KABUL: A new law granting amnesty and legal protection from prosecution to Afghan commanders accused of committing war atrocities has shifted the burden of proof for the two and a half decades of grave abuses to the Afghan public.

Under pressure from powerful allies in his government, President Hamid Karzai signed into law an amended version of the controversial ‘National Stability and Reconciliation’ bill, which was passed by Afghanistan’s parliament.

The Meshrano Jirga (council of elders) had passed the amnesty bill by a 50-16 majority on Feb 20. That vote came three weeks after the lower house -- the Wolesi Jirga (people’s council) -- approved it on Jan 31, sparking calls at home and abroad for Karzai to reject it.

Karzai’s version of the bill also recognises the victims’ rights to justice. Henceforth, victims can claim an allowance to pursue lawsuits against the perpetrators. Neither does the amnesty cover persons who are currently under investigation for crimes committed against the security of Afghanistan. But it simultaneously offers them a reduced punishment if they accept Karzai’s national-reconciliation programme.

International law prohibits the extension of national amnesties to genocide or war crimes. The United Nations has warned the Afghan government that an amnesty law will strengthen the culture of impunity and deprive victims of their fundamental rights. Independent voices in Afghanistan have questioned parliament’s authority to pass a legislation that undermines the constitutional rights of citizens to receive legal redress for violations of their fundamental rights. They argue that the amnesty law is in clear breach of the Afghan constitution and is therefore illegal.

A month ago, Afghanistan’s warlords and factional leaders rallied with thousands of their supporters in Kabul’s sole Ghazi Stadium, site of Taliban atrocities between 1996 and 2001, in order to build pressure on Karzai to sign the amnesty bill.

They demanded that the Afghan government back their calls for forgiveness and reconciliation over accountability for past crimes.

The rally, reports suggest, was attended by only a handful of Kabul residents who suffered severely during the factional fighting in the capital in the early 1990s. Some estimates put the casualty figures at more than 50,000 people killed.

More significant, the rally openly threatened independent media and human rights groups -- signs that its organisers were under pressure by media and civil society organisations involved in defence of human rights. In January, the presidential spokesman, in response to a media query, had said that any legislation proposed by parliament which runs counter to the provisions of the Afghan constitution will not be signed into law by the president. But President Karzai publicly retracted his own spokesman’s statement and said that he would seek legal advice on the bill before he signed it into law.

The revised law not only violates the Afghan constitution but also seriously undermines the Action Plan for Peace Reconciliation and Justice which Karzai publicly launched last December amidst bouts of sobbing and tears on the occasion of the international human rights day as Afghanistan’s answer to its violent past.

On Dec 10 last year, the president emotionally attributed the suffering of Afghans to foreign troops and “Pakistan-sponsored terrorism”.

But he forgot to shed a tear for the suffering caused by his own willingness to allow men with a proven track record of human rights abuses to maintain and expand their power in Afghanistan the past five years.—Dawn/The IPS News Service