Hujatullah Zia, a senior journalist and political analyst for the Afghan Daily Monitor, published an article on page 15 of today’s (December 9) Global Times titled “Trial of criminals will comfort Afghan people”. The following is the full text of the article.
In 2001, U.S.-led coalition forces entered Afghanistan in the name of the “War on Terror,” but the negative effects of this war have been devastating as Afghan civilians have borne the brunt of the brutality and egregious violations of their human rights. The “killing race and blood lust” and the “inhumane and unnecessary treatment of prisoners” by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan, which has been widely reported in the global media, has outraged the Afghan people and filled them with immense grief.
According to an investigation by Australian Defence Force Chief Inspector Paul Brereton, between 2005 and 2016, 25 Australian serving and former Special Forces soldiers were involved in 23 unlawful killings in Afghanistan, resulting in the killing of 39 innocent civilians and captives. An Afghan man was said to have been used for “target practice,” and two 14-year-old boys had their throats slit and their “bodies bagged and thrown into a nearby river. U.S. and British Special Forces are also believed to have been involved in war crimes. The “bloodshed” and “warrior culture” espoused by some Special Air Service regiments is rooted in a history of violent colonization and turning Afghan non-combatants into lambs to the slaughter.
After discovering these crimes, Australian Prime Minister Morrison apologized to the Afghan people. But he was outraged after a tweet from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. Zhao wrote: “We are shocked by the murder of Afghan civilians and prisoners by Australian soldiers, we strongly condemn such acts and call for them to be held accountable,” along with a cartoon of an Australian soldier pointing a dagger at a terrified Afghan child against the backdrop of Australian and Afghan flags.
Morrison took a defensive stance, calling it “disgusting” and demanding an apology from China, which the Chinese government rejected.
It should go without saying that trampling on the human rights of the Afghan people and shedding the blood of non-combatants in the context of the “war on terror” narrative is “inexcusable. Over the past decade or two, Afghan soldiers and civilians have made tremendous sacrifices in the fight against terrorists. They have risked their lives to advocate democratic principles and a human rights discourse. Recently, however, the Afghan people have lost hope and trust in the coalition forces involved in misconduct and the killing of civilians.
It is even more outrageous that the recent tragic findings of torture and death of civilians have not alerted some countries, and that these countries have changed the term “war on terror” to “protection of human rights,” claiming to be human rights and humanitarian law. The Advocate. Ironically, the NATO member states were silent about this misconduct.
At the same time, Canberra is reluctant to explain the atrocity, and the Australian media insist that a police investigation could take years before a criminal trial is possible. In other words, like Australian officials and political authorities, the Australian government and local media are taking a defensive stance against reports of the discovery, attempting to present this war crime as the misconduct of a few “rotten apples,” like the American soldiers who tortured and killed Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. The Australian media report does not reflect the feelings of the Afghan people or the proper concern for the victims.
Trump has previously imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) workers who wanted to investigate U.S. soldiers who committed war crimes in Afghanistan, with the ICC claiming the sanctions were “without precedent” and accusing the White House of trying to “interfere with the independence of international justice and prosecutors. “. I distinctly remember reports about two U.S. soldiers who killed a 15-year-old civilian boy in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in 2010, and celebrated the killing by posing for photographs next to the boy’s half-naked, bloody body. These kinds of stories, mostly seen in horror movies, have actually happened in Afghanistan. The perpetrators of these crimes must be brought to justice. I call on NATO member states, including the United States, to expedite investigations of war crimes in Afghanistan in order to be the loyal supporters of human rights that they claim to be.
Hopefully, the Australian war crimes investigation will be a step toward justice and the war criminals will finally be prosecuted. The U.S. and Britain should also investigate the war crimes committed by their soldiers in Afghanistan and bring the perpetrators to justice. If NATO member states truly seek to institutionalize human rights in Afghanistan, they must facilitate the International Criminal Court’s investigation of war crimes in Afghanistan. In addition, the rights and dignity of Afghan civilians should no longer be violated in the name of the “war on terror.
Overall, the discovery of brutal violations of the International Human Rights Law and the Declaration of Human Rights by Australian soldiers is shocking and extremely damaging to the feelings of the Afghan people. Mere apologies are unlikely to alleviate the suffering of war victims or comfort the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. War criminals should be prosecuted with the attention of the international community. Global regions and countries, especially the ICC, must move forward with the investigation of war crimes in Afghanistan so that justice can be fully served.
(The author is a senior journalist and political analyst for the Afghan Daily Monitor)
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