For Immediate Release
August 18, 2002

Contacts: 
Nathaniel Raymond (617) 695-0041 ext 220/ (617) 413-6407 (cell) 
Barbara Ayotte (617) 695-0041 ext 210/(617) 549-0152 (cell)

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) today condemned the refusal of the US Government, the Afghan government, and the United Nations to secure and investigate the mass grave site at Dasht-e Leili, near Sheberghan in northern Afghanistan. It demanded an immediate comprehensive criminal investigation under the auspices of a Commission of Inquiry sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council to determine the number of bodies in the grave, the circumstances of their deaths, and the likely perpetrators-all essential to begin the process of accountability.

In early 2002, PHR discovered and forensically examined the site, which revealed a recently formed mass grave in an area where witnesses said the bodies of a large number of Taliban prisoners (who surrendered at Kunduz to Northern Alliance forces in late November 2001) had been deposited and buried. In May 2002, the UN seconded two PHR forensic experts, including the director of its International Forensic Program, William Haglund, Ph.D., to undertake a preliminary investigation of the site. 

For the past six months, PHR has repeatedly urged the US Government and its coalition partners, the Afghan government, and the United Nations to ensure the security of both the physical site and witnesses and appealed for an official full investigation into these deaths before evidence is destroyed. It has also asked that the UN release its preliminary report. PHR has received no official response to its appeals (see timeline). This week's Newsweek investigation reinforces the urgency of PHR's appeals.

"The refusal of the United States to acknowledge and investigate the possibility that its military partner murdered hundreds or thousands of prisoners is a terrible repudiation of its commitment to hold perpetrators of war crimes accountable for their deeds," said Leonard S. Rubenstein, Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights. 

The Newsweek report included multiple eyewitness accounts alleging that Northern Alliance forces under the command of General Abdul Rashid Dostum may have killed, through suffocation in containers, as many as 2,000 to 3,000 Taliban and foreign prisoners after their surrender at Kunduz in November of last year.

Pursuant to an official mandate, the US and its allies should immediately deploy members of the International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan (ISAF) to secure the Dasht-e-Leili grave and other mass grave sites and protect witnesses from reprisals. Without adequate security and authorization, human rights experts cannot gather all available information about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of those buried at the Dasht-e-Leili grave site. The remains at the Dasht-e-Leili site and others in the area must be exhumed in accordance with internationally accepted scientific standards, every effort to repatriate the remains to their families should be made, and the identity of all those responsible should be determined. Pending the Commission's findings, the United Nations Security Council, in consultation with the Afghan government, should develop a proper accountability mechanism.

There have been three enormous massacres in this area since 1997, with the Northern Alliance and the Taliban retaliating against each other's abuses by murdering thousands. In the summer/fall of 1997, Northern Alliance forces murdered as many as 2,000 captured Taliban militia members in Mazar-I-Sharif. The Taliban retaliated in August of 1998 when it recaptured Mazar, killing as many as 5,000 unarmed Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara men, women, and children. Now, the Northern Alliance forces may have killed hundreds or thousands of captured Taliban soldiers and foreign combatants in and around Shebarghan/Mazar in November of 2001. In each of these instances of mass butchery the international community did nothing to protect the innocent, did nothing to identify and apprehend the perpetrators, and did nothing to prevent a recurrence of killings. 

While claiming to support the reconstruction of Afghanistan, the United States' and the United Nations' suppressing or ignoring evidence of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity are instead contributing greatly to Afghanistan's instability by tacitly allowing warlords to act with impunity. The presence of a multinational force in Afghanistan and the mandate for an accountability process within the 2001 Bonn Agreement that established the Interim Afghan Administration offers an opportunity to do today what the international community failed to do in the past. The lessons of post-war realities in Bosnia, Rwanda, and East Timor have demonstrated that stability cannot occur without accountability. 

Founded in 1986, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), based in Boston, MA, mobilizes the health professions to promote health by protecting human rights. The International Forensic Program of PHR has conducted scientific investigations in over a dozen countries, including several efforts in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia on behalf of International Criminal Tribunals. PHR shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its role as a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. 








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