The Other Guantanamo: Afghanistan begins Internment

In March, the United States and Afghanistan completed negotiations to begin turning over control of Afghan prisoners to the government of Afghanistan. On Monday, Afghan institutions could start ruling on the internment of its own citizens. The image above is from a Taliban prisoner release in 2010.

The fact that the government appears to be embracing the United States policy of detaining people without trial is a cruel legacy.

“The use of the US system of detention without trial by the Afghan government is probably the most important consequence of the handover of Bagram. Yet it has been introduced with virtually no discussion, whether in parliament or the media. The Afghan government has appeared reluctant to discuss the issue: even as the new Afghan institutions were being established to detain Afghans without trial at Bagram, President Karzai’s spokesman told AAN they were against the practice. Kate Clark details what is now happening at Bagram, reveals unpublished documentation and questions whether the Afghan state has actually gained sovereignty over its detained citizens and whether the US has really relinquished any control.”

“The US was concerned about the possible release of some of those it deems the most dangerous people in custody, particularly as the 3000 odd people currently held by the US without trial might be considered illegally incarcerated under Afghan law. Hence the Afghan and US negotiators took recourse to the Laws of Armed Conflict. Both the Bagram MoU and the MoU on Special Operations, which was signed a month later (text and analysis are here), cite the 1977 Second Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions (APII) as the legal basis for detention without trial. APII acknowledges that when a state is fighting a war, it may deprive its citizens of ‘their liberty for reasons related to the armed conflict.’”

“If the Board recommends release, the case file is passed back to the Committee. However, the decision to release any detainee is made by the Bagram Transfer Commission, which is comprised of five ministers, under the chairmanship of the minister of defence. But even they cannot act independently. They must consult the US before releasing anyone, including those being sent for trial. The Bagram MoU says that if the US believes a particular individual remains a security threat, ‘Afghanistan is to consider favourably such assessment.’ This may be diplomatic language for a veto.”

Click here to read the full article.

Tags: bagram,

Why do we Always Find Prisons the Solution?

One of the most pitched battles over sovereignty and authority has been the demand that the US turn over their prison systems in Afghanistan. While details appear to have been reached regarding the largest US-run prison, there remain informal detention centers across the country.

“The U.S. also operates what it has described as temporary holding pens for gathering intelligence from detainees in Afghanistan; officials have confirmed anonymously that some detainees have been held at these centers for up to nine weeks. The agreement does not appear to address these sites.”

The NYT’s has an article on invasive body searches of women seeking to visit loved ones at the largest Afghan-run prison.

"Since June 2009, the United States has earmarked $26.8 million for renovations at the prison, and just over half of that has already been spent."

Radio Free Europe drew attention earlier in the week to a hunger strike at the same prison.

"In the past decade, inmates have alleged widespread abuse and mistreatment at the hands of Afghan officials. Those allegations of prisoner mistreatment resurfaced this week after prison officials at Pul-e Charkhi confirmed that at least 100 inmates had gone on hunger strike and sewed their lips together in protest at what they say are inhumane conditions."

Additional Resources

AFSC Report on Arizona Private Prisons.

Ambitious Afghan Biometric ID Plan

US Military to Transfer Control of Largest Prison to Afghans

AP has the details on the last minute deal to gradually turn over US held prisoners at Parwan detention center to Afghan control. Parwan is the largest US run prison in the country and the site where religious items, including Quran’s, were destroyed last month.

U.S. and Afghan officials have said this is a major step towards a strategic partnership agreement that would outline the legal status of US military forces beyond 2014. The governments want the agreement before the May NATO summit in Chicago.

The deal will allow the US military to monitor operations and continue to “provide logistical support for 12 months, and a joint U.S.-Afghan commission will decide on any detainee releases until a more permanent pact is adopted, according to U.S. officials involved in the negotiations — a setup that will essentially give U.S. officials power to veto any release.”

In addition.

“The U.S. also operates what it has described as temporary holding pens for gathering intelligence from detainees in Afghanistan; officials have confirmed anonymously that some detainees have been held at these centers for up to nine weeks. The agreement does not appear to address these sites.”

