34
administration has put forward in this document. It completely
disregards the true state of affairs and distorts events to
the point when they cease to be recognisable.Novosti Press Agency Publishing House
Moscow, 1980
[1]
__COMPILERS__
Compiled by
Y. Volkov, K. Gevorkyan,
1104 0604030090
__COPYRIGHT__ © Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1980 [2] CONTENTS Foreword 5 From Replies of Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, to a ``Pravda'' Correspondent 7 From Leonid Brezhnev's Speech Before the Voters of the Baumansky Constituency in Moscow 14 From a Speech by Andrei Gromyko, Member of the Politbureau of the CPSU Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, in Damascus 16 From Andrei Gromyko's Speech in Delhi 19 A Hundred Years of Gross Outside Interference 20 US Imperialism and Its Allies Are the Worst Enemies of Afghanistan and All Islamic Peoples 33 Subversive Activities of Chinese Hegemonists 64 Pakistan---a Foothold for Aggression 74 Arab Reaction Sides with Imperialism 80 Amin, Murderer and Imperialist Agent 83 Eyewitness Reports 97 The Just Cause of the Afghan People - 129 [3] ~ [4] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ForewordThe people of Afghanistan have lived through difficult times. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan born by their will following the April 1978 revolution, was at once subjected to fierce attacks by external enemies. Immediately after the revolution the US imperialists, in league with the Peking hegemony-seekers and with the backing of the ruling regimes of Pakistan and Egypt, started hatching a conspiracy against the young and still weak democratic republic. Their aim was to topple the progressive regime and reestablish feudalism in Afghanistan, as well as to deprive the Afghan people of their independence and freedom.
Subversive activities, carried out by forces hostile to the young republic, were stepped up in the spring of 1979 when imperialism lost its hold in Iran, Afghanistan's neighbour. With Pakistan turned into the spearhead for interfering in the internal affairs of the Afghan people, the United States and Peking launched military intervention in Afghanistan by sending into that country many rebel groups they had trained and armed. This posed a threat to the national independence of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
Hafizullah Amin, who was a CIA agent, and his criminal clique did much to facilitate the sinister plot to strangle the Afghan revolution. After usurping power in the country through intrigues and the assassination of the lawful president, Noor Mohammad Taraki, they unleashed savage reprisals against many Party and government officials, army officers, clergymen, intellectuals, workers and peasants. Amin and his henchmen were eroding the basis of the popular regime, in effect doing all they could to open the way to external aggression and to abolish the revolutionary gains of the 5 Afghan people. Within the Party and the armed forces of the country, however, there were healthy patriotic forces which overthrew Amin's bloody regime.
In order to repulse the outside imperialist aggression, the new leadership of Afghanistan asked the Soviet Union to render it prompt moral, political, economic and military assistance. Such requests had in fact been made to Afghanistan's northern neighbour a number of times both under President Taraki and later.
The Soviet Union granted that request and sent limited troop contingents to Afghanistan with the sole task of helping the Afghans to fight the aggressors. It was anticipated that the Soviet troops would leave Afghan territory when their mission was fulfilled.
In no way is this assistance---limited in time, purpose and scale---directed against or does it infringe upon the interests of third countries. It is valid and legitimate, since it has been provided fully in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation, which the two countries signed in December 1978, and it is in keeping with international law, specifically Article 51 of the UN Charter which provides for the inalienable right of states to collective and individual self-defence against aggression.
The action taken jointly by Afghanistan and the USSR is of an exclusively defensive nature and was motivated by the pressing need resolutely and once and for all to put an end to armed and any other interference by external forces hostile to Afghanistan.
This book contains facts and evidence attesting to foreign interference and aggression against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
[6] __ALPHA_LVL1__ FROM REPLIES OF LEONID BREZHNEV,Question: Leonid Ilyich, how do you evaluate the present international situation, especially in the light of the American Administration's latest steps?
Answer: Our Party's consistent and creative pursuance of a course of peace, detente and disarmament, of implementing the peace programme set forth by the 24th and 25th Congresses of the CPSU, has made it possible to achieve a great deal. Broadly speaking, the main accomplishment is that we have succeeded in breaking the tragic cycle: world war, brief spell of peace, world war again. We Soviet people, our friends---the peoples of fraternal socialist countries and all those who have struggled arid continue to struggle for peace, for detente and for the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems---have a right to be proud of this historic result.
The situation, unfortunately, has noticeably deteriorated at the turn of the 1980s, and the peoples must know the truth as to who is responsible for this. I will answer without any reservations---the imperialist forces, and especially certain circles in the United States, are to blame for this. The blame rests on all those who see in relaxation of tension an obstacle to their aggressive plans, to whipping up war hysteria, to interfering in the internal affairs of other peoples. The blame rests on those who have a deeply ingrained habit of .treating other states in a cavalier manner, of acting in the 7 international arena as if everything wete permitted them.
It has been clear for some time that leading circles in the United States and some other NATO countries have embarked on a course hostile to the cause of detente, a course of spiralling the arms race, leading to an increased danger of war. The beginning of this was as early as in 1978 at the May session of the NATO .Council in Washington where the automatic growth of the military budgets of the NATO member countries till the end of the 20th century was approved. Lately, militaristic tendencies in the policy of the United States have also found expression in the acceleration of new long-term armament programmes, in the setting up of new military bases far away from the United States, including the Middle East and the Indian Ocean area, and in the formation of the so-called "quick response lorces"---an instrument of the policy of military interference.
Now take an important document like the SALT-2 Treaty. Its implementation would have opened the way to major steps in disarmament. As is known, this treaty received world-wide support, including that of the NATO allies of the United States and of broad circles of international public opinion. And what did the Carter administration do with it? No sooner had the treaty been signed than attempts to discredit it began in the United States. The opponents of the treaty---not without the connivance of government circles in the United States--- actually began using the process of ratification to complicate to the utmost the treaty's ratification. By his recent decision to freeze indefinitely the debate on the SALT-2 Treaty in the Senate President Carter has added one more touch to this unseemly process.
It was the United States that in December 1979 forced on its NATO allies a decision to deploy new medium-range nuclear-missile weapons in several West European countries, which leads to a new round of the tarms race. Washington virtually muzzled those of its allies who were inclined to respond positively to the Soviet Union's constructive proposals for negotiations on this matter.
Today the opponents of peace and detente are trying to make capital out of the events in Afghanistan. 8 Mountains of lies are .being heaped around these events and a shameless anti-Soviet campaign is being mounted. Now what actually happened in Afghanistan?
A revolution took place there in April 1978. The Afghan people took their destiny into their own hands and embarked on a road of independence and freedom. As has always been the case 'in history, the forces of the past banded together against the revolution. To be sure, the people of Afghanistan could have coped with them themselves. But from the very first days of the revolution they encountered external aggression, gross intervention from outside in the country's internal affairs. -, Thousands and tens of thousands of- insurgents, armed and trained abroad, whole armed units were,sent into Afghanistan. In. effect, imperialism together with its accomplices launched an undeclared war against revolutionary Afghanistan.
Afghanistan persistently demanded an end to the aggression and that it be allowed to build a new life in peace. Resisting the external aggression, already during the lifetime of President Taraki and later, the Afghan leadership repeatedly asked the Soviet Union for assistance. We on our part warned those concerned that if the aggression was not stopped we would not abandon the Afghan people in their time of trial. As is well known, we keep our word.
The actions of the aggressors against Afghanistan were facilitated by Amin who, on seizing power, started cruelly repressing broad sections of Afghan society, party and military cadres, members of the intelligentsia and of the Moslem clergy, that is, the very sections on which the April revolution relied. And the people under the leadership of the People's Democratic Party, headed by Babrak Karmal, rose against Amin's tyranny and put an end to it. Now in Washington and some other capitals they are mourning Amin. This exposes their hypocrisy with particular clarity. Where were these mourners when Amin was conducting mass repressions, when he forcibly removed and unlawfully killed Taraki, .the founder of the new Afghan state?
Unceasing armed intervention and the well-advanced plot by the external forces of reaction posed a real threat to Afghanistan's independence and created the possibility of making it an imperialist military bridgehead 9 on our country's southern border. In other words, the time came when we could.not but respond to the request of the government of friendly Afghanistan. Acting otherwise would have meant leaving Afghanistan a prey to imperialism, allowing the aggressive forces to repeat in that country what they had succeeded in doing, for instance, in Chile, where the people's freedom was drowned in blood. Acting otherwise would have meant passively watching the creation on our southern border of a source of serious danger to the security of the Soviet state.
When making the request to us Afghanistan proceeded from the clear-cut provisions of the Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation concluded by Afghanistan and the USSR in December 1978; from the right of each state, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, to individual or collective self-defence---a right that other states have exercised many times.
It was no easy decision for us to send Soviet military contingents to Afghanistan. But the Party's Central Committee and the Soviet government acted in full awareness of their responsibility and took into account all the relevant circumstances. The only task of the Soviet contingents is to assist the Afghans in repulsing the aggression from outside. They will all be withdrawn from Afghanistan once the reasons for the Afghan leadership's request for them disappear.
Imperialist and Peking propaganda is deliberately and unscrupulously distorting the Soviet Union's role in Afghan affairs.
It goes without saying that there has been no Soviet ``intervention'' or ``aggression'' whatsoever. There is something different: we are helping the new Afghanistan at the request of its government to defend the national independence, freedom and honour of its country from armed aggressive actions from outside.
Further, the national interests or security of the United States- of America and other states are in no way affected by the events in Afghanistan. All attempts to portray matters otherwise are sheer nonsense. These attempts are being made with ill intent, with the aim of making the fulfilment of imperialism's own plans easier to achieve.
Absolutely false are also the allegations that the 10 Soviet Union has some expansionist plans with regard to Pakistan, Iran or other countries in that area. The policy and mentality of colonialism are alien to us. We do not covet the lands or wealth, of others; It is the colonialists who are attracted by the smell of oil.
Nothing but sheer hypocrisy are the attempts to talk at length about a "Soviet threat to peace" and to pose as watchmen of international morals being made by people whose record includes the "dirty war" against Vietnam; who did not lift a finger when the Chinese aggressors made their armed intrusion into socialist Vietnam; who have for decades been keeping a military base in Cuba contrary to the will of the Cuban people and government; who are engaged in sabre-rattling; who are threatening to impose a blockade and are exerting open military pressure on the revolutionary Iranian people by sending a naval armada armed with atomic weapons, including a considerable part of the US aircraft-carrier force, to the shores of Iran.
There is one final point that must be made in this connection. Interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan is actually taking place, and even such an august and respected body as the United Nations Organization is being used for this. In fact, can the discussion of the so-called "Afghan question" at the United Nations, despite the objections of the government of Afghanistan, be described as anything but a rude flouting of the sovereign rights of the Afghan state?
Indeed the Afghan government and its responsible representative at the United Nations are stating for all to hear: "Leave us alone, the Soviet military contingents were brought in at our request and in accordance with the Soviet-Afghan treaty and Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.''
Meantime, under the cover of the clamour, aid is being increased to the elements that are intruding into Afghanistan and perpetrating aggressive actions against the legitimate government. Recently the White House openly announced its decision to send these elements more military equipment and goods necessary for hostile activities. The Western press reports that during his talks in Peking the US Defense Secretary colluded with the Chinese leadership on the coordination of such actions.
Concluding the Afghan theme, it must be said that 11 there is nothing surprising in tbe hostile reaction sf the imperialist forces to events in Afghanistan. Tbe crux of the matter is that here the card on which the imperialists and their accomplices had been counting has been trumped.
In short, the events in Afghanistan are not the true -cause of the present worsening of the international -situation. If there had been no Afghanistan, certain circles in the United States and NATO would surely have found another'pretext for aggravating the world situation.
Finally, the sum total of the American Administration's steps in connection with the events in Afghanistan---the freezing of the SALT-2 Treaty; refusal to deliver to the USSR a whole range of commodities, including grain, in accordance with previously signed contracts; the ending of talks with the Soviet Union on several questions of bilateral relations, and so on--- shows that, just as decades ago, Washington is trying to talk to us in the language of the cold war. In doing this the Carter administration is showing contempt for important interstate documents and is disrupting established ties in the field of science, culture and human : contacts.
It would be difficult even to list all the treaties, inter-governmental agreements, accords and understandings reached between our two countries on questions of mutual relations in various fields that have been arbitrarily and unilaterally violated in recent days by President Carter's government. Of course, we will manage without such ties with the United States. In fact, we never courted them, believing that this was a mutually advantageous arrangement meeting the interests of the peoples of both our countries, above all, in the context of strengthening peace.
But the arrogation by Washington of some sort of a ``right'' to ``reward'' or ``punish'' independent sovereign states raises a question of principle. In effect, these actions of the US government deal a blow at the established system of international law governing the relations between states.
As a result of the Carter administration's actions the United States is increasingly being seen all over the world as an'absolutely unreliable partner in 12 inter-state ties, as a state whose leadership, prompted by some whim, caprice or emotional quirk, or by calculations as to a narrowly understood immediate advantage, is capable at any moment of violating its international obligations and cancelling the treaties and agreements it has signed. There is hardly any need to explain what a dangerous destabilizing impact this has on the entire international situation, all the more so because it is the behaviour of the leadership of a big and influentialpower, from which the peoples have the right to expect a well-considered and responsible policy.
Of course, these actions by the US Administration will not inflict on us the damage their initiators obviously hope for. The cynical estimates concerning the ``worsening'' of the food situation in the Soviet Union as a result of the US refusal to sell us grain are based on ridiculous notions about our economic potential. The Soviet people have sufficient resources to live and work with calm, to fulfil their plans and raise living standards. In particular, I may assure you that the plans for providing the Soviet people with bread and grain products will not be reduced by a single kilogram.
We can regard the actions of the American Administration only as an ill-judged attempt to use the events in Afghanistan to block international efforts to lessen the danger of war, to strengthen peace and to curb the arms race, in short, to block the attainment of aims which are in the vital interests of mankind.
The unilateral measures taken by the United States are tantamount to a serious political miscalculation. Like a boomerang, they will strike back at their initiators, if not today then tomorrow.
Now, if all these sallies against our policy are intended to test our mettle, this means that the experience of history is being completely ignored. When the world's first socialist state was born in 1917 our people did not ask anybody's permission. Today, too, they decide for themselves what laws they would live by. Imperialism tried to put us to the test at the very dawn of Soviet government and everybody remembers what came of this. The fascist aggressors tried to break us in the bloodiest war mankind has ever experienced. But they suffered a defeat. We were subjected to trials in the yeafcs of the cold war when the world was pushed to the brink 13 of the precipice, when one international crisis afte? another was engineered. But then, too, nobody ever succeeded in shaking our resolve. It is useful to recall all this today.
``Pravda'', January 13, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL1__ FROM LEONID BREZHNEV'S SPEECHIt has become obvious that the present leadership of the United States is pursuing a line of undermining detente and aggravating the international situation. It is trying to dictate its will to the socialist states and to other countries.
Did this come as a surprise? Of course not. It was clear from the very outset that peace and detente could be reliably ensured only by stubborn political struggle. Detente accords with the interests of peoples. The need for it is understood by responsible, realistically thinking politicians. But against it are the powerful forces which in the capitalist countries are directly or indirectly working for the preparation of war: the military, the monopolies associated with them, and their placemen in the state apparatus and in the mass media.
And the more restricted imperialism's possibilities of dominating other countries and peoples become, the more fiercely do its most aggressive and myopic representatives react to this. This aggressiveness can be restrained only by the might and reasonable policy of the peaceloving states and by the resolve of the peoples to thwart the dangerous plans of the claimants to world domination.
