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DANIEL:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James. This is 7am.

A five minute drive from the cliff where Ben Roberts-Smith allegedly murdered an Afghan man named Ali Jan by kicking him off that cliff, there is a small mud-brick room used for storing almonds.

It was in this room, a different group of Australian soldiers killed two Afghan men in a shocking and brutal way.

But despite the intense publicity around the killing of Ali Jan, almost nothing has been heard about what Australian's did in the almond room and nobody has been held accountable.

Until now, no journalists have visited this isolated place, where around 300 families live. The village is about a six-hour drive on bumpy, gravel roads from Tarin Kowt, the provincial capital of Uruzgan.

Today, anthropologist and writer Michelle Jasmin Dimasi on her journey there, and what the families of the men told her about the alleged crimes Australian soldiers have not been held accountable for.

It’s Thursday, October 10.

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DANIEL:

Michelle, thanks for speaking with me. To start, can you tell me about Darwan and what the Australian army’s connection is to this place?

MICHELLE:

So the Australian forces served in Uruzgan from 2005 to 2013 and, for Darwan, that became of particular significance back in 2012 when Australian soldiers were searching for an Afghan rogue soldier called Hekmatullah. Hekmatullah, at that time, had killed three Australian soldiers and a hunt basically had begun to find Hekmatullah. So there was suspicion that Hekmatullah was in Darwan village and I was quite interested to go there. To the best of my knowledge, no journalists had ever been to Darwan.

There's a bit of an eerie feeling to Darwan. It feels like a lot has happened there and it's also a place where I found, when I did go there, locals really want to talk. People really wanted to speak. It was almost a little bit overwhelming. People were really wanting to share their experiences about what had happened during the war there.

DANIEL:

So who did you speak to and what did they have to tell you?

MICHELLE:

Yeah. So Sayed Hamid was one gentleman that I met there, an Afghan man around the age of about 35 years old. And he was there the day that the Australian forces came to Darwan when they were looking for Hekmatullah. And he is actually an earwitness to one incident that happened there in Darwan.

It was an early autumn morning on September 11, 2012.

The men had all been out working in the fields, they had come back, they had finished morning prayers and they were sitting around drinking tea and they were all together in one compound.

Then, the Australian helicopters landed in the vicinity of the compounds and the Australian soldiers approached the compound and they told all of the men to come out and started interrogating them.

At that time, Yaro Mama had come from Kushta, another village, to pay a debt, and Nazar Gul was there visiting a relative. And when it got to those men, you know, the fact that they weren't from Darwan, they were then separated from the group.

Now, Sayed Hamid says that everyone's hands were tied and that they were blindfolded.

And then what happened next was those two individuals, Yaro Mama and Nazar Gul, were then taken to another room. Sayed Hamid heard the gate close and then they heard some gunshots. And that was the last time that they saw those two men alive.

Sayed Hamid says that the two men were unarmed, that at the time they were fully cooperative with the Australian forces. So none of these individuals presented a threat from the perspective of Sayed Hamid. You know, they were all people under control. And we know under the Geneva Conventions, you know, it's a war crime to kill enemies that are actually under control at that time.

DANIEL:

So these two men, Yaro Mama and Nazar Gul, were separated from the rest of the men who then heard the sound of gunshots. What did the villagers tell you about what happened next?

MICHELLE:

Well, after that, they obviously never saw those men alive and everyone waited for the Australian forces to leave. They waited for the helicopters to go. And, after that, there was another individual who was there, a lady called Shawo. She's a 60 year old woman. She's the mother of Sayed Hamid. And she came out of the room, she'd been separated and it was pretty common practice at that time for Australian soldiers to separate women and children in one group, and she came out of the room where she'd been separated from them and she went into the room where the two men were, locals call it the Almond Room because it was a room that was used to store almonds.

Audio Excerpt — Shawo:

[Speaking in Arabic]

MICHELLE:

And she found the two men there.

Audio Excerpt — Translator:

“So they were, like, full of blood. The blood was streaming out of their body like a stream of water.”

MICHELLE:

At the time when she found the bodies, she said they were so disfigured, there was just blood gushing everywhere. Yaro Mama’s cheek was missing. His eye was missing. He'd been shot in the back of the head. And then she ran to go find help and basically it was just, you know, a really distressing scene where locals stood around. The women were there, they were hysterical, they were screaming, they were crying.

And then the men were then buried later that day in a small cemetery a couple of minutes walk from the almond room. And they, the families, took, you know, there was blood all over the almonds. They sprinkled the almonds all over the graves of the men.

