such a panel of experts conduct research in a way that would not draw undue public attention to its work, though by its very existence it would serve to put everyone on notice that impunity does not last forever.

Most important it would prepare the ground for the day when Afghanistan's institutions are stronger and Afghans can decide for themselves how to deal with the legacy of the war.  

PATRICIA GOSSMAN is an independent human rights consultant based in Amman, Jordan.