Rights Watch call to U.S.

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, OCT. 9. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has urged the U.S. and its allies not to cooperate with those commanders in Afghanistan who are opposed to the Taliban and whose track record raises serious questions about their legitimacy.

In a document released here, it claimed that a number of commanders associated with the emerging coalition of opposition forces in Afghanistan had a record of serious human rights abuse.

The executive director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, Mr. Sidney Jones, said, ``Any country that gives assistance to the Afghan Opposition must take responsibility for how this assistance is used.''

It urged countries not to extend cooperation to Abdul Rashid Dostum, head of the Junbish militia, Haji Muhammad Muhaqqiq, a senior commander of Hizb-i-Wahdat, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, leader of the erstwhile Ittihad-i-Islami and Abdul Malik Pahlawan, a former senior Junbish commander.

The document said abuses that were reported from an area controlled by a United Front faction in late 1999 and early 2000 include summary executions, burning of houses and looting, principally targeting ethnic Pashtuns and others suspected of supporting the Taliban. Both the United Front and Taliban have recruited children under the age of 15. ``Not a single Afghan commander has been held accountable for human rights abuses,'' said Mr. Jones. ``The time to break this cycle of impunity is now, and the U.S. and its allies will have the leverage to do it.''

``Human Rights Watch is concerned that unqualified support - military, political, diplomatic, financial- for this new coalition, which may come to constitute the basis for a future government of Afghanistan, will encourage further abuses. In responding to the crimes against humanity on September 11, the U.S. should not resort to means that themselves violate basic human rights and humanitarian standards, or provide assistance to forces that do,'' it said.

While the U.S. had maintained that it had not provided arms to the Afghan opposition, recent media reports suggest that it was gearing to provide financial and possibly military support to the United Front and other armed Afghan groups.

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