AFGHANISTAN

The Forgotten War

Human Rights Abuses and Violations of the Laws of War Since

the Soviet Withdrawal

February 1991

An Asia Watch Report

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch

485 Fifth Avenue 1522 K Street, NW, #910
New York, NY 10017 Washington, DC 20005
Tel (212) 972-
972-8400 Tel (202) 371-
371-6592
Fax (212) 972-
972-0905 Fax (202) 371-
371-0124
8 1991 by Human Rights Watch
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 0-929692-0
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number 91-70184

THE ASIA WATCH COMMITTEE

The Asia Watch Committee was established in 1985 to monitor and promote in Asia
observance of internationally recognized human rights. The chairperson is Jack Greenberg
and the vice-chairperson is Orville Schell. Sidney Jones is Executive Director. Mike
Jendrzejczyk is Washington Director. Patricia Gossman, Robin Munro and Ji Won Park are
Research Associates. Jeannine Guthrie, Lydia Lobenthal and Mary McCoy are Associates.

HUMAN
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Human Rights Watch is composed of five Watch Committees: Africa Watch, Americas
Watch, Asia Watch, Helsinki Watch and Middle East Watch.

Executive Committee

Robert L. Bernstein, Chairman; Adrian DeWind, Vice-Chairman; Roland Algrant, Lisa

Anderson, Peter Bell, Dorothy Cullman, Jonathan Fanton, Jack Greenberg, Alice H. Henkin,
Stephen L. Kass, Marina P. Kaufman, Jeri Laber, Aryeh Neier, Bruce Rabb, Kenneth Roth,
Orville Schell, Sophie C. Silberberg, Gary Sick, Nadine Strossen.

Staff
Aryeh Neier, Executive Director; Kenneth Roth, Deputy Director; Holly Burkhalter,
Washington Director; Ellen Lutz, California Director; Susan Osnos, Press Director; Jemera
Rone, Counsel; Stephanie Steele, Business Manager; Dorothy Q. Thomas, Women's Rights
Project Director; Joanna Weschler, Prison Project Director; Allyson Collins, Research
Associate; Richard Dicker, Robert Kushen, Dinah PoKempner, Orville Schell Fellows.

Executive Directors

Africa Watch Americas Watch Asia

Watch
Rakiya Omaar Juan Mendez Sidney Jones
 Helsinki Watch Middle East Watch
Jeri Laber Andrew Whitley
 Contents
Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................... i

I. Introduction ......................................................................................................................1

Summary of Concerns................................................................................................4
Violations of Humanitarian Law.........................................................4
Violations of Human Rights Law ........................................................6

II. Historical Background...............................................................................................9

III. Violations of the Laws of War by the Government

and the Resistance..................................................................................21

Rules of War ..................................................................................................................23

Customary International Law on Internal
Conflict........................................................................................25
Protocol II.....................................................................................................26

A. Violations of the Laws of War by the Government .............................28

Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians.............................................28
Aerial Bombardments and Shelling
in Jalalabad District..............................................................31
Aerial Bombardment and Shelling in
Other Districts.........................................................................34
Summary Executions and Reprisal Killings ............................36
Forced Conscription of Prisoners .................................................38
Militia..............................................................................................................39

B. Violations of the Laws of War by Elements of the

Resistance..............................................................................................42
Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians.............................................42
Summary Executions of Prisoners................................................52
The Tarin Kot and Qalat Massacres ..............................................52
The Torkham Massacre .......................................................................53
The Farkhar Massacre..........................................................................54
 C. Mines - Violations by All Parties to the Conflict ..................................55
Demining Programs........................................................................................59

IV. Human Rights in Areas under the Control of the

Republic of Afghanistan..........................................................................................61

Freedom of Association and Assembly.........................................................65

Political Parties .................................................................................................66
Demonstrations and Strikes......................................................................68

Freedom of Expression............................................................................................69
Freedom of Press ..............................................................................................69
Foreign Journalists..................................................................................74
Freedom of Speech...........................................................................................75
Academic Freedom........................................................................................... 77

The Legal System.........................................................................................................79

Access to Defense Counsel........................................................................83
The Arrests During the March 1990 Coup Attempt .......................85
The Arrests of National Unity Party Members..................................88
Trials.........................................................................................................................90
Torture.....................................................................................................................93
Detention Conditions .....................................................................................95
Foreign Prisoners..............................................................................................97

V. Human Rights Violations by Elements of the Resistance................................99

Mujahidin Prisons.....................................................................................................101
Due Process.................................................................................................................103
Judicial Proceeding Following Farkhar Valley
Massacre....................................................................................................104
Detentions in Pakistan..........................................................................................106
Killings of Rival Resistance Leaders.............................................................110
Killings and Disappearances of Afghan Relief Workers
and Intellectuals..............................................................................................112
Threats against Women....................................................................................... 119
Threats to Journalists; Restrictions on Freedom of
 Speech ..................................................................................................................120
Attacks of Foreign Relief Personnel...............................................................121
Failure of Pakistani Authorities to
Investigate Abuses........................................................................................122

VI. U.S. Policy ......................................................................................................................125

VII. Conclusions and Recommendations ...........................................................131

Appendix A: Mujahidin Parties ...........................................................................................135

Appendix B: Political Parties Registered with the
Republic of Afghanistan....................................................................................... 137
Appendix C: Partial List of Prisoners ...............................................................................139
Appendix D: Glossary ................................................................................................................143
Appendix E: Comments from the Afghan Government...........................................147
 GLOSSARY

Afghan Mellat A nationalist organization of Pashtun

professionals that formed in Kabul in the 1960s.
A party that was particularly strong in Ningrahar,
its members have become a focus of attacks by
some fundamentalist Mujahidin groups.

AIG The Afghan Interim Government formed by the

seven resistance parties based in Peshawar.

alim Scholar of Islamic law. The plural is ulama.

fatwa Religious decree.

Hazara Shi'a minority from central Afghanistan.

imam Muslim priest.

ISI Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, the

country's military intelligence organization which
has had substantial control over all external
assistance to the Afghan resistance.

jirga Pashtun tribal assembly or council. Loya jirga

means supreme council.

KHAD Khademat-e Ettela'at-e Dawlati, or State

Information Service: the secret police. In 1986
it became a full ministry and the name was changed
to Wazarate Amaneyat-e Dawlati (WAD)
(Ministry of State Security).

142
Khalq "The masses." A faction of the PDPA led by Taraki
and Amin which was opposed to the pro-Soviet
Parcham wing of the party.

madrassa Religious school.

maulvi Muslim religious scholar.

mujahidin The term generally used for the Afghan

resistance. It literally means those fighting a
jihad, or holy war. The singular form is mujahid.

mullah Muslim cleric.

Parcham "Flag." The pro-Soviet faction of the PDPA whose

leaders included Babrak Karmal and Najibullah.

Pashtuns The dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan,

particularly in the south and east of the country.

PDPA The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan,

which has ruled the country since it took power
in a coup on April 27, 1978. In June 1990 it renamed
itself the Watan (Homeland) party.

pir Sufi spiritual master.

qazi Judge who applies the sharia.

sharia Islamic law.

shura Council or assembly.

Tajik Persian-speaking ethnic group from the north of

Afghanistan.

143
ulama Scholars of Islamic law. The singular is alim.

Uzbek A Turkic-speaking ethnic group from the north

of Afghanistan.

Wahhabi A puritanical interpretation of Islam patronized

by the Saudi royal family. Arab volunteers who
have have fought with some mujahidin forces in
Afghanistan are generally called "Wahhabis."

WAD See KHAD.

Watan party See PDPA.

144
 "Regrettably, both the conflict and the people seem to have
become
a `forgotten war' and a `forgotten people.'"

("Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan," Report to the U.N. General

Assembly, Felix Ermacora, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan, October 30,
1990.)
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This report was written by Patricia Gossman, research associate for Asia
Watch, on the basis of research undertaken during fact-finding missions to
Afghanistan and Pakistan from June to August 1990. The other participants in the
Afghanistan mission were Harry G. Barnes, Jr., former U.S. Ambassador to India,
Chile and Romania, and Andrew Whitley, executive director of Middle East Watch.
The delegation to Pakistan included Sidney Jones, executive director of Asia
Watch, and Patricia Gossman.

This report was edited by Sidney Jones and Aryeh Neier, executive
director of Human Rights Watch. Professor Barnett R. Rubin, member of the Asia
Watch Committee and co-author (with Jeri Laber) of previous Helsinki Watch and
Asia Watch reports on Afghanistan, provided substantial assistance in the
research and editing of this report, and the writing of chapter 2. Professor Robert
K. Goldman and Human Rights Watch Counsel Jemera Rone also provided
invaluable expert advice. Columbia University law students Evan Gottesman and
Charlotte Oldham-Moore assisted with research in Pakistan. Mary McCoy, Asia
Watch associate, assisted in the preparation of this manuscript.

Asia Watch thanks the Government of the Republic of Afghanistan for the
assistance it extended to us during the Asia Watch mission. We are also grateful
to the staff at the embassy in Washington, in particular Chargé d'Affaires Miagol,
and to Ali Ahmad Joushan and Emand Moman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who
assisted the Asia Watch delegation in arranging meetings in Kabul and Herat.

Asia Watch is grateful also for the assistance provided by the

Commissionerate of Afghan Refugees in Pakistan, which provided us with access
to refugee camps in the Northwest Frontier Province and in Baluchistan.

Many others in Pakistan and Afghanistan assisted us in our work,

including representatives of relief organizations, members of the resistance
parties, members of the diplomatic community, and Pakistani and Afghan lawyers,
doctors and other professionals. Most of these people gave us their information
in confidence, and we respect their wishes to remain anonymous.

Above all, we are grateful to the Afghan refugees in Pakistan and

Afghanistan, those in exile in Europe and in the United States, and the Afghan
citizens we met in Kabul and Herat, who were willing to share with us their stories.
 I. INTRODUCTION
Since 1984, Asia Watch, together with Helsinki Watch, has published five
reports on human rights in Afghanistan.1 These reports were among the first to
document systematic human rights violations by the Afghan government and by
Soviet forces after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. The
reports were based primarily on fact-finding missions to the border cities of
Peshawar, Parachinar and Quetta, Pakistan, where Asia Watch and Helsinki Watch
representatives interviewed refugees who provided testimony about the
indiscriminate bombings, massacres, summary arrests and torture that had
driven them into exile.

The accumulated testimony of the victims of the war in Afghanistan

describes a pattern of human rights violations that is among the worst in recent
history. Over one million Afghan civilians are believed to have been killed since
the war began, most in aerial bombardments. Tens of thousands have
disappeared -- many of them the victims of summary executions and massacres
in the countryside. Most of Afghanistan's villages have been reduced to rubble,
and the countryside turned into a live mine field, with perhaps millions of mines of
every description scattered throughout its grazing fields, highways and mountain
passes. Asia Watch and Helsinki Watch also documented abuses by the
resistance forces, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians and summary
executions of prisoners of war.

The final withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan in February

1989 marked the beginning of a new phase in the conflict. No longer a war against
a foreign aggressor, the conflict became a civil war pitting the Soviet-backed
government of President Najibullah against the mujahidin: a complex resistance
movement composed of different ethnic, tribal and political factions all fighting in
the name of Islam. By late 1990, global developments promised further change, as
the U.S. and the Soviet Union neared agreement on a political settlement that

1
Tears, Blood and Cries: Human Rights in Afghanistan Since the Invasion, 1979-1984, 1984;
To Die in Afghanistan, 1985; To Win the Children, 1986; By All Parties to the Conflict, 1988; Jeri
Laber and Barnett R. Rubin, A Nation is Dying, (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press,
1988).

1
would end their support for their respective clients. But in the Afghan countryside
and in the cities, the war continues, as forces on all sides continue to launch
indiscriminate attacks on each other at the cost of civilian lives.

Across the border in Peshawar, Pakistan, where most of the mujahidin

parties have their headquarters, uncertainty about the future has contributed to
rising tensions among different factions of the mujahidin. Afghan intellectuals
and relief workers have been murdered, imprisoned and tortured, and refugees
attempting to return to Afghanistan have been attacked. Although these abuses
have occurred inside Pakistan, the Pakistani authorities refuse to investigate
them, and in fact encourage some abuses, including indiscriminate attacks which
cause heavy civilian casualties.2

In Kabul, meanwhile, President Najibullah's government has embarked

on a program of reform intended to win the support of Afghans in the cities and the
approval of the West. While there has been some relaxation of state controls on
civil and political rights and some amelioration in prison conditions, it is still too
early to tell whether the reforms undertaken will lead to real improvements in
human rights. Genuine improvements will depend not only on the government's
commitment to change, but also on its ability to implement reforms outside the
limited territory it now controls.

In mid-1990, two Asia Watch delegations3 traveled to Pakistan and

Afghanistan to examine violations of the laws of war, or international
humanitarian law, by all parties to the conflict, and to evaluate the human rights
reforms undertaken by the government of President Najibullah. This was the first
time the current government of Afghanistan had permitted a private human rights
organization to visit the country.4 In Afghanistan, the delegation conducted an
extensive interview with President Najibullah to discuss the government's new
commitment to political pluralism and new amendments to the Constitution that
may offer some protection for civil liberties. The delegation also raised with
President Najibullah Asia Watch's concerns about the war, including
indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

2
See chapter 5.
3
For listing of participants see Acknowledgments, p. i.
4
Requests from Asia Watch and Helsinki Watch to send missions in 1984, 1985 and 1988
were not granted. A delegation from Amnesty International visited Kabul in February 1980.

2
 The delegation also interviewed senior ministers in the government,
among them Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdul Wakil; Minister of Defense
Mohammad Aslam Watanjar; Minister of State Security Ghulam Faruq Yaqubi; and
Minister of Justice Ghulam Muhayuddin Dareez. The delegation also visited Pol-e
Charkhi Prison in Kabul and was permitted an unprecedented visit to the Sedarat
detention center in Kabul. Members of the delegation traveled to Herat, where we
visited the Herat provincial jail, and to Islam Qala on the Iranian border, where the
government has established a refugee repatriation center. In both Kabul and
Herat, we interviewed representatives of international organizations and private
relief agencies, diplomats, journalists, academics, and ordinary Afghan citizens.

Access to independent sources was limited, however, in part because

war conditions have made it difficult for many international organizations to
operate in Afghanistan. There were few foreign correspondents, and the
diplomatic community was significantly reduced after the Soviet withdrawal.
While we were able to meet with a number of Afghans outside the government
who provided us with their views, most Afghans remain understandably cautious
about speaking openly with foreigners.

The Asia Watch mission to Pakistan interviewed refugees, foreign

diplomats, representatives of international relief organizations, journalists,
academics, and lawyers. Both delegations documented abuses and discussed
preliminary findings with those concerned. The findings are contained in this
report, along with policy recommendations for all of the parties to the conflict and
for the outside powers which have supported them, including the United States,
the Soviet Union, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Summary of Concerns

This report is divided into three sections. The first (chapter 3) describes
violations of the laws of war by Afghan government forces and by certain

3
mujahidin forces.5 This section documents indiscriminate missile and rocket
attacks on civilian areas by Afghan government forces and resistance guerrillas,
the use of land mines by all parties to the conflict, the government practice of
forced conscription, and abuses by paramilitary militia in government security
operations. The second part (chapter 4) discusses the reforms undertaken by the
Najibullah government in the context of the continuing war, the protections
provided by these reforms, and the measures which still need to be taken to
guarantee full freedom of expression and association and the rights to due
process and fair trial. The third part (chapter 5) discusses human rights abuses
by the resistance forces in areas controlled by the mujahidin in Afghanistan and
in areas inside Pakistan where they have operated with impunity.

In summary, our concerns are as follows:

Violations of Humanitarian Law

C Although indiscriminate bombing of civilian-populated areas has

declined significantly since the Soviet withdrawal, government
offensives against mujahidin strongholds continue to rely on methods of
warfare, including Scud missiles, that cannot be targeted with sufficient
accuracy to ensure that civilians are not placed at undue risk.

C The practice of summary execution of captured prisoners that was

widespread in earlier years of the war has also declined. However, Asia
Watch obtained evidence of a number of incidents of such abuses since
the Soviet withdrawal. The execution without trial of prisoners is
impermissible under any circumstances, and the government should
promptly investigate all reports of such killings and prosecute those
responsible. The reduction in the number of reported incidents does not
diminish the government's obligation to make every effort to investigate
such abuses and make the findings public, and bring to justice those
responsible as a way of preventing similar abuses in the future.

C Reports of reprisal killings of ordinary civilians suspected of

5
The mujahidin are far from homogeneous; thus, we have tried to indicate when the
abuses are characteristic of all mujahidin and when they are characteristic only of certain
elements.

4
 supporting the mujahidin have also decreased. Asia Watch was told,
however, about a number of incidents in which such killings took place,
including one near Jalalabad in which civilians taken into custody after a
government bombing raid were accused of providing food to the
mujahidin and burned alive. The government should promptly
investigate this and all such reports, and prosecute those responsible
for abuses.

C Militia operating in alliance with the government have also engaged in

abuses against civilians, including indiscriminate attacks on civilian-
populated areas, summary executions of mujahidin prisoners, and
looting of civilian property. The government must exercise stricter
control over the recruitment, training and supervision of such forces, and
prosecute members of such forces that engage in abuses.

C Certain mujahidin commanders, some of whom have been recruited by

the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),6 have launched
indiscriminate rocket attacks on cities inside Afghanistan, killing
hundreds of civilians. The Pakistan ISI and the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency have encouraged these attacks, with the ISI supplying weapons
to commanders who undertake them.

C Certain mujahidin forces have summarily executed government

soldiers captured in combat, as well as members of rival mujahidin
forces.

C All parties to the conflict have laid and continue to lay mines without
adequate marking or mapping and without taking precautions to ensure
that civilians are warned of minefields. Such precautions are required
under international humanitarian law,7 which provides for the protection

6
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, is the country's military
intelligence organization. Under President Zia-ul-Haq the organization was granted control
over all external assistance to the Afghan resistance, which gave the organization
significant influence over the conduct of the war.
7
In particular, the 1981 Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby
Traps and Other Devices (Protocol II), annexed to the 1981 UN Convention on Prohibition or
Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be

5
 of civilians against weapons, such as land mines, which may have
indiscriminate effects.

Violations of International Human Rights Law

C The practice of arbitrary arrest common while the Soviets were in

Afghanistan appears to have decreased in government-controlled areas,
although such arrests have occurred since the Soviet withdrawal.
Detainees have been held for periods of several weeks before being
produced before any judicial authority; they rarely have access to
defense counsel or to family members. Trials, which are often summary
proceedings, fall short of international standards of due process.

C While prison conditions for sentenced prisoners have improved

markedly, conditions for detainees do not meet the U.N. Standard
Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners, and Asia Watch has received
credible reports of torture and mistreatment of detainees during
interrogation. Access to these detainees by the International Committee
of the Red Cross would be an important safeguard against such abuses.

C Freedom of association and freedom of speech, while protected in the

law, are still subject to some restrictions which have hindered the
formation of genuine opposition political parties and an opposition
press. For example, no party may call for the president to resign. While
limited criticism of the government is permitted, editors routinely
practice self-censorship and are prohibited from publishing material
that could be considered "un-Islamic" or "war propaganda." Although
there has been some relaxation of state controls at Kabul University,
Ministry of State Security forces maintain surveillance of students and
professors on campus and in the classroom.

C Certain mujahidin parties -- particularly those supported by the

Excessively Injurious and to Have Indiscriminate Effects: Final Act, app. C, opened for
signature April 10, 1981, U.S. Doc. A/CONF.95/15 (1980), reprinted in 19 I.L.M. 1523, 1529
(1980), hereafter referred to as the Land Mines Protocol. The Republic of Afghanistan has
not signed the Land Mines Protocol, which is described on p. 56.

6
 Pakistan ISI, which have also received the largest share of U.S.-supplied
weapons -- have kidnapped and murdered or imprisoned members of
rival Afghan political organizations and Afghan intellectuals and relief
workers in Pakistan and in areas under their control in Afghanistan.
International humanitarian organizations do not have access to
mujahidin prisons in Pakistan; torture in these prisons is reported to be
routine.

C Under the Pakistan Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) Act, Afghan

refugees deemed to be "security risks" may be detained without trial or
charge for up to six years. Pakistani authorities have used this
legislation to detain Afghan refugees because of their political views.

********

The withdrawal of the last Soviet forces from Afghanistan in February

1989 had raised hopes for an end to the war and a chance for the refugees to
return and rebuild their country in peace. By early 1991,
that optimism had vanished as Afghanistan's bloody war wore on, still funded by
foreign powers but largely forgotten by the outside world.

It is a war in which the many parties to the conflict continue to engage in

grave violations of humanitarian and human rights law. Most of the victims of
these abuses are Afghan civilians: those in the cities who have been killed or
injured in rocket attacks, and those in the countryside killed or driven into exile by
indiscriminate shelling and missile attacks by government forces. Prospects for
ending these abuses remain slim as long as the parties involved, and their foreign
sponsors, encourage such attacks.

Twelve years of war have also destroyed Afghanistan's civil and social
institutions. In this vacuum, political authority remains highly fragmented, posing
a serious obstacle to genuine improvements in human rights protection. In much
of the country, the government has abdicated its authority to ethnic militia who
are accountable to no one. Elsewhere, mujahidin commanders have established
their own power bases, where they too rule by the authority of the gun. The
ongoing efforts by foreign powers, particularly Pakistan, to impose their designs
on the war have contributed to the fragmentation of authority and have
aggravated conditions of insecurity and fear for refugees returning to Afghanistan

7
and those remaining in Pakistan.

The reform measures undertaken by the Najibullah government

represent only a partial step toward the protection of human rights. Until there is
an end to the supply of arms to parties that have used those weapons to
perpetrate serious human abuses, Afghans will have little opportunity to test the
civil liberties now promised to them and little reason to hope for an end to the
bloodshed. The mass destruction that characterized the war before the Soviet
withdrawal has ended, but for the Afghans, human rights abuses, like the war
itself, have not.

8
 II. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
On April 27, 1978, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a
small, factionalized Marxist-Leninist party, took power in a coup d'état, an event
that marked the beginning of Afghanistan's civil war. Ten years later, the U.S., the
Soviet Union, Pakistan, and Afghanistan signed a set of accords in Geneva
designed to bring about an end to the war. By then, the war, which had intensified
especially after the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan in December 1979, had
taken an estimated 1.24 million8 Afghan lives and driven another five million9
Afghans into refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran.

The ground for the 1978 coup by the PDPA had been prepared by events
going back several years. The PDPA was founded in Kabul in 1965 after King Zaher
Shah promulgated a number of reforms that permitted political groups to
organize, although not to participate in elections. In 1967, the PDPA split into two
factions: Khalq (masses) and Parcham (flag). Nur Mohammad Taraki and
Hafizullah Amin became the leaders of the Khalq faction, which drew its support
mainly from educated rural Afghans who were predominantly Pashtun, an ethnic
group long considered to be the largest and the most powerful in Afghanistan.10
The Khalqis, who were opposed to the ruling elite, advocated radical social
change and agrarian reform. The Parcham faction, led by Babrak Karmal, differed
little from the Khalqis in ideology, but although the Parchamis were also

8
A Swiss demographer calculated the civilian toll at 1.24 million, based on an estimated
pre-war population of 15.5 million. See Marek Sliwinski, "Afghanistan: The Decimation of a
People," Orbis, vol. 33, Winter 1988-89, pp. 39-56.
9
The precise number of refugees is impossible to determine. Five and a half million is a
widely-used estimate, with some 3.2 million registered refugees in Pakistan and an
estimated 500,000 unregistered. In Iran, there are some 2.3 million registered refugees.
See Felix Ermacora, "Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan," Report to the General
Assembly of the United Nations, U.N. A/45/664, October 31, 1990, p. 7. Hereafter referred to as
U.N. Report, 1990.
10
Afghanistan is home to a number of ethnic groups in addition to the Pashtuns, including
the Persian-speaking Tajiks and the Turkic-speaking Turkoman and Uzbek groups, who
predominate in the north and across the border in Soviet Central Asia. The Hazaras, a Shi'a
minority, are found in the central part of the country. (Most Afghans are Sunni Muslims.)

9
predominantly Pashtun, they drew on the support of urbanized Afghans from
various ethnic groups, including members of the ruling elite who advocated more
gradual reforms.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s a number of Islamic radical

organizations were also formed at Kabul University. They were strongly opposed
to the communists and to all non-Islamic foreign influence in Afghanistan. These
groups formed an important part of the resistance after the 1978 coup. The first
student group to form was the Muslim Youth, which in 1972 renamed itself the
Jamiat-e Islami after it was joined by several professors who had been supporting
the group quietly. A government crackdown forced many of the group's members
into exile in Pakistan in 1973-4. In 1976-77, in Pakistan, the organization split.
Burhanuddin Rabbani, a professor of theology, remained as head of Jamiat-e
Islami. Engineering student Gulbuddin Hekmatyar headed the breakaway Hezb-e
Islami, which split again in 1979 to form a second Hezb-e Islami headed by Yunis
Khales, an alim, or religious leader, from Ningrahar. A number of more traditional
Islamic parties joined the resistance movement after 1978.11 Pakistani authorities
did not permit parties that were considered less Islamic to organize openly.

In July 1973, the king's cousin, Daoud Khan, with the help of the
Parchamis, staged a nearly bloodless coup, ousting King Zaher Shah. Having no
more need of the Parchamis after gaining power, Daoud removed them from his
government and began to distance himself from the Soviet Union. Under pressure
from the Soviets, the Khalq and Parcham factions of the PDPA reunited in 1977. The
assassination of a Parchami leader on April 17, 1978 provoked widespread
protests to which Daoud responded by arresting the PDPA leadership. PDPA
officers in the military then launched a coup, killing Daoud and seizing power.

Days later, Nur Mohammad Taraki became president of the newly

proclaimed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and Babrak Karmal and
Hafizullah Amin became deputy prime ministers. Prominent former political
leaders were immediately arrested and executed. Within months, conflict again
broke out between Khalq and Parcham, resulting in a purge of Parchamis from the
government. Some, including Babrak Karmal, were exiled abroad as
ambassadors,12 and others were arrested. Under Amin's direction, the government

11
The major parties are listed in Appendix A.
12
Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 773.

10
then launched a campaign of radical agrarian reform and mass repression that
resulted in the arrest and execution of tens of thousands. Those targeted included
former political figures, religious leaders, students and teachers, lawyers and
other professionals, members of various ethnic groups, particularly the Hazaras,
and members of Islamic political organizations. Subsequent governments have
acknowledged that some 12,000 people were executed just in Pol-e Charkhi
Prison in Kabul during this period; as many as 100,000 people may have been
killed in the countryside.13

The government's unprecedented and badly planned attempt to

intervene in rural society by decree and terror, and the executions of Islamic
leaders and members of key ethnic groups, provoked a number of uprisings
across the country, to which the government responded with greater repression.
The army, racked by mutinies and desertions, rapidly disintegrated. Alarmed by
Amin's strong-armed tactics and the disintegration of the Afghan army, the Soviet
Union apparently plotted in September 1979 to have Amin removed, but the plot
failed and instead an embittered Amin assassinated Taraki and made himself
president.14 Finally, on December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union airlifted thousands of
troops into Kabul, and three days later a crack Soviet force assassinated Amin and
installed Babrak Karmal as president.

The Soviet presence soon grew to some 115,000 troops, and all aspects of
government quickly came under the supervision of Soviet advisers, including the
state security agency, which was reorganized and placed under the control of Dr.
Najibullah.15 The invasion greatly expanded the resistance, which organized
around the mujahidin parties based in Pakistan and Iran. Foreign support for the
resistance increased after the Soviet invasion, with Pakistan, the U.S., Saudi
Arabia, China and Iran playing leading roles. Massive aerial bombardments by
Soviet forces in the countryside and repression in the cities swelled the flow of
refugees, with some three million fleeing to Pakistan and another two million to
Iran. Negotiations to end the war gained momentum after 1987, culminating in the

13
Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1986), pp. 95, 97.
14
See Laber and Rubin, pp. 7-8. Taraki was perceived as more amenable to Soviet
influence, while Amin resisted Soviets attempts to control the PDPA. See also Dupree, p. 777.
15
In 1986, Najibullah replaced Babrak Karmal, first as head of the party and then as
president of the country.

11
1988 Geneva Accords.

The centerpiece of the Geneva Accords was the agreement by the Soviet
Union to remove all of its uniformed troops from Afghanistan over a nine-month
period from May 15, 1988 to February 15, 1989, with half the troops to be removed
by August 15. The text of the accords also called for all aid through Pakistan to the
mujahidin to be terminated at the beginning of the pull-out period. As the final
round of talks dragged on, the Reagan administration, under bipartisan pressure
from a Congress which strongly supported the mujahidin, informed the U.S.S.R.
that it would not accept the accords as formulated, arguing that as long as Soviet
aid to the Kabul government continued, an end to aid to the mujahidin constituted
unacceptable asymmetry. The U.S. proposed that both sides commit themselves
to end such assistance (negative symmetry), but the Soviets, citing treaty
obligations to Afghanistan, refused. Secretary of State George Shultz then made a
formal reservation to the accords, stating that the U.S., while signing them,
reserved to itself the right to aid its friends in Afghanistan so long as the Soviets
aided their friends (positive symmetry). Since the accord entered into force, the
U.S. has continued to adhere to positive symmetry.

The mujahidin were not included in the negotiations leading up to

Geneva and did not accept its results. Also, the Geneva Accords said nothing
about the future government of Afghanistan, which was to be left to a second track
of diplomacy or to the fortunes of the battlefield.

During the first three months of their pullout, the Soviets withdrew their
remaining forces to the capital, Kabul, and the principal roads and bases
connecting it to other major towns and to the U.S.S.R. Unable to maintain a far-
flung presence without Soviet help, the Afghan army withdrew or was pushed out
of a number of important military bases and towns along the Pakistan border and
in the deep interior of the country. By November 1988, resistance forces
controlled all posts along the contested frontier with Pakistan, as well as the
provincial capitals of Kunar, Paktiya, Bamiyan, Takhar, and Laghman.

