Afghan Future Threatened by Ex-Warlords in Gov't - NYTimes.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

KABUL (AP) -- Warlords helped drive the Russians from Afghanistan, then shelled Kabul into ruins in a bloody civil war after the Soviets left.

Now they are back in positions of power, in part because the U.S. relied on them in 2001 to help oust the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks. President Hamid Karzai later reached out to them to shore up his own power base as America turned its attention to Iraq after the Taliban's rout.

With the Taliban resurging, the entrenched power of the warlords is complicating Karzai's promises to rid his new government of corruption and cronies, steps seen as critical to building support among Afghans against the insurgents.

''You can't build a new political system with old politicians accused of war crimes,'' said lawmaker Ramazan Bashardost, who finished third in the country's fraud-marred August election. ''You can't have peace with warlords in control.''

Two of Karzai's vice presidents -- Mohammed Qasim Fahim and Karim Khalili -- are ex-warlords. His outgoing military adviser, Abdul Rashid Dostum, has been accused of overseeing the suffocation deaths of up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners during the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

The term warlord is applied to the commanders of the Afghan resistance who fell out with each other after the defeat of the Soviets. They see themselves as political figures and patriots who defend their people in areas of the country where the central government has little or no control. They often refer to themselves as ''mujahadeen,'' which means holy warriors.

Karzai sought support from those branded as warlords to bolster his weak power base, win re-election and build alliances with ethnic groups. He has defended those ties publicly, pointing out that the U.S. backed the same people eight years ago when it engineered the war to oust the Taliban and brought Karzai to power.

But the U.S. and its allies fear that the continued strength of the warlords undermines government authority. It is hard to convince ordinary Afghans to obey the laws, pay their taxes and support the government when it is dominated by men who flounted the rules to amass power and fortunes.

International pressure is mounting on Karzai to rid his government of corruption and sideline the warlords. Leaders of the U.S., Britain and other troop-contributing countries cannot ask their own soldiers to risk their lives for a corrupt government.

''I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm's way for a government that does not stand up against corruption,'' Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday.

Last week, Kai Eide, the U.N. mission chief in Afghanistan, suggested time was running out. ''We can't afford any longer a situation where warlords and power brokers play their own games,'' he said. ''We have to have ... significant reform.''

And Obama told the Afghan leader last week that assurances of reform had to be backed up with action.

Presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada defended Karzai, saying he has appointed to government posts Afghans from all walks of life and from all political backgrounds. He said ''the path of inclusivity'' was crucial for stability.

A survey by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, however, found a majority of Afghans believe security will improve if war criminals are brought to justice.

Removing them from government is ''by far the most important issue facing the country today,'' said Brad Adams, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

The New York-based rights group has called for several senior officials in Karzai's administration to be tried for war crimes alongside some of Washington's biggest enemies, like Taliban leader Mullah Omar and insurgent chief Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Faction leaders defend their roles in the civil war of the 1990s, which broke out when the pro-Soviet government collapsed following the departure of Moscow's troops. Some of them held out against the Taliban after the Islamist movement seized Kabul in 1996. The Bush administration supported them in the 2001 attack against the Taliban, enabling the U.S. to oust the Islamists from power without committing large numbers of U.S. ground troops.

But some of the alleged crimes attributed to the warlords were so odious that Washington could not ignore them. Witnesses claim Dostum's forces placed Taliban prisoners in sealed cargo containers and suffocated them to death before burying them en masse, according to a State Department report. Dostum denies involvement in the deaths.

The U.S. and its allies pressured Karzai into firing Fahim, his new vice president, as defense minister and dropping him from the ticket in the 2004 election. He tapped him again as his running-mate this year, a move that helped split the opposition vote.

All that has encouraged a climate of impunity that has trickled down through Afghan society. Rights groups accuse soldiers and police loyal to warlords of kidnapping, extortion, robbery and the rape of women, girls and boys.

