HRW Paying for Taliban Crimes

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HUM AN RIGHTS WATCH APRIL 20 02 VO L. 14, NO . 2 (C)

A F G H A N I S T A N

Paying for the Talibans Crimes:

Abuses Against Ethnic Pashtuns in Northern Afghanistan

You are Pashtun. You dont belong in this area. You must leave for K abul, and leave [ thi s area] for us.

Jamiat commander speaking to Pashtun villager in Baghlan province.

The Tali ban did the crimes, but the punishment was for us.

Pashtun elder, describing the abuses his vil lage faced at the hands of H izb-i Wahdat fi ghters.

I ve complained only to A llah. Who hears our complaints? We wi ll only get in more trouble if we complain.

We hav e no power. Whoever has the guns has the power. We are sick of the guns, of the commanders.

Take them all away and let us farm.

Elderly Pashtun villager whose house was looted by Jamiat forces.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUM MARY.............................................................................................................. 1

RECOM M ENDAT IONS ......................................................................................... 3To the International Community:............................................................................ 3To the United Nations Security Council: ................................................................. 3To the Afghan Interim Administration:.................................................................... 3To Junbish-i M illy-yi Islami, Jamiat-e Islami, and Hizb-i Wahdat:.............................. 4

A NOTE ON THE USE OF NAMES, DATES, AND

TERM S USED IN THIS REPORT .......................................................................... 4

INTRODUCT ION ................................................................................................... 5

The Return to Warlordism in Northern Afghanistan................................................ 5

The Major Parties................................................................................................... 5

Warlordism and the International Community ......................................................... 6

Abuses Faced by Pashtuns...................................................................................... 8

Displacement of Ethnic Pashtuns............................................................................ 9

THE L EGACY OF TAL IBAN ABUSES ..................................................................10

BAL K H PROVINCE...............................................................................................12Chimtal District ....................................................................................................12

Bargah-e Afghani ..... ........................................................................................12

Yengi Qala.............. ........................................................................................15

Rape in Chimtal District...................................................................................18

Charbolak District.................................................................................................18

Nauwarid Janghura... ........................................................................................18Kakrak.................... ........................................................................................19

Khanabad................ ........................................................................................20

Balkh District........................................................................................................21

Balkh City............... ........................................................................................21

Turwai Kai Settlement......................................................................................23

Aghab-e Godam Settlement ..............................................................................23

Spin Kot Settlement. ........................................................................................24

Dawlatabad District ...............................................................................................25

Pai-e Mashhad Afghani .....................................................................................25

Koter Ma................ ........................................................................................26

Bagh-e Zakhireh ...... ........................................................................................27

Other Affected Pashtun Villages inDawlatabad District.. ........................................................................................29

FARY AB PROVINCE .............................................................................................29Shoor Darya Valley................................................................................................29

M K Village............. ........................................................................................30

Haji Mullah Hashim and Khoja Abbas Villages...................................................32

Islam Qala............................................................................................................34


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SAM ANGAN PROVINCE ......................................................................................35Hazrat-i Sultan District .........................................................................................35

Shurkul ................... ........................................................................................35

Khoja Pirshan .......... ........................................................................................35

Aibak District........................................................................................................36Hassan Khel ............ ........................................................................................36Ghazi M ullah Qurban.......................................................................................37

BAGHLAN PROVINCE .........................................................................................37Nahrin District......................................................................................................37

Qona Qala............... ........................................................................................37Baraki..................... ........................................................................................39Lakan Khel.............. ........................................................................................40

Jadran..................... ........................................................................................41Other Pashtun Villages in Nahrin District...........................................................42

K ilagai Valley........................................................................................................42

KUNDU Z AND OT HER PROVINCES ..................................................................43

THE RESPONSE OF THE AFGH AN AU THORI T IES ...........................................44

Establishment of Independent Commission.............................................................44

Preliminary Steps toward Improving Security in the North .......................................45

THE ROLE OF THE INT ERNAT ION AL COM M UNIT Y ...................................46

The United States and the International Assistance Force for Afghanistan (ISAF)......46

The ISAF Contributing Countries..........................................................................47

The United Nations...............................................................................................48


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A F G H A N I S T A N : PA Y I N G FO R TH E TA L I B A N S C R I M E S

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH 1 APRIL 20 02 VO L. 14, NO . 2 (C)

SUMMARY

Since the collapse of the Taliban regime innorthern Afghanistan in November 2001, ethnic

Pashtuns throughout northern Afghanistan havefaced widespread abuses including killings, sexualviolence, beatings, extortion, and looting.Pashtuns are being targeted because their ethnicgroup was closely associated with the T alibanregime, whose leadership consisted mostly ofPashtuns from southern Afghanistan.

Directly implicated in many of the abuses arethe three main ethnically-based parties and theirmilitias in northern Afghanistanthepredominantly ethnic Uzbek Junbish-i M illy-yiIslami, the predominately ethnic Tajik Jamiat-eIslami, and the ethnic Hazara Hizb-i Wahdatas

well as non-aligned armed Uzbeks, Tajiks, andHazaras who are taking advantage of thevulnerability of unprotected and selectivelydisarmed Pashtun communities.

In response to reports of abuses againstPashtuns, Human Rights Watch sent a team offour researchers to northern Afghanistan inFebruary and March 2002. The team visiteddozens of Pashtun villages and communities infour northern provinces (Balkh, Faryab,Samangan, and Baghlan) and also met withrepresentatives of the Afghan interimadministration, diplomatic representatives, and

humanitarian workers.

Widespread looting and extortion of Pashtuncommunities was documented throughout theregion. A typical pattern of attacks emerged inthe Shoor Darya region of Faryab province.Local villagers said armed Uzbeks associatedwith the local Junbish faction took away theirguns (but not those of members of other ethnicgroups) in mid-November and proceeded toviolently loot their villages, taking livestock,stored grains, household goods, carpets, money,and jewelry over the course of the next fewweeksa period described by one villager asforty days of terror.

In many Pashtun villages, the looting wasaccompanied by severe beatings of Pashtun menand sometimes women. M .J ., an elder of thePashtun village of Spin K ot in Balkh province,described a typical beating, committed in thiscase by Hazara soldiers: One was twisting myhead and two were kicking me in the back. Theywere beating me with a shovel, questioning meabout guns and money. T hey beat me there for

about two, two and a half hours. The beatingsfinally stopped when M .J. showed the soldierswhere he had hidden his money. A.S., a wealthylivestock owner from the Shoor Darya region,was almost beaten to death by two Junbishsoldiers who wanted money from him: At first

they choked me with my turban. I lostconsciousness, and they tied my hands. Thenthey started beating me with a kardoom [a cablewith a metal ball at the end]. I cant rememberhow many times they hit me, on my back, mylegs, my hands. T hey broke my arm with thekardoom. The beating stopped when A.S.agreed to give the men money and hand over hismotorbike.

Cases of abductions for ransom weredocumented throughout the region. Junbishsoldiers arrested M.K and his friend, bothPashtun villagers from Hassan Khel in Samanganprovince, in late December, and kept them for aweek in a basement, beating them with wirecables, until the men agreed to pay money.

Raiders also killed Pashtun civilians during thelooting. In the village of Bargah-e Afghani,located in the Chimtal district of Balkh province,Hazara gunmen killed thirty-seven Pashtun menafter tying most of them up, beating them infront of their families, and demanding money tospare their lives. In the nearby village of YengiQala, Hazara gunmen killed four men and twoelderly women during looting. Junbish soldiersbeat to death two Pashtun boys, aged fifteen andeighteen, in the village of Deshdan Bala in Balkhprovince. A village elder, Lal Jan, was severelybeaten and then taken away by Uzbek gunmen inthe Shoor Darya valley of Faryab province: he ispresumed dead.

Women and girls were also raped during thelooting raids. In Balkh city, Hazara gunmengang-raped a fourteen-year-old Pashtun girl andher mother, before beating her fatherunconscious and looting the home. On January16, 2002, three Hazara soldiers raped a sixteen-year-old girl in Chimtal district. In Kunduzprovince, Jamiat soldiers beat thirty-year-oldP.M . unconscious, and then raped his wife.Human Rights Watch received reports of othercases of rapes, and many women described howthey had to fight off attackers or hide youngfemale relatives out of fear of rape.

The most severe looting-related violence hassubsided in some areas, but Pashtuncommunities throughout the north remainextremely vulnerable to serious human rights


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abuses. Human Rights Watch documentedseveral cases of abuse that occurred during ourvisits. In one village in Shoor Darya, the suddenarrival of Human Rights Watch researchersscared off two Uzbek gunmen who had come toextort money from the village elders. In another

village in Samangan province, a village elder toldHuman Rights Watch that he had been forced togive up twelve of his sheep to a local Junbishcommander on the morning of our visit. OnFebruary 20, 2002, N.M ., from Qona Qalavillage in Baghlan province, was beaten by a local

Jamiat commander who wanted money: Theyhit me with a stick and a rifle butt. The[commander] was holding me, and the son beatme for thirty minutes. While I was beingbeaten, my wife came to ask them to spare me.

