英国『インデペンデント』紙は、北部同盟兵士たちの“蛮行”を現地ルポ
翻訳者 佐藤雅彦 ２００１・１１・３０
戦争の死体から金歯を抜くのに精出す現地人兵士……。なんだか「ユダヤ人の死体から石鹸を作っているドイツ人」という“都市伝説”を思い出してしまいます。あえて“都市伝説”と呼ぶのは、この“戦争犠牲者から脂肪を抽出して石鹸を作る”という話が、じつは第一次世界大戦の頃から、英国でドイツの国際的評判を貶めるために流布されたデマだったからです。このあたりの事情については、第一次大戦直後に英国の貴族出身の政治家が内部告発した本が出ています。（表題などは忘れてしまいましたが……。）
我々はもちろん、アフガニスタンのこうした修羅場のようなルポを読めば、現地兵士に嫌悪感を抱くでしょう。しかし、戦場の絶対状況のなかで、究極の“貨幣”である黄金を見付けて、死体の口の中を棒でかきまわしている兵士を、我々は責められるでしょうか？この状況だけについて言えば、生きている人間の臓器に値段を付けて売買しているインドその他の“移植医療”や、まだ意識があるとしか考えられぬ「脳死」患者に――臓器を摘出する際に異常な血圧上昇が起こるのを止めるため――麻酔をかけて臓器を刈り取っている日本その他の“先進国”の状況のほうが、よほど残酷だと言えましょう。それより何より、「ひなぎく狩り」などというフザケた名前がついた「真空爆弾」などで大量虐殺を行なっている米国などのほうが、格段に残虐で冷酷無比です。
ヴェトナム戦争での枯れ葉剤使用といい、湾岸戦争での真空爆弾や劣化ウラン弾使用といい、人種差別的な人命軽視が根底になければ実行できない類の大量破壊兵器です。（枯れ葉剤は、人体への毒性がわかっていたのに使用されたし、劣化ウラン弾は“汚い核兵器”といえるでしょう。） 今回の戦争もそういう人種差別意識に支えられていることは、いまさら言うまでもないことです。英国の最近400年ほどの南アジアに対する外交政策をみれば、人種差別が基調になってきたことは否定すべくもありません。
それゆえ、『インデペンデント』紙の今回の“死体の金歯どろぼう”報道は、今後のアフガニスタン／南アジア対策を見ていくうえで看過できない問題を抱えています。「北部同盟だって、こういう野蛮な行為をはたらく“劣等人種”なのだから、やはり我々アングロアメリカン帝国が“属州”として“保護”していくしかない」――というような世論が作られていく可能性は大いにあるわけです。
下記に、この記事を含む英米・北部同盟“連合軍”の戦争犯罪を告発したデータ類を掲げておきます。（省略）
我々は偽りの“パックス・アングロブリタニカ”の下で「暗黒時代」に向かおうとしているのかも知れません。ヨーロッパ世界はキリスト教会の支配のもとで１０００年間の「暗黒時代」を経験し、これは文明の発展に想像を絶する損害を及ぼしました。これを打破した人間中心主義は、それを標榜してきた米国の裏切りによって歴史的停滞に突入しつつあります。
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それにしても、このように無茶苦茶な人種差別・大量虐殺とあからさまな“帝国主義”擁護の風潮が台頭するなかで、それになびいていくしかないなんて……。日本の50年間は何だったんでしょうか？
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INFORMATION TIMES: http://www.InformationTimes.com America's Daily Internet
Newspaper - Washington DC, USA
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THE
INDEPENDENT - London, UK - Thursday, 29 November 2001
Bush-Bliar Agents Steal Gold Teeth From Dead Bodies
Photo:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1129-02.htm
Photo:
http://www.antiwar.com
"Northern alliance fighters try to pull out a golden tooth from the
body of a pro-Taleban fighter in a fortress near
azar-e-Sharif, northern Afghanistan, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2001.Several hundred
prisoners, mostly foreign fighters fighting on the Taleban side captured
part of the prison fortress Sunday,headquarters of Afghan warlord General
Dostum, and were killed during three days of fighting which involved British
and U.S.special forces."--(AP Photo/Darko Bandic).