*****

“KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.S. military and the Afghan government sealed an agreement Friday on the gradual transfer of control of the main U.S. prison in the country, a last-minute breakthrough that brings the first progress in months in contentious negotiations over a long-term partnership.

The compromise deal came on the day Afghan President Hamid Karzai had set as a deadline for the Americans to hand over the Parwan prison.

The agreement gives the U.S. six months to transfer Parwan's 3,000 Afghan detainees to Afghan control. However, the U.S. will also be able to block the release of prisoners, easing American fears that insurgents or members of the Taliban could be freed and return to the fight.

The deal removes a sticking point that had threatened to derail talks that have been going on for months that would formalize the U.S.-Afghan partnership and the role of U.S. forces in Afghanistan after NATO's scheduled transfer of security responsibility to the Afghan government at the end of 2014.

On Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama and Karzai discussed the stalled security pact talks in a video conference. White House press secretary Jay Carney said the two leaders noted progress toward completing an agreement "that reinforces Afghan sovereignty while addressing the practical requirements of transition."

Another major sticking point in the negotiations remains unresolved: night raids by international troops on the homes of suspected militants. Karzai has demanded a halt to the raids, which have caused widespread anger among Afghans.

U.S. and Afghan officials have said that they want a strategic partnership agreement signed by the time a NATO summit convenes in Chicago in May.”

***

“The deal gives the Americans the extension they wanted for Parwan, a U.S.-run prison adjoining its Bagram military base north of Kabul, but also spells out an American commitment to a firm transfer date for the first time. Previously, the U.S. has always offered "target dates" rather than deadlines.

Under the deal, an Afghan general will be put in charge of Parwan within days, but the Americans have a six-month window to transfer detainees to Afghan oversight, according to presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi.

The U.S. military will still be able to monitor operations. It will continue to provide logistical support for 12 months, and a joint U.S.-Afghan commission will decide on any detainee releases until a more permanent pact is adopted, according to U.S. officials involved in the negotiations — a setup that will essentially give U.S. officials power to veto any release. The Afghans also have agreed to grant human rights groups regular access to detainees. Last year, the United Nations found evidence of torture at a number of Afghan-run prisons.

The officials, who spoke anonymously to discuss confidential talks ahead of the signing, said the first 500 detainees are expected to be transferred in 45 days. The U.S. government had already handed over a few hundred detainees to the Afghans before the agreement was signed.

The officials said the deal does not apply to the approximately 50 non-Afghans at Parwan, who will remain in U.S. custody.

The officials also said that they still need to work out how to handle new detainees. Currently, the U.S. military assesses whether people captured on the battlefield are a threat and then either lets them go, hands them over to Afghan authorities or sends them to Parwan.

The U.S. also operates what it has described as temporary holding pens for gathering intelligence from detainees in Afghanistan; officials have confirmed anonymously that some detainees have been held at these centers for up to nine weeks. The agreement does not appear to address these sites.”

***

“The U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership is expected to provide for several thousand U.S. troops to stay and train Afghan forces and help with counterterrorism operations. It would outline the legal status of those forces, their operating rules and where they would be based.

The agreement is also seen as a means of assuring the Afghan people that the U.S. does not plan to abandon their country, even as it withdraws its combat forces.”

Additional Resources:

The ICRC in Afghanistan

The ICRC has been visiting detainees at the Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP, formerly the Bagram Theater Internment Facility), located on a US military airbase north of Kabul, since January 2002, three months after the conflict in Afghanistan began in October 2001. As of the end of 2011, the ICRC had carried out a total of 160 visits at the detention facility. Of the approximately 3,000 detainees currently held there, most are Afghans captured by the US-led coalition in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Since the beginning of 2008, the ICRC has also had access to detainees at several US-run field detention sites in Afghanistan where they are held temporarily before being released or transferred to the DFIP.

As part of a planned gradual decrease in the US military presence in Afghanistan from 2011, the DFIP and many of the persons held there are to be transferred over time to the Afghan government authorities. The ICRC maintains a constructive dialogue with the US and Afghan government authorities on how to conduct this transfer process in a way that reflects humanitarian concerns, respects detainee rights and adequately prepares the Afghan judicial and penitentiary authorities for handling the additional detainee population.

Parwan Prison and the Destruction of Religious Items | Adding Insult to Injury

Image above from January 2012 ceremony.