Their forces also overran a demoralized garrison in the important

economic center Kunduz, near the Soviet border, but government forces, probably
with the aid of Soviet aircraft, reoccupied the city. During a number of these
offensives, mujahidin fighters who were either undisciplined or adherents of a

12
radical version of Islam imported to Afghanistan by Arab "Wahhabi"16 forces,
killed and raped civilians who had been living under government control.

Fearful that the government in Kabul might disintegrate before the final
withdrawal of their troops and angry over the continued American aid to the
resistance under the doctrine of positive symmetry, the Soviet leaders introduced
new weapons of mass destruction to Afghanistan in November 1988: Scud-B
missiles, which carry warheads of 1,000 kilograms and are highly inaccurate.17
Since then, these missiles have been fired blindly into many areas of Afghanistan,
including some densely populated agricultural zones. The mujahidin have also
fired rockets and missiles, some with fragmentation warheads, indiscriminately
into Kabul and other towns.

The final stages of the Soviet withdrawal were accompanied by both a

purge of hardliners in Kabul and diplomatic attempts to assemble a new
government. The Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan, Deputy Foreign Minister Yuli
Vorontsov, held an unprecedented set of meetings with leaders of the Pakistan-
based Sunni resistance groups, the Iran-based Shi'a resistance groups, and the
former king, Zaher Shah, who has lived in exile in Rome since 1973. Vorontsov's
efforts were aimed at finding a formula under which all of these groups would be
willing to meet in a shura (council) with members of the PDPA to form a new
government. All refused his proposals, however. President Gorbachev laid out the
new Soviet plan in a December 1988 address to the U.N. in which he also proposed
that all countries cease aid to all Afghan parties (negative symmetry). The U.S.
refused, citing an "imbalance" created by accelerated Soviet supplies. American
officials also estimated that the Kabul government would fall of its own accord
within six to twelve months.18

16
Wahhabism is a puritanical interpretation of Islam patronized by the Saudi royal family.
Arab volunteers supported by the Muslim Brotherhood and by prominent Saudi
entrepreneurs have fought with some mujahidin forces in Afghanistan since the early
1980s.
17
For further details on the destructive capability of the Scud-B missile, see Chapter 3, p.
29.

18
This Defense Intelligence Agency estimate was widely cited by U.S. officials. See
"Developments in Afghanistan and Their Implications for U.S. Policy," Hearings before the
Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of

13
 To fill the anticipated political vacuum, the U.S., Pakistan, and Saudi
Arabia, the main backers of the principal mujahidin groups, pressured the exiled
political leadership of the resistance groups to hold a shura to choose what was
billed as an interim government in exile. The shura convened in Rawalpindi,
Pakistan on February 10, 1989. Despite intensive negotiations with Iran and with
Shi'a resistance groups, no formula was agreed to regarding their representation,
and they did not participate. The shura also rejected representation for the
former king (several thousand of his supporters were attacked by members of the
Hezb-e Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar two days before the shura) and for the
Kabul government. The Afghan Interim Government (AIG) chosen at the shura was
headed by Sibghatullah Mojaddidi, a respected religious scholar, but that result
was rejected by resistance commanders inside Afghanistan and by most of the
refugees, who regarded it as having been manipulated by the Pakistani and Saudi
intelligence services.

In order to bolster its claim to legitimacy, the AIG needed a territorial

base inside Afghanistan. To that end, its foreign supporters and in particular the
ISI, chose Jalalabad, a city in the eastern Afghan province of Ningrahar. The battle
for Jalalabad, launched on March 7, 1989, became a major turning point of the war.
Many of the mujahidin commanders in the area had opposed the offensive as
premature and lacking in sufficient political preparation. Furthermore, they were
bitterly divided and lacked experience in conventional warfare. In the end, they
failed to coordinate their attacks and held back from assisting rival groups. The
defending garrison, fearing massacres by extremist mujahidin (including some
Arab volunteers) as had happened in nearby areas in January, refused to

Representatives, February 21 and June 14, 1989. (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1990), hereafter referred to as "Hearings, 1989." According to James Rupert, an
assistant foreign editor at the Washington Post, in the final stages of the Soviet withdrawal,
"The CIA's Afghan Task Force dramatically slowed arms deliveries to the mujahidin,
apparently because it feared an almost immediate collapse of the Najibullah government
and wanted to avoid flooding the country with excess weaponry after a mujahidin victory.
The theory that Najibullah was doomed was widely accepted by Westerners in the
mujahidin's exile capital of Peshawar. There, the heavy betting in a pool at the American
Club's bar was that the mujahidin would announce their installation in power on Kabul
Radio as early as March or April." See James Rupert, "Afghanistan's Slide Toward Civil War,"
World Policy Journal, Vol. VI, No.4, Fall 1989, p. 781, n.2.

14
surrender and eventually stopped the mujahidin outside the city.19 The result was
a major morale boost for Kabul.

In July 1989, the mujahidin received another blow when conflict erupted
in northern Afghanistan between commander Ahmad Shah Massoud of Jamiat-e
Islami and his rival, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The conflict led to the massacre of
more than a dozen top Jamiat-e Islami commanders by the Hezb-e Islami.20 In the
ensuing conflict, Hekmatyar suspended his participation in the AIG. A number of
offensives against government forces later in the year also came to nothing.
Resentful of the AIG and lacking political direction, the mujahidin commanders
were essentially on strike.

The belief that the Afghan resistance organizations were Western-style,

hierarchically-organized political parties whose "leaders" in Peshawar could
decide matters for their "followers" in Afghanistan was always an illusion; this
became even clearer after the Soviet withdrawal. Faced with a foreign enemy
trying to subjugate them and impose an alien ideology, the mujahidin accepted
the leaders who acted as intermediaries in obtaining the assistance they needed.
That never meant that they envisaged those leaders as rulers of a new
Afghanistan. Nor did their common Islamic cause amount to a unified political
vision. Islam in Afghanistan is a defining cultural value, and there is broad
agreement about who its enemies are, but there is no common view of what it
requires politically.

Inside Afghanistan, the war had enabled a variety of leaders to build up

different types of followings, many based implicitly on ethnic or tribal identities,
even though all articulated their views in universalist Islamic terms. A narrowly
based leadership, composed of religious leaders and newly educated rural
Pashtuns from one part of the country (the east) dominated by Pakistan could not
represent the western and southern Pashtuns, the Persian speakers, the Uzbeks,
the Shi'a, or the Westernized city dwellers of Kabul.

President Najibullah's position grew stronger as the opposition became

more divided. He continued to pursue a policy he termed as one of "national

19
The battle was very costly in both military and civilian casualties. It is discussed in
more detail in chapter 3, pp. 31-34, 36-38.
20
The incident is discussed on pp. 54-55.

15
reconciliation," putting more non-party members in charge of ministries in Kabul
and offering full autonomy and extensive aid to all local leaders and resistance
commanders who agreed not to fight the government. His government, no longer
besmirched by the presence of Soviet troops, increasingly portrayed itself as the
defender of Afghan nationalism against guerrillas supported by Pakistani
militarists and Saudi Wahhabis. This rhetoric found a growing, if still skeptical
and bitter, audience in the cities -- even among those who were not members or
supporters of the party.

Washington, however, still publicly stated its faith in and support of the
AIG as the most representative group of Afghans. Although the administration did
not recognize the AIG as a government, in June 1989 the U.S. appointed Peter
Tomsen as special envoy to the resistance. The U.S. held to the position that it
favored a political settlement, but that the departure of Najibullah and his
immediate cohorts from power was a pre-condition for any negotiations over
transfer of power.

On March 6, 1990 the most important event since the battle for Jalalabad
occurred in Kabul. Defense Minister Shahnawaz Tanai, leader of the radical Khalq
faction of the PDPA, launched a coup against Najibullah.21 Tanai was apparently
supported by those important Khalqis who remained in the Politburo, who have
since been imprisoned. More important, he immediately won the support of Hezb-
e Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The ISI, apparently without consulting the
U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, attempted to pressure the other mujahidin groups to
get behind Hekmatyar (still outside the AIG) and support the coup.

Najibullah succeeded in suppressing the coup, and the ISI failed to get
the resistance behind Tanai, whom most of the factions viewed as an
opportunistic war criminal and hardline communist who had been responsible for
the carpet-bombing of portions of the major western city of Herat in March 1979,
killing thousands of people. The alliance between communist and Islamic
extremists provoked many Afghans to question further the extent to which the war
was being waged over Islamic ideals rather than personal power. While publicly
asserting that the attempted coup exposed the weakness of the regime in Kabul,

21
Tanai was leader of at least the main body of Khalqis since its former leader Sayyed
Mohammad Gulabzoy was exiled as ambassador to Moscow in September 1988 as part of
the political preparation of the Soviet pullout.

16
U.S. officials acknowledged privately that the Pakistani military had followed its
own interests in supporting the coup without consulting them and that the affair
also exposed the ineffectiveness of the AIG, which had failed to come up with any
meaningful response to the coup attempt. Furthermore, the AIG, which was to have
organized some form of elections to gauge its popular support, failed to do so and
has yet to make real progress toward agreeing on any political initiative.

The PDPA, however, continued to take such initiatives. In June 1990, it

held its Second Congress, the first since it was founded at a meeting in Taraki's
house on New Year's Day in 1965. At this Congress it renamed itself as the Watan
(Homeland) Party. In the redrafted constitution, the government renounced
Marxism, Leninism, socialism, and most of its own past policies and practices, at
least on paper. It made Islam its official religion -- the party is now open only to
practicing Muslims -- and called for political pluralism and a market economy.
Although most Afghans still regard the pronouncements of President Najibullah
with some skepticism, they are also waiting for any effective response from his
opponents.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has been active, as have some policy-
makers in both Washington and Moscow, in elaborating plans for a political
settlement. By June 1990, both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had agreed to the basic
content of a "non-paper" authored by U.N. Assistant Secretary General Benon
Sevan, who was at that time the Secretary General's special assistant on
Afghanistan. In this scenario, the U.N. Secretary General was to be encouraged to
assist Afghans in forming a transitional body of respected individuals acceptable
to all sides. This body was to exercise certain powers during a transitional period
and to organize elections in accord with Afghan cultural and national traditions to
choose a new government in a process in which all Afghans could freely
participate. There was also agreement on the need for a cessation of hostilities
during the transition period and on the need to discuss both an end to weapons
supplies and the possible removal of weapons. What this proposal left
unanswered was what exact powers the transitional body would have and what
would be the role of Najibullah.

In early October 1990, as the U.S. Congress began for the first time to cut
back the administration's already reduced requests for aid to the resistance,22 the

22
The mujahidin's failure to deliver a victory appeared to be the reason for a $50 million

17
U.S. and Pakistan encouraged the mujahidin to open a coordinated offensive in
several parts of the country. The ISI, freed of even vestigial political constraints
since the dismissal of the government of Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto
on August 6, continued to work for the preeminence of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Resistance sources claim that an ISI plan in September to make Hekmetyar the
defense minister of a reorganized AIG was frustrated at the last minute by
American intervention. Major commanders refused to participate in the offensive,
which they regarded as initiated by Pakistan and lacking an acceptable political
framework. Many of them participated instead in a shura of top commanders
which discussed steps to coordinate a military strategy and create a
representative government that could constitute an alternative to the Kabul
government. American diplomats on the ground, conceding that the offensive
never had a chance of overthrowing the Kabul government, had hoped that it
would shake the Soviet negotiating position and lead to a superpower diplomatic
agreement. By the end of October 1990, the offensive was widely reported to have
failed, at a cost of countless civilian lives,23 and the provincial capitals retaken by
government forces.24

Despite hopes for a U.S. Soviet agreement at the December meeting

between U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard
Shevardnadze, by year's end, negotiations between the U.S and the Soviet Union
over a transition process leading to elections remained stalemated over the
question of what role Najibullah would play in the interim period. The Soviet Union
continued to hold to the position that the transitional body's power should be
limited to organizing the elections and that Najibullah should stay where he is.
The U.S. has consistently objected, saying that Najibullah's command of the army

congressional aid cut, the first since the war began, and for the decision to condition
release of half of the remaining $250 million on another vote in 1991. On November 30, 1990,
President Bush vetoed the 1991 intelligence authorization bill which had included the
congressional restrictions on aid to the mujahidin. (The administration's objection related
not to Afghanistan but to a provision related to the Iran-Contra controversy.) The House and
Senate Select Intelligence Committees tentatively scheduled reconsideration of the bill for
early 1991, when they are expected to offer modified legislation retaining the provisions on
covert operations in Afghanistan and other countries.

23
See Steve Coll and James Rupert, "Afghan Rebels Veto Drive for Kabul," Washington
Post, November 4, 1990.
24
"Kabul Rebels Reported to Kill 200 Soldiers," New York Times, November 11, 1990.

18
and secret police (which he headed from 1980 to 1985) and of the broadcast
media would give him an unfair advantage in intimidating voters and
manipulating the outcome. The U.S. therefore has called for the transitional body
to have ultimate authority over all matters related to ensuring a free and fair
elections process, including control over the army, police, other security forces,
and mass media. Both sides would like to issue a joint statement at the foreign
minister level turning over responsibility for resolving the conflict to the U.N.,
following the Namibian and Cambodian models, but disagreement on important
details prevented them from reaching a settlement.

The resignation on December 20 of Foreign Minister Shevardnadze,

prompted in part by the Soviet army's insistence on a greater role in foreign
policy, including a demand for continued military support for President Najibullah,
marked a serious setback in the negotiations. In January 1991 the Soviet Union
renewed its commitment to military and economic aid to the government of
President Najibullah.25 By February 1991, it was clear that the outbreak of war in
the Persian Gulf and the ongoing leadership struggle in the Soviet Union would
continue to jeopardize any hope for a settlement in the near future.

25
See Ahmed Rashid, "New Soviet Aid to Kabul Threatens Afghan Peace Plan," The
Independent, January 24, 1991.

19
 III. VIOLATIONS OF THE LAWS OF WAR BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
REPUBLIC OF AFGHANISTAN AND BY THE AFGHAN RESISTANCE

By July and August 1990 when field research for this report was
undertaken, the intense fighting that had characterized earlier years of the war
had diminished in much of the Afghan countryside. Although indiscriminate
attacks on civilian-populated areas have decreased, military operations by all
parties continue to cause extensive civilian casualties. Government
bombardments and missile attacks were reported from contested areas around
Jalalabad and Khost, and in the Paghman hills northwest of Kabul, among other
areas. Certain mujahidin commanders26 have also continued to launch rocket
attacks against Kabul and other cities, causing heavy civilian casualties.

In their military operations, Afghan government forces have employed

Scud missiles and other methods of warfare which cannot be targeted with
sufficient accuracy to ensure that civilians are not placed at undue risk. In a
number of incidents, these attacks have caused extensive civilian casualties. The
use of weapons that cannot be directed at a specific military objective is a
violation of the laws of war. There has been apparently little effort on the part of
the government to warn civilians to evacuate the areas in advance of such
attacks, which is required under the laws of war where feasible.

Summary executions of captured prisoners by government forces that

was widespread in earlier years of the war and reports of reprisal killings of
ordinary civilians suspected of supporting the mujahidin have also decreased.
Nevertheless, such killings continue to take place, as described below. Militia
operating in alliance with the government have also participated in the
indiscriminate shelling of civilian targets and the summary executions of
mujahidin prisoners. If the government is sincere in its commitment to human
rights, it should promptly investigate these and all such reports and prosecute
those responsible for abuses.

26
They include commanders allied primarily with Hekmatyar, Khales and Sayyaf, as well
as other commanders recruited by the ISI.

21
 Some mujahidin commanders, including those acting under the
direction of the ISI, have launched indiscriminate rocket attacks on Kabul and
other cities, killing civilians. The rockets used in these attacks are notoriously
inaccurate; one variety has a fragmentation warhead that delivers up to 98 anti-
personnel bomblets. The Pakistan ISI and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
have encouraged these attacks and have supplied weapons to commanders who
undertake them. Some mujahidin forces have also summarily executed
government soldiers captured in combat and members of rival mujahidin forces
captured following internecine clashes.

All parties to the conflict have laid and continue to lay mines without
adequate marking or mapping and without taking precautions to ensure that
civilians are warned of minefields. The mines, the vast majority of which were laid
by the Soviets and which number at least in the tens of thousands and possibly in
the millions, are concentrated in dense agricultural and forest zones and along
mountain passes. Those civilians most at risk are women and children grazing
flocks or foraging for firewood. Roads that are used to transport returning
refugees, among other things, have been mined by both government-sponsored
militia and by mujahidin forces.

By mid-1990, the territory under government control was limited to the

cities and their immediate environs, with several areas of the country, particularly
in the north and along the Pakistani border, effectively under the control of
mujahidin factions. Although many of these areas are still largely depopulated,
refugees have begun to return to some provinces, particularly in the north, and in
southern Qandahar province. In these areas, the functions of government are in
the hands of the local shura, or council, made up of commanders and in some
cases tribal elders or other civilians. In Takhar province, an area that was
recaptured from government forces in 1988, Jamiat-e Islami commander Ahmad
Shah Massoud has established an administrative structure that incorporates
local civilians in the police force and shura meetings. According to recent press
reports, he has also called for elections in the province to be held in early 1991.
Massoud's administration forms part of the Supervisory Council of the North,
which coordinates the activities of Jamiat-e Islami commanders in several
northeastern provinces.

Fighting between mujahidin factions and Arab volunteer forces in some

22
areas, notably Kunar, has led to the creation of competing shuras as the groups
struggle for control over territory. Throughout 1990, there were bloody skirmishes
in Kunar between Hezb-e Islami forces and those of Wahhabi leader, Jamil-ur-
Rahman. Sporadic fighting continues to break out between other mujahidin
factions, including Hezb-e Islami and Jamiat-e Islami forces in the northeast.

In other areas, particularly those bordering government-held territory,

the government has negotiated agreements with former mujahidin, providing
weapons and ceding control in exchange for a cease-fire. These militia27 often
supplement government forces on the battlefield and have been used to create
buffer zones around government-controlled cities. In exchange for providing
support to government forces -- and agreeing not to fight the government -- militia
commanders are permitted to control territory, and the government has neither
the political nor the military capability to exercise its authority over them.

The Rules of War

In any armed conflict, all parties are responsible for respecting the
"rules of war," the principles enshrined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions to which
states can become party. The Republic of Afghanistan has acceded to the Geneva
Conventions.

With the withdrawal of Soviet armed forces from Afghanistan, the

hostilities there again assumed a purely non-international or internal character
under international humanitarian law, i.e., the law of armed conflict. Accordingly,
both the Afghan government and the various mujahidin forces are bound by those
rules set forth in Common Article 3 common to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions
("Common Article 3") to which Afghanistan is a High Contracting Party, and those
customary international law rules applicable to all internal armed conflicts.
While not directly applicable to the Afghan conflict, Protocol II additional to the
1949 Geneva Conventions ("Protocol II") does contain certain rules by which the
conduct of hostilities in that conflict can be judged, even though Afghanistan is
not a party to it.

27
The term "militia" is used to refer both to former mujahidin who switch sides and to
tribal paramilitary organizations who fight with the government in exchange for arms and
money.

23
 Common Article 3 is automatically applicable as soon as a situation of
internal armed conflict exists within the territory of a party to the Geneva
Conventions. It imposes fixed legal obligations on the parties to such a conflict
for the protection of persons not, or no longer, taking an active part in the
hostilities by absolutely prohibiting:

1. violence to life and person, in particular murder of all

kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
2. taking of hostages;
3. outrages upon personal dignity, in particular
humiliating and degrading treatment;
4. the passing of sentences and the carrying out of
executions without previous judgment pronounced by
a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial
guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by
civilized peoples.

Common Article 3 also imposes an obligation on the parties to the

conflict to collect and care for the wounded and sick.

Unlike human rights law which applies only to violations committed by a

government or its agents, Common Article 3 expressly binds both parties to the
conflict, i.e., Afghan government and mujahidin forces. Moreover, the obligation to
apply Common Article 3 is absolute: even if the mujahidin forces engage in
summary executions of Afghan soldiers, or fire poorly aimed rockets into the heart
of Kabul, the Afghan government is still obliged to prohibit "violence to life and
person" of non-combatant civilians.

Significantly, Common Article 3 is the only provision of the four Geneva

Conventions that directly applies to internal armed conflicts. The parties to such
a conflict have no legal obligation to comply with the other articles of the
Conventions that apply solely to an international armed conflict. The Afghan
government, therefore, is not obliged to accord the mujahidin prisoner of war
status and can punish captured guerrillas for the commission of crimes under its
domestic laws. A guerrilla who kills a government soldier, for example, can be
tried for murder, treason, sedition or other offenses, but the trials must be
conducted in accordance with the standards set forth in Common Article 3.

24
 Unlike the law governing international armed conflicts, Common Article
3 contains no rules regulating the means and methods of warfare. In addition, the
terms "civilian" and "combatant" do not appear in any of the provisions of
Common Article 3. Although Common Article 3 does not provide explicit protection
for the civilian population from attacks, its prohibition of "violence to life and
person" against "persons taking no active part in the hostilities" may be broad
enough to encompass attacks by one side against civilians in territory controlled
by the other side in an internal armed conflict.

The primary purpose of Common Article 3, however, is to ensure

absolutely that anyone not or no longer taking part in hostilities is treated
humanely. Persons protected by Common Article 3 include members of both
government and mujahidin forces who surrender, are found wounded, sick, or
unarmed, or are otherwise captured by the other side. Individual civilians are
similarly protected, even if they had fought for the opposing party, or indirectly
participated in the hostilities by providing either party with food or other
logistical support. Under these circumstances, if these persons die as a result of
execution or torture inflicted by a party to the conflict, their deaths are tantamount
to murder.

Customary International
International Law Applicable to Internal Armed Conflict

Although Common Article 3 does not, by its terms, prohibit attacks

against the civilian population in non-international armed conflicts, such attacks
are prohibited by the customary laws of armed conflict. United Nations General
Assembly Resolution 2444, Respect for Human Rights in Armed Conflicts,28
adopted by unanimous vote on December 19, 1969, expressly recognized this
customary principle of civilian immunity and its complementary principle
requiring the warring parties to distinguish civilians from combatants at all
times.29

28
G.A. res. 2444, 23 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 18) at 164, U.N. Doc. A/7433 (1968).
29
The preamble to this resolution clearly states that these fundamental humanitarian law
principles apply "in all armed conflict," meaning both international and internal armed
conflicts. Furthermore, the International Committee of the Red Cross has long regarded
these principles as basic rules of the laws of war that apply in all armed conflicts. The

25
 Another fundamental principle of customary humanitarian law is the
principle of humanity, which both complements and inherently limits the doctrine
of military necessity. It is defined by the U.S. Air Force (Pamphlet on the Conduct of
Armed Conflict and Air Operations) as forbidding:

... the infliction of suffering, injury or destruction not actually

necessary for the accomplishment of legitimate military
purposes. This principle of humanity results in a specific
prohibition against unnecessary suffering and a requirement of
proportionality ... The principle of humanity also confirms the
basic immunity of civilian populations and civilians from being
objects of attack during armed conflict.30

Protocol II

Protocol II goes beyond these general provisions to specify ways in

which the civilian population should be protected in an area of conflict and states,
"the civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the
object of attack. Acts or threats of violence, the primary purpose of which is to
spread terror among the civilian population, are prohibited." (Those living near or
among combatants who provide to them non-military support, such as food, are
still considered civilians.)

Because Afghanistan has not ratified Protocol II, that instrument cannot
directly bind either the government or mujahidin forces. It can still, however,
provide standards for the conduct of internal armed conflict. By inference,
Protocol II protects civilians against indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.
These include:

1. an attack by bombardment by any method or means which treats as

a single military objective a number of clearly separate and distinct
military objectives located in a city, town, village or other areas
containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects;

United States government also has expressly recognized these principles as declaratory of
existing customary international law.
30
Air Force Pamphlet AFP 110-31, International Law - the Conduct of Armed Conflict Air
Operations 1-6 (1976).

26
 and

2. an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian

life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects or a combination
thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and
direct military advantage anticipated.31

The use of land mines, which by their nature tend to cause extensive
civilian casualties, is one of the most devastating aspects of the war in
Afghanistan. The principle of confining attacks to military targets also applies to
the use of land mines, which is described in more detail below.

Throughout the Afghan conflict each of the provisions outlined above has
been systematically violated by all parties. With the withdrawal of Soviet forces
from the conflict, indiscriminate attacks by government forces on civilian
population centers diminished but did not end; in some areas civilians continue to
suffer disproportionately because of bombing raids and missile attacks.

A.VIOLATIONS OF THE LAWS OF WAR BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF

AFGHANISTAN

Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians by Afghan Government Forces

In the years following the Soviet invasion in December 1979, the shelling
and aerial bombardment of rural villages and cities by government and Soviet

31
These prohibitions are spelled out in Protocol I, but the most authoritative commentary
on Protocol II states they are "inferentially included" within the prohibition of making
civilians the object of attack. See M. Bothe, K. Partsch and W. Solf, New Rules for Victims of
Armed Conflict -- Commentary on the Two 1977 Protocols Additional to the Geneva
Conventions of 1949 (Geneva: 1982) p. 671

27
forces32 was almost constant. The mass destruction caused by these bombing
raids has been the primary cause of over one million civilian deaths during the
course of the war and for the exodus of five million refugees from Afghanistan into
Pakistan and Iran.
In the period just before the withdrawal of Soviet troops in February 1989,
heavy bombing raids were reported in Qandahar and north of Kabul along the
Salang Highway -- the route for the withdrawal of the Soviet troops. As many as
600 people were reported to have been killed when Soviet forces carpet-bombed
villages in the Panjshir Valley and Salang Pass in January and February 1989.33
Scud missiles were also reported to have been used extensively in these attacks,
with some 21 Scud missiles reportedly being launched between January 23 and
February 8.34 A number of villages devastated in the attacks were far from the
strategic Salang Highway; in the village of Khenj, some 60 kilometers from the
highway, 70 people were reportedly killed by Scud missiles.35 Western journalists
also cited reports of high-altitude bombing and shelling of villages north of Kabul
in the weeks before the Soviet withdrawal.36

Since the Soviet withdrawal, bombing raids carried out by Afghan

government forces have declined in much of the country. In fact, in certain areas,
notably Qandahar, the provincial government has resisted responding to
mujahidin attacks by return fire in order to bolster its image and win the support
of civilians. However, in areas of concentrated fighting, missile attacks and
shelling of civilian areas have continued. These attacks have been carried out in

32
Bombing raids by Soviet forces continued until the end of the withdrawal in February
1989.
33
Interview by Asia Watch representative with Engineer Mohammad Es'haq, a political
officer of Jamiat-e Islami, February 8, 1989.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid.
36
See James Rupert, "Rebels Send Food Convoy to Kabul," Washington Post, January 27,
1989; Elaine Sciolino, "Afghan Campaign Said to Intensify," New York Times, January 21,
1989; Richard Weintraub, "`300 People Died' in One Village," Washington Post, February 5,
1989. In an interview with John Newhouse, Soviet journalist Artyom Borovik, who had
reported on the war for the liberal Soviet weekly magazine Ogonyok, stated: "We had an
operation scheduled for January 23-26, 1989 ... Najibullah was afraid that the rebels would
close the road linking Kabul to the Soviet Union ... Hundreds of Afghan women, children and
old men were killed." See "Chronicling the Chaos," New Yorker, December 31, 1990, p. 57.

28
apparent reprisal for guerrilla assaults on government army positions or to
protect strategic routes to the cities. In the latter cases, the attacks have been
conducted in such a way that civilian-populated areas have been the primary
targets. Such attacks are indiscriminate since they either are directed against
civilians or are in disregard of laws protecting the civilian population from
disproportionate attacks. They therefore flagrantly violate the most basic laws of
war.

The weapons used by the Afghan government forces in such attacks have
included Scud-Bs, which are unguided, long-range, surface-to-surface missiles,37
and Frog-7 rockets, which are unguided, short-range, surface-to-surface
missiles.38 Other rockets, including the BM-21 and BM-22,39 have also been used.

Afghan government officials interviewed by Asia Watch have stated that

when they fire rockets they aim only for military targets and that they understand
the need to evacuate civilians from areas under fire.40 However, the weapons, as
deployed in such attacks, particularly the Scud missiles, are so inaccurate that
they constitute a means of combat which are as likely to hit civilians and civilian
objects as military targets without distinction. Refugees interviewed by Asia

37
The Scud-B SS-1 missile is a Soviet-made missile about 12 meters long which carries a
1,000 kilogram warhead and has a maximum range of 280 kilometers. In Afghanistan, the
missiles have carried high-explosive warheads. (They may also be fitted with nuclear or
chemical warheads.) The missiles are highly destructive and have a CEP (Circular Error
Probable -- the standard measure of accuracy) of 1000 yards. For further information on the
specifications of weaponry used in the war, see the guide to Afghanistan: The Making of U.S.
Policy 1973-1990 (Alexandria VA: National Security Archives and Chadwyck-Healey, Inc.
Forthcoming in March, 1991). The CEP estimate cited was provided by the Center for
Defense Studies, Washington, D.C.
38
The FROG missile weighs 2,300 kilograms and has a maximum range of 70 kilometers. It
has been used in Afghanistan since 1985. It has a CEP of 550-750 yards. Ibid.
39
The BM-21 is a multiple rocket launcher which is capable of creating a "high
concentration of firepower in a very short time." In Afghanistan, the BM-21 has been used to
destroy agricultural land and may carry incendiary sub-munitions. The BM-22 delivers
rockets that deliver high-explosive bomblets or mines. Because of its delivery system, the
rocket is sometimes described as a "cluster bomb." See the guide to Afghanistan: The
Making of U.S. Policy 1973-1990.
40
Interview with Minister of Defense General Mohammad Aslam Watanjar, July 25, 1990.

29
Watch testified that they had not received advance warnings to evacuate the
area.41 Some stated, however, that they had learned to anticipate reprisals
following offensive operations by local mujahidin, and moved their families
accordingly. Afghan Foreign Minister Abdul Wakil told an Asia Watch delegation
in October 1990 that when the mujahidin were prepared to stop using rockets, the
government would stop using Scuds.42 However, the government's obligation to
abide by the laws of war is independent of any actions taken by the guerrillas. If
Scuds are causing disproportionate civilian casualties, they should not be in use
at all.

