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Afghan president visits mass grave

04.05.2007

KABUL (AFP) - President Hamid Karzai attended a memorial service at the site of a mass grave of more than 400 Afghans killed in the communist era, saying afterwards one "tyrant" had been replaced by another.

Karzai and senior members of his government laid a foundation stone for a monument to be built at the grave discovered near the Qorogh desert in the remote northeastern province of Badakshan last month.

Rosary beads, pens, notebooks, barbed wire, chains, shackles, hand cuffs and shoes were found at the site of the grave, the president's office said in a statement announcing Karzai's Thursday trip.

Those buried in the grave were "murdered because of the Soviet invasion and internal treason," Karzai said in the statement.

The Soviets occupied  Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 but communism was only defeated in 1992, when a savage civil war erupted between the men who led the fight against the occupiers.

"One tyrant is gone, another has come," Karzai said. "Today, our people are still suffering at the hands of foreigners who are abetted by internal treason," he added, referring to a growing insurgency by the Taliban movement.

"Afghanistan will only achieve sustainable peace when the Afghan people chop off the hands of foreigners who meddle in our internal affairs."

Karzai and other prominent figures have alleged the Taliban are being assisted by fundamentalist elements based across the border in Pakistan, one of only three nations that recognised the 1996-2001 Taliban government.

Karzai has allocated five million afghani (about 100,000 dollars) for the construction of a memorial monument, a mosque and a museum at the site of the grave, the statement said.

Most of the victims appear to have been civilians killed for opposing the Moscow-backed communist regime, an official said last month.

The grave was discovered weeks after the Afghan parliament passed a reconciliation law granting amnesty to those behind the decades of atrocities, including during the communist regime.

Source: http://www.afghanistannewscenter.com/news/2007/may/may52007.html#7
http://www.president.gov.af/english/statements_press_releases/030507_MassGrave.mspx

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