In the countryside, local commanders ''run their own fiefdoms with illegal militias, intimidate people into paying them taxes, extract bribes, steal land, trade drugs,'' said John Dempsey of the U.S. Institute of Peace. ''They essentially rule with impunity and no government official, no judge, no policeman can stand up to them.''

Karzai has tried to rein in warlords before, dispatching his finance minister to haul back sacks of cash from governors reluctant to pay tax to the central government.

But removing strongmen from power or putting them on trial is risky: it could inflame ethnic tensions and alienate regional commanders whose support both Kabul and Washington need to contain the burgeoning insurgency.

A September report released by New York University's Center on International Cooperation said the NATO-led coalition is fueling the problem by relying on militias loyal to local commanders -- some involved in rights abuses and drug trafficking -- in an effort to bolster security.

The war plan advanced by America's top Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, mentions ''regional power brokers'' with ''loyal armed followers,'' but does not advocate removing them. The U.S. used local armed groups in Iraq to fight al-Qaida and similar militias in Afghanistan have been successful in providing intelligence about the Taliban.

Karzai has been pressured to take action before. In 2005, he was pushed to approve a reconciliation and justice plan that included a vetting system to keep grave rights abusers out of government. But almost none of it was implemented, Dempsey said. Even building a monument or declaring a holiday for war victims was deemed too controversial because Afghanistan and its international backers feared examining the past too closely could destabilize the fragile government.

Sima Samar, chairwoman of the country's human rights commission, said warlords do not necessarily have to be tried. They could face truth commissions, or start by simply apologizing.

There is a lack of political will in bringing them to justice, she said. ''We will never have sustainable peace until we tackle our past.''

Another presidential spokesman, Hamed Elmi, said commanders like Fahim should be praised. They ''played a vital role defending our country against the Soviet occupation and the Taliban. And for the last eight years, they've supported the U.S. in the war on terror.''

He said Afghanistan's criminal justice system is ready to try anyone for rights abuses, ''but so far, we've seen no proof they've done anything wrong.''

Human Rights Watch has documented the indiscriminate killing of civilians by militias loyal to both Fahim and Khalili during the 1990s, which it says constitute war crimes. The group interviewed scores of witnesses accusing militias of murder, pillage and the abduction of ethnic rivals in violation of international humanitarian law.

Akbar Bai, a leader of the country's Turkmen minority -- who Dostum beat and briefly kidnapped last year after storming his Kabul home with 100 armed fighters -- said the U.S. and its Afghan allies are ''fighting the wrong war.''

''Karzai's No. 1 problem is the warlords,'' said Bai, who was released only after government troops surrounded Dostum's mansion. ''If you don't remove these people from power, you'll never see peace in Afghanistan.''

Ex-Soldiers Want to Reveal Chile Dirty War Secrets - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Hundreds of former military draftees rallying outside Chile's presidential palace were asked Sunday to come forward and reveal crimes they committed and witnessed during Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

The draftees have long feared that if they name names and reveal where bodies are buried, they will face prosecution by the courts or retaliation by those who ordered them to torture and kill.

But now the information they once promised to carry to their graves has become both a heavy psychological burden and a bargaining chip. By offering confessions, some of these now-aging men believe they can improve their chances of getting government pensions and mental health care.

''Perhaps today is the day when the moment has come, for us to describe what we saw and what we suffered inside the military bases, the things that we witnessed and that we did,'' said Fernando Mellado, who leads the Santiago chapter of the Former Soldiers of 1973.

Mellado told his fellow former soldiers that he's made little progress with lawmakers as he lobbies for military draftees to be recognized as victims of the dictatorship, in part because no one understands what they went through.

''Our human rights were also violated,'' he declared. ''The moment has come for former military draftees to tell our wives, our families, the politicians, the society, the country and the whole world about the brutalities they subjected us to. I believe the moment has come for us to speak, for our personal redemption.''

Mellado has been working with similar groups across Chile to figure out whether and how to turn over the information. He urged those in the crowd to provide their evidence to him, and promised to protect their anonymity.

