ICRC Visits Taliban Prisoners for First Time Since 2001

Not Taliban fighters held by NATO or Afghan security forces --prisoners of the Taliban.

Yesterday, the International Committee of the Red Cross revealed that it had gained access to prisoners in Taliban custody for the first time since the current phase of Afghanistan's long-running war began in late 2001.

Three Afghan security personnel held by the Taliban in Badghis province received a visit by an ICRC team at the end of November. In a statement released Tuesday, the ICRC hailed the visit as a breakthrough. "We plan to conduct and repeat visits in other regions and hope to visit people held by other armed opposition groups, with the aim of ensuring that everyone detained in relation to the armed conflict is treated humanely," said Reto Stocker, the ICRC chief in Kabul.

The Taliban have a difficult history with the ICRC, which has been active in Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion in 1979. During the subsequent Afghan civil war, the ICRC facilitated prisoner exchanges and visited detention centers run by the Taliban and the Northern Alliance when permitted. But the Taliban distrusted the foreign ICRC employees, and allowed them limited access to thousands of civilian and combatant prisoners between 1996 and 1999. By the time it controlled about ninety percent of Afghanistan, the regime slowly began opening its prisons to ICRC delegations.

After being ousted from power in 2001, the Taliban reverted to their previous hostility. In 2003, Taliban fighters 'executed' Ricardo Munguia, a Salvadoran ICRC engineer, while he and Afghan colleagues traveled by road to a water supply improvement project in the town of Tarin Kwot.

Since 2001, the ICRC has registered 16,000 prisoners in Afghanistan and currently visits 136 detention sites run by Afghan security forces and members of the NATO coalition. An unknown number of people are held by the Taliban and humanitarian groups have not been able to visit them. The ICRC hopes that will now change. "International humanitarian law grants the same protection to everyone held in connection with the armed conflict, whether the detaining party is the international or Afghan security forces or the armed opposition," explained Stocker.

The ICRC visits people held in connection with conflicts worldwide to assess their treatment. It then shares its confidential findings, recommendations and concerns with the detaining parties, whether they are official security forces or armed non-state groups, to ensure humane treatment of prisoners. Prisoner exchanges, humanitarian prisoner releases and communication between detainees and their relatives are also facilitated by the ICRC. To maintain access to sensitive detention sites, the ICRC does not make its reports public.