| Atrocities of the Soviet Union and its allies in Afghanistan | |
|---|---|
| Part ofSoviet–Afghan War | |
 An Afghan village left in ruins after being destroyed bySoviet forces | |
| Location | Afghanistan |
| Date | 1979–1989 |
| Target | Afghan citizens,Afghan mujahideen |
Attack type | Genocide (alleged),forced displacement,carpet bombing,sexual violence,massacre,crimes against humanity |
| Deaths | 562,000[1] to 2,000,000 |
| Injured | 3,000,000[2] |
| Victims | 5,000,000 externally displaced 2,000,000 internally displaced |
| Perpetrators | Soviet Armed Forces Afghan Armed Forces |
| Motive | Counterinsurgency,Sovietization,Islamophobia |
Atrocity crimes in the Soviet–Afghan War were systematically perpetrated on a large scale by the Soviet Union and its allies from 1979 to 1989, with several scholars and academics concluding that the Soviet military forces carried out a campaign ofgenocide against theAfghan people.[3][4] The war resulted in the deaths of between 1,000,000 and 3,000,000 Afghans.[5] Estimates of Afghan civilian deaths vary from 562,000[6] to 2,000,000.[7][8]Human Rights Watch concluded that the Soviet Red Army and the Afghan Army perpetrated war crimes andcrimes against humanity in Afghanistan, intentionally targeting civilians and civilian areas for attack, and killing and torturing prisoners.[9] Several historians and scholars went further, stating that the Afghans were victims ofgenocide by the Soviet Union.[10]
Afghan presidentMohammed Daoud Khan was deposed and murdered in 1978'sSaur Revolution by theKhalqist faction ofPeople's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), who subsequently established their own government, theDemocratic Republic of Afghanistan.[11] Political scientistBarnett Rubin wrote, "Khalq used mass arrests, torture, and secret executions on a scale Afghanistan had not seen since the time ofAbdur Rahman Khan, and probably not even then".[12] After gaining power, theKhalqists unleashed a campaign of "red terror", killing more than 27,000 people in thePul-e-Charkhi prison, prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.[11] Political scientistOlivier Roy estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 people disappeared during the Taraki–Amin period.[13]
After Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, deposing and killingHafizullah Amin inOperation Storm-333 and installingBabrak Karmal as General Secretary, the brutality of communists intensified. The army of the Soviet Union killed large numbers of Afghans, attempting to suppress resistance from theAfghan mujahideen.[3] Numerous mass murders were perpetrated by the Soviet Army during the summer of 1980.[14] Soviet forces also launched chemical attacks against civilian populations. During the 1980s, the communist PDPA regime also killed and tortured thousands of individuals in thePul-e-Charkhi prison.[15]
Several massacres were reported by the Soviet Army. In the September 1982Padkhwab-e Shana massacre, the Soviet Army threw a mix ofgasoline,pentrite andtrinitrotoluene[16] inside aqanat where locals were hiding, and then ignited an explosion, killing them. 105 people were killed in the crime, including children, old people and combatants.[17] In the October 1983Kulchabat, Bala Karz and Mushkizi massacre, up to 360 people were gathered at the three village squares and shot, including 20 girls and over a dozen older people.[17][18][19] In March 1984, a hundred civilians were massacred in two villages in theKohistanat District; Dash-e-Bolokhan and Dash-e-Sulukhan; while 40 civilians were killed in Zirvq village,Urgun District, in November 1984.[19] In the December 1984Kunduz massacre, in the village of Haji Rahmatullah in theKunduz Province, around 250 civilians were reportedly killed[20][21] in what was described as Soviet reprisals against civilians foranti-communist resistance members and their military actions aimed against the Soviet Army.[20] In April 1985, in theLaghman massacre in the villages of Kas-Aziz-Khan, Charbagh, Bala Bagh, Sabzabad, Mamdrawer, Haider Khan and Pul-i-Joghi[22] in theLaghman Province, between 500[20] and 1,000[23] civilians were murdered in what was described as Soviet reprisals against civilians foranti-communist resistance members and their military actions aimed against the Soviet Army.[20]
We were ordered by our officers that when we attack a village, not one person must be left alive to tell the tale. If we refuse to carry out these orders, we get it in the neck ourselves.
