Fw: No surprise at rumours of new atrocities by our 'foot-soldiers' - Robert Fisk

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

 The Independent (London)                                    November 13,
 2001

 No surprise at rumours of new atrocities by our 'foot-soldiers'

       By Robert Fisk

 The Northern Alliance's sudden victories in Afghan-istan may be good news
 for the West but the bad news is not far behind. The Uzbek, Tadjik and
 Hazara gunmen who make up this rag-tag army have a bloody reputation for
 torturing and executing prisoners which - if resumed in the coming days -
 will plunge America and Britain into a moral abyss.

 Chilling stories of more than 100 pro-Taliban Pakistani fighters shot dead
 after their surrender in Mazar-i-Sharif - and of Alliance gunmen "roaming
 the streets" of the abandoned city - will not come as a surprise to those
 who are aware of the atrocities committed by America's new allies during
the
 1992-96 fighting in Kabul. For the Americans - and for the minuscule
British
 component of the West's military forces inside Afghanistan - the behaviour
of the Northern Alliance presents a grave problem. As our "foot-soldiers"
are in Afghanistan, we cannot disclaim responsibility for human rights
 abuses by the Alliance's gunmen; yet neither the Americans nor the British
 appear to have tried to control the army they are now helping. Indeed, it
 seems they may not even be able to prevent the Alliance from entering
Kabul.


 The massacres committed by malicious fighting in the name of outside powers
 have regularly brought shame upon their more powerful allies. The Contras
in
 Nicaragua and the Phalangist militiamen in Lebanon contaminated their
 respective American and Israeli masters - the latter in the notorious
 Palestinian camp massacres of Sabra and Chatila in 1982. A glance at the
 Alliance's track record of rape, pillage and street executions in Kabul
 between 1992 and 1996 suggests that the so-called Allies - America, Britain
and just about anyone else who wants to join in - have good reason to exert
 their influence over the newly victorious militiamen from the north of
 Afghanistan.

 In Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat there are comparatively few Pashtun
communities,
 which traditionally favour the Taliban.

A bit further south the Alliance will find itself among its ethnic enemies.
 In 1997, Mazar's Hazara defenders killed more than 600 Taliban militiamen
 who had taken over the city and then massacred dozens of Pakistani students
 who had accompanied the Taliban into the region. In later bloodbaths,
 thousands of Taliban prisoners were shot into mass graves, with dozens more
 Pakistanis. A Northern Alliance turncoat, General Pahlawan Malik,
 subsequently executed 2,000 Taliban prisoners of war who had been tortured
 and starved before being put to death.

Many were drowned in wells. Others met a more carefully planned death. One
 of General Malik's generals recalled: "At night when it was quiet and dark
 we took about 150 Taliban prisoners, blindfolded them, tied their hands
 behind their backs and drove them in truck containers out to the desert. We
 lined them up 10 at a time, in front of holes in the ground, and opened
 fire. It took about six nights."

 On other occasions Taliban prisoners were locked inside containers in mid
 -summer; 1,250 were deliberately asphyxiated in this way, their corpses
 dragged from the containers, blackened by the heat.

 Could it happen again? There is no reason to believe the Alliance has been
 taking lessons in human rights. It has been receiving ammunition from
Russia
 and logistics from the United States. Photographs in yesterday's Pakistani
 papers showed Alliance gunmen leading a small party of Western troops
 through the terrain of northern Afghan-istan. But our soldiers are highly
 unlikely to have been distributing copies of the Geneva Convention to their
 new friends.