They kicked her hard. In Samangan province,the Human Rights Watch team was informedthat Junbish soldiers had abducted a Pashtunman from the market the day of our visit,presumably to seek ransom from the family later.

The chairman of the Afghan interimgovernment, Hamid Karzai, has taken somepositive steps to address the anti-Pashtunviolence in northern Afghanistan, most notablyby appointing a three-person independentcommission to investigate the issue. But hiscapacity for addressing the violence is limited, asreal power in northern Afghanistan rests withcommanders who are associated with the threemain parties, including those implicated in theabuses. Leaders of those parties who holdpositions in the interim government have onoccasion taken corrective action. For example,General Abdul Rashid Dostum has removedsome abusive Junbish commanders from power,most noticeably in Faryab province, and hasplaced new commanders among threatenedPashtun communities to protect thembut other

Junbish commanders continue to carry outabuses with seeming impunity. An Afghannational army that could guarantee the securityof all Afghans is only in the conception stage,there is no national police force, and a securityvacuum exists in the meantime.

The international community needs to act tostop the violence against Pashtuns in northernAfghanistan, a task that for the foreseeable futurecannot be handled solely by the Afghanauthorities. Both the signatories of the BonnAgreement and the United Nations SecurityCouncil have entrusted the U.N. with a greatdeal of responsibility in helping Afghanistanachieve a civilian representative government.

The U.N. Security Council needs to expand the

mandate of the International Security AssistanceForce (ISAF) for Afghanistan to include areasoutside Kabul, most urgently northernAfghanistan. Efforts at accountability for pastand current abuses should be accelerated, andthe capacity of United Nations agencies in

Afghanistan and the interim government tomonitor human rights abuses must be bolstered.

The United Nations should work to identifyvulnerable minority populations, including thosewho are displaced from their homes, and makeparticular efforts to ensure the delivery ofhumanitarian assistance to these communities.With international financial support, the U.N.should assist the Afghan government inestablishing impartial, multiethnic commissionsat the local level to resolve grievances anddisputes between communities over land,property, and access to water resources.


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RECOMMENDATIONS

To t he International Community:

Support the expansion of the mandate andduration of the International Security Assis-tance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan to includeareas outside K abul, most urgently northernAfghanistan. Pledge troops and other sup-port for an expanded ISAF.

Support the timely creation of an Afghannational army that is representative of Af-ghanistans diversity, is professional, and re-spects the rights of civilians.

Insist that Afghan commanders and combat-ants responsible for war crimes or other seri-

ous human rights violations are not allowedto serve in any capacity in law enforcementor military roles.

Immediately cease any direct or indirect mili-tary support, financial support, or technicalcooperation with commanders and forcesthat are implicated in war crimes or serioushuman rights violations.

Increase funding for human rights monitor-ing in Afghanistan, including the AfghanHuman Rights Commission that is to be es-tablished under the provisions of the BonnAgreement, and the various human rightsmonitoring mechanisms of the United Na-tions.

Establish permanent training programs inhuman rights and humanitarian law for Af-ghan police and military forces.

Support efforts to establish accountability forpast and current abuses committed in Af-ghanistan, including efforts at promoting in-ternational justice as well as the strengthen-ing of Afghan institutions of justice that re-spect internationally recognized norms.

Publicly denounce human rights abusesagainst ethnic Pashtuns and other communi-ties and urge respect for the rights of all Af-ghans as one of the principle objectives forthe international community in Afghanistan.

Provide international protection and assis-tance to ethnic Pashtuns who flee Afghani-stan for fear of persecution, as well as thosewho are internally displaced. In particular,

urge neighboring countries such as Pakistan,Iran, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to opentheir borders to asylum seekers from Af-ghanistan.

Ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches

Pashtuns and other communities in northernAfghanistan that have been internally dis-placed as a result of ethnically-targeted vio-lence, including urban displaced persons andpersons living in unregistered displaced per-sons settlements.

To t he United Nations Security Council:

Expand the mandate of the ISAF in Afghani-stan to include areas outside Kabul, most ur-gently to northern Afghanistan.

Establish a committee of experts to investi-gate past and current crimes against human-ity, war crimes, and other grave abusescommitted in Afghanistan, and to recom-mend appropriate measures of accountabil-ity.

Establish an effective and comprehensiveU.N. human rights monitoring presencethroughout Afghanistan, as envisioned underthe Bonn Agreement.

To t he Afghan Int erim Administ ration:

Human Rights Watch appreciates that theAfghan Interim Administration is for the momenta relatively weak body, with only limited effectiveauthority outside Kabul. In order to adequatelyaddress the tasks it faces, the InterimAdministration will need extensive support fromthe international community.

Work toward the timely establishment of anAfghan national army that is representativeof Afghanistans diversity, is professional,and respects the rights of civilians.

Ensure that former commanders and com-

batants responsible for war crimes or otherserious human rights violations are not al-lowed to serve in any capacity in law en-forcement or military roles.

Prosecute commanders and combatants re-sponsible for war crimes or other serioushuman rights violations.

Initiate a national process to resolve compet-ing land and property claims between ethnic


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communities in Afghanistan, and to fosterbetter relations between ethnic communities.

To Junbish -i M illy-yi Islam i, Jamiat -eIslami, and Hizb-i Wahdat :

The three main ethnically-based armedmilitias in northern Afghanistan are alsorepresented in the interim government. Inparticular, Defense Minister M ohammad QasimFahim is in command of the Jamiat forces;Deputy Defense Minister Abdul Rashid Dostumis in command of Junbish; and planning ministerand co-chairman of the Interim Cabinet HajiMohammad Mohaqiq is the senior leader ofHizb-i Wahdat in northern Afghanistan. Assuch, these officials bear a special responsibilityto ensure compliance by the respective forcesunder their command to implement the following

recommendations:

Respect international humanitarian law byprohibiting all attacks on civilians, includinglooting, extortion, beatings, killings, and sex-ual violence, and prosecuting those responsi-ble for such abuses.

Investigate the actions of commanders andsoldiers accused of involvement in attacksagainst Pashtuns or members of other com-munities, and inform the Afghan InterimAdministration of the result of such investi-gations and the identity of the persons re-

sponsible for such attacks.

Fully cooperate with criminal investigationsand prosecutions by Afghan interim authori-ties.

Suspend from active duty and disarm anypersonnel who have been accused of attacksagainst Pashtuns or civilians, pending theoutcome of investigations.

Meet with Pashtun civilian leaders to workout strategies for better relations among thedifferent ethnic communities in northern Af-

ghanistan, and publicly condemn all acts ofviolence targeting Pashtun communities.

Support the creation of national Afghan civil-ian and military institutions, and work to-ward the demobilization and disarming offactional militias.

A NOTE ON THE USE OF

NAMES, DATES, AND TERMS

USED IN THIS REPORT

Many Afghans use only one name, andAfghans who use two names do not necessarilyuse the same last name across generations, as isthe practice in the West with family names.

Because of the overlapping use of severaldifferent calendars in parts of Afghanistan(including both the lunar Muslim and solarAfghan calendars, as well as the Westerncalendar) and the fact that many rural Afghansdo not keep careful track of dates, it is difficult toestablish the exact dates of many of the incidentsdocumented in this report. Many witnessesdated events with a loose reference to thereligious calendar, such as around the twentiethday of [the Muslim holy month of] Ramadan.In writing this report, we have tried to be asaccurate as possible in estimating the time andoccurrence of each incident, but the readershould take most of the dates in this report asapproximations rather than as exact dates.Similarly, ages of victims and witnesses in thereport are often approximations, as rural Afghansoften do not know their exact age.

The Afghan national currency is Afghani.Most Afghans count money in terms of lakhs,with one lakh equaling 100,000 Afghanis. Thereare two forms of Afghanis currently incirculation: one issued by the former Jamiat-dominated government in Faizabad, referred toas Daulati Afghanis; a second issued by GeneralDostum of Junbish, referred to as JunbishAfghanis. The two versions have widely differentexchange rates: at the time of this writing,Daulati Afghanis trade for 38,000 to the U.S.dollar, while Junbish Afghanis trade at 72,000 tothe U.S. dollar.


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INTRODUCTION

The Return to Warlordism in Northern

AfghanistanOn November 9, 2001, the Taliban fled from

northern Afghanistans largest city, Mazar-iSharif. T his ended more than two years of brutal

Taliban rule in this part of Afghanistan thatbegan with the massacre of thousands when the

Taliban first took control of Mazar-i Sharif inAugust 1998. The Talibans fullscale retreat leftMazar-i Sharif and surrounding areas in thehands of three rival commanders and theirsoldiersthe predominantly ethnic Uzbek

Junbish-i M illy-yi Islami of General AbdulRashid Dostum, the predominantly ethnic T ajik

Jamiat-e Islami led in Mazar-i Sharif by UstadAtta Mohammad, and the smaller ethnic HazaraHizb-i Wahdat, led in the north by HajiMohammad Mohaqiq.1

On February 3, 2002, the three parties signeda U.N .-backed agreement establishing a 600-person security force for the city. The force,headed by Junbish commander Majid Rouzi, is toinclude 240 officers from Jamiat, and 180 eachfrom Junbish and three Hazara parties, includingHizb-i Wahdat. Since the agreement went intoeffect, the remaining troops have begunwithdrawing to their respective bases on the citysoutskirts, although it remains uncertain whetherthey will fully comply with the withdrawalagreement.2 Even in M azar-i Sharif, the balanceof military fire-power remains firmly in the handsof the three ethnic parties, and not the lightlyarmed 600-person security force they have agreedupon.