Afghan government officials also claim that many of the areas targeted
are depopulated of civilians. A mujahidin commander interviewed by Asia Watch
unintentionally confirmed this when he derided the government's efforts against
the mujahidin, stating that in some provinces, the rockets were hitting areas long
depopulated.43 In other provinces where intensive fighting has continued, the
refugees driven into Pakistan interviewed by Asia Watch in 1989 and 1990 all
reported that they left because of the bombing.

Aerial Bombardments and Shelling in Jalalabad District

The eastern city of Jalalabad came under siege by mujahidin forces in

March 1989, with fierce fighting between government forces and the mujahidin
through May 1990. The area remained contested and sporadic fighting continued
during 1990 and into 1991. In July 1990, Asia Watch interviewed dozens of men and
women who had fled the fighting and had settled in camps near Peshawar,
Pakistan. They had been in the camps less than a year at the time of the interviews.
Most of those we interviewed were relatives of mujahidin and freely admitted that
the guerrillas had been present at the time the villages came under attack. If the
principles of humanity and proportionality are to be observed, however, the
existence of legitimate military targets in the area may not justify the kind of
carpet-bombing that apparently took place.

41
See p. 21.
42
Interview by Asia Watch with Foreign Minister Abdul Wakil and the Afghan Ambassador
to the U.N., Noor Ahmad Noor, in New York, October 5, 1990.
43
Interview with Commander Mullah Malang, in Quetta, Pakistan, July 7, 1990.

30
 One woman, Fawzia, 36, from Jalalabad district, described the
government bombing that drove her to Pakistan in late 1989:44

In the weeks before the bombing, government tanks would come through
about once a week. Then they started coming every day to search the
area for about three hours. One day the bombing started around 9 or 10
at night. It lasted for about half an hour, then started again in the early
morning for about one-and-a-half hours. My husband died in the
bombardment, buried under the house. It was difficult to recognize his
body, it was so badly crushed. My daughter, Nafaz Gul, two years old, was
also crushed under the house. In other houses, there were dismembered
bodies of children and dead animals. In all, about 20 families' houses in
that area were destroyed. Some 45 people in all were killed, and more
than that wounded, according to what the families here have said. The
survivors all left. We heard bombing in other areas in days that followed.
I came to this camp with three sons and one daughter.45

Zeiba, 26, came to Pakistan from Surkhrud, Ningrahar. The area was
subjected to aerial bombing and shelling in March 1989:

My brother-in-law was hit by a shell so big that he had no heart left; there
was only a big hole in his body. My husband, a day laborer, was also
killed. He had been carrying grass to the cow when the planes came from
the mountainside. The bombing went on six days and nights. Our family
went and hid in a cave. Two other relatives were killed; another woman,
Khatina, aged 20, was wounded in her back and was evacuated to Kabul
where we heard that she died. One man working on the land was broken
in two parts, a man named Akbar. The mosque was levelled and the
mullahs46 died.

44
Asia Watch was not able to confirm precise dates for any of the bombing incidents
described by refugees. They described incidents that had taken place in the months before
their arrival in Pakistan. Many of the refugees were from the Jalalabad area and some of the
incidents appear to have taken place in the months following the 1989 battle for Jalalabad
city. (For a further discussion of the battle, see p.43-44).
45
Interview in Interchurch Aid Project camp outside Peshawar, Pakistan, July 1, 1990.
46
A mullah is a Muslim cleric.

31
 Madinah, 30, a widow with six children from the village of Bakhtan in
Surkhrud district, came to Pakistan in mid-1989 after that area was bombed:

My paternal uncle, his two sons, another uncle and two of my mother's
brothers died in one mud house. In another house, five died: a mother,
daughter and three brothers. The rockets we saw were the length of a
forearm.47

Another woman, Heisalallah, lost five of her sons and a four-year-old

daughter in a bombardment in early 1990 in the village of Mimbaraq, Chaharbagh
district. Her house and two neighbors' houses were destroyed; all her cows and
donkeys were killed. She came to the camp with three daughters and two sons.

Rabow, a woman about 45 years old, had fled from Shewa, Jalalabad, an
area that mujahidin aligned with Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami claimed as
"liberated." She came to the camp some time in March 1989 after her village was
bombed. Seven people in her family were killed, including her husband; Haji Gul,
40, a cousin; Shera Gul, 16, a niece; Naim, 30, a cousin; Ahsan Jan, 20, a cousin; and
two others (relationship unknown), Lala Gul and Hansaman. She told Asia Watch:

There was nobody to bury the dead afterwards. We left immediately and
don't know for sure what happened after. The bombs left big craters.
Every house hit was destroyed. Bombing went on morning and night for a
week. On the way to Pakistan, we traveled by night because of the
bombing. It took eight weeks to get to Pakistan. Six to seven hundred
came to Pakistan from our village.48

Another man, Zaman Ghani, a high school teacher from Shegai, saw
Rabow's uncle, Haji Gul, try to move the body of Rabow's husband. As he did so, the
body exploded. After that incident, he said, the people tied ropes around one leg of
the bodies so that they could at least salvage one piece. The placing of grenades
by Afghan government forces (and Soviet forces before their withdrawal) under
the bodies of those killed in bombing raids had been reported throughout the

47
Interview in Interchurch Aid Project camp outside Peshawar, Pakistan, July 1, 1990.
48
Ibid.

32
war.49 The laws of war specifically prohibit booby-trapping dead bodies.50

One man showed us a scar on his stomach resembling a long cut that he
said he had received from shrapnel. Gulmar Jana, a woman perhaps 50 or 60
years old, from Shewa, told Asia Watch that her husband, Hadi Gul, a farmer, had
been killed in a bombing raid three months earlier along with their 18-year-old
son, Fazlullah. Both had been in the house when the bombing started. The old man
and Gulmar Jana described two kinds of bombs that were used: one that created
"deep craters" and another that "scattered small bombs":

There was no one to bury them; the dead bodies were eaten by dogs. The
bombing went on for two days. Some of the wounded went to Jalalabad;
we don't know how many died there. We couldn't reach the graveyards to
bury the dead because of the army outposts between the village and the
cemetery.51

In the incidents cited above, there was apparently no effort on the part of
the government to warn civilians of the impending attack so that they would be
able to evacuate the area. While we are not in a position to determine whether the
circumstances attending these bombardments justified not giving civilians
advance notice of these attacks, the evidence suggests that the government
rarely, if ever, gives such notice. In any event, such notice would not free the
attacking party from observing the rule of proportionality in attacking military
objects.

Aerial Bombardment and Shelling in Other Districts

Refugees from the Barakzai tribe in Faryab, a province in northwest

Afghanistan, described how they had twice been driven to seek refuge because of
government aerial bombardment and shelling. They were first driven out of
Faryab in late 1988 when Soviet and Afghan government forces, with the support of
an Uzbek militia force aligned with the government, encircled the area. According
to Nasruddin, the tribal leader:

49
See Asia Watch/Helsinki Watch reports cited in footnote 1.
50
Land Mines Protocol, Article 6(b)(ii).
51
Interview in Interchurch Project Aid camp outside Peshawar, Pakistan, July 1, 1990.

33
 From our family, around eight people were killed; the other families lost
17 or 18. As soon as we buried them we left, but the bombing continued in
the mountains on the way to Badghis.

Another member of the family continued:

Last year two or three days after 'Id [an Islamic holy day] the mortars and
bombing started. We left Badghis, traveling at night to avoid the
fighting.52

A number of members of the clan had been injured, apparently by the shelling.
One man showed us his foot, partially severed and twisted. He said the injury was
caused by shrapnel from the bombs.

In other cases, the bombing operations are clearly reprisals against

guerrilla strongholds following attacks on government army posts. While we are
not in a position to determine whether all of these attacks were indiscriminate,
the numbers of civilians killed and the extent of the damage to civilian objects
suggests that the government forces launched these attacks in disregard of laws
protecting civilians from disproportionate attacks.

Asia Watch interviewed an old man who arrived in the Nasirbagh camp in
early July 1990 after walking all the way from Mazina where he had lived since
mid-1989. He described the bombings that had twice driven him to find refuge.
Originally from Zarkhel, he had left after the Soviets bombed his village there. He
told us, "If the mujahidin don't attack, the government doesn't retaliate." He
described the bombings of civilian-populated villages in Zarkhel and Mazina:

The bombing started around supper time. My son was killed and Zarkhel
razed to the ground. In Mazina, my other son was injured by shrapnel, but
he's now recovered. Then the soldiers came in with tanks, so many we
couldn't count them.53

In another incident, a massive bombardment at the end of May 1989 in

Paghman followed a local guerrilla attack on a militia outpost. Asia Watch

52
Interviews in Tratta refugee camp, outside Quetta, Pakistan, July 7, 1990.
53
Interview in Nasirbagh refugee camp, outside Peshawar, Pakistan, July 8, 1990.

34
interviewed a number of men who had left the area at that time. The bombardment
apparently followed a joint operation by forces aligned with Hekmatyar, Khales
and Sayyaf to attack a government militia post. One of those interviewed said that
the attacks appeared to be timed to cause heavy civilian casualties:

The bombing began after the attack; we had known what their response
would be. It started at night, with striped planes dropping bombs that
exploded into four or five bomblets. They pick times to bomb when
people are crowded together, making meals or at prayer. They look for
smoke coming up, a sign of cooking, that people are at home eating.54

One of the men, Yusuf, stated, "In these situations, we know it will happen.
We shift our families out of the area."55

Summary Executions and Reprisal Killings

During the Soviet participation in the hostilities in Afghanistan, bombing

raids were frequently followed by sweep operations in which Soviet and
government troops conducted searches for suspected mujahidin and their
supporters. During those search operations, civilians were frequently arrested
and sometimes executed on the spot. It was not unusual for an entire village to be
destroyed, and many of its residents killed.56 Such operations have greatly
decreased since the Soviet withdrawal; however, Asia Watch interviewed
witnesses who described a number of incidents in which suspected guerrillas
and civilians supporting them were summarily executed.

Khanum Jan and her sister-in-law Zarmina from Siqh Sang, Jalalabad,
described the executions which they said took place in late 1989 after the
bombing of their village:

Afterwards the Afghan militia came and separated the men in the village,
the old from the young. They brought out everyone in front of the mosque
and shot the young ones who had carried guns. In our family, the

54
Ibid.
55
Ibid.
56
See Laber and Rubin, pp. 37-41.

35
 following men were shot:

Gulzar, a nephew, 22 years old.

Khan Mohammad, a cousin, 30 years old, married with children.
Ali Khan, a stepson, 28, married with one child.
Anat Khan, a stepson, 25.
Mayin Khan, 18, the child of a cousin.
Ruidar, a cousin, 20, married with no children.
Khwarai, nephew, 35.
Malai Khel, about 30, son-in-law.

All of them were members of Hezb-e Islami (Hekmatyar).57

Ordinary civilians have sometimes been the victims of summary

execution or reprisal killing because they are suspected of supporting the
mujahidin. Heisalallah, an old woman from Chaharbagh district, Jalalabad,
described the killings that followed the bombing of her village of Mimbaraq, in
early 1990. She stated that the army took her husband, Khodai Nurshah, aged 30, a
day laborer; Arif Mohammed, her brother-in-law, aged 9; and Sheengul, her father-
in-law; along with several other people and poured gasoline on them, because
they were accused of giving the mujahidin food:

One night at midnight, the bombing started and lasted for about two days.
My house and two other houses nearby were destroyed, so were all the
green trees. Then soldiers with tanks came into the village. At 7 in the
morning, soldiers came and asked my husband, "Why did you give food to
Gailani? Who came to your house? Which commander was it?" Then
they took the two men and the little boy in a black car and then to a public
square about two kilometers away and burned them alive. Many people
saw it although I didn't. Two other people were also burned: Mateen, a
neighbor, who died, and Khaisan, a 20-year-old man, who survived, only
now he has no hair and looks like he's 90.

She said her brother was fighting with the NIFA (Gailani) faction of the
mujahidin. "When the mujahidin come, you do as they say. When the army comes,

57
Interviews in Interchurch Project Aid camp, outside Peshawar, Pakistan, July 1, 1990.

36
you do as they want."58

Halim Jan, a prisoner who had been captured in 1984 and who was
released from Mahabas jail in Jalalabad in 1989, described the summary
execution of prisoners he had witnessed when he was first detained:

Usually they tied their hands, blindfolded them, put them in an

ambulance, and drove away and shot them. At the beginning, maybe 25
people a day were executed ... They would bring in herds of people at a
time.59

He claimed that the practice continued after the Soviet withdrawal, but cited no
specific examples. Asia Watch was not able to confirm whether summary
executions of this kind have continued to take place in Jalalabad prison. Such
executions without charge or trial would constitute extremely grave violations of
Common Article 3.

Forced Conscription of Prisoners

Particularly after the Soviet withdrawal, the Afghan government,

anticipating that the resistance forces would launch a major attack on Jalalabad,
released a number of prisoners before the expiration of their sentences and
inducted them immediately into the army. The practice of releasing prisoners
directly into the army started several years earlier. The prisoners were released
under Decree No. 37, dated April 26, 1987, of the Presidium of the Revolutionary
Council, which declared that "prisoners who are eligible for service in the armed
forces should be remitted." According to Amnesty International, the prisoners
were told that the remaining part of their prison sentences would be spent in
military service; in fact, that service amounted to "a punitive practice similar to
continued imprisonment."60 Asia Watch interviews with former conscripts
indicated that the conscripts were treated more like prisoners than soldiers.

58
Ibid.
59
Interview in Munda refugee camp, outside Peshawar, Pakistan, July 9, 1990.
60
Amnesty International, "Afghanistan: Unlawful Killings and Torture," AI Index: ASA
11/02/88, May 1988.

37
 Sayyed Rahman from Shegi, Shewa, a man about 24 years old who was
arrested when he was about 16, was released early from Mahabas prison in
Jalalabad and immediately inducted into the Afghan army shortly before the
Soviet withdrawal when the Afghan army faced an acute shortage of men. Along
with other former prisoners, he remained under restriction while in the army. For
example, he stated that the prisoners were not allowed to go anywhere alone;
even when they went to relieve themselves, a guard would stand with his foot on
the prisoner's shirttail. They were confined to military barracks No. 81, near
Jalalabad, the boundaries of which had been mined. According to Sayyed Rahman,
a number of prisoners were killed by the mines when they tried to escape.61

Militia

In addition to its regular defense forces, the government uses

paramilitary forces from various tribal groups to supplement its security around
the cities and to provide extra forces on the battlefield. In some cases, these
militia are former mujahidin forces that have signed protocols with the
government giving them control over areas of the country as well as cash and
weapons in exchange for a cease-fire. Although the Ministry of State Security
signs the protocols with the militia,62 these groups operate outside the chain of
command of the ordinary armed forces. The government effectively abandons any
effort to assume administrative control over these groups while providing them
with the same range of weapons available to its regular forces. The members of
these militias are combatants for whose conduct the armed forces are ultimately
responsible, and they are bound to conduct their military operations in
accordance with the laws of war.

President Najibullah told Asia Watch that the militia forces are needed to
"protect civilians" and "prevent Pakistan from using these people against us."63 In
some cases, the Ministry of Defense works with the local tribal jirgas (Pashtun
tribal assemblies) to organize militia.64 Government officials acknowledged to
Asia Watch that some militias have robbed returning refugees, but stated that the

61
Interview in Munda refugee camp, outside Peshawar, Pakistan, July 9, 1990.
62
Interview with Colonel Bahbod, Acting Governor of Herat Province, July 29, 1990.
63
Interview with President Najibullah, July 26, 1990.
64
Interview with Minister of the Interior Raz Mohammad Pakteen, July 24, 1990.

38
army had been instructed to prevent such abuses. Although the attorney general
is apparently authorized to take action against militia members who violate the
law, there is no indication that any such action has been taken.

In fact, independent organizations have reported that when discipline

problems with the militia arise, the government disowns any responsibility for
them.65 The Jozjani militia, an Uzbek force which has been provided with tanks and
other advanced weapons by the government, was initially deployed in Qandahar
but reportedly engaged in a number of abuses, including looting the local
hospital, until the government moved it back to guard the outskirts of Kabul.
Refugees in Quetta stated that the Uzbek forces had participated in searching
homes in the villages, looting property and arresting young men to serve in the
army.66 Other militia operating in the Qandahar area, including those under the
command of Rashid Dustam and Esmat Muslim, have been accused of looting
civilian property. Refugees described the indiscriminate shelling of civilian
areas in Faryab and Badghis by both Afghan government and Uzbek militia forces.

Militia have also laid mines without marking or providing maps of

minefields. Because a number of the areas, including border crossings, to which
refugees are returning are under the control of militia, the use of mines by these
groups poses a great risk to civilians. For example, the road from the Iranian
border to Herat, which is used by returning refugees, is heavily mined by both
mujahidin forces and by local militia. According to independent sources
interviewed by Asia Watch, trucks carrying refugees frequently strike these
mines, causing civilian casualties.67

The militia also detain enemy combatants and civilian prisoners. One
militia commander in the Herat area, who was formerly with Jamiat-e Islami, told
Asia Watch that the commander and the deputy commander have the authority to
settle disputes and that in criminal cases, the judgement of the qazi, or Islamic
judge, is final. Before the militia commander signed the protocol with the
government, prisoners were detained in jails or detention camps maintained by
the commander; now prisoners sentenced by the qazi are imprisoned in

65
Interviews with international relief agency representatives in Kabul, July 22, 1990.
66
Interviews in Tratta refugee camp, outside Quetta, July 7, 1990.
67
Interview with international relief agency representatives in Kabul, July 23, 1990.

39
government jails.68 A.B Sarwary, the attorney general's representative in Herat,
told Asia Watch that an attorney from the office attends the militia court
proceedings; but he confirmed that the government accepts prisoners from the
militia without questioning the verdict or the proceeding. Detainees charged with
political crimes, including captured members of mujahidin forces, are sent to the
National Security Court for trial.69

B.VIOLATIONS OF THE LAWS OF WAR BY ELEMENTS OF THE AFGHAN RESISTANCE

A number of mujahidin commanders, many of whom have been recruited

by the Pakistan ISI have launched indiscriminate rocket attacks on Kabul and
other cities, causing high civilian casualties. The ISI and the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency have encouraged these and other attacks and have provided
U.S.-supplied weapons to commanders who agree to undertake them.

A number of mujahidin forces have summarily executed government

soldiers captured in combat, including some who surrendered on the
understanding that they would be given safe passage. Mujahidin forces from
certain factions have also assassinated rival resistance leaders and have
executed mujahidin prisoners following clashes between rival resistance forces.
Torture of detainees in mujahidin prisons is reported to be common.

Many mujahidin forces lay mines without taking precautions to ensure

that civilians are warned of minefields. Often they themselves forget where the
mines were laid. Because of the divisions within the resistance, the minimal
mapping that is done is not made accessible to all parties. Such precautions are
required under international humanitarian law, which provides for the protection
of civilians against weapons, such as land mines, which may have indiscriminate
effects.

Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians

68
Interview with Moman Khair Mohammad, Deputy Commander under Sayyed Ahmed, in
Herat, July 28, 1990.
69
Interview with the A. B. Sarwary, of the Attorney General's office in Herat, July 29, 1990.

40
 Following the completion of the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from
Afghanistan in February 1989, a number of mujahidin commanders launched a
series of offensives against government forces that included the indiscriminate
rocketing of government-controlled cities. The first target of the offensive was
Jalalabad, which came under siege by resistance forces from March to May 1989.
Journalists who visited the city reported widespread destruction to civilian
objects:

Large sections have been bombarded and abandoned, while others,

especially the mud-walled sections of the old town, have been shattered
by the unrelenting rocket and artillery attacks of rebels ... some streets
have hardly any homes that have not been hit by rockets or shells ... The
city's main high school, its university, its courthouse, its prison, at least
two hospitals, and several major government buildings appeared to have
been so badly damaged as to be unusable.70

U.S. officials played down reports of devastation to residential areas. In

testimony before the House Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs on June 14,
1989, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Near East and South Asian Affairs
Edward W. Gnehm stated, "It is our firm belief that most of the insurgent groups
have specifically avoided targeting the civilian areas, and ... that destruction is not
nearly as large-scale as had been feared."71 According to Afghan government
sources, however, 500 civilians were killed and more than 2,000 injured in rocket
attacks and shelling of Jalalabad in the two months after the offensive began in
early March 1989.72

In the first nine months after the Soviet withdrawal in February 1989,
Western aid experts based in Kabul reported that at least 600 people died in
guerrilla rocket attacks on Kabul, over 90 percent of them civilians.73 Western
relief agencies estimated that by the end of 1989, 1,000 civilians had died in

70
John Burns, "Inside Jalalabad: A Sad Crumbling Shell," New York Times, May 11, 1989.
71
Hearings, p. 74.
72
John Burns, "Inside Jalalabad: A Sad Crumbling Shell," New York Times, May 11, 1989;
Mark Fineman, "Jalalabad Devastated but Quiet," Washington Post, May 11, 1989.
73
John Burns, "Don't Give Rockets to Rebels, Kabul Tells U.S.," New York Times, November
29, 1989.

41
rocket attacks on Kabul alone.74 In an interview published in the Washington Post
in July 1989, Jean-Jacques Fresard, the head of the International Committee of the
Red Cross mission in Kabul at the time, stated that 99 percent of those killed in the
rocket attacks had been civilians.75

Since the siege of Jalalabad, resistance commanders have continued to

fire rockets and surface-to-surface missiles into government-controlled cities,
particularly Kabul, despite the high civilian casualties caused by these attacks in
relation to the importance of the military targets. The mujahidin have also used
mortars in these attacks. These mortars reportedly require daily readjustment to
be accurate; failure on the part of the guerrillas to do so may also explain some of
the high civilian casualties.76

Most of the civilian casualties in Kabul are caused by indiscriminately

deployed rockets, primarily Egyptian-made Sakr rockets, supplied to the
mujahidin through the ISI and purchased with funds from the U.S. The Sakr rocket
that is used most extensively disintegrates into high-velocity shrapnel hurled
from the site of impact at a 60 degree angle.77 In the course of the Asia Watch
mission in late July and early August 1990, some 12 to 20 rockets struck Kabul
every day. Asia Watch representatives visited the sites of several rocket
explosions in Kabul in July 1990.

One such rocket exploded on a street in a residential neighborhood of

Kabul on July 22, 1990. Shrapnel shattered the windows of a pharmacy; witnesses
stated that the owner and a customer who had just left the store were killed. At
about the same time, a second rocket struck a taxi on a nearby street, leaving it a
charred shell; local residents told Asia Watch that one passenger was killed,
another three injured. In these incidents, the rockets landed far from the airport
and any other visible military targets.

The other kind of Sakr rocket which has been fired into Kabul are the M42

74
John Burns, "Now They Blame America," New York Times Magazine, February 4, 1990, p.
24.
75
James Rupert, "Afghans Prepare for Summer Offensives," Washington Post, July 13, 1989.
76
Interview with representatives of international relief agencies, in Kabul, July 22, 1990.
77
Interview with experts at the HALO Trust, a British mine clearing organization in Kabul,
July 27, 1990.

42
and M46 which have a range of between 20 and 30 kilometers and deliver
between 42 and 98 antipersonnel bomblets that are packed inside each other in
rows in the nose cone of the rocket.78 In mid-1989, approximately 25 percent of the
rockets fired into Kabul were of this kind; since then the rocket has been used far
less frequently.79

The bomblets have a lethal range of 15 meters. According to munitions

experts, 70 percent of them explode on impact and the rest remain active on the
ground. The bomblets are light in weight and are attached to a loop of tape that
allows some of them to become snared in tree branches and to fall to the ground
later when dislodged by wind. After rains, the bomblets may also sink into the
ground.80

The Sakr is also a "blind" rocket and cannot be accurately aimed. The
laws of war specifically prohibit the use of weapons "which employ a method or
means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective." The
Land Mines Protocol further prohibits the use of remotely-delivered mines81
except in the following situations:

-- when mines are only used within an area which is itself a military
objective or which contains military objectives,

-- when their location can be accurately recorded or when an effective

78
Because of the rocket's "cluster" delivery system, the rocket is sometimes described as
a "cluster bomb." Experts in Kabul told Asia Watch that the precise number of bomblets
varies, making it difficult for explosives experts trying to clear them to know how many of
these bomblets they must locate.
79
According to experts at the HALO Trust, these rockets accounted for 25 percent of the
rockets fired between June and August 1989; they accounted for one in 50 during the same
months in 1990. De-mining experts have described the M42 and M46 as the "worst thing
used here now." Interview in Kabul, July 27, 1990.
80
Ibid.
81
The Land Mines Protocol defines a "mine" as "any munition placed under, on or near the
ground or other surface area and designed to be detonated or exploded by the presence,
proximity or contact of a person or vehicle." A "remotely-delivered mine" is "any mine so
defined delivered by artillery, rocket, mortar or similar means or dropped from an aircraft."
Land Mines Protocol, Article 2(1).

43
 self-destructing mechanism is used on each such mine, when the mines
no longer serve a military purpose,

-- when the civilian population is given advance warning of the delivery

of such mines, unless circumstances do not permit.82

In the vast majority of cases, the rockets fired into Kabul and other cities
have not struck military targets or areas that contain them.83 The bomblets that
are scattered by the Sakr rockets contain no self-destruct mechanism, nor is the
civilian population forewarned of these attacks.

In early October 1990, a number of resistance commanders, under the

direction of the ISI, undertook a major offensive against Kabul. The rocketing of
the city intensified during this period, and civilian casualties rose
proportionately. In its October 1990 newsletter, the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) reported that rocketing caused heavy civilian casualties not
only inside the city, but in Mir Bacha Kot, in mujahidin-controlled territory 40
kilometers north of Kabul.84 The report describes some of the patients received by
its hospital on October 18:

The new patients, most of them civilian and none older than 22, lie
moaning on stretchers.... One of them is a very young man bleeding
heavily from serious abdominal and leg injuries. He dies on the
operating table. Another is a four-year-old girl who has a shrapnel
wound to her brain.... The number of patients in the hospital soars to an
alarming 228 as rockets continue to fall on the city and fighting goes on
in the outlying areas.85

82
Land Mines Protocol, Article 5.
83
Areas that may contain military objectives, but also contain largely civilian populations
do not constitute a legitimate objective because the rule of proportionality prohibits
attacks in which the civilian casualties outweigh the military importance of the objective.
84
The fact that the rockets landed in opposition-held territory may indicate the degree to
which the rockets are inaccurate. There was fighting between government forces and
mujahidin around Kabul at the time, but it is not possible to state with certainty whether the
rockets were aimed at any military targets.
85
International Committee of the Red Cross, Bulletin, No. 177, October 1990.

44
 Relief workers and members of the diplomatic community that Asia
Watch interviewed in Kabul in July and August 1990 confirmed that civilian
casualties from the attacks remained very high. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on
Afghanistan, Felix Ermacora, stated in his October 1990 report that official sources
in Kabul have stated that 4,771 civilians were killed and 11,756 were wounded as a
result of rocket attacks on Kabul between March and October 1990.86 In
December 1990, the ICRC reported that about 50 percent of the wounded treated
at its surgical hospital in Kabul were women and children under 14 years of age
who had been wounded in rocket attacks.87

The following list of rocket attacks represents only a handful of the

incidents in which civilians have been killed in Kabul. The information here is all
derived from non-governmental sources:

C On August 16, 1990, a rocket struck the compound of the ICRC

orthopedic center, killing two patients and wounding an ICRC employee
and 12 other patients, three seriously.88

C On July 30, 1990, the daughter of an Afghan employee of the U.N.

Development Program was killed in a rocket attack as she was walking
home from school.89

C On April 12, 1990, 12 children and two adults were killed when a rocket
exploded at a bus stop. 90

C On November 26, 1989, a Sakr-30 exploded in the center of Kabul, killing

25 people including traders in a bazaar, patients outside a clinic and
laborers. A second rocket exploded at a primary school, killing 13
schoolboys.91

86
U.N. Report, 1990, p. 20. Asia Watch had no way of confirming these figures.
87
International Committee of the Red Cross, Bulletin, No. 179, December 1990.
88
International Committee of the Red Cross, Bulletin, No. 176, September 1990.
89
Asia Watch learned of the incident that day during an interview with Ross Mountain, the
Director of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Kabul.
90
Reuters, "Afghan Rebel Attack Kills 14," New York Times, April 13, 1990.
91
John Burns, "Don't Give Rockets to Rebels, Kabul Tells U.S.," New York Times, November
29, 1989.

45
 C On October 28-29, 1989, rockets exploded in residential areas, killing 16
people.92

C On August 6, 1989, rockets exploded in a vegetable market and a

residential neighborhood, killing 10 people.93

C On July 31, 1989, rockets exploded at a bus stop and an auto repair shop,
killing 21 people.94

C On July 22, 1989, rockets exploded in a bazaar, in an alley beside a

mosque, and at the Ministry of Planning building, killing more than 22
people.95

Asia Watch interviewed a doctor who had worked at the civilian hospital
in Qandahar through 1989 who stated that as a result of mujahidin attacks on the
city, civilian casualties inside the city had increased in late 1989-90 to the point
where they were greater than in areas of fighting outside the city.96 Meanwhile,
mujahidin attacks on Qandahar also intensified, and by mid-1990, 50 to 150
missiles and mortars landed on the city nearly every other day, with casualties
averaging 40 a week.97 The mujahidin commanders responsible for the attacks
have been primarily Hezb-e Islami and factions commanded by Abdul Rasul
Sayyaf.98 According to a Qandahar resident, "When the rocketing picks up, we
know Hekmatyar or Sayyaf is inspecting the troops."99

92
"Guerrilla Rockets Pound Kabul," Washington Post, October 29, 1989; "Kabul Rocketed
for Second Day," Washington Post, October 30, 1989.
93
"Shelling in Kabul," Washington Post, August 8, 1989.
94
Associated Press, "Guerrilla Rockets Kill 21 in Afghan Capital," Washington Post, August
1, 1989.
95
John Burns, "20 Die as Rocket Hits a Kabul Bazaar," New York Times, July 23, 1989.
96
Previously, high civilian casualties were the result of government bombardments of
mujahidin strongholds. Since early 1989, the governor reportedly ordered a halt to such
operations and has not responded to the mujahidin attacks. Interview with a doctor from
Qandahar, in Quetta, Pakistan, July 7, 1990.
97
Ibid.
98
Interview with Afghan relief worker in Quetta, July 7, 1990.
99
Ibid.

