“We do not seek to wash blood with blood; we seek justice!” This was the message of a one-day conference organised by Human Rights Focus Organisation with the support of 100 other civil institutions (including Armanshahr) in Kabul on 23 May 2013.
People from the four zones across the country, officials from some of the civil society institutions in Kabul, representatives of the High Council of Peace and the National Assembly and Senate of Afghanistan and from the national and international media took part in the conference.
The organisers of the conference were of the opinion that misinterpretation of transitional justice in the past few years and failure to pay attention to other parts of Afghanistan have slowed down the trend of transitional justice.
Guests representing the civil society in the provinces and zones offered their views, reported on their problems and their recommendations to improve the trend. Most of them regarded war, violence, corruption, bullying, the presence of criminals at high levels of the administration, the General Amnesty and National Reconciliation Law, lack of interest of Afghanistan’s international supporters to implement transitional justice as obstacles facing the process in this country.
The participants generally believed that there are still opportunities to implement transitional justice. They referred to the Constitution, international conventions to which Afghanistan is a state party, the three branches of the state, schools, universities, civil institutions and collective consciousness as aspects of the existing opportunity.
There were representative from the High Council of Peace and the Senate of Afghanistan, who answer questions and criticisms of the peace process.
Jawad Darwaziyan, Human Rights Officer of Armanshahr, who chaired the meeting, addressed Mr Ismail Qasim Yar, representative of the High Council of Peace as follows:
“Where has the Constitution foreseen the High Council of Peace in the government structure? Who is the council accountable to and what have been its achievements in the past few years? Afghanistan is committed to a series of international covenants including the Geneva Conventions, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Convention on All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Statute of the International Criminal Court, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and some others. The Constitution has specifically required the government to implement those covenants, but the High Council of Peace and the government have violated some of those conventions and acted against them. What are your answers to these questions?
Mr Qasim Yar answered: Before the General Amnesty and National Reconciliation Law, there was the Peace Consolidation Committee led by Sebghatullah Mojaddadi. After that, the High Council of Peace, led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, was created. They and the general amnesty decrees were all intended to consolidate the pillars of peace in the country.
It was recently reported that the High Council of Peace had released 640 offenders. These are rumours. The Council has a committee which refers names of the people mistakenly detained as members of the Taleban – whose release would help the peace process – to the judicial authorities as required by the presidential decree. But, those 640 people have definitely not been released by the High Council of Peace.
The leadership of the Taleban and the Islamic Party or other groups have not engaged in any official negotiations with the government to this date and they have never said that they are prepared to talk to the government or to the High Council of Peace. We held a series of talks with some leaders of the Islamic Party, but they came to a halt after the signing of the strategic agreement with the US.
He emphasised: We believe that the peace process should be popular and encompass all. The civil society institutions, women, the young people and ethnic groups must be able to see their demands in it. We cannot and we do not want to sacrifice the rights of any group, ethnic group or achievements of the people for the peace process.
The second speaker was Ms Belquis Roshan – senator for the Farah Province – who spoke about Afghanistan’s past. She said: The people have been sacrificed in the course of coup d’états and inefficient peace processes throughout the history. The Khalq [People’s] party imprisoned and executed the people. Subsequently, the mujahedin and the Taleban massacred the people of Kabul. Khalq and Parcham founded violence and war, but the mujahedin and the Taleban complemented it. The first crime the Americans committed against us was to raise the criminals to rule us. The president of Afghanistan promised the people he would not compromise with the criminals, but he allowed the highest number of criminals to join him. The same criminals in Afghanistan’s parliament, most of whom are war criminals, passed the Amnesty Law in the parliament.
She added: Democracy arrived once from Russia and once from the US. Imported democracy has always been detrimental to the people. Democracy should arise from among the people.
In the question and answer section, one of the participants asked Mr Qasim Yar: what will be the status of the victims if the government and the Taleban reach agreement? Another participant asked: Is the result of the peace process anything but bringing the Taleban criminals and the ruling criminals together to complement the assembly of the criminals?
Mr Qasim Yar answered: The structure of the High Council of Peace arose from the Loya Jirga. The social structure and texture and the power groups in Afghanistan are known to you and the people. Justice requires us to seek the rights of the victims.
Another participant asked: why is the case of Afghanistan not referred to the International Criminal Court? Mr Qasim Yar replied: it is the task of the government to cooperate with the court. I believe that the reason for the delay is that the conflict Mapping report and the war criminals list of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission have not been published and if it is not possible to prosecute the past crimes in Afghanistan, they must be referred to the International Court.
In the news conference that followed with a number of the national and international media, the statement of the civil society institutions was read out and the journalists asked their questions.
Mr Reza Hosseini, university professor and a member of the Transitional Justice Coordination Group, concluded as follows: Transitional justice is not the dominant discourse in Afghanistan; it is on the sideline. If we wish to be active in this field, we have no choice but to make it a dominant popular discourse. Transitional justice has been deemed as a danger for peace in Afghanistan. Some groups view it as an obstacle to peace because they feel threatened by it. Some other groups have a mistaken understanding of transitional justice and see only its criminal dimension. We know some people as criminals who have the support of the people on the one hand and are offenders on the other. This is a contradiction that has no solution unless we reconcile our views. We suffer from a theoretical weakness and poverty of concept on the question of transitional justice in Afghanistan. If we do not find a way out of this, it will be impossible to build the road for transitional justice.
