Today, following President Obama’s welcome decision to ask the National Security Council “to collect the facts … that are known” about the Dasht-e-Leili massacre and subsequent cover-up, three major newspapers—The New York Times, The Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle—have joined Physicians for Human Rights in our call for a full federal investigation.

As the San Francisco Chronicle said:

Those alleged atrocities are an American concern.

The New York Times, which broke the story by James Risen that has catapulted the almost forgotten massacre of as many as 2000 men back into public consciousness, reflected:

There can be no justification for the horrors or for the willingness of the United States and Afghanistan to look the other way.

President Obama has told aides to study the matter, and the administration is pressing Mr. Karzai not to return General Dostum to power. Mr. Obama needs to order a full investigation into the massacre. The site must be guarded and witnesses protected….

There is more at stake than just the history books. Out of desperation or fear, many Afghans have again thrown their lot in with the Taliban. There is no chance of getting them to switch sides if they fear being massacred. If there is any hope of salvaging the war, American forces must persuade all Afghans that they and the Afghan government are truly committed to justice.

The Boston Globe elaborates:

It would be understandable if Obama were reluctant to become entangled in the sins and secrets of the Bush administration. But the decision of the CIA-funded warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum to have hundreds of enemy fighters suffocated in container trucks does lasting harm to the Karzai government, which lists him as military chief of staff, and to America’s reputation as a nation that respects the Geneva Conventions and the rule of law.

Obama says his national security team will be gathering facts on Dostum’s war crime and the Bush administration’s cover-up. The next step ought to be the sort of full-bore FBI investigation that some agents of the bureau originally wanted. Earlier refusals to investigate and punish war crimes in Afghanistan opened the way to a warlord-riddled Afghan government that is scorned and mistrusted by much of the population. Those refusals also set America on a path that led to the disasters of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the government-approved torturing of prisoners of war. Truth is the best antidote to the disfiguring disease of secrecy.

Rising to this responsibility means not just committing to an investigation but, as The Times has emphasized, committing right now to guarding the evidence at the Dasht-e-Leili site and to protecting any known witnesses.

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Cambridge, MA – Obama Administration officials stated Friday, as reported by Lara Jakes of the Associated Press, that they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who allegedly were killed by U.S.-backed forces. In their statement, these officials claim that they lack legal grounds to probe these alleged war crimes because “only foreigners were involved and the alleged killings occurred in a foreign country.”

The officials’ comments came in response to a New York Times report by James Risen that the Bush Administration impeded at least three federal investigations into an alleged massacre of as many as 2,000 prisoners in Afghanistan.

“For US Government officials to claim that there is no legal basis to investigate this well-documented mass atrocity is absurd,” stated Physicians for Human Rights Deputy Director Susannah Sirkin. “US military and intelligence personnel were operating jointly and accepted the surrender of the prisoners jointly with General Dostum’s forces in northern Afghanistan. The Obama Administration has a legal obligation to determine what US officials knew, where US personnel were, what involvement they had, and the actions of US allies during and after the massacre. These questions, nearly eight years later, remain unanswered.”

“Furthermore,” added Nathaniel Raymond, PHR’s lead researcher on the Dasht-e-Leili case, “The New York Times has shown that the Bush Administration engaged in a coordinated effort to prevent this alleged war crime from ever being investigated. Under the Geneva Conventions, the cover-up of a war crime can itself constitute a war crime.”

Filed in news coverage, press release and tagged: afghanistan , associated press , barack obama , dasht-e-leili , geneva conventions , lara jakes , massacre , Nathaniel Raymond , New York Times , rashid dostum , Susannah Sirkin , Taliban , us forces

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Human rights group that discovered the mass grave and sued for release of government documents is available for comment.

Cambridge, MA — Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has issued a call for a criminal probe in the wake of a major New York Times story with new evidence that the Bush Administration impeded at least three federal investigations into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan in 2002.

PHR is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate why the Bush Administration impeded an FBI criminal probe of the alleged Dasht-e-Leili massacre.

