BALKH PROVINCEChimtal District
A.S., a thirty-six-year-old farmer from Bargah-e Afghani remained in the village with his wife and six children during the attack. At about 12:30 p.m., a group of Hazara soldiers entered his home and detained him, tying his hands behind his back. When they took him outside, his wife tried to stop the Hazara soldiers, but they beat her away. Outside, the men began beating A.S.:
The Hazara gunmen ultimately released A.S., but he then witnessed the summary executions of three Pashtun men from the village and later recovered the body of a fourth executed villager:
S., the twenty-year-old relative of Asadullah and Abdul Matin, was at home when the Hazara soldiers came to arrest her brother. She said that the soldiers had killed Abdul Matin almost immediately after they came to the family compound. They then tried to shoot her fourteen-year-old brother, Sharifullah, but she managed to push the gun away and make it fire in the air. The soldiers then beat her unconscious. The soldiers took Asadullah with them to carry looted goods to their car, and shot him about one hour later.41 Twenty-seven-year-old S.W. was at home with his shepherd, twenty-year-old Sardar Mohammed, a Pashtun who had resettled in the village after fleeing from Faizabad in Badakshan province. Hazara soldiers came to his home three times during the attack, first looting his home and then shooting and killing Sardar Mohammed:
G.D., aged forty-five, was hiding in his cow shed together with twenty-five-year-old Mohammed Umar when a group of eleven Hazara fighters entered:
G.A., the thirty-year-old sister of Amir Khan, aged twenty, and Zafar Khan, aged thirty, told Human Rights Watch how Hazara soldiers detained and beat her two brothers, demanding money and drugs before killing them:
Two other witnesses gave similar accounts of additional incidents in which the Hazara soldiers killed Pashtun civilians. M.J. watched a group of about twenty Hazara soldiers tie up her father, fifty-year-old Mohammed Khan, and her uncle, fifty-two-year-old Sher Khan. The soldiers began beating the men, demanding money: "Then they shot them inside our compound, and only then did they loot our jewelry."45 The Hazara soldiers proceeded to loot six carpets, four pairs of kilims, three Iranian carpets, a gas light, a sewing machine, a tape recorder, household goods, and a tractor from the compound: "They put all the looted goods on the back of the tractor and left."46 M., aged sixteen, witnessed the beating and killing of her father, seventy-year-old Safdar Bey, and her brother, twenty-six-year-old Amir Khan:
Twenty-year-old A.A. was detained by two Hazara fighters in the street, and ordered to walk back to his home. While he was walking in front of the two fighters, he was suddenly attacked by them and nearly killed: "When I was walking [home], one of them hit me with the bayonet of his gun. It entered in the back of my head and came out of my mouth. I lost six teeth. I lost consciousness."48 A.A.'s father carried him to the hospital in Shiberghan, where he barely survived his injuries. His face was still heavily bandaged when Human Rights Watch interviewed him more than two months after the attack. Los Angeles Times reporter Geoffrey Mohan interviewed a Hazara commander named Rajab about the attack. Rajab, who is believed to control a significant area of Chimtal district, admitted that killings took place in Bargah-e Afghani, and claimed that the attack was in retaliation for earlier incidents of attacks against Hazara villagers by Pashtuns:
The Pashtun village of Bargah-e Afghani is adjacent to a Turkmen village, Bargah-e Turkman. Human Rights Watch also went to speak with the Turkmen villagers about their treatment in the time of the Taliban as well as the events during the attack. The Turkmen villagers claimed that Pashtuns from Bargah-e Afghani had looted their village when the Taliban first came to power. While the Taliban were in power, their Pashtun neighbors had to provide troops for the Taliban, and had demanded that the Turkmen village provide them with ten to fifteen men to fight on a monthly rotation.50 Following the deadly attack, security conditions improved for the Pashtun population in Bargah-e Afghani. Manzullah Khan, the Junbish commander to whom the villagers had originally handed over their weapons and who had sent the Uzbek soldiers who had fled during the attack, returned Junbish soldiers to the village following the attack. The village has not been attacked since. Yengi Qala
Almost immediately after the fall of the Taliban in Mazar-i Sharif on November 9, 2001, Hazara fighters who had left the area during the Taliban reign began returning to their villages around Yengi Qala. On the morning of November 12, at about 6 or 7 a.m., Hazara fighters began heading for Yengi Qala. On the way to Yengi Qala, the Hazara fighters came across a sixty-year-old Pashtun servant named Ismail, who was on his way to Shiberghan with a donkey laden with sacks of flour. Hazara fighters shot Ismail, and dumped his body in a nearby river.53 Sixty-two-year-old S.M., an ethnic Pashtun village elder in Yengi Qala, saw the Hazara fighters approach after he had finished his morning prayers, and immediately fled the village towards Jar Qala, together with most of the Pashtun villagers. When S.M. returned home two days later, he found his home looted, with even the windows removed from the walls:
