Senators call for prosecution of mass killers

KABUL): A number of senators on Sunday demanded stringent punishment for the killers of 5,000 innocent people during the Soviet-backed communist regime.

As part of a war crimes investigation, the Netherlands prosecutor’s office on Wednesday released nearly 5,000 names of the Afghans tortured and killed in 1978 and 1979 by Afghan intelligence agents.

A senator from southern Ghazni province, Abdul Baqi Baryal, told the upper house many Afghans had been killed mercilessly during the Khalq and Parcham governments.

“The communists, posing as progressive and intellectual citizens, ruthlessly massacred Afghan religious scholars, tribal elders and commoners,” the parliamentarian alleged. 

He asked the government to implement transitional justice and bring to book all those involved in massacres and crimes against humanity. The intelligence officers of that time should be hanged, he demanded.

His colleague from Kandahar province, Bismillah Afghanmal, also accused the Khalq and Parcham governments of civilian massacres. “Both jihadi leaders and the present administration allowed the killers to go scot-free.”

Communist regime remnants were still holding high positions in different ministries, foreign missions and other government departments, Afghanmal noted. “The rulers should hold killers accountable, regardless of their ethnic affiliations.”

Balqis Roshan, a public representative from western Farah province, said all killers of defenseless civilians should be punished. “Killers should not be spared, whether they are communists, mujahidin or Taliban,” she added.

Deputy Chairman Mohammad Alam Ezedyar, who chaired the session, confirmed many Afghans had been killed during the Soviet invasion. “But we, following in mujahidin’s footsteps, should curse the killers of innocent people.”

He also urged the government to trace and prosecute the communist-era murderers. They should be awarded deterrent punishment to avert a recurrence of such crimes, he concluded. 

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