Talk:Dasht-i-Leili massacre

The white-washing of this article is disturbing. Can we please look at all of the evidence fairly before drawing hasty conclusions one way or the other? For instance, I hope people would at least have the decency to watch the documentary on this before denying it ever happened. Here are some relevant links:

• "Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death" - the movie itself (Democracy Now!)
• Interview on the film with Jamie Doran - May 26th, 2003 (Democracy Now!)
• Preliminary Assessment of Alleged Mass Gravesites in the Area of Mazar-I-Sharif, Afghanistan - January 16-21 and February 7-14, 2002 (Physicians for Human Rights)
• 'US Had Role in Taleban Prisoner Deaths' - June 14, 2002 (The Scotsman)
• US Afghan allies committed massacre - March 21, 2004 (The Observer/UK)

I will edit this and add more as I find more, but alas, I don't have time to finish this project tonight.--GD 10:05, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The only whitewashing of the article was the work done before. I saw the documentary, and like most pieces of agitprop, it has quite a few "moving" images and anonymous "eyewitness" accounts, but nothing more than that. The Physicians for Human Rights reports does not back up Dorans claims of 3000 Talibans killed outside the jail. It does find many mass graves in the area, but also concludes that many of these graves are years old.

And then there is the issue of Robert Young Pelton, an actual eyewitness to all the events. I realize that we cannot take DOD talking points at face value, but what about Pelton? TDC 16:39, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Regardless of our individual takes on this article, it ought to be rewritten so as not to be a debate between Doran and Pelton, especially as there are variety of other observers now available. Also notable is the progress (or lack thereof), and the repeated intimidation of witnesses to the events by Dostum's forum. The Guardian even quotes a survivor (see articles below), so let's make this about the events, not a debate between two western journalists.

• "The Death Convoy of Afghanistan," NEWSWEEK investigation by Babak Dehghanpisheh, John Barry and Roy Gutman (With Donatella Lorch in Washington, Karen Breslau in San Francisco and Stryker McGuire in London), Aug 26 '02.
• Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, "Reporter bullied over alleged war crimes video", IWPR, 10/11/04.
• Rory McCarthy, "US Afghan ally 'tortured witnesses to his war crimes'," The Guardian, November 18, 2002

--Carwil 20:25, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

But it should also be said that the only eye witness to these events who has nothing at stake, Pelton, has gone on record to deny the charges. All other eyewitnesses are Taliban fighter, whose motives and testimony is "colored" at best. TDC 20:31, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Restructuring

I've restructured the article, to narrate the massacre, while not avoiding the controversy. Those more critical of the narrative should qualify witness statements where they think they are unlikely to be true. The tipping point for me is that one of Dostum's commanders testifies to the mass deaths. Carwil 19:43, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Propaganda

This page is neither informative or balanced but used to perpetuate one of the myths of the war. There are plenty of official statements from Dostum, the DoD and there are plenty of accusations (mostly generated by Physicans for Human Rights) that have generated the Doran doco, the Newsweek story and the NYTimes coverage. Much of the FOIA information is actually the State Dept commenting on the above news coverage which is then used by PHR as evidence created a do loop of rumor, not fact. The facts as I know them are around 250 prisoners died. They were put in containers for security reasons and the weather (it was freezing, not hot) and their is a virulent Pashtun and Tajik agenda (along with State Dept) to bring this up just before elections in Afghanistan. Based on what I saw and what I know one arab commander put prisoners in containers at Qali Zaini at night and there may have been a number of prisoners that suffocated. They were buried in Dashti Leilli. What is missing from this discussion is Dostum also wants those bodies exhumed since thousands of afghans killed by the taliban and Abdul Malik Pahlawan are buried at that site. Something that clearly shows this topic is political not scientific or informational. For the record I was there, took plenty of notes and pictures. There were also plenty of other journalists, doctors, U.S soldiers and civilians. Yet these stories use bizarre tales of sweating, shooting, blood pouring out etc etc with not one single named witness to refute their silly stories.

Anyone could have killed as many taliban or al qaeda as they chose at that time (as the Americans and Afghans were doing with gusto) but somehow the one person who negotiated a surrender is accused of being a war criminal. Go figure.

If we are to examine massacres in Afghanistan they must be apolitical and scientific not promotional or supporting desperate attempts to generate tabloid publicity. Lets hope the Wikipedia editors slash this back to facts and not hsyteria.

- RYP —Preceding unsigned comment added by RYP (talk • contribs) 19:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

survivor's accounts?

I read an account, from a survivor. He did say that Dostum's forces did fire into the tightly packed containers, killing many of captives, but the bullet holes prevented him from suffocating. I read it over a year ago. I will try to remember where, and incorporate it. -- Geo Swan 14:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

POV tag

Care to elaborate on your concerns?--Carwil 05:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

POV tag

The article needs of rewrite to be NPOV with RS, not DemocracyNow and other activist source. I totaly want an investigation and truth on this, and Ami war criminals in Hague, my personal view point is not important, Wiki needs have reliable source and activist web sites and programs is not RS. RetroS1mone talk 00:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

You seem to be misunderstanding our WP:NPOV and WP:V policies, as well as our WP:RS guideline. Do you have any specific criticism about the text of the article? If not, I'll be removing the tag. Dlabtot (talk) 17:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)