From: Barry Stoller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Massacre expected at Kunduz HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- Reuters (with additional material by Ananova). 20 November 2001. U.N. Says It Can't Handle Taliban Surrender at Kunduz. UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations said on Tuesday it did not have the means to handle the surrender of thousands of Taliban forces under siege in Kunduz and urged the forces surrounding the key northern Afghan town to respect the laws of war in dealing with them. U.N. officials said they had been formally contacted in Islamabad late Monday by two individuals -- one of them a religious leader -- who said Taliban commanders trapped inside Kunduz wanted to surrender to the United Nations. But they said the world body had no forces on the ground in Afghanistan and therefore could not agree to accept the surrendering troops. "It is evident that the United Nations has no means, is not present on the ground, and simply cannot, unfortunately, accede to this request," said Lakhdar Brahimi, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative for Afghanistan. He said he had asked his deputy, Francesc Vendrell, to contact the Northern Alliance -- whose forces were surrounding Kunduz -- and urge it to respect international humanitarian and human rights laws and "treat this situation with as much humanity as possible." Vendrell is in the Afghan capital Kabul, occupied by Northern Alliance troops since the Taliban regime abandoned the city last week. Annan's spokesman said the U.N. leader was "acutely concerned" about the safety and well-being of combatants who had either surrendered or wished to do so in accordance with international law. "The secretary-general strongly appeals to all parties to respect the Geneva Conventions and comply with international humanitarian and human rights law," spokesman Fred Eckhard said. More than 10,000 Taliban fighters, pinned into the Taliban's last remaining redoubt apart from their southern stronghold of Kandahar, have been seeking safe passage out of Kunduz under the umbrella of the United Nations. Alliance General Abdul Rashid Dostum told Reuters he was expecting the arrival of two Taliban commanders to discuss safe passage for their fighters. In Washington, however, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he opposed any deal that would let Kunduz's defenders escape. "Any idea that those people ... should end up in some sort of a negotiation which would allow them to leave the country and go off and destabilize other countries and engage in terrorist attacks on the United States is something that I would certainly do everything I could to prevent," he said. He said the US is not looking to negotiate peace with Taliban forces who want to give up fighting in the besieged norther city of Kunduz. "The United States is not inclined to negotiate surrenders, nor are we in a position, with relatively small numbers of forces on the ground, to accept prisoners," he said. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews with continuing coverage of WWIII _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
