Bil Oil gov't installed in Kabul as
Film exposes U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan
By Greg Butterfield
While the U.S. corporate media celebrated the selection of
Washington's handpicked candidate to lead Afghanistan, the rest
of the world focused its attention on dramatic new evidence of
U.S. war crimes.
On June 13, Hamid Karzai was selected as Afghanistan's
president for a term of 18 months by the 1,500-member loya
jirga, or grand council, in Kabul. Karzai had also headed the
six-month interim government established last January under
U.S. and German auspices following the overthrow of the
Taliban.
Karzai is a former consultant for the U.S. oil company
Unocal. He helped Unocal plan a proposed 1,500-kilometer gas
pipeline starting in Turkmenistan, stretching across
Afghanistan, and ending in Pakistan.
While still acting as interim leader, Karzai and the
presidents of Pakistan and Turkmenistan signed an agreement May
30 to move ahead with the pipeline. Unocal was said to be the
frontrunner to head the multi-billion-dollar project.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, is
also a Unocal alumnus.
The Bush administration hailed Karzai's selection by the
loya jirga delegates as proof of democracy's return to occupied
Afghanistan, even as U.S. military actions continue.
But most delegates believed the council was "rigged to
install a government headed by Karzai and dominated by the
Northern Alliance," the Financial Times of London reported June
14.
Without warning, the loya jirga was delayed for a day,
reportedly to give extra time to pressure the former king to
back Karzai.
Karzai even told the press he'd been elected before the vote
took place.
Both the Northern Alliance and the Taliban got arms, money
and political support from the United States during their long
counter-revolutionary war against the progressive People's
Democratic Party of Afghanistan and its Soviet allies. The PDPA
was finally overthrown in 1992.
The Northern Alliance ruled Kabul from 1992 to 1996. For the
next four years, massacre, rape and pillage were commonplace.
When the Taliban drove the Northern Alliance from Kabul in
1996, they left 50,000 dead civilians behind.
Last year, when the Bush administration decided to make this
impoverished country the first victim of its "war on
terrorism," the Northern Alliance made a suitable local cat's
paw for Western consumption.
But for many delegates, the Northern Alliance's role in the
new government was a bitter pill to swallow.
Sima Samar, who headed the interim government's Women's
Affairs Ministry, said, "This is not democracy, it is a rubber
stamp--everything has already been decided." She was removed
from Karzai's new cabinet and replaced by a woman living
outside the country.
Filmmaker: protect evidence of U.S. crimes
Also in mid-June, Irish filmmaker Jamie Doran urged European
members of parliament and human rights groups to prevent the
destruction of evidence of U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan.
In was Doran who first provided footage of the massacre of
Taliban prisoners at Mazar-i-Sharif last year. In that assault,
U.S. and Northern Alliance troops put down an uprising against
brutal conditions by bombing the prison.
A rough-cut of Doran's latest documentary, "Massacre at
Mazar," was shown to the German Reichstag June 12 and the
European Union Parliament June 13. The German Party of
Democratic Socialism and the EU's United Left caucus organized
the showings.
The 20 minutes of footage--much of it shot
secretly--presents testimony from eyewitnesses to the torture
and killing of prisoners of war by the U.S. and Northern
Alliance.
An Afghan soldier said he'd seen a U.S. soldier break a
prisoner's neck, then pour acid on others. "The Americans did
whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them," he
said.
Doran reports that 5,000 of the 8,000 Taliban prisoners
taken after the fall of Kunduz last November have disappeared.
In the film, eyewitnesses report that many prisoners suffocated
in the metal containers used to transport them and that U.S.
officers ordered Afghani troops to fire into the
containers.
Other witnesses said that a U.S. officer ordered the bodies
dumped in the desert of Dasht-I-Leili. Live prisoners were
reportedly taken there and executed as well, while U.S.
soldiers stood by and watched.
Doran's film shows the site of this mass grave where up to
3,000 prisoners were reportedly buried.
The Pentagon and State Department issued terse denials of
the film's charges. But while news of the film has made
headlines around the globe, no major U.S. newspaper or TV
network had picked up the story by June 24.
Those who testified in the film did so at great risk to
their lives, Doran said, but all have agreed to testify before
an international war crimes tribunal if one is convened.
The film won't be ready for public release until later this
summer. But Doran said there is great danger that the evidence
of U.S./Northern Alliance crimes will be tampered with or
destroyed-especially the mass grave at Dasht-I-Leili.
This prompted calls from some parliament members for an
independent inquiry or a Red Cross-led investigation.
Andrew McEntee, a former head of Amnesty International and
leading British human rights lawyer, told the South African
Independent that he "believes there is prima facie evidence of
serious war crimes having been committed by American soldiers
in Afghanistan."
Reprinted from the July 4, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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