Outside of M azar-i Sharif, competition forterritory between the factions remains acute andskirmishes initiated by low and mid-levelcommanders present recurrent securityproblems. During the last two weeks ofFebruary, for example, fighting between Junbish

1John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore, For Now,

Rival Warlords Put Aside Bitter Feuds of Past,

Washington Post, November 12, 2001.2

As of late February 2002, the security force had

closed down approximately 70 to 80 percent of the

unauthorized armed posts in Mazar-i Sharif. Human

Rights Watch interview with a U.N. official, Mazar-i

Sharif, February 23, 2002. However, armed gunmenwho did not belong to the security force were still

evident in significant numbers throughout the city.

and Jamiat forces broke out at least twice inSholgara, south of M azar-i Sharif, and in K hulm,to its east.

In other parts of the north, commandersaffiliated with the three major parties have

established de facto authority over large areas.Jamiat forces have taken effective control ofBaghlan province, while Junbish is dominant inFaryab, Jowzjan, and most of Samanganprovince. Kunduz and Balkh, the province thatincludes Mazar-i Sharif, remain contested, and atthe time of Human Rights Watchs visit, gainingthe support of ethnic Pashtun commanders wasbecoming a decisive factor in this power struggle.In Balkh, a realignment of Pashtuncommandersmany of whom supported GeneralDostum in the pre-Taliban periodwith Jamiatwas underway, while their counterparts inKunduz were mainly allied with Junbish.3 Thisrepresents, however, only a rough overview of theterritorial fragmentation of northern Afghanistan;at a local level, and on a district level in cities, thepicture is considerably more complex. In manydistricts of Balkh province, for example, Junbish,

Jamiat, and H izb-i Wahdat forces control villageswithin the same vicinity, creating an intricatepatchwork of shifting alliances.

The Major Parties

Junbish- i M illi -yi I slami-yi A fghanistan

(National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan,hereinafter known as Junbish) brought togethernorthern, mostly ethnic Uzbek, former militias ofthe communist regime who mutinied againstPresident Najibullah in early 1992. It alsoincluded former leaders and administrators of theold regime from various other ethnic groups,mainly Persian-speaking, and some Uzbekmujahidin commanders. In 1998 it lost all of theterritory under its control, and some of itscommanders defected to the Taliban. Itsfounder and principal leader remains GeneralAbdul Rashid Dostum, who rose from securityguard to leader of Najibullahs most powerfulmilitia. This group took control of Mazar-i

Sharif in alliance with other groups in early 1992and controlled much of Samangan, Balkh,Jowzjan, Faryab, and Baghlan provinces. Acoalition of militias, Junbish was the strongestforce in the north from 1992 to 1997, but wasriven by internal disputes. Junbish becamelargely inactive in 1998, until Dostum returnedto northern Afghanistan in April 2001. General

3 Human Rights Watch interviews with U.N. offi-

cials, Mazar-i Sharif, February 2002.


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Dostum currently serves as deputy minister ofdefense in the interim government.

Jamiat-i Islami-yi Afghanistan(Islamic Groupof Afghanistan, hereinafter known as Jamiat) isone of the original Islamist parties in

Afghanistan, established in the 1970s by studentsat Kabul University where Jamiats leader,Burhanuddin Rabbani, was a lecturer at theIslamic Law Faculty. Although Rabbani remainsits official head, Jamiats most powerful figurewas its military commander, Ahmad ShahMassoud, until his assassination by suspected al-Qaeda elements on September 9, 2001. As thedominant faction of the Northern Alliance thatcontrolled the key supply routes, Jamiat hasreceived significant military and other supportfrom Iran and Russia. Massoud was succeededas defense minister of the Islamic State ofAfghanistan, the administration established bythe Northern Alliance, by Mohammad QasimFahim. Fahim retains that post in the interimgovernment. Both Massoud and Fahim wereethnic Tajiks from the Panjshir Valley, thedominant group within Jamiat.

H izb-i Wahdat-i I slami-yi A fghanistan(IslamicUnity Party of Afghanistan, hereinafter known asHizb-i Wahdat) is the principal Shia party inAfghanistan with support mainly from the Hazaraethnic community. Hizb-i Wahdat was originallyformed by Abdul Ali Mazari in order to uniteeight Shia parties in the run-up to theanticipated collapse of the communistgovernment. Its current leader is MohammedKarim Khalili. The leader of its ExecutiveCouncil of the North, Haji M ohammedMohaqiq, commanded the partys forces inMazar-i Sharif in 1997. H izb-i Wahdat hasreceived significant military and other supportfrom Iran, although relations between Iranianauthorities and party leaders have been strainedover issues of Iranian influence and control. Theparty has also received significant support fromlocal Hazara leaders.

Warlordism and the InternationalCommunity

For the past two decades, international powerpolitics have directly contributed to the growth ofwarlordism in Afghanistan. This occurred duringthe mujahidin war against Soviet occupation(1979-1989), the internecine factional fightingthat followed the withdrawal of Soviet troops andthe collapse of the pro-Soviet government (1992-1996), and the conflict between the Talibangovernment and the Northern Alliance that

continued up to the collapse of the Talibangovernment (1996-2001). Outside powers suchas Russia, the United States, Pakistan, Iran andothers have directly and indirectly providedsupport for the warlords that they saw asadvancing their interests.4 The abusive records

of many warlords and their forces were oftenoverlooked as international powers sought toadvance their strategic interests in Afghanistan:During the mujahidin war, for example, theUnited States provided extensive support forsome of the most extremist and abusive of theIslamist forces fighting in Afghanistan, ignoringideology and human rights norms in their proxyconfrontation with the Soviet Union.

During the U.S.-led military campaign againstthe Taliban and al-Qaeda that commenced onOctober 7, 2001, the international coalition againrelied significantly on Afghanistans anti-Talibanwarlords to achieve its mili tary objectives.5 TheU.S. and its allies rearmed anti-Taliban forces,provided them with tactical support through U.S.special forces liaisons with them on the ground,and gave aerial bombing support. Afghan anti-

Taliban forces did most of the fighting on theground, and took military control of the areasthey conquered.

In the process, ethnically based factions andindividual warlords came, again, to virtuallymonopolize power in Afghanistan. Allowing thewarlords to carve up the Afghan countrysideamong themselves may not have been the aim ofU.S. policy during the anti-T aliban war, but itwas an almost unavoidable consequence of theU.S. reliance on Afghan anti-T aliban forces.Ahmed Rashid, one of the best known authoritieson Afghanistan, analyzed the impact of U.S.support on the renewed rise of warlords inAfghanistan:

4See Human Rights Watch, Crisis of Impunity: The

Role of Pakistan, Russia, and Iran in Fueling the

Civil War in Afghanistan, A Human Rights Watch

Short Report, vol. 13, no. 3 (C), July 2001.5

See Human Rights Watch, Dangerous Dealings:

Changes to U.S. Military Assistance After September

11, A Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol 14,

no. 1 (G), February 2002, pp. 6-8; Susan B. Glasser,U.S. Backing Helps Warlords Solidify Power,

Washington Post, February 18, 2002.


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I n the 1980s, Washington backed anti -

Sovi et A fghan milit ias which in vi ctory

produced the factionalism that brought

the Tali ban to power. N ow, the same

forces, which with U .S. backi ng ousted

the Tali ban, are threatening to return thecountr y to warlordism all over again.

Warlords whose armies acted as proxy

U.S. ground forces in the Taliban

campaign are now refusing to disarm or

accept the writ of the count ry s fledgling

interim government. They are even

defyi ng the Ameri cans, say Western

diplomats.

In the north , Gen. Rashid Dostum, also

heavil y armed by the Americans, i s

protecting former Tali ban leaders and his

own commanders, who are carrying out

widespread pi llaging and looting, mak ing

it impossible for U .N . agencies to star t

humanitarian relief. Dostum loyalist

H awaz, who was armed and t rained by

U.S. Special Forces in October as backup

for the U.S. bombing campaign of

M azar-e-Shari f, was ki lled near there on

Jan. 2 while looting villagers. Gen.

Dostum has refused to discipli ne

Commander H awaz s men, even though

interim Prime M ini ster H amid Karzaiappoint ed Gen. Dostum deputy defense

mini ster i n a bid to co-opt him.6

Territorial control by ethnically-based partiesinfluenced the U.N.-sponsored talks in Bonn thatresulted in an agreement for the constitution ofan interim government on December 5, 2001.

