The Afghanistan Justice Project, established by Human Rights Watch and staffed with non-Afghans and Afghans from the entire spectrum of the country’s major ethnic groups, has published its first report on war crimes and and crimes against humanity committed by all of the parties to the conflict during the wars in Afghanistan, 1978 – 2001.

The AJP’s statement to this enterprise is:
“The objective of the project is to provide needed documentation for Afghans about the crimes of the past so that if there comes a time when Afghans want to pursue justice or a reconciliation process, the means to establish an objective historical record will be available.”

Inasmuch as the report condems present members of the Afghan government as responsible for war crimes, many of the Afghans taking part in the AJP – in fear of retaliation – have decided to stay unknown to the public. This first report concentrates on the time-period 1992 – 2001.

Now that the “democratically” elected administration has the tool (the AJP) to bring these criminals to justice, it is highly unlikely that President Karzai will utilize it – as evidenced by Karzai’s hasty decision to have Abdullah Shah – a former commander of the Wahabbi-group of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf – executed after a dubious, but speedy trial. Karzai simply executing a witness to these crimes leaves me exploring conspiracies. While admitting his guilt without neither remorse or a fight for his innocence, he could have taken part in identifying some of those that committed or ordered the subject atrocities. Shah’s admission and assistance could have assisted in bringing down some of those mass murderers.

Now, please tell me how fruitful the elimination of the Wahabbi-influenced Taliban was when we have the cause of the Taliban’s rise sitting in top governmental positions?

Infamous Afghan warlord and mass-murderer General Dostum has adopted Shafiqa Habibi as his first vice-presidential running mate.

There would be nothing extraordinary about this fact, if it weren’t for her simply being a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005, journalist, and a women’s rights activist.

How can she put her past altruistic allegiances aside and ignore the facts about General Dostum’s role in the Afghan genocide?

How many tens of thousands of women have been abducted, raped and killed by Dostum’s troops?

I would like to witness her win the Nobel Peace Prize while she is in the shadow of this slaughterer. If she does, then was it really earned?

The U.N. is selling/enlightening us with the informaton that 42% of the registered voters in Afghanistan’s first democratic presidential elections are women. Good news for Afghan women. Thank you U.S. for letting the women be heard. Unfortunately facts about the inequality of women and the lack of women’s suffrage cannot be denied.

Being an Afghan/Pashtoon myself and understanding the intricate and imbalanced Afghan culture and traditions, I am convinced that this magic number of 42% was never reached. Especially among the Pashtoons – that represent 42% of the total population – allowing women to participate in elections is highly unlikely…

10.4 million registered voters?

Pursuant to the CIA world factbook Afghanistan has an estimated population of 28.5 million, 15 million of them are 15 years or older. We’ll subtract another 2 million that are younger than 18 years so we have 13 million Afghans left that have the right to vote.

10.4 million of those 13 million received their registration cards – despite the intimidation of the conservative Afghan culture and very real threats of the Taliban to swiftly and without prejudice kill anyone that participates in the elections?

Thanks for the facts U.N, but we’re not buying.