How Our Afghan Allies Applied The Geneva Convention http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InfoTimes/message/1202http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/
story.jsp?story=107369
Prisoners massacred, the dead plundered for boots, guns and even gold teeth
JUSTIN HUGGLER in Mazar-i-Sharif
The bodies of the dead lay everywhere. Some were laid out in roads to be taken away, others were still lying on the ground where they died, slowly beginning to decay in the morning sun.
An Afghan soldier leant over a body, his hands working intently in the dead man's mouth, clutching a long thin instrument. He was trying to wrench the fillings out of the corpse's teeth even as the flesh began to rot around them.
The outside world got to see what the war in Afghanistan was really like yesterday. For the first time reporters were allowed into Qalai Janghi, the old mud-walled fort outside Mazar-i-Sharif where hundreds of Taliban prisoners of war had been killed in a pitched battle with American and British special forces and Afghan soldiers under command of General Abdul Rashid Dostum.
Inside the fortress reporters saw a scene of devastation. Rubble was piled high where buildings had collapsed. The charred remains of trees had to be cleared away from the entrance before the bodies could be taken away. The Americans had bombed the quarters from the air. Yesterday the Afghan soldiers were busily stripping the bodies of everything they could find. One soldier, his head wrapped in a white turban stepped over the dead, swinging the boots he had taken from their feet. Another dressed in a long blue Afghan shirt carried four machine guns he had taken.
Several of the bodies were recognisably Arabs and Pakistani. The foreign Taliban volunteers believed to be loyal to Osama bin Laden but who surrendered were brought to the fort from the besieged city of Mazar-i-Sharif..
Amnesty International yesterday demanded a full inquiry into why hundreds of prisoners of war who should have been protected under the Geneva Convention were slaughtered .
The Americans insisted they only bombed Qalai Janghi because their own personnel were under threat. They said the Taliban prisoners seized weapons and attacked their Afghan captors along with CIA agents who were interrogating them. Yesterday it was confirmed a CIA agent named Johnny Michael "Mike" Spann, 32, was among the fort's dead.
General Dostum striding through the slaughtered yesterday in a long flowing brown shirt and leather jacket, insisted his soldiers had treated the prisoners humanely. As he spoke, a soldier kicked the body of a man who was lying on his side to make sure he was dead. The body rolled over to reveal that the man's arms had been tied together behind his back. Several of the dead men's arms had been tied together above the elbow, some with their own black turbans. General Dostum publicly denied the practice but an Afghan soldier under his command admitted he and his comrades had been tying the prisoner's hands when the fighting started.
Reporters inside counted 150 bodies yesterday. Between 300 and 400 foreign Taliban volunteers were seen surrendering to General Dostum's troops. They are all believed to have been brought to Qalai Janghi, which means more than 150 bodies are missing. Many of them could have been lying in the rubble in the fortress. There were few Taliban survivors. General Dostum warned reporters not to wander the scene of the battle, because he claimed, two of the foreign Taliban were still alive and could be hiding in the fortress posing as dead.
At least one Pakistani Taliban was captured alive in Mazar-i-Sharif apparently after he escaped during the fighting. He has since disappeared and nobody expects him to be seen alive again. Olivier Martin of the International Red Cross who was inside Qalai Janghi when the fighting began yesterday described how he had to flee the battle. He had gone to the fortress to ensure they were being looked after in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
"We heard some shooting start, and then they started firing rockets,'' Mr Martin said. "We climbed onto the roof where we had to take shelter beside some of General Dostum's troops who were firing back at the Taliban.''
By that time he said it was clear that the Taliban prisoners were heavily armed. Mr Martin said he was not able to see how the violence started, but General Dostum claimed the revolt had begun after a grenade attack by Taliban prisoners killed two of his best generals
Yesterday there was no explanation on how the prisoners managed to get their hands on the arsenal to enable them to hold out for three days. The secrets of what and whom really started the killing, may have died with them.
