KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 29 -- About 70 percent of the 6,000 Afghans responding to a recent survey said they had been victims of crimes against humanity, and more than 40 percent favored the prosecution of suspected war criminals in their country, according to a report released by an Afghan rights watchdog group Saturday.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, an internationally mandated body, found that 500 of 2,000 people interviewed in focus groups said they had relatives who had been killed and 400 said that they or a relative had been tortured.
The group's chairwoman, Sima Simar, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, presented the report to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and called for greater accountability.
"Proper attention has not been paid to a fundamental element of peace and stability," Samar said in a statement. "We at the commission believe that it is impossible to achieve peace without justice."
It is estimated that more than 1 million Afghans were killed and 6 million fled their country during the period of turmoil that began with a communist coup in 1978 and continued with the Soviet invasion in 1979 and ensuing civil wars that ended when U.S.-led forces defeated the extremist Taliban militia in 2001.
Separately, a land mine exploded near a truck carrying Afghan soldiers close to the Pakistani border Saturday, killing nine soldiers, an Afghan commander said, according to the Associated Press. It was one of the bloodiest attacks in months.
-- N.C. Aizenman
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