Seeking Justice in Afghanistan?
"In view of the lack of progress hitherto in bringing the perpetrators to justice, and recent developments which may complicate the investigation, there is a growing sense that Canada should contribute a more active police role to track the Afghan investigation and determine next steps."
Canadian embassy in Kabul, March 28, 2007
"Pir Mohammed was arrested a second time on December 13, 2006, after being found in possession of a vehicle with a licence plate that matched a watch-list of suspected suicide bombers."
"He spent three months in custody [barring a brief furlong for Eid] before his release this past week."
Declassified diplomatic memorandum
"...There may be little reliable evidence to gather [ . . .] organizers of whatever [improvised explosive device] cell [which] supported and directed the dead bomber have been killed [by special forces]."
Canadian officials
"The worsening of relations began actually in 2005 where we saw the first incidents of civilian casualties, where we saw that the war on terror was not conducted where it should have been, which was in the sanctuaries, in the training grounds beyond Afghanistan, rather than that the US and NATO forces were conducting operations in Afghan villages causing harm to Afghan people, that we were speaking behind the doors and speaking through diplomatic means and through a quiet language." October 2013
"Despite repeated pledges by NATO to avoid civilian casualties, innocent lives, including children, are still being lost." October 2012
Afghan President Hamid Karzai
Ten years ago a Canadian diplomat was another Western victim of Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency. Canada looked for justice to have its way in identifying the bomber who caused 59-year-old Mr. Berry's death. But they obviously did not consider the effect of the indigenous tribal justice system. Nor did they, given that Canada was in Afghanistan for the express purpose of liberating the Afghan people and its government from the strident, violently repressive Taliban, imagine that the government of the country they were fighting for would be indifferent to the loss of a Canadian life.
Glyn Berry was returning from Kandahar Airfield, as the political director of the provincial reconstruction base in the southern Afghan city; his purpose had been an attempt to meet local officials. His armoured G-Wagon was struck by a vehicle laden with bombs, on a busy thoroughfare on the outskirts of Kandahar. He was killed and three soldiers in his retinue were injured. The Taliban claimed credit for the attack.
It took little time before a suspect thought to have organized the attack was arrested; his name was Pir Mohammed. A man who just happened to be a member of the same tribe as a local warlord, Mullah Naqib who presented himself as an anti-Taliban ally friendly toward the Canadian contingent stationed in Kandahar Province. And Mullah Naqib vouched for Pir Mohammed, so he was released from custody. Diplomatic notes were forwarded to the Afghan regime to ensure they were aware of Canada's dissatisfaction.
"Afghan authorities should be helped to understand that we expect them to lead the investigation into this terrorist bombing in their country", wrote one Canadian official in 2007. In both Kabul and Ottawa, through respective ambassadors pressure was applied, senior officials bringing up the matter on a regular basis. The suspect continued to be tracked by both Afghan and Canadian officials. He was arrested and then released for a second time, irrespective of the fact that intelligence had flagged him as a threat.
The man's serendipitous associated with a powerful and influential warlord kept him free. A symptom of the country's corruption at every level. The notorious reputation of the warlord was certainly thought to be instrumental when the first Afghan police investigator who was assigned to the case left Kandahar in a hurry, claiming his life was in danger. Another investigation was proposed over a year later, but nothing came of it given the deteriorating security situation with a revived Taliban resurgence.
Former Afghan President Karzai was outspoken and continually frustrated, enraged and helpless in the fact of his Western allies' lack of success in countering the Taliban sufficiently forcefully that each retreat might be assumed to be the last. His own country's police and military were corrupt and useless. While in the pursuit of the Taliban, particularly with the use of aerial bombardment and drones by the U.S., Afghan civilians were being increasingly victimized; among the dead notched up after each bombing raid were women and children.
Mr. Karzai far more often than merely once waxed undiplomatically furious in speeches he gave giving his impression of the West's belief that Afghans were dispensable, where the lives of Westerners were not. He bellowed in frustration that Afghan lives were every bit as valuable as the lives of NATO troops. The 'fog of war' excuse that is usually trotted out failed to pacify his rage. There is, of course, the fact that Taliban are Afghans targeting other Afghans; that NATO troops were invested in helping to save those other Afghans.
And that in situations of fierce conflict civilian lives cannot be safeguarded as all might hope they would be. The only truth here is that war is hell. And in the situational hellhole that is Afghanistan with a resurgent Islamism, the introduction of al-Qaeda among the Taliban and now the Islamic State, Afghanistan is yet another geographic place of Islamist living hell.
In war, justice is elusive.
Labels: Afghanistan, Canada, Conflict, Justice, NATO, Taliban
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, January 16, 2016
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