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Genocide of Afghans during the Soviet-Afghan War

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Afghan genocide
Part of Soviet–Afghan War
An Afghan village left in ruins after being destroyed by Soviet forces
LocationAfghanistan
Date1979-1989
TargetAfghan citizens, Afghan mujahideen
Attack typeGenocide, Forced displacement, Carpet bombing, Sexual violence, Massacre, Crimes against humanity
Deaths428,000 to 2,000,000
Victims3,000,000 injured
5,000,000 externally displaced
2,000,000 internally displaced
PerpetratorsSoviet Armed Forces
Afghan Armed Forces

The Soviet Union and its allies has been accused of committing a Genocide of Afghans during the Soviet-Afghan War. The war resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000,000 Afghans, Civilian death and destruction from the war was massive and detrimental. Estimates of Afghan civilian deaths vary from 562,000 to 2,000,000. By one estimate, at least 800,000 Afghans were killed during the Soviet occupation. Human Rights Watch organization concluded that the Soviet Red Army and its communist-allied Afghan Army perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, intentionally targeting civilians and civilian areas for attack, and killing and torturing prisoners. Several historians and scholars went further, stating that the Afghans were victims of genocide by the Soviet Union. These include American professor Samuel Totten, Australian professor Paul R. Bartrop, scholars from Yale Law School including W. Michael Reisman and Charles Norchi, writer and human rights advocate Rosanne Klass, political scientist Adam Jones, and scholar Mohammed Kakar. Louis Dupree stated that Afghans were victims of "migratory genocide" implemented by Soviet military, while Afghan-American economist Nake M. Kamrany described it as "massive terrorism and cultural genocide". Arguing that the Soviet military forces perpetrated genocide against Afghan people, sociologist Helen 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 the Afghan 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 the DRA."

Genocide

Massacres

See also: Rauzdi massacre; Padkhwab-e Shana massacre; Kulchabat, Bala Karz and Mushkizi massacre; Baraki Barak massacre; Kunduz massacre; and Laghman massacre

Rudolph Rummel, an analyst of political killings, estimated that Soviet forces were responsible for 250,000 democidal killings during the war and that the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan was responsible for 178,000 democidal killings. He also assumed that overall a million people died during the war. There were also a number of reports of large scale executions of hundreds of civilians by Soviet and DRA soldiers. Noor Ahmed Khalidi calculated that 876,825 Afghans were killed up until 1987. Historian John W. Dower somewhat agrees with this estimate, citing 850,000 civilian fatalities, while the military fatalities "certainly totaled over 100,000". 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. Scholars John Braithwaite and Ali Wardak accept this in their estimate of 1.2 million dead Afghans. However, Siddieq Noorzoy presents an even higher figure of 1.71 million deaths during the Soviet-Afghan war.

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. 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 used scorched-earth tactics to prevent their return. They used booby traps, mines, and chemical substances throughout the country. The Soviet army indiscriminately killed combatants and non-combatants to terrorize local populations into submission. The provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, Laghman, Kunar, Zabul, Kandahar, Badakhshan, Logar, Paktia and Paktika witnessed extensive depopulation programmes by the Soviet forces.

Overall, between 6.5 and 11.5% of Afghanistan's population is estimated to have perished in the war. 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. Scholar Antonio Giustozzi estimates 150,000 to 180,000 mujahideen casualties, of which half of them died. He also puts the fatalities of the communist-allied Democratic Republic of Afghanistan at over 58,000 by 1989.

Rape

The Soviet forces abducted Afghan women in helicopters while flying in the country in search of Mujahideen. 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. Women who were taken and raped by Soviet soldiers were considered 'dishonoured' by their families if they returned home. Deserters from the Soviet Army in 1984 also reported the atrocities by Soviet troops on Afghan women and children, including rape.

A PFM-1 mine, often mistaken for a toy by children. The mine's shape was dictated by aerodynamics.

Scorched-earth tactics and wanton destruction

Irrigation systems, crucial to agriculture in Afghanistan's arid climate, were destroyed by aerial bombing and strafing 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.

The scorched-earth strategy implemented by the Soviet Air Force consisted of carpet bombing of cities and indiscriminate bombings that destroyed entire villages. Millions of land-mines (often camouflaged as kids' playthings) were planted by Soviet military across Afghanistan. Around 90% of Kandahar's inhabitants were de-populated, as a result of Soviet atrocities during the war.

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. Rosanne Klass compared the extermination campaigns of the Soviet military to the carnage unleashed during the Mongol invasion of Afghanistan in the 13th century.

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 it one of the largest refugee crises in history. In the 1980s, half of all refugees in the world were Afghan. In his report, Felix Ermacora, the UN 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. Data cited by the World Bank shows that Afghanistan's population declined from 13.4 million (1979) to 11.8 million (1989) during the decade of Soviet occupation.