The army of the Soviet Union killed large numbers of Afghans to suppress their resistance. In one notable incident the Soviet Army committed mass killing of civilians in the summer of 1980.[3] To separate the Mujahideen from the local populations and eliminate their support, the Soviet army killed many civilians, drove many more Afghans from their homes, and usedscorched-earth tactics to prevent their return. They used booby traps, mines, and chemical substances throughout the country.[3] The Soviet army indiscriminately killed combatants and non-combatants to terrorize local populations into submission.[3] The provinces ofNangarhar,Ghazni, Laghman,Kunar, Zabul, Kandahar, Badakhshan, Logar,Paktia andPaktika witnessed extensive depopulation programmes by the Soviet forces.[25]
Overall, between 6.5 and 11.5% of Afghanistan's population is estimated to have perished in the war.[26] Anti-government forces were also responsible for some casualties. Rocket attacks on Kabul's residential areas caused more than 4,000 civilian deaths in 1987 according to the UN's Ermacora.[27] Scholar Antonio Giustozzi estimates 150,000 to 180,000 mujahedeen casualties, of which half of them died.[28] He also puts the fatalities of the communist-allied Democratic Republic of Afghanistan at over 58,000 by 1989.[29]
The Soviet forces abducted Afghan women in helicopters while flying in the country in search of Mujahideen.[30][31][32] In November 1980 a number of such incidents had taken place in various parts of the country, including Laghman and Kama. Soviet soldiers as well as KhAD agents kidnapped young women from the city of Kabul and the areas of Darul Aman and Khair Khana, near the Soviet garrisons, to rape them.[33] Women who were taken and raped by Soviet soldiers were considered 'dishonoured' by their families if they returned home.[34] Deserters from the Soviet Army in 1984 also reported the atrocities by Soviet troops on Afghan women and children, including rape.[35]
46% of all Afghan fatalities were killed by Soviet bombardments of cities and villages,[36] amounting to 400,000 civilian deaths, meaning that, on average, 26 civilians were killed per each killed Soviet soldier.[37] In one case in October 1984, 300 families fleeing to Pakistan were bombed by Soviet forces inChaghcharan,Ghor Province.[38] Hospitals were bombed in 1981 in Ostoma, and again in 1982 and 1984. Some of the hospitals removed their insignia of theRed Cross to avoid being the target of theSoviet Air Force.[39]
Irrigation systems, crucial to agriculture in Afghanistan'sarid climate, were destroyed byaerial bombing andstrafing by Soviet or government forces. In the worst year of the war, 1985, well over half of all the farmers who remained in Afghanistan had their fields bombed, and over one quarter had their irrigation systems destroyed and their livestock shot by Soviet or government troops, according to a survey conducted by Swedish relief experts.[41]
The scorched-earth strategy implemented by theSoviet Air Force consisted ofcarpet bombing of cities and indiscriminate bombings that destroyed entire villages. Millions ofland-mines were planted by Soviet military across Afghanistan. Around 90% ofKandahar's inhabitants were de-populated, as a result of Soviet atrocities during the war.[42]
Everything was the target in the country, from cities, villages, up to schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, factories and orchards. Soviet tactics included targeting areas which showed support for the Mujahideen, and forcing the populace to flee the rural territories the communists were unable to control. Half of Afghanistan's 24,000 villages were destroyed by the end of the war.[43] Rosanne Klass compared the extermination campaigns of the Soviet military to the carnage unleashed during theMongol invasion of Afghanistan in the 13th century.[44]
The population of Afghanistan's second largest city, Kandahar, was reduced from 200,000 before the war to no more than 25,000 inhabitants, following a months-long campaign ofcarpet bombing andbulldozing by the Soviets and Afghan communist soldiers in 1987.[45]Land mines had killed 25,000 Afghans during the war and another 10–15 million land mines, most planted by Soviet and government forces, were left scattered throughout the countryside.[46] TheInternational Committee of the Red Cross estimated in 1994 that it would take 4,300 years to remove all the Soviet land mines in Afghanistan, which continued to kill hundreds of people on yearly basis.[47]
A great deal of damage was done to the civilian children population by land mines.[48] A 2005 report estimated 3–4% of the Afghan population were disabled due to Soviet and government land mines. In the city ofQuetta, a survey of refugee women and children taken shortly after the Soviet withdrawal found child mortality at 31%, and over 80% of the children refugees to be unregistered. Of children who survived, 67% were severely malnourished, withmalnutrition increasing with age.[49]
5 million Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran, 1/3 of the prewar population of the country, and another 2 million were displaced within the country, making itone of the largest refugee crises in history. In the 1980s, half of all refugees in the world were Afghan.[41] In his report,Felix Ermacora, theUN Special Rapporteur to Afghanistan, enumerated 32,755 killed civilians, 1,834 houses and 74 villages destroyed, and 3,308 animals killed in the first nine months of 1985.[50] Data cited by theWorld Bank shows that Afghanistan's population declined from 13.4 million (1979) to 11.8 million (1989) during the decade of Soviet occupation.[51]
