Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death - Reception

Reception

In June 2002, having learnt that the grave site was being disturbed, Doran showed a 20-minute version of the film, under the title Massacre at Mazar, to the European Parliament, the German Parliament and various media representatives. The screenings resulted in widespread calls for investigations in German, French and British newspapers, including The Guardian, Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt and The Scotsman, which in June 2002 ran a story entitled "U.S. Had Role in Taliban Prisoner Deaths". Human rights lawyer Andrew McEntee, a former Amnesty International chairman, called for forensic pathologists to be dispatched as a matter of urgency.

In response, the Pentagon released a statement, saying that U.S. Central Command had made an "informal inquiry" and that "U.S. Central Command looked into it a few months ago, when allegations first surfaced when there were graves discovered in the area of Sherberghan prison. They looked into it and did not substantiate any knowledge, presence or participation of US service members." No U.S. papers or networks reported on the documentary and the allegations made in it. According to spokespersons for Physicians for Human Rights, their enquiries were met with "blanket denials" from the Pentagon, who said "Nothing happened".

In August 2002, a Newsweek report based on a leaked UN memo stated that a 1 acre (4,000 m2) mass grave had been discovered. A six-yard trial trench, dug at the edge of the site, unearthed 15 bodies. The Newsweek report made no mention of Doran's film, even though Doran was interviewed for the story, but confirmed details present in Doran's account, such as truck drivers being forbidden to help those perishing in the containers, and the accounts of bound prisoners dying of thirst trying to survive by licking the sweat off each other's bodies. Unlike Doran, however, Newsweek stated that "nothing Newsweek learned suggests that American forces had advance knowledge of the killings, witnessed the prisoners being stuffed into unventilated trucks, or were in a position to prevent that." Commenting on the close involvement of U.S. soldiers with General Dostum, and the sensitivity of any related investigation, Newsweek quoted Jennifer Leaning, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, who had gone to Afghanistan as an investigator for Physicians for Human Rights: "The issue nobody wants to discuss is the involvement of U.S. forces. U.S. forces were in the area at the time. What did the U.S. know, and when and where – and what did they do about it?"

General Dostum commented that there were only 200 deaths, and that the prisoners had died prior to the transfer. Director Jamie Doran said, "They're hiding behind a wall of secrecy." In a Reuters interview, Doran said that the Pentagon did not respond to his repeated requests for a comment on his film. Doran added that he "would like to see the American authorities agree to a proper investigation. They have nothing to fear from the truth. I have the feeling they hope the story will go away."

"It is a mystery to us why a respected television channel is showing a documentary in which the facts are completely wrong and which unfairly depicts the U.S. mission in Afghanistan."

The completed film Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death was shown on national German television in December 2002. U.S. Department of State spokesmen protested the screening of the film in Germany, stating, "The claims are completely false that American soldiers were involved in the torture, execution and disappearance of Taliban prisoners. In no way did U.S. troops participate or witness any human rights violations." The day before the programme's scheduled broadcast date, the German NDR network issued a press release, stating they had decided to ignore protests from the U.S. Department of State and were going ahead with the broadcast. The NDR press release said, "All eyewitnesses shown in the documentary on events in the Sheberghan prison and at the Dasht-i-Leili mass grave site agree in reporting that American soldiers were present at both of these sites. U.S. Department of State spokesman Larry Schwartz was reported by dpa to have explained that the statements in the NDR documentary were 'completely wrong and already disproved'. This is in direct contradiction with the Pentagon's statement that so far there has been no investigation of events by the U.S. military. Full resolution of the matter would require an internal investigation by the American Ministry of Defense and an exhumation of the mass graves, autopsies of the corpses and the identification of the dead by the UNHCR." Commenting on the German broadcast of the documentary, Schwartz stated, "It is a mystery to us why a respected television channel is showing a documentary in which the facts are completely wrong and which unfairly depicts the U.S. mission in Afghanistan."

The documentary was broadcast in 50 countries, among others by the Italian network RAI, the British Channel 5 and on Australian national television. At a time when the documentary had been broadcast throughout Europe, had outraged human rights groups and led to widespread calls for war crime investigations, it had yet to be seen in the United States, because corporate media outlets in the U.S. would not touch it. The film's audio portion was eventually broadcast in the U.S. by the Democracy Now! radio programme, on 23/26 May 2003. The documentary was not broadcast by any television channel in the United States and came to be included in Project Censored's list of top 25 censored news stories. Speaking on the Democracy Now! radio program, Doran quoted U.S. Department of State official Larry Schwartz as saying, "You have to understand, we're involved, we're in touch with the national on a daily basis – this story won't run, even if it's true.'" Doran says the response from television people in the U.S. was, "Not now, Jamie."