By All Parties to the Conflict

Afghanistan has been the scene of some of the most serious human rights violations on record. About one half of the country's prewar population is either in emigration, or internally displaced, or dead. Most of the biolations documented in three previous Helsinki/Asia Watch reports continued in 1987, despite the fact that prospects for peace in 1988 seem brighter than ever before. This report also deals with the recent spread of the warfare to the territory of Pakistan and the effects of this on the refugees there. Most of the abuses are attributable to the Afghan government and its Soviet advisors. Indiscriminate warfare in the countryside combined with excessive totalitarian controls in the cities have brought incalculable suffering to the Afghan people. This report also deals in detail with violations on the part of resistance forces, and especially deplores the execution of prisoners of war by the resistance, often after a trial that is lacking in most aspects of due process.