About us

Home   Media  Contact

In de name of almighty God

Preamble statutes of the foundation

The military officers of the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) conducted on 27 April 1978 with the help of former Soviet Union a bloody coup – d’état in Afghanistan. PDPA called her regime (government) as ‘Democratic Republic of Afghanistan’.

Besides Mohammad Daoud Khan, the president of Afghanistan at that time, and his family members, hundreds of military officers and soldiers who were against the coup were murdered. The coup, the so called “Saur Revolution” was contradictory and collision with the norms/standards and values of the Afghan society. Few months after the coup begun a huge resistance against the by the Russians installed regime. The government lost control over the countryside, but remained established in Kabul and few big cities. Thousands villages were bombarded and devastated by the installed government and Russians, while they prohibited the freedom of speech, media and political activities in de areas under their control and kept a sole monopoly over those basic elements of freedom. People having other thoughts/ ideas and believes, influential’s, intellectuals and all those suspected of having sympathy with resistance-movement and opposition were brutally punished, prosecuted and executed by the intelligence services of the installed government and party entities. Tens of thousands Afghans were arrested and afterwards disappeared, whose dead bodies were found after decades in the mass graves. Despite of all those cruel and brutal violence took in the country big uprisings place.

The Red Army of the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on December 27, 1979. The Russians restructured the installed regime and made some changes. The new government intelligent services (KHAD) got expanded to a huge murder and torture machine, based on the experience of the KGB. As the scorched earth policy in the countryside and the oppression of people, with different thoughts, by the intelligence services and policymakers of the PDPA increased in the cities, the resistance grew against the regime too. Until the collapse of PDPA regime on April 28, 1992 more than two million citizens were killed, while more than one million were disabled. Six million people left the country and fled to Pakistan and Iran. Tens of thousands succeeded to flee to western countries, while millions of people sought a safe place in their own country. A total destruction of the infrastructure and ten million landmines in the soil of Afghanistan were misfortune inheritance which the Russians and the PDPA left over.

The PDPA regime collapsed in April 1992 and the political organization as representative of resistance groups took over. The people of Afghanistan were in the beginning very happy about the transfer of power. The differences/disputes between the resistance parties and the influence of neighboring countries led in 1992 to 1996 to a civil war in Afghanistan. There was no central authority in the new regime of the Islamic States of Afghanistan, as a result of which the local and regional armed rulers got sole power. The power struggle was being fought out between different fractions and political armed parties in Kabul, which led to the death of tens of thousands citizens, looting personal property of the citizens and arbitrary arresting and killing of the opposition without a trial. People were being victims of motivated harsh ethnical violence, which led to people feeling themselves increasingly unsafe. As a result of which thousands of Kabul citizens fled to relatively safer and more secure provinces and neighboring countries. However all members of the resistance groups were not involved in the civil war, but the executives and leaders remain responsible for the committed crimes over these periods.

Due to anarchy and continues power struggle, the Taliban took over a great deal of Afghanistan in a short period of time. The Taliban announced, after capturing Kabul in 1996, their regime as the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’. People were deprived of the most basic en essential civil rights and freedom. While the Taliban carried on the civil war against the dispelled Islamic States of Afghanistan, both sides brutally violated the law of war and once again led to many civil victims. Religious repression and pressure, exclusion of women from the public life and destroying the cultural heritage, are a number of examples from these periods.

The American military intervention, backed by the UN, put an end to the Taliban’s regime in Afghanistan. By the collapse of the Taliban, there took serious human rights violation place by the American military and involved Afghan groups, where prisoners of war were tortured and afterwards brutally killed. The international community promised assistance by the reconstruction and democratization of Afghanistan. The trial of crimes against humanity would, according to the Bonn agreement, take place in the framework of the national program for “transitional justice”. Unfortunately, the people who are suspected of committing crimes against humanity and violating human rights enjoyed strong positions. The Afghan parliament passed a controversial amnesty law, which granted amnesty to all those suspected of having committed crimes against humanity and violated human rights.

As far as this “law” applies, the trail of crimes against humanity including war crimes fails to occur. Afghans have been even after the collapse of the Taliban regime witness of violation of the law of war by all those parties involved in the conflict. Torturing of suspected persons in detention centers of the Afghan regime and those of foreign security forces, blind bombardment and assault against civil targets, barbaric acts and suicide attacks of the armed opposition groups like Taliban, violence against women and journalists, are a number of example of the continuity of crimes against humanity under the current regime.

Our standpoint:

Those suspected of committing crimes over all periods have to be prosecuted. The foundation contributes to worldwide struggle against the impunity of those who have made themselves guilty of committing crimes against the humanity or giving orders to do so or making policies to justify such crimes. No difference is made on the basis of ideological, political, ethnical and religious backgrounds of the suspects.

Objectives

The foundation intends to reach the following objectives:

  1. Promoting the interests of the victims of the crimes against humanity and violation of human rights in Afghanistan from 27 April 1978 until now;
  1. Being a platform for contacts, awareness , actions and a structured cooperation between the victims;
  1. Contributing to legal preparation for prosecution of those suspected of crimes against humanity and violation of human rights in Afghanistan from 27 April until now;
  1. Documenting of crimes against humanity and violation of human rights in Afghanistan from 27 April 1978 until now;
  1. Documenting of the statements gathered from the witnesses, evidence and literature about crimes against humanity and violation of human rights in Afghanistan from 27 April 1978 until now;
  1. Giving voice to the victims of crimes, yet survived or not, against humanity and violation of human rights in Afghanistan;
  1. Making efforts to put prosecution of the crimes against humanity and violation of human rights in Afghanistan on the political agenda in Afghanistan and international platforms such as EU and UN;
  1. Defining a special commemoration day for respecting the victims, identifying the mass graves, setting up a memorial monument to those died and identifying c.q. recording all victims of crimes against humanity and violation of human rights in Afghanistan from 27 April 1978 until now;
  1. Finally, the foundation complies with the Universal Statement of Human Rights (USHR) and other relevant international treaties.

Means:

The foundation tries to achieve those objectives with the following means:

  1. Establishing a widespread international network of the victims, and their surviving relatives, of the mentioned crimes over different periods;
  2. Identifying and documenting the victims of the mentioned periods;
  3. Gathering statements of the witnesses and other relevant evidence, and searching of the victims and surviving relatives of the victims in order to record their memories and experiences;
  4. Setting- and keeping up an archive of document in relation to war crimes, statements of witnesses and evidence about the committed crimes against humanity and violation of human rights in Afghanistan;
  5. Raising awareness about the different aspects of justice seeking for victims and their sympathizers;
  6. Being speaker of the victims towards media and international community;
  7. Setting up a PR and communication unit, which aims to give information and awareness to public and attract support for this motto and objectives;
  8. Realizing an ’information and documentation center of crimes against humanity and violation of human rights in Afghanistan’ in Nederland;
  9. Maintaining official contacts with the related Afghan and international organizations;
  10. Striving to setting up an “International Afghanistan Tribunal”.

Donors:

Donors are those who financially support the foundations.

Financial sources and financial year:

  • Financial sources of the foundation are as follow: monthly monetary payments and other financial assistance by the supporters, donations, gifts, inheritance and will, and other financial incomes.
  • The foundation opens a bank account to manage her financial issues.
  • Financial year of the foundation is the same as that of the Nederland’s.

Board of directors (authorities and responsibilities):

See internal rules and regulations.

  • boekjaar van de stichting is gelijk aan het kalenderjaar.