University of Lincoln lecturer Gillian Fowler is just back from Afghanistan, where she has been teaching Afghans how to properly document mass graves and identify bodies from 35 years of conflict. Here, the forensic anthropologist tells reporter Paul Whitelam about her work.
In a nation torn apart by war and riddled with corruption, cold hard science is the surest keeper of truth.
And in future, the work of Gillian Fowler, consulting forensic anthropologist for Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), could finally give families the answers they have longed for.
Ms Fowler has been training local Afghans in human osteology – the study of bones – and exhumation techniques.
She has been working on a three-year project called Securing Afghanistan's Past with the Afghan Forensic Science Organisation, set up through PHR.
Documenting burial sites and educating people to preserve them means atrocities committed by tribes, the Taliban, the Soviets and the mujahideen can be fully investigated.
And perhaps, at some point, ordinary Afghans will see justice, or at least reconciliation.
"There's a great deal of construction work going on in Afghanistan, such as road building, where human remains are dug up and often just thrown into skips," said Ms Fowler.
"Another issue is families have exhumed some graves but bodies have not been identified. People just say: 'That's my father', for example.
"The people we train need to know the difference between human and animal bones, which is where I came in.
"We looked at a grave with the Ministry of Interior where there were two human skeletons and lots of bones from animals butchered around the Soviet invasion era.
"You need to know how many people are in a grave and once you can identify those individuals you can then do a biological profile to establish the age, sex, stature and ancestry at the time of death."
As a result of the project a report has just been published to challenge the Afghan government to properly protect graves.
It also calls for the legal recognition of people's rights to know what really happened to their missing relatives.
Ms Fowler became involved in the project having previously spent several years working for the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala, where she was involved in exhuming graves of innocent victims of genocide from the 1980s.
"In Afghanistan we use the example of Guatemala," she said.
"At the moment the General is being tried in court 21 years after the genocide there.
"Local people and witnesses know where the graves are.
"We are probably talking 20 to 30 years before Afghanistan has some sort of justice or reconciliation."
Ms Fowler said working in Afghanistan, where crime scenes are often unprotected, is full of challenges.
"Kabul is dusty and dirty and traffic is so chaotic – there are no rules of the road," she said.
"There are bombed out buildings and you can still see bullet holes in lamp posts.
"The main risk in Kabul is not that of being killed by suicide bombs – it's being involved in a car accident, the mob dragging you out of the car and killing you.
"No one knows what's going to happen after the foreign troops leave at the end of 2014.
"Our work has the full support of the Ministry of Interior. But we do not work for any one side. We are completely impartial. We'll deal with a mass grave whether it's Taliban prisoners or anyone else."
Colleague Stefan Schmitt, who directs PHR's International Forensic Programme and was the report's lead author, previously worked with Gillian in Guatemala.
The paper was presented at the Truth Seeking and the Role of Forensic Science conference in Kabul last month.
Mr Schmitt said: "Since 1978, Afghans have continuously lived through protracted cycles of violence that included massive human rights violations and war crimes with virtual impunity for many of the perpetrators.
"Healing such deep wounds is a complex and lengthy process.
"What is needed from both the government of Afghanistan and the international community is a serious commitment to a vision for a better future – and that includes addressing the wrongs of the past."
Saturday 11 May 2013
http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/Lincoln-lecturer-helps-Afghans-document-mass/story-18933578-detail/story.html#axzz2SzuY62Xq
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