The Panjshiri Tajik leadership of Jamiat, thedominant element within the United Front(Northern Alliance), secured the three mostcritical government departments: defense,interior, and foreign affairs. Hizb-i Wahdatreceived control of the planning department,whose headHaji M ohammad Mohaqiqwasalso designated one of five deputy chairmen of

6Ahmed Rashid, Fledgling Afghan Government

Faces Scourge of WarlordismLocal Leaders WhoOusted Taliban With Aid of U.S. Are Restoring Old

Fiefs, Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2002.

the Interim Cabinent.7 Discontent over theallocation of portfolios proved to be a majorsource of friction among the major parties. Gen.Abdul Rashid Dostum and Ismail Khan, themilitary governor of Herat and an ally of Jamiatleader Burhanuddin Rabbani, immediately

denounced what they characterized as themarginalization of their ethnic parties andregions, respectively.8 Dostum was subsequentlyoffered, and accepted, the post of deputy defenseminister, while Ismail K han pledged to recognizethe Interim Administration while proclaimingautonomy for five western provinces.9

The current competition and realignmentsinvolving armed parties in northern Afghanistanis in part driven by their desire to consolidateauthority prior to the convening of the emergencyLoya Jirga (Grand National Assembly). TheBonn Agreement itself provided that within sixmonths of the assumption of office by the InterimAdministration, an emergency Loya Jirga wouldbe convened to appoint a transitionaladministration, which would in turn leadAfghanistan for up to two years, until a fullyrepresentative government can be electedthrough free and fair elections.10 The SpecialIndependent Commission for the Convening ofthe Emergency Loya Jirga, whose members weredesignated in late January, includes distinguishedAfghan civil society representatives; under theterms of the Bonn Agreement, it has finalauthority for determining the procedures forand the number of people who will participate,including establishing criteria for the inclusionof civil society organizations and prominentindividuals and adopting and implementingprocedures for monitoring the process ofnomination of individuals to the Emergency Loya

Jirga to ensure that the process of indirectelection or selection is transparent and fair.11

7Afghan Deputy Leaders Reflect Afghan Ethnic

Mix, Reuters, December 5, 2001.8 Peter Baker, Afghan Factions Criticize Accord:

Some Leaders Vow to Boycott Regime, Washington

Post, December 7, 2001; Key Afghan Warlords Re-

ject Bonn Deal, BBC World News, December 6,2001.9

Afghan Warlord Given Top Job, BBC World

News, December 24, 2001.10

Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in A f-

ghanistan Pending the Re -Establishment of Perma-

nent Government Institutions (Bonn Agreement),

December 5, 2001, Art. I, Sec. 4; Kabul Sets June

Meeting Date for Council on Ruling Nation, Asso-ciated Press, April 1, 2002.11 Bonn Agreement, Art. IV, Sec. 2.


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Despite these provisions, many Afghansinterviewed by Human Rights Watch remainedapprehensive about the prospects for atransparent selection process under the prevailingsecurity conditions.

Abuses Faced by Pashtuns

In northern Afghanistan, one ethnic group waseffectively left out of the new power arrangement:the ethnic Pashtun minority that had been closelyidentified with the Pashtun-dominated Taliban.Most of the Taliban leadership had beenPashtuns from southern Afghanistan. As soon asthe Taliban collapsed, Pashtun communitieswere quickly disarmed across northernAfghanistan, and soon faced widespread abusesat the hands of the three ethnic militiasJunbish,Wahdat, and Jamiatas well as by armedUzbeks, Tajiks, and Hazaras taking advantage ofthe imbalance of power created by the suddendisarming of Pashtun communities.

Throughout northern Afghanistan, Pashtuncommunities faced widespread looting, beatings,abductions, extortion, and incidents of killingand sexual violence. In some communities, theseabuses continued for months. While the wave ofviolence and abuse against Pashtuns hassomewhat diminished since the first monthsfollowing the fall of the Taliban, Pashtuncommunities continue to face serious and regularabuses. In addition, Pashtun communities havebeen stripped of their assets, impoverished, anddisplaced by the abuses, and face a difficultfuture.

A team of four Human Rights Watchresearchers traveled to northern Afghanistan inFebruary and M arch 2002 to investigate thehuman rights situation in northern Afghanistan.

The team visited dozens of Pashtun villages andcommunities in Balkh, Faryab, Samangan, andBaghlan provinces. The team also met withAfghan government representatives, members ofthe diplomatic community, and humanitarian aidworkers to gather additional information.

The abuses documented in this reportrepresent only a fragment of the overall abusessuffered by ethnic Pashtuns in northernAfghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime.In almost all of the villages visited, HumanRights Watch researchers were approached bydozens of villagers who offered us more accountsof abuses similar to the ones documented in thisreport. Everyone in the village would try to getthe researchers attention, or give the researchers

detailed list of the goods that had been lootedfrom their homes. Because of time and resourceconstraints, our researchers were able tointerview only a fraction of those victims, buttheir accounts are representative of the sufferingof many more.

Our research was also geographically selective.There are hundreds of Pashtun villages andcommunities throughout northern Afghanistan,and it would have been impossible to visit themall. Instead, we visited clusters of villages in thedifferent northern provinces that represented themajor concentrations of Pashtuns in northernAfghanistan. All of the Pashtun villages wevisited had been affected by the looting andviolence, indicating just how widespread andserious the abuses faced by Pashtuns in northernAfghanistan were.

Human Rights Watch researchers receivedcredible reports of sexual violence against ethnicPashtun women and girls. While the reports ofsexual violence were widespread, Human RightsWatch was able to confirm only a small numberof specific cases due to the difficulties inherent indocumenting such attacks. According toindependent studies, Afghan women symbolizetheir families and societies honor, with Pashtuncommunities, in particular, placing a high valueon womens chastity.

12Historically, some of

these communities have sanctioned honorkillings in which a woman is killed by her ownrelatives for bringing dishonor upon the familyby conduct perceived as breaching communitynorms on sexual behaviorincluding being avictim of sexual violence.

13This deep stigma may

explain why most women and men wereunwilling to provide details of specific incidents.In addition, some of the women and girls wereunavailable since families had sent them to securelocations because of a fear of further sexualviolence. Women doctors in the north confirmedthat because of the shame associated with sexual

12 Hafizullah Emadi, The Politics of Women and De-

velopment in Afghanistan, (New York: Paragon

House, 1993), p. 22; Anna M. Pont, Eat What YouWant, Dress the Way Your Community Wants: The

Position of Afghan Women in Mercy Corps Interna-

tional Programme Areas,A Mercy Corps Interna-

tional Report, (May 1998), pp. 2-4.13

Emadi, The Politics of Women, pp. 16, 23; Bene-

dicte Grima, The Performance of Emotion Among

Paxtun Women, (Karachi: Oxford University Press,

1998), pp. 150-154, 163-165; Human Rights Watchinterview with Dr. S., aged 40, Mazar-i Sharif, Feb-

ruary 23, 2002.


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violence, many Pasthun families do not seekmedical attention for victims of rape, even if theyare severely injured, except when a womanbecomes pregnant.

Displacement of Pasht unsTargeted violence against ethnic Pashtuns has

led to the internal displacement of thousandsacross northern Afghanistan, with most movingfrom rural areas toward cities and towns thathave larger concentrations of Pashtuns and wherethey believe there is greater security. Althoughsome have taken up residence in private homes,others live in camps for internally displacedpersons (IDPs) or in abandoned villages.Displaced ethnic Pashtuns face ongoing securityproblems; Human Rights Watch documentedtwo cases in which members of armed groupsabducted IDPs, in M azar-i Sharif and on theoutskirts of Baghlan city. Both displacedPashtun communities and those who remain intheir places of origin also reported persistentdifficulty in securing humanitarian assistance.Pashtun villagers frequently said that they weresystematically denied access to humanitarian aidby local authorities or non-Pashtun residents onthe basis of their ethnicity.

Since early January 2002, newly displacedAfghansthe majority of whom have beenPashtunshave sought refuge in Pakistan,mostly at the Pakistani border town of Chaman.While Pakistans borders have been officiallyclosed since the fall of 2000, the government ofPakistan has allowed vulnerable refugees,identified as such by Pakistani border guards, toenter at Chaman in fixed daily quotas startingfrom November 2001.

On several occasions the numbers of newarrivals to Chaman were far larger than the dailyentry quotas set by the government. HumanRights Watch has repeatedly criticized Pakistansofficial border closure policy, and the policiesthat have prevented entry at Chaman, becausethey obstruct the right to seek asylum and can

endanger the lives of refugees.