Of the 8,000 people drafted as teenagers from Santiago alone in the tumultuous year when Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende's government and cemented his hold on power, Mellado believes ''between 20 and 30 percent are willing to talk.''

A small crowd among the former draftees was inspired enough by Mellado's call to immediately approach Associated Press journalists at the rally.

''They made me torture -- I am a torturer -- because they threatened me that if I didn't torture, they would kill me,'' volunteered Jorge Acevedo. He said several prisoners died when he applied electricity during torture sessions, and that their bodies may have been dumped in abandoned mines at the Cerro Chena prisoner camp.

Chilean security forces killed 3,186 people during the dictatorship, including 1,197 who were made to disappear, according to an official count.

In nearly two decades of democracy since then, less than 8 percent of the disappeared have been found, said Viviana Diaz of the Assembly of Family Members of the Disappeared Detainees.

Hundreds of recovered remains, some just bone fragments, have yet to be identified. Only those who buried the bodies know where other common graves lie. Diaz, for one, hopes the former draftees do start talking, even if they do so in a way that avoids prosecution.

Chilean law allows for a ''just following orders'' defense if people submit to the mercy of the courts, naming names and providing information that could help resolve some of the thousands of crimes committed under Pinochet's 1973-1990 rule.

The defense ''theoretically applies and exists'' in Chile, and judges can even have people testify in secret, said attorney Hiram Villagra, who represents families of the dead and disappeared.

But most former soldiers fear the consequences for themselves and their families. Some worry that judges who rose through the ranks under Pinochet might protect their former superior officers instead.

Mellado maintains that the former draftees also are victims -- forced into service as minors and made to do unspeakable things -- and that many now want to get it off their chests.

One confessed to shooting an entire family. Another -- now an alcoholic who sleeps in the street in Santiago -- said he was forced to drown a 7-year-old boy in a barrel of hardening plaster. Others describe harrowing torture sessions, and loading bodies onto helicopters to be dumped at sea.

''Our mission was to stand guard outside, and listen to their screams,'' former draftee Jose Paredes said as he told the AP about his service at the Tejas Verdes torture center. ''They would end up destroyed, torn apart, their teeth and faces broken.''

''There are things that I've always said I will take to the grave,'' Paredes said, his grizzled face running with tears as he named a half-dozen officers who he said gave the orders. ''I've never told this to anyone.''

The Chilean government has made several high-profile efforts to resolve dirty war crimes, but Mellado said former draftees who wanted to testify were turned away: The Defense Ministry sent them to civilian courts, while civilian authorities considered them to be military.

Villagra agrees the time is overdue for the soldiers to seek redemption -- and sent a message of support for Mellado's efforts to gather their testimony.

''Clearly there is no desire from our part for these soldiers to carry the burden of guilt of the officers, who were the ones who made the decisions,'' Villagra said.

An AP review found 769 current and former security officers, most of them military, have been prosecuted for murders and other human rights violations. Almost all deny committing crimes. Only 276 have been sentenced.

Much of the evidence came from former prisoners. Testimony from former soldiers could do much to resolve these cases.

Clinton Addresses War Crimes in Congo

By SARAH CHILDRESS

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stopped in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday, making a two-day visit to highlight sexual violence, a weapon wielded in the long-running conflict by rebel groups as well as the Congolese army.

The conflict has raged for about 15 years in this vast nation. It began when Tutsi forces pursued Hutu perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide over the Congolese border, but has since devolved into clashes among several armed groups over the valuable minerals in the region. The Congolese people are caught in the middle. Tens of thousands of women and girls, and some men, have been raped.

"I will be pressing very hard for not just assistance -- to help those who are being abused and mistreated, in particular the women who are turned into weapons of war through the rape they experience -- but also looking for ways to try to end this conflict," Mrs. Clinton said in remarks after she arrived on the fourth stop of her seven-nation Africa tour.

The Congolese army is the largest force in the region, and the biggest perpetrator of sexual violence, according to Human Rights Watch, an independent watchdog group based in New York, in a July report on rape in the Congo.