46
 Commanders in the Qandahar area interviewed by Asia Watch argued
that they aimed at military cantonments and government buildings. According to
a Qandahar resident, these military targets are surrounded by civilian areas.
Westerners working for relief agencies said that much of the civilian hospital had
been destroyed by the shelling.100

When asked why they were shelling civilian areas, some commanders
responded that the civilians "should leave."101 A commander in the Qandahar area
also said civilians were warned beforehand of planned attacks;102 however other
Qandahar sources reported that they had no knowledge in advance of the
attacks.103 One Afghan relief worker told Asia Watch that some commanders used
to send letters into the cities warning people of planned attacks, but that they no
longer did so.104 Even if such warnings were provided, however, the weapons used
in the attacks are so inaccurate that damage to civilian objects would be almost
unavoidable.

Commanders interviewed by Asia Watch denied that they were under

pressure to launch attacks against the cities, arguing instead that if they did not
rocket the cities it would amount to a de facto cease fire. They also contend that
the rocketing is a means of keeping up pressure on the government.105 Other Asia
Watch sources told us that since early 1989, the ISI has increased pressure on
commanders to undertake attacks and has supplied payments for attacks -- a
system which one source described as "mercenary warfare."106 Payments for
attacks reportedly amount to Rs. 20,000 (U.S. $1,000) per attack; the nearer to
Kabul the commander fires, the greater the payment.107 In Peshawar, Asia Watch
examined reports submitted by commanders to ISI officials in which they

100
Interview with international relief agency representatives in Quetta, July 8, 1990.
101
Interview with Afghan doctor from Qandahar, in Quetta, July 7, 1990.
102
Interview with Commander Mullah Malang in Quetta, July 7, 1990.
103
Interview with Afghan doctor from Qandahar in Quetta, July 7, 1990.
104
Interview with Afghan relief worker, Quetta, July 8, 1990.
105
Interview with Engineer Mohammad Es'haq, Peshawar, July 7, 1990.
106
Interview with former Afghan diplomat in Peshawar, February 11, 1989.
107
Interview with Afghan journalist in Peshawar, July 10, 1990. Another Afghan exile told
Asia Watch that payments may run as high as Rs. 500,000 (U.S. $25,000). Interview with
Afghan exile in Washington, D.C, January 21, 1991.

47
acknowledged receipt of such payments. We obtained a photocopy of one report
dated May 11, 1990 which had been submitted to ISI officials by Amir Sayed Ahmed
of Deh Sabaz district (an area north of Kabul), a commander allied with Sayyaf. In
the report, Sayed Ahmed described a two-hour attack on Kabul in which 14 Sakr-20
rockets were fired and "35 communists" killed.

Asia Watch sources have also described efforts by ISI officials to

pressure commanders in the Qandahar area to blow up the Dahla Dam, 18 miles
north of Qandahar on the Arghandab River -- an operation that would flood the city
and cost hundreds of civilian lives. Commanders with families in the region have
resisted the pressure and refused to attack the dam. In May 1989, Asia Watch
interviewed a member of the Qandahar shura who stated that the ISI had offered
commanders money and weapons if they would blow up the dam saying that then
the mujahidin would be able to easily kill "the communists."108 Colonel Faizan, the
head of the ISI in Quetta at that time, reportedly had encouraged the attack.109 The
commanders refused and have since posted a guard at the dam site to prevent
any such attack.110

Afghan relief workers in Quetta told Asia Watch that in a series of

meetings with tribal elders and regional commanders from the Qandahar area in
late June 1990, the U.S. envoy to the resistance, Peter Tomsen, told area
commanders that the U.S. Congress "wanted to see progress" before committing
the U.S. to further assistance. Unless accompanied by a clear condemnation of
indiscriminate attacks on civilians, such statements may be seen as encouraging
such attacks. Tribal elders at the meeting reportedly replied that they favored a
settlement, and elections but not continued fighting.111

Since early 1989, ISI officials have also pressured the Qandahar shura to
shell the city of Qandahar and its airport, promising U.S.-supplied weapons in
return. The commanders have insisted that the civilians be evacuated first, and
that the ISI make arrangements to provide for them. When the ISI refused to do so

108
Interview with Afghan exile in Washington D.C., May 1989.
109
Interview with Afghan exile in Washington, D.C, January 21, 1991.
110
Interview in with an Afghan relief worker and an Afghan journalist in Washington D.C.,
May 1989.
111
Interview with an Afghan relief worker in Quetta, July 8, 1990, and an Afghan exile in
Washington D.C. January 21, 1991.

48
and instead formed a second shura with commanders who were willing to shell
the city, the first shura, which was one of the few resistance institutions headed by
a civilian, collapsed.112 In November 1990, the ISI reportedly supplied rockets to a
Sayyaf commander, Qari Abdul Aziz, who launched a major attack on the city of
Qandahar, causing heavy civilian casualties. Area commanders have since
expelled him from Qandahar.113

Summary Executions of Prisoners

Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions prohibits the summary

execution of prisoners. In Afghanistan, the difficulties inherent in taking enemy
combatants prisoner in a guerrilla war are further complicated by divisions within
the resistance. According to one leading Afghan intellectual:

There is no one voice or center of power in the mujahidin. If a soldier

surrenders to Gailani, his life is threatened by Mojaddidi's forces, who
will ask, "Why did you surrender to Gailani?" If he surrenders to Jamiat,
then he is pursued and killed by Hezb. If he surrenders to Hezb, he is
attacked by Khales or Sayyaf.... There is no one voice who can declare
convincingly that an amnesty for all will mean a safe and secure
surrender. So a Kabul soldier who wants to surrender does not know to
whom he can surrender and who will be able to protect his life. And for
how long.114

The Tarin Kot and Qalat Massacres

In October 1990, following a major offensive by a number of mujahidin

commanders from various parties, the provincial capitals of Qalat and Tarin Kot
came under siege. On October 4, the governor of Oruzgan province, Abdul Shakoor,
surrendered in Tarin Kot along with the Afghan government garrison. Some 95
soldiers who surrendered were taken into custody by mujahidin guerrillas and

112
Ibid.
113
Interview with Afghan exile, Washington D.C., January 21, 1991.
114
Larry Lifschultz, "Afghanistan: An Interview with Shafi Rastgo," Economic and Political
Weekly, December 16, 1989, p. 2765.

49
executed.115 Another group of soldiers who either surrendered or were captured at
Qalat, numbering as many as 170, were also executed.116 According to press
reports, the soldiers had been promised safe passage by the guerrillas.117

According to U.S. government officials, in November 1990 Peter Tomsen

wrote to both the AIG and the commanders' shura condemning the incidents and
calling on all parties to adhere to the Geneva Conventions.

The Torkham Massacre

In November 1988, 141 soldiers from the Afghan government garrison at

Torkham, 40 kilometers from the Pakistan border near Peshawar, surrendered to
the Pakistani authorities. They were then handed over to mujahidin forces under
Yunis Khales and 77 of them were summarily executed and their bodies packed
into tea crates and dumped across the border. A second group which surrendered
stipulated beforehand that they would only surrender to the President of the AIG,
Sibghatullah Mojaddidi. According to independent reports, he accepted 200 of
them, all of whom had immediate access to the ICRC. Most were later released.118

Engineer Mohammad Es'haq, political officer of Jamiat-e Islami, admitted

to Asia Watch that prisoners captured in the field were sometimes executed,
stating that:

You sometimes face difficult questions. Suppose you have a large

number of prisoners and the enemy arrives and you know if the enemy
gets to them, you'll have all of them fighting against you. What do you

115
According to Afghan sources in Quetta, the mujahidin forces included those under the
command of Mullah Naqib of Jamiat-e Islami, who took some 60 soldiers into custody, and
those under the command of Mullah Farooq, also of Jamiat-e Islami, who took 30 soldiers
into custody. The soldiers were reportedly executed because "no one could guarantee that
they were good Muslims." Interview with Afghan exile in Washington, D.C., January 21, 1991.
116
The soldiers reportedly belonged to the Noorzai militia, which has a particularly brutal
reputation. Afghan sources have suggested that this was the reason for the killing.
Interview with Afghan exile in Washington D.C., January 21, 1991.
117
"Kabul Rebels Reported to Kill 200 Soldiers," New York Times, November 11, 1990.
118
Interviews with international relief agency representatives in Peshawar, February 5,
1989.

50
 do? You fire. It's different if the number of prisoners is small or the
enemy is far away. Then you can save them for exchange. But with a
highly mobile army in combat, it's difficult.119

The treatment of government soldiers depends on the commander who

captures them or to whom they defect. Asia Watch interviewed a mujahidin
representative in Peshawar who described the February 7, 1989 capture of five
army defectors outside Jalalabad. The soldiers' officer, who had established
contact with the local mujahidin commander, handed them over to the
commander at a government checkpoint outside Jalalabad airport. The soldiers,
all of whom had been conscripted into the army after a sweep by the security
forces in Kabul, were reportedly sent to Peshawar. Mujahidin sources told Asia
Watch that because the commander knew the detainees' fathers and was
"certifying them," they would have no difficulties.120

In another case witnessed by an Asia Watch representative in 1989, a

mujahid in Ningrahar discovered a suspected member of the local militia, an old
man, and brought him to the local commander for questioning. One of the
mujahidin threatened him with beating and hanging him by the feet if he did not
reveal the location of a weapons cache. In exchange for the arms, he supposedly
received the price for one-fifth of the weapons he had handed over, because he
was "one of five brothers in the militia."121

Rival mujahidin forces have also summarily executed mujahidin

prisoners they have captured.

The Farkhar Massacre

On July 9, 1989, members of the Hezb-e Islami (Hekmatyar) ambushed

members of the Jamiat-e Islami in the Farkhar Valley as the latter were returning
from a strategy meeting in Takhar province in northern Afghanistan. According to
Richard MacKenzie, an American journalist who was in the area at the time, and to
other reports, five Jamiat-e Islami members were killed in the ambush, while

119
Interview with Engineer Mohammed Es'haq, in Peshawar, July 7, 1990.
120
Interview with mujahidin commanders in Ningrahar, February 7, 1989.
121
Ibid. The old man was in the militia of Mohmand Khan, a former Jamiat-e Islami mujahid
who had fallen out of favor with the ISI. In 1984-85, he went over to the government.

51
some 25 who were taken into custody by the Hezb-e Islami forces, led by
commander Sayyed Jamal, were summarily executed afterwards.122 The prisoners
taken were divided into two groups, those from Takhar and those from Kunduz, and
held in custody for 24 hours. During this time the men from Takhar were
reportedly tortured -- some by having their eyes gouged out, others by having
gunpowder poured in their eyes and lit.123 Those who were still alive were then
executed. After the Takhar men were killed, the men from Kunduz were reportedly
told that they were free to go, but as they prepared to leave, Hezb-e Islami forces
opened fire on them, shooting at least five of them in the back.124

On August 5, Hekmatyar rejected claims that his followers had carried

out the killings on his orders, arguing that a fight had broken out following a local
quarrel between the two groups, and that casualties had resulted on both sides.
According to U.S. diplomatic sources and Western journalists, Jamiat-e Islami
representatives claimed that intercepted radio communications revealed the
killings were sanctioned by one of Hekmatyar's closest deputies in Peshawar.
Jamiat-e Islami forces subsequently captured and tried members of the Hezb-e
Islami responsible for the killings.125

C. MINES - VIOLATIONS BY ALL PARTIES TO THE CONFLICT

Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed or maimed in Afghanistan

by anti-personnel mines that remain scattered or buried in fields, mountainsides,
riverbanks, and in villages and cities throughout the country. Most of these mines
were placed by Soviet and Afghan government forces before the Soviet
withdrawal. As one refugee told an Asia Watch source in 1989, "The ground will be
fighting us for years after the Soviets have left."126 Government forces continue to

122
See Richard MacKenzie, "A Murderous Jolt for U.S. Policy," Insight Magazine,
(Washington DC: Washington Times) August 1989, pp. 39-40; Steve Coll, "Afghan Rebel
Faction Decries Attack by Rivals," Washington Post, July 20, 1989; "Afghan Rebel Killings,"
Washington Post, August 6, 1989.
123
MacKenzie, pp. 39-40.
124
Ibid, p. 40.
125
For a discussion of the trial, see pp. 104-105.
126
Interview with Jan Goodwin, executive director, Save the Children USA, in Peshawar,
February 7, 1989.

52
lay anti-personnel and anti-vehicular mines.

The resistance forces also have used both anti-personnel and anti-
vehicular land mines. In most cases, they have not recorded the location of the
mines, as required under international law. In cases where the location of the
mines is known, information is not shared because of the deep rivalries among
resistance factions and between resistance forces and various tribal militias.
Often information about the location of mines is in the hands of individual
commanders. If a commander dies, the information dies with him.127 In general,
mines placed without customary precautions, and which are unrecorded,
unmarked, or which are not designated to destroy themselves within a reasonable
time, may also be blind weapons in relation to time, and are thus prohibited.128
Contact land mines may also violate prohibitions on the use of weapons "the
primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population."129

The most explicit source of international law governing the use of land
mines and booby traps is the Land Mines Protocol, part of a 1981 U.N. Convention.130
The basic purpose of the protocol is to give effect to two fundamental customary
principles of the laws of war, namely that (1) the right of the parties to an armed
conflict to adopt methods or means of warfare is not unlimited, and (2) that the
use of weapons, projectiles, or materials calculated to cause superfluous injury
or unnecessary suffering is prohibited. Another customary principle of the laws of
war -- the protection of the civilian population against the effects of hostilities -- is
cited in the Convention as well. These international principles are expressly
recognized in United Nations Resolution 2444.

The Land Mines Protocol calls upon combatants to warn civilians of the
placement of land mines whenever possible. Since many of the provisions of the
Land Mines Protocol embody, reaffirm, or implement these same principles, the
forces of both the government of Afghanistan and the Afghan resistance should
regard those provisions, independent of that instrument, as part of the customary
laws of war which mutually binds them in their conduct of hostilities, even though

127
Interview with Rae McGrath, head of the non-governmental Mines Advisory Group in
Peshawar, July 5, 1990.
128
Bothe, Partsch and Solf, New Rules, p. 305.
129
Protocol I, Article 51(2).
130
See fn. 7.

53
the government of Afghanistan has not signed the covenant or the protocol.

The thousands131 of anti-personnel land mines in Afghanistan placed by

the Soviets were often deliberately aimed at the civilian population and were not
for any military objectives, in clear violation of the laws of war. During sweeps
through the countryside, Soviet troops left mines in food bins and other parts of
houses, in mosques, on roads and in grazing areas.132

During the Soviet participation in the conflict, thousands of "butterfly"133

mines, known technically as PFM-1 and PFM-1s, were randomly disseminated by
helicopter over large areas of the country.134 Because the mine is so lightweight, it
is easily carried by rain or melting snow; there are no records for the locations of
these mines, nor is there any idea how many there may be. The method by which
the mines were disseminated violates of the Land Mines Protocol because it is not
possible for "measures [to be] taken to protect civilians from their effects, for
example, the posting of warning signs, the posting of sentries, the issue of
warnings or the provision of fences."135

According to Asia Watch sources in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the

butterfly mines have not been dropped since the Soviet withdrawal;136 however, of
the thousands that were, most are still active because the PFM-1, which was more

131
There is no accurate estimate of the number of active mines in Afghanistan. Estimates
range as high as three million; but the number is at least in the tens of thousands, making
Afghanistan potentially the largest minefield in the world.
132
See Laber and Rubin, pp. 42-48; Tears, Blood and Cries, pp. 55-63; To Die in Afghanistan,
pp. 33-39; and By All Parties to the Conflict, pp. 26-30.
133
The mine is called a butterfly because of its two plastic wings that enables it to flutter
to the ground.
134
The Mi-8 helicopters used in these operations generally disseminated the mines in
units carrying 144 mines in foil packets of 12 mines each which scattered the mines over a
wide area. The Mi-8 helicopters were usually fitted with two such units. The PFM-1 and PFM-
1s were also disseminated by fixed-wing aircraft and by artillery fire in plastic packets
containing some 20 mines which were launched by a 240 mm. mortar, scattering the mines
randomly up to a distance of 200 meters on impact. Letter from Rae McGrath to Asia Watch,
January 23, 1991.
135
Land Mines Protocol, Article 4(2)(b).
136
Rae McGrath, letter to Asia Watch, November 19, 1990.

54
widely used, has no built-in self-destruct mechanism.137 The Soviets have claimed
that the PFM-1s self-detonates after six months; however, mine experts have not
been able to confirm this.138

According to Rae McGrath, head of the non-governmental Mines Advisory

Group in Peshawar, the greatest hazards to non-combatants derive from other
land mines, including the PMN, the PMD and the POMZ-2 anti-personnel devices.139
As to these, "there have been very few attempts to mark those mined areas where
marking would have been possible by either Soviet or regime [Afghan
government] forces."140 Afghan government officials told Asia Watch that they
possess maps showing where Soviet forces planted mines. Yet they have not
engaged in efforts to inform civilians in those areas where the mines are
located.141

Among the mines planted by the resistance forces, one of the most lethal
goes by the name Technovar. It is an all plastic mine of Italian design
manufactured without license in Egypt. Purchased with American funds, it has
been supplied to the resistance by the ISI. Because it is entirely plastic, it is
undetectable by mine detectors. The firing pin and spring are made of metal but
even these are masked by a rubber ring. The Technovar anti-personnel mines are
designed to maim; the anti-vehicular can destroy a tank. The latter contains six

137
Rae McGrath, letter to Asia Watch, January 23, 1991.
138
Some experts believe that the PFM-1s may self-destruct in some cases but only
because of a design flaw that may cause one spring to expand faster than the other when
exposed to heat. Interview at the HALO Trust, Kabul, July 27, 1990.
139
The PMD and PMN are pressure-detonated land mines of a basic box-like design; the
POMZ is attached to a trip wire. Other mines that have been used in large numbers are the
OZM and OZM-3 "bounding" mines which are lethal because when they explode they take off
the upper part of the body. They are considered "anti-morale" weapons. Interview with Rae
McGrath in Peshawar, July 5, 1990.
140
Rae McGrath, letter to Asia Watch, November 19, 1990.
141
Interview with the Ambassador of Afghanistan to the U.N., Noor Ahmad Noor, and
Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdul Wakil, in New York, October 5, 1990. On December 11, 1990,
President Najibullah inaugurated a "National Commission for Clearing Mines and
Unexploded Ordnance from the Lands of the Republic of Afghanistan" under the
chairmanship of Prime Minister Fazl Haq Khaliqyar. Asia Watch has no information on the
activities of the commission to date.

55
kilograms of high explosives, and the most frequent casualties have been civilian
trucks.142

Mines have been dug up and sold or hoarded for later use. Refugees
have reported that in order to avoid minefields, they must obtain the assistance of
local resistance leaders in each area through which they travel. A demining
expert told Asia Watch that the nature of old tribal conflicts would be completely
changed this way, as such groups gain the ability to seal off whole areas and
major roads.143

Demining Programs

The first major program to clear Afghanistan's minefields was launched

by the United Nations in 1989. Headed by former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General
Benon Savan, the Office of the Coordinator for Afghanistan (UNOCA),144 based in
Pakistan, has focused primarily on training Afghans in mine awareness and
clearance. Unfortunately, until now, efforts have been slow to achieve results,
largely because of continued fighting in parts of the country and because of the
lack of a coordinated plan among U.N. agencies and officials overseeing the
program. Independent projects, including the Mines Advisory Group based in
Peshawar, have had more success in conducting reliable surveys and training
teams to destroy mines. In Kabul, an independent British organization known as
the HALO Trust has also begun a mine awareness program and has carried out a
pilot clearance project to test the accuracy of Soviet maps.145

142
Interview with Rae McGrath, in Peshawar, July 5, 1990.
143
Ibid.
144
Until November 1990, the program was headed by Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan.
145
The maps that have been tested so far have reportedly proved generally reliable;
however, they are not available for most of the country's minefields. Interview at HALO Trust,
Kabul, July 27, 1990.

56
IV. HUMAN RIGHTS IN AREAS OF AFGHANISTAN UNDER THE CONTROL
OF THE REPUBLIC OF AFGHANISTAN

At the time of the Asia Watch visit to Kabul in mid-1990, the government's
major efforts at reforming Afghanistan's constitution to provide for greater
protections for civil liberties were barely three months old. It is premature,
therefore, to attempt to measure fully any progress made toward reform. The
areas in which changes have been measured, including improvements in prison
conditions, were the result of earlier decisions.146 While the government was
eager to demonstrate to Asia Watch its commitment to a more open society, it was
too early to tell whether the reforms would be implemented as planned or, indeed,
whether the government in Kabul could effect meaningful change beyond the
cities. In some cases, the proposed reforms introduce concepts new to the legal
culture of Afghanistan, including the right to defense counsel, which would take
time to root, not only in Afghanistan's legal institutions, but in the minds of the
Afghan people. More important, it was clear that the proposed reforms could not
by themselves create a climate in which Afghan citizens would feel free to
exercise these rights without fear of reprisal.

While arbitrary arrests are less frequent than in the past, there are few
safeguards to prevent illegal detention. Detainees have been held for periods of
several weeks or longer before being produced before a judicial authority; family
members are not informed of the detainee's whereabouts. Despite changes to the
1990 Constitution which guarantee the rights of fair trial and access to defense
counsel, trials, which are often summary proceedings, still fall short of
international standards of due process. The accused seldom has access to
counsel and is given little time to prepare a defense.

Prison conditions for sentenced prisoners have improved, but conditions

for detainees under investigation remain precarious. The severe overcrowding

146
The most important of these was the decision in 1988 to grant the ICRC access to
sentenced prisoners.

61
that was common under the Soviets has eased. The practice of torture, which had
been systematic and widespread, has also declined but some forms of torture and
mistreatment persist.

Restrictions on freedom of association and freedom of speech have

prevented the formation of genuine opposition political parties and an opposition
press. Limited criticism of the government is permitted; however, editors
routinely practice self-censorship and the Ministry of State Security forces
maintain surveillance of faculty and students at Kabul University.

On May 4, the state of emergency, which had been imposed following the
withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country, was lifted.147 The lifting of the
emergency paved the way for other changes. Between May 27-29, 1990, the
government convened a loya jirga, or supreme council, to ratify constitutional
changes proposed by the government. The loya jirga was reportedly made up of
772 participants including the vice-presidents, National Assembly chairmen and
members, other government officials, and religious and political figures
appointed by the government. The loya jirga also included a number of
representatives from the provinces, apparently chosen by the government.

The most important changes ratified by the loya jirga included a stated
commitment to "political pluralism," ending the People's Democratic Party of
Afghanistan's (PDPA) monopoly on power. The constitution was also amended to
designate the Republic of Afghanistan as an Islamic state. On June 27, 1990, the
PDPA convened an extraordinary party congress, the second in its history, at
which it renamed itself the Watan (Homeland) Party, renouncing its historical
commitment to Marxism and recasting itself as a party of national reconciliation.

At the time of the Asia Watch visit, the implementing legislation for many
of the reforms in the amended Constitution remained in the drafting stage. For
example, the law on political parties had not yet been ratified, nor had legislation
on legal aid -- a law that would apparently provide for the training of defense

147
Under the State of Emergency, President Najibullah's formally acquired increased
powers; however, according to the report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan, the
State of Emergency did not bring about "significant change" in human rights conditions.
See Felix Ermacora, "Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan," Report to the General
Assembly of the United Nations, U.N.A/44/669, October 30, 1989, p. 10.

62
attorneys.148 Where such legislation does exist, as with the laws governing
assemblies, demonstrations and strikes, it is discussed below.

Although political parties are now officially permitted, none yet exist
which might challenge President Najibullah's right to remain in power;
government officials made it clear that opposition parties that would take such a
position would not be considered peaceful and therefore would not be allowed, for
example, to hold demonstrations. Almost all of the parties that have formed are
closely aligned with the ruling Watan party; associations that might constitute
more genuine opposition parties were reluctant to establish themselves as such
out of fear of reprisal.

Controls on the press have been relaxed, but as of mid-1990, there were
no truly independent newspapers in Kabul, and editors routinely practice strict
self-censorship. The government also has retained complete control of radio and
television. Criticism of the government does appear in the press but is limited and
does not extend, for example, to calls for the government to resign. By not
encouraging the establishment of private presses and publishing houses, the
government dissuades those seeking opportunities for a free press to develop.

Although the rigid controls that had governed university life have been
largely dismantled, professors and teachers are still restricted in what they may
teach. Ministry of State Security forces maintain some surveillance of students
and professors on the campus and in the classroom.

The practice of arbitrary house searches and mass arrests of dissidents

that was common under the Soviets appears to have decreased. Most detainees
apparently are arrested because of their alleged involvement with one of the
guerrilla factions, but merely voicing criticism of the government is no longer a
common basis for arrest. Large-scale amnesties have resulted in the releases of
thousands of political prisoners.

The 1990 Constitution guarantees both the right to counsel and to fair
trial -- rights that were never fully recognized even before the April 1978 revolution

148
According to Abdul Karim Shahdan, Chairman of the National Security Court, the law on
defense counsel has been submitted to the National Assembly. Letter to Asia Watch,
November 11, 1990.

63
-- but as yet these new rights are little respected in practice. Trials of persons
charged with political crimes are conducted by the National Security Court which
gives the accused scant opportunity to prepare a defense. At the time of the Asia
Watch mission, the government was reportedly preparing legislation to provide
legal training for defense attorneys; however, other changes are necessary to
bring trials into conformity with international standards of fair trial. Among these,
the powers of the attorney general must be strengthened if that office is to act as a
safeguard against illegal detention and if it is to provide a check against abuses
by militia commanders allied with the government who also hold prisoners.

While the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has access to
all sentenced prisoners; it does not have access to those under interrogation. In
August 1990, Asia Watch visited the Sedarat detention center in Kabul -- the first
such visit by a human rights organization. Although we were not able to interview
detainees in private, Asia Watch has received credible reports of torture and
mistreatment of detainees during interrogation. Access to prisoners is an
important means of curbing such abuses against detainees, as the confidential
reports by the ICRC to top government officials insure that they are made
personally aware of cruel practices and, thereby, cannot evade their own
responsibility for torture and other mistreatment.

Freedom of Association and Assembly

Reforms promulgated by the government under the 1990 Constitution

remove prohibitions on the formation of opposition parties and other associations
not officially sanctioned by the government. Under the new law on public
assembly, demonstrations and strikes are permitted so long as they are peaceful,
i.e. they do not "violate public rights and public security" and are "not against
national unity or the constitution." As with other reforms, these restrictions may
still be interpreted to prohibit peaceful gatherings and may proscribe
associations that represent a genuine political challenge to the government.
While the reforms have had the effect of permitting some organizations to form
and to voice limited criticism of the government, no opposition political parties
have yet formed, and the other associations that have been organized are self-
consciously circumspect in their public criticism out of fear of losing the limited

64
freedom they possess at present.

The law legalizing political parties marks an important point in the

history of constitutional reform in Afghanistan. The first legislation to legalize
political parties in 1963 was never signed by Zaher Shah; however, the
parliamentary system he instituted provided the climate for the formation of a
number of political organizations, including the PDPA. Other Marxist and Maoist
groups also formed at that time, as did a number of Islamic radical149 and
nationalist groups. Under Article 126 of the 1964 Constitution, the government
was to prepare "ordinances relating to elections, basic organization of the state,
the press, and judicial organization and jurisdiction [and] ... to prepare draft bills
relating to political parties and Provincial Councils, and submit them to
Parliament."150 Political parties were not allowed to participate in the elections to
choose that parliament, however, nor the one that followed in 1969.

Several months after the 1978 coup, when the Khalqis under Nur
Mohammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin seized power from Daoud Khan, persons
associated with political organizations and with virtually every other social group
were arrested and thousands of them executed.

Those arrested and killed included political leaders of the New

Democracy period; Daoud's family and other members of the royal
family; religious scholars and spiritual leaders; high school teachers
and students; university professors and students, including leading
scholars; lawyers and judges; government and diplomatic officials;
military officers; Parchamis, Maoists, Social Democrats, and members of
Islamic political organizations; Hazaras and Nuristanis.151

As Olivier Roy states, "The goal was clear: to cause the 'old' Afghanistan
to disappear, by dissolving the social structures and uprooting them from the
memory of a whole people."152

149
These groups, including the Jamiat-e Islami and Hezb-e Islami, formed the core of the
armed resistance after 1978.
150
Louis Dupree, Afghanistan, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 1980), p. 584.
151
Laber and Rubin, p. 6.
152
Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge
University Press, 1985), p.97.

65
 Political Parties

The 1990 Constitution also removes from the PDPA the pre-eminent
position it has held in the government since the revolution. Instead the party153
officially has only the status of any other party in a system the government now
describes as pluralistic. At the time of the Asia Watch visit, a number of cabinet
positions were not filled by party members, including the posts of the Prime
Minister, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of
Communications. Other positions, including all judges and the Attorney General,
cannot be filled by party members. The most important cabinet positions,
however, including that of the President, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of
Defense, Minister of State Security and Minister of the Interior are still filled by
party members. The Watan party has a membership of 174,000 according to one
Central Committee member.154 Although this membership is said to include
persons from the major ethnic communities,155 the leadership of the PDPA has
traditionally been Pashtun,156 and this remains the case.

Since June 1989, parties have been allowed to register with the
government. According to government officials, the registration process includes
a disclosure of the "goals and objectives" of the group, as well as its finances. Of
the parties which had registered as of August 1990, however, none can be
considered genuinely independent. Instead, they represent interest groups long
associated with the PDPA, including youth associations and trade unions such as
the National Union of Afghanistan Farmers, and the Afghanistan Workers Vanguard
Party.157

153
At the Second Congress of the PDPA in June 1990 the party renamed itself the Watan, or
"Homeland" party.
154
Interview with Zahir Tannin in Kabul, July 26, 1990.
155
One Central Committee member told Asia Watch that the party's current membership
was 46% Pashtun, 48% Tajik, Turkoman and Uzbek, 3% Hazara and 3% other. Interview with
Zahir Tannin in Kabul, July 22, 1990. Asia Watch has no way of verifying these figures.
156
However, Parchami Pashtuns are largely Persian-speakers from Kabul; Khalqis are
rural Pashto speakers.
157
A complete list of political parties appears in Appendix B.