According to US government documents obtained by PHR, as many as 2,000 surrendered Taliban fighters were reportedly suffocated in container trucks by Afghan forces operating jointly with the US in November 2001. The bodies were reportedly buried in mass graves in the Dasht-e-Leili desert near Sheberghan, Afghanistan. Notorious Afghan warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who was reportedly on the CIA payroll, is allegedly responsible for the massacre.

Physicians for Human Rights, which shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, first documented the existence of the alleged mass grave in January 2002 and since then:

• Advocated for witnesses to be protected, the mass grave site to be secured, and for a full and impartial investigation;
• Conducted preliminary forensic investigations — including exposing 15 remains and conducting three autopsies — under UN auspices at Dasht-e-Leili;
• Successfully sued for compliance with a PHR Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the release of US government documents that reveal US intelligence knowledge of the magnitude of the alleged crime and awareness of the execution and torture of witnesses to the incidents;
• Helped identify the US chain of command likely responsible for impeding federal investigations into the alleged massacre;
• Discovered and reported on alleged tampering of the site; and
• Requested satellite image analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that appears to demonstrate that tampering occurred soon after PHR filed its FOIA request in June 2006.

“Physicians for Human Rights went to investigate inhumane conditions at a prison in northern Afghanistan, but what we found was much worse,” stated Susannah Sirkin, PHR Deputy Director. “Our researchers documented an apparent mass grave site with reportedly thousands of bodies of captured prisoners who were suffocated to death in trucks. That was 2002; seven years later, we still seek answers about what exactly happened and who was involved.”

Senior Bush Administration officials impeded investigations by the FBI and the State Department, and the Defense Department apparently never conducted a full inquiry, the New York Times reports in the story for the July 11 print edition by Pulitzer Prize winning reporter James Risen.

“The Bush Administration’s disregard for the rule of law and the Geneva Conventions led to torture of prisoners in Guantánamo and many other secret places,” noted Nathaniel Raymond, PHR’s lead researcher on Dasht-e-Leili. “Contrary to the legal opinions of the previous Department of Justice, the principles of the Geneva Conventions are non-negotiable, as is their enforcement. President Obama must open a full and transparent criminal probe and prosecute any US officials found to have broken the law.”

Sirkin added, “President Obama must set a different course by signaling publicly that in all of its operations anywhere in the world, the US and its allies will respect the Geneva Conventions and safeguard the rights of prisoners of war, as well as all captured combatants and detainees to be treated humanely.”

“The State Department’s statement to the New York Times that suspected war crimes should be thoroughly investigated indicates a move towards full accountability,” added Raymond.  “We stand ready to aid the US government in investigating this massacre. It is time for the cover-up to end.”

PHR reiterated its call on the Government of Afghanistan, which has jurisdiction over the alleged mass grave site, to:

• Secure the area with the assistance of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force-Afghanistan);
• Protect witnesses to the initial incident and the ensuing tampering; and
• Ensure a full investigation of remaining evidence at the site, including the tracing of the substantial amount of soil that appears to have been removed in 2006.

“Gravesites have been tampered with, evidence has been destroyed, and witnesses have been tortured and killed,” stressed Sirkin. “The Dasht-e-Leili mass grave site must finally be secured, all surviving witnesses must be protected, and the Government of Afghanistan, in coordination with the UN and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), must at last allow a full investigation to go forward.”

PHR’s International Forensic Program (IFP) has conducted forensic assessments and investigations of human rights abuses, crimes against humanity and genocide in many countries. IFP is dedicated to providing independent forensic expertise to document and collect evidence of human rights violations and of violations of international humanitarian law. Since the 1980s, PHR has mobilized forensic scientists and other experts worldwide to respond to inquiries by governments, organizations, families and individuals.

Editors, please note:
To access and use a new, online video by PHR (“War Crimes and the White House: The Bush Administration’s Cover-Up of the Dasht-e-Leili Massacre”), and to obtain high-resolution photos courtesy of Physicians for Human Rights, please visit the Videos page.

