KABUL, 11 December (IRIN) - In an effort to bring justice to tens of thousands of victims of decades of civil war and internal strife in post-Taliban Afghanistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai launched a three-year action plan on Sunday.

The project, known as the "Action Plan on Peace, Reconciliation and Justice in Afghanistan" contains five key elements: acknowledgment of the suffering of the Afghan people; strengthening state institutions; finding out the truth about the country's bloody past; promoting reconciliation; and establishing a proper accountability mechanism.

President Karzai believes rights are still not being respected in Afghanistan. "Regrettably, the rights of our innocent people are still being trampled on."

An estimated 1.5 million Afghans died and some 5 million forced to leave the country due to foreign invasion and civil war in Afghanistan since 1979, officials say.

Tom Koenigs, the United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan said the plan had laid out a comprehensive approach to transitional justice and that putting the past on record was also important.

"Establishing the truth is one condition for reconciliation. People need to know the truth about what happened to their families, friends and neighbours," Koenigs asserted.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) divides the conflict into three phases: the Soviet occupation between 1978 and 1989; the civil war that followed until 1994; and then Taliban rule until late 2001.

Despite repeated calls from civil society and rights groups, as well as thousands of ordinary Afghans, many warlords and commanders who have been accused of human rights abuses are still holding high-ranking positions in the government and not one of them have been prosecuted, rights activists say.

"It seems very difficult and even impossible for the current government to bring warlords and drug lords to justice as they are still dominating the government and gaining more and more power day by day," Qasim Akhgar, a local analyst, said in Kabul.

But the lack of justice and accountability for the past continues to cause widespread frustration among ordinary Afghans, AIHRC said.

"I won't forgive the killers of my beloved father and three brothers as I don' know how to bring them to justice but I believe in God they will be punished one day in the future," 25-year-old Said Haidar said. His family were killed when their house was hit by a rocket in 1994 during the factional war for Kabul.

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