During the looting in the village, the Hazara soldiers killed three more people, including two women and the mentally disabled nephew of S.M. According to S.M., who did not personally witness the killing but spoke to several eyewitnesses, his forty-year-old mentally disabled nephew Said Nabi Shah was killed after being tied up and beaten by the Hazara fighters: "[The Hazara fighters] entered into my brother's compound, and they tied my brother's son up by the hands. They were beating him, pulling him up to a hill near the village. There, they shot and killed him. When we found his body, his hands were bound with his turban."55 S.M. vehemently denied to Human Rights Watch that he or other Pashtun village leaders had been involved in anti-Hazara abuses during the reign of the Taliban, and claimed to have personally protected Hazara villagers in the area from Taliban atrocities. He felt that he had been targeted for abuse simply because he was a Pashtun village elder: "When you are the elder of a village, when things change, people always blame you [for the past.] The other fault of mine is that I am Pashtun and the Taliban are also Pashtun. The Taliban did the crimes, but the punishment was for us."56 Two elderly women were also killed. Noor Bibi, aged about sixty, and her sister, seventy-year-old Goldaneh, were abandoned by their relatives when they fled the village, "because they were too old to be taken along." When the relatives returned to their homes, they found the two elderly women shot dead in their home.57 Human Rights Watch could not find any direct witnesses to the killings, but the neighbors said they took place during the period that Hazara forces were looting homes.58 Villagers also blamed two additional killings on Hazara fighters belonging to Hizb-i Wahdat. Around November 23, right after dusk, thirty-year-old Alauddin went to visit his sister, who had been ill. He left his sister's home later that night, together with Dad Mohammed, the sister's twenty-eight-year-old son. A number of Hizb-i Wahdat soldiers took away the men from right outside the sister's home, and the bodies of the two men were found three days later. J., the thirty-five-year-old brother of Alauddin, described how the bodies were found: "The bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs, and both were shot in the head. Alauddin had also been shot in the left shoulder. Dad Mohamed had been shot twice in the head. There were also bruises on their bodies, I guess from rifle-butts."59 Many other villagers also suffered looting at the hands of the Hazara forces. M.A., who was over sixty, said a group of six Hazara fighters came to his home around December 5 or 10, 2001, at 2 p.m. He recognized their commander as Abdullah Chatagh of Hizb-i Wahdat. They demanded M.A. hand over his AK-47 assault rifle, and then started looting and beating: "They took my four cows, our rugs and kilims, and 360 lakhs [about U.S. $500]. They said, `you're Pashtun,' and started beating me with rifle butts on my back, legs, and arms."60 When asked if he made a complaint about the looting, M.A. replied that he thought a complaint would be useless and expressed the feelings of many:
T.S., a thirty-two-year-old ethnic Tajik shopkeeper, narrowly escaped execution at the hands of the Hazara forces, under the control of Commander Zahi:
Following the Hazara attack, the Tajik population of the village contacted the Mazar-i Sharif based Jamiat commander Ustad Atta Mohammad and requested protection for their village. At about 8 p.m. that same day, two truckloads of weapons were sent by Jamiat to the village "to distribute to Jamiat supporters," according to T.S. "Then we could bring peace back to our village," T.S. continued, "and we invited the Pashtuns who had escaped to return to the village."63 S.M., the Pashtun village elder whose house was looted, confirmed that relative peace had returned to the village, and that they were now living under the protection of a Jamiat commander, Ghazi Shojaeddin.64 A second villager confirmed that security had improved since Jamiat took over security, stating, "Security is now better because Jamiat is protecting us against Hizb-i Wahdat since about twenty days. But it is only inside the village. We are still afraid to go outside [the village], or to go out at night."65 He added that they could still not travel on the roads "because the [Hizb-i Wahdat soldiers] will stop cars on the road and demand money and threaten us."66 However, although most Pashtun villagers in Yengi Qala were loathe to speak about abuses by their new protectors, armed Tajiks have also carried out abuses against Pashtun civilians. J. told Human Rights Watch that armed Tajiks had also looted Pashtun homes during November and December 2001.67 Around December 10, 2001, three armed Tajiks took forty-two-year-old A.M., an ethnic Pashtun, from his home to an old cemetery: "They held a gun to my temple and asked for money, I thought they were going to kill me. Then a villager passed by on the road and saw us, so they let me go after I gave them 150 lakhs [about U.S. $210]. They didn't beat me, they didn't have to. I knew they would kill me if I didn't pay them."68 Rape in Chimtal District