14

Families waitingto enter at Chaman were left to subsist beyondthe reach of U.N. or nongovernmentalorganization (NGO) assistance workers, insqualid and dire conditions in a no-mans land

14See, e.g., Refugee Crisis in Afghanistan: Pakistan,

Tajikistan Must Reopen Borders to Fleeing Af-ghans, Human Rights Watch Press Release, No-

vember 11, 2001.

located just outside the K illi Faizo transit camp.15Even with the difficulty in gaining entry toPakistan, 47,000 Afghans sought refuge inPakistan through Chaman between January andMarch 8, 2002.16

The human rights abuses perpetrated againstPashtuns documented in this report, togetherwith a worsening humanitarian situation incertain areas, were at the root of this recentrefugee flight. Pashtun refugees consistentlyreported fleeing because of ethnic persecution.By early January, for instance, Pashtun familiesdescribed fleeing the southwestern city of Heratbecause of harassment, telling officials of theU.N. High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) that the soldiers were looting in thecity and forcing people belonging to the Pashtuntribe to pay them money.17 Four weeks later,another wave of Pashtun refugees arrived at theborder. T hey claim that they were persecutedbecause of being Pashtuns, UNHCRspokesperson Kris Janowski said.18

In late February 2002, ethnic Pashtunrefugees told UNHCR they decided to seek

15 Once they are allowed to enter, refugees are proc-

essed and given humanitarian assistance in the Killi

Faizo camp before being transferred to one of several

permanent camps located in the area. In early De-cember 2001, approximately 2,000 refugees were

trapped in the no-mans land, subsisting without ade-

quate food or water, and sleeping in freezing tem-

peratures at night. See Refugees Trapped in No

Mans Land, BBC News, December 4, 2001. In

January 2002, 13,000 newly arrived refugees were

again trapped. See Number of Afghan Refugees in

No-mans Land Rises, UNHCR News Release,

January 11, 2002. In both the December and January

cases, the government of Pakistan eventually temp o-

rarily lifted the quota to allow the Afghan refugees to

enter, but only after weeks of waiting, during whichmany refugees fell ill because of the harsh conditions.

On February 21, the government of Pakistan again

decided to close the border to all new arrivals at

Chaman. This time, more than 10,000 refugees wereleft waiting to enter Pakistan.16

See UNHCR Gets Green Light To Register Af-

ghans Fleeing Hunger and Insecurity, UNHCR

News, March 8, 2002.17

New Influx of Afghan Refugees Arrives at Cha-

man Border Crossing in Pakistan, UNHCR News,

January 29, 2002.18

Thousands of Afghans flee persecution to Paki-stanUNHCR, Agence France Presse via

NewsEdge Corporation, January 29, 2002.


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safety after being robbed and intimidated inethnically mixed villages in northern Afghanistan,often at the instigation of local commanders.19U.N . Spokesperson Yusuf Hassan commentedthat UNHCR had a substantial number [of newrefugees] who have said that they have been

forced off of their land, that their houses havebeen looted, that they have been violentlyattackedand some of them say their relativeshave been killed in what appears to be increasingattacks against Pashtuns in Afghanistan.20 Stillother refugees from the camp for internallydisplaced persons at Spin Boldak, south ofKandahar, said the area was teeming withgunmen and bandits since the collapse of the

Taliban regime.21

THE LEGACY OF TALIBAN

ABUSES

Any understanding of the current abusescommitted against Pashtuns in northernAfghanistan must take account of the severeabuses that the Taliban regime committedagainst non-Pashtun ethnic groups in northernAfghanistan, even though many ethnic Pashtunsliving in northern Afghanistan did not participatein abuses against their neighbors. The brutalityof Taliban rule in northern Afghanistan has leftmany communities targeted by them withgrievances that, in the absence of judicial

mechanisms for accountability and redress, arebeing addressed in a vigilante fashion.

While the current abuses have taken placeagainst the background of a legacy of Talibanatrocities, it would be a mistake to view theattacks against Pashtun communities solely asreprisals for past abuses. Local commanders andtheir soldiers, not the civilian communities mostaffected by Taliban abuses, carried out themajority of the abuses documented in this report.

These actions have taken place, moreover, in abroader context of insecurity for civilians, in

19UNHCR spokesperson Kris Janowski, Afghani-

stan: Dramatic Increase in Numbers at Chaman Bor-

der, UNHCR News, February 19, 2002.20

Louis Meixler, Thousands of Ethnic Pashtuns

Fleeing Northern Afghanistan, Associated Press,

February 21, 2002.21

UN Appeals to Pakistan on Refugees, AgenceFrance Presse via NewsEdge Corporation, January

16, 2002.

which northern Pashtuns are acutely vulnerablebecause of their present lack of protection.

Northern Afghanistan, in contrast to thelargely Pashtun south, is a complex ethnicmosaic. Groups with a long history of settlement

in the regionT ajiks, Uzbeks, H azaras,Turkmen, and Persian-speaking Arabsareinterspersed with the descendants of more recentarrivals, including nineteenth and early twentiethcentury refugees from Central Asia and Pashtunswhose settlement was promoted by successiveKabul-based governments.22

The mainly Pashtun Taliban movementpragmatically accomodated non-Pashtuns insome parts of the north, but in other areascurtailed their access to vital land and waterresources.

In large parts of northern and centralAfghanistan, T aliban rule was extended throughthe cooptation of non-Pashtun commanders.After its initial conquest of the central Hazarajatregion in September 1998, for example, the

Taliban withdrew most non-local forces fromseveral districts and left them under the nominalcontrol of Hazara commanders who had changedtheir allegiances.23 In other areas of the north,such as Balkh and Kunduz, Taliban ruleexpanded with the critical support of localPashtun commanders,24 and Pashtun

22 The Pashtun presence in the north dates to the

1880s and early 1890s, when Amir Abdur Rahman

Khan, the Durrani Pashtun ruler in Kabul, forcibly

relocated thousands of Ghilzai Pashtuns and mem-

bers of other rival tribes from southern Afghanistan

to the north. Later settlers, such as the Shinwari

Pashtuns who began moving to Kunduz from eastern

Afghanistan in the late 1940s, came voluntarily.

Both the forced and voluntary migrants were allo-

cated land by the central government, a developmentthat fostered tensions with communities that conse-

quently lost access to farmland and pastures. Louis

Dupree,Afghanistan (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1980), pp. 188 and 419; Asger Christensen,Afghanistan: Can the Fragments be Put Together

Again?,Nordic Newsletter of Asian Studies, Nordic

Institute of Asian Studies, 2001, no. 4.23

Chris Johnson, Hazarajat Baseline Study Interim

Report (Part I), U.N. Office for the Coordination of

Humanitarian Affairs, March 2000, p. 5 and Appen-

dix D.24

Human Rights Watch, Afghanistan: The Massacrein Mazar-i Sharif, A Human Rights Watch Short

Report, vol. 10, no. 7 (C) (November 1998), p. 3;


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communities in these areas were correspondinglyprivileged under Taliban rule. Ethnic Uzbekrefugees from Balkh province, interviewed byHuman Rights Watch in Pakistan during August2001, described a pattern of encroachment ontheir land by ethnic Pashtuns, with the support of

the local Taliban-sanctioned administration.25According to U.N. staff who were then based innorthern Afghanistan, such encroachment wasoften legitimized by the manipulation of landdeeds.26

The Taliban also exacted ruthless reprisalsagainst minority communities that wereperceived to have supported its rivals. In severalcases, its forces carried out large-scale summaryexecutions of Hazara, Uzbek, and Tajik civiliansor systematically destroyed homes and means oflivelihoodeffectively preventing the return ofdisplaced populations. In some depopulatedareas, such as Robatak, on the border betweenSamangan and Baghlan provinces, or in thelower Bangi valley in Takhar province, newmigrantsPashtuns and Gujjars, respectivelysettled on land that had formerly been occupiedby Hazaras or Tajiks and Uzbeks.27

What follows is an overview of casesdocumented by Human Rights Watch and otherindependent observers in which Taliban forcescarried out targeted reprisals against non-Pashtun minorities:

Yakaolang and Bamiyan districts, June2001: After retaking central Yakaolang, T ali-ban forces under the command of MullahDadaullah burned about 4,500 houses, 500shops, and public buildings. As they re-treated east, they continued to burn villagesand to detain and kill Shia Hazara civiliansin villages and side valleys in eastern Ya-kaolang and the western part of Bamiyan dis-

Michael Griffin,Reaping the Whirlwind: the TalibanMovement in Afghanistan (London: Pluto Press,

2001), p. 177.25

Human Rights Watch interviews with N, aged

forty-five, and K.H., aged thirty-five, (ethnic Uzbekrefugees from Zari), Quetta, Pakistan, August 17,

2001.26

Human Rights Watch e-mail communication with a

former humanitarian worker in northern Afghanistan,

January 23, 2002.27


former humanitarian worker in northern Afghanistan,

January 23, 2002; confidential field report by an in-ternational NGO, November 15-17, 2000, on file at

Human Rights Watch.

trict. Several refugees described witnessingthe subsequent movement of ethnic Pashtunpastoralists into the valleys, and the grazingof large herds of sheep on their farmlands.28

Zari, Balkh province, May 2001: After a

week-long occupation by General AbdulRashid Dostums forces, Zaria mainlyUzbek-populated areareverted to Talibancontrol. While most civilians fled to the hillssouth of central Zari, many of those who re-mained or who returned reportedly werekilled by Taliban forces reoccupying the dis-trict. Refugees also reported the arrests of ci-vilians who returned to Zari and their trans-portation as prisoners to K andahar, and theburning of some homes.29

Yakaolang district, January 2001: Talibanforces massacred over 170 Shia Hazara civil-ians after retaking control of Yakaolang dis-trict from the United Front factions Hizb-iWahdat and Harakat-i Islami. The victimswere herded to assembly points in the centerof the district and several outlying areas, andthen shot by firing squad in public view.30

Khwajaghar, Takhar province, January2001: T aliban forces summarily executed atleast thirty-one ethnic Uzbek civilians whileretreating from Khwajaghar, in Takhar prov-ince.31

Robatak pass, May 2000: Taliban forcessummarily executed at least thirty-one Is-maili Hazara civilians near the Robatak pass,northwest of the town of Pul-i K humri.

