DATE=3/31/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=AFGHAN RIGHTS (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-260810
BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN
DATELINE=GENEVA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: A United Nations special investigator says the
human rights situation in Afghanistan is appalling.
Lisa Schlein in Geneva reports the investigator says
the people of Afghanistan are victims of gross
violations of human rights and persistent breaches of
international humanitarian law.
TEXT: The U-N investigator, Kamal Hossain, says he
bases his comments on what he saw and learned in three
trips last year to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He says
extensive interviews with Afghan refugees in Pakistan
and with internally-displaced people in Afghanistan
present a picture of a people under siege and subject
to gross violations of human rights.
/// HOSSAIN ACT ONE ///
The people of Afghanistan continue to be virtual
hostages in their own land, where externally
armed forces sought the rule of Afghanistan
without the effective participation of consent
of the people. The most fundamental denial of
human rights which needs to be addressed is that
of the right of the people of Afghanistan
effectively to participate in the governance of
their country through freely chosen
representatives.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Hossain says he has gathered evidence from what he
calls credible eyewitnesses of large-scale abuse. He
says the abuse included forced displacement of the
civilian population, deliberate burning of houses and
summary executions of non-combatants, including women
and children.
He says the Taleban rulers of Afghanistan are guilty
of arbitrary detention, forced labor, crop burning,
forced deportation, and family separation. He says
two decades of armed conflict have totally shattered
the Afghan economy and made the country one of the
poorest in the world.
Mr. Hossain says much of the country's income is
generated from the illicit production of opium. He
says Afghanistan supplies 75 percent of the world's
opium crop which is used to make heroin.
The U-N investigator says women and girls continue to
suffer discrimination. He says they are denied access
to education, health, and employment; many are
abducted, and some are forced into marriages with
Taleban members.
Mr. Hossain says the pervasive human-rights problems
are both the cause and consequence of what he calls
the governance crisis.
/// HOSSAIN ACT TWO ///
The character of the existing authorities who
rule without the consent and participation of
the Afghan people is the root cause of human-
rights violations, dating from persisting armed
conflict with external support being received by
both contending sides, who are found to be
recruiting as soldiers students -- some as young
as 14 -- imposition of edicts which derive to
systematic gender discrimination, and inflicting
cruel, degrading and inhuman punishment.
/// END ACT ///
U-N investigator Hossain says it is critically
important that the warring parties begin a peace
process. He says human-rights abuse will not stop
until the people of Afghanistan are allowed to freely
choose those they want to govern them. (Signed)
NEB/LS/JWH/WTW
31-Mar-2000 12:11 PM EDT (31-Mar-2000 1711 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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