The Hazara

by Katherine

(9th in a series. Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

What Faiz Ullah could have probably used, more than anything else, was an officer on his CSRT panel who had read The Kite Runner.

Ullah is an Afghan, from a village near the city of Bamiyan.  His prisoner # is 919, and his CSRT begins on the 28th page of this PDF. He is  accused of associating with the Taliban and Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), and of carrying messages for a Taliban intelligence agent and HIG commander. He replies as follows:

Personal Representative: He says he is not Taliban. The Taliban killed his uncle and brother in law. In his area the Taliban killed several hundred Shia’as. He has heard of HIG (Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin). He thinks they killed his mother.

Detainee: They took our land. They killed my mother. You can ask. This is true information. They killed my family. My wife said they came with a weapon and drew it on her. I asked the Red Cross to go and investigate if this was true or not. Ask my family….

I have respect for you because you saved our lives. If you people didn’t come, they would have killed us all. From my village, plus or minus two hundred Shia’s were killed. You can ask yourself. This is not a lie. If you people weren’t here to come and help us, we would have all died of hunger because you give us food. At our house we didn’t have even a little bit of oil. You can ask. Even my children were barefoot…Now my poor family have no food, they don’t have anything, and I was detained…I don’t know what happened to my family. I don’t know what happened to my children.

He is accused of laying mines for the HIG and the Taliban in the town of Madr:

Detainee: God knows that I don't know how to do all this. My hands are scarred by sickles, you can see my hands. My hands are a farmer's hands, marked by sickles. I don’t know how to do all of that. I wasn't a big person. I didn’t have all that power. You think about it yourself. When they beat us and they took our land. If the Americans hadn't come, they would have killed us all. At home we don't have fuel. In this country, look at the food we are given. If we could find fuel, then we couldn't salt; we find salt, we can't find oil or we couldn't find matches. You can ask about my life, what can I say? You can think about it yourself. Even in here the Taliban doesn't like me. Even in here they throw water on me they throw urine on me and they beat me. If the Americans hadn't come, they would have killed us. They took our land. You cannot find one Hazara (ph) who is a supporter of Taliban or Gulbuddin.

He tells the CSRT that the person who denounced him as an HIG and Taliban supporter was Shir Alrah, a local commander who wanted to marry his sister years ago. Ullah refused: "I told him that it was up to my sister who she wants to marry. I cannot force her to marry a person that she doesn't want." As a result of this dispute he was imprisoned for eleven days by a powerful friend of Alrah's named "Kalele" (I think he’s referring to Karim Khalili, a Hazara leader/warlord who controlled Bamiyan from 1996-8). Later on, Taliban forces came.  They took his family’s land, killed his mother, killed other relatives and hundreds of other Shi’a in his village, and drove the rest out of their homes.

Ullah was arrested because friends of the local governor, including Shir Alrah, had told him that he could get his family’s land back if he delivered a message and obtained a reply from a former Talib who was responsible for the atrocities against his family. Ullah did this. Afterwards, Alrah apparently gave the letter to the Americans and denounced him. American soldiers came to arrest Ullah at his uncle’s house. The soldiers couldn't speak Farsi, and Ullah could speak no other language. There was one translator, but it did no good.

Q: Did you support the Taliban or U.S. at any time?

A: I was a refugee. The Americans came and previously they had burned our houses…One help organization gave us enough wood to build a house. Because the weather was so cold and my wife was pregnant and Bamian was cold we decided to go to Kamard. I didn’t have any wood, we didn't have anything. They gave us twenty pieces of lumber so we covered the house. The help organization had given a door to me and I haven’t even put the door in. I covered the house and the door was at the house of the husband of my sister. In wintertime it gets cold and it's freezing. When they make bread, the heat heats the house. When Taliban burned the houses, we didn’t have equipment to make bread with.

...

Q: Before you left, while you were in Afghanistan, were you very religious, medium? How often did you go to the mosque?

A: I’m from Khamard and [the] mosque is one hour away from me. The Sunni, they tried to teach us how to pray and everything and tried to teach me something but I didn’t learn it. Once a year there is a special place that we pray. Once a year we go to that special place and pray. The Taliban had killed the mullah. His name was Salabar (ph). We don't have anything.