In addition to fatalities, 1.2 million Afghans were disabled (Mujahideen, government soldiers and noncombatants) and 3 million maimed or wounded (primarily noncombatants).[2]
There have also been numerous reports of illegalchemical weapons, includingmycotoxins, being used by Soviet forces in Afghanistan, often indiscriminately against civilians.[52] Instances include pouring poisonous chemicals into an underground irrigation channel in Padkhwab-e-Shana in 1982; bombs with poisonous gas killing cattle inQargha and Uzbin; bombs whose explosion shatters chemicals over people's skin, burning it.[19]
Amnesty International concluded that the communist-controlled Afghan government used widespreadtorture against inmates (officials, teachers, businessmen and students suspected of having ties to the rebels) in interrogation centers in Kabul, run by theKhAD, who were beaten, subjected toelectric shocks, burned with cigarettes and that some of their hair was pulled out. Some died from these harsh conditions. Women of the prisoners were forced to watch or were locked up in the cells with the corpses. The Soviets were accused of supervising these tortures.[53][54]
The Soviet soldiers werelooting from the dead in Afghanistan, including stealing money, jewelry and clothes.[55] During the Red Army withdrawal in February 1989, 30 to 40 military trucks crammed with Afghan historical treasures crossed into the Soviet Union, under orders from GeneralBoris Gromov. He cut an antique Tekke carpet stolen fromDarul Aman Palace into several pieces and gave it to his acquaintances.[56]
Numerous scholars, researchers and academics have concluded that theSoviet military perpetrated a genocide of Afghans during theSoviet–Afghan War.[3][4] These include American professorSamuel Totten,[57] Australian professorPaul R. Bartrop,[57] scholars fromYale Law School including W. Michael Reisman and Charles Norchi,[58] writer and human rights advocate Rosanne Klass,[7] political scientistAdam Jones,[59] Professor of Russian History at Tel Aviv University Yaacov Ro'i,[60] and scholar Mohammed Kakar.[3]Louis Dupree stated that Afghans were victims of "migratory genocide" implemented bySoviet military.[42] Averagelife expectancy in Afghanistan fell to 33 years in 1984.[61] SociologistHelen Fein wrote in an article published in 1993:
"Afghans became victims regardless of whether they fled or surrendered. This is particularly reflected in the indiscriminate Soviet bombing of refugee caravans and villages. Similarly, the victims of massacres were not protected by their surrender to Soviet troops. Thus, the destruction of Afghans was not incidental to military objectives but was a strategic objective in and of itself. ... The intent to destroy theAfghan people, without distinction between combatants and non-combatants, was demonstrated by the persistent pattern of mass killing and maiming of people in Afghanistan and the destruction of the environment and food producing areas by the Soviet Union and theDRA."[62]
Afghan-American economistNake M. Kamrany described the actions of the Soviet and government forces as "massive terrorism andcultural genocide".[63] Critics describe the effect of the war onAfghan culture as working in three stages: first, the center of customary Afghan culture, Islam, was pushed aside; second, Soviet patterns of life, especially amongst the young, were imported; third, shared Afghan cultural characteristics were destroyed by the emphasis on the so-calledSoviet nationalities system, with the outcome that the country was split into different ethnic groups, with no language, religion, or culture in common.[64]
The war resulted in the deaths of between 1,000,000[65] and 3,000,000 Afghans.[5] Civilian death and destruction from the war was massive and detrimental. Estimates of Afghan civilian deaths vary from 562,000[6] to 2,000,000.[7][8] By one estimate, at least 800,000 Afghans were killed during the Soviet occupation.[66]
Rudolph Rummel, an analyst of political killings, estimated that between 1979 and 1987, Soviet forces were responsible for 250,000democidal killings during the war and that the Soviet-backed PDPA government was responsible for 228,000 democidal killings. He also assumed that overall a million people died during the war.[1] Noor Ahmed Khalidi calculated that 876,825 Afghans were killed up until 1987.[67] HistorianJohn W. Dower somewhat agrees with this estimate, citing 850,000 civilian fatalities, while the military fatalities "certainly totaled over 100,000".[68] Marek Sliwinski estimated the number of war deaths to be much higher, at a median of 1.25 million, or 9% of the entire pre-war Afghan population.[69] Scholars John Braithwaite and Ali Wardak accept this in their estimate of 1.2 million dead Afghans.[70] However, Siddieq Noorzoy presents an even higher figure of 1.71 million deaths during the Soviet-Afghan war.[71][72]Human Rights Watch organization concluded that the Soviet Red Army and its communist-allied Afghan Army perpetrated war crimes andcrimes against humanity in Afghanistan, intentionally targeting civilians and civilian areas for attack, and killing and torturing prisoners.[9]
'I can't hide the fact that women and children have been killed,' Nikolay Movchan, 20, a Ukrainian who was a sergeant and headed a grenade-launching team, said in an interview later. 'And I've heard of Afghan women being raped.'
