WASHINGTON,
Aug 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Some 1,000 prisoners may have
died of asphyxiation in container trucks while being transferred by the
U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, eliciting calls for a
"full-fledged criminal investigation" into the deaths,
Newsweek magazine reported Sunday, August 18.
Basing
their findings on an investigation of a mass grave that "contains
bodies of Taliban POWs who died of suffocation," a confidential
U.N. memorandum cited by Newsweek found evidence to justify an
investigation into the deaths of hundreds of Taliban prisoners who may
have died after they surrendered to Northern Alliance forces.
Those
who died were among thousands of Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces that had
surrendered in Kunduz after Taliban resistance in northern Afghanistan
collapsed in November and were taken to prisons in overcrowded container
trucks, witnesses told the newsweekly.
The
magazine said the memo referred to "political sensitivity" and
recommended a halt to "all activities relevant to this case"
until a decision was made on whether to push for a criminal trial, truth
commission or other alternatives, reports news agencies.
The
Boston, Massachusetts-based Physicians for Human Rights, which sent a
team to investigate the reported massacre, said it had repeatedly asked
the United States and Afghanistan governments, as well as the United
Nations, to secure the gravesite and launch a comprehensive criminal
investigation.
Calling
for an immediate criminal investigation to be launched, the human rights
organization said it alerted U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld,
Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza
Rice in a Feb. 26 letter to the "life-threatening conditions"
at Shibergan, the location of the mass grave.
"The
refusal of the United States to acknowledge and investigate the
possibility that its military partner murdered hundreds or thousands of
prisoners is a terrible repudiation of its commitment to hold
perpetrators of war crimes accountable for their deeds," said
Leonard S. Rubenstein, executive director of Physicians for Human
Rights, in a statement released Sunday.
Only
after repeated accounts of the mass deaths among prisoners were
reported, the U.N. and human rights investigators visited the area in
the spring.
In
May, the United Nations said that a U.N. team of forensic scientists
found evidence of widespread death by suffocation among bodies uncovered
in a large mass grave in the desert near Shibergan, saying the bodies
had been buried with heavy machinery over a large area of the desert.
U.S.
troops were aware of reports of container deaths, Newsweek said. But the
magazine found no evidence U.S. soldiers were involved or witnessed the
deaths.
"I
have read in news media about suspected mass graves, but I don't know
anything about asphyxiation containers, or validated mass graves. I
don't know if its true," U.S. Central Command spokesman Major John
Robinson told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Dan
Bartlett, White House communications director, emphasized that
humanitarian relief is U.S. President George W. Bush's first concern in
Afghanistan.
"Detainees
that have been detained during this war have been treated humanely and
with respect and with decency, all in accordance with and consistent
with our international guidelines," Bartlett told ABC.
"In
this particular case, I'm not sure of the details. It's important that
we not rush to judgment, that we look at the facts. And as we look at
those facts, the proper course for an investigation or inquiry will be
made at a later date."
Newsweek
said the Red Cross and the United Nations both looked into reports of
hundreds of dead Taliban prisoners buried in mass graves outside of
Shibergan prison in December.
A
U.N. report given to Newsweek said it found a site that "contains
bodies of Taliban POW's who died if suffocation during transfer from
Kunduz to Shibergan."
Bill
Haglund, a forensic anthropologist interviewed investigating the
reports, dug a trial trench at a site about 15 minutes from the prison,
which yielded 15 bodies.
The
density with which the bodies were packed indicated that it could be a
"very large site," a U.N. official told Newsweek.
"I
can say with confidence that more than one thousand people died in the
containers," said Aziz ur Rahman Razekh, director of the Afghan
Organization of Human Rights.
Thousands
of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters, including American John Walker Lindh,
surrendered to Northern Alliance forces in the Kunduz area following
intensive U.S. air attacks last November.
Many
of the prisoners were transferred in metal containers to Shibergan, the
stronghold of Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, who was allied with the
United States in the war against the Taliban and is now Afghanistan
President Hamid Karzai's special representative in the north, reports
news agencies
