The Afghanistan Justice Project Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity: 1978-2001 Documentation and analysis of major patterns of abuse in the war in Afghanistan The Afghanistan Justice Project The Afghanistan Justice Project (AJP) was established in late 2001 as an independent research and advocacy organization whose objective is to document serious war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by all of the parties during the conflict in Afghanistan, 1978-2001. Our work has focused on some of the most egregious incidents of the different phases of the war – massacres, summary executions, systematic torture, mass rapes, and deliberate targeting of civilians in warfare. Our researchers interview a wide range of sources to determine the facts about specific incidents in order to establish an objective historical record and to press the Afghan government, and international donors and policy-makers to pursue accountability for the crimes of the past. The Afghanistan Justice Project’s staff includes Afghan and some non-Afghan researchers and legal experts. Much of the work has been done by volunteers. Almost all of the field work has been carried out in Afghanistan over a period of three years, although we have also interviewed some Afghans living outside the country. Many of the Afghans working with the project lived through some or all of the war. The Afghanistan Justice Project is independent and non-partisan, and has no official relationship to any government or intergovernmental body or other international organization. The organization’s status as a non-profit foundation is pending the completion of registration procedures in Belgium. For more information about the Afghanistan Justice Project, see our website at www.afghanistanjusticeproject.org. © 2005 Afghanistan Justice Project All rights reserved 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Executive Summary and Recommendations.........................................................................4 1.1 Report summary.................................................................................................. 4 1.2 Recommendations............................................................................................... 6 2 Violations of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law 1978-1992: the political context........................................................................................................................10 2.1 The PDPA coup and Soviet Occupation........................................................... 10 2.2 The Soviet Withdrawal and Najibullah Government 1988-1992 ..................... 11 3 Violations of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law during the Taraki-Amin period of PDPA rule, 27 April 1978-27 December 1979 .....................................12 3.1 A period of massive repression......................................................................... 12 3.2 Overview of arrests, disappearances and summary executions........................ 13 3.3 Arrests and disappearances : case studies from Kabul and the provinces ........ 14 3.4 Arrests and Disappearances in Qandahar ......................................................... 17 3.5 Overview of War Crimes during Counter-Insurgency Military Operations..... 19 3.6 The Kerala Massacre.........................................................................................19 3.7 The Herat Uprising in March 1979................................................................... 21 3.8 Bombings, Disappearances and Resistance in Hazarajat 1979......................... 23 3.9 Uprisings in Kabul............................................................................................ 25 3.10 Torture under PDPA [1978-79] ........................................................................ 28 4 Violations of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law during the Soviet Occupation and Karmal-Najibullah period of PDPA rule, January 1980- February 1989 ................................................................................................................................31 4.1 Political developments after the Soviet intervention ........................................ 31 4.2 Detentions and Torture ..................................................................................... 35 4.3 Overview of Indiscriminate Bombing in the Countryside................................ 41 4.4 Operation in Kas-Aziz Khan – Laghman Province 1984 ................................. 45 5 The Soviet Withdrawal and Aftermath ...............................................................................48 5.1 Changes in political context after the withdrawal............................................. 48 5.2 Militias and the abandonment of the rule of law .............................................. 48 5.3 Violations by Afghan Armed Forces and Militia forces 1989-92 .................... 53 5.4 Violations by Resistance Forces 1989-1992..................................................... 56 6 Violations of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law during the period of the Islamic State of Afghanistan (ISA), 1992-1996 and by the United Front, 1996-98 ................................................................................................................................61 6.1 Background to the civil war period of 1992-1996............................................ 61 6.2 The Battles for the North .................................................................................. 64 6.3 Indiscriminate rocketing and bombardment of Kabul and excessive use of force in the factional conflict in Kabul 1992-1995 ................................................................ 64 6.4 Massacre and Mass Rape in Afshar.................................................................. 82 2 6.5 Torture and summary executions and other abuses by Hizb-i Wahdat forces, principally in Kabul and Mazar-i Sharif 1992-1998..................................................... 88 6.6 Torture, Rape and Summary Executions by Junbish forces 1991-2001......... 100 6.7 Abuses by Other Factions, Kabul 1992-1996................................................. 110 6.8 The Massacre of Taliban prisoners in Mazar-i Sharif .................................... 115 7 Violations of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law during the period of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan ...........................................................................118 7.1 Background..................................................................................................... 118 7.2 The Massacre in Mazar-i Sharif...................................................................... 120 7.3 Summary executions in Sar-i Pul Province, 1999 – 2000 .............................. 123 7.4 Conflict in Shamali 1996-2001 and summary executions .............................. 126 7.5 The Rabatak Massacre .................................................................................... 128 7.6 Summary executions, Yakaolang, January 7-22, 2001................................... 131 7.7 Wanton destruction and multiple abuses, Yakaolang, February to September 2001 147 8 Lessons not yet Learned ......................................................................................................155 8.1 Relevance of the past to the new Afghanistan................................................ 155 8.2 Deaths in Custody and Torture ....................................................................... 156 8.3 Secret Detentions............................................................................................ 158 3 1 Executive Summary and Recommendations 1.1 Report summary Afghanistan has been at war since April 1978. During every phase of the conflict—the revolution of April 1978 that brought to power the factionalized Marxist-Leninist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, its radical reform measures and brutal crackdown on the uprisings that followed; the Soviet invasion of December 1979, occupation and counterinsurgency war; the Soviet withdrawal and the civil war; the repressive rule of the Taliban, and finally the U.S.-led intervention that ended it—different armed factions, both Afghan and foreign, committed crimes against humanity and serious war crimes. These war crimes have included large-scale massacres, disappearances and summary executions of at least tens of thousands of Afghans, indiscriminate bombing and rocketing that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, torture, mass rape and other atrocities. In the twenty-seven years since the war began, there has been no serious effort, international or domestic, to account for these crimes. To say that all of the armed forces that fought in Afghanistan committed war crimes is not to say that every single fighter has been guilty of such actions. What the Afghanistan Justice Project has documented are incidents in which senior officers and commanders ordered actions amounting to war crimes by their forces, or allowed such actions to take place and did nothing to prevent or stop them. The Afghanistan Justice Project’s intent in documenting these incidents is not to impugn the cause for which any of the armed groups fought, but rather to call for accountability where those actions amounted to war crimes. Accounting for the worst of the crimes committed continues to be an issue of great concern to many Afghans: the report published in January this year by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), “A Call for Justice,” indicates