Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the United States and other countries involved in the 20-year war in Afghanistan to address alleged war crimes committed by their forces and provide compensation to the victims. In a statement released on Sunday, October 4, the organization said that 25 years after the U.S. began its "war on terror" in Afghanistan, citizens who were wrongfully victimized are still waiting for justice.
The statement noted that more than two decades after the war began, there is still no clear path for reparations or accountability for the victims. "Afghans who were tortured in U.S. custody and the families of those unlawfully killed still have no clear path to file a complaint or receive compensation from the U.S. government," said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
According to Gossman, successive U.S. administrations have concealed gross human rights violations, leaving the primary victims without compensation or justice. She emphasized that the United States and its allies that participated in the Afghan war must properly investigate and prosecute alleged war crimes by their forces and provide appropriate compensation to victims of abuse and their families.
HRW stated that following the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government authorized interrogation methods that "amounted to torture." The organization has documented cases of torture and other ill-treatment by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, including beatings, waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation, and mock executions. HRW highlighted the case of a farmer in Ghazni who was detained by U.S. forces in 2019 and permanently lost his sight after being beaten during interrogation. He was never charged with a crime and was released in August 2021.
Although the U.S. has prosecuted some soldiers, such as Robert Bales, who was convicted of killing 16 civilians in Kandahar, HRW says many other significant cases, including the killing of civilians in Wardak province, were never pursued. Furthermore, former President Donald Trump pardoned several soldiers convicted of war crimes.
The organization also noted that other coalition members like Australia and the United Kingdom have made slow progress in their own investigations. HRW also pointed to war crimes by other parties to the conflict. According to the organization, powerful U.S.-backed figures in the former Afghan government, as well as the Taliban government and ISIS, were also responsible for serious human rights abuses and have not held their members accountable.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) initiated an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan, but the Trump administration opposed it, and the court later limited its investigation to crimes by the Taliban and ISIS. HRW is calling on the United Nations to ensure that an independent investigative mechanism for Afghanistan receives sufficient resources to collect evidence of past and ongoing crimes by all parties.
Source: Human Rights Watch
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