International Forensic Program

Uncovering Truth in Afghanistan

© PHR

Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and UNAMA Human Rights Officers at Kata Khana, Yakawlang District, for a survey of a mass grave memorial site and ‘hands-on’ documentation training by Stefan Schmitt

© PHR (Courtesy of Azwa Petra/UNAMA)

Stefan Schmitt takes photographs of the mass graves assessed at Dasht-i-Chimtallah, outside of Kabul, Afghanistan as Investigators of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Afghan Ministry of Interior look on.

Six years after the Taliban surrendered to Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan, widows and family members are beginning to come forward and demand that the government address the disappearance of their loved ones during the country's conflicts.  Days after PHR's International Forensic Program assessed the mass graves in caves at Chimtallah on the outskirts of Kabul, approximately 150 Afghani widows staged a protest at the UN mission headquarters in Kabul, demanding that the past be reconciled. With a 30-year history of bloody conflicts claiming the lives of over one million people, the country has been home to more than its share of human rights violations.

Since 1997, the International Forensic Program (IFP) at PHR has sent teams to Afghanistan to document human rights violations, assess and document mass graves, and evaluate local capacity for forensic investigation. IFP assessment teams were the first to investigate the mass grave site at Dasht-e-Leili near the Sheberghan Prison in Northern Afghanistan in 2002. It is suspected that these graves contain the bodies of Taliban prisoners who were transported to the site in truck containers following their surrender to Northern Alliance forces in 2001.

Considering the problems Afganistan faces in rebuilding a national infrastructure, IFP Director Stefan Schmitt has focused on supporting the creation of a gravesite registry as a first step towards the forensic documentation of past gross human rights violations in Afghanistan. In addition to grave site assessments, Schmitt and Bill Haglund have carried out training in the documentation and securing of evidence to Afghan human rights and justice organizations.  Accurate reporting will help create a verifiable history and lay the groundwork for any truth and reconciliation efforts, as well as addressing demands for justice.

Related Links:

• A timeline of the history of Afghanistan since 1900
• PHR Report - Preliminary Assessment of Alleged Mass Gravesites in the Area of Mazar-I-Sharif, Afghanistan