Filed in news coverage, press release and tagged: AAAS , afghanistan , bush administration , cia , dasht-e-leili , Dept. of Justice , Dostum , FBI , geneva conventions , Guantánamo , ISAF , James Risen , mass graves , Nathaniel Raymond , nato , New York Times , President Obama , sheberghan , state department , Susannah Sirkin , Taliban , UN , war crimes

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Cambridge, MA (PRWEB) December 15, 2008 — In response to the UN’s December 15 pledge to help Afghan authorities protect a mass grave site in northern Afghanistan that may contain evidence of war crimes, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) calls upon US Army General David McKiernan, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, to assist the UN in preserving any remaining evidence and protecting any surviving witnesses. PHR also calls on the US government to provide the Afghan Government, the UN and the US Congress a declassified analysis of satellite imagery of the site from November 2001 to the present.

Last week, McClatchy Newspapers revealed that Afghan warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a US ally in the fight against the Taliban, reportedly removed evidence of potential war crimes from the Dasht-e-Leili mass grave. A PHR expert has reported large holes at the location of the site its researchers discovered in 2002. PHR has demanded investigation both in Afghanistan and in the United States. Dasht-e-Leili is allegedly the burial location of as many as 2,000 prisoners who surrendered to the Afghan Northern Alliance and to US Special Forces in November 2001 after the fall of the Afghan city of Kunduz. According to reports, General Dostum’s forces suffocated the prisoners in cargo containers, and then buried them at the site.

“PHR is gratified that the UN is calling for the site to be protected, and that they have pledged to assist Afghan authorities in that crucial task,” said PHR CEO Frank Donaghue. “However, full protection of the grave will be dependent upon NATO forces being given the mandate to preserve any remaining evidence and safeguard any surviving witnesses.”

PHR further stated that:

• NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan should provide the troops and logistics to enable this to happen right away. ISAF is currently under the command of Gen. McKiernan, who reports to CENTCOM Commander Gen. David Petraeus. The UN does not currently have security forces in Afghanistan; NATO troops already stationed in the area are the logical choice.
• A full security cordon must be established around the area with round-the-clock guards, as was done with major alleged crime scenes of this type in Bosnia and Croatia during the Balkan wars. A full forensic investigation to assess and document the extent of damage to this site can occur only if the site has been secured for evidentiary as well as personal security reasons.
• Afghanistan, with the UN and international community, must launch an investigation into the initial November 2001 incident as well as the likely destruction of evidence. Removal of evidence of an atrocity is in itself a crime, under the Geneva Conventions.
• The Bush Administration needs to answer questions of who knew what and when, provide information on what they did or failed to do to secure the site, present detailed accounts of their internal investigations, and support accountability.
• PHR requests that the US declassify satellite imagery over this particular site and the surrounding area from November 2001 to the present that would show both changes to the site in 2001 and the recent removal of massive amounts of soil from it and its disposition, and make the images available to the Afghan government, the UN, Congress, and other responsible parties.

“As PHR knows from our work in Bosnia, Rwanda, Central America and elsewhere, communities that have lost loved ones in mass killings—especially the mothers, siblings, and children of victims—have a right to the truth and to justice, including identification and return of remains,” said Donaghue. “The demands of mothers and families demonstrating in the streets of Kabul over the last few days show that the Afghan people are demanding that those who have committed mass atrocities be held accountable. Peace and stability require truth and justice; it never pays to ignore mass graves and the atrocities associated with them.”

Related Links

• International Forensic Program
• Campaign Against Torture

Filed in press release and tagged: abdul rashid dostum , afghanistan , bosnia , centcom , croatia , dasht-e-leili , frank donaghue , general david petraeus , geneva conventions , international security assistance force , kabul , kunduz , mcclatchy newspapers , nato , physicians for human rights , rwanda , united nations , united states , us army general david mckiernan

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