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State Department Plays Down Northern Alliance Abuses in Afghanistan: HRW
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| Afghanistan’s NA abused Afghans human rights
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WASHINGTON, March 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The U.S. State Department's annual human rights report on Afghanistan plays down severe abuses by anti-Taliban forces, accused of murder and sexual violence against ethnic Pashtuns, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday.
The report, released Monday, detailed abuses by the ousted Taliban regime but paid little attention to violations by opposition Northern Alliance forces before and after the September 11 attacks on the United States, the New York-based human rights watchdog said.
"The report is strong on Taliban human rights violations, but gives too little attention to abuses by the Northern Alliance before and after September 11," it said.
In its annual review of human rights, the State Department welcomed the end of the "brutal and oppressive" rule of the Taliban, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"Perhaps nowhere was institutional change more significant than in Afghanistan, where five years of repressive Taliban rule came to an end," the report said.
The State Department report concentrated on a litany of abuses by the Taliban, but it also said the Northern Alliance was accused of committing serious abuses.
"On November 25, Northern Alliance forces reportedly killed at least 120 prisoners in Mazar-i-Sharif, allegedly during the suppression of a riot," it said.
Opposition forces also committed extra-judicial killings during the year, the report said, citing press reports.
Human Rights Watch, however, gave detailed allegations of numerous and widespread abuses by Northern Alliance forces.
"Since coming to power in Northern Afghanistan, the armed elements of the Northern Alliance have committed severe abuses - including widespread looting, murder, beatings, and sexual violence - against Pashtun civilians in Northern Afghanistan," it said.
"This pattern of abuses by Northern Alliance forces, which is not mentioned in the report, argues strongly for an expanded international security presence in the country," it said.
HRW has repeatedly called for the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul to be deployed throughout the country to stem the violence.
In a report released Sunday, the rights group said thousands of Pashtuns were being forced to leave their villages due to an "ongoing campaign of violence and intimidation."
"Armed political factions in northern Afghanistan are subjecting ethnic Pashtuns to murder, beatings, sexual violence, abductions, looting, and extortion," the report said.
But on Tuesday, the governor of a northern Afghan province dismissed the HRW report as "propaganda."
"In Samangan province, Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras live together. This is just propaganda. We absolutely reject it," Governor Syed Mohammad Iqbal Munib told AFP on a visit to Kabul.
Pashtuns, who make up nearly half of Afghanistan's population, formed the bulwark of the Taliban regime that was ousted last year through a U.S. military campaign.
The governor said the Pashtuns who fled their villages were only those affiliated with the Taliban or the al-Qaeda network.
"When they go out of the country they orchestrate the propaganda that there is racial discrimination against Pashtuns," Munib said.
"We are Muslims. Islam and Islamic shari’a law renounce ethnic and racial discrimination," he said.
Munib named three Pashtun commanders - Bashir Khan Baghlani, Juma Khan Hamdard and Khan Aqa Khan - who serve in a leadership council for northern Afghanistan.
"Naturally they have authority in making decisions about the north. It proves there is no discrimination against Pashtuns," he said.
Since the fall of the Pashtun-dominated Taliban, ethnic Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara factions in reprisal, the HRW report said, have targeted Pashtuns, who are a minority in northern Afghanistan.
Interim leader Hamid Karzai last week appointed a commission to investigate claims of discrimination against ethnic minorities in northern Afghanistan, but it was unclear what impact its work would have, HRW said.
Ethnic and tribal violence and clashes between rival warlords vying for power in the provinces have underlined the fragility of the U.N.-backed interim cabinet as it tries to assert its control over the countryside.
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