December 15, 2009

IN A move described as a "breakthrough", Red Cross officials have finally gained admission to a jail on the Taleban side of the conflict in Afghanistan.
Staff from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited three Afghan policemen held by the Taleban in the north-west of the country last month, in the first independent visit to an insurgent jail since their regime was swept from powe r more than eight years ago.

Reto Stocker, the head of delegation, said: "We welcome this breakthrough. We plan to conduct and repeat visits in other regions … with the aim of ensuring that everyone detained in relation to the armed conflict is treated humanely."

The visits to the prison in Badghis province – there was a follow-up a few days after the initial visit – took place at the end of November, the ICRC said.

A Taleban spokesman claimed the visits were not sanctioned by the organisation's high command. But Afghan analysts said it would have been impossible for the ICRC staff to visit a second time without a senior commander's authorisation.

The news of the visits came as insurgents killed at least eight people and wounded dozens more by exploding a suicide car bomb in Kabul near the home of a former Afghan vice-president and a hotel favored by westerners, in what has been one of the safest districts in the city.

A handful of government officials claimed that allowing the ICRC visits was a Taleban ruse to portray themselves as a humane organisation. The insurgents are constantly exploiting the ill-will generated by US detention facilities at Bagram airfield, which the Red Cross has also fought hard for access to.

The Taleban operate Islamic courts and shadow governments in areas they control.

"They used to be in power and they run a shadow government," said a western analyst. "Prisons are a natural extension of that."

The ICRC said it was unclear exactly how many people were being held by armed groups across Afghanistan. In Badghis alone, 11 policemen were captured last year during an ambush, which left five others dead.

And an American soldier captured in eastern Afghanistan on 30 June is still missing. An ICRC spokesman said getting access to Bowe Bergdahl, the first US soldier captured by the Taleban since the US-led invasion in 2001, remained a priority.

The Red Cross has earned the respect of most sides to the Afghan conflict for its role as a neutral intermediary, often delivering humanitarian aid, since 1979.

The Mirwais hospital in Kandahar, which they support, is renowned for treating anti-government insurgents alongside civilians and soldiers.

More recently, they have helped to negotiate ceasefires so dead bodies from both sides can be collected from the battlefields.

"Reconciliation is not the ICRC's mandate at all," said Mr Stocker. "But if through what we do people realise that not all common values have disappeared, we are absolutely happy with that."