"An Afghan calligrapher has worked for five years to create the world's biggest Quran, a bid to show the world that Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage and traditions have been damaged but not destroyed by 30 years of war."

AP reports that seven people have been killed in protests over Quran burning at the Bagram Air Base.

“Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed for calm Wednesday after clashes in several cities between Afghan security forces and protesters furious over the burning of Muslim holy books at a U.S. military base left seven people dead.

The anger over the Quran burning has sparked two days of protests across Afghanistan and tapped into anti-foreign sentiment fueled by a popular perception that U.S. and Western troops disrespect Afghan culture and Islam. The demonstrations prompted the U.S. to lock down its embassy and bar its staff from traveling.”

The WSJ points out:

“The clashes highlighted mounting anti-Western resentment in Afghanistan as top American officials tried to contain the damage by personally apologizing to Afghan President Hamid Karzai at his Kabul palace.

Such contrition failed to dampen the anger as Afghans reacted to reports that coalition soldiers at Bagram Air Field Monday night tried to incinerate a truckload of Islamic religious items, including copies of the Quran, Islam's holiest book. U.S. military officials have launched an investigation to try to determine why the soldiers were directed to destroy Islamic books from the detention center's library that were said to have contained "extremist literature" and "clandestine communications" shared among detainees."

The religious items being destroyed were from the US- Run military detention center library in Parwan.


U.S. Super-Sizing Afghan Jail It Promised to Abandon


Reproduced in full from Spencer Ackerman | 20 February 2012

There once was a plan to turn over the main U.S. detention center in Afghanistan to control of the Afghans in 2011. That’s out the window. Instead, the military is offering millions to vastly expand the center’s inmate intake.

Specifically, $35 million will fund expansions necessary to house “approximately 2,000 detainees” at the Detention Facility at Parwan on the outskirts of Bagram Air Field, an hour’s drive from Kabul. The Army Corps of Engineers wants to expand “detainee housing, guard towers, administrative facility and Vehicle/Personnel Access Control Gates, security surveillance and restricted access systems,” according to a recent solicitation. A Turkey-based company received the contract in late January.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. As far back as summer 2010, senior military officials in charge of the detention center boasted to Danger Room outright that by January 2012, they wouldn’t be running the square-mile sized prison. They considered handing the detention center to the Afghans a mark of their own success at fostering a culture of law and order within the Afghan government.

Alas. A year later, the command in charge of the detention center, Joint Task Force-435, admitted that it wouldn’t complete the handoff until the U.S. ended combat in 2014. The reason? “The Afghans don’t have the legal framework or the capacity to deal with violence being inflicted on the country by the insurgency,” an official told the Financial Times.

But the expansion is only going to increase the caseload the Afghans will eventually deal with. This is no minor refurbishment. The Detention Facility at Parwan held 1,000 inmates in August 2010. The $35 million expansion will prepare it to double the detainee population.

That should underscore the amount of fighting still to come in Afghanistan ahead of 2012. Even though much of the U.S. military views Afghanistan as a war with an expiration date — as I learned during a brief trip to Fort Leavenworth, Kan. yesterday, where soldiers referred to the war in the past tense — there will still be 68,000 troops there by summer’s end, and it’s not clear how many troops will leave Afghanistan by 2014.

Nor will 2014 mark the end of the war. The U.S. wants a residual military presence in Afghanistan, keeping troops on bases run by Afghans, as an insurance policy against the country falling apart and to stage the shadow war in Pakistan. The war will become heavy on Special Operations Forces in lieu of conventional troops — and human rights workers allege that the commandos run an unacknowledged torture facility at Parwan.

Even if they don’t, there are few who believe the Afghanistan War is on the cusp of ending, even if the U.S. will — slowly, incompletely — cease waging it. Where there’s war, there’s wartime detentions. And Parwan isn’t the only detention center on the grow: the U.S. is spending up to $100 million building jails across Afghanistan.

State of the Taliban 2012 | Leaked NATO Report

The drawing is from a project with Afghan students who were asked to create images of what their lives are like.


