Commission on Human Rights
56th session
Geneva, 29 March 2000

ITEM 9: QUESTION OF THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD

Situation of Human rights in Afghanistan

I welcome this opportunity to present my third report as Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in Afghanistan. As I present this report, the end of winter approaches in Afghanistan. The advent of spring evokes in Afghanistan, unlike the positive feelings associated with spring in most countries, fear and foreboding about the resumption of armed conflict. I have, in my report, strongly endorsed the assessment quoted from a paper prepared by the Office of the United Nations Co-ordinator for Afghanistan, which has stated:

"From any perspective, the human rights situation in Afghanistan can only be described as daunting. An unholy combination of factors point to a formidable array of obstacles which need to be overcome before true progress on human rights is achievable. These include protracted armed conflict that is increasingly directed against civilians and their means of survival, external interests including the continuous supply of arms that help perpetuate the conflict, profound underdevelopment and widespread poverty coupled with the erosion of social norms and traditional coping mechanisms, and minimal possibilities for the participation of civilians in the political life of the country.

The central task in Afghanistan today is to bring the war to an end, to nurture into being a political environment conducive to the achievement of equity, peace and justice, and to support the realization of socio-economic conditions essential for living a life of dignity and self-worth compatible with basic human rights precepts."

My first report had been made following a visit in March 1999 to Kabul and to Islamabad and Peshawar, where Afghan refugee groups were interviewed. My report to the General Assembly in November 1999 was preceded by a visit to Quetta and Kandahar in May 1999 and to Kabul and Islamabad in September 1999. In May, I interviewed newly arrived refugees and displaced persons, mostly women and children from Hazarajat. In September, I was able to interview in Kabul persons who had been forcibly displaced from the Shamali Plains in July 1999. My visit to Kabul was undertaken together with the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, who has dealt with the issues related to women's rights in some detail in her separate report.

I pointed out that the people of Afghanistan continued to be victims of gross violations of human rights and persistent breaches of international humanitarian law. The basic cause of this, as I have previously reported, is that the people of Afghanistan continued to be virtual hostages in their own land, where externally armed forces sought to rule Afghanistan without the effective participation or consent of the people. The most fundamental denial of human rights which needed to be addressed was that of the right of the people of Afghanistan effectively to participate in the governance of their country through freely chosen representatives, recogniszed in article 21 of the Universal Declaration and elaborated in article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Afghanistan is a party.

I have underscored the critical importance of initiating a peace process, a process of transition from the present rule by armed groups (externally supported) to a broad-based multi-ethnic, representative government which enjoyed the confidence of all segments of the Afghan population, including a significant proportion of the several million Afghan refugees forced to live outside Afghanistan.

Fighting between the Taliban and the United Front (UF) had ebbed and flowed during the period under review without resulting in significant changes to the territory held by either party. After a further massive loss of human lives, increased suffering of the civilian population and immense physical destruction, the two sides found themselves roughly in the same positions they held in late 1998.

The violations of human rights during the re-taking of Bamyan which were reported to me by credible eyewitnesses, refugees from Hazarajat whom I interviewed in Quetta, included forced displacement of the civilian population; deliberate burning of houses; summary executions of non-combatants, including women and children; arbitrary detention; and forced labour. I had travelled to Kandahar and met Mawalavi Wakeel Ahmed Mutawakil, Special Adviser to the Taliban leadership, to draw their attention to the pattern of gross violations. Specific actions were requested to be taken in order to prevent further violations and to protect and reassure the civilian population affected. Despite repeated appeals for his release, Dr Ayub, a highly respected superintendent of the Shuhada Hospital in Jaghoray, who was abducted during the Bamyan operation still remains in custody of the Taliban. I have made repeated requests to visit Bamyan but these requests have not as yet elicited a positive response.

The level of fighting reached an unprecedented scale for 1999 when the Taliban launched a major ground and air offensive against the United Front on 28 July. The offensive, which Taliban leaders called a decisive battle to defeat UF, shattered the hopes for peace raised at the Tashkent meeting of the "Six plus Two" group. The Taliban offensive in the Shamali Plains and the North-East resulted in massive involuntary and forced displacement of the civilian population, in particular women and children. Widespread first-hand reports indicated that there were house and crop burnings, forced deportations, family separations, the separation and deportation of women, and arbitrary killing in southern Shamali. I addressed an appeal to the Taliban authorities on 4 August, 1999 and to the Northern Alliance on 5 August 1999 pointing out the dangers to which the resumed conflict was exposing the civilians and should be avoided. The texts of those letters are appended to my report submitted to the General Assembly last No
vember.

The Human Development Index ranks Afghanistan amongst the lowest in the world and the Gender Disparity Index, a composite index based on the measurement of female life expectancy, educational attainment and income ranks it the lowest in the world (UNDP, Human Development Report,1995). Afghanistan's formal economy stands devastated as a result of two decades of armed conflict. According to a 1997 World Bank report, the country's economy is currently reliant on "subsistence agriculture, unofficial transit trade, war-related financial flows, drug income and international assistance".

With regard to drugs, the Secretary-General's latest report to the General Assembly on Afghanistan (A/54/536/-S/1999/1145) reported as follows: "In 1999, Afghanistan became by far the world's largest illicit producer of opium, with its output reaching up to 75 per cent of all illicit opium worldwide. According to this year's annual poppy survey conducted by the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), opium production is estimated to reach a record level of 4,600 metric tons, which could potentially be converted into 460 metric tons of heroin".

I would like to emphasise that a conjuncture of developments has created an opportunity for a bold initiative to adopt coordinated measures which could truly address the root causes responsible for the appalling human rights situation in Afghanistan. The fundamental aim must be to restore Afghanistan to all of its people, through reviving and sustaining a peace process, a process of transition which will fill in the constitutional and political vacuum in which externally supported armed groups impose arbitrary rule without the consent or participation of the Afghan people, violating their human rights. In this context, the recent Loya Jirgah (grand assembly) initiative provides a means for active and purposeful consultations among all Afghan people and the warring groups - the Taliban and the United Front - who may well be persuaded by the United Nations, and the "Six plus Two" group to participate in these consultations. These consultations could aim to devise a transition process which would provide agreed procedures to establish a broad-based, multi-ethnic, truly representative government. The OIC initiative which led to the convening of a meeting of the two warring groups in Jeddah earlier this month is another step aimed at resuming meaningful negotiations. While the meeting ended inconclusively, the decision taken to resume talks shortly should be supported.

It should be noted, as does a recent study that pervasive human rights problems are both a cause and consequence of the governance crisis. The character of the existing authorities, who rule without the consent and participation of the Afghan people, is the root cause of human rights violations, ranging from persisting in continuing armed conflict with external support being received by both the contending sides, who are found to be recruiting as soldiers students some as young as 14; imposition of "edicts" which provide for systematic gender discrimination; and inflicting cruel, degrading and inhuman punishment. The focus thus needs to shift from incremental changes to a framework change.

The time may indeed be propitious for giving the highest priority to making a concerted effort to achieve a framework change in Afghanistan. The circumstances which encourage this view include changes in the neighbouring countries, the recent discussions among them, the meeting between the Taliban and their neighbours, the release of several hundred opposition prisoners by the Taliban, and the resolve expressed within the United Nations for positive action. All these, taken together, present an opening which, I believe, should not be missed.