66
 The one possible exception is the SAZA party, recently renamed the
Afghanistan Democracy Movement, which represents interests from the north,
especially the Tajik ethnic group.158 During a vote of confidence in the loya jirga, a
SAZA representative159 reportedly criticized Najibullah's government and the party
in terms that formerly would have resulted in certain imprisonment. Instead, the
debate was reportedly broadcast live over state-run television and no action was
taken against the SAZA member.160

The existence of the National Salvation Society (NSS), an organization of

retired university professors, government officials and military officers formerly
associated with the monarchy represents a more accurate measure of the
government's tolerance for opposition views. The organization, which was
founded in September 1989, describes itself as "independent, impartial and non-
aligned." It has made recommendations to the government regarding a
transitional government and elections, and has also called for a cut-off of arms
supplies to all parties.161 Because the organization makes no claim on political
power, it poses no real threat to the ruling party's hold on power, which in part may
explain the government's tolerance.

Government officials told Asia Watch that there are no restrictions which
would prohibit any group or individual from forming a party -- even the radical
mujahidin leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar -- so long as he renounced violence.162
However, it is clear that unwritten restrictions still prevent the formation of
parties that might pose a genuine challenge to the government's policies. In June
1989, all of the founding members of one opposition party, the National Unity Party,
were arrested apparently just as they were preparing the required papers to
register their organization.163 The government accused the party of having links to

158
The SAZA party, also known as the Setam-e-Melli, reportedly has Maoist leanings and
endorses Tajik and Uzbek separatism.
159
This was reportedly former Justice Minister Baghlani.
160
Interview with Foreign Minister Abdul Wakil, July 26, 1990.
161
Declaration of Intent by National Salvation Society; and "Open Letter by the National
Salvation Society of Afghanistan Addressed to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the USSR
and the USA." July 11, 1990.
162
Interview with the Ambassador of Afghanistan to the U.N., Noor Ahmad Noor, and
Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdul Wakil, in New York, October 5, 1990.
163
For a discussion of the arrest, see pp. 88-90.

67
mujahidin factions; later in the year all but one of those arrested were released.164
As long as there is a likelihood of similar reprisals, other opposition groups
remain understandably reluctant to organize into political parties.

Demonstrations and Strikes

The reforms specify a number of guidelines for holding public

gatherings and demonstrations. These guidelines also may be used to prohibit
certain opposition groups and activities. For example, the organizer of any
demonstration, like the organizer of any political party, must inform officials by
letter of the "goal and objectives" of the event.165 Government officials told Asia
Watch that groups that were "not peaceful" would not be permitted to
demonstrate. When Asia Watch asked the Minister of the Interior whether a
political party would be allowed to publicly call for President Najibullah's
resignation, he responded, "Those who would raise this are against maintaining
peace. Only our enemies would raise such questions."166

The guidelines provide for the dispersing of demonstrations which turn

violent; however, they also state that gatherings may be dispersed if the
participants "deliver destructive speech[es] or shout slogans against the
security forces and public regulations." The guidelines authorize the use of force
only after the authorities attempt to end a violent demonstration by first issuing
warnings, "leading the demonstration to a safe location," "spraying water," or
"setting up barriers."

The law on strikes follows the same guidelines, also requiring "the
organizer of the strike ... to notify the management by written notice." Failure to do
so incurs a fine or prison sentence; failure to disperse when a warning is given is
considered a criminal offense. In addition, demonstrators who "violate the law by
resorting to speech, shouting slogans, distributing manuscripts or pictures, will
be punished according to the law." However, the law explicitly permits press
coverage of all demonstrations and strikes. Members of the armed forces and
children under 18 are not permitted to participate in demonstrations or strikes.

164
Amnesty International, "Urgent Action," May 22, 1990. AI Index: ASA 11/08/90.
165
Interview with Minister of the Interior Raz Mohammad Pakteen, July 24, 1990.
166
Ibid.

68
Freedom of Expression

Freedom of the Press

In 1990, the government promulgated a number of reforms which on

paper provided for a partial relaxation of the strict censorship controls that have
restricted freedom of the press and prevented the establishment of independent
publications in Afghanistan. The 1990 Constitution prohibits "pre-censorship"
under Article 49, and guarantees the right of freedom of speech "within the
provisions of the law." However, despite evidence that the reforms have had the
effect of permitting some limited criticism of the government, the rights of
freedom of speech and freedom of the press remain circumscribed.

Freedom of the press has never received adequate protection in

Afghanistan. The 1931 Constitution was the first to provide for nominal freedom of
the press, but in fact the government maintained complete control over it. In 1949,
laws protecting freedom of the press were passed by Parliament, but when
opposition papers began to publish, they were banned and the editors arrested.
The 1964 Constitution again provided for limited freedom of the press. The limits
to that freedom were enunciated in the 1965 Press Law which stated among its
objectives "safeguarding public security and order the interest and dignity of the
State and individuals from harms which they may be subjected to by the misuse of
freedom of press," and "safeguarding the fundamentals of Islam, constitutional
monarchy and the other values enshrined in the Constitution."167

Nevertheless, a number of independent publications began publishing in

1965, among them Khalq, published by Nur Mohammad Taraki, and Afghan
Mellat.168 These and other publications were subject to government restrictions:
Afghan Mellat was banned repeatedly in the late 1960s, and Khalq was closed
less than a month after it began publishing, accused of being "anti-Islamic and
anti-constitutional." Gahiz, the "Voice of the Islamic Movement," was closed for its

167
Dupree, pp. 608-9, fn. 8.
168
This was the publication of Afghan Mellat, a nationalist organization made up of
Pashtun professionals that characterized itself as social democratic but was accused of
"Maoist" leanings.

69
"anti-leftist" views. Parcham was permitted to publish for 14 months, from March
1968 until July 1969, but was finally banned along with several other publications
during the 1969 elections. Many others were closed for their "anti-government"
views.169 The Press Law also banned the publication of any material that implied
"defamation of the principles of Islam" or that was "defamatory to the King."
"Incitement to disobey the country's laws ... [or] disrupt public security,"
"publication of false or distorted news," and "publication of matters with a view to
weakening the Afghan army" were also prohibited.170 By 1972, all of the major
opposition papers had been banned.

Following the April 1978 coup, the government under Taraki seized
control of the country's newspapers and magazines. Among the thousands of
persons arrested during this period, many of whom subsequently disappeared or
were summarily executed, were writers and other intellectuals who were actual
or potential opponents of the PDPA. The suppression of freedom of expression
continued under the Soviets during the government of Babrak Karmal. Soviet
advisers helped enforce strict controls at the government news agency, Bakhtar,
the Kabul New Times and Radio Kabul. All other publications were subject to strict
censorship. Hundreds of writers, journalists, university professors were arrested
for expressing views critical of the government.

At the time of the Asia Watch mission in mid-1990, communications

remained almost entirely under state control. The electronic media continued to
be run as a state monopoly, with little scope for opposition views. Asia Watch was
informed of only one occasion in which criticism of the government was aired on
Kabul Radio and Television: on May 28-29, 1990, the proceedings of the National
Assembly were broadcast live, including criticism of the government and the
party by some of the delegates. Although government officials have stated that
they would allow other parties access to the broadcast media, Asia Watch knows
of no instance in which they have actually done so.

No genuinely independent newspapers publish in Afghanistan. In

addition to the government-run Kabul New Times, a number of smaller newspaper
and magazines have begun publishing, but these are still subject to government
control. Nor can they be considered independent: for example, the editor of

169
See list of publications and reasons for closure in Dupree, pp. 600-619.
170
Ibid, p. 608, fn.8.

70
Akhbar-e Hafta (News of the Week) -- a magazine which describes itself as
independent is also a newly elected member of the central committee of the
Watan Party. Still, the new reforms have permitted these publications to publish
limited criticisms of the government. The editor of Akhbar-e Hafta cited to Asia
Watch the following as examples:171

C In 1990, the magazine reprinted in full a Washington Post article on the

March 1990 coup attempt; an International Herald Tribune article by
Selig Harrison on the coup attempt and a New York Times Magazine cover
article by John Burns on Afghanistan. Akhbar-e Hafta also printed
material from CBS, and the BBC World Service, and an interview with the
local BBC correspondent. In each case, however, the information that
was published was generally favorable to the government.

C The magazine quoted the mujahidin leader Mojaddidi's statement that

"military pressure had to be maintained" on the Najibullah government
"so that economic conditions would worsen and bring down the
government."

C In April 1990, the magazine published 13 articles on the subject of

national leadership, debating the qualities of President Najibullah and
ex-king Zaher Shah. Smaller space was allotted to articles on the
Pakistan-based mujahidin leaders and none to mujahidin commanders.
One article included in the series considered the argument that
Najibullah should step down. However, the article concluded by
endorsing Najibullah's position.

C In October 1989, the magazine came under heavy pressure from some
government officials over an article on the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan. However, the article was published and sold for Afs. 2,000
(U.S.$4 in mid-1990) in the market, despite the Afs. 20 cover price. In June
1990, the editor gave an interview describing the invitation to the Soviet
troops to enter Afghanistan as "a crime."

In a gesture that seemed indicative of the government's heightened

sensitivity to outside views, during the Asia Watch visit, the Watan Party

171
Interview with Zahir Tannin in Kabul, July 26, 1990.

71
newspaper Payam reported on discussions in which Asia Watch took part and
cited Asia Watch's concerns about human rights in Afghanistan. While these
examples reflect more openness than existed previously, they also support the
government's reform measures and general political posture and do not push
much further. One editor also complained that there is no way to compel a
positive government response, even to this limited criticism.172

Material considered to be "outside the framework of the constitution" or

"against Islam" is subject to censorship. Precisely what this means is not spelled
out; rather, the restrictions are sufficiently vague to ensure that writers continue
to practice self-censorship. One editor informed Asia Watch that while his
newspaper has been able to report the views of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the
reporting was limited to those views which "do not provoke censorship." Anything
considered to be "war propaganda" is censored. Foreign newspapers and
magazines are not available for purchase in Kabul, although they are circulated in
limited quantities within government circles.

Other restrictions obstruct the establishment of independent

publications. The government owns and manages the only publishing house in
the country (which was also the case before the April 1978 coup) and has a
monopoly on the supply of newsprint. The means for transporting and distributing
the printed copies is also almost entirely controlled by the government. Under the
Constitution, free printing facilities are to be provided for independent
publications, but the implementing legislation has not yet been enacted. Asia
Watch was informed that negotiations to establish private printing houses,
including one partially funded by the Iranian government and one supported by an
Afghan business interest, are underway, but we had no way of confirming these
reports. High printing charges, and the cost of obtaining a license may also hinder
the establishment of independent publications.

Independent groups such as the National Salvation Society (NSS) have

been permitted to print documents at the government printing press and to
circulate them widely.173 While far from radical, the NSS has criticized the
government and called for reforms that go beyond what Najibullah's government

172
Interview in Kabul, July 26, 1990.
173
Critics of the NSS have cited this as evidence that the organization cannot be effective
as a government critic.

72
has instituted.

Foreign Journalists

Since 1986, foreign correspondents have been permitted access to

areas in Afghanistan under government control.174 A number of foreign news
services also post correspondents in Kabul. Until 1989, journalists were
restricted in their ability to move around the city without government escort;
since then they have generally had free access to travel within Kabul. However,
telex and telephone lines used by them are monitored by the Ministry of State
Security.175

Journalists who have entered the cities in the company of the mujahidin,
or who have been arrested along with suspected guerrillas, have been tried for
spying and have been imprisoned. Asia Watch is aware of the following arrests
since 1988:

C On August 1, 1989, Jorge Juan Sanchez Garcia, a journalist with the

Barcelona-based magazine Ajoblanco, was arrested after entering
Afghanistan with members of a mujahidin group. On October 15, he was
sentenced to five years imprisonment on charges of entering the country
illegally and "collecting anti-government propaganda." He was released
on November 11, 1989, after an appeal by Spanish Prime Minister Felipe
Gonzalez.176

C In 1989, Abdul Rahman, a Saudi journalist, was arrested along with an

Egyptian journalist, Hisamuddin Mehmud. Abdul Rahman was released

174
Visas for journalists, as for other visitors, are limited to one month. Asia Watch
interviewed journalists in Kabul who told us that visas are not formally renewed, although
journalists are generally allowed to stay on after the expiration without difficulty. Some
journalists believe the government does this in order to have an excuse to deport them if
they are too critical. While Asia Watch knows of no case where this has happened, the
possibility of expulsion may make journalists circumscribe their reporting. Interviews with
foreign correspondents in Kabul, July 20, 1990, and in Washington D.C., January 12, 1991.
175
Ibid.
176
See Committee to Protect Journalists, Update #38, May 1990, p. 3.

73
 on March 2, 1990. Hisamuddin Mehmud was charged with "participating
in an armed revolt against the government along with extremists" and
sentenced to 20 years. He has been imprisoned in Pol-e-Charkhi.

C Abdul Rahman Qatib (or Khatib), a Jordanian cameraman, formerly with

Al-Buniyan, was arrested while filming the siege of Jalalabad in February
or March of 1989. His whereabouts are unknown.

C Tony O'Brien, an American journalist on assignment with Life magazine,

was arrested on June 4, 1989, after entering Kabul with members of a
mujahidin group. He was detained in Pol-e Charkhi and released on July
21.

C Syed Abdul Samad and Mohammad Nazar were tried and convicted of
spying and "avoiding the military service" in January 1988 after they
entered Afghanistan illegally with Alain Guillo, a French journalist who
was also captured but was released in May 1988 after an appeal by
French President Francois Mitterand. Samad and Nazar were sentenced
to 16 years imprisonment. According to Guillo, they were accompanying
him as bodyguard and translator.177

Freedom of Speech

Under the Soviets, strict control of the press extended to informal means
of communication. Helsinki Watch and Asia Watch reports described the
restrictions which at that time prohibited the circulation of any literature critical
of the government:

Because all legal channels for publishing literature of protest are closed
off, the residents of Kabul and other cities in Afghanistan have turned to
clandestine literature. The most common form is the pamphlet or "night
letter" (shab nameh), mimeographed or copied by hand and secretly left
in public places. Distribution or even possession of anti-regime "night
letters" is a crime in Afghanistan. Many high school and college
students have been arrested, tortured and sentenced to prison terms of

177
See Appendix C.

74
 several years for possession or distribution of such pamphlets.178

Although the mass arrests and disappearances associated with the

repression of free speech under the Soviets have ended, the fear of reprisal still
acts as a deterrent for ordinary Afghans. Afghans in Kabul expressed fear of
openly criticizing the government because they believed that the secret police
forces of the Ministry of State Security (WAD, or as is still known more commonly,
KHAD179) continues to use informants to gather intelligence on suspected
opponents of the government. One man arrested during the March 1990 coup
attempt told Asia Watch that during his interrogation, WAD officials used
statements he had made in private as evidence of his links to rebel groups and
foreign agents:

They accused me of being an enemy of the government, a member of the

mujahidin, a CIA agent, and an Iranian spy. They used my own words
against me, saying, 'You have said there is no democracy in
Afghanistan.'180

Security laws in force also restrict freedom of speech. For example, in

March 1989, Mawlavi Abdul Rauf, the imam of the Pol-e Kheshti mosque in Kabul
was arrested after he delivered a sermon in which he reportedly criticized
President Najibullah, saying "You have done nothing for your Creator, so you
cannot do anything for his creatures."181 He was released by presidential decree
after seven months' imprisonment; the decree acknowledged that the arrest had
been a "mistake."182 Despite this admission and the constitutional reforms that
permit "free speech and assembly," restrictions on the exercise of these rights
and the threat of arrest remain for anyone who might openly call the government

178
Laber and Rubin, p. 109. See also the Helsinki Watch and Asia Watch reports cited in fn.
1.
179
KHAD stands for Khademat-e Ettela'at-e Dawlati, (State Information Service), the secret
police, which was organized by the Soviet KGB in 1980, under the Prime Minister's office. In
1986 it became a full ministry, and its name was changed to WAD (Wazarat-e Amaneyat-e
Dawlati). The head of KHAD/WAD has always been a Politburo member of the PDPA/Watan
Party.
180
Interview in Kabul, July 31, 1990.
181
Amnesty International, Report 1990, (London: Amnesty International, 1990), p. 27.
182
U.N. Report, October 1989, p. 12.

75
to step down. A group or political party that would do so would not be considered
peaceful.183

Academic Freedom

Before the April 1978 coup, Afghanistan had one university in Kabul and a
medical college in Jalalabad. At present only Kabul University continues to
function. In the 12 years of war, some 70 percent of its faculty have been
imprisoned or killed or are living in exile abroad.184 Since 1989, the university has
been closed on a number of occasions -- sometimes for weeks on end -- because
of dangers posed by mujahidin rocket attacks.185

Under the Soviets, all aspects of academic life came under the control of
the state. Faculty appointments were made on the basis of party loyalty rather
than academic qualifications. Soviet staff also replaced Afghan professors,
although according to former and current university professors interviewed by
Asia Watch, very few were qualified to be instructors, and few had the language
skills to teach. Thousands of books were confiscated or destroyed, particularly
those from Western countries and those in English. Professors were made to
accept deliveries of hundreds of Soviet books, regardless of whether they wanted
them or could use them.186

Students were also pressured to join the party and to study in the Soviet
Union. The schools and universities were infiltrated by agents of KHAD who kept
students, teachers and professors under surveillance. Professors who resisted
efforts to change the curriculum to conform to official ideology, and students who
attempted to organize protests or circulate night letters were taken in for
interrogation and torture by the KHAD.

Since June 1989, the government has instituted a number of reforms that
have created a marginally more open atmosphere at the university. However,

183
See p. 69.
184
See Laber and Rubin, p. 115.
185
Interview with Kabul University professor during visit to campus, August 1, 1990. At the
time of this interview, the campus was closed because of heavy rocketing by the mujahidin.
186
Ibid.

76
serious obstacles to academic freedom and freedom of expression remain, not
the least of which is the climate of fear created by 12 years of repression.

In June 1989, following an impromptu meeting between a number of

faculty members from Kabul University and President Najibullah,187 reforms were
instituted to replace the system of appointment with elections for the positions of
dean and rector and for the members of the council. A secret ballot vote to elect
these officers had been the rule before 1978 coup.188

Surveillance of university professors and students by state security

agents continues, although there are indications that it is not as pervasive as
before. University staff interviewed by Asia Watch stated that until a year ago, they
were followed everywhere by WAD agents. Although the surveillance has
apparently been reduced, WAD informants posing as students are still present on
campus.189

Until January 1990, certain compulsory subjects in philosophy and

political economy were still determined by the government. Since then, decisions
about curricula have been returned to individual departments and the university
rector, and there has been a relaxation in ideological orthodoxy. However, certain
subjects remain taboo, particularly in political science and history, because
faculty members fear that WAD agents will inform on them. Moreover, students

187
Ibid. In June 1989, a number of faculty members were brought in to the Foreign Ministry
to meet with Najibullah when the bus in which they were returning from a memorial service
for a deceased colleague was abruptly redirected. There, according to one faculty member
who was present, President Najibullah addressed the professors and invited their criticism
about the functioning of the Education Ministry. During the discussion, a number of faculty
members were reportedly very outspoken, including the present Justice Minister Ghulam
Muhayuddin Dareez, who was a professor of law at the time. As an immediate result of the
meeting, the Minister of Higher Education was replaced. Interview with Kabul University
professor in Kabul, July 25, 1990.
188
Dupree, p. 600.
189
The Head of the Seventh Department at the Ministry of State Security (WAD) is
reportedly responsible for surveillance at the university. According to one professor
interviewed by Asia Watch, agents posing as students are identifiable because although
they carry student cards, they have not passed the entrance examination. Interview with
Kabul University professor during visit to campus, July 25, 1990.

77
are still required to spend six hours a week in military studies. Although suspect
books are no longer routinely destroyed, orders for books which do not meet the
approval of the authorities simply go unfilled, and no answer for the delay is
provided. One faculty member told Asia Watch that Kabul University has no books
published more recently than 1980.190

The Legal System

The two decades before the April 1978 coup saw Afghanistan's first
attempts at reforming a legal system that embraced both an inchoate state
structure in the cities which included the sharia (Islamic law) as part of the
written legal code, and the traditions of Islamic and tribal justice in the
countryside. With the promulgation of the 1964 Constitution, the government
attempted to reconcile the largely rural qazi (Islamic judge) system with the
standards of state law. One of the most important changes in this area was a
provision granting the judiciary the status of an "independent organ of the state"
which "discharges its duties side by side with the legislative and executive
organs."191 That independence has unfortunately never been fully realized.

According to Dupree, the judiciary had always been "semi-religious and

semi-secular, with the hundred-odd qazi ... often semi-trained, but each having the
power of life and death."192

Theoretically, the qazi made decisions under the Hanafi sharia, but in the
time of King Mohammad Nadir Shah (1929-33), law increasingly moved
into the hands of provincial administrators ... After the promulgation of
the 1964 Constitution, all legal decisions have been transferred (at least
theoretically) to the qazi, but secular law has supremacy."193

190
Ibid.
191
1964 Constitution, Title VII. See Dupree, p. 580.
192
Article 69 of the 1964 Constitution also stated that 'excepting the conditions for which
specific provisions have been made in this Constitution, a law is a resolution passed by
both houses [of Parliament] and signed by the king. In the area where no such law exists,
the provisions of the Hanafi jurisprudence of the sharia shall be considered as law.' See
Dupree, pp. 580-81.
193
Ibid, p. 579.

78
 The 1964 Constitution also established for the first time the office of the
Attorney General, which functioned as part of the executive and had the
responsibility for investigating crime and presiding over hearings and trials.194 As
part of a series of changes in the country's legal institutions after the coup in 1973,
the office was granted additional powers and was separated from the executive
as an independent organ. With the Constitution of 1987, the Attorney General's
office came directly under the president. Since then, it has had oversight not only
over national security cases but also over ordinary cases and military crimes.
According to Minister of Justice Dareez, a new amendment will bring it back under
his ministry.195

A 1965 judicial law introduced the first important reform in the area of
defendants' rights by specifying a time by which charges must be filed, and the
accused must be given a hearing. Before that, there were no such limits, and
detainees were frequently held for many months before seeing a judge.196 The
first penal code was not approved until 1976. It attempted to define crimes and
regularize punishments as a safeguard against the arbitrary nature of qazi
justice.197 Efforts were also made to provide lawyers and judges with legal training
in Europe for civil law and in Egypt for the sharia.198 All these attempts at gradual
legal reform ended with the April 1978 coup.

Following the 1978 coup the PDPA (Khalq) government of Hafizullah Amin
embarked on a campaign of terror that resulted in mass arrests and the summary
execution of political opponents; there was no due process. Lawyers and judges
were among the professional groups which were particularly targeted during this
period.199

194
Ibid, p. 584.
195
Interview with Minister of Justice Ghulam Mahuddin Dareez, July 21, 1990. All
legislation must be approved by the National Assembly.
196
Dupree, p. 582.
197
Ibid, p. 764.
198
Most lawyers were trained in the sharia at al-Azhar in Cairo; the government
disapproved of the madrassas (theological schools) in Pakistan and India.
199
According to Roy, "for this period, the aim was the total elimination of certain social
categories (the clergy and the people of influence) rather than genocide." He lists among
those killed in huge numbers the "middle-class people of influence (rather than the

79
 After December 1979, the legal system came entirely under the control of
KHAD and its Soviet advisers. Surveillance, disappearances and mass arrests
continued, and torture became a routine part of the interrogation process. Trials
were held before the KHAD's Revolutionary Court in the Sedarat detention
center:200

It is the KHAD, rather than the court, that determines innocence or guilt.
The court confirms the KHAD's "guilty" verdict and determines the
sentence in accordance with the recommendation of the KHAD.... There is
no appeal from the decision of the Revolutionary Court.201

Since the Soviet withdrawal, the numbers of arrests in government-

controlled areas appear to have declined, according to independent observers
Asia Watch interviewed in Kabul. Nevertheless, the few existing legal safeguards
appear to be inadequate to prevent arbitrary arrest.

Most arrests are still carried out by security forces under the Ministry of
State Security, the WAD. The other security force that is empowered to carry out
arrests is the police or sarandoi, which is responsible to the Ministry of the
Interior. Certain sarandoi detachments provide support for the WAD security
forces under which they have a paramilitary function.202 The sarandoi also has
responsibility for ordinary police functions, including traffic patrols and
interdiction of smuggling. The government reportedly has also retained urban
self-defense groups, associated with the party youth organizations and other
groups affiliated with the government.203 The President has his own special

aristocracy, considered to be less dangerous because cut off from the people), the 'ulama,
guardians of age-old Islamic culture, and finally young Marxist intellectuals, who might
have shown a different way toward modernity." Lawyers and judges who had been trained
in the West were killed along with others associated with the Daoud government. See Roy,
pp. 95-97.
200
Sedarat is the site of the office of the Prime Minister. Because KHAD was originally
under the authority of the Prime Minister, the central interrogation center is located in the
compound.
201
Laber and Rubin, p. 100.
202
Interview with Minister of the Interior Raz Mohammad Pakteen, July 24, 1990.
203
These were previously are known as "Groups for the Defense of the Revolution." Asia
Watch was not able to obtain information about their current designation.

80
security force, reportedly made up of elite members of the defense forces and
WAD.

Security laws continue to define crimes so broadly as to restrict the non-

violent exercise of freedom of speech and assembly. However, the decline in the
number of arrests indicates that the net is not cast as widely as it was before.
Independent sources in Kabul told Asia Watch that people now openly engage in
activities that would have led to certain arrest in the past; for example, displaying
photographs of ex-King Zaher Shah, or meeting with foreigners without prior
government permission. Most of the sentenced prisoners Asia Watch interviewed
or about whom Asia Watch received information were convicted on charges of
"being an active member of" or "participating in the military activities of" one of
the guerrilla forces at war with the government.

Access to Defense Counsel

Although the 1990 Constitution provides that every accused person has
the right to defend himself or to obtain the services of defense counsel,
Afghanistan has no tradition of legal defense; and so for most of the defendants
awaiting trial, the right is not observed. The Minister for State Security confirmed
to Asia Watch that "every accused has a right to a lawyer, but in our country the
system of defense by lawyers is not so [common]."204 According to another
government official, the shortage of lawyers has been a problem since the time of
the monarchy. "We do not have the institution of lawyers as exists in the West ...
The number of competent advocates in this country is only ten."205 This
assessment is corroborated by scholars of Afghanistan's political history.
According to Dupree, most lawyers trained in Western civil law entered the
diplomatic service, leaving very few to practice law. The government is reportedly
taking some steps to address this need. The Asia Watch delegation was told that a
law on legal aid is being drafted.206

204
Interview with Minister Yaqubi, July 24, 1990.
205
Interview with Chairman of the National Security Court Karim Shahdan, July 31, 1990.
206
Such a service is badly needed; however, the government may not be able to
effectively implement the legislation because of financial constraints.

81
 The attorney general (Saranwal) is supposed to "supervise the
investigation process from the point of arrest of the accused until the case goes
to court and the conclusion of the investigation,"207 and determine if there are
sufficient grounds for continued detention.208 He is also supposed to ensure that
the prosecution has sufficient evidence, and prepare the indictment on the basis
of that evidence. The accused is presented with a summary of the interrogation
and evidence. Although the Attorney General is also empowered to question the
legality of decisions of the courts, there was no evidence of his ever having done
so.
Government officials stated that the independence of the Attorney
General serves as a check against illegal detention and torture of detainees.209
Although the Attorney General is supposed to investigate reports of mistreatment
or illegal detention, in fact, his authority is much more limited.

An attorney from the Attorney General's office is supposed to see all

detainees within 72 hours of arrest, and ensure that the defendant "has access to
defense."210 However, detainees interviewed by Asia Watch, almost invariably

207
Interview with Attorney General Sharafuddin Sharaf, July 31, 1990.
208
Ibid, July 25, 1990. The Attorney General is an investigating magistrate on the French
model (the Faculty of Law at Kabul University was originally affiliated to the University of
Paris). According to Article 120 of the 1990 Constitution, the Attorney General has the power
of "high supervision over the implementation and uniform observance of laws" by all state
agencies, private institutions, political parties and individual citizens. Article 106 of the
1976 Constitution stated that, "The detection of crimes by the police, and the investigation,
pursuit and prosecution thereof by the Attorney General, who are part of the executive
organ, shall be conducted in accordance with the provisions of the law."
209
The Attorney General told Asia Watch that he answers only to the President and not to
any other governmental office. Interview with Attorney General Sharaf, in Kabul, July 25,
1990. The fact that the Attorney General had declined any position in the government since
1986 was cited as evidence of his independence. Interview with Foreign Minister Abdul
Wakil, in Kabul, July 26, 1990. The 1990 Constitution also states that "the attorney offices
are independent in the performance of their duties and are subject only to the law and the
Attorney General."
210
According to the Attorney General, an individual prisoner may be held for up to 72 hours
before he can be seen; if however, the accused is part of a group of people arrested and
there is "danger that evidence could be removed;" the period of detention before they may
be seen is apparently not limited. Interview in Kabul, July 31, 1990.

82
stated that they intended to defend themselves; obtaining defense counsel was
not recognized as an option. One 21-year-old prisoner, sentenced to 15 years for
participating in an "armed uprising" told Asia Watch, "I didn't want a lawyer, it
costs money."211 A prisoner who had been sentenced to 15 years for a bombing
incident said he had been told by an attorney from the Attorney General's office
that seeing a lawyer was not possible given the nature of his crime.212 Our
government translator interjected that in cases where a person is "caught red-
handed," there is no need for counsel, "although some intellectual people who
understand these things, they get a lawyer."213 When we asked whether anyone
was ever denied access to a lawyer, it was clear that for most cases, the option did
not even exist.214

The defendant is given no more than a few days to prepare a written

statement in which he or she must either accept or refute the charges and
evidence that the attorney has put forward. This is the first opportunity the
accused has to see the evidence, and the statement he or she must write
apparently constitutes the whole of the defense. Prisoners who were detained
during the Babrak Karmal years also described being told to write a written
defense after they were provided with a summary of the interrogation by security
officials.215 Government officials told Asia Watch that it was "very rare" for an
accused to provide evidence that would prove his innocence, or would
substantiate mitigating circumstances.216 None of the detainees Asia Watch
interviewed at Sedarat had been informed of their trial date, or had been told how
long they would be held for interrogation. There is no bail for detainees arrested
on suspicion of "opposition activities."

