UNITED NATIONS: It is premature to establish a UN-backed ’truth and reconciliation commission’ for Afghanistan with military action continuing in the country and the United States dominating international security issues, say experts.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, has already set aside 50,000 dollars for the proposed body. She says Afghanistan’s interim leader, Hamid Karzai, and other senior Afghan officials have given her the impression that a commission ’is certainly going to be set up’.

The body could be modelled on previous UN efforts, says Robinson. “We have helped create, in different contexts, truth and reconciliation commissions in Sierra Leone and East Timor, and we now have a lot of experience.”

“It is extremely important for the families of those who have suffered terrible violations. It is the beginning of respect for the dignity of the individual,” adds Robinson.

“Obviously, it is for the interim administration and the people of Kabul to decide when the time is right, but I would certainly encourage it,” she says.

But others say the world community should not rush to set up a commission.

The move would be premature, says Francis A. Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. Afghanistan “is still an active war zone subject to international laws of war and belligerent occupation, as well as the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 (that lay down the rules of war)”, he says.

Asad AbuKhalil, associate professor of political science at California State University, says truth commissions are “morally necessary and politically feasible”. But he warns that a commission for Afghanistan could become a “ sham” because of the current international climate.

The United States, he says, is picking and choosing which international treaties and obligations to abide by in order to suit its own purposes. It is also providing only conditional support for an International Criminal Court (ICC) demanding that its own soldiers be exempt from its jurisdiction.

“One wonders if such a truth commission would investigate the crimes and atrocities by current US-installed leaders of Afghanistan,” says AbuKhalil, author of ‘Bin Laden, Islam, and America’s New War on Terrorism’. Truth commissions can only be effective and credible when US world hegemony ends and the UN is empowered to play its role, he adds.—Dawn/ The InterPress News Service.