0
LISBON, Nov 24: Afghan leaders whose forces commit atrocities should be kept out of any future Afghan government, the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights said on Saturday.
Commissioner Mary Robinson was speaking ahead of Tuesday’s meeting in Bonn, Germany, where Afghan ethnic and political leaders will hold talks on forging an interim government.
There have been a number of reports of executions as anti-Taliban Northern Alliance fighters consolidate their hold on Afghanistan.
The discovery of up to 600 bodies in the former Taliban stronghold of Mazar-i-Sharif, seized by Northern Alliance forces two weeks ago, has raised concerns about the fate of prisoners.
“Those who come out of combat must be treated in accordance with the Geneva conventions” on treatment of prisoners of war, Robinson said in remarks broadcast on Portuguese state-run radio.
“And if this does not happen, any leaders whose forces do not comply with these standards should not participate in a future broad-based Afghan administration.
“I want to make a particular appeal that now there must be no attacks on civilians,” she said.
She also said that Afghan women should have a role in any future administration since they made up 60 percent of the population.
INDIAN ENVOY: India plans to send an envoy to Bonn to monitor next week’s UN conference on the country’s post-Taliban future, a government official said on Saturday.
India’s special envoy for Afghanistan, S.K. Lambah, will go to Bonn on Monday, the foreign ministry official said.
“He is going to monitor the talks,” the official said, adding the envoy would also likely interact with various Afghan groups attending the meeting expected to start on Tuesday.
Diplomats from Pakistan, United States, Britain and Russia were also expected to be in Bonn, but the UN special envoy for Afghanistan has said they have not been invited to take part in the talks to be attended by four rival Afghan groups.
“We have a role to play in Afghanistan and we are playing it,” Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said at a lunch hosted by a member of his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday.
Vajpayee added it was “difficult to say what shape the future government in Afghanistan will take”.
New Delhi has been anxious to insure that Pakistan is not allowed to dictate the makeup of the new government.
The Northern Alliance has been backed by India, Russia and Iran, fuelling concerns in Pakistan about a hostile government in Kabul.
Pakistan has pushed for a new Afghan government to include moderate elements of the Taliban. But India has opposed the move.
India, Iran and Russia have been pushing for a broadbased coalition government that reflects Afghanistan’s multi-ethnic population.
New Delhi’s decision to send the envoy to Bonn follows its decision to dispatch a liaison officer to Kabul to look into the possibility of reopening the country’s embassy.
India shut its embassy in Kabul after the Taliban seized power, ousting the Northern Alliance which retained only a portion of the country.
AMNESTY: Amnesty International called on Saturday for the upcoming intra-Afghan conference to focus on human rights.
In a statement the German section of the human rights group said human rights should not be “a secondary issue on the agenda. Human rights should determine the discussions.”
Amnesty called for the future government to respect the rights of women and of Afghanistan’s various ethnic and religious groups.—Reuters / AFP