And when I was in Darwan, I visited those gravesites. Hamid took me to show me where the three men, Ali Jan, Nazar Gul and Yaro Mama are buried.

Audio Excerpt — Michelle:

“Is this the waistcoat he was wearing at the time?”

MICHELLE:

And on Yaro Mama’s grave site, there is still his waistcoat that he was wearing. It's a bloodied waistcoat.

Audio Excerpt — Sayed Hamid:

[Speaking in Arabic]

Audio Excerpt — Translator:

“That was, like, his waistcoat and he was wearing it at the time he was killed…”

DANIEL:

The villagers say the men were unarmed. After the break, the Australian soldier’s side of the story.

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DANIEL:

Michelle, you've been spending time in Darwan where locals have been telling you about their horrific experiences with ADF soldiers, including the killings of two men who have just finished their morning prayers. They described being all together and being unarmed. What do the soldiers say happened there?

MICHELLE:

Their version of events is quite different to what Sayed Hamid told me. They said that there were two Taliban insurgents that were armed and that they were engaged, which means they were killed. And they said that these two men were in one compound, and then another group of men were in another compound. So it’s a very different event right there. You know, Sayed Hamid is saying that the men were all altogether, while the soldiers are saying that, you know, that the men were separate. And again, they were saying that they were armed, yet Afghan locals said that no one was armed.

DANIEL:

Right. So there's two conflicting stories. The local villagers say that the men weren't armed. The soldiers say that they were. How should we think about that?

MICHELLE:

When the post operational summaries came out from that report, the report basically had said that, yes, the men were armed. There was an assault rifle on one and there was a chest rig on another. And post operation reports showed photographs of weapons besides these individuals. It raises some questions because of what happened with the Brereton Report.

The Brereton Report revealed some very dark, sinister behaviours and cultures that were taking place by the Australian forces in Afghanistan during those years that it was serving in Uruzgan.

And one of the behaviours that was, you know, singled out was this culture of throw downs where people were basically having weapons put, you know, beside their bodies and photographs were being taken for operational reports. That was pretty much looking to legitimise the killing of possibly innocent Afghans.

And in 2012, the same year that these men were killed, the Brereton report found credible evidence of at least 12 cases of throw downs taking place. Now, we don't know if this case is part of Brereton because Brereton was very heavily redacted. So we will never know that.

DANIEL:

Has the Australian Government been made aware of what happened there and what are they doing about it?

MICHELLE:

The Australian Government has been made aware on several occasions about what has happened there in Uruzgan in Darwan. Firstly, in 2021 the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission submitted a report to the Office of the Special Investigator. At that time, they were speaking to the victim’s families about different incidents that had happened and part of their submission did include this case of Nazar Gul and Yaro Mama.

Earlier this year in June, a group of United Nation experts also submitted a damning report to the Australian Government saying that there were potential breaches of international law involving what has happened in Uruzgan and that these families should be compensated.

And then, in September this year, the Australian Defence Minister told the Parliament that some commanders would be stripped of their awards and he was referring to The Brereton Report. That there was credible evidence of 39 cases of unlawful killings of Afghans involving 25 Australian defence personnel.

Audio Excerpt — Australian Defence Minister:

“These were findings of the most serious, disturbing and consequential nature. They warranted the most serious, considered and thorough response.”

MICHELLE:

And the Minister also said that this will always be a matter of national shame, what happened in Afghanistan, and it's arguably the most serious allegations of Australian war crimes in our history.

Audio Excerpt - Australian Defence Minister:

“As the then CDF General Angus Campbell said, and I quote, such alleged behaviour profoundly disrespected the trust placed in us by the Afghan people who had asked us to their country to help them. It would have devastated the lives of Afghan families and communities, causing immeasurable pain and suffering…”

DANIEL:

How come this particular story from that particular day, a day of infamy for our defence forces, how come that hasn't been brought to the public's, I guess, gaze before now?

MICHELLE:

That's a really good question. I think, you know, the focus had always been on Ali Jan’s case and the publicity surrounding the trial of Benjamin Roberts-Smith. But, it appears that there's many other cases of potential, you know, breaches of international law by the Australian forces.

There is an ongoing investigation by the Office of the Special Investigator taking place. However, they're not in a position, or they say they're not in a position, to provide any information to the public about these investigations. So we don't really know what's happening and we don't know what cases are being investigated.

And I think probably the most concerning aspect of this is that the OSI has not allowed Afghans to actually provide testimonies despite the fact that they were witnesses. So right now, the situation is very one sided. You know, we're only hearing the military perspective. Yet we have, you know, many Afghan witnesses that want to testify and give their version of events but have basically been barred from being able to do this.

