Military Land Seizures Feed Resentment in Helmand

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting looks at the resentment brewing in Helmand province over the seizure of land and homes by Afghan and International Forces. Unlike night raids and other sensational abuses that receive media attention these actions ignite a slow burn. It’s what occupation looks like.

“Officials in Helmand province acknowledged there was a problem, although not all agreed on the scale of the home occupations or whether compensation was paid.

Helmand governor Mohammad Gulab Mangal said that he was aware of the issue and confirmed that both government units and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, made use of private property, including houses and farmlands.

“I have repeatedly told our police and army commanders to avoid damaging private property when they enter these areas, but there have been a number of cases where Afghan and ISAF forces have taken over and used people’s properties…”

Background:

Last year the US military commissioned a study on attitudes between US and Afghan soldiers. It reported that Afghan soldiers described their American comrades as rude, disrespectful and reckless with gunfire when civilians were nearby, while US troops saw Afghan personnel as traitorous, lazy, drug-addled and corrupt. It highlighted the deep divisions. A copy of the report is linked below.

In January the NYT’s ran excerpts of the report.

"The 70-page coalition report, titled “A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility,” — which was originally distributed as an unclassified document and later changed to classified — goes far beyond anecdotes. It was conducted by a behavioral scientist who surveyed 613 Afghan soldiers and police officers, 215 American soldiers and 30 Afghan interpreters who worked for the Americans.
While the report focused on three areas of eastern Afghanistan, many of the Afghan soldiers interviewed had served elsewhere in Afghanistan and the author believed that they constituted a sample representative of the entire country.

“There are pervasive feelings of animosity and distrust A.N.S.F. personnel have towards U.S. forces,” the report said, using military’s abbreviation for Afghan security forces. The list of Afghan complaints against the Americans ran the gamut from the killing of civilians to urinating in public and cursing.

“U.S. soldiers don’t listen, they are too arrogant,” said one of the Afghan soldiers surveyed, according to the report. “They get upset due to their casualties, so they take it out on civilians during their searches,” said another.

The Americans were equally as scathing. “U.S. soldiers’ perceptions of A.N.A. members were extremely negative across categories,” the report found, using the initials for the Afghan National Army. Those categories included “trustworthiness on patrol,” “honesty and integrity,” and “drug abuse.” The Americans also voiced suspicions about the Afghans being in league with the Taliban, a problem well documented among the Afghan police.

“They are stoned all the time; some even while on patrol with us,” one soldier was quoted as saying. Another said, “They are pretty much gutless in combat; we do most of the fighting.”

A copy of the full report here.

tags: Afghan Voices, Strategic Partnership, Troop Levels

Community Voices for Justice, Peace and Reconciliation

This newest report in the on-going series by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit focuses on the provinces of Ghazni, Bamiyan and Kabul. It explores the failure of the Afghan government and its international partners to implement a comprehensive program to provide justice or compensation for past and present war crimes. Its strength comes from a reliance on Afghan testimonies.

Accountability starts at the top, not just with Afghan actors, but with the immunity that has been a feature of foreign interventions in Afghanistan for the last 30 years.

Healing the Legacies of Conflict in Afghanistan
Emily Winterbotham | AREU | January 2012

“Ten years after the overthrow of the Taliban, Afghanistan is an environment of escalating conflict and prevailing impunity. In this context, the narrative of the Afghan government and its international partners has increasingly focused on ending the violence through negotiating with insurgent leaders and reintegrating their fighters into Afghan society. In their attempt to secure peace, policymakers have largely failed to include justice as a component of reconciliation and reintegration processes. This has continued the predominant approach since 2001 (and before) with the need for immediate stability outweighing the need for wartime accountability. The fact that the Afghan government and its international partners have failed to implement a comprehensive program to provide justice or compensation for past and present wartime crimes has inhibited people’s ability to deal with the legacies of conflict. Subsequently, the majority of people participating in AREU’s research said they were struggling to cope emotionally, psychologically and practically, and the desire for some form of “closure” remains strong.”

