Spring Break
Untold story in Afghanistan
Craig Finlay
Issue date: 7/11/02 Section: Opinion
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Last year, everyone watched the jubilant crowds in Afghanistan cheering victorious Northern Alliance soldiers rolling through city after city as the Taliban government collapsed. Television reporters did countless stories about the vast improvement in everyone's life the war had brought about. I watched this unfold, too, but waited apprehensively for the other shoe to drop, and now it has. Enter the massacres at Sherberghan and Mazar-I-Sharif.
A BBC filmmaker named Jamie Doran has recently uncovered evidence of a massacre of as many as 5,000 Taliban prisoners by Northern Alliance fighters in November 2001. Even more disturbing, he has uncovered evidence indicating U.S. knowledge and even possible participation in the slaughter.
Doran showed his still publicly unreleased film to the German parliament June 12 and the European parliament June 13. The evidence was convincing enough to prompt human rights advocates to call for an investigation. Other European leaders have said they'll address the issue with their governments.
The alleged massacre took place after Alliance fighters accepted the surrender of 8,000 Taliban fighters in the city of Kunduz in the last days of the war. 5,000 of them are now missing. Many of them were loaded into airtight containers and shipped to a fortress halfway between Mazar-I-Sharif and Sherberghan prison. Many of the prisoners apparently suffocated on the way there, others were killed as Alliance fighters shot air holes into the containers.
Still others, according to civilian drivers of the trucks the prisoners were in, were hauled off and summarily executed. When asked how many American soldiers were present during the killings, the man said about 30 or 40.
Doran also interviewed an Afghan fighter who says he was present when an American soldier broke a prisoner's neck ad poured acid on others. This film has been receiving extensive media coverage in Europe for a while now, but (surprise! surprise!) none at all by Bush's lapdog corporate media machine.
A BBC filmmaker named Jamie Doran has recently uncovered evidence of a massacre of as many as 5,000 Taliban prisoners by Northern Alliance fighters in November 2001. Even more disturbing, he has uncovered evidence indicating U.S. knowledge and even possible participation in the slaughter.
Doran showed his still publicly unreleased film to the German parliament June 12 and the European parliament June 13. The evidence was convincing enough to prompt human rights advocates to call for an investigation. Other European leaders have said they'll address the issue with their governments.
The alleged massacre took place after Alliance fighters accepted the surrender of 8,000 Taliban fighters in the city of Kunduz in the last days of the war. 5,000 of them are now missing. Many of them were loaded into airtight containers and shipped to a fortress halfway between Mazar-I-Sharif and Sherberghan prison. Many of the prisoners apparently suffocated on the way there, others were killed as Alliance fighters shot air holes into the containers.
Still others, according to civilian drivers of the trucks the prisoners were in, were hauled off and summarily executed. When asked how many American soldiers were present during the killings, the man said about 30 or 40.
Doran also interviewed an Afghan fighter who says he was present when an American soldier broke a prisoner's neck ad poured acid on others. This film has been receiving extensive media coverage in Europe for a while now, but (surprise! surprise!) none at all by Bush's lapdog corporate media machine.