211
Interview with prisoner at Pol-e Charkhi prison, July 31, 1990.
212
Interview with prisoner at Pol-e Charkhi prison, July 31, 1990.
213
The remark was that of Ali Ahmed Joushan, one of our translators and guides from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, July 31, 1990.
214
We were also told that foreigners are sometimes provided with lawyers, and that
illiterate persons are sometimes given such assistance.
215
See Laber and Rubin, pp. 99-101. See also Amnesty International, "Afghanistan: Torture
of Political Prisoners," AI Index: ASA/11/04/86, November 1986, p. 21.
216
Interview with Abdul Karim Shahdan, Chairman of the National Security Court, July 31,
1990.

83
 Arrests During the March 1990 Coup Attempt

The absence of effective safeguards against arbitrary arrest was evident

in the mass arrests that took place following the abortive coup attempt on March
6, 1990. On that day, then Defense Minister General Shahnawaz Tanai,217 attempted
a coup d'etat against the government of President Najibullah, and quickly won the
support of Hezb-e Islami leader Hekmatyar. For some 24 hours, Kabul was the
scene of fierce fighting between forces loyal to Najibullah's government and
those backing the rebels. During that period, over 600 persons were arrested,218
according to official sources, and detained without access to family or defense
counsel for periods ranging from several days to several months. The event
underscored the fact that, despite constitutional reforms, there is as yet little
protection against arbitrary arrest.

Asia Watch interviewed Anwar,219 an employee of an international relief

organization, who was among those arrested on March 6. He was taken to the
PDPA Central Committee headquarters, where the detaining officer accused him
of trying to contact the rebels. He was detained there overnight, and the next day
taken to the Arg, the presidential palace. All his personal documents, including his
passport, were taken from him and he was not permitted to make contact with his
employers.

At the Arg, Anwar was taken to a large room where about a dozen people
were being held. He recognized most of them as the drivers of Central Committee
members who had apparently fled or had gone into hiding. Evidently, the security
forces had arrested these drivers when they were not able to locate the
committee members they suspected of involvement in the coup attempt. Anwar
was held at the Arg for 17 hours, during which time his hands were tied behind his
back and he was ordered not to speak. He was then transferred to the Sedarat
detention center, and later to Pol-e Charkhi. Anwar described his interrogation in
the WAD headquarters in Sedarat:

They started with accusations: "Are you against the government? Are you

217
Tanai is from the Khalq faction of the PDPA, historically opposed to the Parcham faction
of which President Najibullah belongs.
218
Asia Watch also received unconfirmed reports of larger numbers of arrests.
219
Not his real name.

84
 with the opposition? Are you a spy for the Iranian Embassy? Are you a spy
for the CIA.? You have paid a fee to the rebels; I have the list and your
name is on it." Finally I told them "If my name is on a list, I don't know. I am
sorry if my name has been given to you, but I am not involved."220

As was previously the case, WAD relies on informants who gather intelligence on
suspected opponents of the government. In this case, the prisoner believed he
had been informed on by WAD agents who had infiltrated his work place. He was
held for three months before being released without explanation. When he asked
for a certificate that would prove his innocence, he was refused.

Government officials told Asia Watch that, in the days following the coup
attempt, the Attorney General requested and was granted permission by the
Ministry of State Security to see all the persons who had been arrested. The
Attorney General also told Asia Watch that his representatives visited all of the
detainees within three days of arrest.221 However, if the attorney general had
genuine authority in this area, he should not need to request permission for such
visits. Asia Watch interviewed one detainee who told us that he was not seen by a
government attorney until 25 days after his arrest, and then only in the presence
of security officials. When he complained about having been illegally arrested,
the attorney told him that it was "not the right time" to raise the issue. The
detainee then pleaded to meet with the attorney in private, but the attorney
refused to do so.222

In total, 644 people were arrested following the coup attempt, according
to Minister of State Security Ghulam Yaqubi.223 Asia Watch was told that of these,
205 were reportedly released after investigation when it was determined that
they were "either not very involved or very repentant."224 The remaining 439 were
tried before a special court constituted for these cases with judges from both the
National Security Court and the military court. This court reportedly sat in the
State Security complex for three months. None of the defendants had access to a

220
Interview in Kabul, July 31, 1990.
221
Interview with Attorney General Sharafuddin Sharaf, July 25, 1990.
222
Interview in Kabul, July 31, 1990.
223
Interview in Kabul, July 24, 1990. Asia Watch has also received unconfirmed reports of
higher numbers from mujahidin sources.
224
Ibid.

85
lawyer; the Chairman of the National Security Court, Karim Shahdan, told Asia
Watch, "No lawyers would defend them, because they hate them [the coup
plotters]." He added that none of the persons accused in the coup had wanted a
lawyer.225 International law and Afghanistan's constitution guarantee the right to a
defense attorney. It is clear that the government faces difficulties in providing
attorneys due to the dearth of trained lawyers in the country. However, denying
counsel because of the nature of the crime is inexcusable.

The Arrests of the National Unity Party Members

Suspected links with mujahidin factions in Pakistan was the official

reason for the arrest in June 1989 of the founding members of the National Unity
Party (NUP). At the time of their arrest, they were apparently preparing the
required papers to register their organization under a new law on political parties.
The party's supporters have stated that the NUP, an association of university
lecturers, scientists and retired and active army officers, was committed to
seeking "to create an atmosphere for the peaceful transfer of power to a
government elected by the people of Afghanistan, and to be committed to a
campaign for civil liberties and equality between men and women."226
Independent sources Asia Watch interviewed in Kabul stated that most of the
members of the party supported the ex-King Zaher Shah and that the party formed
in 1988 in order to propose a peaceful political solution to the conflict. According
to one supporter who was arrested, among the reasons for the arrests was the
fear that the group had penetrated the military and that it had established contact
with mujahidin leaders.

One of the founding members, Mohsen Mohammad Formoly, of the

Academy of Science, was originally reported to have "disappeared" after his
arrest, but after inquiries from the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan, he was
discovered to be in detention at the Shashdarak interrogation center in Kabul.227

225
Interview with Abdul Karim Shahdan, Chairman of the National Security Court, Kabul,
July 31, 1990.
226
Amnesty International. "The Arrest of Members of the National Unity Party," January
1990, AI Index: 11/04/90.
227
U.N. Report, 1989, p. 11.

86
 In addition to those who were actually members of the party, a number of
party supporters were arrested, including Dr. Osman Rustar, a lecturer in the
faculty of law and political science. He was arrested on June 10, 1989, as he was
leaving the university in his car. Denied sleep for four consecutive days and
nights during his interrogation, he was released four weeks later.

When Asia Watch questioned Minister of State Security Ghulam Yaqubi

about the arrests, he stated that the group had "acted as an underground political
organization, without being registered," and that they were trying to "weaken the
armed forces" and were "collecting arms and explosives for an offensive and
were linked with [the radical mujahidin leader] Sayyaf." Minister Yaqubi assured
Asia Watch that "if they did not collect weapons, we would not have bothered with
them."228 In an address to the Academy of Science on July 30, 1990, President
Najibullah also stated that "some members of this [National Unity] party in their
confessions disclosed that the question of an armed uprising was raised in its
ranks," and that "arms and ammunition were recovered from a number of its
members."229 However, Asia Watch sources have indicated that the group was
entirely non-violent, and although one member of the group apparently visited
Pakistan in the months before the arrests, he had opposed the radical positions
taken by Sayyaf and some other mujahidin groups.

Most of the members of the NUP were released late in 1989. According to
official government sources, those who had been sentenced by the National
Security Court were later pardoned and released. When Asia Watch questioned
the fact that the party members were released despite the serious charge of
aiding the mujahidin, Minister Yaqubi responded, "We realized they were
repentant."230 If, in fact, the group was involved in arms smuggling, this hardly
seems a satisfactory response. Instead, it appears that the government was
reacting to international criticism of its arrest of the party members at a time
when it is trying to project an image of political pluralism and openness. When
one of those arrested was released, he was reportedly told,"We see that you are
not a fundamentalist. Our policy is only against fundamentalists."231

228
Interview with Minister of State Security Ghulam Yaqubi in Kabul, July 24, 1990.
229
Address of President Najibullah to the Academy of Science, Kabul, July 30, 1990 (as
cited by Bakhtar News Agency).
230
Interview with Minister Ghulam Yaqubi, July 24, 1990.
231
According to an Asia Watch source interviewed in Kabul on August 1, 1990, the official

87
 Trials

Political cases are tried by the National Security Court, which was
established in 1988.232 The National Security Court system comprises both
primary courts and appellate courts. All judges are appointed by the President,
after consultation with the Chairman of the National Security Court, who reports
directly to the President. Under the Constitution, neither the judges nor the
Chairman of the Court may be party members. According to government officials,
the judges appointed to the National Security Court must be graduates of either
the Faculty of Law and Political Science or the Faculty of Theology, or graduates of
a madrassa where they studied the sharia, or they must have served 12 years in a
judicial capacity. Members of the National Security Court also make up a special
judicial council of the Supreme Court. Judges and administrative staff of the
National Security Court also travel to the provinces to hold sessions.

Government officials told Asia Watch that court sessions ordinarily do

not last longer than a day, and that as many as three sessions are routinely
scheduled in a single day.233 In the past, as many as seven sessions would be held
in a day. The accused is given three to six days to prepare a defense before the
trial begins. According to Chairman of the National Security Court Abdul Karim
Shahdan, the accused is given the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses.
Although we were told that only confessions made before the court are
considered valid, in fact, any confession, including those made during initial
interrogation, may be read to the court. The accused is reportedly given the
opportunity to deny the confession, but it is nevertheless presented as evidence
for the prosecution.234

Officials also stated that in camera proceedings are permitted whenever

who said this was the head of the Seventh Department in the WAD which deals with
intellectuals who have been arrested and reportedly provides agents who pose as students
to keep university faculty and students under surveillance.
232
Prior to 1988, political cases were tried before Special Revolutionary Courts, which had
been established in 1980.
233
Interview with Chairman of the National Security Court Abdul Karim Shahdan, July 31,
1990.
234
Ibid.

88
the case involves governmental secrets; presumably, this could apply to every
"national security" case. Since defendants do not have access to lawyers or to
family members before the sentencing, and are given almost no advance notice of
the trial date, it would be difficult for anyone else to attend the trial even if access
were permitted. Some trials, however, have been televised, apparently for
propaganda purposes.

Under the State of Emergency, prisoners sentenced to less than 10 years'

imprisonment were denied the right of appeal. Government officials informed
Asia Watch that with the lifting of the Emergency on May 4, 1990, such restrictions
on the right of appeal have ended. However, prisoners arrested before the
Emergency was lifted do not benefit from the changes and are still not allowed to
appeal their sentence. The majority of these prisoners may, however, be eligible
for one of the amnesties announced by the government since 1989. According to
government officials, when the verdict is announced by the primary court, the
defendant is given a document that states the sentence. He or she has 30 days to
register an appeal of either the sentence or the verdict. The appeals court must
hear the case within three months.235

Since 1988, the government has implemented a series of amnesties for

various categories of political prisoners. Official sources told Asia Watch that
since the end of 1986, 18,000 prisoners have been amnestied.236 According to
Minister of the Interior Raz Mohammad Pakteen, 1,000 prisoners were released
between May and July 1990.237 It was not possible to verify these figures
independently, however. Among the prisoners eligible for amnesty are those who
have already served six or more years of their sentence, those aged 60 or older,
and members of the government's forces who deserted to join the opposition.

The imposition of the death penalty has been common during most of the

235
Ibid.
236
Interview with Director of Prisons Colonel Mohammad Yusuf Khetmatyar at Pol-e
Charkhi Prison, July 31, 1990. At the time of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan's
visit in 1990, official sources states that 19,514 prisoners had been amnestied under 20
general amnesty decrees, and another 366 individual amnesty decrees had been
pronounced. The report notes that "the number of incoming prisoners is less than the
number of those who are released." U.N. Report, 1990, pp. 11-12.
237
Interview with Minister of the Interior Raz Mohammad Pakteen, July 24, 1990.

89
war. Although when Babrak Karmal became President of the Democratic Republic
of Afghanistan in 1980, he stated his intention to "abolish executions under
favorable conditions,"238 throughout his presidency, the government announced
death sentences and executions. In 1980 the government announced 18
executions; in 1981, 14; in 1982, 16; and in 1983, 13. In 1984, the government
announced 68 executions and 77 death sentences; in 1985, the government
announced 40 death sentences, but stopped announcing executions. Amnesty
International believes that in each of these years "these were only a proportion of
the total number of death sentences that were imposed."239 According to former
prisoners and defecting officials and prison personnel, actual executions in these
years far outnumbered those announced. By 1987, the government stopped
announcing most death sentences and executions, but executions continued.240

Since 1989, there has been a moratorium on death sentences, according to

government officials. President Najibullah told Asia Watch that no executions
have been carried out in since 1989, and that all death sentences, which he said
numbered 21 at that time, were under review.241 However, the Pakistani papers
reported that some 54 army officers had been sentenced to death for their alleged
involvement in the March coup attempt.242 A large number of executions were also
reported to have been carried out in Pol-e Charkhi just before the Soviet
withdrawal; however, Asia Watch has not been able to confirm these reports.

Torture

After the Soviet invasion, torture of political detainees became

systematic and widespread. Although torture had been carried out under
previous governments, it only became a fully integrated part of the interrogation
process under Babrak Karmal. Throughout the war, refugees interviewed in

238
Kabul New Times, January 1, 1980.
239
Amnesty International: Report 1985 (London: Amnesty International, 1985), p. 197;
Amnesty International Report 1986 (London: Amnesty International, 1986), p. 207; Amnesty
International Report 1987 (London: Amnesty International, 1987), p. 216. See also Laber and
Rubin, p. 102.
240
Amnesty International: Report 1988 (London: Amnesty International, 1988), p. 147.
241
Interview with President Najibullah, July 25, 1990.
242
Frontier Post (Pakistan), June 29, 1990.

90
Pakistan described in detail the torture and mistreatment to which they were
subjected. Methods included severe beatings, electric shock, burning with
chemicals and cigarettes, and deprivation of food and sleep.

During the Asia Watch mission to Afghanistan in mid-1990, we were not

able to interview detainees privately nor to locate many released prisoners who
could provide us with first-hand information about whether mistreatment and
torture persist as a component of interrogation for detainees under investigation.
From reports we received it appears that systematic use of torture during
interrogation has declined; however, we were able to interview a number of
detainees who were deprived of sleep for periods ranging from one night to four
consecutive days and nights during interrogation.243 The U.N. Special Rapporteur
on Afghanistan received reports that, in one case following the attempted coup in
December 1989, Brigadier Abdul Sami Azizi was reportedly tortured to death in
prison.244

Unfortunately, assurances by government officials that torture is not

tolerated have not been accompanied by adequate measures to prevent torture.
Such measures should include at least granting the ICRC immediate access to all
detainees and ensuring the detainees have access to family members and
defense counsel.245 All reports of torture should be fully investigated, and those
responsible prosecuted. Minister of State Security Yaqubi told Asia Watch that
seven WAD officers had been prosecuted on charges of maltreating detainees
since 1986. Asia Watch was not able to obtain information about specific charges,
the rank of the officers, and the sentences, if any.246

Minister of State Security Yaqubi also told Asia Watch that the "best

243
Interview in Kabul, July 31. Felix Ermacora, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan,
also acknowledged receiving reports that "deprivation of sleep is a constant practice
during interrogation." U.N. Report, 1990, p. 13.
244
U.N. Report, 1990, p. 13.
245
The ICRC has access only to sentenced prisoners, and improvements in the treatment
of these prisoners is probably due in large part to their presence. Unfortunately, until
October 1990, heavy fighting around Jalalabad had prevented the ICRC from visiting
sentenced prisoners in Jalalabad jail. Asia Watch has received reports of mistreatment
and severe conditions for prisoners and detainees held there.
246
Interview with Minister Ghulam Yaqubi in Kabul, July 24, 1990.

91
guarantee for preventing torture"247 was Article 42 of the 1990 Constitution, which
states that

... torture and excruciation are prohibited. Obtaining [a] confession,

testimony or statement from an accused or other person by compulsion
or threat is prohibited. Statements or testimony taken from an accused
or other person by means of compulsion shall not be valid. A public
servant who tortures an accused or any other person for obtaining
statements, testimony or confession, or who issues orders for torture,
shall be punished in accordance with the law. Acting on the orders of
superiors in the commission of unlawful deeds cannot be the ground for
the plea of innocence.

However, as noted above,248 any confession, including those made during

interrogation, may be read to the court, although the accused may deny the
statement. Attorney General Sharaf told Asia Watch that because the accused is
usually caught "with the evidence" there was no need for torture.249

Detention Conditions

Following arrest, a detainee is taken to army camps or WAD detention

centers where he is held for anywhere from a few days to several months.
Prisoners who have not been sentenced are detained in one of a number of
detention centers and "supervision houses."250 According to the Minister of State
Security, there are 21 detention centers throughout the country and three in Kabul.
These three include Blocks 1 and 2 in Pol-e Charkhi Prison, Sedarat and the WAD
headquarters at Shasdarak. There are also detention centers in every province.251

247
Ibid.
248
See p. 91.
249
Interview with Attorney General Sharaf, in Kabul, July 25, 1990.
250
Interview with Director of Prisons, Colonel Mohammad Yusuf Khetmatyar, Pol-e Charkhi
Prison, July 24, 1990. The supervision houses are under the control of the Ministry of State
Security.
251
During Asia Watch's mission to Kabul, the delegation was unable to obtain information
as to whether these centers remain in operation. Interview with Minister of State Security
Ghulam Yaqubi, July 24, 1990.

92
 In previous years, interrogation was also reported to take place at a
number of unofficial interrogation centers, including the Ministry of the Interior,
which is operated by the sarandoi, a security force under that Ministry; and at
least five offices in Kabul: Offices numbered Three, Four and Five; the Ahmad Shah
Khan house, a house in Wazir Akbar Khan; and the KHAD office in the Howzai
Barikat district. In Qandahar, in addition to the KHAD headquarters, interrogation
and torture was reported to have taken place at Darwazan and the Musa Khan
building.252 During the Asia Watch mission, we were not able to determine if these
interrogation centers remain in use.

At the time of the Asia Watch visit, government officials told us that 97
detainees were under investigation in the provinces and 133 in Kabul. In addition,
the investigation process had been completed in another 465 cases in Kabul, and
the detainees were said to be waiting for the verdict of the court.253 The Minister of
State Security told Asia Watch that, with the exception of the March coup attempt
arrests, the total number of detainees for 1990 was the lowest of any recent year,
and credited the new law on political parties with reducing underground
activity.254

Detainees are held in the detention centers until the completion of the
investigation, a process that previously took as long as a year.255 Director Hakim
of the Detention Center at Sedarat and Chief of Investigation Ghanim informed
Asia Watch that investigations took no longer than two months, or in unusual
cases, three to four months. Asia Watch was not permitted to interview detainees
at Sedarat in private; the detainees we spoke to had each been detained for a
month, and they did not know how long they would be held.256 After the

252
Amnesty International, "Afghanistan: Torture of Political Prisoners," pp. 6-7.
253
Interview with Minister of State Security Ghulam Yaqubi, July 24, 1990. According to the
U.N. Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan, Felix Ermacora, official figures for the number of
detainees as of September 1990 were 574: 26 persons under interrogation; 319 awaiting
trial or sentencing and 229 convicted prisoners. U.N. Report, 1990, p. 12.
254
Interview with Minister of State Security Ghulam Yaqubi, July 24, 1990.
255
Prisoners Asia Watch interviewed told us that they had been held in detention for
periods ranging from seven months to a year before being sentenced. Interviews at Pol-e
Charkhi, July 31, 1990.
256
Interviews with detainees at Sedarat Detention Center, Kabul, August 1, 1990.

93
investigation is complete, the prisoner is afforded an abbreviated trial before the
National Security Court, and then generally is transferred to Pol-e Charkhi or to a
provincial prison. In some cases, a detainee may be transferred before the
investigation is complete. Mujahidin captured in the field are also said to be
detained in army custody, where interrogation takes place in some cases for
several months before the prisoner is tried and transferred to prison.

At the time of the Asia Watch visit, Pol-e Charkhi held 3130 prisoners,
2275 of whom were political prisoners, according to government officials.257 The
severe overcrowding that characterized prison life in Pol-e Charkhi during most of
the war has eased,258 in large part because of amnesties which have resulted in
the release of some 19,000 prisoners from Pol-e Charkhi and other prisons since
1988.
However, for detainees who have not been sentenced, conditions remain
precarious. Detainees arrested following the March 1990 coup attempt described
conditions of severe overcrowding and inadequate food during the first weeks
following the arrests.259 While sentenced prisoners are permitted regular visits
(every 15 days) from family members;260 detainees are not permitted such visits.
The government should abolish all such unofficial detention centers and hold
prisoner only in registered places of detention to which the detainees' family
members and defense counsel have access. The ICRC should be granted
immediate access to all detainees.

Foreign Prisoners

257
Interview with Director of Prisons Colonel Mohammad Yusuf Khetmatyar, Pol-e Charkhi
Prison, July 24, 1990.
258
Throughout most of the war, Pol-e Charkhi held an estimated 10,000 to 15,000
prisoners -- well in excess of the 5000 it was built to accommodate. Prisoners intrerviewed
by Asia Watch and Helsinki Watch described conditions of severe cold, poor sanitation,
inadequate food and widespread disease among prisoners. See Helsinki Watch/Asia
Watch reports cited in fn.1.
259
Interviews in Kabul, July 24, 1990.
260
In the past, prisoners were not permitted access to family members. Independent
sources interviewed by Asia Watch confirmed that such visits regularly take place for
sentenced prisoners.

94
 In addition to Afghans imprisoned under charges of participating in an
"armed uprising against the government," the Afghan government has imprisoned
a number of foreigners, including Pakistanis, Egyptians, Saudis and Jordanians, on
charges of "spying" or of "assisting the opposition forces."261 In some cases,
these arrests are not acknowledged and the prisoner is not permitted visits from
representatives of his government. For example, Asia Watch received reports that
despite requests to do so, the Pakistani chargé d'affaires has not been permitted
to see Pakistani detainees and prisoners, and that he has received no reply to a
request to exchange prisoner lists. The government of Afghanistan should ensure
that all imprisoned foreign nationals be permitted access to representatives from
their governments, and that all such arrests be acknowledged and the prisoners
permitted visits by the ICRC.

261
At the time of the Asia Watch visit, 33 foreign prisoners were held at Pol-e Charkhi: 22
Pakistanis, seven Iranian and four Arabs of unspecified nationality. Interview with Director
of Prisons Colonel Mohammad Yusuf Khetmatyar, Pol-e Charkhi prison, July 24, 1990.

95
 V. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS BY ELEMENTS OF THE AFGHAN
RESISTANCE
A number of factions of the mujahidin are responsible for human rights
abuses in the areas they control inside Afghanistan and also for abuses
committed inside Pakistan. These abuses include kidnappings and murders of
Afghan intellectuals who have been outspoken in their independent political
views, Afghans associated with Western relief agencies based in Pakistan, and
other Afghan refugees, particularly those associated with political groups who
support a secular or moderate political position. Most of these killings have been
carried out by the more "fundamentalist" mujahidin parties. These parties have
also imprisoned and tortured members or supporters of rival mujahidin parties.
Journalists who have attempted to investigate these abuses have been
threatened; foreign representatives of relief organizations and Afghan women
working for these agencies have also been threatened and attacked.

Despite the fact that many of these abuses occur inside Pakistan,262
Pakistani authorities have failed to investigate them properly, and have
prosecuted no one for any of these crimes. Pakistan's failure to investigate these
crimes and bring those responsible to justice amounts to a policy of complicity in
human rights abuses committed by these groups within Pakistani territory. In a
number of cases, Pakistani authorities, especially the ISI, have participated in
abuses, including the detention of Afghan refugees suspected of opposing some
of the parties favored by Pakistan, or handing over suspects to the parties for
interrogation and torture.

Within the Afghan refugee community in Pakistan, disputes are generally

resolved and justice dispensed in accordance with traditional norms adhered to
by these same groups inside Afghanistan. At the same time, the political

262
In many cases, the abuses occur within Pakistani territory proper; in others, they occur
within the Tribal Agencies that border Afghanistan. The population in these areas is related
to the ethnic groups inside Afghanistan. These agencies, which were established under
British colonial law, are semi-autonomous regions administered directly by a political
agent appointed by the federal government who has complete authority for administrative
and judicial matters. There are no regular courts in these areas.

99
pressures that have been created by the war have given rise to other kinds of
crimes, including the politically motivated kidnapping and murder of Afghan
refugees. The mujahidin parties believed responsible for many of these abuses
are those which receive Pakistan's support and the bulk of weapons supplied by
the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

All of the mujahidin parties maintain prisons either inside Pakistan or

across the border inside Afghanistan, or both. For most of the parties, the prisons
are used to detain prisoners taken in combat. However, some of the parties also
use these prisons to detain members of rival mujahidin parties and Afghan
refugees who are members of parties that are not recognized as Islamic or of
secular parties. Torture of detainees is reportedly common in the latter case.
Pakistani officials also engage in illegal detentions, using a colonial regulation
permitting administrative detention to arrest Afghans deemed to be "security
risks" and to hold them without trial for up to six years.

Asia Watch was unable to visit areas inside Afghanistan under the
control of the mujahidin. However, the delegation was able to interview a number
of mujahidin commanders from areas inside Pakistan, as well as relief workers,
refugees and others who travel frequently inside Afghanistan. Trial procedures
vary greatly in the areas under mujahidin control, and in many cases, mujahidin
commanders have as much say in the verdict as the Islamic judges appointed to
hear cases.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has access to some of the
prisoners held by commanders inside Afghanistan, but neither the ICRC nor
anyone else has been able to visit prisoners held by the mujahidin in Pakistan,
where there are reported to be thousands and where torture is reportedly
widespread.

Mujahidin Prisons

All of the parties in the resistance maintain prisons either inside

100
Pakistan or across the border in Afghanistan. Some do both.263 In addition,
commanders in the field sometimes detain captured Afghan government soldiers.
Control of these prisons, and detention procedures is entirely in the hands of the
commander or the party; the treatment of prisoners varies depending on the
practices of individual commanders and party leaders. International
humanitarian organizations have access to some of the jails in Afghanistan and in
the Tribal Agencies, but not to those in Pakistan. No uniform standards govern
detention procedures, and there are few if any safeguards against ill-treatment
and torture of prisoners. Even the location of these prisons and detention centers
is difficult to confirm, as are numbers of those detained. The detention centers
under the control of the mujahidin parties, not including several small jails in
private houses in University Town and Jahangirabad, are as follows:

Shamshatoo.
Shamshatoo (Hekmatyar) The prison is located 10-15
kilometers east of Peshawar, in the Shamshatoo refugee camp.
It is reportedly a two-story prison, part of which is underground.
According to some reports, it is located behind a clinic in the
camp. Torture is reported to be routine, including severe
beatings and the use of electric shock. The prison reportedly
includes a section for women prisoners.264

Shamshatoo 2.
2 (Khales)

Warsak Micini. Shagai, 25 kilometers north of Peshawar. It is at

a Hezb-e Islami (Hekmatyar) military camp and may hold 1200
detainees.265

Mohammad Gart.
Gart Kunar Province in Afghanistan, on the
Pakistan border (Hekmatyar and Sayyaf).

263
Three parties reportedly do not maintain prisons inside Pakistan. They are NIFA
(Gailani), Jabha-yi-Najat-e-Milli Islami (Mojaddidi), and Harakat-e Inqilab-e Islami
(Mohammadi). Jamiat-e Islami reportedly has held prisoners inside Pakistan. The majority
of prisoners are held by Sayyaf, Khales and Hekmatyar.
264
During interviews with Afghan refugees and exiles in Pakistan, Asia Watch collected
the names of number of persons reportedly held in Shamshatoo; the names cannot be
made public because the relatives fear reprisals.
265
Mojaddidi and Gailani also have military camps nearby, but hold no prisoners there.

101
 Bagzai No. 1.
1 Khar Dand, Kurram Agency. (Hekmatyar and
Sayyaf).

Jhawar.
Jhawar It is run by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a commander loosely
affiliated with Khales, and is located inside Afghanistan.
Prisoners there are reportedly kept in chains in dark, crowded
cells, and torture is reportedly routine.

Khund Bachelor.
Bachelor Spina Shega, near Teri Mangal, Kurram Agency
(Hekmatyar).

Sadda Shasu.
Shasu (Sayyaf), Kurram Agency.

In Jaji, various groups have prisons, including some Arab groups, Sayyaf,
Hekmatyar and Rabbani.

It is not known how many prisoners may be held in any of these detention
centers, but estimates range into the hundreds. Asia Watch has received reports
of a number of disappearances of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Afghanistan,
some of whom may be detained in these prisons. In addition to those cases listed
below266, several mujahidin commanders who have disappeared may be
imprisoned in rival mujahidin jails, including two who were kidnapped in May
1990:

C General Abdul Baqi, chief of the military department of Harakat-e

Inqilab-e Islami, was kidnapped in Pandoo, Peshawar, on May 25, 1990,
allegedly by Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami.

C Engineer Ghaffar, a deputy commander under Commander Abdul Haq of

Khales' Hezb-e Islami, was reportedly kidnapped in Peshawar by Harakat-
e Inqilab-e Islami.