After the United States had imposed its ``missile'' plans on countries of Western Europe, it turned its eyes to Asia and the Middle East. It sent large naval forces to the shores of revolutionary Iran supposedly to rescue a group of seized diplomats. And then it pounced oa what it thought to be a convenient pretext---the 14 events in Afghanistan. The malicious anti-Soviet clamour raised in America in this connection probably beats all previous records.
But this is only a pretext, of course. Mr. Carter and the people around him know perfectly well that there has been no Russian ``intervention'' in Afghanistan. The USSR acted on the basis of the Soviet-Afghan treaty of friendship. Three successive Afghan governments pressed us to give assistance in defending that country from invasion from outside by forces of counter-- revolution.
Washington also knows very well everything about the intervention against Afghanistan from Pakistani territory. For it is the Americans themselves together with the Chinese and others who are directing this intervention which has created a serious threat to the Afghan revolution and also to the security of our southern border.
The White House also knows that the USSR will , withdraw its military contingents from Afghanistan as soon as the reasons prompting their presence there no longer exist and the Afghan government considers their presence no longer necessary. The United States is loudly demanding the withdrawal of Soviet troops but in fact is doing everything to delay this possibility: it is continuing and is increasing its interference in the affairs of Afghanistan.
I wish to state this very definitely: we will be ready to commence withdrawing our troops as soon as all forms of outside interference directed against the government and people of Afghanistan fully cease. Let the United States together with the neighbours of Afghanistan guarantee this, and then there will no longer be any need for Soviet military assistance. The government of Afghanistan, for its part, has, as is well known, clearly stated its intention of maintaining relations of peace and friendship with its neighbours, in particular, with Iran and Pakistan. Naturally, we welcome this stand taken by Afghanistan.
The United States leaders also know that the government of Afghanistan is fully respecting the population's religious beliefs, has freed clergy who were thrown into prison by Amin, and has officially placed Islam under the protection of law. - Attempts by the patrons of the 15 Israeli aggressor and by the organizersof repressions against Iran to pose as "protectors of Islam" look quite absurd.
So why then is Washington spreading hysteria all over the world? What are its aims in circulating the lie about "the war of the Russians against the Afghan people'', about "the Soviet threat to Pakistan and Iran'', and the like?
The answer is clear: Washington simply needs an excuse for further expansion in Asia and is creating this pretext in any way it can.
Anti-Soviet hysteria was needed not just so that someone riding the crest of this wave might win the presidential elections in autumn. The main thing is that the United States has decided to create a network of military bases in the Indian Ocean, in countries of the Near and Middle East and of Africa. The United States would like to subordinate these countries to its hegemony, to extract their mineral wealth without hindrance. And at the same time to use their territories, in its strategic plans against the world of socialism and the national liberation forces. This is the crux of the matter.
February 22, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL1__ FROM A SPEECH BY ANDREI GROMYKO,Washington has recently decided to resort to a step which it apparently considers the height of inventiveness. It emphasises in every way that it is a bosom friend of the Muslim world and constantly points its finger at the Soviet Union in an attempt to instill the thought that this peaceloving. socialist country is ostensibly an enemy of Islam, in general, and of Iran, in particular.
This strategy devised in Washington is a gross deception. Those who resort to it apparently reason that if one 16 is to put forward a false version it must be done on a large scale. But deception will never become the truth whether it is a small or a large deception.
Here are some questions which arise in this connection.
Who has been overtly holding an anti-Arab stand for twelve years in an attempt to consolidate Israel's hold upon the lands which it seized from the Arabs? The USA. This is the Administration's line. The Camp David Agreement, which is treacherous in regard to the Arabs, only accentuates this, since Egypt on the whole found itself attached to the US-Israeli chariot.
Who has deprived almost four million Palestinian Arabs of lands and homes; who left them without a crust of bread and made them experience enormous suffering? Who interferes in the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Arab people of Palestine and, primarily, the right to establish an independent state of their own? The answer is Israel, with Washington's blessing and active support.
Who is now negotiating with a view to attaching the West bank of the Jordan to Israel, which is in illegal occupation of the area? The USA and Israel which keep Egypt and its president, who obediently does as they wish, in their grip.
,
Who exposed himself as an enemy of all the Iranian people and treats this ancient and industrious people with disregard in an attempt to make them bow before the imperialist oil monopolies? Washington, which is trying to stir up hostile sentiments among Iranians against -the Soviet Union by resorting to all sorts of falsehoods about the concentration of Soviet troops near Iran's northern borders. This device is being used with unceremonious effrontery.
Who is now shedding most tears, which have been produced by the US political laboratory, for Amin who annihilated thousands of Afghan patriots, including Muslims and noted Islamic clergy? Washington. They cannot find a single kind word there for the present Afghan leadership which flung open the doors of prisons and freed many thousands of religious figures, members of the working intelligentsia, workers and peasants.
It is quite difficult, however, for Washington to make Muslims believe in the imperialists' good intentions towards the Islamic world or make the Muslim states believe in their tales about the Soviet Union's evil designs 17 coneerning Islam and Muslim countries. It is a matter of common knowledge that national religious beliefs are profoundly respected in the Soviet Union and this is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Soviet state. Each person who objectively appraises world developments and state policies sees .that the Soviet Union is a true friend of the Arabs, a true friend of all Islamic peoples.
Another false story launched by Washington foreign policy officials also attracts attention. It is alleged that the Soviet Union is making every effort to reach the warm southern seas. The Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean are specially mentioned in this connection: the Soviet Union allegedly dreams of reaching their warm waters. Those who dreamed up this falsehood have not warm but fervid imaginations indeed. Incidentally, whether they know about it or not, they have actually resorted to plagiarism, since this false version has been used on many occasions: by the Nazis as well. This is a trite coin. But, apparently, those who spread unlimited slander against the Soviet Union, particularly in connection with the events in Afghanistan, will accept any coins.
People, however, now know well that it is the USA which really covets other people's lands and waters, concentrates its Navy at a distance of many thousands of miles from its own shores, and already has and is setting up new military bases thousands of kilometres away from home, including those in the Indian Ocean. By what right does the USA forcibly keep its military base on Cuban territory contrary to the Cuban government's demand for its removal?
This question is particularly appropriate in connection with Washington's insinuations concerning the sending of a limited contingent of Soviet troops to Afghanistan at the Afghan government's request for assistance to repel outside aggression. The USA and those responsible for its foreign policy can say nothing convincing in defence of their own predatory militarist policy.
Damascus, January 27, 1980
18 __ALPHA_LVL1__ FROM ANDREI GROMYKO'SIn order to disguise their schemes the policy-makers from Washington are trying, as often happened in the past, to boost their allegations about "Soviet threat''. This is an old technique smelling of moth-balls. But this fact does not disturb them. Today they have chosen as a target for their attacks the Soviet act in support of Afghanistan which is now upholding its democratic gains in the. struggle against foreign aggression. At the same time, the imperialists are pretending that the primary cause of the recent complications in international relations lies in. this step taken by the Soviet Union. This is a ridiculous and dishonest version. The aggression against Afghanistan which was organised by the imperialists was clearly designed to be used for dealing another blow at detente. They knew that Afghanistan would rise to defend its independ' ence and that the Soviet Union would positively respond to its request for help.
Our assistance to Afghanistan fully accords with the Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, and the UN Charter. It is not directed against the neighbouring countries and does not impair their interests. So it in no way presents a threat to security and stability in this region of Asia and in the world as a whole. Leonid Brezhnev gave an exhaustive answer in his recent interview to a Pravda correspondent as to when and on what conditions the limited Soviet military contingents will be withdrawn from Afghanistan.
Washington needed this anti-Soviet and anti-Afghan camouflage to conceal its policy aimed at increasing international tension, undermining detente and escalating the arms race which it adopted a long time ago. It was two years ago when the NATO countries agreed on a sharp increase in their military budgets. This was followed by the decision to deploy American missiles and nuclear armaments in Western Europe. The United States has been making unprecedented efforts to increase its military potential. The same aims are served by the now speedilyorganised American "quick response forces" designated 19 for firmed '-interference in the internal affaire of- various countries in different parts of the world.
The same is true of the United States' pressure on Iran whose coasts are patrolled by the American naval fleet, of the US military preparations on the Diego-Garcia Island in the Indian Ocean, or Washington's feverish search for sites fbr its new military bases.
The same aims are served by the attempts to turn Pakistan into a hotbed of tension and a bridgehead for the further escalation of aggression against Afghanistan. If Pakistan continues to follow the same route it will gain nothing, but will undermine its position as an independent state. It is in its interests to consolidate its independence and to maintain good and friendly relations with all neighbouring countries.
The activities of the forces that have unleashed and are continuing the aggression against Afghanistan can be viewed only as a direct threat to the security and independence of the peoples of the Near and Middle East and South Asia. We share the concern of these peoples which is fully justified, especially if one is to consider the fact that the same course is pursued by the Peking leadership in their great-power hegemonistic policies.
Delhi, February 12, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL1__ A HUNDRED YEARSAfghanistan which occupies a strategically important position in Central Asia has traditionally been a target of aggression by the colonial and imperialist powers of the West. Back in the 19th century the British colonialists openly sought to subordinate the independent Afghan state under the pretext of "defending colonial possessions" in India. In 1838 the Anglo-Indian army invaded Afghanistan. The war ended in total defeat for the British and their expulsion from Afghanistan. The second Anglo-- Afghan war (1878--1880) launched by Britain also ended in defeat. Rebuffed by the Afghan people, Britain was compelled to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. But, taking advantage of the internal weakness of the regime of Afghan Emir Abdurakhman Khan, the British managed at 20 that time to establish their protectorate over the Afghan state. .
In the late 19th century, pursuing its aggressive plans in Central Asia, Britain perfidiously seized a number of dreas inhabited by Afghan tribes, which it added to its colonial possessions. The Indo-Afghan border, established by the colonialists in 1893 along the so-called "Durand line'', isolated several million Afghans from their fellowcountrymen and their mother country.
Afghanistan's dependence upon Britain grew in the early 20th century when Emir Habibullah Khan ascended the Afghan throne. Habibullah Khan recognized the commitments which Britain had forced upon his country and which had in fact made Afghanistan a semicolony of Britain.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Afghanistan---Base of Aggression AgainstViewing the political situation in the .East in 1918, Lenin noted that the British, "having brought Afghanir stan completely under their sway, long ago created a base for extending their colonial possessions, strangling nations and attacking Soviet Russia''.
After the socialist revolution in, Russia in 1917 and the formation of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (TASSR), Britain tried to make Afghanistan into a base of subversive activity against the Soviet state.
The British colonialists pinned great hopes on Habibullah Khan in attaining their goals. On instructions from London Habibullah Khan allowed White emigres to cross without hindrance from Turkestan into Afghanistan to be used by British agents for subversive activities against the Soviet republic.
In 1918 the plenipotentiary representative of Soviet Turkestan in the Bukhara Emirate---a feudal principality whose existence on the territory of what is now Uzbekistan ceased in 1920 as a result of a popular uprising--- reported that along with other commodities "all kinds of arms" were being delivered to Bukhara through Afghanistan. The arms were being supplied to the Emir of Bukhara by the British government which was in every way 21 encouraging and supporting the anti-Soviet activities of that tiny principality.
In the summer of 1918 British troops, coming from Iran, which they had occupied, invaded Soviet Turkestan and seized Kushka, a fortress on the border between Turkestan and Afghanistan. From Kushka the British planned to start an offensive against Herat and central Afghanistan. They hoped that after subjugating Afghanistan they would be able to carry out armed intervention from there against the Soviet republic.
These plans came to nothing. The defeat the British invaders suffered from the Red Army on the Transcaspian front coincided with the ascent of the Afghan throne early in 1919 by Amanullah Khan who proclaimed the complete independence of Afghanistan and proposed to the Soviet government that relations of alliance and friendship be established between the two countries.
On March 27, 1919, the Soviet government was the first state in the world officially to recognise Afghanistan as an independent and sovereign state.
The rout of British troops in the Transcaspian area had, in turn, facilitated the Afghan people's struggle against the British colonialists, who unleashed the Third Anglo-Afghan War (May 3-June 3, 1919). Mahmud Tarzi, Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, wrote to his Soviet colleague, G. V. Chicherin, on May 14, 1919:
``Unfortunately, I must say that the British Government has never been and will never be friendly to us. At the moment of writing this friendly letter, the British have in response to our establishing contacts with neighbouring states... sent up their planes over our country's eastern frontier and ventured to bomb the dispositions of military units guarding our frontiers.''
Defeated in that war too, Britain was compelled to sign a peace treaty with Afghanistan in which for the first time it recognised that country's independence.
Seeking by all means to prevent the establishment of Soviet-Afghan relations, in May 1919 British agents organised an attack on the mission of the first Soviet diplomatic representative in Afghanistan, N. Bravin, in gross violation of Afghanistan's sovereignty. As a result of the attack two members of the mission were killed and 18 injured.
The Soviet representative informed Amanullah Khan 22 that the Soviet government,was prepared to render Afghanistan all possible assistance, including arms, to defend its independence against the colonialists' encroachments. In the following year agreement was reached between the two countries that Soviet Russia, a young state itself at that time short of absolutely everything, would grant Afghanistan gratis a million gold roubles, several aircraft and 5,000 rifles with ammunition, and would help Afghanistan to build a gunpowder plant and an aviation school. Agreement was also reached on sending technical and other Soviet specialists to Afghanistan.
Despite the fact that in those years the Soviet republic was repelling armed intervention by 14 foreign powers and waging a struggle against internal counter-revolution, it was true to its international duty, gave all the aid it could to peoples struggling for their freedom and independence and did its best to help Afghanistan protect itself against attacks by internal and external reaction.
Britain tried to prevent the signing of the treaty of friendship between the two countries that was being prepared in Moscow and Kabul.
To achieve their aim the British tried openly to put pressure on the Afghan government, impudently demanding that the Soviet diplomatic representatives be expelled from Kabul and that Soviet-Afghan ties be restricted.
The Dobbs mission from Britain, which arrived in Kabul in January 1921, resorted to open bribery and blackmail. The Soviet representative in Kabul informed his government that the British imperialists were offering the Afghan authorities arms, machine guns and even planes on condition they made known to Britain the clauses of the treaty with Soviet Russia and did not let a Soviet consul go to Jalalabad. The treaty, however, was signed in Moscow on February 24, 1921.
In the summer of 1921 the British mission made yet another attempt to put pressure on the Afghan government, stipulating ultimate British control over Afghanistan's foreign relations with Soviet Russia as a necessary condition of a treaty between Britain and Afghanistan.
The Afghan government rejected these demands by the British colonialists, and the Soviet-Afghan treaty was ratified by both countries in 1921. It was one of the first documents in the history of mankind which set out relations between a great power and a small state based on 23 equality and non-interference in eaCh other's internal affairs, on friendship-and mutual respect.
Although nothing came of their schemes, the British did not give up hope of regaining their lost positions in Afghanistan and of using its territory for purposes hostile te the Soviet Union. The imperialists succeeded in stepping up the activities of anti-Soviet White emigres in Afghanistan and above all of the basmachi, members of a counter-revolutionary movement of feudal-landlord reactionaries in Soviet Central Asia. The basmachi received money and arms from the British who promised to help them in their struggle against Soviet rule in Central Asia.
Early in 1922 the former Emir of Bukhara, Alim Khan wrote in a letter to Adam-bek, chieftain of a basmachi band: "We hope the Great British Emperor will give us aid, and promises have been made on that side.'' In a message to basmachi bands operating on Soviet territory the uncle of the former emir informed them that complete understanding had been reached with the British government and that in the early spring of 1922 they would arrive with troops, guns and planes via Shugnan, Chitral and Darvaz. The emir himself with troops and a battery was moving from Kabul towards Shirabad, he wrote. The Afghan government hindered these plans. In reply to the Soviet government's appeal the Afghan authorities disarmed 1,000 basmachi members who had fled to Afghanistan together with the former -Emir of Bukhara.