These were men taken during sweep opera-tions throughout Samangan and neighboringprovinces in late 1999 and early 2000.32

Northeastern Afghanistan, July 1999: Aseries of Taliban offensives was marked bysummary executions, the abduction ofwomen, forced labor of detainees, the burn-ing of homes, and the destruction of other

28 Human Rights Watch, Afghanistan: Ethnically-Motivated Abuses Against Civilians, A Human

Rights Watch Backgrounder, October 2001.29

Ibid.30

Human Rights Watch, Massacres of Hazaras in

Afghanistan, A Human Rights Watch Short Report,

vol. 13, no. 1(C) (February 2001), pp. 5-8.31


human rights investigator, March 2001.32 Human Rights Watch, Massacres of Hazaras in

Afghanistan, pp. 8-10.


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property and agricultural assets, includingfruit trees, one of the mainstays of the localeconomy.33 According to one human rightsresearcher, in Khwajaghar, near Taloqan,3,000 houses were systematically destroyedin July, and in Shamali, north of Kabul, de-

tainees were used for mine clearance.34 Theaffected populations were mainly Uzbek and

Tajik.

Dara-i Suf, July-August, 1999: Talibanforces bombed the town of Dara-i Suf, aNorthern Alliance-held, predominantlyHazara enclave in Samangan province, withincendiary cluster munitions; ground forcesburned down the entire central market anddestroyed wells and homes.35

Mazar-i Sharif, August 1998: After cap-turing Mazar-i Sharif, Taliban troopsrounded up and summarily executed at least2,000 civilians, the majority of them ethnicHazaras. Thousands more, including eth-nic Uzbek and Tajik men, were detained.

The Taliban governor, M ullah Manon Niazi,made inflammatory speeches in which heheld Hazaras collectively responsible for themurder of T aliban soldiers in M azar-i Sharifin 1997 and ordered them to become SunniMuslims or risk being killed. Many civilianswere also killed in aerial bombardments androcket attacks as they tried to flee the city.

There were reports that in certain Hazaraneighborhoods women were raped and ab-ducted by Taliban troops.36

The grievances of Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbekcommunities in large parts of the north run deepand must be addressed. International financialsupport will be needed to facilitate the return andrehabilitation of communites that were displacedas a result of conflict-related violence. The

33U.N. Special Rapporteur of the Commission of

Human Rights, Question of the Violation of Human

Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Any Part of the

World: Report on the situation of human rights in

Afghanistan submitted by Mr. Kamal Hossain, Spe-cial Rapporteur, in accordance with Commission

resolution 1999/9, E/CN.4/2000/33, January 10,

2000, pp. 12-13.34

Human Rights Watch interview with a human

rights investigator, Islamabad, May 2001.35

Human Rights Watch interview and e-mail com-

munications with a witness in Islamabad who inves-

tigated the incident, November 2000-May 2001.36 Human Rights Watch, Afghanistan: The Massacre

in Mazar-i Sharif.

victims of the T alibans abusive reign deservejustice, and the perpetrators of war crimes,crimes against humanity, and other serioushuman rights abuses must be brought to accountbefore fair and impartial courts. Equally vital isinternational support for the creation of

mechanisms that can impartially resolve disputesbetween communities over access to land, waterresources, and property that underlie many of thecommunal conflicts in the north.

Despite the cycle of abuses between non-Pashtuns and Pashtuns in northern Afghanistan,tensions between the communities themselves arenot unsolvable. Human Rights Watchresearchers found a significant number of cases inwhich T ajik farmers had sheltered Pashtunfamilies who had fled from their homes, and onecase in which Hazara elders successfullyinterceded with H izb-i Wahdat forces that wereattacking internally displaced Pashtuns in theirarea.

BALKH PROVINCE

Chimtal Dist rict

Bargah-e Afghani

At around 11 a.m. one day in the first week ofDecember, a group of about 300 armed Hazarasarrived at the remote Pashtun village of Bargah-eAfghani, located in the Chimtal district of Balkhprovince.37 Just two days prior to the arrival ofthe Hazara fighters, the villagers of Bargah-eAfghani had handed over their firearms toManzullah Khan, an Uzbek commander of

Junbish, and in return had received a writtenconfirmation from him that they had beendisarmed. Manzullah Khan had also placedtwelve of his soldiers in the village after itspopulation was disarmed, but the soldiers ranaway when the Hazara fighters attacked thevillage.38 Most of the villagers quickly fled thevillage, but the Hazara fighters killed thirty-sevenmen who stayed behind, the largest documentedkilling of civilians since the fall of the Taliban.Of the thirty-seven killed, seventeen were local

37Witnesses estimated the date of the attack as occur-

ring between the seventeenth and the twentieth day of

Ramadan, corresponding to between December 2 and

December 5, 2001.38

Human Rights Watch interview with village elderK.W., aged forty-five, Bargah-e Afghani, February

24, 2002.


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villagers, and the remaining twenty were ethnicPashtuns who had resettled in the village.

A.S., a thirty-six-year-old farmer from Bargah-e Afghani remained in the village with his wifeand six children during the attack. At about

12:30 p.m., a group of Hazara soldiers enteredhis home and detained him, tying his handsbehind his back. When they took him outside,his wife tried to stop the Hazara soldiers, but theybeat her away. Outside, the men began beatingA.S.:

M y hands were tied, and they were

beating me wit h their A K -47 assault

ri fles. They were accusing me of being

Taliban and Al Qaeda. They told me

that I had come from Pakistan and

should give them money. I gave them 30

lakhs [ about U.S. $42] . They threw themoney away, saying i t was not enough.

They looted everythi ng, even my naswar

[ snuff] box. They took two ki lims

[handwoven flatweave rugs] , my wi fe s

watch and two other Japanese watches, a

tape recorder.39

The Hazara gunmen ultimately released A.S.,but he then witnessed the summary executions ofthree Pashtun men from the village and laterrecovered the body of a fourth executed villager:

At first, [twenty-five to thirty-year-old]

Abdul M atin was accompanied by his

fami ly. They were crying, Please save

him, do not ki ll him. The H azaras

were trying to get the women away from

him. Then, when they brought Abdul

M atin and separated him from his wife,

in tha t instant they shot him wi th about

ten bullets.

Then Abdul H akim [ aged fifty] asked

them, W hy did you kill him? Theythen shot Abdul H akim also. Said A lam

[ aged thi rty] , the brother of Abdul

H akim, ran up. H e asked them, W hy

did you ki ll my brother? Then they shot

Said A lam with at least thir ty bullets. I

later heard that A sadullah [ the twenty-

39 Human Rights Watch interview with A.S., aged

thirty-six, Bargah-e Afghani, February 24, 2002.

year-old brother of Abdul M atin] was

also ki lled by H azara soldiers, and went

to bri ng back his body.40

S., the twenty-year-old relative of Asadullahand Abdul Matin, was at home when the Hazarasoldiers came to arrest her brother. She said thatthe soldiers had killed Abdul M atin almostimmediately after they came to the familycompound. They then tried to shoot herfourteen-year-old brother, Sharifullah, but shemanaged to push the gun away and make it firein the air. The soldiers then beat herunconscious. The soldiers took Asadullah withthem to carry looted goods to their car, and shothim about one hour later.41

Twenty-seven-year-old S.W. was at home withhis shepherd, twenty-year-old SardarMohammed, a Pashtun who had resettled in thevil lage after fleeing from Faizabad in Badakshanprovince. Hazara soldiers came to his homethree times during the attack, first looting hishome and then shooting and killing SardarMohammed:

They entered my home and ti ed my

hands. Then they asked me for

weaponsI did not have any weapons.

I had some carpets. They loaded the

three carpets on my back, loosened myhandcuffs and told me to bri ng them to

their car. Then I returned to my home.

Another team of soldiers came. The

group had stolen a bicycle from a

neighboring house, and they told me to

carry i t to [the edge of the neighboring]

Turkmen vi llage. There, they brought

their truck and were using me as a porter.

A ll of the expensive items were carr ied by

me and some others to the vehi cles. They

themselv es were also carrying things. I

went back and forth three times.

Then, I was in my room. Four soldiers

entered the house. One of the soldi ers

came to me, a second went towards the

shepherd, who was sitting against the

40Ibid.

41Human Rights Watch interview with S., aged

twenty, Bargah-e Afghani, February 24, 2002. S.,

like many Afghans, uses only one name.


