Wayzata World Factbook 1996/The World Factbook - 1996 Edition - Wayzata Technology (3079) (1996).iso/pc/text/humanrts/afghanis.txt

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TITLE:  AFGHANISTAN HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES. 1994
AUTHOR:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE:  FEBRUARY 1995


                          AFGHANISTAN*


Afghanistan in 1994 continued to experience civil war and
widespread lawlessness.  The nominal nine-party coalition
Government failed to function effectively, and armed factions
opposed or supported President Burhanuddin Rabbani.  Several
provincial administrations maintained limited functions, but
banditry was prevalent in much of the country amid a general
decline of law and order.  In July pro-Rabbani forces met with
some independent ones in Herat and called for a follow-up
traditional gathering of notables to take up the peace effort.
The Herat Conference suffered from a lack of broad
participation owing in part to fears its outcome had been
predetermined by pro-Rabbani elements.  The U.N. Special
Mission to Afghanistan made several efforts to reach a
political solution to the crisis, including convening s
conference of Afghan notables in Quetta.  By year's end, the
United Nations obtained agreement in principle from the major
factions to participate in a broad-based interim government and
began to negotiate the details.

The simmering civil war intensified on January 1 when troops
commanded by the leader of the National Islamic Movement (NIM),
General Abdul Rashid Dostam, aided by forces loyal to Prime
Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, attempted a coup d'etat against
President Rabbani.  The attempt was foiled, but the protracted
fighting caused heavy civilian casualties and the destruction
of much of Kabul.  By the end of 1994, an estimated 1 million
Afghans remained displaced by fighting, and an estimated 34,000
were killed or wounded during the year in Kabul alone.

The coalition Government has not established a national
military and police force.  The political instability and the
presence of heavily armed party militias in Kabul have led to
an array of regional security bodies, many of which operate
independently of party and governmental authorities.  They are
responsible for many human rights abuses.

Agriculture, including increased levels of opium poppy
cultivation, remained the mainstay of the economy.  The civil
war impeded reconstruction of irrigation systems, repair of
market roads, and clearance of some 10 million Soviet land
mines.  There was modest reconstruction in some areas, notably


*The American Embassy in Kabul has been closed for security
reasons since January 1989.


Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Nangarhar, where provincial
authorities have reestablished a degree of order and civil
administration.

Large-scale human rights violations occurred in 1994.  The
U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan concluded that "as
Afghanistan has no effective central government, the imputation
of state responsibility in international law is problematic."
The warring factions not only failed to protect the human
rights of civilians, but often wantonly violated those rights
by specifically targeting noncombatants.  Gunmen affiliated
with the 10 armed factions were often responsible for
assassinations, looting, rapes, and kidnapings for ransom.
Combatants from several factions blocked food and medical
supplies desperately needed by displaced people in the Kabul,
Kunduz, and Taloqan areas.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1  Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
           Freedom from:

     a.  Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

In 1994 an estimated 8,000 Afghans died in Kabul alone as a
result of the civil war.  Most were civilian victims of
artillery, rocket, or air strikes launched by forces aligned
with Hekmatyar or Rabbani.  In many cases civilian deaths were
incidental to the military actions of the belligerents, but in
some cases combatants purposefully targeted civilian areas.
Combatants also sought to assassinate rival commanders and
their sympathizers.  The perpetrators of these assassinations
and their motives were difficult to identify, as political
motives are often entwined with family and tribal feuds,
battles over the drug trade, religious zealotry, and personal
vendettas.

In July a reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation,
Mirwais Jalil, was abducted and murdered by unidentified
gunmen.  His body, bearing over 20 stab and bullet wounds, was
later found in a no man's land.  In July Commander Naser of
Laghman Province, who was affiliated with Hekmatyar's party,
and 10 of his bodyguards were reportedly murdered as Naser
traveled to meet with a rival.  In September Commander Sadiq,
also a follower of Hekmatyar, and his bodyguard were murdered
in Nangarhar Province while returning from a visit to
Pakistan.  Sadiq was rumored to have been involved in narcotics
trafficking, a Pashtun intratribal dispute, and the factional
fighting in Kabul--any of which may have provided the motive
for his murder.  None of the perpetrators was apprehended.
President Rabbani's forces apparently targeted Hekmatyar
himself in an August 12 air raid that demolished his living
quarters.  Subsequent air attacks were made on a hospital
facility where Hekmatyar was thought to be under treatment for
injuries sustained in the August 12 air raid; in fact he had
escaped serious injury.

