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Oct
10
2007CORRUPT REGIME SENDS 15 PRISONERS TO FIRING SQUAD
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Karzai Provokes Worldwide Condemnation Of Judicial Killings
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Look who’s shooting: Karzai’s justice system “most corrupt” part of the regime
In a stunning display of political miscalculation, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his ruling circle have authorized the execution by firing squad of 15 inmates at Kabul’s sprawling Pul-i-Charkhi prison.
Although a number of the condemned men were acknowledged to be criminals of the first order, many of the Karzai regime’s international sponsors have been plunged into controversy by the quasi-judicial killings.
The principal reason: the regime’s justice system – specifically its Justice and Interior ministries – are devoid of credibility, and have proven to be incapable of rendering balanced decisions in even the most basic trials. They are known among the Afghan people as the most corrupt ministries of the regime.
Even modest civil cases must be massaged through the system by way of bribes to judges and clerks. Arrests are often motivated by political jealousies, or as the result of turf battles among men of power and influence.
A lawyer for any prisoner sent to the firing squad might reasonably ask how valid a capital sentence could be, given that President Karzai is searching for replacements for officials like Interior Minister Ahmad Maqbul Zarar and Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabet – both of whom stand accused of undermining the rule of law, rather than upholding it.
The United Nations has protested the executions, while Amnesty International condemns them outright. In its statement, Amnesty points out that at the time of the Karzai regime’s last execution, in April 2004, the UN Special Rapporteur emphasized concerns "that the safeguards and restrictions according to international standards for imposing capital punishment cannot be observed at this stage."
Judicial standards in Kabul have deteriorated in the years since, in the view of Afghan citizens, judges, policemen and international legal advisors interviewed by skyreporter.
Member states of NATO, particularly Britain, Canada, Denmark and Holland, will likely be forced to review their policies of handing battlefield prisoners over to Afghan security forces. Already a hot-button political issue in Canada, the mass executions will enable opposition parties to increase pressure on the minority Harper Conservative government.
Not for the first time, however, Harper's Foreign Affairs office has refrained from censuring the Karzai regime for inflaming public opinion in Afghanistan and around the world. A two-line statement released after the executions stated that prisoners turned over to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops may not face the death penalty. The release said also that Canada expects Afghanistan to respect international obligations on human rights.
The condemned men went before the firing squad while two of Harper’s ministers were in Afghanistan, hoping to boost public support by publicizing positive aspects of the US-dominated military and aid operations.
As detailed in previous skyreporter dispatches, the Harper government has failed to pursue embezzled funds intended for police salaries; did not follow up on a heroin shipment confiscated en route to Toronto (the evidence disappeared while in the care of the Interior Ministry in Kabul); and has steadfastly concealed the Canadian connections of President Karzai's rogue Attorney General, Abdul Jabar Sabet - who returned to Kabul several years ago from his adopted home in Montreal.
Coming soon to skyreporter: how wealthy warlords confiscate land at will – after greasing the Karzai regime’s wobbly wheels of justice.
Mr.Kent
I have read that a form of Sharia Law is embedded in the Afghan Constitution. Does this have any play concerning the executions? Does this form of Sharia Law somehow play against "Democacy" in Afghanistan (I use the term democracy lightly)
Good point, RC. The answer is that we can't know for sure. There's been a shocking absence of transparency regarding both the convictions and executions. Many of the regime's judges are fond of freestyling sharia precepts into their deliberations and decisions - we just don't know how the wildly shifting variables of the Western-backed regime's justice system has performed in these specific cases.
Meantime, a strike by prisoners protesting the executions is underway at Pul-i-Charkhi jail. Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission has said that only just and legitimate courts could deliver death sentences, and that the regime's current tribunals don't measure up to those standards.
Just last month, a UN report found "chronic judiciary understaffing, corruption and abuse of power leading to violations of due process."
Arthur
Is Afghanistan an occupied land, or does it have its own government? When you deliver criticism of an action taken by a popularly elected government, you appear to be one of the imperialists that you hate so much. Did you know that these prisoners were all convicted of murder? Did you know that two of these prisoners had raped and killed multiple children. This has nothing to do with Sharia or rogue courts, but everything to do with attempting to restore order to a very disordered society.