The problem is compounded by impunity. No senior military officials have been prosecuted for any such offenses. Last year 27 soldiers were convicted of crimes of sexual violence in eastern Congo, according to Human Rights Watch. The U.N. logged 7,703 new cases, committed by army soldiers and other armed groups, in the same region.

Mrs. Clinton was expected to encourage the government and the U.N. peacekeeping force in the country, known as Monuc, to take a stronger stand on such crimes. In Goma, a major city in eastern Congo, she plans to meet with rape survivors to hear their stories.

Mrs. Clinton said she had spoken earlier in the day with Angolan President Jose Edouardo dos Santos during her visit with him about bringing an end to the mineral trade that fuels the conflict. Mr. dos Santos, she said, believes it will take a coordinated effort from the U.S., Britain, France and Rwanda "to prevent the mining from basically funding a lot of these militias that are keeping the fighting going."

Mrs. Clinton is scheduled to meet with Congolese President Joseph Kabila while in Goma, and she said she would press Mr. Kabila to work on creating "broader political legitimacy and credibility by his government" and to work on professionalizing the military. She also is scheduled to visit a hospital founded by former NBA star Dikembe Mutombo, a native of Congo, while in the capital, Kinshasa, and to hold a town-hall meeting.

The secretary's visit comes as the Congolese government has developed strong ties with China, which last year offered the impoverished country a multimillion-dollar deal to swap resources for infrastructure. The International Monetary Fund has tried to block the deal, threatening to cancel its debt-forgiveness with the Congo. The IMF believes the agreement would plunge the Congo deeper into debt.

On Monday, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the Chinese concerns had agreed to adjust the terms of the deal, and that if they did, the IMF would maintain its debt-forgiveness plan, according to Reuters.

Serbian Officials Say War Crimes Fugitive Mladic Is 'Within Reach'

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 30, 2009

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Europe's most-wanted war crimes suspect has been on the run longer than Osama bin Laden. But after more than a decade of looking the other way, Serbian authorities say they are finally closing in on Gen. Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander charged with genocide and other crimes in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

"He's somewhere within reach," said Vladimir Vukcevic, Serbia's prosecutor in charge of investigating war crimes committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Vukcevic said that he could not yet pinpoint the fugitive general's location but that it was clear Mladic was in Serbia, adding: "Absolutely, I'm optimistic we're nearing the end. It must be done by the end of the year."

For years, Serbian officials have said they were doing their best to catch Mladic and extradite him to the Netherlands, where he has been indicted by a U.N. tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity and other offenses. And skepticism remains deep here that the man many nationalist Serbs still consider a hero will be arrested anytime soon, despite a $5 million reward offered by the U.S. government.

But Serbian and European Union officials said that political conditions have shifted decisively against Mladic and that investigators, for the first time, have reconstructed his movements from the end of the Bosnian war in 1995 until 2006, when he was last confirmed to be in Serbia.

Also working against Mladic: the July 2008 arrest in Belgrade of fellow fugitive Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader who prosecutors say worked hand-in-hand with the general to carry out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Bosnian Muslims and Croats. Their goal was to create a Greater Serbia out of the remains of the former Yugoslavia by expelling or exterminating other ethnic groups. About a quarter-million people died during the conflict.

Both men are charged in the executions of about 8,000 Muslims in the town of Srebrenica in 1995, the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, as well as a three-year bombing siege of Sarajevo that flattened the city and killed about 10,000 people.

Serbian investigators said they have concluded that Mladic had no recent contact with Karadzic, a psychologist by training who avoided capture for years by masquerading as a New Age healer. The lack of a sustained public backlash to Karadzic's arrest, officials and analysts said, has made it easier for the government to redouble its efforts to find Mladic.

The biggest boost to the manhunt, however, was the election last year of a new Serbian government that has pledged to end the country's chilly relations with the West and join the European Union.