***

The Hazara are a minority ethnic group in Afghanistan that comprises about 10% of the population.  Unlike most Afghans, they are Shi'ite Muslims.  The Taliban despised them for both racial and religious reasons, and they despised the Taliban right back. There are so many different reports of the Taliban massacring Hazara civilians and destroying their villages that I have trouble keeping them straight. Here is a list of massacres from Human Rights Watch. Here is a similar list from the U.S. Department of State. Here is HRW’s full report of the worst single incident, 1998 Mazar-i-Sharif massacre. (Warning: that last one contains graphic accounts from eyewitnesses)

Faiz Ullah’s hometown of Bamiyan is the capital of Hazarajat. Consistent with what he told his CSRT, there are reports of several waves of Taliban atrocities against Hazara civilians there.  According to Amnesty International,

fierce fighting raged in Bamiyan in early 1999 as the Taleban moved to capture the area from Hezb-e Wahdat, a party drawing support from the Hazara population. As a result, on 9 May 1999, the majority of the Hazara people fled to the surrounding mountains with whatever belongings they could take with them. Many of those who stayed behind - some of whom could not flee because of old age or other infirmities and were not therefore combatants - were later reported to have become the targets of systematic killings by the Taleban guards arriving in the city. Estimates of the alleged killings varied widely but hundreds of men, and in few instances women and children, were separated from their families and taken away with no further traces of them.

In January 2002, the Houston Chronicle reported that 200 ethnic Hazara families who had fled Bamiyan during Taliban attacks were still living in caves in the cliffs near the city. 

"We feel safe here," says Kubra, 30, a mother of four who moved into a 12-foot-deep, 6-foot-high cave last month.

Kubra shares the cave with her husband, sister and six children. A few blankets and a stove that burns donkey dung provide some warmth in a place where the temperature plunges in winter. It seems like a prehistoric lifestyle, but Kubra feels lucky to be a cave woman.

During a Taliban rampage three years ago, militiamen for the radical Islamic movement burned her home, cut her right earlobe and broke her 3-year-old son's leg. Her family fled to the mountains and returned to Bamiyan only after the U.S.-backed war ousted the Taliban....

In August 1997, the Taliban cut off all roads into Bamiyan in an effort to force the Hazaras to surrender. They even refused to allow aid convoys from the U.N. World Food program to reach the city.

The stranglehold worked, and the Taliban captured Bamiyan a year later. They burned about half of the city and killed at least 100 people, according to human-rights activists, aid workers and local residents. "They committed mass murder," says Hussain Muhammadi, the deputy governor of Bamiyan state.

Since the Taliban's collapse in November, about 11,000 displaced people have returned to Bamiyan. Aid groups have swarmed into the city to hand out blankets, clothes and plastic sheeting. "They have nothing," says Ahmad Hussein, an official with the U.N. High Commission for Refugees in Bamiyan.

But because of a housing shortage and the difficulties of making mud bricks, the main construction material, some families have found shelter in caves.

Under the circumstances, officials say, it's a sensible option. Compared with other forms of temporary housing, caves can be warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

In May of 2002, the United Nations investigated several reports of mass graves near Bamiyan, which locals said contained the bodies of Hazaras murdered by the Taliban shortly before they fled the city in 2001. According to a UN spokesman, "the bodies of 18 individuals were recovered." They had died

several months to three years ago....three individuals were recovered from a shallow grave and were subjected to an autopsy examination. The indications are that all died from gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and back. One body was found with its hands bound, indicating summary execution. Physical traits, clothing and artifacts on the bodies indicated that they were all male, of Hazara ethnicity and Shia religion, ranging in age from teenager to elderly.

***

I didn’t know any of this at the time. Before I read The Kite Runner this February. I would not have even recognized the word “Hazara”.

Based on the transcript of Ullah’s Annual Review Board (available here; page 174 of the PDF), his CSRT panel didn’t recognize the word either. They classified him as an enemy combatant, and they summarized all of his testimony about the Taliban’s atrocities towards Shi’ites, his village, and his family members as follows for the ARB: "the Detainee stated that he very happy that United States Forces liberated Afghanistan from Taliban control." Well yes, but that doesn't quite cover it.

It's worth reading the whole ARB. The allegations against Ullah are more detailed, as are his responses, but he tells essentially the same story. The President of the Review Board thanks him "for speaking so eloquently."

As far as I can tell, Faiz Ullah is still at Guantanamo, and still classified as an enemy combatant.  He filed a habeas corpus petition in July 2005.  The government usually files a notice and moves to close a habeas case when a prisoner is transferred, and Ullah’s lawsuit is still open.

Comments

[washerdreyer]

Katherine, you're invaluable.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Your posts should be read by every American.

Someday, sadly too late to help many of these individuals, they will be widely read, and we will look back in shame, and wonder how it all happened.

[Joe]

Meanwhile, from the AP:

"An Algerian man believed to be the last domestic detainee still in custody from a national dragnet after Sept. 11 -- and who was cleared of links to terrorism in November 2001 -- was set free this week, his lawyer said Friday. ...

The magistrate wrote in a 2003 decision that Benatta had been "undeniably deprived of his liberty," and "held in custody under harsh conditions which can be said to be oppressive."

Despite the ruling, immigration officials kept him in custody in Buffalo while he appealed a deportation order and renewed his quest for asylum based on a claim that, as a military deserter, he would tortured or killed if he returned to Algeria."

