Today the UN announced its commitment to preserving mass grave sites in Afghanistan.

KABUL, 15 December 2008 (IRIN) – Amid growing concerns about a reported excavation at a mass grave site in northern Afghanistan, a senior UN official has said the organisation is committed to help Afghan authorities preserve such sites in order to protect evidence of crimes committed over the past three decades of war in the country.

“The United Nations remains ready to assist all Afghan stakeholders, including victim groups, to take immediate and concerted action to preserve grave sites,” Norah Niland, representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Kabul, told IRIN.

“At a minimum, victims have a right to the truth, and the preservation of evidence is a critical element in understanding and addressing the legacy of past atrocities,” said Niland, who also works as head of the human rights unit at the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

The UN announcement makes specific reference to the human remains removed from the Dasht-e-Leili mass grave site and to PHR’s call for an investigation.

The UN has confirmed that at least one grave site in the northern province of Sheberghan, where thousands of men allegedly associated with the Taliban were dumped in late 2001, has recently been disturbed.

It is unclear who took away human remains from the Dasht-e-Leili gravesite but many accuse Abdul Rashid Dostum, a powerful Uzbek warlord, because of his alleged involvement in the massacre of Taliban prisoners in 2001-2002. Dostum has denied the charges.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) – a Washington-based NGO investigating human rights violations – has called for an immediate investigation into the reported disturbance.

“Removing evidence of an alleged mass atrocity is itself a war crime and must be investigated… this destruction is a devastating blow to the effort to learn the truth of Dasht-e-Leili,” Frank Donaghue, chief executive officer of PHR, was quoted as saying in a press release on 12 December.

According to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), active efforts to block investigations of Dasht-e-Leili and other mass graves have been obstacles to a full accounting of the dead and to learning what has happened in these possible war crimes.

Little or no effort has been made so far to shed light on the identities of victims and those responsible for the crimes.

Zia Langari, a commissioner at the AIHRC, told IRIN: “Some powerful people block investigations into mass graves because they fear this would jeopardise their positions.”

Langari’s concern was echoed by Niland of UNAMA: “There are powerful elements that do not want investigations into mass graves.”

Yesterday, UN spokesperson Dan McNorton confirmed the report by McClatchy Newspapers concerning the mass grave in Dasht-e-Leili, Afghanistan. AP reporter Heidi Vogt, in the USA Today reports:

The U.N. confirmed Friday that a mass grave in northern Afghanistan has been disturbed, raising the possibility that evidence supporting allegations of a massacre seven years ago may have been removed.

The Dasht-e-Leili grave site holds as many as 2,000 bodies of Taliban prisoners who died in transit after surrendering during one of the regime’s last stands in November 2001, according to a State Department report from 2002.

McClatchy Newspapers first reported the tampering with the grave site on Thursday.

“We can confirm that the site at Dasht-e-Leili has been disturbed,” said Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. He declined to say how or when the site had changed, saying that details would be available in an upcoming report.

The AP also reported rumors that there was burning of some of the evidence from the mass grave and recalled some of the past circumstances surrounding the mass grave, including the torture, murder and disappearances of eye witnesses to the original crimes; additional mass grave sites; and alleged mass suffocation in sealed container trucks of some of the detainees who are believed to have been dumped and buried at the Dasht-e-Leili site.

In a follow up to its own report and the AP report, McClatchy reported on Friday evening that

The U.N. in Afghanistan had acknowledged to McClatchy that it knew of the digging — reportedly by backhoes or bulldozers, or maybe both — but said in statement that it previously had decided not to publicly acknowledge it.

The UN report alluded to by Dan McNorton will therefore be a welcome addition to the cause of finding out the truth and obtaining justice for these alleged atrocities.

The McClatchy follow up piece continues:

A U.N. spokesman in New York, Farhan Haq, said Friday evening that, “We’re certainly opposed to any disturbance of the gravesite.”

Asked about PHR’s call for an investigation, Haq said that the U.N. team in Afghanistan would have to examine the matter before he could comment.

The gravesite area, which a previous State Department cable said could hold as many as 2,000 bodies, was dug up during the past year. A U.N.-sponsored PHR team discovered two large pits in the grave area during a June-July trip to Afghanistan, and a McClatchy reporter found three new holes there last month.