On seeing that its attempts to turn Afghanistan into a base for counter-revolutionary activities against the Soviet Union by the basmachi had failed, British Intelligence resorted to terror against Soviet representatives in Afghanistan. Several Soviet diplomatic couriers were killed by hired agents. In 1922 five members of the Soviet Embassy were killed in Kabul. In Herat an attempt was made on the lives of the consul general and other members of the Soviet mission. The British secret services spread slanderous and provocative rumours to the effect that Soviet Russia intended "to establish Soviet rule in Afghanistan''.
At the same time the British colonialists were engaged in provocative military preparations on the. eastern borders of Afghanistan: fortifications were being hastily 24 built, big military forces were concentrated there,' andairfields were built for up to 100 military aircraft. . The imperialists did not confine themselves to/putting. pressure on Afghanistan. In May 1923 Britain handed the Soviet Union the notorious "Curzon ultimatum'', one the main demands of which was withdrawal of Soviet diplomatic personnel from Afghanistan. Moscow categorically rejected that brazen demand.
In December 1923 the British ambassador to Kabul demanded in the form of an ultimatum that the Afghan government sever diplomatic relations with its northern neighbour. Otherwise, he warned, Britain would start another war against Afghanistan.
Displeased with the independent foreign policy pursued by Amanullah Khan, the imperialists hatched plots against the lawful government of Afghanistan.
They resorted to such tried and tested means as bribing tribal chiefs and religious leaders and supplying arms and ammunition to tribes. Great Britain actively supported the extreme right wing of the Muslim clergy which was in opposition to Amanullah. Among these was the Modjadrdedi family. One of the members of this family today heads a large counter-revolutionary organisation---the Na' tional Liberation Front---which has its headquarters in Peshawar. In the spring of 1924 British agents succeeded in organising a major tribal uprising in Khosta, a region of Afghanistan bordering on British possessions in India-. The uprising spread to some other regions of Afghanistan. The insurgents demanded the repeal of progressive laws and reforms adopted by Amanullah's government and insisted on a pro-British line in Afghan policy.
Britain's acts of provocation on the Afghan border were accompanied by propaganda campaign in the press inciting anti-Afghan feelings. Revealing the aims of the anti-Afghan activities of the British, the Civil and Military Gazette wrote on July 11, 1924, that the British government demanded a revision of the Anglo-Afghan treaty so as to restore British control over Afghanistan's foreign policy and to get the Russian mission out.
The spread of the uprising and a marked increase in basmachi activities from Afghan territory jeopardized Afghanistan's independence as:well as the security of the Soviet Union's southern areas bordering on Afghanistan. The Soviet Union again came to the aid of the Afghan 25 peopie by making the Afghan government a gift of aircraft and arms. As the result of successful operations by the Afghan army and the timely assistance of the Soviet Union the pro-imperialist rebellion was suppressed.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Failure of CollusionIn late 1928 by bribery and deception British agents managed to provoke a rebellion among certain tribes in the eastern part of Afghanistan. A British Intelligence agent, Col. T. E. Lawrence arrived in the north-western province of India. Under the alias of air craftsman Shaw he became very active in arranging meetings with Afghan Opposition leaders and virtually directed anti-- government activities in Afghanistan.
In those days Emir Amanullah of Afghanistan repeatedly told the Soviet ambassador that he had evidence the British were directing the rebellion they themselves had instigated.
The British agents managed to create another centre of rebellion in northern areas of Afghanistan where their henchman Bachha-i-Saqao was operating. On the eve of his force's attack on Kabul his envoys had a secret meeting with British ambassador Humphries to clarify details of the planned seizure of the Afghan capital. On February 28, 1929, the British Daily Mail wrote that Britain's representative in Kabul, Humphries, had helped the strongest man of the moment---Bachha-i-Saqao---to come to power.
Supporting the rebels, Britain organised a demonstration of strength from its bases in India near the Afghan border. British military aircraft time and again violated the air space of the sovereign state. British planes flew over Kabul. The Afghan ambassador to Turkey, Jeylani Khan, told a correspondent of the Turkish newspaper MilHyet that British aircraft were making daily flights over free Afghanistan. For how long, he asked, would the British government, which had vowed not to interfere in Afghan affairs, continue to violate international law unhindered?
In January 1929 Bachha-i-Saqao seized Kabul, overthrew the lawful government and proclaimed himself Emir of Afghanistan. Acting on the instructions of those 26 who brought him to power the upstart ruler aided and abetted the anti-Soviet activities being conducted from Afghan territory by the White emigre dregs and the basmachi bands who were connected with British Intelligence. From their bases in northern areas of Afghanistan about 2,000 basmachi stepped up their raids into the territory of Soviet Central Asian republics. These bands crossed the Soviet border to loot and terrorise the local population.
Though strongly supported by the imperialists and internal reactionary forces the British puppet Bachha-- iSaqao did not remain in power for long. Aware of the beneficial role of the Soviet Union in consolidating the independence and sovereignty of countries which had cast off the colonial yoke, the new Afghan ruler, Nadir-Shah, declared that the Afghan government would improve Soviet-Afghan relations and strengthen cooperation between the two countries. This undoubtedly accorded with the vital interests of the Afghan state. The defeat of the basmachi bands that had entrenched themselves on Afghan territory once and for all undermined the imperialists' hopes of using that country as a base for subversive activities against the Soviet Union.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Expansionist Plans of FascismIn the thirties Afghanistan became the target of the political and economic expansionist plans of nazi Germany and its allies---Italy and Japan. The Axis powers tried to force Afghanistan to give up its policy of neutrality, to draw it into their camp and use it to prepare and conduct aggression against the Soviet Union. Hitler gave Afghanistan the role of an important base in his strategic plans to conquer India and South-East Asia.
Under the pretext of giving Afghanistan "economic aid" fascist intelligence agents were sent to that country. They succeeded in penetrating the government apparatus and particular branches of the Afghan economy as `` consultants'', ``advisers'' and ``experts''.
The German colony in Afghanistan, which greatly increased on the eve of the Second World War, conducted subversive activities among the local population, spreading anti-Soviet literature and slanderous rumours aimed 27 at uhderiniaing the frtend'iy feeli-ngs of Afghan people for their northern neighbour. Hitler's agents Schenk, Fischer, Wenger and Knerlein, who infiltrated the war ministry and the ministry of public works, as well as Hilhammer, Spaude, Laufeberg and other German agents acting as ``businessmen'' were busy organising subversive and terrorist bands which" attacked Soviet border pdsts. From Afghanistan Hitler's agents were dispatched to Soviet Central Asian republics where they collected information and carried out subversive activities and acts of terror against Soviet government officials. In Afghanistan itself the German intelligence service established close contacts with Russian White emigres and still surviving basmachi leaders whom it used in subversive activities against the USSR.
At the same time the Axis powers tried to foster antiSoviet feelings in Afghan ruling circles and promised to annex all of Central Asia to Afghanistan when the Soviet Union was ``crushed''. Anti-Soviet broadcasts to Afghanistan in Pushtu and Dari were organised in Berlin and Rome.
Nazi Germany managed to spread its influence among tribes in the south of Afghanistan and in the north-- western border area. Preparing an uprising of Afghan tribes against the British authorities in India, Hitler gave Afghan leaders a promise to expand their territory by incorporating British possessions in India in Afghanistan.
Nazi Germany seriously regarded Afghanistan as a possible theatre of war operations against the USSR. Chief of German General Staff Haider noted in his diary that Hitler told him to submit the information needed for planning military operations in Asia, including Afghanistan.
On October 11,1941, soon after Nazi Germany's treacherous attack on the Soviet Union, the Soviet government sent the Afghan government a Note requesting that measures be taken to stop the subversive activity of German agents in Afghanistan. In November 1941 Afghanistan made public its resolve to stay neutral. Thanks to steps taken by the Afghan side an attack on the Soviet Union from Afghan territory was averted. In its turn, the rout of Nazi forces by the Soviet army in the Second World War eliminated the danger of the Afghan people being enslaved by Hitler's Germany.
28 __ALPHA_LVL2__ The USA---New Aspirant to Rule AfghanistanAfter the Second World War Britain's rule in Asia ended. Its place as the leading imperialist power in the East was taken by the United States. In its strategic plans in Asia Washington assigned an important role to Afghanistan. The United States tried to make Afghanistan abandon its policy of neutrality, to draw it into the system of military-political blocs knocked together by the West and to site American military bases on its territory, thereby turning Afghanistan into a springboard for planned aggression against the Soviet Union. The Western press wrote openly about the US imperialists' sinister designs with regard to the Afghan state. As the Current History,magazine observed in 1950, one of the reasons for the United States' interest in Afghanistan was its possible importance as a bridgehead for a future attack on Russia, In April 1949 the British journal Contemporary Review admitted that Afghanistan might possibly become as important as the countries which border on the "iron curtain" in Europe. Few areas in the world today attract more attention from American military and political experts, the New York Herald Tribune wrote about Afghanistan on June 1, 1955.
The United States was actively penetrating Afghanistan's economy and foreign trade. In the late forties it managed to impose on the Afghan government an agreement with the American firm of Morrison-Knudsen for the construction of several projects. Afghanistan used almost all its currency reserves to meet the cost of fulfilling the agreement, while the American side, failing, to fulfil its contractual obligations and squandering materials and assets, unjustifiably prolonged the construction of irrigation facilities, roads and other projects. Such an attitude towards its commitments on the American side was no accident. The growing financial demands made upon the Afghan government, the prolonging of operations were perfectly in line with the United States' plans to bind Afghanistan to itself economically, and then draw it into its military-political camp. As the Afghan newspaper Anis wrote with concern and disgust, in 1963 the Americans spent much more money on building villas for their specialists, than on the construction project itself. As a 29 result in the preceding 12 years agricultural output Jn the Hilmand Valley had noticeably declined.
In granting Afghanistan economic ``aid'' the United States hedged it about with several conditions. Specifically, it demanded that Afghanistan curtail its economic links with the Soviet Union and make several other concessions detrimental to the national interests and sovereignty of the independent state. The United States' brazen blackmail and the pressure it put on ruling circles in Afghanistan were acknowledged by American leaders themselves. Suffice it to quote Charles Sawyer, then US Secretary of Commerce, who frankly admitted that in January 1952 the United States had demanded that Afghanistan curtail its trade with the Eastern bloc on the basis of the mutual security law adopted in the USA in 1951, even though the United States could not offer the Afghans anything in return. He said that only recently the United States had demanded too much from the Afghan government and had, in particular, wanted freedom of action in the northern areas of Afghanistan.
Using economic channels to penetrate Afghanistan and to strengthen its influence there American imperialism expanded intelligence operations and anti-Soviet subversive activities in northern provinces, near the southern border of the USSR. Professional intelligence agents, CIA agents, operated in northern Afghanistan under the cover of US missions and international organisations. One of these agents was an American named Summerower. Working in Afghanistan in the early fifties as an employee of the United Nations, this "farm specialist" engaged in activities which had nothing to do with agriculture. The foreign press reported that he made topographical surveys along the Soviet-Afghan border, inspected roads, bridges and mountain passes and described them in detail.
In view of the growing striving of Western intelligence services to gain access to and have a free hand in areas of Afghanistan bordering on the USSR, in August 1952 the Soviet government declared that it objected to foreign specialists from NATO countries being invited to northern areas of Afghanistan. In reply the government of Afghanistan said that specialists from NATO countries would not be allowed to enter the country's northern areas and 30 that Afghanistan's territory would not be used for purposes hostile to the Soviet Union,
In those same years the American imperialists began to count on Pakistan as an important link in their policy of putting pressure on Afghanistan. As a means of exerting such pressure the United States chose the dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan over Pushtunistan and the fact that Afghanistan's foreign trade to a considerable extent depended on transit through Pakistan. Imperialist pressure on Afghanistan reached its climax in 1955 when the aggressive Baghdad Pact (CENTO) was being formed. In a bid to make Afghanistan change its foreign policy and to turn the Pushtunistan region into a strategic bridgehead for aggression against the USSR the Western powers, above all the United States and Britain, deliberately fanned differences between Afghanistan and Pakistan virtually bringing about a military confrontation between the two neighbouring countries. It was then too that Pakistan, prompted by the imperialists, deprived Afghanistan of the right to send its goods in transit through Pakistan. In fact the West and the reactionary forces in Pakistan imposed an economic blockade on Afghanistan, thereby trying to crush the Afghan people's resistance to the attempts to draw them into a militarypolitical alliance with imperialism.
In its striving to safeguard its national independence Afghanistan relied on the peace-loving policy of its friendly Soviet neighbour. In June 1955 the Soviet Union signed an agreement with Afghanistan on transit questions. Under this agreement Afghanistan had the right to send its goods duty-free to third countries through Soviet territory. The agreement was a hard blow at the conspiracy of the imperialists and the reactionaries against the Afghan people and it strengthened the position of Afghanistan on the world scene.
Speaking out against the aggressive measures taken by the imperialist powers in Western Asia, including the attempts of the USA to turn Afghanistan into a permanent seat of tension and a stronghold of imperialism in the region, the Afghan press wrote that if "Pakistan strengthens its army with the aid of the Americans or grants the United States military bases in exchange for arms, this will run counter to peace and security in the Middle East" (Anis, December 29, 1953).
31Noting increasing. US,Deliveries, of arms and military equipment to Pakistan, which was turning it into a base for subversive activities against independent Afghanistan, in the mid-fifties Afghanistan asked the Soviet Union to help it strengthen its national armed forces. In agreeing to this request the Soviet government proceeded from the view that cooperation in the military field would promote the. political independence of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union's contribution to the strengthening of the Afghan army has continued throughout the quarter of a century that has elapsed since then.
Imperialist circles and reactionary forces in the region launched an unbridled anti-Afghan campaign of slander, which the Afghan press described as follows: "The religious sentiments, national traditions of Afghanistan, its policy and way of life are subjected to unfounded criticism full of political ill will.'' (Islah, May 2, 1956).
Later on, in the sixties and seventies too, Afghanistan's policy of positive neutrality and non-alignment met with hostility from the West which continued to use all means and channels to impose a pro-imperialist policy on Afghanistan. In February 1960 Afghanistan's Foreign Minister noted: "The United States' aid has political strings attached to it. For example, they want us to join a military bloc. But these conditions do not suit us. The Afghan government is pursuing a policy of neutrality and non-alignment.''
__*_*_*__These are some pages from the more than century-long history of the West's aggressive policy with regard to Afghanistan. Having failed in their plans to turn Afghanistan into a NATO military springboard on the southern border of the Soviet Union and to impose the yoke of imperialist oppression upon Afghanistan, Washington is now with the aid of its closest allies engaging in subversive activities against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. These activities have assumed the form of undisguised armed interference in the domestic affairs of the Afghan state.
[32] __ALPHA_LVL1__ US IMPERIALISM AND ITS ALLIESThe April 1978 revolution, which opened the way for the liberation of the Afghan people from social exploitation and imperialist dependence, was met by reactionary forces abroad with undisguised hostility. Fearing for their vested interests in Afghanistan and the Middle East as a whole, the imperialists reacted to that event with moves hostile to the democratic republic. A few days after the victory of the revolution the revolutionary leadership of Afghanistan in a policy statement broadcast over Kabul Radio said that the overthrown classes, supported by imperialist forces from abroad and by internal reactionaries, were hatching plots against the popular government and were hindering reforms aimed at improving the living standards of the working masses.
The United States at once assumed the leading role in the anti-Afghan chorus of Western powers and their allies in the region, because Washington, reacting painfully to progressive changes in any part of the world, is highly sensitive to any developments not to its liking in countries bordering on the Soviet Union.
