By Stuart Gorin
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The United States remains committed to improving the human rights situation in Afghanistan, which under Taliban rule "has one of the worst human rights records in the world," says Lorne Craner, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor.

"Universally accepted human rights, particularly those of women, are virtually nonexistent as the Taliban continues to commit numerous, serious and systemic abuses," Craner said October 31.

Testifying at a Capitol Hill hearing of the House International Operations and Human Rights Subcommittee, Craner also said the Taliban, which controls up to 90 percent of Afghanistan, has imposed its own radical interpretation of Islamic law and summary killings are common in Taliban-held territory.

The Tabiban's war against Afghan culture, he added, "has even extended to the flying of kites, the playing of chess, the possession of dolls, and even stuffed animal toys as violations of their understandings of the Islamic injunction to make no image of a living thing."

Craner said that promoting human rights in Afghanistan "remains a high priority for U.S. diplomacy" and "at every opportunity we have called on the Taliban to cease their persecution on the basis of religion, and to lift restrictions on access to health care, employment and the education of women and girls."

Noting that Secretary of State Colin Powell has identified Taliban-ruled Afghanistan as "a country of concern," Craner mentioned such practices as reliance on a religious police force to enforce rules on such matters as appearance and employment, punishment for those observed not praying during five daily prayers, and the arrest of members of an international relief agency on charges of proselytizing.

"We have called for a broad-based representative multi-ethnic government, one that accepts international norms and practices, particularly regarding human rights, particularly religious freedom and issues concerning women, and that facilitate safe delivery of humanitarian and economic assistance," the assistant secretary said. "We are working with other countries and the United Nations to bring about this change."

Stressing, however, that the war against the Taliban is not against the people of Afghanistan, he said that during the past fiscal year, the United States provided more than $170 million in aid for Afghans, and currently there are 165,000 tons of wheat on ships headed to the region.

Joining Craner at the hearing, Jeffrey Lunstead, senior adviser and Afghanistan coordinator for the State Department Bureau of South Asian Affairs, said the Bush administration is developing a plan for reconstruction for the future of Afghanistan that will involve many countries and institutions and be a multi-year effort.

"If we have a stable, prosperous Afghanistan, that's a representative government that people have a stake in their society, then they won't support terrorism and won't have to grow drugs and won't be oppressing each other," Lunstead said.

He added that the United States is in contact with Afghans around the world to encourage and support them in their efforts to build a political structure to take over when the Taliban are gone.

"We don't tell them who should run Afghanistan -- that is for Afghans to decide," he said. "But we do set out principles that we think any follow-on political structure will have to encompass."

Lunstead said it must be broad based and representative, include religious minorities and all ethnic groups, rid Afghan territory of terrorism and supporters of terrorism, respect human rights, rid the country of the problems of narcotics and seek friendly relations with its neighbors.

Florida Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the subcommittee chair, said the Afghan people are struggling to be free from a foreign presence that she said "is not foreign geographically but one which invaded the lives of Afghans, one who holds the Afghan people hostage, one which imposes a false and foreign ideology on the Afghan people." That foreign ideology, she said, "is terrorism and radical militant Islam."

There is consensus, Ros-Lehtinen added, on the need for the United States and international political and material support to help the Afghan people. "The U.S. role is not to dictate what a post-Taliban government will look like. Our role is to empower and enable, in order to ensure that the true and unfettered voice of the Afghan people is heard loudly and clearly," she said.