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Independent
Robert Fisk: Our friends in the North are just as treacherous and
murderous
'When our Northern Alliance boys go on a killing spree, we have to
take responsibility'
19 November 2001
When the Iranian army massed on the western border of
Afghanistan in 1998 and prepared to storm across the frontier to
avenge the Taliban slaughter of its diplomats � and its Afghan allies
� in Mazar-i-Sharif, it received a message from the Taliban
leadership in Kandahar.
"You will decide the date of your invasion," came the two-sentence
communiqu� from Mullah Omar's men. "We will decide the date of
your departure." The Iranians wisely held their fire. It may have
been a reply from the Taliban � but it was a very Afghan reply. The
US and Britain � or the "coalition" as we are constrained to call
them � are now getting similar treatment. The Northern Alliance
watched the American bombers clear the road to K
abul. They were grateful. Then they drove into Kabul and now they are asking the
British to leave. Poor old Jack Straw had trouble contacting the Afghan foreign
minister to sort things out. The Afghan satellite phone was
not switched on. You bet it wasn't.
The mystery is why we ever expected these people to obey us. Afghan rules don't work
that way. Ethnic groups and tribes and villagers don't take orders from foreigners.
They do deals. The West wanted to use the Northern A
lliance as its foot-soldiers in Afghanistan. The Alliance wanted to use the American
bombers to help it occupy the capital. For the Tajiks and Uzbeks and Hazaras, it was
all very straightforward. They destroy the Taliban
� and then take over Afghanistan, or as much as they can swallow. And if they indulge
in a little revenge here and there � 500 or 600 Pakistani fighters massacred in a
bloodbath at Mazar, a possible human rights atrocity
in the making in Kunduz � what's so surprising?
Even now, faced with the bitter fruits of our coalition with the Northern Alliance, we
are reacting with an odd replay of our Bosnian adventure: calling for restraint while
at the same time reminding the world that the Af
ghans are a warlike, cruel people.
As the Alliance gunmen prepare to storm into Kandahar, Mr Blair calls for "restraint".
Yet the western media are now set upon informing their readers and viewers that
nothing more than a massacre could have been expected
of our foot-soldiers. An Irish journalist came on the line to me last week with a
familiar complaint. Wasn't I being a bit finicky, getting upset about a little
slaughter in Mazar? Weren't the Afghans steeped in age-old t
raditions of warfare? Wasn't it a bit much to be asking the Afghans to behave in a
civilised way?
I tried to remind my interviewer that Afghanistan's civilisation predated Ireland's �
and indeed much of Europe's � and that the missiles, tanks, artillery pieces and
rocket-propelled grenades with which the Afghans were
destroying each other had been provided by the civilised outside powers. Hadn't I
listened to this same nonsense about "age old traditions of warfare" peddled by the
British foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind when he was t
rying to wash his hands of Bosnia?
The real point, however, is that we cannot adopt someone's army as our own and then
deny responsibility for its behaviour. We didn't allow the Germans to do that after
the Second World War. And when our Northern Alliance
boys go on a killing spree, we have to take responsibility for the bloodshed that
results.
Take the case of Kunduz. More than 50 US planes have been bombarding the Taliban lines
around the area in a deliberate attempt to break the morale of the defenders and allow
the Northern Alliance gunmen to capture the dis
trict.
The Alliance has given the Taliban a deadline. It's pretty clear what will happen if
the Taliban ignore that deadline. They are going to be killed in cold blood. I hope
this is not true. I fear it is. But are we going to
shrug our shoulders when the knives come out? Are we going to admit we helped the
Alliance to gain the upper hand but then eschew all interest in the results? Isn't
there even a faint, horrible parallel with Osama bin Lad
en? If he merely inspired murderers to commit the crimes against humanity of 11
September, surely he was guilty of the death of 5,000 people. But if we facilitate
Alliance murderers, it seems we are innocent of the crime.
Meanwhile, outside Kabul, the familiar Northern Alliance anarchy is falling into
place. The warlords of Jalalabad are feuding over who rules which part of Nangahar
province. The Pashtu tribal leaders around Kandahar are t
hreatening to fight the Northern Alliance. Hazara elements of the alliance are
threatening their Tajik and Uzbek comrades if they do not receive a sufficient share
of power in Kabul.
Amid all this, in clops the poor old UN donkey, dragged into the pit to undertake the
most impossible task ever faced by statesmen in the history of the modern world: to
sort out Afghanistan. Would the Alliance please be
kind enough to allow the Pashtuns to have a proportionate share in the government?
Could we have a few moderate Taliban � perhaps with shorter beards � in a broad-based
administration? I can just see the Afghan delegates
to these talks when they hear the phrase broad-based. Broad-based?
The only broad-based phenomenon the Afghans know about are ceasefires. And even then,
only for Afghans. The most sinister element of the Kunduz ceasefire offer is that it
only applies to Pashtuns � not to foreign (ie Arab
) fighters � trapped in the area. They, presumably, are to be massacred or � in the
chilling words of a BBC reporter with the Alliance yesterday � "given no quarter".
My own experience of armies that give no quarter is that they intend to commit war
crimes � as has already happened in Mazar � and that this will only stiffen the
resolve of those men who escape the bloodbath. For it is w
orth remembering the moral basis upon which we are prosecuting this war. This is,
remember, a war "for civilisation". It is a war for "democracy". It is a war of "good
against evil". It is a war in which "you are either f
or us or against us".
So when we see the pictures of the next massacre, let's ask ourselves whose side we
are on. On the side of the victims or the murderers? And if the side of good happens
to coincide with the side of the murderers, what doe
s that make us? We're hearing a lot about the Allied success in the war. But the war
has only just begun.
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