Two brothers who had murdered a rival were executed in Herat
after an on-the-spot adjudication by an Islamic magistrate.
Summary executions following Shari'a court trials were reported
elsewhere in the country.

     b.  Disappearance

In April Amnesty International (AI) issued a report claiming
that dozens of people had disappeared or were being held in
incommunicado detention.  It appealed to all sides to release
their captives and stop taking hostages.  AI reported that Zia
Nassry, an American citizen, was allegedly arrested by
pro-Rabbani forces in Kabul in 1992; Nassry's welfare and
whereabouts remained unknown in 1994.

Hostage taking for ransom or political reasons was common.  In
June unknown gunmen abducted an Afghan guard working at an
inactive diplomatic mission in Kabul.  The victim was tied,
blindfolded, threatened with death, beaten, held for 16 days,
and finally released when his family paid the ransom.  The
kidnapers were not apprehended.  In July Mullah Rocketi, a
commander of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf's Ittehad-i-Islami Party,
released seven Pakistani and two Chinese hostages he had
kidnaped to force the Government of Pakistan to release his
brother from prison and return or pay for weapons allegedly
taken from him.  Rocketi had held some of the captives since
1992.

Groups in Russia listed nearly 300 Soviet soldiers who had
served in Afghanistan as missing in action or prisoners of
war.  Most were thought to be dead or to have voluntarily
assimilated into Afghan society.  Some continued to be held
against their will by their Afghan captors.

     c.  Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
         Treatment or Punishment

Armed factions reportedly employed torture and ill-treatment
frequently to extract information from prisoners or break their
will.  Mullah Rocketi's forces hung some foreign captives (see
Section 1.b.) upside down and beat them to force them to write
letters urging that ransom be paid, according to media accounts.

Due to the lack of a functioning national judicial system, the
powers that be reportedly imposed traditional laws and
punishments, such as the amputation of hands of those convicted
of theft.

Marauding militiamen abused many women in Mazar-i-Sharif in
January and in Kunduz in March, according to international
media and other sources.  The U.N. Special Rapporteur reported
that in 1994 there were innumerable cases of rape and that in
some instances women had been "hunted down."  In March armed
men repeatedly raped a 15-year-old girl in Kabul after breaking
into her family's house and killing her father for allowing her
to attend school, according to an AI report issued in
December.  The report added that thousands of women and
children had been raped in Afghanistan since April 1992, when
the mujahedin groups took power in Kabul.

     d.  Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

With the breakdown of law and order, justice was not
administered "by the book" in many localities.  Little was
known about procedures employed in 1994 for taking persons into
custody and bringing them to trial.  Presumably, practices
varied considerably among the localities.

     e.  Denial of Fair Public Trial

With the collapse of a nationwide judicial system, many
municipal and provincial authorities relied on some form of
Shari'a, or Islamic, law and traditional tribal codes of
justice.  However, little is known about the implementation of
these precepts.

No firm estimate is available on the number of political
prisoners, but a Pakistan-based human rights group estimated
that well over 1,000 people were held as political prisoners or
hostages by armed factions or independent commanders.

     f.  Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
         Correspondence

Widespread forced entry into homes and looting occurred in the
northern cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz early in the year
during intense fighting there.  There were fewer reports of
looting in Kabul compared with 1993, probably because much of
the city was in ruins and many items of value had already been
carried off.  A U.N. facility in Mazar-i-Sharif and the
Pakistani Embassy in Kabul were ransacked in early 1994.  The
Afghanistan National Archives were looted in May.

     g.  Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian
         Law in Internal Conflicts

Ten armed factions, aligned in two loose blocs, fought for
power in Kabul and the provinces, causing widespread
destruction and indiscriminate killing.  Command and control of
armed men was often haphazard and informal, a condition that
obscured the relationship between the perpetrators of human
rights violations and the political leaders with whom they were
nominally affiliated.