[c 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd]
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INTERNET-WEB LINKS:
Special Internet-Web Links http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InfoTimes/links
How Our Afghan Allies Applied The Geneva Convention http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InfoTimes/message/1202 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=107369 Prisoners massacred, the dead plundered for boots, guns and even gold teeth
Bush-Bliar Agents Steal Gold Teeth From Dead Bodies Photo: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1129-02.htm Photo: http://www.antiwar.com
We Are the War Criminals Now http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1129-05.htm 'Everything we have believed in since the Second World War goes by the board as we pursue our own exclusive war'
There is No Excuse for This Savagery We Too Are Responsible for the Massacre at Qala-i-Jhangi Fort http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1129-02.htm
Playing the Great Game http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1128-02.htm As the Afghan War Reaches a Climax, Questions About the Slaughter of Prisoners Cannot Be Brushed Aside
Blood, Tears, Terror and Tragedy Behind the Lines by Robert Fisk, the only Western journalist in Taliban-held Kandahar province http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1126-02.htm
The War for Oil Subtext in Afghanistan http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1125-06.htm
Afghan Uprising Raises Questions http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30297-2001Nov28.html
"QALAI JANGHI FORTRESS, Afghanistan -- Corpses with bound hands,dust
mixed with dried blood, spent mortar rounds littering fields where horses
grazed: No part of this massive fortress was left unstained by death in
one of the most ferocious battles of the war on the Taliban." "In
a field strewn with about 50 bodies, an Associated Press
photographer Wednesday saw that some corpses had their arms tied with cloth
? contrary to claims by a key northern alliance commander that none had
been tied up."
U.S. Investigates 'Execution' of 160 Taliban Near Kandahar http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=107385
"The Pentagon is investigating reports of the massacre of about 160
unarmed Taliban prisoners by American and Pakistani-backed opposition forces
who ignored US pleas not to kill them." "The unarmed Taliban
fighters were said to have been lined up and shot by Northern Alliance
soldiers, having been captured after fighting for the strategic southern
town of Takteh Pol, situated between the Pakistani border and the final
remaining Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. Those Taliban fighters who surrendered
immediately were not killed. An unnamed commander with the forces of Gul
Agha, a former mujahedin governor of Kandahar, said seven or eight US military
personnel who were filming the battle for the town tried to prevent the
executions but their requests were ignored."
U.S. Locates Possible Weapons Labs BUT NO EVIDENCE OF CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL OR NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOUND IN AFGHANISTAN http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/28/pentagon-usat.htm "More than 40 sites that might have been used to conduct research on chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been identified in Afghanistan, and some are still in Taliban hands, the top U.S. military commander for the region said Tuesday. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, said at a briefing in Tampa where the command is based that no evidence of such weapons has been found. He denied reports that samples of sarin, a deadly gas, had been found."
Afghanistan: Mazar-i-Sharif Inquiry Latest http://www.web.amnesty.org/web/news.nsf/WebAll/B2428D2A5AC79F0480256B130040E23A?OpenDocument
"Following reports that Amnesty International has been invited,by
the United Front, to investigate the killings of hundreds of prisoners
and others within Qala-i-Jhangi, a fort on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif,
the organization has said that it is ready to consider sending an observer
to monitor an inquiry and to suggest forensic and other experts for it."
Amnesty International Calls for Urgent Inquiry into Violence in Qala-i-Jhangi
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/2001/afghanistan11272001.html
"Following news reports of hundreds of killings during clashes within
the Qala-i-Jhangi, a fort on the outskirts ofMazar-i-Sharif, Amnesty International
is calling on the United Front, the United States and the United Kingdom
to investigate these events."
HUMAN RIGHTS FOUNDATION Note: Armed forces of the U.S., UK and United Front (Northern Alliance) have committed many barbarous massacres, illegal executions and horrible murders of Afghani children, women, men, senior citizens and refugees in Qala-e-Jhangi, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kunduz, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Kabul and several other parts of Afghanistan, but the Amnesty International's recent press statements urging the U.S., UK and United Front to investigate their own crimes against humanity are an international joke.
Only a Human Rights Solution Will Last http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/2001/afghanistan11262001.html
Tyrant Musharraf Abuses Human Rights in Pakistan http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/sasia/pakistan
European Union Should Oppose Human Rights Violations in India http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/11/euindia1121.htm