CIA Implicated in Extrajudicial Assassinations in Afghanistan

http://pacificfreepress.com/content/view/2632/81/

CIA Implicated in Extrajudicial Assassinations in Afghanistan
by Professor Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions

I have spent 12 days in Afghanistan at the invitation of the Government and I am deeply grateful to them for the full cooperation I received. I have visited Helmand, Kabul, Kandahar, Kunar, Nangarhar, Jowzjan, and Parwan and met with victims and witnesses, Provincial Governors, Ministers in the national Government, senior international military officers, civil society, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, the UN, and many others.

I should make clear that I am not a staff member of the United Nations. In other words, I am not a member of UNAMA or the UN Secretariat charged with implementing official UN policy. Instead, I play a different role within the UN system. I have been appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to provide that body with a report analyzing problems relating to unlawful killings and making recommendations for how those killings could be more effectively prevented.

It will be for the Government, the United Nations, the international community, and civil society to give those recommendations appropriate consideration.




The problem of killings is a significant one in Afghanistan. In the past four months, hundreds of civilians have been killed. They have died from bombs, missiles, explosive devices, police fire, beheadings and domestic violence. Those responsible include the police, militia groups, the Taliban and other anti-government elements, and the international forces. In the absence of urgent action by all parties, the months and years ahead will see many more civilians killed unlawfully. The message of my report is that a great many of these deaths can be readily avoided.

In these preliminary observations I identify several steps that should be taken urgently. In my final report, to be released several months from now, I will go into considerably more detail.
Afghanistan is enveloped in an armed conflict. But that does not mean that large numbers of avoidable killings of civilians must be tolerated.

The level of complacency in response to these killings is staggeringly high. In a nutshell: police killings must cease; widespread impunity within the legal system for killing must be rejected; the killing of women and girls must end; the international military forces must ensure real accountability for their actions; and the United Nations should give greater prominence to the role of human rights in its activities.

Ensuring the accountability and transparency of the international military forces

The international forces in Afghanistan should take seriously the principles of accountability and transparency, the importance of which they so frequently proclaim in other contexts. They should have no particular reluctance to adhere to these principles. I have seen no evidence that the international forces present in Afghanistan commit widespread intentional killings in violation of human rights or humanitarian law.