Afghanistan's new war crimes museum punts on still-powerful warlords

[maddezmom]

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Some of the perpetrators who came after the communists - warlords like Abdul Rashid Dostum and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar - were not as soundly defeated. Dostum remains an ally of the government, delivering many thousands of votes for President Hamid Karzai from his ethnic Uzbek followers. Hekmatyar, meanwhile, is now negotiating with the Karzai government after years of fighting alongside the Taliban.

"The situation in Afghanistan is still not fit to build such kinds of museums where the people come, and it's explained that this is (the victim of) Dostum or this is (the victim of) Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, because the security situation is not good," said Haq Dad Sharifi, the media representative for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) office in Faizabad. "We collect the information and give it to the government. If the government has the power, they can do something with the information."

Even if the museum mainly highlights the war crimes that are safest to discuss, it still marks one of the first attempts to raise the issue and spark a conversation.

Visitors sometimes come to Sharifi's office in Faizabad asking why the atrocity happened. The office educates them about Afghanistan history as well as current rights to "make sure it doesn't happen again."



Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/24/99602/afghanistans-new-war-crimes-museum.html#ixzz0xbVNSoH3


Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/24/99602/afghanistans-new-war-crimes-museum.html#ixzz0xbV6F3lJ