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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SirRealist who wrote (15908)	1/9/2002 3:59:16 AM
From: SirRealist	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Tuesday January 8 10:43 AM ET Muslim Body Wants U.N. Probe of Afghan Deaths DUBAI (Reuters) - The world's largest Muslim body said Tuesday it had asked the United Nations (news - web sites) to probe the deaths of hundreds of foreign prisoners in Afghanistan (news - web sites). The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said in a statement that its secretary-general, Abdelouahed Belkaziz, had demanded a probe into the ``massacre of prisoners of war who had surrendered to Northern Alliance forces, following assurances that they will be well treated and handed over to the U.N..'' U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites), in a written reply to the request, had said that such an investigation would only be possible after the formation of an Afghan human rights commission, which the U.N. would help set up, the statement said. ``But even after it is established, such a commission would not be able to work effectively to investigate such a highly complex incident except after some time,'' said the OIC statement sent to Reuters from the organization's headquarters in Saudi Arabia. The Northern Alliance has said that 600 prisoners, including Pakistanis, Arabs and Chechens, and more than 40 of its fighters were killed in three days of fighting which erupted after the inmates staged a revolt in a fortress in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif in November. Television footage showed of members of Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al- Qaeda fighters sprawled in trenches and littering the courtyards of the Qala-i-Jangi fortress, where they were held. British television has shown video footage of Westerners, believed to be British and U.S. troops, firing machine guns and rifles alongside Afghan alliance fighters at the prisoners. Human rights organizations and the U.N. human rights chief Mary Robinson have called for an international inquiry into the killing of the prisoners and expressed concern about other reported massacres in Afghanistan. Robinson has said an investigation could be led by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and her staff in Afghanistan was already ``mapping out patterns of massacres.'' She has also expressed concern about the ``substantial toll of deaths and injuries'' among Afghan civilians caused by U.S. bombing, and destruction of hospitals and old people's homes. dailynews.yahoo.com