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News :: Miscellaneous |
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"Quiet Atrocity" Uncovered in Afghan Prison |
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by Jim Lobe
(No verified email address) |
29 Jan 2002
Modified: 08:26:53 AM |
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Guantanamo is bad. Sheberghan may be worse. |
The lives of several thousand former Taliban fighters who are being held at a prison in northern Afghanistan are in danger due to severe overcrowding, lack of sanitation, inadequate food, and exposure to winter cold and infection, according to a major United States human rights group which visited the facility one week ago.
The group, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) http://www.phrusa.org/ , is calling for the U.S. military, which controlled access to the prison until earlier this month, to intervene with supplies and equipment necessary to ensure the health of the 3,000 to 3,500 men who are held captive there.
"We're dealing with a quiet atrocity," said Jennifer Leaning, a PHR board member who inspected Shebarghan Prison, near the northern provincial capital of Mazar-i-Sharif, with a PHR doctor from January 20. She quoted the prison warden, General Jarobak, as saying that "many, many prisoners have already died" there, mainly from dysentery and pneumonia.
"The United States cannot wash its hands of responsibility for prisoners whose fate from the start it has been in a position to influence or determine," said Leaning. She added that the prison authorities themselves, who report to the local warlord, Deputy Defense Minister General Abdul-Rashid Dostum, lack the resources to cope with the situation.
Disclosure of the prison's conditions comes as the administration of President George W. Bush hosts the chairman of Afghanistan's new interim government, Hamid Kharzai, who is on his first visit to the U.S. capital since his swearing-in December 22.
It also comes amid reports of an internal administration dispute over how Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners, who have been flown from Afghanistan to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be treated.
The administration--which until now has insisted the 158 detainees being held at the base should not be considered prisoners of war (POWs) for purposes of the Geneva Conventions--has been stung by international, and especially European, criticism of their treatment.
Over the weekend, Secretary of State Colin Powell is reported to have asked the White House to reconsider its position, particularly its refusal so far to grant each prisoner a hearing on his status before an independent tribunal, as required by the Geneva Conventions.
In contrast to the Guantanamo prisoners, those held at Shebhargan, according to PHR, are clearly entitled to be treated as POWs under the Geneva Conventions.
"These men are ordinary Taliban soldiers," said Leaning, adding that they were captured in the surrender at Kunduz and subsequently interviewed by U.S. military and intelligence officers to determine whether they were senior enough to be sent to the U.S. holding base at Kandahar and on to Guantanamo.
"From our perspective, they are deemed worthy of the full force of protections provided by the Geneva Conventions," she said, noting those included adequate nutrition, sanitation, and health care, none of which currently meet even minimal standards.
"There are thousands of people in Shebhargan, and they are dying," said Leonard Rubenstein, PHR's director. "More will die if the United States doesn't take action to stop it."
The prisoners are divided into three cell-blocks, with about 1,000 or so held in each block, according to the report. Individual cells, which were built to house 10-15 inmates each are currently holding over 80.
The food, according to the report, was "insufficient in quantity and nutrition, the water supply unclean, sanitation virtually absent, clothing meager, and barred walls open to the elements expose the inhabitants to winter conditions. Disease is rampant."
Leaning stressed that there was evidence of deliberate abuse or torture. General Jarobak himself, she said, appealed for international support for the prison, noting that the men were getting progressively weaker and that he could do nothing about the conditions on the budget provided by General Dostum.
Moreover, the U.S. military was well aware of the conditions at the prison, because they had controlled access to it until they left the area on January 14, according to Leaning who said she will be meeting with the Pentagon's humanitarian adviser Monday afternoon. "We have high hopes they will respond," she said.
Aside from its legal responsibility as a party in the war which led to the capture of the prisoner, according to Rubinstein, Washington had a moral responsibility to intervene. "[Those] who have custody of these people have no capacity to meet their needs," he said. "The United States has that capacity."
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