On January 1, General Dostam's troops in Kabul, theretofore
aligned with President Rabbani, switched to Prime Minister
Hekmatyar's side and attempted to oust the President in a coup
d'etat.  The President's forces quickly countered  and the
ensuing fighting engulfed much of Kabul and northern parts of
the country.  A significant number of civilians were killed in
the northern cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz during heavy
fighting.  Fighting raged in Kabul's old business district,
with both sides employing heavy weapons and air strikes which
took a heavy toll of civilian life and wreaked destruction on
much of Kabul.  As intense fighting in Kabul continued for most
of January, hundreds of thousands fled to safer areas of the
country.  Most of the belligerents received outside assistance,
despite U.N. calls to halt the influx of materiel to the
warring factions.

In February Prime Minister Hekmatyar imposed a food blockade on
northern Kabul, the area controlled by President Rabbani's
troops.  The U.N. Security Council and the United States
Government condemned the food blockade and asked that it be
lifted.  In March General Dostam's militia briefly captured the
northern city of Kunduz from the forces of Ahmed Shah Masood,
President Rabbani's de facto Defense Minister.  Amid widespread
pillaging by the victorious troops, local people revolted and
assisted Masood's fighters in retaking the city, according to a
Western journalist who visited the area.

Sharp clashes broke out in Kabul in late June, when Masood
launched an attack against Dostam's and Hekmatyar's forces and
drove them from key strongholds in central Kabul.  They reacted
by launching nearly daily rocket attacks on the city, which
took a heavy civilian toll.

In September the relatively quiet Shi'a quarter of Kabul
erupted in intense fighting between rival Shi'a factions, which
were quickly backed by other armed groups.  In the last half of
September alone, some 2,650 people, mostly civilians, were
reportedly killed or wounded in this fighting.  On September 27
a rocket hit a Kabul wedding party, killing 40 people and
injuring 70, according to U.N. and media sources.  In November
armed religious students known as the "taliban" (disciples)
movement took over Kandahar and neighboring areas in southern
Afghanistan after defeating local commanders in battle.  The
taliban cleared roadblocks from the main highway and
implemented a strict social code.  According to media accounts,
the taliban limited the use of videotapes, prohibited public
music and dancing, and restricted other forms of public
behavior.

The Afghan countryside remained plagued by an estimated 10
million land mines sown during the Soviet occupation.  The U.N.
sponsored mine awareness, detection, and removal programs, but
the mines will pose a threat for years to come.

Section 2  Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

     a.  Freedom of Speech and Press

There are no laws effectively providing for freedom of speech
and press, and the nominal Government lacks the authority to
protect these rights.  Senior officials of various warring
factions allegedly attempted to intimidate reporters and
influence their reporting.  The few newspapers, all of which
were published only sporadically, were largely affiliated with
political parties.  There was a pro-Rabbani radio and
television service in Kabul.  Prime Minister Hekmatyar has his
own radio and television service near Kabul, as does General
Dostam in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

     b.  Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

Civil war conditions in Kabul and the tenuous security
situation in much of the country effectively limited Afghans'
freedom of assembly and association.  The prohibition against
non-Islamic political parties was reinforced by President
Rabbani's call for jihad, or holy war, against General Dostam
and his followers.  The President's backers do not view
Dostam's movement as Islamic.  One positive development was the
establishment of numerous local councils, or shuras, at the
provincial and sub-provincial levels to establish order and
organize development efforts.

     c.  Freedom of Religion

Afghanistan's official name, the Islamic State of Afghanistan,
reflected the country's adherence to Islam as the state
religion.  Some 85 percent of the population is Sunni Muslim,
with Shi'a Muslims comprising the bulk of the remainder.  The
small number of non-Muslim residents in Afghanistan may
practice their faith, but may not proselytize, according to an
official source.