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wall [of the courtyard] . [ The soldier]

shot six bullets at him, and he died at thi s

place. They did not come near him,

they shot hi m from a far distance [across

the courtyard] . H e was just sitting

there, being quiet.

42

G.D., aged forty-five, was hiding in his cowshed together with twenty-five-year-oldMohammed Umar when a group of elevenHazara fighters entered:

Eleven Hazaras came in to the

compound. They came inside the cow

shed and found M ohammed Umar

hiding behind a clay pot. They asked

him for weapons and money. H e repli ed

that he was a poor farmer. They ti ed his

hands, and one soldier hi t him wi th hi sweapon on his head. Then M ohammed

fell down and lost consciousness. Another

soldier i nstantly fi red at him [ emptying] a

clip of thir ty bullets. Then they left the

compound.43

G.A., the thirty-year-old sister of Amir K han,aged twenty, and Zafar K han, aged thirty, toldHuman Rights Watch how Hazara soldiersdetained and beat her two brothers, demandingmoney and drugs before killing them:

About twenty people came. They entered

into the rooms and brought the men out,

beati ng them. They had ti ed their hands

behind their backs with their

handkerchiefs. They were beati ng them,

saying, I f you have money, giv e us

money, If you have opium, give us

opium. Each of my brothers was beaten

by four gunmen, they were beat ing them

wi th weapons. They were screaming,

and I was crying. They beat them unt il

they k il led them.

We [women] went back i nside the home

and they foll owed us, demanding money.

I told them that I didnt have any

money. Then they took the men to

42Human Rights Watch interview with S.W., aged

twenty-seven, Bargah-e Afghani, February 24, 2002.43 Human Rights Watch interview with G.D., aged

forty-five, Bargah-e Afghani, February 26, 2002.

another neighborhood, to see if they could

fi nd money from neighbors. Then they

brought them back and shot them.44

Two other witnesses gave similar accounts ofadditional incidents in which the Hazara soldierskilled Pashtun civilians. M.J. watched a group ofabout twenty Hazara soldiers tie up her father,fifty-year-old M ohammed K han, and her uncle,fifty-two-year-old Sher Khan. The soldiersbegan beating the men, demanding money:T hen they shot them inside our compound, andonly then did they loot our jewelry.45 TheHazara soldiers proceeded to loot six carpets,four pairs of kilims, three Iranian carpets, a gaslight, a sewing machine, a tape recorder,household goods, and a tractor from thecompound: T hey put all the looted goods onthe back of the tractor and left.46

M., aged sixteen, witnessed the beating andkilling of her father, seventy-year-old Safdar Bey,and her brother, twenty-six-year-old Amir K han:

Six men came to our house, they were

H azaras. When they entered in to the

house, they beat us and looted our

household goods. When they were

beating my father, I was holding him,

trying to stop them from killing him.

They beat me [away] wi th their weapons.

The beat ing lasted for about one and one

half hours. Amir K han, my brother, was

also there. They also held him and werebeati ng him. They tied their hands

behind their backs, and their feet were

also ti ed. They had brui ses all over their

bodies.

The H azaras were aski ng us for 2,000 to

3,000 lakhs [about U.S. $2,800 to

$4,200] . I f we didn t pay the money,

they would ki ll [ my father and brother] .

I saw the ki lli ng. A t fir st, they beat themwith their weapons, very forcefull y. Then

they shot them wi th about thir ty bul lets.

44Human Rights Watch interview with G.A., aged

thirty, Bargah-e Afghani, February 26, 2002.45

Human Rights Watch interview with M.J., age un-

known, Bargah-e Afghani, February 26, 2002. M.,like many Afghans, uses only one name46 Ibid.


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Then they fi red at t hem wi th [ a heavi er

weapon] . Amir K han was laid down on

the ground, and they stabbed him wi th

their bayonets. They fi red at both of

them at the same time, but [my father]

Safdar Bey only died two days later.Amir Khan died instantly. They were

[shot] in the courtyard inside our

compound.

Then, they entered inside our rooms and

searched them. We had carpets, ki lims,

a sewing machinethey took all of these.

Some golden coins were also taken, as

well as four pai rs of earri ngs, four r ings,

our clothes, six watches. But they didn t

abuse us anymore. They also found

2,000 lakhs [about U .S. $2,800]. 47

Twenty-year-old A.A. was detained by twoHazara fighters in the street, and ordered to walkback to his home. While he was walking in frontof the two fighters, he was suddenly attacked bythem and nearly killed: When I was walking[home], one of them hit me with the bayonet ofhis gun. It entered in the back of my head andcame out of my mouth. I lost six teeth. I lostconsciousness.48 A.A.s father carried him tothe hospital in Shiberghan, where he barelysurvived his injuries. His face was still heavilybandaged when Human Rights Watchinterviewed him more than two months after theattack.

Los Angeles T imes reporter Geoffrey Mohaninterviewed a Hazara commander named Rajababout the attack. Rajab, who is believed tocontrol a significant area of Chimtal district,admitted that killings took place in Bargah-eAfghani, and claimed that the attack was inretaliation for earlier incidents of attacks againstHazara villagers by Pashtuns:

Yes, that s ri ght, something happened [ in

Bargah-e Afghani.] But when theTali ban fi rst came, there were about

2,000 H azara famili es in Chimtal

[ district]. These Pushtun people ki lled

about 300 H azara people and put 500 in

jai l. They looted the H azara people s

47Human Rights Watch interview with M., aged six-

teen, Bargah-e Afghani, February 26, 2002.48 Human Rights Watch interview with A.A., aged

twenty, Bargah-e Afghani, February 24, 2002.

houses. They looted my house and

knocked down the walls. They killed

about 300 people, and we killed maybe

10. We took cattle from dead people, but

it was catt le they had taken from us.

N o one knows who did th is, but thesepeople who are living in Bargah now,

they oppressed people, they looted houses,

they raped people.49

The Pashtun village of Bargah-e Afghani isadjacent to a Turkmen village, Bargah-e

Turkman. Human Rights Watch also went tospeak with the Turkmen villagers about theirtreatment in the time of the Taliban as well asthe events during the attack. The Turkmenvillagers claimed that Pashtuns from Bargah-eAfghani had looted their village when the Taliban

first came to power. While the Taliban were inpower, their Pashtun neighbors had to providetroops for the Taliban, and had demanded thatthe Turkmen village provide them with ten tofifteen men to fight on a monthly rotation.50

Following the deadly attack, securityconditions improved for the Pashtun populationin Bargah-e Afghani. Manzullah Khan, the

Junbish commander to whom the villagers hadoriginally handed over their weapons and whohad sent the Uzbek soldiers who had fled duringthe attack, returned Junbish soldiers to the villagefollowing the attack. The village has not been

attacked since.

Yengi Qala

Yengi Qala is a large village in Chimtaldistrict, with a mixed population of ethnicPashtuns, Tajiks, and Hazaras. According to anethnic Pashtun village elder of Yengi Qala, sixty-two-year-old S.M ., about half of the Hazarapopulation of the villages surrounding YengiQala fled the area when the Taliban came topower in northern Afghanistan, at least in partbecause some of the Hazara villagers had activelyresisted the Taliban advance.51 According to an

ethnic Tajik shopkeeper in the town, a group of

49Geoffrey Mohan, Vengeance is Taking its Toll in

Wake of Taliban,Los Angeles Times, March 2,

2002.50

Human Rights Watch interview with A., aged fifty-

two, February 26, 2002. A., like many Afghans, uses

only one name.51 Human Rights Watch interview with S.M., aged

sixty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002.


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four Pashtun families who had resettled in YengiQala did continue to abuse the non-Pashtunpopulation during the Taliban period, but themajority of Pashtun villagers were not involved insuch abuses: T he Pashtuns who committedthese crimes were mostly immigrants [i.e., from

elsewhere] and they are no longer here now.They looted the Hazaras mattresses, their goods,even their windows and doors.52

Almost immediately after the fall of theTaliban in M azar-i Sharif on November 9, 2001,Hazara fighters who had left the area during the

Taliban reign began returning to their villagesaround Yengi Qala. On the morning ofNovember 12, at about 6 or 7 a.m., Hazarafighters began heading for Yengi Qala. On theway to Yengi Qala, the Hazara fighters cameacross a sixty-year-old Pashtun servant namedIsmail, who was on his way to Shiberghan with adonkey laden with sacks of flour. Hazara fightersshot Ismail, and dumped his body in a nearbyriver.53

Sixty-two-year-old S.M ., an ethnic Pashtunvillage elder in Yengi Qala, saw the Hazarafighters approach after he had finished hismorning prayers, and immediately fled the villagetowards Jar Qala, together with most of thePashtun villagers. When S.M . returned hometwo days later, he found his home looted, witheven the windows removed from the walls:

They took my four cows, six bokhars

[ 1,400 ki lograms] of wheat. They looted

everything from my house, you can see

they even took the window frames.