The author explores in details some of the options available to afghans. Including different models to address conflict that include a retribution model, a restorative model, a reparative model and finally, a forgive and forget model. She also explores the peace and reconciliation options from community-level to national level.

Different Models to Address Afghanistan’s Past and Present Conflicts

"To date, there have been no concerted efforts to deal with this complex legacy of wartime atrocities. At best, this has meant that wartime events have been largely ignored in Afghanistan. At worst, revisionist historical interpretations promoted by the perpetrators of crimes have dominated at the political level. In this environment, the experiences and suffering of ordinary people, who make up the bulk of Afghanistan’s victims, have been largely ignored…."

The Retributive model

“The demand for retribution was strong across all research sites. People widely argued that perpetrators of gross human rights violations should face punishment. While respondents suggested a number of different punitive measures, this paper concentrates on the mechanisms that received the most attention and only includes those in accordance with domestic and international law: criminal trials, including state-led prosecutions (administering capital punishment or imprisonment) and international trials; removing individuals from power; and punishing perpetrators through financial or material means. It is possible to broadly compare the provinces, although there was of course variation and fluctuation within communities. Respondents in Bamiyan and Ghazni widely rejected forgiving those guilty of wartime violations and came out strongly in favour of retributive actions. In Kabul Province, the urban community was most in favour of holding people to account. The rural site was more divided over how to deal with the perpetrators of wartime violations, especially between the men and women interviewed. Male respondents were the least in favour while a majority of women supported punishment.”

The restorative model

“Restorative processes are designed to uncover the truth about past events. Establishing a full, official accounting of the past is increasingly seen as an important element to a successful democratic transition. An accurate record of past crimes can make it embarrassing and difficult for official actors to deny them, apply pressure to remove perpetrators from power, and raise awareness toward preventing future abuse. However, in Afghanistan no official enquiry into either specific violations or the general consequences of Afghanistan’s wars has been published to date. Consequently, wartime actors have sought to fill this vacuum by promoting self-serving visions of the past. Most notably, the amnesty law glorified mujahiddin achievements during jihad against the Soviets, which as discussed also led to numerous atrocities. Others, including some who have occupied high-level positions in the Afghan government, deny any direct responsibility for past war crimes despite evidence to the contrary.”

Reparative policies

“International law recognises that a reparatory approach is an important way of acknowledging the collective societal responsibility that is owed to victims. Reparations can take many forms to compensate for harm and to rehabilitate the mind, body and status. These can include measures such property restitutions, monetary payments, education vouchers, memorials, apologies, or even the return of a loved one’s body for burial.153 While it may be impossible to fully repair the damage done to victims or make individual assessments of the harm suffered by each, a reparations programme can provide solutions to some of the problems derived from the harm suffered. There is growing consensus in international law that the state is obligated to provide compensation to victims of egregious human rights abuses perpetrated by the government and if the regime which committed the acts in question does not provide compensation, the obligation carries over to the successor government. Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), in its final report, recognised that reparations are a primary tool for rebuilding national trust and encouraging reconciliation. This section concentrates on two broad compensation policies that received the most attention from respondents—symbolic reparation in the form of memorialisation and financial or material compensation.”

Financial reparations

“While it may be impossible to fully repair the damage done to victims or make assessments of the harm suffered by individuals, a reparations programme can still offer certain solutions. The idea that the people of Afghanistan should be materially or financially compensated for the wide-scale damage caused by war was strongly supported by people in all research sites. There was a widespread perception that if people’s living conditions were improved and assistance was provided to help them manage the material aspects of their losses then they would be able to handle their wartime grief better. Compensation was identified to have several impacts of varying significance for different groups interviewed: firstly, people felt it would help repair the physical and material damages caused by war; secondly, it could assist healing processes; finally, in some cases, it was presented as an alternative to a retributive approach.”