The country's small Hindu and Sikh population, which once
numbered about 50,000, continued to shrink as its members
emigrated or took refuge abroad.

     d.  Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
         Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation

Although in principle citizens have the right to travel freely
both inside and outside the country, their ability to travel
within the country was hampered by warfare, brigandage,
millions of undetected land mines, the disrepair of the road
network, and the moribund state of the domestic air service.
Despite these obstacles many people continued to travel
relatively freely.

International travel became more difficult in 1994, as the
Government of Pakistan closed its border in January to new
refugees from Afghanistan.  Only Afghan travelers holding valid
visas were officially allowed entry, but thousands of
undocumented Afghans crossed into Pakistan, including some
admitted on medical or humanitarian grounds.  Kabul
International Airport was closed due to the fighting, and most
diplomatic missions moved out of Kabul in January.

Afghans continued to form one of the world's largest refugee
populations.  Well over 3 million Afghans were refugees abroad,
with 1.2 million in Pakistan, roughly 2 million in Iran, and
70,000 in Russia.  The limited repatriation of 1993 slowed to a
trickle in 1994, with 78,000 returning from Iran and 75,400
from Pakistan.  However, an estimated 70,000 new refugees
arrived in Pakistan in the first half of the year alone.
According to the United Nations and other sources, Russia
forcibly repatriated 21 Afghans in August, including 8 orphaned
children of Afghan Communist Party members accepted for
resettlement when the Soviet army departed from Afghanistan in
1989.  The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees protested the
forced repatriation.

Of the roughly 35,000 registered Tajikistan refugees in
northern Afghanistan at the start of 1994, approximately half
were repatriated, including nearly all of the 18,000 previously
housed at a refugee camp across the border from Termez,
Uzbekistan.  Those in northeastern Afghanistan faced more
difficult obstacles to repatriation, including irregular
transport across the Amu Darya river, fighting along the
Tajik-Afghan frontier, and explosions in June at the
repatriation center at Shir Khan Bandar, presumably caused by
militant extremists who wished to manipulate the Tajik refugees
for purposes such as recruiting them into the armed movement
seeking to overthrow the government of Tajikistan.

Section 3  Respect for Political Rights:  The Right of Citizens
           to Change Their Government

The continuing violent struggle for political power among the
10 armed factions effectively precluded the citizens from
peacefully and democratically changing their government or form
of government.

The nine-party coalition Government, established in 1993 under
the Islamabad and Jalalabad Accords, existed only in nominal
terms.  It failed to function as a cohesive governing
structure, and by July President Rabbani's inner circle of
advisors occupied most positions of influence in the
President's limited sphere of control.

Under the terms of these Accords, President Rabbani's term in
office was to expire in late June.  However, he announced that
he would not be held to these widely ignored agreements, and
referred back to a unilateral edict by a Grand Council,
convoked by the President in late 1992, that provided for a
2-year presidential term.  A group of clerics, deemed the
Supreme Court by President Rabbani, upheld the President's
decision to extend his tenure.

In March U.N. Secretary General Boutros Ghali dispatched a
Special Mission to Afghanistan to help mediate the conflict.
The Mission, headed by former Tunisian Foreign Minister Mahmoud
Mestiri, canvassed Afghans on how the United Nations could
foster a peace process.  It later attempted to bring
representatives of the factions to preliminary discussions on a
political solution, but the Rabbani faction refused to talk
with General Dostam's representatives.

In July Governor Ismail Khan of Herat convened a gathering of
several hundred pro-Rabbani and some neutral representatives to
discuss a possible peace process.  U.N. officials attended as
observers.  The Herat conferees recommended that a loya jirga,
or traditional grand assembly, be held by late October.
Anti-Rabbani elements viewed the proceedings as biased in favor
of Rabbani and largely ignored them.  In September Mestiri
again gathered a group of Afghan notables to advise the U.N. on
mediating the conflict.  The major factional leaders accepted
the advisory group's framework for peace, which included a
permanent cessation of hostilities, the creation of a national
security force, and the establishment of an interim ruling
authority.