A Pashtun school administrator in Mazar-i Sharif told Human Rights Watch that three Hazara soldiers raped a sixteen-year-old female relative of hers in Chimtal city on January 16, 2002. A group of four soldiers came to the home while the girl was bathing. The men tied up her father in the front room, and three of the soldiers raped his daughter in front of him and looted the home. The girl has been forced to leave her village, "because everyone heard about [the rape] and it was shameful for the family." Her father and brother refuse to see the rape victim, and have even threatened to kill her for bringing shame on the family. The school administrator stressed that there were other cases of rape, but that in most cases the families affected tried to keep the information private:
Soon after the fall of the Taliban in Mazar-i Sharif on November 9, 2001, Junbish troops took over a sizable military base located in the Charbolak district on the main Shiberghan-Mazar-i Sharif highway. Human Rights Watch visited three Pashtun villages in the district that had suffered abuses, including looting and beatings, from Junbish soldiers stationed at the military base. The abuses occurred in late November and December, and took place during a "disarmament campaign" in which the Junbish soldiers were supposedly looking for weapons. According to people in all three villages, their security situation had improved significantly since the initial attacks. A former Taliban commander, Mohammed Wali, who is from Charbolak district, has switched allegiance to Junbish after the fall of the Taliban, and has provided protection for the Pashtun villages in the area. In return for the protection, each of the villages is providing a number of men to Commander Wali to serve as soldiers. Nauwarid Janghura
Seventy-five-year-old B.M. remained in the village, too old to flee quickly. He saw the Uzbek soldiers enter the homes of the villagers, carrying out carpets and other valuables. When they came to his compound, the soldiers took him outside and began beating him:
When B.M. returned to his home, he found most of his valuable possessions gone. Among the missing items he was able to remember were two carpets, three mattresses, three blankets, jewelry, the clothes of his female relatives, and about 200 lakhs [about U.S. $280]. Thirty-year-old B., a Pashtun farmer who had been imprisoned by the Taliban for three months in 1999 on suspicion of supporting the Northern Alliance, also stayed in the village. The Uzbek soldiers tied his hands behind his back, beat him with their weapons while demanding money and guns, and then put him in one of their jeeps. While the Uzbek soldiers continued to loot, B. managed to open the door of the jeep and run away. He returned at midnight to find his home looted: the soldiers had taken five carpets, three pairs of kilims, four Iranian carpets, a water pump, jewelry, and about 240 lakhs [about U.S. $330]. He was certain that the men were Junbish soldiers: "The soldiers who were here belonged to [General] Dostum. They had a fighting base near the village and were known to the people as Junbish."72 A third witness, thirty-eight-year-old J.S., also remained in the village when the Uzbek soldiers first entered. He spoke to the soldiers, whom he said belonged to Junbish. They demanded weapons, and he explained that the villagers only had two old hunting rifles, which they produced and gave to the Uzbek soldiers. The soldiers then began entering the homes and looting, so J.S. decided to leave the area, but remained close enough to the village to observe what the soldiers were doing:
Kakrak
According to twenty-five-year-old A.K., about 200 Junbish soldiers arrived at about 2 p.m., at Kakrak village, spreading out all over the village. A group of around twenty to thirty soldiers came to his compound and tied him up, ordering the women to leave the compound. A.K. was beaten for a short time by the soldiers, and then managed to flee. When he returned home that night he found his home looted:
The Junbish soldiers occupied the family compound of the village mullah in Kakrak, establishing a temporary base for their operations in the area. They remained at the mullah's compound for about seven days, continuing to loot and abuse the Pashtun civilians in the area, until a senior Pashtun commander now loyal to Junbish, Mohammed Wali, came to the village and ordered the soldiers to leave. On the first night the soldiers stayed in Kakrak, at about 11 p.m., they entered the neighboring compound of G.R., a sixty-year-old Pashtun farmer. They tied up the elderly man, and began brutally beating him in front of his family, demanding money:
Khanabad
D.J. told Human Rights Watch that three Junbish soldiers first came to his home on December 13, demanding weapons and money. "I gave them my weapon. Then they asked for money. I gave them one hundred lakhs [about U.S. $130]. Then they stole one of my wife's earrings [and left]."76 The next morning, at 8 a.m., the same three soldiers returned, demanding more money. This time, they beat D.J. and his mother until they told the soldiers were the money was hidden:
Finally, D.J. showed the soldiers where the family had hidden their money. The soldiers stole 200,000 Pakistani rupees [about U.S. $3,300], a relative fortune that the three brothers had managed to save while working in Pakistan. They also stole two valuable carpets, a tape recorder, a valuable turban, jewelry, and two watches from the family.78 The neighboring compound of S.K., aged thirty-four, was similarly looted. A group of about twenty Junbish soldiers first came to his home at about 4 p.m. on December 12, and found his twenty-five-year-old brother G. returning from burying his mother's valuables in the yard. G. told Human Rights Watch:
The soldiers dug up the bag and took away the 600 lakhs [about U.S. $840] and the video camera it contained. They then entered the family compound and stole a hunting rifle and two tractor batteries. The soldiers then left, but returned in the night to continue looting. Afraid that the soldiers would rape his female relatives, S.K. hid the women in his barn. The soldiers beat S.K. and his father, demanding money, and only stopped when S.K. paid them 20 lakhs [about U.S. $28]. Thirty minutes later, another group of five Junbish soldiers came to the compound and took away all of the expensive goods that S.K. had brought back from Pakistan, where he had lived as a refugee: four expensive blankets, four pairs of kilims, two tape recorders, a waistcoat, and jewelry worth about 29,000 Pakistan rupees [about U.S. $500]." The next morning, yet another group of four Junbish soldiers came, demanding 2000 lakhs [about U.S. $2,800] and threatening to take away S.K.'s tractor and irrigation pump if he didn't pay. S.K. paid the soldiers 500 lakhs [about U.S. $700], and they then left. S.K. identified the troops as Junbish, and said he knew that they were under the general command of Commander Lal. He also identified the local commander who had been directly in charge of the troops that looted his home as Commander Kara. Following the attack, S.K., a village leader, went to the regional capital, Mazar-i Sharif, to complain to the Balkh district governor, Jamiat appointee Eshaq Raghuzar, about the attack. Raghuzar referred the case to the Charbolak district officials, who visited the village and confirmed the looting and abuse. However, when S.K. went back to Raghuzar to check on the progress of the case, Raguzhar told him that he could do nothing because the responsible soldiers belonged to another militia.80 On their first night in Kakrak village, the Junbish soldiers also came to loot the compound of seventy-five-year-old K.M., a wealthy elder of Khanabad village, at about 4 p.m. The commander of the unit said that they had come to search for weapons, but his soldiers proceeded to loot the compound when K.M. told them he didn't have any weapons. They beat the elderly village leader with their weapons. In the home, the soldiers stole 500 lakhs of Daulati Afghanis [about U.S. $1,300], four carpets, the clothes of his female relatives, and jewelry. K.M. invited the looting soldiers to share the sundown meal called Iftar, which ends the daylong fast observed during Ramadan. The soldiers shared Iftar with K.M., and then took away his flock of 200 sheep to their military base. K.M. knew the names of the two Junbish commanders who had looted his compound: he blamed Commander Zaker for stealing his household goods, and stated that Commander Kara-the same commander identified by two other villagers for the attacks on their homes-had stolen his flock of sheep. 81 Uzbek soldiers also looted the family compound of M.H., a fifty-three-year-old cotton trader from Khanabad, on the afternoon of December 12, 2001. M.H. ran away from his home when he saw the soldiers approaching. When he returned home, he found his minivan gone, as well as his business capital-U.S. $5,000 and 600 lakhs [about U.S. $830]-in addition to a hunting weapon, twenty silver coins and twenty golden coins, one radio, and five carpets.82 He told Human Rights Watch that his minivan was stolen by Commander Kara. M.H. has seen Commander Kara and his soldiers driving around in the stolen vehicle, and has complained about the theft to the Charbolak district leadership, but has not been able to secure its return. Some of the women in the village believed that the soldiers had intended to rape women during the looting spree. K., aged fifty, explained that when the soldiers first came to her house with their commander, they had noticed some of the women in the home as K. was trying to hide them. When the soldiers were leaving, K. overheard them discussing whether they should return for the women. K. moved her younger female relatives to a friendly Uzbek neighbor's home. Later that night, the soldiers returned without their commander and asked where the women had gone to. K. lied and said they had fled to the city. She told Human Rights Watch that she was certain the soldiers had intended to sexually assault the women.83 Balkh District