DANIEL:

Has the reason been given as to why they are barred from providing evidence?

MICHELLE:

Yes. So the reason behind that is that the Australian Government doesn't recognise the current government of Afghanistan, which is the Taliban. So they don't have a relationship with this government.

There’s concerns about the safety of investigators should they go to Afghanistan to do this. But, you know, there's still a lot of question marks for me around this.

You know, earlier this year, I travelled to Kandahar. I spoke with the Taliban spokesman Mr Zabihullah Mujahid, and I said, you know, will you let these families testify? And most importantly, will you let women testify, given the situation for women at the moment in Afghanistan is really terrible?

And he said, yeah, this is a judicial process. If they want to testify, they can testify. We don't have any issue with that. You know, if they want to do it online, they can.

And I guess there's that, you know, there's probably the view, would the Taliban contaminate the evidence? You know, I guess that's probably a concern. But Majid was even of the view that people could travel to a third country. They could go to somewhere like Qatar or Dubai and, you know, could meet at, like, the Australian embassy and people could give their evidence and then they could return. So there's actually, you know, a willingness on that side to allow this to happen.

DANIEL:

So you mentioned The Brereton Report, and that's the way our government is dealing with the wrongs committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. Can you tell me how far along we are in terms of implementing its recommendations?

MICHELLE:

Yeah. So last month the Defence Minister said that all 143 recommendations from the Afghanistan inquiry plan have been adopted, except four were still ongoing which is the work being conducted by the Office of the Special Investigator.

One of the other key recommendations of Brereton was to pay compensation to individuals, or the victim’s families. And the Australian Defence Force had promised this would be done by the end of 2021 and no one has been paid any money. No one's ever come to speak to those individuals about that.

The Australian Defence Minister has now said that the Afghanistan inquiry is closed. You know, it's officially over.

But where does that leave the victims in places like Darwan? Well, for them it's not closed. No one has been prosecuted. No one has been given an opportunity to testify and it's left a really dirty scar in places like Uruzgan. There's, there is a general distrust of Australians there. So, you know, we've got right now a situation where, it’s, you know, we've got a very, very sad collective memory of Australian soldiers during their time in Afghanistan and people that have just been left in the dark about what's happening. No one's ever been given any updates. No one has been able to access any sort of justice mechanisms.

When I spoke with Shawo, who was the lady who had found Yaro Mama and Nazar Gull in the almond room that day, and I asked her about, you know, what should happen next? What does she think about compensation?

I mean, her reply to that was, you know, how could we be compensated for something of this magnitude?

Audio Excerpt - Translator:

“We were not normal civilians, we were working the livestock and working the fields. We were innocent people.”

Audio Excerpt - Shawo:

[Speaking in Arabic]

Audio Excerpt - Translator:

“They're my sons, my families, so I will never forget them. And I really want to bring them to the justice.”

MICHELLE:

She said, you know, let that murderer come here face to face. I will tell him that we're not lying. And I will ask him, like, why did you do this to our family members? We committed no sin. You know, there was no Taliban around that day.

DANIEL:

Michelle, thank you so much for your time.

MICHELLE:

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

DANIEL:

You can read Michelle Dimasi’s reporting from Darwan in this weekend’s edition of The Saturday Paper.

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DANIEL:

Also in the news today

Former military lawyer David McBride has been granted leave to appeal his convictions for sharing secret military documents with journalists.

McBride has been in jail since May, when he was given a six-year sentence, after pleading guilty to three charges including theft.

And, former Labor Senator Fatima Payman says she is forming a new political party named Australia’s Voice.

Payman quit the Labor party in July to sit as an independent, over disagreement with the party position on Gaza.

I’m Daniel James, this is 7am and before I go, I wanted to tell you about something I’ve been working on.

Monday marks 12 months since the failed voice referendum and, to commemorate it, I’m bringing you a special three part series called This is Alice Springs.

After all the reporting we’ve heard about youth crime and curfews and chaos, I wanted to take a deeper look at what’s gone on in the town that was used as a political football during The Voice debate.

I went to Alice Springs and I sat down with elders, with children, and with the police, and a few others in between to ask what it will take to mend the harm that’s been done there and what the future looks like for this town at the heart of the nation’s psyche.

That starts Monday on 7am. Please tune in and tell all and sundry, your neighbours, your dad, your friends all about it. In the meantime, I’ll be back tomorrow. Catch you then.

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