May 14, 2002	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 1, 1423

KABUL, May 13: The European Union’s special envoy to Afghanistan has confronted the country’s powerful deputy defence minister Abdul Rashid Dostum over the conditions in which hundreds of Taliban prisoners are being held, comparing them to Auschwitz.

Klaus-Peter Klaiber met Dostum in Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday and also visited the nearby Shebarghan prison, where more than 2,000 Taliban prisoners are still thought to be detained.

“It looks like Auschwitz,” the German diplomat said.

“The people have nothing on their bones anymore. They are being treated like cattle, crammed into tents. It’s unbelievable, unbelievable.

“The kitchen, you cannot imagine. There were ghost-like figures just stirring soup. It was awful.

“I was with two colleagues and I told them I was amazed they could stand it so long when you see their faces, worn-out eyes without hope.”

A group of 204 Pakistani prisoners returned to their homeland on Saturday after being freed from Shebarghan earlier in the week, some of them as young as nine.

But more than 500 Pakistanis are still believed to be in the jail along with some 1,500 mainly Pakhtoon Afghans.

Thousands of Taliban were arrested in November after a lengthy battle in the northern city of Kunduz. Most of them were shipped to Shebarghan after their surrender and many are believed to have died on the way.

The International Red Cross stepped in to feed the prisoners last month, supplying those in the worst state with special milk.

Klaiber said “hundreds” of sick and undernourished prisoners were being kept in a separate section but the others had “one and half metre square live-in room”.

He said although there appeared to be momentum leading towards the freedom of the Pakistani prisoners after an agreement between Kabul and Islamabad, the same was not happening with the Afghan inmates. Fewer than a hundred of the youngest and eldest had been freed.

“It’s time after five months that they (the Afghan government) tackled this issue,” he said.

“I think (interim leader Hamid) Karzai as a Pakhtoon would be hoping to get these prisoners out.”

Dostum, one of Afghanistan’s most powerful regional warlords, was appointed deputy defense minister in recognition of his influence in the north as the government struggled to exert its authority beyond Kabul.

“The strategy of the interim administration is understandable,” said Klaiber.

“If you cannot beat the warlords you join them. But you have to ask yourself whether it will ultimately work.”

Klaiber told Dostum the situation was inflaming anger in the Pasktoons’ southern heartland.

“I told him you are treating them badly and that adds to the frustrations of the south. He agrees with that and the interim administration agrees with that.”

The envoy said Dostum acknowledged that those still being held were no more than rank-and-file Taliban members.

“They really did not really do anything wrong but fought on the wrong side. They are not Al Qaeda. General Dostum agrees that the big fish have gone.”

Klaiber warned that many of the Pashtuns would be too weak to travel the hundreds of miles to their homes by donkey when they are released and urged the interim government to pay for them to be driven by bus. The freed Pakistanis were flown back to their homeland.

Dostum’s spokesman Faizullah Zaki said the general was prepared to release the prisoners but wanted to ensure no dangerous inmates were released.

“He is ready under monitoring, under supervision, to release as many as possible in order to ensure ... that those who are still considered dangerous are not released,” Zaki said.

The spokesman added that Dostum shared the “concerns” about conditions in Shebarghan but his main priority was to improve the conditions of the local population, rather than of the prison.

“This is not the time to ask for funds for the prison. We need funds for the schools and hospitals,” Zaki added.

“The north has not been receiving any funds from the centre (Kabul). There’s a shortage of funds and too many urgent needs.”—AFP