WSWS : News & Analysis : The US War in Afghanistan
US atrocity against Taliban POWs: Whatever happened to the Geneva Convention?
By Jerry White
28 November 2001
Despite the silence in the American media and the lies from Bush
administration officials, there is growing international outrage over
the systematic massacre of hundreds of Taliban prisoners of war in
Mazar-i-Sharif on Sunday and Monday. This act of mass murder was
carried out by US warplanes and helicopter gunships, directed by US
Special Forces and CIA personnel, and backed by several thousand
soldiers of the Northern Alliance. As many as 800 prisoners were
killed at the Qala-i-Janghi fortress.
The government of Pakistan, under intense public pressure because
hundreds of Pakistani volunteers were among the Taliban troops taken
prisoner, strongly condemned the prison massacre and declared that it
contravened UN Security Council resolutions urging respect for the
Geneva Convention. President Pervez Musharraf, the military strongman
who seized power in Pakistan two years ago, has backed the US
military onslaught against his former allies in the Taliban, and US
forces used Pakistani bases as part of the campaign against the
prisoners in Mazar-i-Sharif.
A columnist in the Pakistani newspaper The Nation declared that the
killings at Mazar-i-Sharif "can only be quantified as a conspiracy
and premeditated genocide." Rejecting the claims that the prisoners
caused their own deaths by engaging in a suicidal uprising, he
wrote, "it is most unlikely that only recently surrendered captives
would rise in sudden and open revolt against their captors—unless
their very lives were at stake."
No matter how US officials try to gloss over what happened, there
could be no justification, even from a military standpoint, for the
wanton slaughter of hundreds of captured soldiers. News accounts
acknowledge the 19th century fortress was encircled by thousands of
heavily armed Northern Alliance troops, as well as US and British
special forces, whose base is located at a military airport just
outside of the fort.
Even if some prisoners had seized their guards' weapons, as US
officials and the media claim, they did not have the manpower or
ammunition to hold out against the tanks, jets and the superior
ground forces arrayed against them. The only proper designation for
the action taken by the US military is a premeditated war crime.
What was done in Mazar-i-Sharif was entirely in line with the
policies advocated by top US officials, including Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, who has repeatedly said that he favors the killing
of Taliban soldiers, especially those from outside of Afghanistan,
rather than their capture and imprisonment.
Almost as sickening as the massacre itself is the universal silence
on the part of the American media, including the so-called liberal
press, about the cold-blooded murder of Taliban prisoners. Not a
single US newspaper or media outlet—many of which had reporters on
the scene who know exactly what happened—has raised any serious
questions about the action.
Demonstrating a racist contempt for the lives of hundreds of Afghan
and foreign prisoners killed by bombs and bullets, the US news media
focused its attention on half a dozen American military and CIA
personnel hit by friendly fire when US warplanes bombed the compound.
While CNN broadcast pictures of dozens of mutilated corpses strewn
around the inside of the prison, as well as earlier scenes of
Northern Alliance and US and British forces firing over the walls of
the compound at prisoners, there was much more media interest in the
possible death of one CIA interrogator. One could only imagine how
the US media would have reported the killing of Northern Alliance
prisoners by Taliban troops if the sides had been reversed.
The two leading US daily newspapers offered radically different
explanations of the massacre. The New York Times quoted a Red Cross
official claiming "the prisoners started the fight" and that the
Northern Alliance troops had not sought to attack them. It cited the
controlling role of American Special Forces and CIA personnel,
who "took over the operation," as though this guaranteed that no
extrajudicial killings could have taken place.
The Washington Post, on the other hand, essentially admitted that the
prisoners were murdered, but attributed the killings to the Northern
Alliance: "A precise death toll could not be determined, but the
apparently large number of Taliban deaths, compared to the reported
killing of about 40 Northern Alliance fighters, raised questions here
about the whether the violence was less an uprising than a massacre
orchestrated by alliance troops," the Post wrote Tuesday.