As noted above, conditions of detention vary by individual commanders

and are not governed by any uniform standard. Restraining devices, including leg
irons, appear to be widely used. The Hezb-e Islami guerrillas captured by Jamiat-e

266
See pp. 114-119.

102
Islami forces after the Fakhar massacre were required to wear them during
exercise periods twice a day, according to an American journalist who visited the
site.267 In another case from the Qandahar area, detainees were kept in leg irons
with their hands handcuffed behind the backs for 24 hours while awaiting
sentencing.268

Due Process

Common Article 3 prohibits "the passing of sentences and the carrying

out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly
constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as
indispensable by all civilized peoples."

Judicial practices vary among individual commanders. In some cases,

Afghan government soldiers who have surrendered or have been captured have
been held until they could be traded for imprisoned mujahidin prisoners.
Commanders also sometimes try captured soldiers. The objective of the trial
appears to be to determine whether the captured soldier is an "unrepentant
communist" or whether he might be "converted" to Islam and inducted into
service for the mujahidin. One mujahid from the Jalalabad district told Asia
Watch that it was customary within his mujahidin faction to hold a prisoner on
probation for up to one year. He state that those who do not "accept Islam" may be
executed.269

In some "liberated" zones where commanders have established control

over an area and have introduced a minimal administration, local courts have
been established to try criminal and political cases. Asia Watch obtained
information about trial procedures by Jamiat-e Islami commanders, who
apparently attempt to enforce a consistent legal code among commanders
affiliated with the party. In this respect, the Supervisory Council of the North,
under Ahmad Shah Massoud, is unique in that it has a more evolved system of

267
Richard MacKenzie, "'Essential Justice' After a Massacre," Insight Magazine
(Washington, DC: Washington Times), January 22, 1990, p. 30.
268
Interview with Afghan relief worker, Quetta, Pakistan, who witnessed the arrest, July 7,
1990.
269
Interview in Kheshki refugee camp, Pakistan, July 5, 1990.

103
civilian administration and justice than is found elsewhere in mujahidin-
controlled territory in Afghanistan.

According to a Jamiat-e Islami spokesman, Massoud's system

recognizes both political and ordinary crimes. A local judicial system generally
handles petty cases, but murder and serious political crimes are tried by a central
judge, who is an alim.270 The organization also appoints a judge for each district,
chosen from among other ulama for his experience and knowledge of law. The
organization uses the jails that were previously used by the government in
addition to others it has constructed. Not all political cases go before the court.
In cases of suspected government agents, including women and children who are
being used as infiltrators by the government, the organization tries to contact the
family and get them to take custody of the suspects and guarantee their good
behavior.271

Judicial Proceeding Following the Fakhar Valley Massacre

Following the massacre of Jamiat-e Islami commanders by Hezb-e Islami

forces in the Fakhar valley in August 1989,272 Massoud reportedly captured some
100 Hezb-e Islami guerrillas, and their commander Sayyed Jamal, who had been
allegedly involved in the killings. A judicial investigation conducted under
magistrates in Massoud's organization reportedly spent several weeks
investigating the case.273 According to the investigators, Sayyed Jamal confessed
to the killings but stated that he was acting under orders.

The case against Sayyed Jamal was ultimately decided by a 43-member

court of maulvis, or religious scholars, who sentenced him and his brother, Eshan
Mirza, also a Hezb-e Islami commander, his brother-in-law, Babor Shah, and his
deputy, Syed Fakhiruddin, to execution by hanging. The execution was reportedly

270
An alim is a religious scholar recognized as an authority on the sharia, or Islami law.
The plural of alim is ulama.
271
Interview with Jamiat-e Islami political spokesperson Engineer Mohammad Es'Haq in
Peshawar, June 7, 1990.
272
See pp. 54-55.
273
According to Richard MacKenzie, an American journalist who interviewed Massoud at
the time.

104
carried out in a public square on December 24, 1989.274 According to Engineer
Es'haq, a Jamiat-e Islami representative, "The only thing that could have saved
them was forgiveness from the families of the victims, but they weren't prepared
to forgive."275 To Asia Watch's knowledge, the remaining Hezb-e Islami guerrillas
involved in the massacre remain in custody.

Another refugee described to Asia Watch the system of justice in an area

controlled by Hezb-e Islami near Jalalabad:

If anyone was caught in a crime, the mujahidin determine the sentence.

If you steal, you're killed. There are mullahs who sit as judges, but they're
approved by the mujahidin. If people are found to be KHAD, they're
sentenced to death. In liberated areas, the mujahidin use the
government prison as their jail. If the captured men come over to their
side, they are sent to Pakistan.276

Asia Watch learned of one case in which a mujahidin judicial proceeding

was subjected to interference by the Pakistani ISI. According to Asia Watch
sources, the collapse of the Qandahar shura277 was detrimental to the functioning
of the local court that had jurisdiction for mujahidin-controlled territory around
Qandahar. The polarization that resulted from the collapse of the shura eroded
the credibility of the court because it was then widely believed to have
collaborated with the ISI. A second court has since formed which is considered to
have more legitimacy.278 It consists of a commander who functions as chief judge,
a number of other commanders, persons from district administration, and the
head of the shura.279 According to one Qandahar commander, each mujahidin
headquarters appoints a maulvi as a judicial authority, who bases his decisions

274
Afghan Information Centre, Monthly Bulletin, Nos. 105-106, December 1989-January
1990, p. 42. The incident is also discussed in an interview with Abdullah Ezam, a member of a
commission established by the AIG to investigate the incident, published in AFGHANews, Vol.
6, No. 2, January 15, 1990., p. 4.
275
Interview with Jamiat-e Islami political spokesperson Engineer Mohammad Es'Haq in
Peshawar, July 7, 1990.
276
Interview with refugees in Munda Camp, July 7, 1990.
277
See p. 51.
278
Interview with Afghan relief worker in Quetta, July 4, 1991.
279
Interview in Quetta, July 7, 1990.

105
on the sharia.280

Detentions in Pakistan

Most if not all of the factions carry out intelligence operations and
maintain their own internal security forces. The Hezb-e Islami (Hekmatyar) secret
police are known by the term Istikhbarat.281 Some of the security forces, including
those of Hekmatyar and Khales, have kidnapped suspected opponents. In some
cases private ambulances -- or vehicles painted as such -- have reportedly been
used for abductions.282

Throughout the war, refugees arriving in Pakistan have been subjected

to a screening process to determine their party affiliation and to ensure that they
were not KHAD informants. Refugees have been required to be affiliated to one of
the parties in order to obtain assistance from the Pakistan refugee program.283
From the first major influx of refugees in 1979-80, the Pakistani authorities
approved only a limited number of parties to which the refugees could be
affiliated. The so-called "middle parties," such as Afghan Mellat,284 were
proscribed, as were professional associations of former civil servants from the
cities.285 Since the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, refugees
entering Pakistan are no longer registered. However, the screening process has
continued. Refugees who arrived in Pakistan after the Soviet withdrawal are also
considered suspect because they remained inside the country for much longer

280
Interview with Commander Mullah Malang, Quetta July 7, 1990.
281
The name means "information bureau."
282
Interviews with Afghan intellectual, Washington D.C., June 21, 1990; and with Afghan
writer, Peshawar, July 10, 1990. Both of these sources, whom Asia Watch believes to be
credible, requested to remain anonymous.
283
The screening process gave the parties a veto over whether a refugee would receive
assistance. Although in fact refugees who were not members of any party did receive aid, it
was much more difficult for them. See By All Parties to the Conflict, pp. 89-90.
284
Afghan Mellat is a nationalist organization made up of Pashtun professionals that
characterizes itself as social democratic. In the late 1980s, the group began to espouse
the values of an Islamic state.
285
Interviews with Western relief agency representatives in Peshawar, February 2, 1989.

106
than most of the other refugees.286

During the screening process, the refugees are classified as "white,"

meaning they pose no security threat and are allowed to move about freely; "grey,"
meaning they are placed under surveillance until one of the parties vouches for
them; or "black," signifying they are deemed to pose a security risk and are
detained without charge or trial under Section 40 of the 1901 Frontier Crimes
Regulation (FCR), a British colonial law which is applicable only in the Tribal
Agencies. The number of "black" cases has reportedly declined, but persons
continue to be detained on the basis of the classification. The interrogation is
conducted by the Joint Interrogation Team (JIT) which is made up of officials from
Commissionerate of Afghan Refugees (CAR) and officers of the Special Branch and
the Intelligence Branch of the police, and sometimes the ISI when the case is
considered high-security. In cases of defecting Afghan army personnel, a
representative for the Pakistani army may participate in the interrogation.
According to Asia Watch sources, as many as 50 percent of the cases investigated
by the JIT are political, and in at least one case that Asia Watch learned of in which
the ISI took part, the interrogation included torture.287

In some cases, especially high security cases, the deputy inspector

general of police has reportedly bypassed this process and relied solely on
mujahidin party leaders to identify suspected KHAD agents or former ranking
Afghan government officials. In other cases, refugees who have been classified
as "black" have been handed over to one of the parties, most frequently
Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, which works closely with Pakistan's intelligence and
security forces. Since the beginning of the war, government soldiers who were
captured by the guerrilla forces in Pakistan were also handed over to the parties
in Pakistan for investigation. Asia Watch was informed that this is less the case
now than it was previously, in part because the deputy inspector general of police
has been replaced, and in part because the number of "black" cases has
declined.288

286
They are known collectively by the disparaging term, Sakr-bis (Sakr-20), after the
rocket that the mujahidin have used in rebel attacks on the cities, the implication being that
these refugees did not leave until the mujahidin began to attack the cities.
287
Interviews with international aid workers in Peshawar, July 3, 1990.
288
Interview with Western relief agency representative and Pakistani attorney in
Peshawar, July 13, 1990.

107
 Refugees classified as "black" cases have also been detained under the
Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), may be detained for up to three years, renewable
on the order of the political agent (the administrator for the Tribal Agency) for
another three years.289 It is not necessary to provide new evidence or facts to
justify the renewal; all that is required is that the political agent state that the
reasons for the detention still prevail.290 The agent's decision to detain may not be
challenged and is not subject to judicial review.291 The High Court has no
jurisdiction in the Tribal Agencies, and there is no right of appeal nor of habeas
corpus under the FCR.

Although the FCR only applies to persons arrested in the Tribal Agencies,
it is also used illegally to detain Afghans who have been arrested in Peshawar or
other areas under the provincial authorities and transported to a tribal area
where they are jailed by the political agent. According to Asia Watch sources, the
FCR provides the means for Pakistani authorities to detain Afghans associated
with any political organizations out of favor with the Pakistani government or the
ISI.292 Although the FCR provides that the warrants for the arrest must be issued by
the political agent and that the detainee must be produced before a magistrate
who may then order that the detainee be taken to a Tribal Agency, this procedure
is seldom, if ever, followed. A Pakistani attorney who has challenged the legality
of the FCR told Asia Watch, "The procedure should be followed when they detain
Afghans but in fact it is just kidnapping."293

In December 1989, two Afghan men, Mohammad Khan and Sayyed

Amin,294 were arrested after Pakistani Special Branch police raided their house in
Islamabad. Before coming to Pakistan in 1988, Mohammad Khan had held a
position in the Kabul police and had links to Hezb-e Islami; Sayyed Amin had held
an administrative job in the Afghan army and joined Hezb-e Islami after he

289
Frontier Crimes Regulation Act, 1901; chap. 5(45) and (46)(4).
290
FCR, 1901; chap. 5, (46)(3).
291
International relief representatives in Peshawar told Asia Watch that the decision of
the political agent may be reviewed by the provincial commissioner.
292
The FCR is the primary law in effect in the Tribal Agencies, providing both a civil and
criminal code for these areas.
293
Interview with Pakistani attorney in Peshawar, July 11, 1990.
294
Not their real names.

108
reached Pakistan. The two men were detained for 12 days for interrogation, after
which the officer in charge reportedly apologized for the arrest, but told them that
for formal reasons he would have to hand them over to the CAR (Commissionerate
for Afghan Refugees). They were then interrogated by the JIT for another month
and five days. On the basis of the interrogation, they were sentenced to three
years administrative detention under Section 40 of the FCR and sent to Dera
Ismael Khan Jail in February 1990. They have never been informed of the reasons
for the arrest.

Afghans living in the Tribal Agencies may also be denied due process
under the FCR. In one case, Amin Shah,295 a doctor who had lived in the Khwaja Ali
Baba refugee camp (Bushera) and was a member of Hezb-e Islami, was arrested in
November 1989 and interrogated by Kurran JIT in Parachinar and declared "black"
on the grounds that he was engaged in "anti-mujahidin" activities, although he
has never been informed of any specific charges. He was then handed over to the
authority of the deputy inspector general of police (Special Branch) in Peshawar
in early 1990 and has been detained under the FCR since then.

Some Afghan prisoners are also held in Pakistani prisons in the

Northwest Frontier Province and in Baluchistan. In some cases, party leaders
inform the ISI about persons they believe to be Afghan government military
personnel, and the ISI arrests them.296 According to Asia Watch sources, a number
of Afghan prisoners arrested on the basis of such suspicion are currently
detained in Peshawar Central Jail, Dera Ismail Khan Central Jail, Haripur Jail, and
Rawalpindi Central Jail. International humanitarian organizations have not had
access to these prisoners.

Elements of the Mujahidin

Killings of Rival Resistance Leaders by Elements

Political killings of mujahidin leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan have

occurred throughout the war. Since the Soviet withdrawal, however, these killings
appear to have increased. As with other acts of violence alleged to have been

295
Not his real name.
296
Interviews with Western relief agency representative and Pakistani attorney in
Peshawar, July 11 and July 13, 1990. Interview with Pakistan police official in Peshawar, July
13, 1990.

109
committed by one or the other of the resistance parties, these killings cannot be
attributed with certainty to any particular party or organization. However, in a
number of cases the violence falls into a pattern which implicates certain groups.
The Pakistani authorities, however, have failed to investigate any of these killings
despite the fact that they have occurred inside Pakistani territory.

The cases listed below represent some of the killings since the Soviet
withdrawal.

C On June 11, 1990, Nasrullah Shariatyar, a Hezb-e Islami commander in

Khanabad District, Kunduz, and a member of the Supreme Jehad Council
of Hezb-e Islami, was assassinated in Peshawar. Asia Watch sources
believe that the killing may have been the result of infighting within the
Hezb-e Islami.

C On March 25, 1990, Mullah Nasim Akhundzada, a leading commander of

Harakat-e-Inqilab-e Islami, was assassinated along with five other
commanders (his bodyguards), in Cherat, 25 kilometers east of
Peshawar. One suspect, Allah Noor of Helmand, was caught and sent to
Harakat-e-Inqilab-e Islami officials in Quetta where he was reportedly
executed; another suspect was imprisoned. Akhundzada was a major
heroin producer, with some 10,000-15,000 men under his control. Over
the previous three or four years, he reportedly sold heroin to Hezb-e
Islami forces for processing; before his assassination he had struck an
agreement with U.S. officials to cut production in exchange for U.S. A.I.D.
funds. Since that agreement, his men had been locked in a bitter feud
with Hezb-e Islami forces. In revenge for Akhundzada's murder, Abdul
Haq of Hezb-e Islami was reportedly imprisoned and tried by Harakat-e-
Inqilab Islami forces. According to one source, he was reportedly
executed in early June 1990. Other sources claim that his fate remains
unknown.

C On September 14, 1989, Haji Hussain Khel, a commander with Mojaddidi

and a leading member of the Ahmedzai tribe, was assassinated along
with his pregnant wife in the Bada Bira camp outside Peshawar.

C On August 9, 1989, Haji Abdul Latif, a commander of the National Islamic

Front of Afghanistan (Gailani) in Qandahar, died as a result of poisoning.

110
 His son reportedly claimed that two of Latif's bodyguards confessed to
having been paid by "Soviet-trained Afghan agents" for the murder and
were subsequently executed. However, in private his son blamed
Hekmatyar for the murder. Latif was considered to be a supporter of
ex-king Zaher Shah, and he had recently convened several gatherings of
mujahidin at which he criticized the interim government and called for
elections to be held in areas held by the resistance. During an interview
with the BBC shortly before he was killed, Latif also criticized the policy
of some of the resistance groups of launching rocket attacks on the
cities. According to an Asia Watch source, the ISI had warned him that he
would be killed. He reportedly had developed a good relationship with
the governor of Qandahar. His alleged assassins were executed within
hours of their reported confessions without a full trial or investigation.
Since 1988, other important moderate resistance figures from the
Qandahar area have been assassinated, including Senator Abdul Razzaq,
the Popolzai tribal leader Haji Habib, and two others. Their associates
suspect that rival mujahidin were responsible.

Killings and Disappearances of Afghan Relief Workers and Intellectuals

Since 1978, the war in Afghanistan has driven some three million
refugees into Pakistan, where most live in sprawling camps that are home to the
world's largest refugee population. As the resistance parties have competed for
international recognition and political power, control of the refugee population
has been an important factor in that conflict. With the withdrawal of the Soviet
forces from Afghanistan in February 1989, tension among the resistance parties
has led to more frequent clashes among rival groups inside Afghanistan and an
increase in killings of those aligned with various parties inside.

Refugees aligned with organizations espousing a relatively secular or

monarchist position have become a particular target of attack, apparently by
members of the extremist Islamic parties. Leading members of Afghan Mellat
have been assassinated and other members have received death threats in
letters and telephone calls. According to Asia Watch sources, the threats against
Afghan Mellat increased after February 1989, when Afghan Mellat leaders
criticized the Afghan Interim Government as a creation of the Pakistani military.
Members of the Maoist organizations Shola-e Javed and SAMA (Sazman-e

111
Azadbakhsh-e Mardom-e Afghanistan, or Liberation Organization of the People of
Afghanistan) have also been killed and threatened.

Relief workers associated with Western aid organizations have been

murdered, have disappeared or have been threatened. Western representatives
of those organizations have also been threatened or killed, and the premises of
some of the organizations have been vandalized. Afghan intellectuals who have
been seen as independent or critical of these extremist Islamic parties have also
been murdered, or have received threats. As one prominent Afghan intellectual
told Asia Watch, "The only way to protect yourself is silence."297

Although such attacks have occurred throughout the duration of the

conflict, the changed character of the war, and international moves toward a
political settlement appear to have exacerbated tensions among the parties,
leading to an increase in such attacks. In addition, the influence of Saudi Arabia
and the efforts by some of its clients, including Sayyaf, Hekmatyar and the various
Wahhabi groups, to enforce stricter adherence to Islamic law has heightened
suspicion of Western aid agencies as vehicles for the spread of un-Islamic and,
especially, Christian values. Organizations that have employed Afghan women or
have attempted to provide health and education assistance to women refugees
have been particularly targeted, as have the Afghan women employed by them.

Tribal conflicts and personal grievances may also be a factor in some of

the violence. Under such circumstances, it is virtually impossible to attribute
responsibility for any of the attacks to a particular political organization or party
or its members.

In most cases of murders, kidnappings and other attacks on Afghan

refugees, there are no eye-witnesses who can speak without endangering
themselves. Asia Watch interviewed a number of refugees who had been
threatened because of their knowledge of attacks or because they had tried to
carry out investigations themselves. Journalists who have reported these
incidents have received death threats or, in one case, have been killed.

The following list of murders, disappearances and threats is far from

complete. According to Asia Watch sources, the number of intellectuals, relief

297
Interview with Afghan intellectual in Peshawar, July 13, 1990.

112
workers and other Afghans murdered or disappeared in Pakistan and in areas of
Afghanistan controlled by the mujahidin during the war may number in the
hundreds. The cases listed below date primarily from the Soviet withdrawal in
February 1989 until mid-1990, the time of the Asia Watch mission to Peshawar.
However, Asia Watch continues to receive reports of threats, disappearances and
murders of Afghans in Pakistan and across the border inside Afghanistan.

C On June 3, 1990, Farida,298 an employee of the Women's English

Language Program of the International Rescue Committee (IRC),
received warnings calling on her to cancel a planned trip abroad and
demanding that the language program be shut down. Posters appeared
accusing foreign aid agencies of encouraging licentious behavior
among Afghan women. Three posters threatened those who did not heed
the warning with reprisals, including death. Although she reported the
incident to the police, authorities at the Pakistani Commissionerate of
Afghan Refugees told her that "it could not provide her with police
security" and advised her to stay home and refrain from going to the
school. Women who had been studying at the school were also
pressured to leave.

C On June 2, 1990, Professor Mohammedan Zaher Khatib was

assassinated at his home in Tahkal-e-Payan, Peshawar. According to
reports received by Asia Watch, Khatib was asleep when armed men
broke into his home and opened fire on him with Kalashnikovs. Khatib
was 44 years old and a graduate of the Faculty of Theology at Kabul
University. Khatib was also a professor at Jehad University in Pabbi, east
of Peshawar. His father, Maulavi Mohammad Jan, was a religious scholar
from Laghman who led Friday prayers.299 He was a leading member of the
Jamiat-e Islami.

C In late May or early June 1990, Reza,300 a 16-year-old boy, disappeared.

He was a distinguished student at the International Rescue Committee
(IRC) Experimental School in University Town where he had just finished

298
Not her real name.
299
AFGHANews, Vol.6, No.12, June 15,1990. (AFGHANews is a publication of Jamiat-e Islami).
300
Not his real name.

113
 an examination when he was abducted. According to his friends, who
witnessed the abduction and reported it to the family, he was stopped on
his way home from school by armed men in a black car who asked for
him by name and forced him into the car and covered his mouth. When
relatives questioned Hezb-e-Islami authorities, they reportedly denied
any involvement in the kidnapping. The family were all Khales
supporters. When they reported the incident to the Pakistani police, they
were told, "You are refugees; you are guests in our country. This isn't our
job." Another brother disappeared four years earlier.

C On May 15, 1990, Malalai, a nurse working at Dr. Ihsan Khattak's Clinic in
Jehangirabad, Peshawar, was abducted along with 12 other Afghans. In
July 1990, there were conflicting unconfirmed reports that she was killed
shortly afterward or that she was detained in Hekmatyar's prison in the
Shamshatoo refugee camp. Hekmatyar has denied the allegation.301
Before coming to Pakistan, she reportedly had been a military nurse with
the Afghan government and had earlier received a death threat with a
bullet in the envelope.

C On the morning of March 27, 1990, Dr. Saadat Shagiwal, a 39-year-old

physician from Ningrahar and head of the Afghan Aid Association, was
shot dead by two or three men in a car who were waiting for him outside
his office. The clinics he operated were located in an area in Ningrahar
reportedly under the control of Khales. He was also a leading member of
Afghan Mellat. According to Asia Watch sources, following an attack on
the Afghan Welfare Centre in August 1989, Shagiwal was threatened in a
letter not to go to his office. Despite assurances from the police that an
investigation would be carried out and despite the testimony of several
eye- witnesses, no investigation has taken place.

C On January 27, 1990, Abdul Qayyum Rehbar, who was said to have been a
leading member of the Maoist organizations, Shola-e-Jawed and SAMA,302

301
Frontier Post (Pakistan), June 8, 1990.
302
According to AFGHANews, Vol.6 No.4, Feb 15, 1990, he was a leader of SAMA and had
been a professor in West Germany. Rehbar's elder brother, Abdul Majid Kalakani, had been
the founder of Shola-e-Jawed and was arrested in 1980 and executed under Babrak Karmal.

114
 was shot in front of his brother-in-law's home in Hayatabad, a suburb of
Peshawar. His 20-year-old nephew Massiyed was wounded in the attack.
Rehbar was reportedly preparing to leave for West Germany and had
gone to Hayatabad to visit relatives there before leaving.

C On January 21, 1990 some 15 unidentified armed men broke into the
house of Mrs. Noor Saraj Safi, the project chief of an IRC income-
generating project for women. They ransacked the house and
threatened to kill the family. All of the men wore hoods over their faces.
Within days, the family decided to leave Pakistan.

C On January 17, 1990, Hedayatullah Ahmedi, an employee with the United

Nations Office of Coordination for Afghanistan (UNOCA); Liaqat Ali, an
employee of IRC; two of his brothers, Abdul Hakim and another (name
unknown); Mohammad Asif, an unemployed graduate student; and
Mohammed Ali, also employed at IRC, all disappeared from their house in
Peshawar. Asia Watch sources have stated that witnesses observed
three of the men being taken away in a pick-up truck on the evening of
January 16. The witnesses also stated that the house was left open and
the lights were left on, which seemed to suggest that the occupants
expected to return. The motive for the disappearance is not clear; Liaqat
Ali was said to have been outspokenly critical of the Peshawar-based
mujahidin parties; Mohammed Asif's father, Mohammed Latif, was a
former governor of an Afghan province, and his brother, Dr. Sultan
Madagar, a dentist, is said to have espoused "controversial" political
views. According to some sources, several of the men were alleged to
have links to Shola-e Javid. All of the men were ethnic Hazaras.303

C In November 1989, in Wardak Province, two Afghan employees of an

American aid organization were imprisoned for one week by members of
Hezb-e Islami (Hekmatyar). They were only released after one of the men
was able to prove that he was also a member of Hezb-e Islami.

C In October 1989, Engineer Ataullah, a former employee of the Ministry of

303
Ethnic conflict between Hazaras (Shi'a Muslims, who are a minority in Afghanistan) and
Pashtuns (Sunni Muslims, who are the majority in Afghanistan) may also be a factor in some
political disputes.

115
Communications in Kabul who had arrived in Pakistan some months
earlier, disappeared after he was taken in for questioning by the ISI.
According to an Asia Watch source, he may have been handed over to
Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami to be killed.

C Shah Mohammad Bazgar, an employee of the French relief

organizations AFRANE and Solidarity Afghanistan, was killed in October
1989 along with three other relief workers when the car he was traveling
in was ambushed near Qandahar.

C Abdul Fatah Wadud, an employee of the U.N. World Food Program in

Peshawar, who had served five years as a political prisoner in Kabul,
disappeared on September 3, 1989, after leaving his office to meet with a
member of Hezb-e Islami (Hekmatyar). His relatives believe he was
subsequently abducted. A Hezb-e Islami spokesman in Peshawar
reportedly told the family that "his release would not be easy." Before he
was employed at WFP, he had worked for the IRC. He was registered with
the Harakat-e Inqilab-e Islami party.

C On September 19, 1989, an armed man attempted to shoot the principal

of the Malalai girls school in Peshawar, an IRC school. A gateman for the
school was wounded in the incident. The school had received a number
of threats before the attack.

C Mohammad Zakir, a field worker for the International Committee of the

Red Cross, was murdered in Peshawar on August 28, 1989. His relatives
and friends believe he was killed because of his outspoken criticism of
the more fundamentalist mujahidin and because of his membership in
Afghan Mellat.

C In July 1989, Dr. Mohammad Nasim Ludin, an Afghan refugee physician

who had operated several refugee clinics funded by foreign
organizations in Peshawar, was shot and killed in front of his home in
Peshawar. Two of the men involved in the shooting appeared at the
hospital apparently to see if Ludin was still alive. When witnesses
identified them, they were arrested. They were released shortly
afterward without explanation. Witnesses who identified the men stated
that they had links to Khales. Ludin was formerly a professor at the

116
 Ningrahar Medical College. In Pakistan, he directed the Afghan Welfare
Organization and organized teams of medical workers to go across the
border into Afghanistan to provide health services.304

C Dr. Farida Ahmadi, a leading member of the Revolutionary Association

of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), an organization which works for the
promotion of women's rights among Afghan opposition groups, was
arrested at her home in Quetta, Pakistan, on February 2, 1989, on charges
of spying. Ahmadi was the first Afghan woman to travel to the West to
testify about torture by KHAD in 1983-84. Although Pakistani police
carried out the arrests, Asia Watch believes that they may have been
acting under the orders of Afghan resistance leader Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar. Arrested with Ahmadi were three of her relatives, identified
only as Javid, Hassan and Asif, and two RAWA colleagues, Abdul Salan and
Dr. Homayoon. According to some reports, the detainees may have been
ill-treated in custody. The arrests came two days before a scheduled
RAWA rally to commemorate the second anniversary of the
assassination of the former head of RAWA, Mina Keshwar Kamal. Ahmadi
was released on bail on March 12, 1989.

C On February 11, 1988, Syed B. Majrooh was assassinated in his home in

Peshawar by unidentified gunmen. Majrooh was a prominent exiled
intellectual and poet who published the Afghan Information Bulletin and
ran the Afghan Information Centre. Throughout the war, he assisted
journalists, scholars and human rights groups, including Helsinki Watch
and Asia Watch, in reporting the war and documenting violations. Shortly
before his death, Majrooh had published a survey which indicated that 70
percent of the refugees in Pakistan favored the return of ex-King Zaher
Shah -- a position bitterly opposed by the "fundamentalist" parties.
According to an Asia Watch source, Majrooh had received threats from
Hezb-e Islami one week before he was murdered.

304
According to an independent source Asia Watch believes to be credible but who fears
to be identified, Dr. Ludin's name was found on a list of Afghan intellectuals marked for
execution by Khales' Hezb-e Islami. At least four former faculty members of Kabul University
who had worked for years to support the resistance in Peshawar fled to Western countries
in July 1989 after being informed that their names were also on the list.

117
Threats Against Women

Foreign relief programs targeted at women have received threats,

usually in the form of letters posted at night. Women working for foreign relief
agencies have also received threats. One women's organization received a letter
which stated that if its members did not stop attending a "health course," they
would be killed. In early September 1990 a fatwa (ruling by an Islamic judicial
authority) signed by the "Ulama Union of Afghanistan,"305 prohibited women from
dressing in "close-fitted" clothes or clothes "similar [to that of] ... male[s] [or] non-
Muslims." Wearing perfume or cosmetics, going out "without her husband's
permission," "talking with men who are not her close relatives," "walking with
pride," and "walking in the middle of the street" are also prohibited. The fatwa
also named a number of schools for women in Peshawar, calling them "un-
Islamic," and called on "the leaders of jihad [holy war] and the AIG to stop women
from going to the schools," stating that "women are not allowed to learn modern
technology and new science because only men are responsible to feed the
family."

Threats to Journalists; Restrictions on Freedom of Speech

In addition to the threats against Afghan intellectuals, mujahidin groups

have also threatened journalists for publishing unfavorable reports or for
attempting to investigate abuses by the parties. One journalist who was
investigating the kidnapping and disappearance of an Afghan refugee by one of
the parties received a threatening phone call warning him against "showing too
much interest in the case ... lest he meet the same fate."306

According to Asia Watch sources, many of the parties also attempt to

bribe journalists to cover their press conferences and other events by sending
them envelopes of money. Journalists also told Asia Watch that they are unable to
report on the war itself, out of fear of reprisal by one of the parties. All of the
parties operate press offices, some of which have also been attacked..

