AFGHANISTAN: AFGHAN GOVERNMENT NOT DOING ENOUGH TO PREVENT CIVILIAN CASUALTIES – PAPER
Posted by warvictims on July 16, 2008
By BBC Monitoring
Excerpt from an editorial in Dari entitled: “Who is responsible for civilian casualties?” published by Afghan newspaper Daily Afghanistan, part of the Afghanistan newspaper group on 12 July
Civilian casualties have increased by 66 per cent in the country this year. Taleban suicide attacks and coalition air strikes have increased the number.
[Passage omitted: NATO bombing of a wedding party in Nangarhar Province is condemned]
A delegation which visited the area claimed that it had seen dead bodies and visited the injured in hospital. This shows that claims made by NATO forces that those killed during the operation were a number of armed Taleban, were baseless. As usual, NATO did not took responsibility for killing the civilians. Neither did it accept responsibility for killing 21 civilians in Konar Province. Whenever they cause an incident of this kind, they argue that their targets were armed insurgents.
In a strong reaction to the civilian casualties, the Afghan government said that the civilian casualties were intolerable. It has, however, never adopted the necessary measures to prevent civilian casualties while it can put those involved in civilian killings on trial, because it is an elected legitimate government. If there are no regulations for the foreign forces in Afghanistan, the level of civilian casualties will increase. It will also make people lose hope about the government, because the Afghan government is responsible for protecting the lives and property of people in the country. It is not logical that the Afghan government expresses regret while coalition forces deny killing of innocent people, including children, women and elders.
Afghanistan has lost its direction at this moment. It does not know where to go. The high level of unrest, deterioration of the people’s economic condition and the presence of administrative corruption are halting the government’s advance towards the peace and prosperity of people. The people of Afghanistan are absolutely uncertain about their future. The main factor behind this uncertainty is the lack of care of the coalition forces [about civilian targets], as well as violence by suicide bombers and terrorists. Unfortunately, this is continuing. With this being the case, yet more families are going to mourn their loved ones.