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 of carpet bombing and bulldozing by the Soviets and Afghan communist soldiers in 1987. 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. The International 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.

A great deal of damage was done to the civilian children population by land mines. A 2005 report estimated 3–4% of the Afghan population were disabled due to Soviet and government land mines. In the city of Quetta, 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, with malnutrition increasing with age.

Use of chemical weapons

There have also been numerous reports of illegal chemical weapons, including mycotoxins, being used by Soviet forces in Afghanistan, often indiscriminately against civilians.

Torture

A member of the International Committee of the Red Cross helping a wounded Afghan child walk in 1986

Amnesty International concluded that the communist-controlled Afghan government used widespread torture against inmates (officials, teachers, businessmen and students suspected of having ties to the rebels) in interrogation centers in Kabul, run by the KhAD, who were beaten, subjected to electric 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.

Looting

The Soviet soldiers were looting from the dead in Afghanistan, including stealing money, jewelry and clothes. 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 General Boris Gromov. He cut an antique Tekke carpet stolen from Darul Aman Palace into several pieces and gave it to his acquaintances.

Maiming and mutilation

In addition to fatalities, 1.2 million Afghans were disabled (Mujahideen, government soldiers and noncombatants) and 3 million maimed or wounded (primarily noncombatants).

Cultural genocide

Critics of Soviet and Afghan government forces describe their effect on Afghan 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-called Soviet nationalities system, with the outcome that the country was split into different ethnic groups, with no language, religion, or culture in common.

References

  1. ^ 20th Century Democide Rudolph Rummel
  2. Hilali, A. (2005). US–Pakistan relationship: Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co. (p. 198)ISBN 0-7546-4220-8
  3. James Joes, Anthony (2010). "4: Afghanistan: End of the Red Empire". Victorious Insurgencies: Four Rebellions that Shaped Our World. The University Press of Kentucky. p. 211. ISBN 978-0-8131-2614-2.
  4. Lacina, Bethany; Gleditsch, Nils Petter (2005). "Monitoring Trends in Global Combat: A New Dataset of Battle Deaths" (PDF). European Journal of Population. 21 (2–3): 154. doi:10.1007/s10680-005-6851-6. S2CID 14344770. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  5. ^ Klass 2018, p. 129. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKlass2018 (help)
  6. Goodson 2011, p. 5. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGoodson2011 (help)
  7. Simon Saradzhyan (10 January 2020). "7 Lessons Russian Strategists Learned From Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan". The Moscow Times.
  8. "Blood-Stained Hands: Past Atrocities in Kabul and Afghanistan's Legacy of Impunity". Human Rights Watch. 6 July 2005. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  9. ^ Bartrop & Totten 2007, pp. 3–4. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBartropTotten2007 (help)
  10. ^ Reisman, W. Michael; Norchi, Charles. "Genocide and the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan" (PDF). pp. 4–6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 October 2016. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  11. Jones 2006, p. 48. sfn error: no target: CITEREFJones2006 (help)
  12. ^ Kakar 1997, p. 215

    The Afghans are among the latest victims of genocide by a superpower. Large numbers of Afghans were killed to suppress resistance to the army of the Soviet Union, which wished to vindicate its client regime and realize its goal in Afghanistan.

  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference Borshchevskaya 2022 24 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. Nake M. Kamrany (1986). "The Continuing Soviet War in Afghanistan". Current History. 85 (513): 333–336. doi:10.1525/curh.1986.85.513.333. JSTOR 45315752. S2CID 251536966.
  15. Fein, Helen (January 1993). "Discriminating Genocide from War Crimes: Vietnam and Afghanistan Reexamined". Denver Journal of International Law & Policy. 22 (1): 61. Archived from the original on 12 March 2021 – via Digital Commons.
  16. Fein, Helen (January 1993). "Discriminating Genocide from War Crimes: Vietnam and Afghanistan Reexamined". Denver Journal of International Law & Policy. 22 (1): 59, 60. Archived from the original on 12 March 2021 – via Digital Commons.
  17. 4 March 1980 AP
  18. 27 March 1985 AP
  19. 26 February 1985 AP
  20. Khalidi, Noor Ahmad (1991). "Afghanistan: Demographic Consequences of War: 1978–1987" (PDF). Central Asian Survey. 10 (3): 101–126. doi:10.1080/02634939108400750. PMID 12317412.
  21. Dower 2017, p. 49. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDower2017 (help)
  22. Sliwinski, Marek (1989). "Afghanistan: Decimation of a People". Orbis. 33 (1): 39–56. PMID 11617850. S2CID 211172972.
  23. Braithwaite, John; Wardak, Ali (2013). "Crime and War in Afghanistan: Part I: The Hobbesian Solution" (PDF). The British Journal of Criminology. 53 (2): 179–196. doi:10.1093/bjc/azs065. JSTOR 23640010.
  24. M. Siddieq Noorzoy, "Some Observations on an Assessment of the Population in Afghanistan", Journal of the Writers Union of Free Afghanistan, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1988), pp. 6–14.
  25. Khan, Imtiyaz Gul. "Afghanistan: Human Cost of Armed Conflict since the Soviet Invasion" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 September 2017. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  26. Alex Raksin (22 May 1988). "A Nation Is Dying, Afghanistan Under the Soviets 1979–1987". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  27. Sandy Gall. Afghanistan: Agony of a Nation. Bodley Head. 1988 p. 3
  28. Giustozzi 2000, p. 115. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGiustozzi2000 (help)
  29. Giustozzi 2000, p. 271. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGiustozzi2000 (help)
  30. "Memories of fighting in Afghanistan | BBC World Service". www.bbc.co.uk.
  31. "This Time It Will Be Different | Christs College Cambridge". Christs.cam.ac.uk. 9 March 2011. Archived from the original on 16 January 2018. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  32. "Afghan guerrillas' fierce resistance stalemates Soviets and puppet regime". Christian Science Monitor. 7 July 1983. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
  33. Kakar 1997, p. 224