305
The names of the organizations that appear on these letters vary, and it is not possible
to identify with certainty which mujahidin parties are responsible for the threats.
306
Interview with Afghan journalist in Peshawar, July 2, 1990.

118
 C On June 27, 1990, Mansoor Khan, a Pakistani correspondent for the
Democrat newspaper in Peshawar, was attacked by unidentified men
who beat him and threw acid in his face. He died in the hospital on July 3.
The motive for the attack is not clear. However, Mansoor Khan had
reported on the abduction of the nurse, Malalai (see above), which he
linked to Hezb-e Islami in a report published shortly before he was
attacked. Other accounts alleged that his reporting on the November
1989 car bomb explosion that killed Abdullah Azam, a Palestinian leader
of the Muslim Brotherhood, had angered Wahhabi groups in Peshawar.
Still other sources suggested that the attack may have had personal
motivation. To Asia Watch's knowledge, no one has been charged in the
crime.

C An Asia Watch source who had given interviews to the press after the
March coup attempt and who had reported on interviews he had
conducted among mujahidin commanders who were critical of former
Defense Minister Tanai, who led the coup attempt, received phone calls
shortly after the broadcast from unidentified persons threatening to kill
him. Another journalist received similar threats after the coup attempt in
which the callers told him, "It would be easy to kill you."

C In February 1989, the English-language publication of Hezb-e Islami,

Resistance, published the names of 11 writers and journalists in a
threatening editorial, castigating them for publishing books and articles
critical of the organization.

Attacks on Foreign Relief Agency Personnel

Foreign employees of relief agencies receive periodic warnings from

groups accusing them of "undermining Islamic values." Organizations with a
Christian basis, such as Shelter Now International, have been singled out for such
attacks. However, other foreign and international organizations have also
received such warnings. Foreign representatives of relief agencies have also
received death threats, and some have been kidnapped and murdered. As with the
cases listed above, it is difficult to attribute responsibility for these attacks to a
particular group.

119
 C Early in September, 1990, a number of foreign relief organizations,
including the UN, received a warning which accused the groups of "using
money in attempting to divide the resistance." The letter accused a
number of named individuals of being "CIA agents" and "agents of a
Zionist conspiracy," and warned them to leave Peshawar.

C On June 22, 1990, a number of foreign aid organizations in Peshawar

received a letter signed by a group calling itself "International Afghan
Jihad" which stated:

Any assistance from UN agencies and

Christian NGOs taken into Afghanistan will be
considered tools for division of mujahidin
parties and Afghan people ... we will make
your life so miserable that you will be forced
to leave Pakistan for good. Our next target
will be Tom Yates [the head of the
International Rescue Committee].

The letter followed a June 16 attack on the director of Shelter Now

International, Dr. Thor Armstrong. Armstrong was accosted while driving
in the Hayatabad area outside Peshawar by a group of armed men who
ordered him to stop. When he refused, they opened fire, spraying the car
with bullets. Neither Amstrong nor his son who was with him was injured.
The family left Peshawar the next day. Shelter Now International had
been accused of Christian proselytizing. On April 26, the Shelter Now
project office in the Nasir Bagh Refugee camp was attacked, and some
time later the organization's plant in Ningrahar province was looted.

C On November 1, 1989, John Tarzwell, a Canadian national and office

manager for the Christian relief agency SERVE, was kidnapped,
reportedly by one of the mujahidin parties. There has been no
information about his whereabouts since the abduction.

Failure of the Pakistani Authorities to Investigate Abuses

120
 Many of the abuses described above have occurred inside Pakistani
territory where Pakistani law applies. While there is credible evidence to link
certain groups to some of the attacks on Afghan refugees and relief workers, as
well as threats against aid organizations, there has been no effort on the part of
Pakistani authorities to investigate these attacks, nor sufficient pressure from
any of the foreign patrons of these groups for an end to these crimes and an
accountability for past abuses. Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in
December 1979, hundreds of Afghan refugees have been the victims of political
violence in Pakistan. One Pakistani police official privately admitted to Asia
Watch that he had seen the death list of the Hezb-e Islami (Hekmatyar) party and
had visited the prison in Shamshatoo. In some cases, particularly before 1988,
Pakistani security personnel effectively authorized these abuses by handing over
selected refugees to the parties for detention.307

Despite the fact that Afghans in Peshawar have filed complaints against
members of groups alleged to have participated in acts of violence, and despite
credible evidence linking certain parties with some of the attacks, the Pakistani
authorities have effectively permitted the parties to act outside the law with
respect to the refugee population.

307
Interviews in Peshawar with Western relief agency officials, July 13, 1990.

121
 VI. U.S. POLICY
Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, the goal of
U.S. policy had been to secure the withdrawal of Soviet forces from the country. To
that end, U.S. policy-makers allocated an estimated $2 to $3 billion over the
course of the past decade in military and economic assistance to the resistance
forces.308 Throughout the war, the U.S. has granted Pakistan wide discretion in
channelling that aid to the groups that based themselves in Peshawar, giving
relatively limited consideration to the politics of these groups or to their human
rights records.

In the months preceding the Soviet withdrawal, U.S. policy-makers

believed that the Soviet departure would result in a battle for control that would
quickly find these resistance groups in power after ousting the government of
President Najibullah. That prognosis proved false, and instead what has followed
in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal has been a protracted civil war which has
continued to cause devastating civilian casualties on all sides. Despite the
changed nature of the war, U.S. policy changed little throughout 1989, remaining
committed to securing a military victory for the mujahidin.

Since early 1989, the Bush administration has also supported the

308
The precise amount of covert aid that was supplied is not known. According to James
Rupert, an assistant foreign editor of the Washington Post who has covered the Afghan war
since 1985, aid to the resistance increased dramatically after 1981: "The United States was
at first not so generous. The CIA, apparently unconvinced that the mujahidin could really
win the war, resisted a large covert aid program. But congressional supporters of the
mujahidin pushed the Reagan administration to enlarge the program from a reported level
of $50 million in FY 1981 to $630 million in FY 1987. U.S. officials cited over the years in the
Washington Post, the New York Times and other media gave figures for the annual military
aid allocations that, totaled from FY 1980 through FY 1989, equaled about $2.8 billion ... This
does not include more than $150 million in food, surplus (non-lethal) Defense Department
equipment, and transportation assistance given the guerrillas and their supporters under a
program administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development." See James
Rupert, "Afghanistan's Slide Toward Civil War," World Policy Journal, Vol. VI, No. 4, Fall 1989,
pp. 759-785, p. 759, 781 fn. 1.

124
Peshawar-based Afghan Interim Government, and has attempted to promote it as a
representative body acceptable to the Afghan people. However, the AIG has failed
to win the support even of mujahidin commanders from the parties that formed it,
and is seen by many Afghans as a tool of Pakistan's own political ambitions and
not as viable or legitimate leadership structure. The Pakistan ISI has continued to
work for the pre-eminence of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, going so far as to attempt in
September 1990 to make Hekmatyar the defense minister of a reorganized AIG.309
Resistance sources in Peshawar claim that that effort was blocked by U.S.
intervention.

By November 1990, U.S. and Soviet officials appeared to be nearing an

agreement on a political settlement that would include internationally supervised
elections in Afghanistan.310 However, while State Department officials have
pursued negotiations toward such a settlement, in October 1990, U.S. diplomats
and intelligence officers in Pakistan backed a Hezb-e Islami (Hekmatyar)
offensive on Kabul, directed by the ISI.311 Many resistance commanders opposed
the Pakistan-sponsored offensive on the grounds that it would cause extensive
civilian casualties and was aimed at building up Gulbuddin Hekmatyar at the
expense of other mujahidin leaders.312

309
Hekmatyar suspended his participation in the AIG in mid-1989 following the massacre
by Hezb-e Islami forces of Jamiat-e Islami prisoners in the Farkhar Valley, and the
subsequent investigation conducted by the AIG. For further details about the incident, see
pp. 54-55, 106-107.
310
Negotiations between the U.S and the Soviet Union over a transition process leading to
elections remained stalemated over the question of what role Najibullah would play in the
interim period and also on the terms for an aid cut-off to both sides. For further details of
the negotiations, see pp. 18-19.
311
Some administration officials who were opposed to the offensive and who have
opposed the ISI's attempts to promote Hekmatyar, attach greater importance to the shura
of top commanders that met at the same time to plan an alternative political and military
strategy.
312
See Steve Coll and James Rupert, "Afghan Rebels Veto Drive for Kabul," Washington
Post, November 4, 1990. Hekmatyar, who has always been favored by the ISI, received the
largest share of U.S.-supplied weapons throughout most of the war. In November 1989, the
administration reportedly decided to stop providing Hekmatyar with military support
directly funded by the U.S. However, at the same time the U.S. and Saudi Arabia agreed to a
$715 million covert aid package to the mujahidin, of which the Saudi portion (approximately

125
 Support by the CIA for the offensive exposed a rift between the agency
and the State Department over U.S. policy in Afghanistan. According to press
reports, by January 1991 the CIA was continuing to push for a military victory for
the mujahidin. New York Times correspondent Clifford Kraus, who interviewed
Robert M. Kimmitt, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, reported that "in
recent weeks Kimmitt has battled with Central Intelligence Agency officials who
would like to unleash the guerrillas in Afghanistan in one last effort to defeat the
Soviet-backed government of President Najibullah ... [Secretary of State] Baker
wants to work closely with Moscow to coax the rebels and the Najibullah regime
into democratic elections." During the interview, Kimmitt stated, "If they have a
problem at the agency it is with me carrying out a policy that has been set down by
the Secretary and reaffirmed by the President during the June summit ... I have no
hesitation in saying that their problem is not with me but with the senior
leadership of this department and this Government. I think they are just bucking
policy."313

The mujahidin's failure to deliver any significant military victory since

the Soviet withdrawal appeared to be the reason for the October 1990 $50 million
Congressional aid cut to the resistance, the first since the war began, and for the
decision to withhold half of the remaining $250 million subject to another vote in
1991. The administration initially argued against the aid cut, saying that it would
send the wrong signal at a time when negotiations toward a settlement were
making progress. On November 30, President Bush vetoed the bill, apparently
because of a provision limiting the executive's opportunities to solicit third
country support for covert operations. (The provision relates not to Afghanistan
but to the Iran-contra controversy.) The House and Senate Select Intelligence
Committees have scheduled reconsideration of the bill for early 1991, and are
expected to offer modified legislation which would not significantly alter the aid
cut.

Throughout the war, U.S. policy-makers have vigorously condemned

Soviet and Afghan government human rights abuses but have been reluctant to

$435 million) was not subject to any restrictions and went primarily to Hekmatyar. See
Robin Wright, "U.S. and Saudis Agree to Fund Afghan Rebels," Los Angeles Times, November
19, 1989.
313
Clifford Kraus, "In Hot Spots Like the Gulf, He's Baker's Cool Hand," New York Times,
January 3, 1991.

126
condemn publicly human rights abuses by elements of the resistance because
these groups have received U.S. aid. These abuses have included indiscriminate
attacks on civilians, summary executions of prisoners, politically-motivated
killings of relief workers and intellectuals, and the imprisonment and torture of
political opponents.

In written responses submitted for a hearing before the House

Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs on July 18, 1990, the State Department
stated that civilian deaths resulting from the mujahidin's attacks on the cities
were "the regrettable result of attacks on militarily significant targets." In fact,
heavy civilian casualties are the predictable result of the mujahidin strategy.
Moreover, the military impact of the rocketing of the cities has been negligible, in
part because of the notorious inaccuracy of the U.S.-supplied Sakr rockets used by
the mujahidin and the inadequate training of resistance troops. Again, in written
responses submitted for a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Asian and
Pacific Affairs on November 2, 1990, the State Department excused these attacks
on the grounds that the "military installations" targeted were "located in or near
residential areas" and that the mujahidin "express deep regret for civilian
casualties." The administration should have used the opportunity of the hearings
to call upon the mujahidin, and Pakistan, to desist from practices which incur
such heavy civilian casualties. The U.S. should also call for a halt to the supply of
weapons that disproportionately kill civilians, including Sakr rockets. A
moratorium on arms deliveries to mujahidin parties that have engaged in gross
human rights abuses is long overdue; however, the Bush administration must also
lean on U.S. allies who keep such groups supplied. Without a similar commitment
from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, a decision to cut U.S. deliveries may do little to
stop the arms flow.

At the November 2 hearing, the State Department also stated that

"reports of human rights violations" by the mujahidin are brought "to the attention
of resistance leaders." Regrettably, such expressions of concern have seldom
been made public, diminishing their force. The administration also
acknowledged, in statements submitted for the November 2 hearing, reports of
human rights abuses within mujahidin prisons. The administration's assurances
that these reports were being investigated were welcome. However, statements
calling for access to these prisons by international humanitarian organizations
would go further toward ending these abuses.

127
 In a welcome gesture, in mid-November 1990, a letter was sent to six of
the mujahidin factions by the U.S. special envoy to the Afghan resistance, Peter
Tomsen, regarding the massacre of government soldiers at Tarin Kot and other
incidents. In that letter the State Department strongly condemned the execution
of prisoners under any circumstances, calling such executions gross violations of
the laws of war.

However, U.S. officials have been unwilling to pressure Pakistani

authorities to investigate those abuses that have occurred in Pakistan, and to
prosecute those responsible for torture and murder. In written responses
submitted for the July 18 congressional hearing, the State Department went so far
as to credit the Pakistani authorities with conducting "a serious investigation"
into the 1988 murder of Professor Sayd Majrooh. In fact, the Pakistani police
resisted following credible leads implicating Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's faction in
the murder. Dozens of similar murders have been carried out with impunity by
elements of the mujahidin.

Even though the Pakistani ISI has participated in these abuses, and has
pushed commanders to launch attacks which have disproportionately killed
civilians, U.S. officials have not pressed the Pakistani authorities about these
abuses, nor publicly called for an end to such attacks, as they should. The U.S.
should also call for the abolition of the Frontier Crimes Regulation Act, and urge
Pakistan to ensure that Afghan prisoners are not subject to arbitrary arrest by any
agency operating inside Pakistan. Mujahidin forces are not legally empowered by
Pakistani law to make arrests, or mete out forms of punishment that are reserved
to the state, and such acts by the mujahidin should not be tolerated by the
Pakistani authorities.

If the U.S. and the Soviet Union do reach agreement on a political

settlement to the Afghan conflict, they should support a transition process in
which all sections of Afghan society can be represented, under the aegis of a
neutral organization, such as the U.N. If elections -- or a more traditional process
by which Afghans can choose their own government -- are to take place, measures
must be taken to ensure the immediate and future safety and rights of Afghans in
the cities and returning refugees.

128
 VII. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The final withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan in February
1989 was seen as the first step toward ending Afghanistan's civil war. Two years
later, that war -- largely unnoticed by the outside world -- goes on, and all sides to
the conflict continue to engage in grave human rights abuses and violations of
humanitarian law.

By early 1991, as negotiations between the Soviet Union and the U.S. for a
settlement to the conflict remain stalled, the outbreak of war in the Persian Gulf
further complicated the chances for peace in Afghanistan. Although the countries
allied in the Gulf War include those that were most divided over Afghanistan, their
temporary alliance has not led to agreement over a settlement to the Afghan
conflict.

Divisions between the administration and U.S. intelligence officials over

policy in Afghanistan, the new chill in U.S.-Pakistan relations following a cut in U.S.
aid, and the Soviet army's increasingly hard-line position on foreign policy
suggest instead that the opening that appeared in 1990 offering a chance for
peace in Afghanistan is fast closing. Before it does, both superpowers and the
international community should urge all parties to the Afghan conflict, and their
foreign sponsors, to take steps to end the abuses and ensure that the rights and
security of all Afghans are protected. Such measures would include at least the
following:

Recommendations

C Throughout the conflict, forces on all sides have used methods of

warfare -- including Scud missiles and Sakr rockets -- which are
inaccurate and which consequently cause disproportionate civilian
casualties. All parties to the conflict should desist from using such
weapons, and their foreign sponsors, including the United States, the
Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, should stop supplying them, and
should call publicly for an end to indiscriminate attacks.

131
C While reports of summary execution of captured prisoners and reprisal
killings of civilians by government forces have declined, such incidents
continue to take place. Such abuses are in violation of international
humanitarian law, and the government of Afghanistan should promptly
investigate all reports of such killings and prosecute those responsible.
The reduction in the number of reported incidents does not diminish the
government's obligation to make every effort to investigate such abuses,
make the findings public, and bring to justice those responsible as a way
of preventing similar abuses in the future.

C Members of militia forces allied with the government are bound to

conduct their military operations in accordance with the laws of war.
The government of Afghanistan should exercise greater control over the
recruitment, training and supervision of such forces and prosecute
militia members who have engaged in abuses.

C Mujahidin forces have also engaged in the summary executions of

prisoners and other violations of the laws of war. Members of the
resistance forces should comply with the provisions of international
humanitarian law relating to the treatment of civilians and prisoners
during periods of armed conflict.

C All parties to the conflict should make available all maps of minefields
and cooperate with efforts by international and private agencies in mine
clearance.

C While conditions for sentenced prisoners have improved markedly in

government prisons, conditions for detainees remain precarious. The
government of Afghanistan should grant the ICRC immediate access to
all detainees, and ensure that detainees have access to defense counsel
and to family members. Conditions in detention centers should be
brought in line with the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of
Prisoners. All reports of torture and mistreatment should be promptly
investigated, and those found responsible for abuses prosecuted. The
powers of the Attorney General should be strengthened as a check
against illegal detention.

C The government of Afghanistan should ease restrictions that have

132
prevented the formation of genuine opposition parties and an opposition
press. Such measures would include ending all forms of censorship and
restrictions of freedom of speech, promoting the establishment of
independent publishing houses, and curtailing state security
surveillance at the university.

C Pakistani authorities should fully investigate reports of murder, torture

and kidnapping by mujahidin parties that have occurred inside Pakistan,
and prosecute those responsible for abuses. Pakistani officials who
have participated in such abuses should also be prosecuted.

C Pakistani authorities should not permit mujahidin factions to hold

prisoners inside Pakistan, and should permit international humanitarian
organizations immediate access to all Afghan detainees in Pakistani
jails. The preventive detention provisions of the Pakistan Frontier Crimes
Regulation Act should be abolished. The Bush administration should call
publicly for an end to these abuses, and press Pakistani authorities to
prosecute mujahidin members who have committed such abuses.

C The U.S. Congress should conduct an immediate investigation into the

CIA's activities to ensure that the CIA is not implementing an
independent foreign policy in Afghanistan, and investigate reports that
CIA officials, together with the Pakistan ISI, have encouraged
indiscriminate attacks on cities which have caused heavy civilian
casualties.

C If the U.S. and the Soviet Union reach agreement on a political

settlement to the conflict, they should support a transition process in
which all sections of Afghan society will be permitted to participate. If
elections take place, measures must be taken to ensure the immediate
and future safety and rights of Afghans in the cities and of returning
refugees.

133
 APPENDIX A: MUJAHIDIN PARTIES314

Mujahidin Parties Based in Pakistan:

C Harakat-
Harakat-e Inqilab-
Inqilab-e Islami (Islamic Revolutionary Movement of Afghanistan),
headed by Maulvi Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi, Mohammadi is a coalition party of
traditionalist clergy, with a Pashtun base and some Tajik and Uzbek support.

C Hezb-
Hezb-e Islami (Islamic Party) headed by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is the most
ideologically radical of the "fundamentalist" Islamic parties. It is favored by the
ISI and by Saudi Arabia. Throughout most of the war, it received the largest share
of CIA covert military assistance provided to the resistance. It is supported mainly
by Pashtuns but has some support from other ethnic groups.

C Hezb-
Hezb-e Islami (Islamic Party) headed by Yunis Khales is a splinter party that
broke away from Hekmatyar's in 1979. It is a traditional Islamic coalition party
with a Pashtun tribal base that is particularly strong in the Jalalabad area.

C Ittihad-
Ittihad-e-Islami Bara-
Bara-ye Azad-
Azad-e Afghanistan (Islamic Union for the Liberation of
Afghanistan) is headed by Professor Abdul Rasul Sayyaf,
Sayyaf was established to
attract support from Arab Wahhabi sources and has received considerable aid
from Saudi Arabia and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). With that
aid it has been able to attract commanders inside Afghanistan.

C Jamiat-
Jamiat-e Islami (Islamic Society), headed by Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani
Rabbani,
bbani
an Islamic scholar, has a predominantly Tajik following with some Pashtun
support. It has closer ties to the traditional religious establishment than
Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami party. It has the largest following of any of the parties
and is considered the most moderate of the "fundamentalist" parties. Jamiat-e
Islami's charismatic commander Ahmad Shah Massoud controls the Panjshir

314
For a further explanation of the history of these parties, see Olivier Roy, Islam and
Resistance in Afghanistan, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 219-220.
See also Afghanistan: The Making of U.S. Policy 1973-1990 (Alexandria, VA: National Security
Archives and Chadwyck-Healey, Inc., forthcoming in March, 1991).

134
Valley and major parts of northeast Afghanistan.

C Jabha-
Jabha-yi-
yi-Najat-
Najat-e-Milli (National Salvation Front) is led by Professor
Professor Sibghatullah
Mojaddidi,
Mojaddidi the head of a family of prominent Kabul clerics of a Sufi (mystical)
order. It has support among some elements close to the former monarchy and
some tribal elements. It is the smallest party.

C The Mahaz-
Mahaz-e-Milli-
Milli-yi-
yi-Islami (National Islamic Front of Afghanistan or NIFA) is led
Gailani a pir (spiritual master) who favors
by wealthy businessman Sayed Ahmed Gailani,
a return to a nationalist government. The party is favored by pro-royalist Pashtun
tribes, especially near Qandahar and the east, and by Western-educated elites of
the old regime. It is considered the most moderate of the parties.

Mujahidin Parties Based in Iran:

Iran

(There are a number of Shi'a parties based in Iran. These are considered the most
active.

C Harakat-
Harakat-e Islami,
Islami headed by Sheikh Mohammad Asef Mohseni,
Mohseni is a radical
Islamic party with urban Shi'a support.

C Sazman-
Sazman-e Nasr is a pro-Iranian Islamic radical party with support among Hazara
intellectuals. It is the largest of the three main Shi'a parties.

C Sepah
Sepah-
pah-e Gruh-
Gruh-e Pasdaran is associated with the Iranian Pasdaran (Guardians of
the Revolution).

C Shura-
Shura-ye-
ye-Ittefaq-
Ittefaq-e Inqilab
Inqilab--e Islami,
Islami headed by Sayyed Beheshti,
Beheshti is the only
major traditionalist Shi'a party.

135
APPENDIX B: POLITICAL PARTIES REGISTERED WITH THE REPUBLIC OF
AFGHANISTAN315

Political Parties Registered with the Republic of Afghanistan (as of July 1990):

C Afghanistan Workers Vanguard Party,

Party headed by Mohammad Zahir Ufaq.

C Afghanistan Young Workers Vanguard Party,

Party headed by Abdul Shakoor.

C Hezb-
Hezb-e-Hezbullah (Hezbullah Party), a Shi'a party headed by Sheikh Wasooqi. It is
reportedly modeled on the Iranian party of the same name.

C Hezb-
Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan (Islamic Party of Afghanistan), headed by Hanifi. The
party's following is Pashtun.

C Hezb-
Hezb-e-Karigaran Jawan Afghanistan (Afghanistan Young Workers Party),
headed by Sofi Ashna. The party is associated with the Karigaran-
Karigaran-e-Jawan
Afghanistan (KAJA) and the Afghanistan Democracy Movement.
Movement
C Ittefaq-
Ittefaq-e-Mubarazan Sulh wa Taraqi Afghanistan (Union of Strugglers for Peace
and Development of Afghanistan), headed by Zaman Gul.

C Ittehad-
Ittehad-e Ansarullah (Union of Ansarullah), headed by Satar Mohammad Khadim.
The party has mainly a Pashtun following.

C Ittehad-
Ittehad-e-Hambastagi Afghanistan (Fedayan) (Union of Coordination of
Afghanistan), headed by Mohammad Sarwar Nooristani.

C Ittehad-
Ittehad-e-Melli Desqanan Afghanistan (National Union of Farmers of
Afghanistan), headed by Abdul Hakim Tawana. The party reportedly publishes a
newspaper by the name of Adalat. It has a mainly Pashtun following.

315
Information about these parties is derived primarily from official government
(Republic of Afghanistan) sources. Many of the associations listed appear to represent
specific interest groups and not political parties. For a discussion of Asia Watch's concerns
about freedom of association in Afghanistan, see chapter 5.

136
C Karigaran-
Karigaran-e-Jawan Afghanistan (Workers of Afghanistan), headed by Abdul
Ghafar Sharifi. It has a Tajik following.

C Nohmat-
Nohmat-e-Democracy Afghanistan (Afghanistan Democracy Movement),
formerly the SAZA party. It is headed by Manbullah Koshani. The SAZA party (also
known as Setam-e Melli reportedly had Maoist leanings and endorsed Tajik and
Uzbek separatism. The Nohmat-e-Democracy Afghanistan still has support among
Tajiks. It reportedly publishes a newspaper, Maihan.

C SABZA Party,
Party headed by Tazah Khan (Uiar), the party has a mainly Pashtun
following.

C Sazman-
Sazman-e-Karigaran Afghanistan (Afghanistan Workers Organization) headed
by Satar Serat. The party was formerly known as Hezb-e Islami.

C Sazman-
Sazman-e-Zahmat Kashan-
Kashan-e-Afghanistan.
Afghanistan (SAZA) It is headed by Hamidullah
Gran and has a mainly Pashtun following.

C Watan (Homeland), formerly People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan

Afghanistan, headed
by President Najibullah. The PDPA has been the ruling party in Afghanistan since
the 1978 coup. Payam is the party's publication.

137
 APPENDIX C: PARTIAL LIST OF PRISONERS

During the Asia Watch mission to Afghanistan in July and August 1990, we
requested information from the Ministry of State Security about a number of
prisoners whose cases had come to our attention as disappearances, torture
cases, or possible examples of people imprisoned for non-violent political
activity. In all cases, we were concerned about the fairness of the trial
proceedings involved. The government responded in writing on the following
cases.

C Amin Yusufzai,
Yusufzai former Director of Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Planning,
was reportedly detained at Kabul airport in January 1986, after he was found to be
carrying a photograph of his brother, a member of the mujahidin. The Ministry of
State Security informed Asia Watch that on January 19 1986, Yusufzai was
sentenced to 20 years imprisonment on charges of spying.

C Hisamuddin Mehmud,
Mehmud an Egyptian journalist was arrested in 1989 along with a
Saudi journalist, Abdul Rahman. The Ministry of State Security informed Asia
Watch that Mehmud was charged with "taking part in military operations in
Ningrahar Province and participation in armed revolt against the Government of
the Republic of Afghanistan." He was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment. The
Ministry of State Security provided no information on the fate of Abdul Rahman.

C Seyed Hamza,
Hamza son of Sayed Mahboob, was arrested on December 24, 1987.
According to Amnesty International, he was reportedly tortured during
interrogation at Sedarat and was not allowed family visits. He was sentenced to
death on April 20, 1988. The Ministry of State Security informed Asia Watch that
Seyed Hamza was charged with being a member of Jamiat-e Islami and with
"transporting ammunition from Pakistan into Republic of Afghanistan, firing of 12
surface-to-surface rockets on residential areas of Kabul, and several other anti-
state activities." His death sentence has yet to be approved by President
Najibullah.316

316
See Amnesty International, "Urgent Action: Afghanistan: Seyed Hamza, son of Seyed
Mahboob," AI Index: ASA 11/12/90, November 14, 1990.

138
C A number of Afghans who had been employed at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were
arrested in the early years of the war. Six who were arrested in 1982 and 1983
remain in jail. They are:

Ghulam Sakhi Ahmadzai,

Ahmadzai arrested in April 1982.
Jalaluddin Talibee,
Talibee arrested in April 1983.
Abdul Qayum,
Qayum arrested in April 1983.
Abdul Kudus Kadri,
Kadri arrested in March 1983.
Mohammed Essa,
Essa arrested in March 1982.
Fazal Ahmad,
Ahmad arrested in April 1983.

The Ministry of State Security informed Asia Watch that all six were sentenced to
20 years' imprisonment on charges of spying.

C Dr. Mohammad Younis Akbari,

Akbari a nuclear physicist who was arrested in 1983 on
charges of "being member of a Maoist movement," "indulging in activities against
the law," "distributing arms to extremist elements," and "persuading people to
participate in armed revolt against the government," was sentenced to death by
hanging by a Special Revolutionary Court in 1984. The Ministry of State Security
informed Asia Watch that the sentence had been carried out, but they did not
inform us when Akbari was executed.

C Syed Abdul Samad and Mohammad Nazar were tried and convicted of spying in
January 1988 after they entered Afghanistan illegally with French journalist Alain
Guillo (who was released in May 1988 after an appeal by President Mitterand).
Samad and Nazar were sentenced to 16 years' imprisonment. According to Guillo,
they were accompanying him as bodyguard and translator. The Ministry of State
Security informed Asia Watch that Samad had been sentenced to 16 years'
imprisonment for spying and avoiding military service, and that Mohammad Nazar
had been sentenced to 16 years' imprisonment for cooperating with Alain Guillo
and avoiding military service.

C Commander Abdul Wahed was captured in the Paranda Valley, Panjshir in 1984.
His arrest was widely publicized by the government, after which he was believed
to have disappeared. The Ministry of State Security informed Asia Watch that a
Special Revolutionary Court had sentenced Abdul Wahed to death by hanging and
that the sentence was carried out in 1985.

139
C Shinwari,
Shinwari son of Safdar from Gulbuta, Dara-i-Noor, outside Jalalabad, was
arrested after a government bombardment of the area while he was reportedly
trying to remove mines that had been placed by government forces. The Ministry
of State Security informed Asia Watch that he had been charged with "indulging in
terrorist and destructive activities, organizing explosions, and having links with
Hezb-e Islami (Hekmatyar)." He has been sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment.

140