Mr.kent
Just a few more question for today. What do you feel will be the repurcussions of The Pakistan Air force bombing the Taliban in north Waziristan? Will that embolden the Taliban throughout Pakistan, or put them in a political box? Appears to be many more casulaties than the western press is reporting-mostly civilians.
Do you believe that there exists a huge force of 20,000 new taliban fighters in that region, just ready to cause huge problems in Khost, Paktia, Paktika, Gardez and Ghazni? There is even talk about a plan by Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud to take out Bhutto in Karachi. Any truth or just sabre rattling?
Sikander, I suspect you and I agree completely that the sooner Afghanistan is left to the Afghans, the better. But if we respect the views of responsible Afghan lawyers, prosecutors and citizens, don't we have to acknowledge that there are deep systemic problems with the Karzai regime's justice system, many due to interference by foreign sponsors of the regime?
It's true that Karzai and the lower house of parliament have gone through an electoral process. But it's also the case that most of Karzai's cabinet and ruling circle are appointees foisted upon the president by aggressive allies, both foreign and domestic.
I've heard Afghans describe these people as "monsters," and the regime as "a Frankenstein government." Question: should capital punishment be left in the hands of a construct like this? After all, one of the most notorious men sent to the firing squad, Timor Shah, escaped. He's now on the run. Is that the Karzai regime's justice system at work?
Why all of a sudden fifteen people are executed without due trial?
figures who proved to be guilty of notorious crime like Saiyaf, Gulbudin,Dostum. Fahim, Gulabzoi, and the rest of the country criminala sitting in lower house and high government positions should have been eliminat4ed and executed first. This will definitely bring stability to the country. Also hang a few of the Talibs who are committing genocidal acts in this Holy month in the main intersection of Kabul so the public know that there
is law and order which I doubt there is.
You should also know that the administrator mole of the Interior Ministry is in his home in Texas enjoying half a million embezelled money. Why him not executed?
I sometimes don't understand the outcry about the failure of the current regime, installed by the US and its allies, in Afghanistan.
The very basis of this regime was founded on the US and its allies' imperialist tactic of making an alliance with a local client group, the Northern Alliance, the hands of whose members were and still are red with innocent people's blood in Afghanistan. They very well knew who they were forging an alliance with.
Concern for human rights, democracy and lack of law and order in Afghanistan, among other things, is raised only when it feeds into the "civilized occupiers" and the "barbaric Afghans" dichotomy, a discourse which formed the very basis for the invasion and present occupation of Afghanistan.
History of colonialism/occupation has but few examples among countries that have flourished under these systems of domination of one country by another.
While I am sad and infuriated, I am not at all surprised to know why things are not working out in Afghanistan today despite the shameful promises of "a better future for Afghanistan," initially dangled for Afghans and still repeated in the official speeches of the Western colonial officials /administrators.
Mr. Kent
Thank you for reporting something with some grit and fire, we really need a real media, and real journalism in this country. I saw the interview on the Hour, and I had a question. If Karzai is a "democratically" elected leader, and he and his regime are so corrupt, what can we do? Nato is trying to keep support for its mission by showing progress, and showing how we want to put Afghanistan into the peoples hands. What is the solution to Karzai, what kinds of tools or strategies can be used to clean house?
You're welcome, Rorbo. The solution in Kabul is pretty clear: strip the government down to its elected representatives, namely Karzai and the 269 members of parliament (that is, minus those MPs who are known or suspected druglords; alleged war criminals; and those who maintain private militias, AKA warlords).
What you've got left is an elected president and around 175 decent and progressive MPs - a pretty good talent pool for a truly reform-oriented cabinet.
Sadly, the grotesque realities of big-power foreign intervention prevent this course of action. The Bush White House demands complete control in Kabul, while the political leaderships of America's NATO allies seem more concerned with obscuring the regime's obvious flaws, rather than repairing them.
Arthur :
I hope Afghanistan appreciates how much you obviously love and respect them and what a loss you are to your homeland that needs you . You and James Travers could write your own tickets anywhere .