These accounts are diametrically opposite presentations of the facts,
but they serve an identical political purpose: to deny that the US
forces were responsible for a monstrous war crime. This perfectly
expresses the role of the American media, which takes as its starting
point, not providing objective information to the American people,
but justifying, through every manner of lie and distortion, the
actions of the American government.
A few important facts did make their way into the Times account,
however. The newspaper reports that the presence of CIA interrogators
in the prison yard seemed to be the spark to the rebellion:
"By midmorning, some prisoners were being interviewed by the chief of
intelligence for the area from the Northern Alliance, Said Kamal,
together with two C.I.A. operatives, alliance officials said.
"The presence of the Americans may have caused anger or desperation
among some of the foreign Taliban, who may be part of Osama bin
Laden's Al Qaeda network or who fear extradition to their home
countries.
"One group of Northern Alliance fighters who were inside the compound
at the time said the sight of the C.I.A. officials led to the revolt."
And the Times further notes that the rebellion began while the
prisoners were being searched on Sunday morning: "About 250 prisoners
had been checked, and their arms were tied, said foreign journalists
who had been allowed to witness the scene." This strongly suggests
that many of those who died—600 to 800 Taliban compared to only a few
dozen Northern Alliance troops—were killed while they were bound and
unable to defend themselves.
POWs and the laws of war
It is particularly noteworthy that no one in the media or liberal
establishment has raised the obvious violation of international law
concerning the treatment of prisoners of war, including the Geneva
Convention, on the part of both the Northern Alliance and the
American forces.
Article 3 of the Convention states that "members of the armed forces
who have laid down their arms ... shall in all circumstances be
treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race,
color, religion or faith ... or any other similar criteria."
This is precisely the procedure that was carried out by the Northern
Alliance forces at the surrender of the Taliban troops in the
besieged city of Kunduz. Several thousand Afghan Taliban were
immediately paroled upon surrender, and either incorporated into the
ranks of the Northern Alliance or allowed to return to their home
villages. The foreign-born Taliban, however, were either killed
singly, in acts of individual murder, or rounded up in large groups
and trucked away for subsequent interrogation, torture and execution.
During the week-long siege of Kunduz, US Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld made repeated statements calling for the killing or
imprisonment of all captured foreign Taliban—in other words, he
demanded that the Northern Alliance systematically violate the Geneva
Convention.
The Convention specifically prohibits "violence to life and person,
in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and
torture" and the "passing of sentences and the carrying out of
executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly
constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are
recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."
The torture of POWs is specifically prohibited in Article 17, which
states: "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of
coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them
information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to
answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or
disadvantageous treatment of any kind."
Finally, of particular relevance to the events of the last few days,
the Geneva Convention states in Article 23 that no prisoner of war
may "be sent to, or detained in areas where he may be exposed to fire
or the combat zone" and that prisoners of war must be afforded
protection against "air bombardment and other hazards of war."
This is not the first time in recent years that US military forces
have systematically disregarded these "laws of war." In the final
days of the Persian Gulf War US warplanes massacred thousands of
retreating Iraqi troops in what one US pilot compared to "shooting
fish in a barrel." The road north from Kuwait City was so littered
with the charred remains of Iraqi soldiers, trucks, cars and other
vehicles that it became known as the "Highway of Death."
The Geneva Convention was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II
in an effort to place some restrictions on the murderous proclivities
of the great powers. Today the Bush administration brazenly
disregards international law and carries out war crimes, with barely
a word of protest coming out of the US.
In the absence of any significant international outcry against the
massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif, there is the danger that an even bigger
bloodbath will be perpetrated at Kandahar, the second largest city of
Afghanistan, where several thousand US Marines and US Special Forces
and their newly recruited (and well-paid) allies among the Pushtun
tribal chiefs are closing in on the last Taliban stronghold.
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