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Red Cross Backs E.U. Assessment of Afghan "Auschwitz" Prison Conditions
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| A former
prisoner in Shebarghan prison in northern Afghanistan
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KABUL,
May 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The International Red
Cross backed Monday, May 13, claims by E.U. envoy Klaus-Peter Klaiber
of the inhumane conditions at the Shebarghan prison, Australian daily
newspaper, The Sidney Morning Herald, reported.
The
European Union's special envoy to Afghanistan confronted Friday, May
10, the country's powerful deputy defense minister Abdul Rashid Dostam
over the conditions in which around 2000 Taliban prisoners are being
held, comparing them to Auschwitz.
Klaiber
met Dostam in his northern fiefdom of Mazar-e-Sharif Friday and also
visited the nearby Shebarghan prison where more than 2,000 Taliban
prisoners are still thought to be detained.
"It
looks like Auschwitz," the German diplomat told Agence
France-Presse (AFP) late Sunday, May 12.
"The
people have nothing on their bones anymore. They are being treated
like cattle, crammed into tents. It's unbelievable, unbelievable. The
kitchen, you cannot imagine. There were ghost-like figures just
stirring soup. It was awful.
"I
was with two colleagues and I told them I was amazed they could stand
it so long when you see their faces, worn-out eyes without hope."
A
group of 204 Pakistani prisoners returned to their homeland Saturday,
May 11, after being freed from Shebarghan earlier in the week, some of
them as young as nine.
But
more than 500 Pakistanis are still believed to be in the jail along
with some 1,500 mainly ethnic Pashtun Afghans.
Thousands
of Taliban were arrested in November 2001 after a lengthy battle in
the northern city of Kunduz. Most of them were shipped to Shebarghan
after their surrender and many are believed to have died on the way.
The
Red Cross stepped in to feed the prisoners last month, supplying those
in the worst state with special milk.
Klaiber
said "hundreds" of sick and undernourished prisoners were
being kept in a separate section but the others had "one and half
meter square live-in room."
He
said although there appeared to be momentum leading towards the
freedom of the Pakistani prisoners after an agreement between Kabul
and Islamabad, the same was not happening with the Pashtun inmates.
Fewer than a hundred of the youngest and eldest had been freed.
"It's
time after five months that they [the Afghan government] tackled this
issue," he said.
"I
think [interim leader Hamid] Karzai as a Pashtun would be hoping to
get these prisoners out."
Dostam,
one of Afghanistan's most powerful regional warlords, was appointed
deputy defense minister in recognition of his influence in the north
as the government struggled to exert its authority beyond Kabul.
"The
strategy of the interim administration is understandable," said
Klaiber.
"If
you cannot beat the warlords, you join them. But you have to ask
yourself whether it will ultimately work."
Klaiber
told Dostam the situation was inflaming anger in the Pashtuns'
southern heartland.
"I
told him you are treating them badly and that adds to the frustrations
of the south. He agrees with that and the interim administration
agrees with that."
The
envoy said Dostam acknowledged that those still being held were no
more than rank-and-file Taliban members.
"They
really did not really do anything wrong but fought on the wrong side.
They are not Al-Qaeda. General Dostam agrees that the big fish have
gone."
Klaiber
warned that many of the Pashtuns would be too weak to travel the
hundreds of miles to their homes by donkey when they are released and
urged the interim government to pay for them to be driven by bus. The
freed Pakistanis were flown back to their homeland.
Dostam's
spokesman Faizullah Zaki said the general was prepared to release the
prisoners but wanted to ensure no dangerous inmates were released.
"He
is ready under monitoring, under supervision, to release as many as
possible in order to ensure ... that those who are still considered
dangerous are not released," Zaki told AFP.
The
spokesman added that Dostam shared the "concerns" about
conditions in Shebarghan but his main priority was to improve the
conditions of the local population, rather than of the prison.
"This
is not the time to ask for funds for the prison. We need funds for the
schools and hospitals," Zaki added.
"The
north has not been receiving any funds from the center [Kabul].
There's a shortage of funds and too many urgent needs."
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