| Subj: | RIGHT POINT: The Northern Alliance |
| Date: | 12/4/01 11:50:37 AM Pacific Standard Time |
Summary of International Press Coverage of the Slaughter of Prisoners
December 3, 2001
This week the spotlight is on the mass killings of prisoners that appear
to have been committed by the Northern Alliance that the United States has
been using to fight the Taliban in its so-called "war on terror." According
to a BBC report by Fiona Symon, the Northern Alliance is a religiously and
ethnically mixed group of rebels with little in common, except their wish
to topple the Taliban.
(http//news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1552000/1552994.stm)
However, other reliable reports, including statements from the White
House, openly connect the Northern Alliance to Russia, and the U.S.'s new
confidant, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The scene of the largely unreported slaughter was the Qalai Janghi Fortress
outside Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan, an old fort where between 300 and
400 Taliban volunteers had been brought after surrendering. According
to Northern Alliance commander, General Rashid Dostum, the prisoners had
suddenly begun shooting and firing rockets, and two of his generals were
killed in a grenade attack. How the prisoners obtained the weapons
is unknown.
With the help of U.S. air strikes and U.S. special forces and other covert
troops believed to be British, Gen. Dostum's Northern Alliance troops put
down the rebellion on November 29th in an assault that left nearly all of
the prisoners dead--around 450, though the precise number is uncertain.
Journalists who visited the scene the next day saw fields covered with bodies,
many of which had hands tied behind their backs, raising fears that they
had been executed. (see
(http//thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1006988659185&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News&col=968793972154).
American bombs had reduced the fortress itself to a pile of rubble, and
Alliance soldiers were seen stripping the bodies of belongings like boots,
machine guns and even the fillings of a corpse's teeth
(http//news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=107369).
Although the Allies justify the mass killing of the Taliban prisoners on
grounds that it was a "pitched battle" and not a massacre or reprisal,
international human rights groups, including Amnesty International and the
UN Commission for Human Rights are investigating possible violations
of the Fourth Geneva Conventions
(http//www.us?israel.org/jsource/History/Human_Rights/geneva1.html), which
protect the rights of prisoners of war to humane treatment. Commissioner
Mary Robinson and Red Cross workers are also questioning the necessity and
proportionality of the assault.
The Guardian reports that "The criticism of the bombing comes amid growing
British disquiet at the tough language adopted by the US Defense Secretary,
Donald Rumsfeld, who said America was 'not inclined to negotiate surrenders'
and that he hoped al-Qaida forces would 'either be killed or
taken prisoner'. 'Belligerence is not helpful,' a British defense source
said. A 1977 protocol to the Geneva convention makes it illegal 'to
order that there shall be no survivors'."
(http//www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,608721,00.html)
Right Point Comment:
Keeping track of America's international wheeling and dealing can be
confusing. Today the US is using the terrorist Northern Alliance to
fight the "terrorist" Taliban; yesterday it used this same terrorist Taliban
to fight the terrorist Communists. General Rashid Dostum, The Northern
Alliance commander, was formally the commander of the Soviet surrogate regime
known as the Najibullah, which was supported by the Soviet Union after its
defeat and withdrawal in 1989. Dostum is a notorious warlord
whose fighters had in 1997 thrown Taliban prisoners into wells and tossed
grenades in with them to finish them off-- I expect that, if it serves the
interests of those in power who pull the warmaking strings, our country could
be using some other terrorist organization to fight the "terrorist" Northern
Alliance tomorrow.
What kind of a "war on terror" is it that itself uses terrorist fighters
and terrorist tactics?
-- WHTT Staff
Now available: In Cold Blood, The Communist Conquest of Afghanistan,
by Addul Shams: inquire
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