"You have a very different Serbia now," said Vuk Jeremic, Serbia's foreign minister. "This is probably the most pro-European government in the history of Serbia. It represents a coming out of the decades of crisis and war."

Serbia had hoped to begin the lengthy application process to join the European Union early this year. But the Dutch government has blocked Serbia's candidacy, insisting that it catch Mladic first. Mladic's freedom is a sore point in the Netherlands, whose peacekeeping troops were overrun by his forces in Srebrenica.

Rasim Ljajic, the Serbian official in charge of relations with the U.N. war crimes tribunal based in The Hague, said his government remains surprised that the Dutch did not drop their objections after Karadzic's capture. Ljajic said that nearly all other members of the European Union, as well as the United States, have expressed satisfaction with Serbia's record in tracking down war criminals and cooperating with the U.N. tribunal.

"Everybody but the Netherlands believes in our efforts," he said. "They are being very tough in their position, and it's hard to expect that they'll change."

At the same time, Ljajic echoed prosecutors' predictions that the rogue general would be caught by the end of the year. The minister said he would resign if Mladic is not arrested by then. "It's a moral obligation for us," he said.

Ljajic and other Serbian officials were vague when asked why they were so confident. But they acknowledged that previous governments in Belgrade had either overtly protected Mladic or not tried very hard to find him.

The extent of that protection was underscored last month when a Sarajevo television station broadcast several homemade videos of Mladic enjoying life while on the run, including an undated clip of him playing table tennis at a Serbian military barracks. Other videos showed him singing at weddings and playing in the snow.

Serbian investigators said they discovered the videos in December during a search of the Mladic family home in Belgrade, Serbia's capital, and turned them over to the U.N. tribunal. The Sarajevo TV station said some of the videos appeared to have been recorded as recently as last year. Serbian officials denied that, saying all the videos were at least eight years old.

While searching the house, police also found 360 pages of wartime diaries belonging to Mladic. Ljajic described the diaries, in which Mladic talks about his turbulent relations with Karadzic and former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, as a much more significant recovery.

When asked why investigators waited until December to search the Mladic family home, Ljajic shrugged. "It was so obvious that he was not there," he said.

Prosecutors said that the last time Mladic was confirmed as being in Belgrade was December 2005.

In June 2006, investigators thought they were on the verge of a breakthrough as they followed a suspect who was "a direct connection to Mladic," said Vukcevic, the prosecutor.

"But there was a mistake made by the security services, and they missed the person who was closest to Mladic," he said.

Vukcevic described Mladic as "very old and very sick" and said investigators have kept former Serbian military physicians under close surveillance. He declined to comment on local media reports that Mladic, now 67, suffered a mild stroke years ago.

Goran Petrovic, a former chief of Serbia's civilian intelligence service, said Mladic was probably receiving help from retired military officers or other nationalist supporters. "There are a lot of people who would report Mladic to the police, but even more who wouldn't," he said.

He said the Serbian government was not eager to turn over Mladic to The Hague for a show trial but was feeling the pressure to act.

"They're waiting for Mladic to die before they have to choose between him and the European Union," Petrovic said. "They would be happy if Mladic would go to The Hague and die there, without a trial."

Bosnian Serbs Guilty of Burnings

Two Bosnian Serb commanders have been found guilty of war crimes, including burning women and children alive, during the Bosnian civil war.

Cousins Milan and Sredoje Lukic were members of a paramilitary group called the White Eagles, or the Avengers.

They were accused of murder, persecution, extermination and other inhumane acts against Bosnian Muslims near Visegrad between 1992 and 1994.

Judges at The Hague jailed Milan Lukic for life, and Sredoje to 30 years.

Judge Patrick Robinson, reading his verdict, said: "The perpetration by Milan Lukic and Stredoje Lukic of crimes in this case is characterised by a callous and vicious disregard for human life."

The burning alive of Muslims, he said, was extraordinarily brutal, and "exemplified the worst acts of humanity that one person may inflict on others".

Ringleader

The court ruled that Milan Lukic, the leader of the White Eagles paramilitary force, was the ringleader of the attacks.