As soon as the undemocratic dictatorial regime of Mohammad Daoud was overthrown, the United States began to draw up plans for removing the democratic government in Kabul, establishing a pro-American puppet regime and regaining its lost imperialist positions. It counted both on pro-monarchic and feudal landlord forces undermining the revolutionary system from within and on aggression from without which was to be conducted with the backing of regimes in the area, above all, Pakistan, which were US allies.
__PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 2 No 1420 33A wide range of well-known subversive techniques many a time used by America against regimes it disliked (one only bas to recall Chile) was resorted to: from CIA agents operating in Afghanistan to a barrage of slanderous anti-Afghan propaganda. Particularly great hopes were pinned on armed intervention against the sovereign Afghan state.
US foreign policy establishments, including secret services, got busy forming groups of saboteurs and terrorists, recruited mainly from counter-revolutionary or simply criminal elements and sending them into Afghanistan. Intervention by the United States and its allies began on a particularly large scale in the spring of 1979. Having suffered a crushing defeat in Iran, American imperialism chose to have its revenge in neighbouring Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of rebels, described by reactionary propaganda as " popular insurgents'', were trained with American money and by American (and other) instructors and equipped with American arms. The/ invaded Afghanistan, where they are now plundering and terrorising the population and attacking government offices and army units. Imperialism, together with its accomplices, has launched an undeclared war against Afghanistan.
Official representatives of the US administration try to deny American involvement in aggression against Afghanistan. This was only to be expected. Only a very naive person would expect Washington to reveal the secret springs of its conspiracy against the Afghan revolution.
American involvement in Afghan affairs, however, is no longer a secret. Many facts that are now public knowledge show that the United States is taking a direct part in the subversive and aggressive activities against the independent Afghan state.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Resolute Condemnation On January 23, President Jimmy Carter addressed the
American Congress with his State of the Union message.
Having familiarised ourselves with this speech, we can
only express our indignation and protest against the
interpretation of events in Afghanistan and the
surrounding region which the head of the American
34
administration has put forward in this document. It completely
disregards the true state of affairs and distorts events to
the point when they cease to be recognisable.
Essentially, the American President, without any grounds for doing so, has taken upon himself the right to decide for the Afghan people and its state leadership what is good and what is bad for our country, what kind of regime we should have, and what policies we should follow.
Such declarations represent nothing other than a continuation of the grave interference in the internal affairs of our nation. The President has taken the liberty of alleging that the popular rising against the despotic regime of Hafizullah Amin, which put an end to the bloody repressions and persecution of honest patriots, signified the "abolition of independence in Afghanistan''. To make such a declaration is grossly to distort the facts.
In actual fact, as a result of the overthrow of the dictatorship of Hafizullah Amin, the attempt to turn Afghanistan into a bridgehead for aggressive actions against other countries was frustrated and our nation's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity were protected against the interminable armed encroachments from beyond our borders.
Is it not clear that this represents a revival and a strengthening of our independence, rather than an `` abolition''?
What possible grounds can the President of the USA have for taking upon himself the right to choose a government for our people? Absolutely none!
This is the sovereign right of the Afghan people and only they are able to decide what kind of government suits them best.
And they made their choice at the time of the April revolution and the events of December 27, 1979.
Our government is the only lawful, national and democratic popular government of Afghanistan. We have the support of the broadest sections of the population.
No one can deprive us of our inalienable right to choose our friends nor the right to turn to them for assistance in case of need. We resolutely reject the accusations levelled at the Soviet Union which were contained in the speech. The Soviet Union has rendered us support in our struggle against external aggression in which Washington's participation is no great secret.
35In calling upon the Soviet Union for help, we acted in full accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter, which guarantees us---and any nation which has become the object of aggression---the right to collective self-defence. We also looked for support to Article 4 of the SovietAfghan Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation.
The Soviet Union, responding to our appeal, fulfilled its treaty obligations and acted in full accordance with international law.
The President of the USA must be perfectly aware that the limited contingent of Soviet troops, introduced into the territory of Afghanistan at our request, is helping us to protect our borders from intrusions from abroad. Relationships between the Afghan people and the Soviet soldiers are based on sympathy and trust. The Afghan nation makes no claims to the territory of other countries and does not intend to interfere in any other nation's internal affairs.
Its territory is not being used for preparations for any attempts to push forward to the Indian Ocean or the Persian Gulf, the oil-rich zones. All this is a total fabrication. But the chief of the American administration prefers to ignore these perfectly obvious facts. He disregards the assurances expressed both by the Soviet government and by ourselves that as soon as the factors, which prompted us to look to the USSR for help, cease to exist, Soviet units will be withdrawn from Afghanistan.
Isn't it because the President deliberately failed to mention all this that right-wing and imperialist circles within the USA are looking upon events in Afghanistan and the surrounding region as an excuse for undermining detente and as a basis for the expansionist and imperialist ambitions of the United States itself.
The government and people of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan resolutely repudiate the interference of the USA in the internal affairs of our country, whatever form it takes---whether as interventionist acts against the Afghan state or provocatory speeches. Afghanistan has been in the past and continues to be an independent and free state.
Kabul, February 14, 1980
36 __ALPHA_LVL2__ American ``Sensitivity'' About AfghanistanFor a year and a half there was a steady flow of arms through Pakistan, armed bands of mercenaries were trained for invasion, including persons who refused to accept the revolutionary changes and wished to restore the monarchy and feudalism in Afghanistan. These mercenaries were instructed by CIA officers together with Chinese `` advisers'' and they underwent practical training in Pakistani barracks---Pakistan became a base for launching military operations against Afghanistan. An undeclared war against that country and its people was waged and is still being waged to this day. At the same time the USSR's vital interests in Afghanistan are probably no less than those of America, because Afghanistan lies directly on our southern borders, while the United States is many thousands of kilometres away.
The Carter administration has again openly declared its military and material support of the mercenaries on the territory of Pakistan and China. Arms supplies to that region are expanding. Why, one may ask. The answer is plain: in order to extend the aggression against Afghanistan, American aggression which is being supported by the Peking leaders, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The combination of these motley forces is not being called a military alliance. A new catch-phrase has been found for it---``consortium''. But it is not words that count here. The fact of outside intervention in Afghan affairs is clear to all. And if the West still talks about "Soviet armed invasion of Afghanistan'', only a very shortsighted politician can fail to see what was cause and what was consequence.
If the United States wants peace in this region, all the US President has to do is to order an end to the invasion of Afghanistan, the halting of arms supplies and the dismantling of the mercenaries' bases, in a word, an end to all forms of intervention directed against the government and people of Afghanistan, and then the causes would no longer exist which prompted the Afghan leaders to ask us for assistance.
Leonid Zamyatin, " Llteraturnaya Gazeta" (USSR), February 27, 1980
37 __*_*_*__There is no reason to believe that after its setback in Iran the United States will renounce taking action in that region... The United States wants to use events in Afghanistan as a lever for drawing states and parties into a camp hostile to the Soviet Union... that is its aim. To attain it, the United States is no doubt aiding the rebellion (i.e. the training of armed rebel units and their despatch into Afghanistan---Ed.) in every way. This requires the agreement of Pakistan. Conditions for this are favourable.
``Le Figaro" (France), July 3, 1979
The "favourable conditions" mentioned by the French bourgeois newspaper probably refer to the visit which Warren Christopher, US Deputy Secretary of State, paid to Pakistan in the spring of 1979 when the questions of aid to Afghan counter-revolutionaries were discussed. The same questions were discussed during the visit of a US Congress delegation to Islamabad in August 1979, whose members met leaders of armed units operating from Pakistan territory.
The continuing success of Muslim rebels in Afghanistan has touched off a debate in the Carter Administration over possible covert US intervention in the civil war between the insurgents and the Soviet-backed regime of President Noor Mohammad Taraki.
``Newsweek" (USA), May 28, 1979
__*_*_*__Plans to give military support to the counter-- revolutionary groups of mercenaries in Afghanistan were discussed by the US National Security Council in Washington on January 2, 1980. It was decided to continue diverse aid to all anti-government Afghan organisations 38 and groupings so that they could step up their subversive activities as well as provocations against Afghan and Soviet offices in various countries.
``Al-Shaab" (Lebanon), January 16, 1980
__*_*_*__Senator Charles Percy said that the United States must provide direct assistance to the nationalistic and rebel forces in Afghanistan and must help Pakistan with arms.
From a speech in the US Senate, January 1980
__*_*_*__Because of the revolution in Iran the CIA has moved its headquarters to Pakistan. It has been told to keep developments in Afghanistan and Iran under control from there.
``Millat" (Pakistan), July 4, 1979
__*_*_*__...It is certainly an illusion to believe that the US is keeping its hands off Afghanistan. At this point it is not clear how much the CIA is involved in Afghan affairs beyond the regular monitoring of activities of military and rebel movements.
Another US intelligence agency which is highly active in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area is the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DBA). Comprised partly of `` former'' CIA officers, the DBA has rarely limited itself to ``pure'' prosecution of drug traffickers.
...Interestingly, two of the Afghan rebel leaders, Zia Nezri and Zia Nassery, are in fact US citizens, and the State Department is in touch with at least one of them. Zia Nezri, a supporter of the deposed monarchy, visited the State Department in early March 1979, just before the attack on Herat, to ask for US support. Nezri had lengthy discussions with Afghanistan Desk Officer Ronald 39 Lorton and other State Department officials as well as with representatives of senators Frank Church and Jacob Javits.
``Counterspy" (USA), No. 1, 1979
__*_*_*__The Soviet press (Pravda, Krasnaya Zvezda and other newspapers) have published facts which show convincingly that it is the CIA that is masterminding all the plots against Afghanistan and that has assumed direct guidance of the drawing up, planning and carrying out of operations undertaken by armed groups from Pakistan territory.
Louis Dupree, a CIA representative, appeared in Afghanistan immediately after the April 1978 revolution to establish contact with Afghan reactionaries and organise the counter-revolutionary forces. But he failed in his mission and in November 1978 was expelled from Afghanistan. Moving to Pakistan, he headed a group there that included Robert Lessart, Louis Robinson, Venan David, Rogers Brock and other CIA agents. This team became a sort of headquarters staff for Afghan counter-revolutionary armed units.
The bandits were promised unlimited supplies of arms, ammunition and money. The chiefs of the counter-revolutionary forces were invited to visit the USA. In May 1979 a delegation of the National Liberation Front led by its head, Sabatullah Mojadedi, was in the United States. CIA funds were used to set up in the USA the Association of American Aid for Afghan Refugees (headed by Theodore Eliot, former US ambassador to Afghanistan) and a National Liberation Front of Afghanistan led by the Zakria brothers.
On CIA initiative leaders of Afghan counter-- revolutionary forces met in Pakistan in January 1979 and decided to organise a so-called "committee of struggle''. They set dates for armed actions and considered questions of cooperation with the representatives of "friendly powers" supplying rebel bands with arms, money and explosives. Similar meetings, attended by CIA representatives, were held later as well on numerous occasions.
40 __*_*_*__An escalation of subversive activities began in nearly half of the 28 Afghan provinces in the spring of 1979. Counter-revolutionary detachments, scores of thousands strong, concentrated in the north-west regions of Pakistan and launched coordinated attacks against the southern regions of Afghanistan. At the same time these bands, equipped with American and Chinese weapons, intruded into Herat, Afghanistan's third largest city, occupied military installations and food stores. Afghan counter-- revolutionaries are being trained by Pakistani and Chinese military instructors. The American and British secret services have been involved in the training of Afghan counter-revolutionaries.
``Tribuna" (Czechoslovakia), January 4, 1980
__*_*_*__Many agents of the Central Intelligence Agency, specialists in organising subversive activities in Muslim countries, were sent to states neighbouring on Afghanistan after the April Revolution. The Pakistani authorities allow the use of the territory of Pakistan for formation of numerous subversive centres located along the frontier with the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan... The terrorists do not experience a shortage of arms and ammunition: They invariably receive these from the United States, China, Britain, Egypt...
``Kabul New Times" ( Afghanistan), January 21, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ CIA Intrigues Against AfghanistanOn February 2, the government of Pakistan issued a statement in which it denied that its territory was being used for training Afghan rebels and for delivering arms to them.
However, Peter Bensinger, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who was stationed in Washington, sent a letter to the US ambassador to Pakistan which shows beyond a shadow of doubt that Pakistan territory 41 is not only used for the aforesaid purposes but is at the complete disposal of a well-known subversivetion---the Central Intelligence Agency.
The letter informs the US ambassador in Ithat Louis Adams, a special agent, who heads tsection of the Drug Enforcement Administration ihad left for Peshawar and mentions that on Jan1979 Adams organised and carried out in Lahorure the results of which proved extremely usefuUnited States.
Although Louis Adams was officially listed athe Lahore section for combatting the spread ofhe was actually a special CIA agent in Pakist1977) whose mission was to help Pakistan's secrorganise intelligence operations against India in tregions. The ``measure'' for which he was praisesinger's letter was a meeting with the leaders ofwhich he had organised on January 18. Later hemeetings also in other towns in Pakistan. It is tothat Adams was transferred to Peshawar whiccloser to the border with Afghanistan. In the paworked under just such cover in Vietnam.
The sinister implication of the aforesaid lett``measure'' it spoke of were described in detail topondent of the weekly magazine Blitz by a formof the Drug Enforcement Administration whostandable reasons did not give his name. Heconclusions of his own but described various accited data which give a chilling picture of a diabconceived by the CIA which, having failed to lnistan into the American trap, was preparing tfor providing broad backing to a "sacred war" toby rebels mainly from the territory of Pakistan.
Washington was looking for a justificationactions, and the CIA provided it. The cold-bloder of the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Adowhich took place on February 14, 1979, servedpose. Dubs "was sacrificed" on the insistence owhich wanted to bring about a complete bretions between Washington and Kabul, layingfor this on the government of Taraki.
The US government used the murder ofground for changing its policy toward Afghancondemning the Afghan government as a "communist 42 regime under the control of the Soviet Union''. All agreements on economic aid to Afghanistan were cancelled; no new ambassador was appointed to replace Dubs; and Kabul was accused of violating human rights.
The meeting mentioned earlier, organised by Adams, was directly related to the murder of Dubs since it was a part of the conspiracy.
A few weeks after Dubs' death and after the collapse of US economic, strategic and political plans in Iran and the break-up of CENTO, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher was sent on a mission to Turkey where he was to have talks with the Turkish authorities oh setting up US intelligence centres there and to study the possibilities of forming an alliance similar to CENTO.
For this it would be necessary, however, to have a government in Afghanistan that is friendly to the United States, Afghanistan being an ideal place for siting intelligence centres aimed against the Soviet Union.
Although Pakistan officially took a firm position as regards the United States' proposed 400 million dollars worth of military and economic aid to Pakistan, there is a secret agreement between the two countries on conducting subversive activities against Afghanistan.
The Swiss newspaper Neue Ziircher Zeitung reported in February, 1979, that the military government of Pakistan had without any publicity given 20 million rupees
to ``refugees''. It has been established that this money came from the CIA. The Swiss newspaper also said that the rebels used all the money for purchasing weapons. "It is
absolutely amazing,'' said the newspaper, "that practically all those who ran away from Pakistan are male adults.''
There is definite evidence linking the CIA with the Chinese and also evidence that Pakistan is a willing tool in their hands.
The Japanese news agency Kyodo Tsushin indicated in one of its reports that Pakistan partisans trained by the Chinese for carrying out subversive activities have launched quick sallies against Afghan troops in border regions and are protecting the rebels.
According to Indian intelligence reports, LieutenantGeneral F.A. Chishty of Pakistan, who commands a corps and is in charge of the defence of the country's northern communist | regions, had visited this border region and had had a 43 series of meetings with Chinese commanders shortly before the Soviet Union took steps to save Afghanistan from a coup d'etat plotted by the CIA.