Section 4  Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
           Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
           of Human Rights

In 1994 there were no known human rights groups in
Afghanistan.  At least one group operated outside the country;
the Afghan League of Human Rights' annual report was produced
in Pakistan.  The civil war and lack of security made it
difficult for human rights organizations to monitor the
situation inside the country.

In September the U.N. Special Rapporteur visited Afghanistan
and met with senior Afghan leaders.  Heavy fighting in Kabul
prevented him from visiting the capital.  He issued a
preliminary report of his findings in November.

Section 5  Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion,
           Disability, Language, or Social Status

     Women

Afghan custom and tradition imposes limits on women's
activities beyond the home.  Under the Communist regime of the
1980's, a growing number of women, particularly in urban areas,
worked outside the home in nontraditional roles.  This trend
was reversed with the ouster of the Communist regime in 1992,
and in 1994 women were increasingly precluded from public
service.  In conservative areas in 1994, many women appeared in
public only if dressed in a complete head-to-toe garment with a
mesh covered opening for the eyes.  In Faryab Province the
local warlord's forces reportedly directed unmarried women over
age 12 to get married or face the prospect of rape by the
warlord's gunmen.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur noted a series of 21 ordinances
governing the behavior of women in Afghanistan, reportedly
issued by a nine-member committee of the High Court.  These
ordinances specified, inter alia, that a woman's veil must
cover her whole body, that perfumed women are regarded as
adulteresses, that a woman must not leave her house without her
husband's permission, and that a woman must not look at
strangers.  There is no information available on how, or
whether, these ordinances were enforced.  After the taliban
movement took control of Kandahar, it reportedly told women to
venture outdoors only if accompanied by a male relative.  Prime
Minister Hekmatyar decreed that women must wear Islamic dress
and refrain from "aimless wandering."  In December the
provincial council of Jalalabad reportedly prohibited women
from working in offices except in the fields of health and
education.  In 1994 four women were stoned to death in Kunduz
after being found guilty by Islamic judges of capital offenses,
according to a local government authority.

     Children

Local administrative bodies and international assistance
organizations undertook to look out for children's welfare to
the extent possible.  Malnourishment of children as a result of
the food blockade was reported in Kabul, and the general
disruption of health services countrywide due to the civil war
put many young people at grave risk.

     People with Disabilities

It is not known whether the nominal Government took any
measures to protect the rights of the mentally and physically
disabled or to mandate accessibility for them.  Victims of land
mines were a major focus of international humanitarian relief
organizations, which devoted resources to providing prostheses,
medical treatment, and rehabilitation therapy to amputees.  In
August the U.N. Development Program initiated a million-dollar
project to strengthen comprehensive community-based
rehabilitation services for disabled Afghans.

Section 6  Worker Rights

     a.  The Right of Association

Little was known about labor laws and practices in Afghanistan
in 1994.  There were no reports of labor rallies or strikes.
Labor rights were not clearly defined, in the context of the
breakdown of governmental authority, and there was no effective
central authority to enforce them.  Many of Kabul's industrial
workers were unemployed due to the destruction or abandonment
of the city's minuscule manufacturing base.

     b.  The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively

Afghanistan lacks a tradition of genuine labor-management
bargaining.  There were no known labor courts or other
mechanisms for resolving labor disputes.

     c.  Prohibition of Forced of Compulsory Labor

No information was available on government edicts regarding
forced or compulsory labor.

     d.  Minimum Age for Employment of Children

There was no evidence that the Government was able to enforce
labor laws relating to the employment of children.

     e.  Acceptable Conditions of Work

There was no available information regarding a statutory
minimum wage or the enforcement of safe labor practices.  Many
workers were apparently allotted time off regularly for prayers
and observance of religious holidays.