The soldiers tied up Jamaluddin, and beat him until he lost consciousness:
While the soldiers were beating Jamaluddin, they took his wife and three daughters into a separate room. Jamaluddin heard the screams coming from the room. In an interview with Human Rights Watch, his thirty-year-old wife told how she and her fourteen-year-old daughter were gang-raped by the Hazara soldiers:
After the beatings and the rapes, the soldiers looted the impoverished family's home before leaving. The soldiers stole a number of special carpets and other weavings that the family's daughters had prepared in anticipation of their oldest sister's wedding, which has now been cancelled due to the rape: "They robbed all the new things and the things we had prepared for the dowry [for my daughter]. They took silver bracelets, two rugs, one carpet, money, and one sewing machine.... We have nothing to eat since we lost everything, including the sewing machine that helped us support ourselves."86 Around December 1, 2001, Jamiat commander Sattar and around twenty Jamiat soldiers came to the Balkh city compound of A., a twenty-seven-year-old Pashtun who earns his living as a bus driver. Commander Sattar demanded A. hand over his vehicle, saying, "It belonged to you, and now it belongs to me." A. protested and showed Sattar his ownership papers, but was forced to hand over the keys and lost his vehicle. When A. later confronted Sattar and asked for the return of the vehicle, he said Sattar threatened to kill him.87 A. made a complaint to the Balkh police station, who ordered Commander Sattar to hand the vehicle back, but, according to A., "these are only words on paper-they don't mean anything."88 Turwai Kai Settlement
A few days later, at about 11 a.m. on December 7, 2001, A.K. was riding his bicycle near the Balkh market when he ran into the same three Hazara soldiers. He explained how he was forced into the jeep by the soldiers and beaten before being shot while trying to escape:
Aghab-e Godam Settlement
All of the other men in the room were similarly beaten, including the eighty-year-old father-in-law of F.M., who suffered from hearing problems after being hit on the head during the beatings. The Hazara soldiers also began looting: "They brought a bus twice. They took our wheat, our flour, our carpets, everything new they stole. They filled up the bus twice."92 F.M. lost three carpets, more than 800 kilos of wheat, and 80 lakhs [about U.S. $110] to the looting. In addition, the Hazara soldiers slaughtered at least four sheep belonging to the villagers, telling them, "We'll be eating kebabs tonight." T., the driver, had his tractor-his most valuable possession-towed away by the Hazara looters, who also took away his small flock of seven sheep. The Hazara fighters stayed in the village for two days, keeping the men hostage in the room. Other Hazara fighters came over from a nearby Hizb-i Wahdat garrison, removing the handcuffs from the men but not otherwise intervening. On the second day, two female relatives of the men went to Balkh city and found an American soldier, part of the small contingent of U.S. special forces in northern Afghanistan. Through the soldier's translator, they explained their situation. The U.S. soldier spoke on his radio and put together a larger group of Afghan soldiers, and then went to the neighborhood in military vehicles. They confronted the Hazara looters, and ordered them to leave. The looters left without a fight, but took several motorbikes from the villagers with them.93 Spin Kot Settlement
The armed Hazaras came to the home of forty-five-year-old M.J., and began beating him. They then tied him up and took him with them to their own village. The gunmen then put the tied-up M.J. in a donkey pen, and subjected him to a severe beating:
M.J. suffered serious injuries from the beating, including a broken tooth, a wound to his right elbow, and bruises on his back. The armed Hazaras also took a military radio and two AK-47 assault rifles from his home, as well as two carpets, a tape recorder, and a valuable turban. He explained to Human Rights Watch that he had not held any official position in the Taliban government, but that he had been responsible for security in the village because of his position as a village elder. A second villager, eighty-year-old A.Q., a retired clerk, was also present during the Hazara attack on the village. He said a group of about ten to twelve Hazara fighters came to his home, saying they were from Sarai village. Their commander and three or four of the fighters were uniformed. His wife was crying, and one of the soldiers slapped his wife in the face and kicked her. The Hazara gunmen took away two locked boxes with valuables, including jewelry, his wife's clothes, and A.Q.'s writing instruments. A.Q. told Human Rights Watch that the Hazara gunmen told him, "It is our time now, the Pashtun reign is finished."96 Following the attack on Spin Kot by the Hazara fighters, the Jamiat party provided a number of AK-47 assault rifles to the villagers, drawing them into the Jamiat fold in return for security for their village. While the massive looting of entire Pashtun villages has ended in Balkh district, Pashtun civilians continue to face severe harassment and abuse at the hands of roving Hazara gunmen. Most Pashtun men interviewed by Human Rights Watch in the district told us that they did not dare to go to Balkh city out of fear of harassment and abuse. A.J., a nine-year-old Pashtun boy who had a small shop at Balkh market together with his brother, told Human Rights Watch that Hazara soldiers had come to him that morning and demanded 20 lakhs [about U.S. $28] from them: "They only ask from the Pashtun shopkeepers.... The Hazara soldiers warned my brother two or three times to bring money. They said that if we don't bring the money in one hour, they would break the lock [to the shop] and take away our goods on a trolley."97
When the men were released, they fled Pai-e Mashhad Afghani together with the other Pashtun villagers. For nearly two weeks, the villagers of Pai-e Mashhad Afghani watched from a distance as armed Hazara soldiers systematically looted their village:
Although the widespread looting of the village had ended by mid-December, most of the Pashtun villagers in Pai-e Mashhad Afghani still did not dare travel outside their village, out of fear of attack. G.M. explained: "Right now, we cannot go to the market [in town]. There are armed people there, and we are disarmed. Only very old men and young boys can go. We were told by the Hazaras that when the Taliban came, we helped them, so now we must suffer. I cannot go to the market because I am worried that they would jail or beat me."100 The fear of leaving their village held by many Pashtuns is justified. A.B., a fifty-year-old farmer from Pai-e Mashhad Afghani, was walking near his village with two others in early February 2002 when he was suddenly stopped by a jeep that contained two Hazara commanders named Baseri and Olan Shah: "They beat me with their AK-47 assault rifles and made me get into their jeep."101 The commanders took A.M. to a Hizb-i Wahdat base near Balkh city, and handed him over to their soldiers who subjected him to a severe beating, using a torture technique called falanga that causes extreme pain and can have severe medical consequences102:
The Hazara soldiers released A.B. after he signed the document promising to pay them money. He has not paid them, and can no longer leave his village out of fear. Koter Ma
When asked what had happened to the other villagers, B. explained that most of them had fled: "After the first night, in the morning most of the men left to go to Jalalabad [a city in eastern Afghanistan with a majority Pashtun population]. A minority stayed here. But after twelve days of looting, all of the villagers decided to leave from here."105 Three elders of the villagers had gone to Dawlatabad city to seek an intervention from Junbish commander Akbar Khan, but he reportedly told them to leave, saying, "Now is not the time for complaining."106 Bagh-e Zakhireh
I., another farmer from the same village, also confirmed that Junbish, Hizb-i Wahdat, and Jamiat troops had all raided Bagh-e Zakhireh on different days: "Each force came separately, in pick-ups or jeeps.... They took all of the materials from our homes. From me alone, they took fourteen carpets, four cows, ninety sheep, and 360 lakhs [about U.S. $500]....The problem lasted for forty days, beginning with the change of regime-during the month of Ramadan. They came here repeatedly. When they wanted something, they beat us if we said it was ours."108 During one attack in late December 2001, Junbish soldiers severely beat I.'s family, including his young children:
When Human Rights Watch visited I.'s family in mid-February, I.'s four-year-old daughter Lal Bibi was still recovering from the wound she had received-the gunman's AK-47 assault rifle's barrel had penetrated into the girl's torso and the wound had become infected. Another attack on the same village came in late January 2002. Representatives from the neighboring Hazara village of Sar-i Deh came, demanding compensation for the use of their land during the Taliban period. According to M.G., the Taliban government had taken the Pashtun villagers' land, and ordered them to cultivate the land of their Hazara neighbors instead:
The villagers of Bagh-e Zakhireh also said they were unable to gain access to humanitarian supplies because of the harassment they faced from hostile neighbors. According to the villagers, they have been unable to obtain ration cards for the distribution of World Food Programme (WFP)-sponsored humanitarian aid: "When we go to Dawlatabad, they say there are no cards for Pashtuns."111 Only the women could go to the market, dressed in old clothes and their burqas to hide their identity.112 F., the thirty-year-old wife of I., also said that their village had been ignored in the last two food distributions in the area:
Other Affected Pashtun Villages in Dawlatabad District
According to one forty-five-year-old villager who was too afraid to give his name, groups of ethnic Uzbek Junbish soldiers repeatedly came to Nagara Khan over a five-day period immediately after the fall of the Taliban and looted the village. When the villagers turned over only eight guns, the Junbish soldiers took a group of about twenty-five young men from the village into the mosque, accused them of being Taliban, and threatened to kill them.114 The village elders approached Commander Majid Rouzi, now head of the 600-person security force in Mazar-i Sharif, with a written appeal for help, but he rebuffed them, saying "you did the same thing to us before, now we will do the same to you."115 The entire village then abandoned their homes, after losing most of their possessions to the looters. Out of one hundred Pashtun families, more than eighty had left Deshdan Bala by the time of Human Rights Watch's visit in mid-February 2002. J.G. said that the looting in their village had started at the beginning of December 2001: "Armed men came during the days and nights and went through all of the houses, robbing things. They made an excuse about looking for guns. I lost six carpets, fifty sheep, three cows, and 4 lakhs [about U.S. $5.50]. In late December, the gunmen badly beat a number of men in the village with wooden sticks, threatening to kill them if the village did not give them money. Two teenagers died from the beatings: "Abdul Wali [aged eighteen] and Abdul Ghaffar [aged fifteen] did not have money, so they beat them with sticks. They died [from their injuries] within ten days."116 N., a twenty-five-year-old ethnic Pashtun, lives in the mixed Pashtun-Tajik village of Hashimabad. The Pashtun villagers in Hashimabad had suffered abuse at the hands of Junbish, Jamiat, and Hizb-i Wahdat, although N. said that Hizb-i Wahdat troops were responsible for most of the abuses. "I lost twenty sheep and one cow. They checked my pockets and beat me with weapons and sticks.... All of the [Pashtun] villagers were beaten, but none were killed or taken away."117 Because his own home had become unsafe, he moved his family to the home of a friendly Tajik neighbor. For about two weeks, from early December, his family had to hide in a hole in the ground to escape the marauding soldiers. The soldiers only targeted Pashtuns: "None of the Tajik homes in the village were touched."118 37 Witnesses estimated the date of the attack as occurring between the seventeenth and the twentieth day of Ramadan, corresponding to between December 2 and December 5, 2002. 38 Human Rights Watch interview with village elder K.W., aged forty-five, Bargah-e Afghani, February 24, 2002. 39 Human Rights Watch interview with A.S., aged thirty-six, Bargah-e Afghani, February 24, 2002. 40 Ibid. 41 Human Rights Watch interview with S., aged twenty, Bargah-e Afghani, February 24, 2002. S., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 42 Human Rights Watch interview with S.W., aged twenty-seven, Bargah-e Afghani, February 24, 2002. 43 Human Rights Watch interview with G.D., aged forty-five, Bargah-e Afghani, February 26, 2002. 44 Human Rights Watch interview with G.A., aged thirty, Bargah-e Afghani, February 26, 2002. 45 Human Rights Watch interview with M.J., age unknown, Bargah-e Afghani, February 26, 2002. M., like many Afghans, uses only one name 46 Ibid. 47 Human Rights Watch interview with M., aged sixteen, Bargah-e Afghani, February 26, 2002. 48 Human Rights Watch interview with A.A., aged twenty, Bargah-e Afghani, February 24, 2002. 49 Geoffrey Mohan, "Vengeance is Taking its Toll in Wake of Taliban," Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2002. 50 Human Rights Watch interview with A., aged fifty-two, February 26, 2002. A., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 51 Human Rights Watch interview with S.M., aged sixty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002. 52 Human Rights Watch interview with T.S., aged thirty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002. 53 Human Rights Watch interview with S.M., aged sixty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Human Rights Watch interview with J., aged thirty-five, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002. J., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Human Rights Watch interview with M.A., aged over sixty, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002. 