In June, 1978, a senior researcher of the Georgetown Centre for Strategic and International Studies, which has close ties with the CIA, wrote that taking into consideration the obvious interest of the United States in the security and stability of this whole region, it would be desirable for the US government to consult and cooperate more closely with Iran and Pakistan, and that.a quiet but definite showing of understanding of their anxieties would reassure them and at the same time serve as an indirect warning to the new government of Afghanistan under Taraki should it try to make things difficult for its neighbours.
In reality everything was exactly the other way round. It is these neighbours who at that time made things difficult for Afghanistan and interfered in its internal affairs.
``Blitz" (India), February 9, 1980 (abridged)
__*_*_*__According to information from Western journalistic circles, the leaders of the Afghan opposition, acting on US recommendations, have set about forming in Pakistan an Afghan "government in exile" which will officially be known as the "Revolutionary People's Council of Afghanistan''. This ``government'' is to comprise Ghulbiddin Ekmatiar, Sayed Ahmad Gheilani, Zia Nezri and the leader of the Afghan opposition, Bashir Zakria, a CIA agent now in New York.
According to American plans this ``government'' will ask the government of Pakistan for military aid to `` liberate'' Afghanistan. In this way Pakistan with the United States' and China's backing will have an excuse for a direct armed intervention in Afghanistan's internal affairs.
It has also been reported that some units of Pakistan's armed forces have already begun training for combat operations in areas near the Afghan border. Meanwhile the Americans are making efforts to persuade third world 44 countries to come out in support of the future "Afghan government in exile" and get it recognised by the United Nations.
``A l-Shaab" (Lebanon), January 25, 1980
__*_*_*__One can presume that Hikmatyar had launched his rebel attacks earlier. So he was in touch with the CIA prior to his other rivals.
...[Also,] as a plebeian, the public in Afghanistan would trust him more than the aristocratic Hazrats or Naqibs...
However, the whole thing boils down to a crystal clear fact. The CIA was on the verge of engineering a coup in Afghanistan to foist its long-standing agent, Hafizullah Amin, as President and the sharp but less experienced Hikmatyar as the Prime Minister of the "Republic of Afghanistan"...
``Kabul New Times" ( Afghanistan), January 22, 1980
__*_*_*__The US Central Intelligence Agency, in cooperation with Pakistan's authorities, is working hard to bring various, primarily religious groups hostile to the Kabul regime together and to set up a "legitimate government of an Islamic Republic of Afghanistan" in exile.
``A l-Shaab" (Lebanon), December 28, 1979
__*_*_*__The US Central Intelligence Agency is using extremist Muslim groups of the"Muslim Brotherhood"type for subversive activities against Afghanistan and Iran. The CIA is coordinating its activities with the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia. A report submitted to Al-Riyadh by the American side early in May, 1979, stressed the need to step up efforts to deepen the differences between 45 Kabul and Teheran and to incite armed conflict between them so as to ensure proper conditions for an invasion of Iran and Afghanistan by pro-US forces.
``Al-Kifah al-Arabi" ( Lebanon), No. 80, 1979
__*_*_*__An international adventurer named Durranti, a habitue of smart casinos in the Bermudas, flew into New York and proclaimed himself as "King Hassan the First of Afghanistan''.
The impostor moved into a luxury apartment on Fifth Avenue and told the local press he had arrived with the knowledge of the US State Department. The phoney king is staying there with the patronage of a mysterious American named Perry Morgan. That gentleman calls himself the "Royal Vice-Chancellor''. He tells everybody that "His Majesty" left his "native Kabul" at the age of three, since when the homeless Durranti spent nearly half a century roaming through Western Eurdpe and America until he settled in the Bermudas, but then a few months ago his fine political intuition suggested the tempting idea of calling for the restoration of the monarchy in Afghanistan and laying claim to the throne with US backing.
Mr. Morgan seriously claims to have already contacted Robert Strauss, an influential adviser to the US President, and to have sent an official message to the White House from "Hassan .the First" urging support for "Afghan insurgents'', that is to say, rebel bandits.
In the spring of 1979 Literaturnaya Gazeta reported that an emissary of Afghan rebels, Zia Nezri, arriving then from the military headquarters of the rebels in Peshawar, Pakistan, had been secretly received in New York and Washington.
The thug Nezri was honoured by a meeting with Senators Frank Church and Jacob Javits. After that meeting Nezri blurted out:
``I have come to the United States to seek political and financial support for a confrontation with the authorities of Afghanistan. We need money to buy enough arms.''
46The talks with Nezri at the US State Department were conducted by Ronald Lorton, chief of the Afghanistan department. Asked by the Literaturnaya Gazeta correspondent about American arms supplies, Lorton said:
``We do not answer such questions. The talks with Nezri were confidential.''
It has come to light that one Bashir Zakria, an envoy of the Afghan rebels, settled here in Washington under an assumed name at No. 161 Fort Washington Street a few days ago. To check up, I went along to that address although I knew in advance that, if he guessed who I was, I wouldn't get a word out of him. Moreover I had been warned that Zakria and his accomplices in New York had managed to get a gang together from Afghan emigrants they had deceived, whose members went on the rampage, brandishing daggers, in front of the UN offices on January 4, and later tried to attack the Soviet mission.
In the hall of the house where Zakria had put up I was detained by two guards who cross-examined me. I had to resort to wiles: to get an interview with Zakria I said I was a newspaper correspondent from an exotic country faraway. In the end I was led down a long corridor and locked in an empty room. Ten minutes later a well-groomed darkhaired man in an expensive fashionable suit came in. He greeted me in impeccable English and introduced himself as Bashir Zakria. After first listening patiently to his diatribes against Kabul and Moscow, I began little by little to ask about his activities and life story.
``I am 47,'' Zakria opened up. "I visited the United States for the first time in my youth, I didn't stay here long, I made some useful acquaintances and learned from my American friends and tutors how to detect my enemies---the Communists. Some of our rebel leaders have also been well trained in America. My assignment from now on is to be senior liaison officer between the Americans and our armed detachments based around Peshawar. I am in daily contact with the Peshawar headquarters by telephone and cable. I regularly visit the border areas of Afghanistan and come back to New York with fresh operational reports.''
``And what is your main task in New York?''
``It is to coordinate the dispatch of money and all kinds of material from the US to our frontline border bases.''
47``Money for buying arms?" I asked. "By 'material' you mean arms?''
``I would rather not specify,'' Zakria grinned. "And I don't advise you to be too curious either.''
lona Andronov, " Ltteraturnaya Gazeta'', (USSR), January 16, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Who Trains Wreckers?The Americans and Chinese stepped up their training of Afghan rebels after September in a dozen camps in Pakistan. They were guided in their operations inside Afghanistan by CIA men, operating under the sign-boards of the US Anti-Drug Board and Asian Fund for Refugees...
``Blitz" (India), January 12, 1980
__*_*_*__A rebel leader told PTI that in the past eighteen months about 35,000 Afghan rebels had been trained by Pakistan. They were sent from Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, about 60 km from the Pakistan border. The training, which lasts between three months to six months, includes the handling of anti-tank weapons---rcl guns ---reportedly supplied by the Americans. The rebel leader said so far 50,000 guerillas had been sent to Pakistan for training.
``Hindustan Times" (India), January 18, 1980
__*_*_*__According to Afghan diplomats in Berlin, a large number of CIA agents, who specialised in ``destabilisation'', were dispatched to Pakistan's border regions by the end of 1978, to train Muslim insurgents.
``Blitz" (India), January 12, 1980
48 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Here's What CIA Agents SayThere were three of them, robust young men. They had become traitors, betraying their country and defecting to the enemy. Two of them fell for lying propaganda and one had been recruited from among criminals. Abdullah Goll had been a student at Kabul University, Abdul Malek had not even had eight full years at school, and Abdul Basir had deserted from cadet school.
There they were, sitting their heads down. Repentance had, of course, come late, but had come nevertheless. They had told their interrogators everything in detail, and fully acknowledged their guilt. They were now awaiting trial.
``Who were your instructors at the training camps?''
We put this question to each of them in turn. Their answers coincided---there were among others both Amer rican and Chinese instructors.
``What kind of instruction was it?''
It turned out that they had been trained under the same programme as those ace thugs, known as "green berets'', had been trained during the Vietnam war.
Goll and Malek had been taught the art of killing, looting and raping at the Ghulbakhar-2 base near Peshawar. A. Basir had spent his three months at Korm, also in Pakistan. The mission of his small terrorist group was first of all to smuggle arms into Afghanistan---30 rifles, 20 submachine guns, 200 hand grenades and 25,000 rounds of ammunition. Having established themselves in the small village of Tezin, the bandits were then to pitch a base camp and wait for another subversion group to arrive.
``What exactly did your group do?''
A. Basir said they set fire to crops, raided villages and cut power transmission lines in the Sarobi area.
``Who gave you your final instructions?''
The detainees were just as unanimous in answering this question---American and Chinese instructors were their course examiners and gave them their blessing for criminal acts.
``Izvestia" (USSR), January 8, 1980
49 __*_*_*__He was one of those who had turned up one dark night in the Gazni district a short while ago to kill his fellowcountrymen. Abdullah was armed with a 20-shooter American rifle. His mission comprised two, so to speak, complementary assignments: to set fire to houses, crops and schools and to kill people except those who could be persuaded to join the counter-revolutionaries. Religion was to be the "main basis" of such propaganda. Abdullah was to tell the mostly illiterate peasants that the new government was going to destroy the mosques and put the clergy behind bars.
``I was trained by American and Chinese instructors,'' he told us. "It was they, too, who equipped us at the camp where we were trained before being sent across the border with money and arms.''
``How many were trained at your base? Who was officially in charge? Give us their names.''
Abdullah answered quickly without hesitation:
``It was Mohammad Nabi who ran the camp. I once saw a list of persons on kitchen allowance---there were a hundred altogether.''
Vadim Kassis, Kakhar Rashidov, ``Nedelya'' (USSR), No. 4, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Eyewitness AccountsMohammad Juma, of the village of Musakala, Gilmend province: The bandits not only burnt down our school, but they killed the teacher. He was a good and kind man, the only teacher at this school which was opened after the April revolution.
Juma's fellow-villager Isadar Mohammad: These beasts who have lost all traces of humanity claimed i t was Allah who directed their hand in punishing us for sins. But the Almighty punished them instead---they w«re all either destroyed or taken prisoner by the splendid soldiers of the People's Army.
Piruz Shakrabi, Paktia province: I had a narrow escape from a massacre that took place in my village. The bandits came down from the hills before sunset. They 50 surrounded the village and sacked it and then after herding the peasants to the outskirts shot them all dead with automatic weapons. Before leaving, they poured petrol all round the houses and set them on fire. I have lost my home, I have lost my father and mother.
Samad Mohammad, a peasant from the village of Kolga, Nangarhar province: Rebels? They are killers and bandits, pure and simple, with only one aim---a return to the past. They are burning schools down and shooting teachers and activists of the women's and youth movements, and making short shrift of all those who dared encroach on "the master's land''.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Afghan Rebel: "We Take No Prisoners"When I met Bashir Zakria, one of the Afghan rebel chiefs, in New York, I ventured to ask him about two pictures which had appeared, in that city's newspapers on January 11. The New York Post carried a photo of three Afghan bandits armed with automatic weapons pointed at the backs of two unarmed men. One of the butchers was also pictured in The New York Times as he fired at a victim already shot and lying at his feet. The captions under both photos cold-bloodedly reported the shooting of "school teachers in the village of Farakh near the town of Kandagar''.
``Your Afghan supporters invited a Yew York Times correspondent to look at the bodies of sixteen compatriots they had shot,'' I told Bashir Zakria. "The killers said they were hounding village teachers because they taught not only children but also village women to read and write. Your supporters told the American journalists they were killing all their prisoners. Before execution they cut off people's hands, ears and noses, flayed them alive, tortured children to death in front of their mothers and fathers. Is that true?''
``Yes, we take no prisoners,'' Zakria rapped out. "Yes, we are killing unfaithful teachers. And we will show no mercy to anyone.''
lona Andronov, " Literaturnay a Gazeta" (USSR)t January 16t 1980
51 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From Pentagon and the CIA ArsenalsAreas adjacent to the Afghan-Pakistan border have become training grounds for armed counter-revolutionary bands. Our military units have more than once captured large quantities of the arms of American, British and Chinese origin with which the bandits have been and are still killing active revolutionaries and civilians.
From an interview by Shah Mohammad Dost, Minister of Foreign, Affairs of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, January 5, 1980
__*_*_*__Ronald Reagan, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, has confirmed what is already universally known: the United States has been secretly supplying Afghan anti-government rebels with arms. He repeated this on the basis of information he now receives officially from the US Department of State. Questioned by journalists, Mr. Reagan said there was no point debating the legitimacy or illegitimacy of action which had already been taken.
Just who is receiving American arms in Afghanistan and how? In New York I was shown a message which had come from the headquarters of Afghan counter-revolutionaries by phone on January 8. It was an urgent request for arms and money and a promise to continue fighting as long as there was at least one of "our enemies" alive. The cable was sent from Peshawar on the Afghan-Pakistani border by Sayed Ahmad Gheilani, commander of the local rebels.
Gheilani's Peshawar headquarters is staffed by graduates of the Washington "international police academy" and the Texas school for saboteurs. These two institutions were set up by the CIA for training foreigners. On their return to Afghanistan they were given instructions by CIA officers Samuel Recard and Arnold Long who visited Kabul by turns and worked there under the cover of US diplomats.
On January 8, when the above-mentioned telegram reached New York by phone, Gheilani's American bosses launched a big international operation. Frank Sturges, 52 an American spy, suddenly appeared near the Afghan border. This fact alone was a sign of preparations for a large operation: Sturges is a veteran CIA expert in deadly provocations.
Well-informed Americans say that the "air bridge" to the Afghan borders begins in Manchester, Britain, where a private firm, Interarms, controlled by US intelligence services, trades in arms. The firm has an office in Washington next door to the Pentagon and an arms factory near Warrenton, Va. The bulk of Interarms's arsenal---200,000 items of military equipment, including machine guns, rifles, bazookas, tommy-guns, anti-tank rifles, flame throwers, anti-aircraft guns, field guns and shells---is housed in a ten-storeyed building in Manchester. Interarms is headed by Samuel Cummings, an American and a CIA agent since 1950. On January 17 he frankly told American journalists in Manchester that customers from Pakistan could get any of these weapons at any time.
He had in mind not the Pakistanis, who have not contacted him, but the CIA's clients in Peshawar who have ensconced themselves in Pakistan.
lona Andronov, " Literaturnaya Gaze to.'' (USSR), January 23, 1980
__*_*_*__``A lorry will be here soon and you'll see everything for yourselves,'' an official of the Security Department of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan said in a low voice as he opened the door for us. "Almost all the arms have been brought here from the Pakistan border. The bandits infiltrate mainly where the landscape is rugged, where the mountain passes look more like wild animal trails, not roads.''
Ascertaining the calibre of the weapons and counting the number of rounds in heavy magazines was a task for experts. For us it was more important to establish from trade marks the origin of the arms now being smuggled into Afghanistan by the enemies of the April revolution. We also wanted to see the people who had held these guns with their powder-blackened barrels, who had pressed the triggers and rattled the bolts.
53We received the answers to all our questions: the United States .and China had opened their arsenals to the traitors of the Afghan people, to criminals and to simply hired assassins. At first a few items had, evidently, also been made in a primitive fashion at secret small arms factories in Pakistan.
Vadim Kassis, Kakhar Rashidov, ``Nedelya'' (USSR), No. 4, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Lies ExposedWorld public attention and interest are riveted on tho course of developments in Afghanistan. This is quite natural. Our country has entered a new stage of the revolution, the distinguishing feature of which is unprecedented cohesion of the people and the strengthening of the unity of our party.