WHITE EAGLES

Paramilitary group in Bosnian conflict in early 1990s

Accused of ethnic cleansing of Muslims near Visegrad

Worked with Bosnian Serb police and army units

Also known as the "Avengers"

He herded about 130 women, children and elderly men in to two houses - both in or near the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad - before setting fire to them.

All those who tried to escape were shot.

He was also found guilty of murdering 12 Muslim civilian men, and beating Muslims at a detention camp.

Sredoje Lukic was found guilty of aiding and abetting one of the house fires.

Prosecutors told the tribunal that the White Eagles carried out a campaign of ethnic cleaning.

One prosecutor, Dermot Groome, said the cousins took part in a "widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population".

Top fugitives

The cousins had denied the charges at their trial at the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, which ended in May.

The defence had called for an acquittal because of what it called "inconsistencies" in the prosecution evidence.

But the court found the testimonies of surviving witnesses to be credible.

In 2005, Milan and Sredoje Lukic were two of The Hague tribunal's top fugitives.

Milan Lukic, 41, went on the run for seven years after being indicted on war crimes charges, but was arrested in Argentina in August 2005 and was handed over to the tribunal after being extradited.

Sredoje Lukic, 48, surrendered to the Bosnian Serb authorities the following month.

Amnesty International Accuses Israel and Hamas of War Crimes in Gaza

By ALAN COWELL

PARIS — Amnesty International on Thursday accused both Israel and Hamas, the militant movement that controls Gaza, of committing war crimes during the three weeks of fighting there early this year.

The human rights group singled out what it called the “unprecedented” scale and intensity of the Israeli onslaught and the “unlawful” Palestinian use of rockets against Israeli civilians.

Both Hamas and Israel rejected the report as unbalanced.

The Israeli military suggested that the “slant” of the report “indicates that the organization succumbed to the manipulations” of Hamas. Moreover, it said in a statement, the report ignored Israeli efforts to minimize civilian casualties.

The statement also said Israel’s investigations into the behavior of its forces during the war in late December and January proved that the military “operated throughout the fighting in accordance with international law, maintaining high ethical and professional standards.” It acknowledged, however, that the inquiries “found a few, unfortunate incidents” resulting from Hamas’s decision “to fight from within civilian population centers.”

A Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, quoted by The Associated Press, declared: “The report equated the victim and the executioner and denied our people’s right to resist the occupation. The report ignores the scale of destruction and serious crimes committed by the occupation in Gaza and provides a misleading description in order to reduce the magnitude of the Israeli crimes.”

The Amnesty International report was the second this week by an international human rights organization calling into question Israeli military practices in the Gaza war.

A report released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch said 29 civilians were killed in what appeared to be six missile strikes by Israeli drones. The group questioned whether Israeli forces had taken “all feasible precautions” to avoid civilian casualties. Israel’s military has never acknowledged using the remotely piloted planes to fire missiles.

Amnesty International, which is based in London, released its 117-page report on Thursday. It explicitly rejected Israeli claims that Hamas used civilians as human shields but said that in several cases, Israeli soldiers used Palestinian civilians, including children, as “human shields, endangering their lives by forcing them to remain in or near houses which they took over and used as military positions.”

“The scale and intensity of the attacks on Gaza were unprecedented,” the report said, citing the deaths of hundreds of unarmed civilians, including many children.

Referring to breaches of the “laws of war” in the conflict, Amnesty International said Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel — cited by Israel as its reason for invading Gaza — killed three civilians, wounded scores and drove “thousands from their homes.”

“For its part, Hamas has continued to justify the rocket attacks launched daily by its fighters and by other Palestinian armed groups into towns and villages in southern Israel during the 22-day conflict,” Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty International official who led an investigation team in Gaza and southern Israel in January and February, said in a statement. “Though less lethal, these attacks, using unguided rockets which cannot be directed at specific targets, violated international humanitarian law and cannot be justified under any circumstance.”