November 15, 2001
Amnesty Condemns Arms Supply to Afghan Alliance

By REUTERS

Filed at 5:47 a.m. ET

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Amnesty International castigated the international community on Thursday for supplying Afghanistan's main opposition Northern Alliance with weapons because it said its leaders had ``blood on their hands.''
The human rights group's general secretary, Irene Khan, also said nations which had already sold arms to the Alliance must share responsibility for the killing of Afghan civilians by the opposition faction.
``You see the pictures of those killed by the Northern Alliance. There are some countries who have provided those arms and those countries are responsible for what is happening,'' Khan told a news conference.
The Alliance, which is mainly made up of ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks and is distrusted by Afghanistan's Pashtun majority, took the capital Kabul earlier this week and is now advancing on several fronts against the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban.
``There are specific commanders in these groups who have been known to have committed massacres, who had a history of blood on their hands, and arms are being given to them,'' Khan said.
Western countries have urged the Alliance to respect the human rights of people in the areas it takes under its control. The European Union recently decided to ease a ban on arms sales to Afghanistan so that its member states could supply the Northern Alliance with arms.
Amnesty said the United States, Russia, Iran and other states also planned weapons deliveries to the Alliance.
Khan said Amnesty would normally have little information about arms transfers because they are generally shrouded in secrecy, but nations have been openly boasting about their recent arms deals in Afghanistan.
``In the context of Afghanistan there has been no problem collecting the information because countries and governments have taken pride in providing arms,'' Khan said.