    While military operations in the country were going on, women were abducted. While flying in the country in search of mujahideen, helicopters would land in fields where women were spotted. While Afghan women do mainly domestic chores, they also work in fields assisting their husbands or performing tasks by themselves. The women were now exposed to the Soviets, who kidnapped them with helicopters. By November 1980 a number of such incidents had taken place in various parts of the country, including Laghman and Kama. In the city of Kabul, too, the Soviets kidnapped women, taking them away in tanks and other vehicles, especially after dark. Such incidents happened mainly in the areas of Darul Aman and Khair Khana, near the Soviet garrisons. At times such acts were committed even during the day. KhAD agents also did the same. Small groups of them would pick up young women in the streets, apparently to question them but in reality to satisfy their lust: in the name of security, they had the power to commit excesses.

  34. The War Chronicles: From Flintlocks to Machine Guns. Fair Winds. 2009. p. 393. ISBN 978-1-61673-404-6. A final weapon of terror the Soviets used against the mujahideen was the abduction of Afghan women. Soldiers flying in helicopters would scan for women working in the fields in the absence of their men, land, and take the women captive. Soviet soldiers in the city of Kabul would also steal young women. The object was rape, although sometimes the women were killed, as well. The women who returned home were often considered dishonored for life.
  35. Sciolino, Elaine (3 August 1984). "4 Soviet Deserters Tell of Cruel Afghanistan War". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 January 2017. '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.'
  36. McGrath, Rae (1998). Landmines: Legacy of Conflict: A Manual for Development Workers. Diane Publishing Company. pp. 39–40. ISBN 978-0-7881-3280-3.
  37. ^ Kaplan 2008, p. 11. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKaplan2008 (help)
  38. Goodson 2011, pp. 94–95. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGoodson2011 (help)
  39. Klass 2018, p. 131. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKlass2018 (help)
  40. Ermacora, Felix (1985). "Report on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan / prepared by the Special Rapporteur, Felix Ermacora, in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1985/38". United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Geneva: 16.
  41. "Population, total–Afghanistan". World Bank. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
  42. Kaplan 2008, p. 188. sfn error: no target: CITEREFKaplan2008 (help)
  43. Pear, Robert (14 August 1988). "Mines Put Afghans in Peril on Return". The New York Times. p. 9.
  44. "Reversing the gun sights: transnational civil society targets land mines". International Organization. 22 June 1998. Archived from the original on 28 September 2013.
  45. "Gorbachev, the Iraqi War & Afghan Atrocities". Realnews247.com. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
  46. Bhutta, Z. A. (2002). "Children of war: The real casualties of the Afghan conflict". BMJ: British Medical Journal. 324 (7333): 349–352. doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7333.349. PMC 1122273. PMID 11834566.
  47. Schwartzstein, Stuart j. d. (Winter 1982–83). "Chemical Warfare in Afghanistan: An Independent Assessment". World Affairs. 145 (3): 267–272. JSTOR 20671950.
  48. "Soviets Accused of Supervising Afghan Torture". Los Angeles Times. 19 November 1986. Retrieved 30 April 2021.
  49. "Amnesty Says Soviets Directed Torture in Afghanistan". Associated Press. 19 November 1986. Retrieved 30 April 2021.
  50. "Soviet Looting Charged In Afghan Disaster". The New York Times. 17 November 1982. p. 5.
  51. Bruce G. Richardson (8 March 2001). "Soviets Looted Afghan Treasures". The Wall Street Journal.
  52. Hilali, A. (2005). US–Pakistan Relationship: Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co. (p. 198)
  53. Hauner, M. (1989). Afghanistan and the Soviet Union: Collision and Transformation. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. (p. 40)

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