61 Ibid. 62 Human Rights Watch interview with T.S., aged thirty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002. 63 Ibid. 64 Human Rights Watch interview with S.M., aged sixty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002. 65 Human Rights Watch interview with J., aged thirty-five, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 Human Rights Watch interview with A.K., aged forty-two, Yengi Qala, February 26, 2002. 69 Human Rights Watch interview, Mazar-i Sharif, February 19, 2002. 70 One witness dated the attack to about ten days after the fall of the Taliban in Mazar-i Sharif on November 9, 2001, while a second witness stated that the attack occurred prior to the beginning of Ramadan on November 16, 2001. 71 Human Rights Watch interview with B.M., aged seventy-five, Nauwarid Janghura, February 25, 2002. 72 Human Rights Watch interview with B., aged thirty, Nauwarid Janghura, February 25, 2002. B., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 73 Human Rights Watch interview with J.S., aged thirty-eight, Nauwarid Janghura, February 25, 2002. 74 Human Rights Watch interview with A.K., aged twenty-five, Kakrak, February 25, 2002. 75 Human Rights Watch interview with G.R., aged sixty, Kakrak, February 25, 2002. 76 Human Rights Watch interview with D.J., aged twenty-five, Khanabad, February 26, 2002. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid. 79 Human Rights Watch interview with G., aged twenty-five, Khanabad, February 25, 2002. G., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 80 Human Rights Watch interview with S.K., aged thirty-four, Khanabad, February 25, 2002. 81 Human Rights Watch interview with K.M., aged seventy-five, Khanabad, February 25, 2002. 82 Human Rights Watch interview with M.H., aged fifty-three, Khanabad, February 25, 2002. 83 Human Rights Watch interview with K., aged fifty, Khanabad, February 25, 2002. K., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 84 Human Rights Watch interview with Jamaluddin, aged sixty, Balkh, February 25, 2002. 85 Human Rights Watch interview with N., aged thirty, Balkh, February 25, 2002. N., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 86 Ibid. 87 Human Rights Watch interview with A., aged twenty-seven, Balkh, March 4, 2002. 88 Ibid. 89 Human Rights Watch interview with A.K., aged thirty-four, Turwai Kai, February 25, 2002. 90 Human Rights Watch interview with F.M., aged sixty-five, Aghab-e Godam, February 18, 2002. 91 Human Rights Watch interview with T., aged twenty-six, Aghab-e Godam, February 18, 2002. T., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 92 Human Rights Watch interview with F.M., aged sixty-five, Aghab-e Godam, February 18, 2002. 93 Human Rights Watch interview with S., aged forty-six, Aghab-e Godam, February 18, 2002. S., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 94 Human Rights Watch interview with M.J., aged forty-five, Spin Kot, February 18, 2002. 95 Ibid. 96 Human Rights Watch interview with A.Q., aged eighty, Spin Kot, February 18, 2002. 97 Human Rights Watch interview with A.K., aged nine, Balkh city, February 18, 2002. 98 Human Rights Watch interview with G.M., aged fifty, Pai-e Mashhad Afghani, February 19, 2002. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid. 101 Human Rights Watch interview with A.B., aged fifty, Pai-e Mashhad Afghani, February 19, 2002. 102 Beating of the feet, commonly referred to as falanga, falaka, or basinado, is a widely reported form of torture that can have severe consequences, including muscle necrosis, vascular obstruction, and chronic disability and pain. See Action Against Torture Survivors et al., Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment ("The Istanbul Protocol"), August 1999, for a detailed medical description of the effects of falanga torture. 103 Human Rights Watch interview with A.B., aged fifty, Pai-e Mashhad Afghani, February 19, 2002. 104 Human Rights Watch interview with B., aged seventy, Koter Ma, February 19, 2002. B., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 105 Ibid. 106 Ibid. 107 Human Rights Watch interview with M.G., aged seventy, Bagh-e Zakhireh, February 19, 2002. 108 Human Rights Watch interview with I., Bagh-e Zakhireh, February 20, 2002. I., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 109 Ibid. 110 Human Rights Watch interview with M.G., aged seventy, Bagh-e Zakhireh, February 19, 2002. 111 Human Rights Watch interview with I., Bagh-e Zakhireh, February 20, 2002. 112 Human Rights Watch interview with F., aged thirty, Bagh-e Zakhireh, February 20, 2002. F., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 113 Ibid. 114 Human Rights Watch interviews with man aged about forty-five to fifty, and man aged about twenty to twenty-five, Nagara Khana, February 20, 2002. 115 Human Rights Watch interview, Nagara Khana, February 20, 2002. 116 Human Rights Watch interview with J.G., Deshan Bala, February 20, 2002. 117 Human Rights Watch interview with N., aged twenty-five, Deshan Bala, February 20, 2002. N., like many Afghans, uses only one name. 118 Ibid. |