[Joe]

But, to repeat, this is impressive worth. Justice Brennan once told a reporter the way to go is "tell them stories."

We need to spread these stories, show who is being harmed. Thus, I want reports about attempts to overturn FISA to include why the law was in place in the first place. Wrongful executive overreaching.

Ultimately, "enemy combatants" are not at stake here. PEOPLE are. So, thank you for reminding us.

[Julius]

How desperately morally bankrupt is the current administration's policy regarding Guantanamo. I understand the anger and logic behind their actions and even at some level I can empathize with it.

I suppose we don't know all the details on this person's story so the administration may have better reasons for holding this person. But if this is the case it seems to me all the better reason to bring all these stories out with open court hearing etc.

It seems to me we are not fighting a traditional 'war' but one for the hearts and minds of those who may opt to be terrorists ... how much easier is it to recruit terrorists with stories that appear as unjust as this?

[hilzoy]

For some reason, it's always the little details that get me -- the bits of incompetence or thoughtlessness that are by far not the worst or most important part of a story, but that suggest whole new levels of ineptitude or whatever you want to call it.

The idea that the people who are sitting in judgement of the Guantanamo detainees do not know who the Hazara are is one of those details.

I mean: it's as though someone took over the US in order to get rid of the KKK once and for all, and held a bunch of blacks in detention because they hadn't bothered to find out enough to know that blacks were very unlikely KKK members.

It's that basic.

[Katherine]

Yes.

This guy seems like a poster child for someone an Article 5 hearing could have screened out. Someone in Afghanistan must've been able to tell them who the Hazara were, and say: "hey, this guy looks Shi'ite, and he speaks Farsi, not Pashto."

It's really just amazing how long the argument "they're terrorists, so they don't deserve a hearing or evidence to show that they're terrorists" has carried the day.

[Katherine]

If anyone would like more evidence that the Hazara didn't like the Taliban, here you go.

The merchant told Gile the story of an elderly man, so overwhelmed with gratitude to the United States for its intervention in the conflict that he made a gift for President Bush - a gift that was a year in the making and made, given the conditions of the country, under penalty of death.

Gile was astonished when he saw the hand-knotted rug, a portrait of Bush, filled with Christian and Catholic symbolism. Filling the center of the rug is an incredible likeness of Bush, dressed in religious vestments, standing at a podium decorated with the official seal of the country and flanked by two waving American flags.

Directly above Bush is Jesus with a sacred heart and stigmata carefully knotted into the rug's pattern. The rug also shows cherubs and, apparently in an homage to both Bush and a fallen Northern Alliance leader, two lions.

"(Ahmed Shah) Masood was often called 'the Lion of Panjshir.' As one of the country's military leaders, he put some very, very heavy licks to the Soviets and then turned around and delivered the same to the Taliban," Gile said. "He was assassinated two days before 9/11."

One corner of the rug reads, "President George W. Bush," while the opposing corner has the words, "Number one champion."

Click the link for a picture.

[Sofie]

I would like to apploud you for discussing this topic. I have linked to your blog, and this blogpost from my own site. It is great to see some awareness on the Hazaras situation. Than you. Sofie

[arcticredriver]

Update: In September 2007 The DoD released another thousand or so documents, include 2 heavily redacted memos (on pages 11-18 of
http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/ARB_Round_1_Decision_memos_000583-000677.pdf#11)
that state Gordon England, the "Designated Civilian Official", authorized Faizullah's release on January 25, 2006.

The DoD also released the Summary of Evidence memos prepared for his CSR Tribunal (page 62 of http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/000600-000699.pdf#62, drafted on 15 October 2004), and
the Summary of Evidence memo prepared for his Arb hearing, on 12 August 2005 (pages 41-43 of http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/ARB_Round_1_Factors_000595-000693.pdf#41)

FWIW I strongly suspect that captive 919 was one of the many Afghans who have just a single name. The record shows that JTF-GTMO lacked the competence to issue each captive one consistent name with which to track them. There are clues I consider overwhelming that the software they used to track the captives couldn't cope with individuals who didn't have both a first name and a last name. Several of the other captives JTF-GTMO gave the last name "Ullah" told their Tribunals and Review Boards that they only had a single name. I refer to these guys as "the brothers Ullah".

Katherine, you referred to Faizullah having a writ of habeas corpus petition filed on his behalf. In September 2007 the DoD released about 200 sets of CSR Tribunal documents, in response to habeas petitions. But they didn't release one for Faizullah.

If you have a URL for his habeas documents I would appreciate you sharing it with me, so I can update the wikipedia's entry for him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faizullah

If you have that URL could you either leave it here, or sent it to arcticredriver. That is my yahoo email ID.

Cheers!