The fraternal friendly assistance which the Soviet Union has lent to Afghanistan at the request of our government has made it possible to put up a strong and reliable shield against the aggressive intrigues of external enemies of the sovereign Afghan people. Our people can now work in peace; they can vigorously and confidently consolidate and develop the gains of the April revolution.
We note with satisfaction that events in Afghanistan are being given extensive coverage in the world press. Most of the press organs are reporting the situation in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan objectively and favourably. At the same time the United States, other Western countries and the People's Republic of China are continuing their malicious smear campaign against Afghanistan.
Persons whose role as ``correspondents'' is suspect have been sent or, rather, dispatched to Afghanistan from the United States, Britain and several other Western countries to keep this slander campaign going. These gentlemen come out with one silly invention and insinuation after another with the object of increasing tension in our country and disrupting the normal life of the Afghans. 54 Especially zealous in this respect are the correspondents of such US newspapers as The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor, as well as representatives of US radio and TV companies. We cannot describe the activities of the above-- mentioned journalists as anything but gross interference in the affairs of the sovereign state of Afghanistan. That is why the Revolutionary Council of Afghanistan has decided to expel the American journalists from Afghanistan.
Bakhtar News Agency, January 17, 1980
__*_*_*__The departure of American journalists has been accompanied by a sharp drop in the stories of armed clashes and murderous incidents usually attributed to "diplomatic sources''.
I could find no one who has actually witnessed a military engagement, seen a body or a helicopter gunship in action. The shops are open, people queue at the cinema and, apart from the 11 p. m. curfew---which was in force before the Russians arrived---life in Kabul seems normal.
``The Daily Telegraph" ( Sritain), January 22, 1980
__*_*_*__...The American embassy in Kabul has been consistently putting out exaggerated reports of rebel victories which other diplomats consider reflect badly on United States credibility and provide an overoptimistic impression of insurgent capability.
``The Daily Telegraph" ( Britain), January 22, 1980
__*_*_*__The following incident occurred in Tarkham, a small inhabited locality on the Afghan-Pakistan border. A caravan with tea bound for Afghanistan from Pakistan looked suspicious to Afghan border guards. They inspected the bags and crates and found them filled not with tea 55 but with an entirely different ``commodity'', namely, bundles of counter-revolutionary booklets and leaflets, published in Pakistan, slandering the Afghan revolution and urging the overthrow of the legitimate Afghan government.
The incident in Tarkham is only one of many facts showing that Afghanistan's enemies abroad are ever more actively resorting to the poisonous weapon of lies and slander, a TASS correspondent was told at the Central Board for Defence of the Revolution at Afghanistan's Ministry of the Interior. Relying on generous backing from Western secret services, above all the US Central Intelligence Agency, and on the support of Pakistani reactionaries united in the Jamiat-e-Islami Party and other extreme Right-wing organisations, and also with the open connivance of the Pakistani authorities, the counter-- revolutionary forces based in Pakistan have launched a fierce propaganda campaign against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. It is precisely on the territory of Pakistan that subversive Afghan radio stations have been set up which call for "blowing up the revolution''. It is precisely on the territory of Pakistan that ``manifestos'', ``appeals'', and other kinds of anti-Afghan counter-- revolutionary trash are composed and printed in thousands of copies. According to available information, the counter-revolutionaries with the support of Pakistani reactionaries have been able to make extensive use of the printing facilities of such leading Pakistani newspapers as Nawai-i-Waqt and Imrose (Lahore), Jang (Karachi) and Hurriyat (Rawalpindi) for their subversive slanderous activities.
TASS, Kabul, January 13, WHO
__*_*_*__The stepping up of CIA activities in the Pakistan press is linked with the schemes of American imperialism and Pakistani reactionary circles, which aim to use the gangs of Afghan counter-revolutionaries on the territory of Pakistan to exert constant pressure on the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. As for the flow 56 of anti-Afghan and anti-Soviet stories, which are being forced into the Pakistan press, their role is to conceal the true state of affairs.
``Millat" (Pakistan}, July 4, 1979
__*_*_*__Under the pretext of ``saving'' Afghan Muslims, US ruling circles have begun to implement their plans for whipping up anti-Soviet feelings in Islamic states. The CIA has already ordered its agents in Islamic countries to organise all kinds of disorder and commit acts of provocation against Soviet offices in those countries. At the same time radio propaganda centres have been told to increase their anti-Soviet broadcasts beamed to Muslim countries.
``A l-Shaab"
(Lebanon},
January 11, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Rights of BelieversQuestion: What is the present position of religion in Afghanistan?
Answer: Ninety per cent of our country's population are Muslims, five per cent of whom are Shiites and 95 per cent---Sunnites; they go to different mosques. Religious rights are guaranteed by law, mosques are repaired arid kept in good condition; as to the number of believers who are allowed to go on pilgrimages to Mecca each year, it has increased from 3,000 to 8,000.
Question: What in your opinion is the present position of Muslims under the regime which was established last December and which has an alliance with the USSR, a country where atheism is one of the basic features?
Answer: Two months ago accompanied by 15 mullahs I made a trip to the Soviet Union where I visited Tashkent, Dushambe, Leningrad, Baku and many other cities. I have seen there with what respect they treat different religious beliefs. We know perfectly well that Soviet Muslims live in normal conditions, particularly in regions such as the Caucasus and Soviet Central Asia. 'I can assure you that the Soviet Union does not interfere 57 in the religious affairs of Afghanistan and does not seek to start any atheistic propaganda. The only thing the Soviet Union has recently done is that it has come to guard our frontiers in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Friendship.
Question: The main opposition to the April revolution acts under the religious banner. Being a mediator between a civil and religious government, have you begun any negotiations or a dialogue with the leaders of the Hezbe-- iIslami or Dzhamnate-i-Islami movements?
Answer: Those members of the opposition who are waging the war on our frontiers are people deprived of religious privileges. There are two kinds of Muslim failh: the first coming from Mecca and the second, influenced by Britain; they differ greatly. The opposition Muslims are "English Muslims'', and they go hand in hand with American imperialism and Pakistani reaction. As you realise, in these circumstances no contacts with them are possible.
Question: As President Babrak Karmal himself has recently admitted many clergy suffered repressions from legislative bodies not long ago. What did you do about it?
Answer: Some mullahs, supporters of imperialism, emigrated. Arrests were carried out and mistakes made. As for our society---the Council of Ulemas---we tried to obtain the release of certain persons but, it should be admitted, in some cases we failed. I can assure you, however, that now Afghan Muslims are supporters of the changes taking place in the country and of the new policy pursued by the present government.
Question: If the present political situation is not stabilised and civil power passes to a religious leader would you be willing to become an "Afghan Khomeini''?
Answer: The present system is a revolutionary one. It is getting ever stronger. If it were otherwise, in other words, were it getting weaker, you would have a right to such a question to me. As a representative of the faithful Muslims and a patriot I wish that the present system should gain in strength.
From an interview by Moulaiui Abdul Aziz Sacleq, Chairman of the Ulema Council, "El Pais" (Spain), January 20, 1980
58 __ALPHA_LVL2__ USSR: A True Friend of Muslims EverywhereThe victory of the national and democratic April revolution in our ancient land enjoys sincere support and was warmly welcomed by broad sections of the people--- Muslims of all nations and nationalities of the country. Being profoundly national and democratic, the April revolution was at the same time a powerful manifestation of the will of the Muslim people of the country to affirm genuinely social justice. It has become a major step towards the implementation of the age-old aspirations of true Muslims of our country. The revolution took upon itself the noble mission of protecting the oppressed working people and faithful Muslims, since the interests of the broad popular masses are in glaring contradiction with the desires and role of the exploiters of the whole world.
US imperialism, which seeks to dominate the world and acts together with the Chinese leadership, internal reactionaries and -reactionaries of the region, has begun to weave conspiracies and devise provocations to stir up enmity among our Muslim population. Acting through H. Amin, a CIA agent, -US imperialism had started to implement its plans for suppressing the revolution and doing away with its revolutionary and patriotic gains.
With the aid of its spy, Amin, and other allies and accomplices, US imperialism hatched out and continues to hatch out conspiracies, creating all kinds of obstacles to prevent the peoples of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan from drawing closer together. It seeks to sow discord everywhere between the noble Muslim peoples of these states, which have common and profound historical, cultural and religious ties. By exacerbating racial, national, language and religious contradictions, the hangman, Amin, had tried to discredit and besmear the April revolution in the eyes of the world.
Amin's regime had attempted to drown Afghanistan in blood and tears. Following imperialist instructions, Amin and his criminal accomplices had tried to enforce 59 a policy of bloody terror against all honest and sincere Muslims, against the noble and learned clergy who supported the April revolution. These people were tortured, persecuted and killed, the mosques and madrasahs were cleared of noble and faithful Muslims, and the clergy was in a desperate plight.
While perpetraiting these cruel and inhuman crimes, Amin and his followers started to implement anti-- national, anti-democratic measures directed against our country's progress, and at driving a wedge between the various nations, nationalities and religious groups. They sought to set fellow-countrymen against each other. Acting in compliance with their evil schemes, Amin and his followers did away with whole sections of the Muslim people. They applied such melhods against, for example, the noble Shiite Muslims and their working brothers, the patriotically-minded Hazaras, and against the progressive clergy and ulems. Arnin, the spy and traitor, will forever remain a dirty stain on our country's history after the revolutionary events of December last year, as a result of which the absolutism of Amin and his accomplices was abolished forever and the April revolution entered a new stage of its development with the aid of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, relying on the Muslim people of Afghanistan and the heroic armed forces of the country. Tens of thousands of noble and faithful Muslims have been released from prisons and dungeons, and the ideals and goals of the revolution have been revived.
After the triumph of the new stage in the development of the April revolution international reactionaries and the forces of imperialism led by US imperialism and acting together with the Chinese hegemonists and other reactionary forces of the region, have taken advantage of the fact that some of the Muslims of Afghanistan were deceived by the enemies of our people to try to undermine the unity of Muslims for their own selfish, predatory and aggressive aims. They weave conspiracies against the national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, against the freedom won by the Muslim peoples of our country. These age-old enemies of Afghanistan and its people resort to the most unworthy and base methods in an effort to make the holy Islamic religion serve the interests of 60 imperlalism and the enemies of Islam, to use the religion as a means for attaining their ignoble goals. The noble peoples of our country, however, will deal a blow at these devils, no matter what masks they use as disguise.
Since imperialism, Chinese hegemonism and all reactionary forces of the region had rallied in the struggle against the national interests of the broad masses of the Muslim people of Afghanistan, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was compelled to request the Soviet Union, a sincere friend of the Muslim people of Afghanistan, for aid. The Soviet Union has proved by its sincere, timely, disinterested and fraternal assistance that it is a true friend of the Muslim people of Afghanistan and everywhere in the cause of defending the independence, freedom and sovereignty of oppressed nations and nationalities. The Muslims of Afghanistan approve the arrival of the limited troop contingent from the Soviet Union which was invited to help us repel the foreign aggression and which will leave our country as soon as the outside danger threatening the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan has been eliminated.
US imperialism and its reactionary allies had wanted to carry out plans to sow seeds of dissension among the Muslim peoples of Afghanistan with the aid of its bloodthirsty spy, Amin. The triumph of the new stage of the April revolution, however, wrecked these threatening plans, and this in itself has sent the imperialists into a rage.
With the triumph of the new stage of the revolution, the fraternal Muslim peoples of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan have joined ranks in the struggle against the common enemy. The imperialists are trying to strangle the revolutions in Afghanistan and Iran, and are seeking to isolate the free Muslim countries from the rest of the Muslim world and from the developing states. But these intrigues of the imperialists, hegemonists and reactionaries, who are trying in vain to pass themselves off as defenders of Islam when, in actual fact, they are weaving treacherous conspiracies against Islam and the common vital interests of Muslims, will inevitably fail for the unity of our peoples, which rests on the holy Islamic religion, is unshakable.
We are confident that those whom imperialist and Chinese propaganda have managed to deceive will come 61 to see tteir errors and delusions, and will support the Muslims of Afghanistan who continue to develop .and strengthen the gains of the April revolution. We call upon our Muslim brothers and governments of Muslim countries not to be deceived by the imperialists who seek world domination, and above all, by the American imperialists and Zionists, the enemies of the muchsuffering Palestinian people, the enemies of the revolutionary peoples of the whole world.
Support our national, democratic and anti-- imperialist revolution!
There is no doubt that the plans of the US imperialists and Peking hegemonists, which already have been foiled in Iran, will be wrecked in Afghanistan, too. Neither threats addressed to the independent and sovereign countries, nor attempts to use force to put pressure on them, nor slanderous and instigatory campaigns with regard to the Muslim peoples of Afghanistan and ; Iran will help the imperialists. This was declared by Imam Khomeini, Iran's renowned leader. And no matter how hard the USA tries to intimidate us with all kinds of military and economic actions, we shall not take a single step backwards. The righteous cause of the Muslims is certain to triumph.
We urge all 'Muslims of the world to defend the re- , volutions in Afghanistan and Iran; we call upon them to struggle for our righteous and just cause against imperialism, Zionism and reactionary forces.
Kabul, January, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ In Support of the Peoples FightingOn the eve of the 15th century of the Hegira the world is faced with a severe trial---a grave deterioration of the international situation. The forces of international reaction headed by the United States are creating tension in international relations and committing actions leading to a revival of the cold war, and are trying to bring about a split of the Islamic world and undermine Its unity. They are building up their military potential in Western Europe, establishing new military bases ia 62 Africa and Asia, and increasing their military presence in the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.
In an attempt to distract attention of the world public from their brazen hegemonistic plans, the imperialist circles in the United States, in league with Israeli Zionists, the traitor of the Arab nation, Sadat, and the Chinese hegemonists, have launched a slander campaign around the Islamic revolution in Iran and the shift towards socialism in Afghanistan.
In the guise of "defenders of Islam" and Muslims, US leaders are raising a clamour over the fraternal assistance rendered by the Soviet Union to the Afghan people in answer to repeated requests for aid of the lawful government of Afghanistan and in conformity with the Afghan-Soviet agreement of 1978 and the spirit and letter of the UN Charter. They distort the very meaning of the friendly acts taken by the Soviet Union in their attempt to undermine solidarity between the Islamic countries and incite mistrust and hostility among Muslims.
Talking hypocritically about the rights of the Mus'lim peoples and crudely interfering in their international affairs, the US imperialists and their henchmen try to impose their own will on the former, once again foisting on the peoples of Iran and Afghanistan regimes that are to their own liking. But the peoples of Iran and Afghanistan, having fought for and won freedom, are determined to defend it.
The Muslims of the Soviet Union shall stand on the side of the peoples fighting for national liberation and against imperialist aggression and oppression.
From a Statement by the Preparatory Committee of the Muslim Organisations of the USSR. Moscow, January 31, 1980
[63] __ALPHA_LVL1__ SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIESThe past few decades have shown that territorial claims upon its neighbours, military operations against them and the creation and maintenance of seats of tension on its borders have become permanent features of Maoist China's foreign policy. Atlases and reference books published in China list as "historical territories" of China vast areas of the Soviet Union, including part of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, as well as the Mongolian People's Republic and areas of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and many other Asian countries.
The Chinese hegemonists lay claim all in all to a tremendous area of 10,500,000 square kilometres. This includes 1,500,000 square kilometres of the Mongolian People's Republic, 130,000 square kilometres of India and 70,000 square kilometres of land belonging to Burma. Peking's claims also extend to certain areas of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea, Thailand and Malaysia.
Twenty years ago Mao Zedong said: "Our object is the whole world where we shall create a powerful state.'' The followers of the "great helmsman" have done a great deal to implement his plans. In 1974 China treacherously seized the Paracel Islands which belong to Vietnam. This act of banditry was followed by presenting claims to the Spratly Island. The Chinese military presence in the South China Sea, a presence which endangers countries in that region, has considerably increased.