"The BBC and The Times have obtained a classified NATO assessment of the Taleban. The leaked report, which has made headline news, has informed us that NATO thinks Pakistan is supporting the Taleban, that the Taleban are defiant and enjoy widespread support, that Afghans frequently prefer them to their corrupt government and that Afghan government officials have secretly reached out to insurgents locally.

The presence and actions of international forces as a driver of the insurgency apparently did not come up in the detainee interrogations which form the basis for the assessment. That all this should be news only exposes the wishful thinking which lie at the heart of the international mission in Afghanistan, says AAN senior analyst, Kate Clark."

According to The Times, the State of the Taleban report was put together by the US military at Bagram air base in Afghanistan for top NATO officers last month. President Karzai also demanded last month that the prison be turned over to Afghan control.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

“What the report appears to be silent on is the other huge factor driving the war, the ten year foreign occupation – as many Afghans, whether they welcome international forces or not, call it. Night raids, killing civilians, detentions - even when all three of these actions may be legal and/or militarily necessary - upset people. Then there was the torture, mainly by US forces, in the first couple of years and the support the international military gives to abusive Afghan actors. Curiously, there is no mention of this - did the detainees not mention the foreigners?”

***

“One of the major problems of the post-2001 settlement has been the narratives told about and to Afghans and to the voters back home which were never really anchored in reality. There has been a frequent gap between talk and belief and between talk and action. Praise for the Afghan army and police in public, while in private, there is criticism and worry. Promises of democracy and then white-washing of fraudulent ballots. Assurances that human rights will be protected and then an endorsement of impunity for both war criminals and those currently abusing their power.

In Afghanistan, few are fooled and it leads many to wonder (a question I have been asked on many occasions) whether the foreigners are stupid or complicit. Back home, voters have also become increasingly bewildered as news of corruption and abuses have filtered back even as the same story is peddled by their governments: their brave soldiers fighting to defend a democratic, women-friendly state against the black-hearted, terrorist Taleban. Voters are convinced that Afghanistan – in its current incarnation - is not worth fighting or footing the bill for.

There is a chance that the leaking of this report might be an Emperor’s New Clothes moment when the international powers start speaking honestly – or at least not lying – about what they are doing in Afghanistan and what they actually hope to achieve. On the ground, their current narratives of success and progress are fooling very few. When there is such a deep gap between what is thought and what is said and policy is built on what one wishes were true, failure surely awaits.”

Additional analysis with NYT’s

Detained and Denied in Afghanistan | HRF

Detained and Denied in Afghanistan
How to Make U.S. Detention Comply with the Law
A New Report from Human Rights First

You can click on the graphic to expand the chart.

The Facts

Since President Obama took office, the number of prisoners held by the U.S. in Afghanistan has almost tripled—from 600 in 2008 to 1700 in 2011.

The U.S. Prison at Bagram now holds almost ten times as many detainees as are being held at Guantanamo Bay.

Prisoners at the U.S.-run Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan now have the right to appear before a board of military officers to plead for their release and challenge the claims that they are “enemy belligerents” fighting U.S. forces.

Prisoners still do not have the right to see the evidence being used against them, or the right to a lawyer to represent them.

*****

Conclusion

“The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law.” –Boumedienne v. Bush

After many years of completely denying detainees in Afghanistan the opportunity to defend themselves against arbitrary detention, the United States government has finally implemented a hearing process that allows detainees to hear the charges against them and to make a statement in their own defense. While a significant improvement, these new hearings fall short of minimum standards of due process required by international law.

In imprisoning people indefinitely without meaningful independent review, the United States is depriving these detainees of their liberty, casting suspicions upon them in their community and often depriving extended Afghan families of their primary breadwinner and source of protection and support. Because imprisoning suspected insurgents is such a serious matter for the men themselves, for their families and for their communities, it is incumbent upon the United States government to create a mechanism that ensures that those it is holding are dangerous insurgents and not innocent Afghans.

Only by providing detainees in Afghanistan an opportunity to defend themselves in a meaningful manner with the assistance of legal counsel and the opportunity to confront witnesses and the evidence against them can the United States ensure that it is imprisoning the right people. Moreover, only by providing real due process, and demonstrating by example what due process requires, can the United States expect to win the trust and respect of the Afghan people, who see themselves as vulnerable to U.S. military power.

