Doubts persist about whether an individual or a group killed 16 villagers in Panjwai. The accused soldier was whisked out of the country. The government and parliament have called for his trial in Afghanistan.
Doubts persist about whether an individual or a group killed 16 villagers in Panjwai. The accused soldier was whisked out of the country. The government and parliament have called for his trial in Afghanistan.The name of the American soldier who is accused of murdering the villagers of Najibian and Alokozai has been leaked to the media.
The 38-year-old soldier, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, has been taken back to the United States.
The incident has damaged relations between the Karzai government and the US. The two countries have been attempting to finalise a strategic partnership treaty governing relations after 2014.
President Hamid Karzai has complained that the US did not cooperate with his own government’s investigation of the massacre. He said the army chief has reported that the Afghan investigation team did not receive the cooperation that they expected from the US.
Karzai met with the families of the victims from two villages in Panjwai district and admitted he had failed to prevent the deaths of civilians. “I don’t have the answer and I am guilty,” he said in response to questions on why the incident was allowed to happen.
The accused US soldier is alleged to have walked out of his camp with a gun on the night of Mar11 and shot dead sleeping civilians, most of them children and women. A 3-star US retired General talking under condition of anonymity told Killid that “no soldier can leave a military base without going through several check points.”
Karzai has called on NATO and ISAF to leave rural outposts and withdraw to their main bases within 2013.
One of the family members told the president: “Today the Americans come to my house and slap me and my spouse. I want to know who should be answerable. Do you have an answer? Answer me why does it happen?”
Another person who has lost 11 family members said: “This is not the work of one person. One person cannot do this action. Today it happened to me and tomorrow is your turn and finally they will commit the same crime against everyone.”
President Karzai has concluded the killings were not the work of “one soldier”. A parliamentary delegation has submitted a report saying 15 US soldiers were involved in an “organised and mobilised manner”. Karzai said: “The statements show that more than one soldier were involved in the event.” The statements, accounts of eye-witnesses, seem to strengthen the allegation that the Panjwai murders were executed by more than one Bale!
Eye witnesses
Haji Abdullah is a resident of the Najibian village. He told the media: “At midnight I heard the sound of explosions. Soon after that I saw that the helicopters of foreign troops were flying in the area and the sound of firing was heard for half an hour.”
The villages in the Zangabad area are roughly half a kilometre from the base the American soldier Bales was deployed to protect Afghan civilians, according to US-NATO commander General John Allen.
Karzai has called for “full investigation”. “Our differences and upset with America (the US) is clear. It is our and people’s view the action was not of a crazy man but has been accomplished with a purpose. Afghanistan requests a full investigation and punishment for all whose who are involved in the incident.”
US officials have continued to insist that according to an agreement with the interim government US citizens will not be put on trial in Afghanistan. Members of Parliament (MPs) and people have expressed their disagreement. Shukria Barakzai, head of the defence commission in Parliament observed, “If such a document has been signed, the signatories are national traitors.”
Political observers point out that the military pact that was abrogated by Parliament, and hence the treaty has no validity.
The MPs have called for the trial of the accused soldier in Afghanistan. General Curtis Scaparrotti who is the second most senior NATO forces commander in Afghanistan said Bales has been taken to the US “in order to carry out proper investigation and justice process …”
In a reply to a question on whether Bales’s transfer to the US will affect relations with Kabul, he said, “We had informed the government of Afghanistan about the transfer of the soldier out of Afghanistan. The response of the Afghan government was that the issue is comprehensible.”
Abdul Khaliq Barakzai, MP, commented that if the soldier was tried inside Afghanistan the people would believe that the US really wants to deliver justice.
Naeem Lalai, MP from Kandahar, believed the way in which the soldier has been “sneaked” out of the country would only add to people’s anger.
Shakiba Hashemi, MP, told Parliament that she believed the statements issued by Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar and an American commander she did not identify, are false. It is not possible that only one soldier was involved in the massacre of people of Panjwai, she said. “Three types of weapons were used in the massacre” which she said was carried out by two groups of American soldiers, some 15-20 soldiers, supported by two helicopters.
Three soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA) have told the parliamentary delegation that they had informed the US commander that US soldiers had gone out of the base, but he ignored them. The US has to reveal what happened in Panjwai.