“Removing evidence of an alleged mass atrocity is itself a war crime and must be investigated,” PHR’s chief executive officer, Frank Donaghue said in a statement Friday. “The Afghan Government, with the support of the U.N. and the international community, must move quickly to protect the site.”

However, without security assistance from NATO troops in Afghanistan, who’re commanded by a U.S. general, the government in Kabul won’t be able to secure the gravesite, Donaghue said in an interview with McClatchy Friday evening.

Donaghue said that a NATO-controlled team was based less than three miles from the site, and that securing it is “something the … team could do tonight if they wanted to.”

PHR has made three recommendations:

• The Afghan Government should be supported in an investigation with the assistance of the UN, the United States and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force). Any remains or evidence of criminal activity at Dasht-e-Leili must be secured immediately and witnesses must be protected.
• Congress, the Pentagon and the CIA must finally publicly determine the extent of US responsibility for these alleged atrocities and disclose who in the US Government knew what about the alleged murder of the prisoners and what they did or did not do about it.
• The Afghan Government must register and protect other mass grave sites in Afghanistan. It must be made clear to the Afghan people and the international community which authorities have responsibility over each location.

Further Reading

• McClatchy: U.S. Kept Silent About Afghan Mass Grave Removal (Daily Kos)
• Mass grave in Afghanistan removed to cover up war crimes (Stephen Soldz)

Investigative reports by McClatchy newspapers, as well as PHR's own findings, have revealed that large sections of the Dasht-e-Leili mass grave in Northern Afghanistan have been dug up and removed.

These are the introductory paragraphs from the Physicians for Human Rights letter calling on President-Elect Obama and the United States to recommit to the full range of human rights the US accepted by endorsing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

December 10, 2008

Dear President-Elect Obama:

Today we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the blueprint for the realization of rights and dignity for all people. The Declaration, crafted under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, has brought hope to millions across the globe. For many people, however, the rights enumerated therein have yet to be realized. Sadly, the UDHR’s vision of the interdependence of all rights (civil, political, social, economic and cultural) has been blurred for decades—first by the Cold War divide, and then by governments that have picked and chosen rights to suit their narrow interests or political ideologies. Even the civil and political rights that the U.S. embraced as preeminent have been abandoned since 9/11, as detainees in U.S. custody have been tortured, held in secret prisons, and denied due process of law.

Your election represents a triumph over prejudice and is a great stride in the long march toward equality and dignity. Our nation now has an opportunity to restore U.S. credibility and leadership in the struggle for the rule of law and for the absolute prohibition against torture, and also, for the first time, to embrace fully all the rights necessary for all people to live with dignity and realize their full potential as human beings. We urge your administration to commit to fulfilling the promise of the entire Declaration and its expansive understanding of universal human rights.The full exercise of political rights can only occur with a foundation of health, security, and education. Those who are sick and lack medical care, for example, are unable to exercise their rights to full participation in society.

In this context, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) places special emphasis on the right to the highest attainable standard of health. As you acknowledged during a campaign debate, you believe that we should view health as a right.The right to health, grounded in Article 25 of the UDHR, and elaborated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural rights, should be fully integrated into U.S. human rights policy both abroad and at home, along with all the other rights in the Covenant. At the same time, the U.S. must re-establish its commitment to core civil and political rights, which have been violated in recent years in the name of counter-terrorism.

The letter outlines six major action items for the Obama administration:

• Ensure that the prohibition against torture will be unambiguously enforced and that health professionals are no longer involved in interrogations.
• Ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other key international human rights instruments.
• Reassert the U.S. role in the UN mechanisms on human rights.
• Invest in global health, specifically addressing women’s rights and health, and the health workforce needs of disease-burdened countries.
• Sign and ratify the Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, take action to protect civilians from mass atrocities, and ensure that the US does not offer safe haven for war criminals.
• Commit to realizing the right to the highest attainable standard of health in the United States.

Download and read the full letter (PDF).(Cross posted at Universal Declaration of Human Rights.)

John Kerry speaks to PHR on AIDS and the Right to Health.

Images from Farchana and other refugee camps, 2004-2008.

Commentary by Karen Hirschfeld, former Director of PHR's Darfur Survival Campaign.