Peace negotiator was warlord and fueled the flames of Afghan civil war

The attack on the chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, is not surprising according to the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). "Appointing Rabbani, former president of Afghanistan and warlord, as a peace negotiator was a mistake in the first place. During his presidency in 1992 - 1996, the civil war was intensified, at least 50,000 residents of Kabul were killed and 500,000 more were displaced," said Tillmann Schmalzried, STP's Afghanistan expert, on Wednesday in Göttingen. In the 1990s Rabbani and his party, the Jamiat-e Islami, made a pact with other warlords and their militias committed serious crimes against humanity, which had the effect of strengthening the Taliban. Claiming to be peacemakers, the Taliban fought against the warlords, controlled at times up to 95% of Afghanistan and left their mark on the country.

"The international community has still not been able to push back the warlords, whose misconduct opened the door to the Taliban. On the contrary: They have permitted warlords to govern Afghan provinces and control police forces and judicial systems, while the crimes of their militias go unpunished," criticized Schmalzried. The amnesty for war crimes committed between 1979 and 2001, which went into effect two years ago, clearly bears the hallmark of Lower House Member Rabbani, continued Schmalzried. In 1993, Rabbani's militias razed the Kabul district inhabited by the Hazara ethnic group and perpetrated ethnic cleansing on the population.