UN rapporteur Alston slams 'complacency' on Afghan killings
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 17:20:00 05/15/2008
KABUL -- There is "staggeringly high" complacency in Afghanistan about the hundreds of civilians being killed by international troops, Afghan police and extremist rebels, a UN rapporteur said Thursday.
International forces had killed about 200 civilians in operations in the past four months, while Taliban and other rebels had killed around 300, said UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Philip Alston.
Police were also involved in unlawful killings, while secret militias apparently controlled by foreign intelligence services operate with impunity, he said.
"Afghanistan is enveloped in an armed conflict. But that does not mean that large numbers of avoidable killings of civilians must be tolerated," said Alston, a professor of law in New York who is independent of the UN.
"The level of complacency in response to these killings is staggeringly high."
Most of the 200 civilians reported killed by international troops, often working with Afghan forces, died in air strikes, Alston said, adding that he had seen no evidence of foreign soldiers violating the law or human rights.
However, the forces were "surprisingly opaque" about accounting for the incidents.
They had said figures for civilian casualties caused by troops were "either not available in Afghanistan...or that they are secret and cannot be provided to me," Alston said.
He was also told the outcomes of investigations into individual soldiers suspected of unlawful killings were not tracked in Afghanistan so it was never known if anyone was held accountable.
Alston added it was "absolutely unacceptable" for foreign intelligence units to be "conducting dangerous raids that too often result in killings without anyone taking responsibility for them."
These units were outside of the government and Afghan structures and not much was known about them, he said.
The Taliban and other insurgent groups were estimated to have killed about 300 civilians in the past four months, roughly three-quarters in suicide attacks, the rapporteur said.
He said he had been told not to meet with Taliban during his tour but recommended that contacts were developed with the rebels to urge them to better comply with human rights law and to seek their views.
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