They [also] took eight pai rs of ki lims,

about nineteen new mattresses, twelve

sleeping sets [matt resses wi th sheets and

blankets, rolled together] , and twelve

more blankets. They broke all of the

boxes [ used for stori ng valuables] and

took al l of our clothes. I n the women s

boxes, there was also jewelry. They took

a machine to produce cotton seed oil , my

radio, two tape recorders, forty ant ique

tea pots, and many other things.54

52Human Rights Watch interview with T.S., aged

thirty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002.53

Human Rights Watch interview with S.M., agedsixty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002.54 Ibid.

During the looting in the village, the Hazarasoldiers killed three more people, including twowomen and the mentally disabled nephew ofS.M . According to S.M., who did not personallywitness the killing but spoke to severaleyewitnesses, his forty-year-old mentally disabled

nephew Said Nabi Shah was killed after beingtied up and beaten by the Hazara fighters: [T heHazara fighters] entered into my brotherscompound, and they tied my brothers son up bythe hands. They were beating him, pulling himup to a hill near the village. There, they shot andkilled him. When we found his body, his handswere bound with his turban.55

S.M . vehemently denied to Human RightsWatch that he or other Pashtun village leadershad been involved in anti-Hazara abuses duringthe reign of the Taliban, and claimed to havepersonally protected Hazara villagers in the areafrom Taliban atrocities. He felt that he had beentargeted for abuse simply because he was aPashtun village elder: When you are the elder ofa village, when things change, people alwaysblame you [for the past.] The other fault of mineis that I am Pashtun and the Taliban are alsoPashtun. The Taliban did the crimes, but thepunishment was for us.56

Two elderly women were also killed. NoorBibi, aged about sixty, and her sister, seventy-year-old Goldaneh, were abandoned by theirrelatives when they fled the village, because theywere too old to be taken along. When therelatives returned to their homes, they found thetwo elderly women shot dead in their home.57Human Rights Watch could not find any directwitnesses to the killings, but the neighbors saidthey took place during the period that Hazaraforces were looting homes.58

Villagers also blamed two additional killingson Hazara fighters belonging to H izb-i Wahdat.Around November 23, right after dusk, thirty-year-old Alauddin went to visit his sister, whohad been ill. He left his sisters home later thatnight, together with Dad Mohammed, the sisterstwenty-eight-year-old son. A number of Hizb-iWahdat soldiers took away the men from rightoutside the sisters home, and the bodies of thetwo men were found three days later. J., the

55Ibid.

56Ibid.

57Human Rights Watch interview with J., aged

thirty-five, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002. J., likemany Afghans, uses only one name.58 Ibid.


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thirty-five-year-old brother of Alauddin,described how the bodies were found: Thebodies were found with their hands tied behindtheir backs, and both were shot in the head.Alauddin had also been shot in the left shoulder.Dad Mohamed had been shot twice in the head.

There were also bruises on their bodies, I guessfrom rifle-butts.59

Many other villagers also suffered looting atthe hands of the Hazara forces. M.A., who wasover sixty, said a group of six Hazara fighterscame to his home around December 5 or 10,2001, at 2 p.m. He recognized their commanderas Abdullah Chatagh of Hizb-i Wahdat. Theydemanded M.A. hand over his AK-47 assaultrifle, and then started looting and beating: Theytook my four cows, our rugs and kilims, and 360lakhs [about U.S. $500]. They said, yourePashtun, and started beating me with rifle buttson my back, legs, and arms.60 When asked if hemade a complaint about the looting, M .A.replied that he thought a complaint would beuseless and expressed the feelings of many:

I ve complained only to A llah. Who

hears our complaints? We wi ll only get in

more trouble if we complain. We have no

power. Whoever has the guns has the

power. We are sick of the guns, of the

commanders. Take them all away and

let us farm.61

T .S., a thirty-two-year-old ethnic Tajikshopkeeper, narrowly escaped execution at thehands of the Hazara forces, under the control ofCommander Zahi:

Commander Zahi [ s forces] arri ved and

said they suspected us of being Tal ibs

[Tali ban supporters] and protecting the

Talibs. They then collected eight of us,

Tajiks [and other non-Pashtuns] and

li ned us up. They told us to get in one

li ne. When we got in line, they fired

above our heads. They wanted to shoot a

second time, but their weapon jammed so

we managed to escape. Zahi was wi th

two bodyguards, he was ri ding a horse.

59Ibid.

60Human Rights Watch interview with M.A., aged

over sixty, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002.61 Ibid.

The other [H azara] soldiers were behind

them, far ther away. 62

Following the Hazara attack, the Tajikpopulation of the village contacted the Mazar-iSharif based Jamiat commander Ustad AttaMohammad and requested protection for theirvillage. At about 8 p.m. that same day, twotruckloads of weapons were sent by Jamiat to thevillage to distribute to Jamiat supporters,according to T .S. T hen we could bring peaceback to our village, T .S. continued, and weinvited the Pashtuns who had escaped to returnto the village.63 S.M ., the Pashtun village elderwhose house was looted, confirmed that relativepeace had returned to the village, and that theywere now living under the protection of a Jamiatcommander, Ghazi Shojaeddin.64

A second villager confirmed that security hadimproved since Jamiat took over security, stating,Security is now better because Jamiat isprotecting us against Hizb-i Wahdat since abouttwenty days. But it is only inside the village. Weare still afraid to go outside [the village], or to goout at night.65 He added that they could stillnot travel on the roads because the [H izb-iWahdat soldiers] will stop cars on the road anddemand money and threaten us.66

However, although most Pashtun villagers inYengi Qala were loathe to speak about abuses bytheir new protectors, armed Tajiks have also

carried out abuses against Pashtun civilians. J.told Human Rights Watch that armed Tajiks hadalso looted Pashtun homes during November andDecember 2001.67 Around December 10, 2001,three armed T ajiks took forty-two-year-old A.M .,an ethnic Pashtun, from his home to an oldcemetery: They held a gun to my temple andasked for money, I thought they were going tokill me. Then a villager passed by on the roadand saw us, so they let me go after I gave them150 lakhs [about U.S. $210]. They didnt beatme, they didnt have to. I knew they would killme if I didnt pay them.68

62 Human Rights Watch interview with T.S., agedthirty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002.63

Ibid.64

Human Rights Watch interview with S.M., aged

sixty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002.65

Human Rights Watch interview with J., aged

thirty-five, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002.66

Ibid.67

Ibid.68 Human Rights Watch interview with A.K., aged

forty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002.


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Rape in Chimtal District

Human Rights Watch received second-handreports that women and girls had been raped andkidnapped in Chimtal district, but we were ableto confirm only one case of rape in the district.

This does not mean that rape or abductions didnot take place on a larger scale, but points to thedifficulty of confirming cases of rape in a societywhere such abuses are considered unspeakable.

A Pashtun school administrator in Mazar-iSharif told H uman Rights Watch that threeHazara soldiers raped a sixteen-year-old femalerelative of hers in Chimtal city on January 16,2002. A group of four soldiers came to the homewhile the girl was bathing. The men tied up herfather in the front room, and three of the soldiersraped his daughter in front of him and looted thehome. The girl has been forced to leave hervillage, because everyone heard about [the rape]and it was shameful for the family. Her fatherand brother refuse to see the rape victim, andhave even threatened to kill her for bringingshame on the family. The school administratorstressed that there were other cases of rape, butthat in most cases the families affected tried tokeep the information private:

There are more rape and sexual v iolence

cases against Pashtuns. Thi s is because

the other [ ethn ic groups] have weapons

now, and the Pashtun do not haveweapons to defend themselv es. Pashtun

communi ties in parti cular are least l ik ely

to seek medical care in the event of sexual

violence because of social sti gmatizati on.

T he social stigma is so severe that in

some cases families have killed their

female fami ly members [who were

raped] .69

Charbolak District

Soon after the fall of the Taliban in Mazar-iSharif on November 9, 2001, Junbish troops tookover a sizable military base located in theCharbolak district on the main Shiberghan-Mazar-i Sharif highway. Human Rights Watchvisited three Pashtun villages in the district thathad suffered abuses, including looting andbeatings, from Junbish soldiers stationed at the

69 Human Rights Watch interview, Mazar-i Sharif,

February 19, 2002.

military base. The abuses occurred in lateNovember and December, and took place duringa disarmament campaign in which the Junbishsoldiers were supposedly looking for weapons.

According to people in all three villages, their

security situation had improved significantlysince the initial attacks. A former Talibancommander, M ohammed Wali, who is fromCharbolak district, has switched allegiance to

Junbish after the fall of the Taliban, and hasprovided protection for the Pashtun villages inthe area. In return for the protection, each of thevillages is providing a number of men toCommander Wali to serve as soldiers.

Nauwarid Janghura

Around November 15, 2001, at about 4 p.m.,a group of about thirty to forty armed Uzbekmen entered the Pashtun village of Nauwarid

Janghura.70 In fear of their lives, most of thevillagers ran away when they saw the Uzbeksoldiers approaching, leaving behind only a fewmen, some children, and a few women.

Seventy-five-year-old B.M . remained in thevillage, too old to flee quickly. He saw the Uzbeksoldiers enter the homes of the villagers, carryingout carpets and other valuables. When theycame to his compound, the sold

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