Physicians for Human Rights [PHR]

War Crimes Video

Afghanistan’s Srebrenica: Under the leadership of CIA agent, notorious Afghan warlord, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, 2,000 surrendered Taliban fighters were reportedly suffocated in container trucks by Afghan forces operating jointly with the U.S. in November 2001, buried in mass graves in the Dasht-e-Leili desert near Sheberghan, Afghanistan, with the full knowledge of, and later vigorous cover up by, the Bush administration.

War Crimes and the White House: The Bush Administration’s Cover-Up of the Dasht-e-Leili Massacre (July 2009)

Video Transcript – War Crimes and the White House: The Bush Administration’s Cover-Up of the Dasht-e-Leili Massacre (305.7 KB)

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has issued a call for a criminal probe in the wake of a major New York Times story by James Risen with new evidence that the Bush Administration impeded at least three federal investigations into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan in 2002. (“U.S. Inaction Seen After Taliban P.O.W.s Died” – NYTimes.com http://bit.ly/wHwpc)

PHR is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate why the Bush Administration impeded an FBI criminal probe of the alleged Dasht-e-Leili massacre.

According to US government documents obtained by PHR, as many as 2,000 surrendered Taliban fighters were reportedly suffocated in container trucks by Afghan forces operating jointly with the US in November 2001. The bodies were reportedly buried in mass graves in the Dasht-e-Leili desert near Sheberghan, Afghanistan. Notorious Afghan warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who was reportedly on the CIA payroll, is allegedly responsible for the massacre.

This video, detailing nearly eight years of advocacy and investigation by Physicians for Human Rights, explores the events surrounding the massacre and subsequent cover-up.

Featuring Physicians for Human Rights’ CEO Frank Donaghue, Campaign Against Torture Director Nathaniel Raymond, and Deputy Director Susannah Sirkin. Written, directed, and narrated by Jared Voss.

For more information and to sign our petition calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to let the FBI do its job, visit http://AfghanMassGrave.org.

Frank Donaghue on the Dasht-e-Leili Mass Grave in Afghanistan (December 2008)

Investigative reports by McClatchy newspapers, as well as PHR’s own findings, have revealed that large sections of the Dasht-e-Leili mass grave in Northern Afghanistan have been dug up and removed.

Find out more at http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/statement-2008-12-11.html

About Physicians for Human Rights Blog Website

In November 2001, as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners are believed to have been killed in container trucks by US-allied Afghan troops and buried in a mass grave in Dasht-e-Leili, Afghanistan. These Afghan troops were operating jointly with American forces, who were allegedly present at the scene of the crime. PHR investigators discovered the mass grave in 2002.

Under the auspices of the UN, PHR’s International Forensic Program conducted an initial examination of part of the site, exhumed fifteen remains, and conducted autopsies on three individual remains, and found that the likely cause of death was consistent with suffocation.

Since 2002, PHR has been calling for the site to be secured, protection of the witnesses and a full investigation of the alleged massacre. Despite these appeals, Afghan eyewitnesses were tortured, murdered and disappeared, and sections of the mass grave site have been dug up and removed.

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