Democracy Now! Interview: US-Led Forces Accused of Executing Schoolchildren

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Wed Jan-06-10 01:06 PM
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Democracy Now! Interview: US-Led Forces Accused of Executing Schoolchildren

Edited on Wed Jan-06-10 01:09 PM by G_j

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/6/us_led_forces_accused_of_executing

US-Led Forces Accused of Executing Schoolchildren in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, hundreds have taken to the streets of Kabul and elsewhere to protest the US killing of civilians. The incident that has sparked the most outrage took place in eastern Kunar on December 27th, when ten Afghans, eight of them schoolchildren, were killed. According to the Times of London, US-led troops dragged innocent children from their beds and shot them during a nighttime raid. Afghan government investigators said the eight students were aged from eleven to seventeen, all but one of them from the same family.

Jerome, welcome to Democracy Now! Lay out the story for us. What is exactly being alleged happened?

JEROME STARKEY: Well, the Afghan investigators believe that an Americans unit—they’re not sure which one, possibly a company with —flew from Kabul to Narang district in Kunar province. They say—Assadullah Wafa, the former governor who led the investigation—they probably landed about two kilometers outside the village where these killings are alleged to have taken place and then walked on foot into the village.

They then say that when they got there—this is where the version of events vary. Some people say that the victims were killed in three separate buildings. Some say they were three separate rooms, all part of the same compound. What most of the people on the scene agree on, though, is that at least eight of them were schoolchildren enrolled in a local—in two schools, one—some in a local high school and some in a local primary school. One of the victims was apparently a local shepherd boy who was staying as a guest in the compound overnight. And the tenth victim was a farmer, a day laborer who was working on the nearby fields, who came out when he heard the shooting and was shot where he stood.

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AMY GOODMAN: You also spoke with the headmaster of the school, explaining his version of what happened?

JEROME STARKEY: That’s right. He was very keen to give the names of all of the students. He even gave what he said were their enrollment numbers, their registration numbers at the school, as sort of corroborating evidence that they were indeed students. I think even the United Nations’ investigations have confirmed that they believe at least some of the victims were enrolled in local schools. Now that doesn’t necessarily prove that they weren’t involved in any other nefarious sort of activities, but it does corroborate the fact that they were indeed children. And much of the outrage that this attack has caused comes from the fact that the victims were children, ranging from just eleven to seventeen years old. But the headmaster, as I said, he was also an uncle to about eight of the boys. These village communities often—families are very sort of interlinked. But he was very adamant to stress that the victims were innocent schoolchildren.

AMY GOODMAN: Were the kids handcuffed?

JEROME STARKEY: Well, this is one of the facts which is in dispute. But certainly, we spoke to the headmaster. We also spoke to another local called Jan Mohammed from the area. And both of them gave versions of events which suggested that some of the victims, at least some of the victims, had been handcuffed before they were shot. But this is where the exact details of what happened appear to break down, and not all the stories completely corroborate one another. Given the nature of the environment, we haven’t been able to travel there ourselves, and we’ve been relying on telephone interviews with people who are there and people who’ve visited the scene.
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*Jerome Starkey, the Times of London correspondent in Afghanistan.
Website: JeromeStarkey.com