Armanshahr Foundation organised its 73rd Goftegu public debate under the title of “In search of truth and justice in Afghanistan, national and international mechanisms,” in its offices on 23rd April 2011. Two dozen students and civil society activists of Afghanistan participated at the meeting. The meeting’s moderator was Seyyed Jawad Darwaziyan and the main speaker was Mr. Zia Moballegh, head of the Rights and Democracy Organisation.
Mr. Darwaziyan opened the meeting:
Revisiting the past and seeking truth and justice in Afghanistan under the headings of transitional justice, human rights, trial of war criminals and violators of human rights have constituted a “problem” in the past 10 years.
Remembering the dark and painful past and the pertaining challenges in societies, which have gone through wars, suppression, coup d’état and dictatorship or are still facing them, is a difficult and complicated process. There are those who believe that an undignified past, which is inundated with darkness and destruction, should be forgotten. There are also others who believe that the past must not be forgotten, but lessons should be learnt from it; before forgetting, the past must be revisited.
Should the past be forgotten? If not, why not? If yes, how? Which aspects of the past should we forget and which aspects should we remember? How can we distinguish between the two? Does remembering the past really add to hatred or to the contrary?
Even though remembering the past is a hard task for those without experience of the pains and sufferings, it would bring pain and a sense of guilt to those who witnessed it with indifference, especially in cases where the atrocities had a collective base. When a crime is committed in a country, everybody asks how it came about. That is when one seeks to find the “truth”. Today hinges on yesterday and tomorrow on today. The past by itself does notstir tension, gaps and hatred. It is the past history that stirs them. That is the reason why it is necessary to bring to trial the past and declare it dead. Human reasoning can no longer ignore the suffering of the victims.
Excerpts from Mr. Zia Moballegh’s speech:
There have been processes at work to end the war and bring about national reconciliation in Afghanistan in the past. The idea was to end the state of war in the country and let the people live in peace. Unfortunately, those processes came to exist in the absence of truth seeking. We witnessed numerous jirgas and councils that were established to end the war, both at home and abroad. Surely this is not the right mechanism to end the war in this country.
There is a jirga for peace between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Peace and Reintegration programme, the Peace Consultative Jirga, the Peace Consolidation Commission led by Mr. Sebghatollah Mojaddadi etc. It is unclear however if peace will return to this country through these mechanisms. It seems that all those plans have failed, because none of those processes have engaged in truth seeking. Those processes and similar ones are doomed to fail if truth is not sought and an answer is not found to all the treason and violations of human rights. Those processes will fail, because the human life, property, dignity are of no value in this land.
It is difficult to achieve a lasting peace, because we lacked good governance, transparency, rule of law and public participation, accountability and a strategic political and economic development perspective. It is certain that peace will not be achieved without justice anywhere. Peace is not possible without justice and justice cannot be achieved without attending to the demands of victims. On the other hand, it is the responsibility of official institutions to document their crimes and human rights violations and submit those documents to the International Criminal Court. The peace process in progress at present, however, is intent on hiding the truth and the crimes that have been committed. It is ignoring the roots of the conflict. By passing the General Amnesty Law, they even extended amnesty to all the criminals and promoted the culture of impunity.
Subsequently, the audience raised questions that were mainly directed at criticising the Afghanistan civil society. Some of the participants were of the opinion that the civil society in Afghanistan had only sought to implement projects without paying much attention to the nature of the issues.
One of the questions was: How can we publicise the documents regarding victims?
Mr. Moballegh replied: We can attach significance to those documents when the government has the will to examine them. Otherwise it will be very difficult for us to put those documents into use to achieve justice for the victims. On the other hand, the government of Afghanistan, in cooperation with the UN and the ICC, can investigate the documents. Otherwise, the civil society institutions must seek justice and truth.
The next question was: What is the task and responsibilities of the citizens of Afghanistan if the government and the international organisations do not have the will to seek the truth?
Mr. Moballegh’s response was: the Action and Reconciliation Programme of the government was approved in 2005. Its third key section concerns truth seeking and documentation. Subsequently, they passed the Amnesty and National Reconciliation Law. Thus, our government has a double sided policy. Ultimately we have no choice but to seek justice.
Another participant was of the opinion that the civil society institutions cannot achieve anything on their own, unless the young people, students, women and other groups of people join hands and pressure the Afghanistan government to begin the process of truth seeking.
Invitation to 73rd Goftegu Public Debate: In search of truth and justice in Afghanistan