In 1979 China perpetrated an act of aggression against socialist Vietnam as a result of which thousands of civilians were killed and scores of settlements and villages were barbarously destroyed. But 64 being dealt a fitting rebuff by the Vietnamese armed forces the Chinese were compelled to withdraw from Vietnam.
The peoples of Asia also vividly remember China's armed attack on its neighbour India. At that time Peking tried by force to compel India to recognise its territorial claims. As a result 36,000 square kilometres of Indian territory remained under Chinese occupation. China supports hotbeds of tension on India's north-east border, in Nagaland State and the union territory of Mizoram. It supplies arms to local rebels and gives them military training at special camps on Chinese soil. Peking's ultimate aim is to detach this area from India.
Support for anti-government groups in several young Asian states has become a major instrument by which Peking pursues its great power and expansionist policy on the continent. A case in point is Burma, where China has for years provided rebels with military advisers and instructors, arms and money. Areas of China bordering on Burma, particularly, Yunnan, have secret military bases where Burmese anti-government forces undergo training before being dispatched into Burma.
These are some of the facts about Peking's implementation of its expansionist plans. Seeking to justify its actions on theoretical grounds, the Chinese journal Xin Jlanshi wrote: "Territorial expansion is not aggression. Actions by a strong nation or a state aimed at enlarging its territory accord with the laws of social development of the time.''
Adhering to this theory, China opposed the adoption by the -( United Nations of a definition of aggression and did not support the Security Council resolution one point of which spoke of the impermissibility of acquiring territory by force. In accordance with its theory Maoist China is stepping up provocative subversive activities on its borders with other Asian countries, increasing its gross interference in their internal affairs. Afghanistan has long been a victim of this policy of Peking.
Anti-Afghan activities on the part of China have long become common knowledge. The world press has on many occasions reported the various forms these activities take: the training of Afghan rebels by Chinese military specialists in China and in Pakistan, close contacts with the pro-Chinese ``Shola-E-Javed'' (Eternal Flame) and ``Sorha'' (Red) groups and the Right-wing extremist organisation of ""Muslim Brothers''. Peking has done much to unite these motley groups in the struggle against the lawful government of Afghanistan. China supplies bandits with money and considerable quantities of arms, most of which come along the Karakoram highway built by China.
__PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 3 No 1420 65 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From an Interview by Sayed MohammadThere is an old Afghan saying: "If you let him, a liar will try to present even a jackal as an eagle.'' This saying involuntarily comes to mind when one reads Renmin Ribao concoctions about the situation in Afghanistan. Surpassing all previous records for lying, this mouthpiece of Peking propaganda tries to present as a "popular movement" criminal actions perpetrated by counter-revolutionary terrorist bands which are being sent into Afghanistan from abroad and in whose training Peking is directly and increasingly involved. Since the April 1978 revolution Peking has been acting as an enemy of revolutionary Afghanistan and its people. The open threats against Afghanistan which were heard during the visit to China by US Defense Secretary Harold Brown and the openly provocative j trip by Peking's Minister of Foreign Affairs Huang j Hua to Pakistan, whose territory is being used by im- j perialism and reaction as the main base for organising j armed attacks on Afghanistan, show that the Peking | hegemonists intend to intensify hostile activities against our country.
It is well known that in the months which have pas- ,\ seel since the April revolution the forces of imperialism ? and Peking, which is acting together with them, have been waging an "undeclared war" against sovereign Afghanistan. For the conduct of this war no less than 50 bases and at least '20 special centres have been estab- < lished in Pakistan, where Peking and US ``advisers'' ; ate forming anti-Afghanistan counter-revolutionary bands. According to our information about 40,000 bandits \ are being trained in China itself. The task of these bands is to enter Afghanistan illegally and, using every means, including subversion, assassination and terror, to undermine the gains of the April revolution. How cynical one must be to try, as Renmin Ribao does, to present these armed counter-revolutionary mercenaries as " Afghan guerrillas''.
Pursuing its great-power militarist policy and threat- I ening "to teach a lesson" to all who do not want to frame 66 their policy according to the formulas of China's present rulers, Peking is making wild territorial claims upon its neighbours, including Afghanistan. The Chinese leadership has long been eager to lay its hands on Afghanistan's mountain province of Badakhshan, which borders on China.
Although the Afghan-Chinese border is only 70 kilometres long, Peking, the Chinese militarists and their secret services have turned every kilometre of this stretch into a base for aggressive armed raids on the sovereign Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
Not a day passes in Badakhshan without groups of bandits being sent into Afghanistan from China and along with their ``pupils'' Peking ``advisers'' regularly take part in raids on our country.
In the Badakhshan mountains bandits commit par' ticularly barbarous and dastardly outrages: they set fire to peaceful villages, blow up hospitals and schools, brutally kill activists of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, bury people alive and shoot schoolchildren. Does Renmin Ribao rejoice at these ``feats'' by terrorists and their Chinese ``instructors''?
Peking propaganda alleges that a "massive antigovernment movement" is growing in Afghanistan. But Peking is well aware that the Afghan people are actively helping our army and militia to liquidate the bands formed by Peking and US ``advisers''. Summaries of operations prepared by Afghanistan's Ministry of the Interior report increasingly frequent cases of people in various areas capturing bandits, disarming them and handing them over to party committees or state security agencies. It is precisely the support of the people that makes it possible for us to liquidate bands without delay.
In a word, whatever aspect of the situation in Afghanistan you take, you will see that the actual situation is totally different from the allegations made by the Renmin Ribao slanderers. Their provocative concoctions about "Afghan guerrillas" are a malicious attempt to blacken Afghanistan and ^ at the same time divert world opinion from their own aggressive actions aimed at crude interference in the affairs of our country and at undermining its independence and sovereignty. With the aid of the Soviet~Union, our true and reliable __PRINTERS_P_67_COMMENT__ 3* 67 friend, the Afghan people are fully resolved to uphold and multiply the gains of the revolution. Neither raids by counter-revolutionary bands equipped with US and Chinese weapons, nor malicious attacks by Western and Peking slanderers will shake our resolve.
Kabul, January, 1980
__*_*_*__China is currently reported to be supplying to Pakistan military equipment, small arms for rebel groups fighting inside Afghanistan, automatic rifles, grenade launchers and air defence missiles. China is also reported to be flying cargo planes into Pakistan on a regular basis.
``Times of India" (India), January 4, 1980
__*_*_*__China is flying large supplies of arms and ammunition to an insurgent movement in Afghanistan. Diplomatic reports say supplies have arrived from across China's common frontier and via the Karakoram Highway into Pakistan. Diplomats believe a "major build-up of Chinese involvement" behind the insurgents is under way, and that in the past few days scores of Chinese instructors have arrived at Shola-E-Javed camps.
``The Daily Telegraph" ( Britain), January 5, 1980
__*_*_*__The Chinese have, meanwhile, stepped up their activity. The sources identified the areas where the, Chinese forces are active as the Badakhshan and Ba-, ghlan provinces in the northern part of the country.
``Patriot" (India), Januur ry 18, 1980
__*_*_*__Contingents of the Afghan armed forces have been dispatched to the province of Badakhshan bordering on China with the aim of repulsing aggressive actions 68 against Afghanistan. Suspicious troops "movements and the stepping up of counter-revolutionary activities in this mountainous and thinly populated region have been observed across the border in China for several weeks past. In Kabul local commentators stress the possibility of aggression against Afghanistan on two fronts and think it might begin in the area of the provinces of Paktia, Kandahar and Kunar, which lie on the border with Pakistan. US, British and Chinese advisers are training over 70,000 men for operations against Afghanistan.
``Granma" (Cuba), January 21, 1980
__*_*_*__China's open military intervention in Afghan affairs is complicating the situation in the region as a whole and confirms the aggressiveness of the policy pursued by the Peking leadership which is trying to turn Afghanistan into another Kampuchea. Peking has joined hands with the United States and is acting on the side of the forces of reaction and aggression against socialism and democracy. With America's consent, China is giving Afghan rebels military aid, providing them with arms and equipment and sending its specialists and advisers. This shows that the Peking leadership has begun open intervention against the Afghan people, completely ignoring its own previous statements about not interfering in the affairs of other countries.
``Al-Safir"
nuary 22,
(Lebanon),
1980
Ja-
After Babrak Karmal's government came to power in Kabul, the rapprochement between Washington and Peking entered a special phase in their common struggle against the independent Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the achievements of the April revolution.
US Defense Secretary Harold Brown's visit to the People's Republic of China in January 1980 was patent 69 evidence of this. Mr, Brown stated that his trip was of particular importance in the light of the events in Afghanistan. He openly expressed satisfaction that the United States had found in Peking a suitable partner to implement its military strategies in the Middle East and Asia. The US Defense Secretary said that each side would take appropriate steps and that to disclose them in detail would be not expedient.
World mass media comments on the results of Brown's talks in China leave no doubt that the " appropriate steps" involve the US and Peking meddling in the affairs of Afghanistan and other Asian states and giving still wider support to the mercenaries and military formations carrying out aggression against the DBA.
The New York Times wrote that during US Defense Secretary Harold Brown's visit to China. Peking'? leaders expressed a readiness to increase the secret supply of Chinese firearms to insurgents in Afghanistan. Government officials have in fact stated this... They also pointed out that the United States and China appear to be engaged in a "rational division of labour" over the Afghan crisis, a line which could he applied everywhere. In this case China will provide firearms to the Afghans, while the USA will head a consortium to provide Pakistan with more powerful weapons.
__*_*_*__The US Defense Secretary, Mr. Brown, during his visit to Peking had slated in his loasl. at a banquet exactly what the Chinese had wanted to hear from America. Brown condemned, in slrong terms, Soviet policy toward Afghanistan and stressed the need to expand contacts in the military sphere between the PRO and the United States. For the first time in history an American representative publicly admitted the possibility of concluding a military alliance between the USA and China.
NBC Television and Broadcasting Corporation, January 7, mo
70 __*_*_*__Ihe United Stales and China intend to take parallpl action in the Middle East, including the rendering of aid to Pakistan. It will obviously be very important to have an increased US presence in that region so the USA is taking steps 1o (hat end. The US has drawn up emergency measures for the region of Central Asia.
At a press conference held by H. Brown, US Defense Secretary, at the San Diego air force base, January 1980
__*_*_*__The United States is pursuing a concrete global strategy, expressed specifically in its rapprochement with China and its arming of Pakistan, which presents a real threat.
From an interview given to the American ABC Television Company by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, January 9, 1980
__*_*_*__It was perfectly clear that US imperialism and its allies, above all the Peking hegemonists, with whom the US has devised a common strategy during Defense Secretary Harold Brown's visit to Peking, are now seeking to extract maximum advantage from the artificially difficult position in which they have placed certain of the non-aligned countries.
The USA is trying to combine its economic sanctions against Iran with military pressure. It is expanding its base on the Diego Garcia Island, which non-aligned nations have strongly and repeatedly condemned. The USA is also conducting negotiations for new bases in Somalia, Oman, Egypt and Israel (the first three of these countries are members of the non-aligned movement), has adopted a decision to rearm Pakistan and is even making plans for establishing a military base there.
71
All these actions are directed not only against the Soviet Union and other socialist states, but also against national liberation movements in the Middle East and Asia.
America's allies are displaying a similar kind of activity, as exemplified by China's plans to commit a new aggression against one or all of the three states of Indochina.
``Forward" (Sri Lanka), January 20, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Chinese Saboteurs in IslamabadThe visit by PRC Minister of Foreign Affairs Huang Hua to Pakistan came as a further step in escalating China's interference in the domestic affairs of Afghanistan. During his trip he called for turning Afghanistan "into a vanguard in the fight against the Soviet Union''. "The struggle against the USSR,'' said the Chinese Minister, "must be waged not only outside Afghanistan.'' The aim behind the Chinese diplomat's visit was to use Pakistan to the maximum extent to increase tension and undermine peace and stability in South-West Asia, drawing it still more deeply into a confrontation with Afghanistan and other states of the region. It was also aimed at placing Pakistan at the service of Peking's hegemonistic intentions in Asia.
Huang Hua visited bases in the areas bordering on Afghanistan where mercenaries are being trained, and met with leaders of counter-revolutionary bands, assuring them that China would give them ``unlimited'' support and assistance. These and other statements by the Chinese diplomat show that Peking has actively joined in the realisation of US imperialist plans to make Pakistan the chief staging ground for subversion against the Afghan revolution. This policy of the Maoist leadership is justly causing anxiety in the rest of the world.
__*_*_*__The Peking leaders, together with the US administration, intend to 'oppose Pakistan to Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. They are supplying arms to Pakistan, 72 and have offered to send it troops and military instructors. It is well known that the Chinese leadership is pursuing a two-faced foreign policy: professing friendship on the one hand and attempting to subjugate neighbouring states on the other.
``Indonesia Merdeka" ( Indonesia), January 21, 1980
__*_*_*__China has previously provided Pakistan with about 700 light T-59 tanks, several squadrons of F-9 fighter planes, and light arms.
``Guardian* (Britain), January 19, 1980
__*_*_*__Seven Pakistan army divisions have been deployed along the border with Afghanistan... China is rushing military supplies into Pakistan along the Karakoram Highway.
``The Daily Telegraph" ( Britain), January 19, 1980
__*_*_*__At his meetings with Pakistani leaders, China's Minister of Foreign Affairs Huang Hua said that the situation in Afghanistan is a "grave threat" to Pakistan and promised to give it new economic and military aid. The PRC has submitted a list of armaments to the Pakistani side and intends to satisfy any of Islamabad's demands.
``Tokyo Shimbun" (Japan), January 23, 1980
[73] __ALPHA_LVL1__ PAKISTAN---A FOOTHOLD FORPakistan has been assigned an important role in the implementation of the hegemonistic plans of Washington and Peking in the Middle East and Southern Asia. This became abundantly clear after the April revolution in Afghanistan and the downfall of the Shah's regime in Iran.
After the imperialists lost their foothold in Iran and failed in their efforts to undermine the revolutionary process in Afghanistan, the forces of world hegemonism focussed their attention on Pakistan. The choice of that country by Washington and Peking was no mere chance because they have always relied upon reactionary regimes.
Pakistan has become the centre of an unprecedented provocative fuss. Emissaries from Washington, Peking and London rush there in rapid succession. It was certainly not to search for ways to reduce tension that the US President sent his adviser Brzezinski and other American representatives on lightning trips to Islamabad and Saudi Arabia in early February, 1980. The sole purpose of this feverish activity was to draw Pakistan as deeply as possible into the risky gamble embarked upon by imperialism in the Middle East. The aim was to turn that country into a new stronghold against the antiimperialist liberation struggle of the peoples of the area and their allies---the socialist countries.
Immediately after the April revolution of 1978, Pakistan, endangering peace, began to play the role of base for detachments of bandit-saboteurs who took up arms against the new revolutionary government of democratic Afghanistan. Over twenty so-called "refugee camps" were set up on its territory in direct proximity to 74 the Afghan border. Due to the flow^of money from the CIA and massive supplies of American and Chinese weapons, these camps were turned into centres for recruiting and training detachments of armed mercenaries who were later sent into Afghanistan.
So Pakistan was turned into a seat of undisguised aggression against the neighbouring Muslim people, against an independent, non-aligned state.
The Pakistani leaders are not only doing their best to support the units of anti-Afghan saboteurs but have actually begun to organise the subversive activities against Afghanistan. With their connivance, Afghan counter-revolutionary organisations have set up an extensive network of bases and arms depots on Pakistan's territory. The General Staff of Pakistan's armed forces is taking measures to set up a single military organisation of the Afghan reactionaries and establish its control over this organisation's activities. The Pakistani military command has undertaken to infiltrate the subversive terrorist groups into Afghanistan, exercise the general direction of their activities, and provide them with arms ami ammunition.