Peace and Reconciliation in Afghanistan

"The overwhelming majority of people in all research sites stated that they did not currently feel “at peace.” Achieving durable security and long-lasting calm for all of the country was therefore one of the most basic demands shared by all respondents. While in Ghazni people most frequently linked this with ongoing violence in their province and presented a narrow interpretation of peace as the attainment of security, in Kabul and Bamiyan provinces people generally argued that security had largely been reached in their areas, but that they still did not feel they had achieved peace. Instead, they felt that peace in Afghanistan rested on the fulfilment of certain key conditions: security, legitimate government, justice and reconciliation. Even in Ghazni, while immediate responses to questions about peace concentrated on the lack of security, on further expansion peace also clearly encompassed these components. Moreover, reconciliation was identified as a component of both justice and peace. Consequently, processes of justice, peace and reconciliation were seen as intrinsically linked, overlapping and mutually beneficial.

Afghanistan has experienced decades of conflict, which has fractured the bonds between different groups, qawms and ethnicities in the country. Moreover, there is a clear lack of trust between the population and Afghanistan’s leaders. This social context influences prospects for peace and reconciliation. Having addressed the concept of justice for Afghanistan’s conflicts, this chapter explores how people felt peace and reconciliation could be developed at the community level between Afghan people and what is required at the high level to reconcile the different parties to Afghanistan’s conflicts. Finally, it explores people’s perceptions of what a legitimate Afghan government looks like."

Additional Resources:

The Afghan Experience With War | ICRC | 6 October 2011

Documenting the Kill/Capture Missions | AAN | 13 October 2011

Violence Increases 21% | UNSG | 20 December 2011

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.”

Civilian Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been devastating. It is our responsibility to know what is happening, speak for the victims, and look at the root causes. Kathy Kelly gets you started by documenting the impact of war in Afghanistan.

If the U.S. public looked long and hard into a mirror reflecting the civilian atrocities that have occurred in Afghanistan, over the past ten months, we would see ourselves as people who have collaborated with and paid for war crimes committed against innocent civilians who meant us no harm.

Two reporters, Jerome Starkey (the Times UK), and David Lindorff, (Counterpunch), have persistently drawn attention to U.S. war crimes committed in Afghanistan. Makers of the film “Rethink Afghanistan” have steadily provided updates about the suffering endured by Afghan civilians. Here is a short list of atrocities that have occurred in the months since General McChrystal assumed his post in Afghanistan.

But there must also be legal remedy. Today the ACLU has strengthened that process with the release of documents that underscore flaws in compensating victim’s families. Excerpts below.

"With more U.S. forces being sent into civilian areas in Afghanistan, it is critical that the American public be informed about what is at stake," said Nasrina Bargzie, cooperating counsel with the ACLU and an attorney at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP in Oakland, CA. "These newly released records illustrate that innocent civilian victims and their families are still not being appropriately compensated for their losses. Now that this problem has been brought to light, we hope the Obama administration will be compelled to reform the broken civilian compensation program."

The files made public today comprise over 800 claims for compensation or condolence payments submitted to the U.S. Foreign Claims Commissions and the Commander's Emergency Response Program by surviving family members of Afghan and Iraqi civilians said to have been killed or injured or to have suffered property damages due to actions by Coalition Forces. Many of the claims were denied under the so-called "combat exemption" to the Foreign Claims Act (FCA), which provides that harm inflicted on residents of foreign countries by U.S. soldiers during combat cannot be compensated under the FCA, even if the victims had no involvement whatsoever in the combat. The documents reveal that, due to the claim denials, many innocent civilians were not compensated for their harm or were referred to the Commander's Emergency Response Program for a discretionary condolence payment that is subject to an automatic $2,500 limit per death.

"These records will help the American people comprehend the impact of war on innocent civilians and will allow the public to participate meaningfully in the ongoing debate about these wars," said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "An informed public is a critical part of any democracy. Releasing the civilian casualty records is a good step towards increasing government transparency. The Obama administration should continue releasing documents that could inform the public about the critical issues of war."

Additiona Resources:

The documents released today by the ACLU are available here.