The death of Osama bin Laden is likely to increase pressure on the Obama Administration to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan soon. As the United States draws down its military involvement, it should shift some of those resources toward a civilian effort to improve the rule of law in Afghanistan.

The United States’ goal of helping Afghanistan improve its justice system is an important and laudable one. In the long term, it will help stabilize the country by encouraging Afghans’ respect for their government and trust in their government institutions to protect them. Improving the administration of justice in national security cases will also directly help to ensure that violent insurgents remain incarcerated and cannot threaten Afghan national security. Given the sorry state of the Afghan justice system after decades of war and entrenched corruption, however, this goal is necessarily a long-term one. Even after the United States withdraws the bulk of its troops from Afghanistan, ongoing support for its fledgling justice system will be necessary, and critical to the country’s stable development. Human Rights First urges the United States government to take a long-term view of the problem and to commit to civilian assistance for Afghan judges, lawyers and legal institutions far into the future.

Torture and Death | Afghanistan and Iraq

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

A joint investigation by The Nation Institute Investigative Fund and reporter Joshua Phillips, Need to Know exposes the limits of a US military task force charged with examining cases of detainee torture, death and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a story about the failure to live up to international standards and a complete lack of accountability.

The film focuses on Iraq, but the longer article looks at Afghanistan.

Inside the Detainee Abuse Task Force

"Birt, who retired as a chief warrant officer in 2007, was most deeply troubled by the lack of accountability for cases involving detainee deaths. She was the primary investigator on a case that has stayed with her, involving incidents in Afghanistan in 2002 in which US military police working in the Bagram detention facility beat two Afghan detainees until they died. The victims were Mullah Habibullah, the brother of a Taliban commander, and a 22-year-old taxi driver simply named Dilawar, who was later found to be innocent of any insurgent activity.

"I'd never seen just regular old soldiers chain a guy to a ceiling and beat him until his legs look like he was run over by a bus," said Birt, referring to Dilawar. She and other CID agents thoroughly investigated the allegations, producing a case file thousands of pages long, and the MPs and interrogators involved were court-martialed. The final outcome of the case "had a profound effect on my trust of the justice system," Birt recalled.

"We had eighteen people who confessed to complicity in two homicides, and no one served over six months in jail," she said. "People were convicted and given a slap on the wrist." Of the twenty-seven Army personnel charged in the Afghans' deaths and related abuses, only four troops were sentenced to jail time.

Birt had wanted to be a police officer ever since she was 8 and passionately believed in accountability through sober law enforcement. Yet the minimal punishment for the Bagram beating deaths rattled her.

"The outcome of that investigation and the lack of justice was my primary reason for leaving the military," she said. "We tell people all the time that we're going to be exempt from the Geneva and Hague war crimes tribunal because we're going to police our own. But we didn't police our own."

Additional Resources:

Religious Leaders Oppose Indefinite Detention (NRCAT)

Letter to members of the House Armed Services Committee

Bagram Prison: A Profile

Bagram Prison: A Profile

Martine van Bijlert is one of the bloggers with the Afghanistan Analysts Network. This lengthy profile documents the randomness of arrest sweeps and the terrible conditions of detention. This remarkable story (unique only because it is told) shows the insidious alliance between various American and Afghan special forces and the role of the US controlled detention center. The International Committee of the Red Crescent (ICRC) makes an appearance, but the delivery of letters falls short of the protections they propose to enforce. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission as an Afghan body to ensure the rights of Afghans is shown as powerless with the US center.

“There are so many stories of people who get caught up in the nightly operations by American and Afghan forces. In the search for 'kill & capture' targets the net is cast wide: once a door is kicked in all males in a household are usually taken for interrogation. And it is then anyone's guess when they will be released again.

One story - out of many - of how an unlucky sleep-over resulted in years of detention, and what those years were like.”

His release it telling.

“I was released a few weeks ago. At my release an American colonel apologized to me. He said that they had concluded that I was innocent and that I had worked for the good of Afghanistan. He said that after 2.5 years! They gave me a bottle of perfume, but they did not return my possessions. When I was arrested I had $6000 on me, as an advance for the medicines, and also my mobile phone and some afghanis. They did not give them back yet. At the time I didn't say anything, I just wanted to leave. But they should give it back.”