Forensic Evidence Supports Afghan 'Convoy of Death'

[reprehensor]

American experts find that Northern Alliance warlords slaughtered prisoners of war

David Rose
Sunday March 21, 2004
The Observer

Dramatic corroboration of the massacre of Afghan prisoners by the US-backed Northern Alliance at the start of the war in 2001 was last night provided by American pathologists commissioned to investigate the claims by the UN.

A vivid account of the slaughter was provided to The Observer last week by three Britons who were released from the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba more than two years after they were first seized in Afghanistan. They told how they narrowly escaped the massacre before being handed over to American forces and flown to Guantanamo Bay.

Forensic anthropologist William Haglund, who earlier led inquiries into mass graves in Bosnia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone, told The Observer how he dug into an area of recently disturbed desert soil outside the town of Shebargan, and exhumed 15 bodies, a tiny sample, he said, of what may be a very large total.

Thanks to the cold and arid climate, they were well enough preserved to carry out autopsies. Haglund's conclusion 'that they died from suffocation' exactly corroborates the stories told by the Guantanamo detainees in last week's Observer.

more@link

----------------------



‘AFGHAN MASSACRE – the convoy of DEATH’ tells of the horrific forced journey undertaken by thousands of prisoners who surrendered to America’s Afghan allies after the siege of Konduz.

Bundled into containers, the lucky ones were shot within minutes. The rest suffered an appalling road trip lasting up to four days, clawing at the skin of their fellow prisoners as they licked perspiration and even drank blood from open wounds.

Up to 3,000 now lie buried in a mass grave, but this was NOT a simple matter of Afghans killing Afghans.

‘AFGHAN MASSACRE – the convoy of DEATH’ tells of how American special forces took control of the operation, re-directed the containers carrying the living and dead into the desert and stood by as survivors were shot and buried.

more@link

[bobbieinok]

1. wasn't there a British news article and documentary about this???

[krkaufman]

3. YES. And it is a MUST SEE.

And PLEASE forward this story far and wide; even to your right-wing friends. If the mainstream isn't going to get this story out, then the Underground must.

http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/09/23_doran.html

Parallel thread(s):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1531016

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=109&topic_id=8699

[bobbieinok]

2. this means the torture info coming out of Iraq is NOT A ONE TIME THING

[krkaufman]

4. Newsweek article -- "Death Convoy of Afghanistan"

Newsweek: The Death Convoy of Afghanistan (archived at Truthout.org)
By Babak Dehghanpisheh, John Barry and Roy Gutman
NEWSWEEK; August 26, 2002

Witness reports and the probing of a mass grave point to war crimes. Does the United States have any responsibility for the atrocities of its allies?

---

NOTE: When reading the above Newsweek greywash... er... report, please keep the following critique in mind, from Jamie Doran, the Producer-Director of the source documentary, "Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death." (excerpted from his BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW)

But again, if you read the article clearly and carefully, you’ll see that there’s a beginning and there’s an end, and there’s nothing in the middle. And what’s the best way of putting this? I understand that there was more information in the original article which –- let’s just say it didn't make into the magazine.

[john Q2]

5. HMMMM

Well As I read this I say "how horrible" but then I go back and think of the thousands of Americans-Fathers,Mothers,Sons and Daughter's that died at the World Trade center and then for some reason the Death of 3000 Tali ban terrorists really doesn't bother me anymore. My question friends is have we forgotten to atrocities these people have committed against the United States? I hope not. We must honor their memories and avenge their Deaths.
John

[Lithos]

6. Dear John

Maybe if those people were directly involved in the killing of the 3,000 people at the WTC, would it be justified. However, they did not, for they were not involved in the slightest as most of the hijackers were Saudi, not Afghani. As has been amply demonstrated numerous times and in large detail, the Bush family has a much closer link to the financiers and supporters of the hijackers than these men who were slaughtered in the desert.

But to your other point, there are no atrocities that these men have caused against the US, the war they were fighting was a local civil war, not an international war. The war they were fighting was not religious, but rather an age old ethnic struggle. They were killed not because they were Taliban, but for their tribal associations.

Goodbye John

L-

[krkaufman]

7. Yes, and further...

The most you can say about these *TALIBAN* soldiers was that their leaders had allied with Al Qaeda. So these captured Taliban soldiers deserved to be suffocated and starved to death, and, if they were lucky, shot?

Perhaps all US citizens should be held accountable for the actions of all of our allies and puppet governments? I don't think I need to elaborate further.