The resolute actions of the revolutionary forces of Afghanistan, led by the People's Democratic Party, have foiled the imperialist reactionaries' plans to overthrow the people's government in Afghanistan from the outside. But the failure of the imperialist plot against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan only inflamed Its organisers. With renewed energy the forces of imperialism, hegemonlsm arid reaction began to convert Pakistan into a bridgehead for the implementation of their aggressive plans directed against the peoples of the adjoining Asian countries---Afghanistan, India and Iran.
To this end, Pakistan's ``friends'' are all set to lavish military aid upon it and to extend the military tension and the arms race to the entire region.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Dangerous EscalationThe United States and Pakistan began high-level discussions today about a possible resumption of American military aid to the Islamabad government and other mutual concerns...
Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Agha Shahi, and several aides met for more than three hours at the State Department this morning with Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance and other American oflicials.
75
A State Department official said meetings of lowerlevel aides, one dealing with military and the other with economic matter, were conducted simultaneously with the session between Mr. Shahi and Secretary Vance.
``The New York Times' (USA), January 13, 1980
__*_*_*__The Carter administration is seeking China's cooperation in measures to shore up Pakistan's defences..., possibly including a proposal for an increase of arms sent from both governments. The officials said that a joint American-Chinese effort to strengthen Pakistan's defences was one of several steps toward closer security collaboration between Washington and Peking.
Since the mid-1960s, however, China and Pakistan have maintained close relations and in recent years Peking supplanted Washington as Islamabad's major supplier of arms. China is thought by some officials to be shipping small arms to rebel groups fighting inside Afghanistan.
``The New York Times" (USA), January 3, 1980
__*_*_*__Thousands of saboteurs are being trained under the control of Chinese advisers on the territory of the PRC and at special camps in Pakistan. Upon completing the course of training, they are sent into Afghanistan. Peking is giving financial support and delivering arms to the enemies of the Afghan people. Detachments of pro-Peking counter-revolutionaries have perpetrated acts of sabotage on Afghanistan's territory. China is transporting large batches of arms and ammunition across the border areas and by the Karakoram highway leading to Pakistan. China has already given Pakistan many millions of dollars' worth of weapons, the greater part of which have gone to the Afghan insurgents.
``14 Oktobr" (PDRY), January 9, 1980
76 __*_*_*__The Administration may decide to supply some if not all of Pakistan's military needs to be used for the Pakistani forces or for clandestine transfer to Muslim rebels in Afghanistan.
``The New York Times" (USA), January 14, 1980
__*_*_*__According to the American CBS radio and television company, in the initial stage, the Pentagon's plans provide for sending to Pakistan US military aircraft and pilots to operate from the Pakistani air force bases. The aircraft will be followed by American service personnel and equipment. The next stage includes American warships calling at Pakistani ports. At the final stage it is planned to bring US land troops into Pakistan..
TASS, January 26, 1980
__*_*_*__The military strategic plans to turn Pakistan into the West's main stronghold in the area are behind the geographical discoveries of the American intelligence services.
``Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (FRG), January 21, 1980
__*_*_*__Mr. Carter's sudden offer of military aid to Pakistan, as ugly a military dictatorship as exists today..., makes a mockery of his longstanding policy against giving such help to such countries.
``The New York Times" (USA), January 22, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Banking on TerroristsFormer servicemen of the Shah's army and members of the SAVAK secret police, sent to the Federal Republfc of. Germany for training before the revolution 77 in Iran, have been recently moved from West Germany to Pakistan where American advisers are training them in subversive activities. On orders from overseas these ``refugees'' have been given shelter on the territory of Pakistan where terrorist groups, trained to engage in subversive activities, are being formed from them.
``AlfShaab"
(Lebanon),
January 26, 1980
__*_*_*__Efforts are being made to pool the Afghan counterrevolutionary armed units based on Pakistan's territory into a single strike force. Five groupings have already united. Activities have been stepped up at the bases and camps at Parachinar, Miram Shah, Chitral, Job, Cherat, Kohat, Warsak, Quetta and some other places, where saboteurs and terrorists are being trained with the help of Chinese, American, Egyptian and Pakistani instructors.
``Pravda" (USSR), January 23, 1980
__*_*_*__Many insurgents have undergone military training in the border areas of Peshawar with the help of Pakistani and Chinese officers. The CIA's presence in these camps was also felt.
``Der Spiegel" (FRG), No. 3, 1980
__*_*_*__The Afghan sources disclosed that Pakistan was giving massive training facilities to the Afghan guerillas. Already, 35,000 of them out of 40,000 sent out from Kandahar, had been trained in the past 18 months in the use of arms, including handling of the anti-tank guns. On an average, between 4,000 and 5,000 Ai'ghans were being trained in Pakistan every month in the techniques of guerilla warfare.
``Patriot" (India), January 18, 1980
78 __*_*_*__Training is being given at special camps set up on Pakistan's territory---in the North-West Frontier Province, Baluchistan and other regions adjoining Afghanistan. The training is being provided by American and Chinese instructors, as well as by officers of the Pakistani array. These units do not experience any shortage of funds or weapons. Money and arms are arriving there in a continuous flow from the USA, China, and certain Western countries.
``Pravda" (USSR), January 7, 1980
__*_*_*__The Pakistani authorities have denied that they are involved in arming the insurgents or organising their incursions into Afghanistan, but leaders like Mr. Asghar Khan and Mr. Bizenjo, who must know what is happening in their country, have openly accused their government of connivance in the subversive activity. ...There exists sufficient evidence in the shape of camps in different parts of Pakistan, where Afghan refugees are being trained by the Chinese as well as Pakistani experts, not counting the CIA, which supplies funds. All this could not happen without official blessings.
``Patriot" (India), A ugust 14, 1979
[79] __ALPHA_LVL1__ ARAB REACTION SIDESUS imperialism is trying to draw not only its Western allies and China into the military ``development'' of Pakistan. Great hopes are pinned on reactionary Arab regimes, primarily on Egypt.
It is a well-known fact that Cairo has long been assisting US military penetration into the Middle East. Under the pretext of observing the fulfilment of the Egyptian-Israeli troop disengagement agreement, groups of US servicemen appeared in the Sinai Peninsula in 1975. At present the Egyptian regime is openly turning its country into a bridgehead for aggressive actions by US militarists. As Egyptian War Minister, K. H. Ali, said, those "military installations which Egypt will put at US disposal will be used for the shipment of American ground, air and naval forces''. Under these plans, the air forces of the United States and Egypt have held joint exercises, using Egyptian bases.
President Sadat has recently made several provocative statements, calling on Washington to use force against Iran and Afghanistan, which have embarked upon the road of independence and social progress. Cairo says quite openly that it will participate in preparing subversive operations against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
In order to promote dangerous imperialist designs in the Middle East, Sadat met with Israeli Prime Minister Begin in Aswan in the first half of January of this year. After the meeting, the Egyptian President stated with satisfaction that "our viewpoints on events in Afghanistan and the region as a whole are identical.'' Clearly, the partners in the separate deal have shifted the accent of their provocative hullabaloo to Afghanistan, thus unreservedly supporting the imperialist plans.
80The Egyptian regime is not only currying favour with the Americans. It intends to use events in Afghanistan to try to emerge from the blind alley in which it has found itself. By participating in the ballyhoo started by the US imperialist quarters around the "Afghan question'', the Cairo leadership is pursuing quite definite aims: to use the notion of "Muslim solidarity" to prop up its shaky position within and outside the Arab world, to distract the attention of the Arab and other Muslim countries from the struggle against the capitulatory Camp-David accords, and to split the ranks of the Arab countries. Posing as a "defender of Islam'', the United States has tried to camouflage its expansionist actions and aims in the region by means of the Islamic conference's emergency session held in Islamabad, whose convocation it encouraged to discuss the "Afghan problem''. The government of Afghanistan, a member of the Islamic conference, did not request the calling of the session. A number of Arab countries were against the session's agenda, demanding that it should include the discussion of real, not imaginary, threats to the Islamic world---such as US military expansionism in the region, the dangerous consequences of the Camp-David deal, etc.
__*_*_*__Egyptian Prime Minister Mustapha Khalil, Reuter reported, said that Egypt plans to give Afghan rebels financial and military aid.
Reuter News Agency, January 18, 1980
__*_*_*__According to Egyptian War Minister K. H. Ali, Egypt has completed preparations to receive ``volunteers'' from Afghanistan. Camps have been opened for Afghans to undergo military training.
TASS, January 9, 1980
__*_*_*__Der Spiegel: Do you seek aid from Sadat?
Nassry: That is precisely why we are turning to a country which is able and willing to render us effective and immediate aid instead of limiting itself to unsupported statements about solidarity.
81Der Spiegel: What do you expect from Sadat? Must he send his array to Afghanistan?
Nassry: We are realists. Anyway, we are not short of battle-hardened men. My units alone number 45,000 men and control the greater part of the border of Baluchistan. We need weapons and instructors.
Der Spiegel: So Sadat has promised you both? You have already received training camps?
Nassry: Yes, in Egypt. But we would like to see Sadat's instructors, his heroes of the October war, in the mountains of Afghanistan. However, if they give us the anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns we need, that will be a great help.
Der Spiegel: Where do you get the money you need for the war?
Nassry: I'm not saying we have mountains of gold, but so far we have been able to satisfy our financial needs. The Islamic countries do not begrudge us money.
From an interview wllh ffassry, "Der Spiegel" (FRG), No. 3, 1980
[82] __ALPHA_LVL1__ AMIN, MURDERERBabrak Karinal, in a message to the people of Afghanistan over Kabul radio oil December 27, 1979, said: "The day of freedom and rebirth of all the brother peoples of Afghanistan has finally come after terrible suffering and torment. The torture machine of Amin and his lieutenants, those savage butchers, impostors and killers of tens of thousands of our compatriots---fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, children and old folk---has been smashed today. This blood-thirsty machine is falling apart, down to its last blood-stained cog... The bastions of the despotic rule of the bloody dynasty of Amin and his supporters---those watchdogs of sardars Nadir-Shah, Zahir-Shah, Daoud-Shah, the hirelings of world imperialism with American imperialism at the head, have been destroyed. There will be nothing left of these bastions. The last remnants of the citadel of national and social oppression in our beloved native land are crumbling.''
`` A political gambler and schemer, Hafizullah Amin had wormed his way into the ranks of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan soon after it was founded in 1965 by Noor Mohammad Taraki, an outstanding son of the Afghan people. The party failed, however, to stand united for very long. It broke up into two -wings, each acting on its own. After an almost ten-year-long split, a unification conference was called in July, 1977. It elected a 30-men Central Committee, with Noor Mohammad Taraki as General Secretary and Babrak Karmal, Secretary of the Central Committee and Member of the Political Bureau.
At that time active preparations were being made for the anti-feudal and national-democratic revolution which was carried out in Afghanistan in April, 1978.
83Ominous events began soon afterwards, however.
As Noor Ahmad Noor, Member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the. People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, once said, "the Party's unity became slack, in point of fact, it began to disintegrate''. The imperialist stooge Amin, traitor to the cause of the revolution, played the key role in that fateful process. He succeeded in seizing some of the important governmental reins of the newborn democratic republic and launched a campaign against many honest members of the Party who were loyal to the cause of the revolution including Babrak Karmal and Anahita Ratebzad. A blow was struck at the Party's core and some of its members had to emigrate or go underground. Others were arrested and many murdered in Amin's dreadful dungeons. Over two thousand Party members were arrested within as few as nine or ten months preceding the December change of government, and close on 500 of them were shot.
But members of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan were not the only ones to fall victim to Amin's tyranny. In sweeping away, by fraud and scheming, all those who wanted to check his criminal designs, Amin brought down a wave of terrible repression upon large sections of Afghan society and, above all, upon the very sections the Afghan revolution had relied on. In fact, even before Amin found himself at the helm of the state, many arrests and executions had been made at his personal instructions.
Many of the intellectuals who had brought the torch of knowledge to the illiterate mass of the Afghan people, became Amin's victims, as did many army commanders who had been active in the April revolution, such as General Abdul Kadir.
Hundreds of Afghan clergymen, peasants and workers also suffered under Amin's yoke and the unwarranted massive reprisals which he and his fellow-thinkers unleashed forced many ordinary Afghans to escape abroad. There, unfortunately, they were exposed to intense brainwashing by Afghan counter-revolutionary forces and Western, Chinese and Pakistani propaganda.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ In the CIA's ServiceAslam Watanjar, a member of the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, said that there was mounting evidence to prove that Amin was a hireling of American imperialism and a CIA agent. All his efforts were aimed at undermining the revolutionary movement in 84 Afghanistan, discrediting the April revolution, creating a reign of terror within the country and undercutting the foundations of the people's rule.
Many Afghans who were trained in the United States in 1962--1964 can confirm that Amin, during his period of residence there maintained close contacts with known American CIA agents and officials. We now know for sure who recruited Amin and guided his spying activities inside our Party and we can say exactly which CIA agents Amin met, and where, in 1973--1978, when he received the assignments to blow up the Party.
It is certain that Amin continued collaborating with American imperialism after the April revolution. On his return from a visit to the United States in 1978 where he attended a session of the UN General Assembly, Amin boasted that he had received some very expensive giftsIt was after that visit that he grew tougher in dealing away with honest Party members and directed .his course towards his one-man-rule in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
In September 1979, Amin began to lay the ground for a closer relationship with the United States. He held confidential meetings with American officials, sent his own emissaries to the United States and transmitted personal oral messages to President Carter. This is well known to the present US charge d'affaire in Afghanistan who conferred with Amin on October 15, 1979.
Kabul, January 16, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Amin, Murderer of the Legitimate President__NOTE__ Zero right margin; huge left margin inside blockquote. True for others in this book.The assassination of Noor Mohammad Taraki was Amin's foulest crime. Taraki disappeared under rather strange circumstances in mid-September, 1979. It was officially announced that he was gravely ill and therefore had to relinquish all his posts. At his very first press conference after seizing power, Hafizullah Amin made it quite clear to foreign journalists, without any beating about the bush, that Taraki's days were numbered, adding cynically that as he was not a doctor he could not say when Taraki would actually die. No one in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world believed in the subsequent announcement of Taraki's sudden death from a grave illness.
85In reality, Noor Mohammad Taraki was savagely murdered by officers of Amin's guards on Amin's personal orders.
Here is the testimony of the Guards' former chief, Major Jandad:
``I have the following to report about Amin's conspiracy and the murder of Taraki. A few days after we returned from the non-aligned summit in Havana, to which I had accompanied him, Noor Mohammad Taraki called me to his office and said: 'Jandad, you are the commander of the presidential Guards and are responsible for my safety. When we were in Havana some differences arose within our leadership. So I want you to be especially vigilant in keeping guard and warn the unit commanders that nobody should leave the presidential palace compound without special orders.'
``I gave an order to increase vigilance. Subsequenty Taraki called the Chief of the Army'a General Staff Yakub and told him the same thing---to re-double vigilance. Yakub, however, was Amin's right hand man.
"The next morning Amin called me to his office. 'What did you talk about?' he asked me tersely. I said that Taraki had asked for the protection of the presidential palace to be intensified. Amin also wanted to know whether Taraki had mentioned him. He was greatly disconcerted.
``On the evening of September 14, 1979 (I was out of the palace at the time), there was an exchange of fire right outside Taraki's office which was being guarded by his personal aide. The Guards were alerted. Telephone communication with the palace was cut. Some `commando' squads arrived at the palace along with military units loyal to Amin. They surrounded the presidential Guards and disarmed them. By next morning all of Taraki's sup porters had either been killed or seized. The chief of General Staff, Yakub, instructed me to obey only his orders. To all intents and purposes, Amin was already in power by that time. Taraki was isolated and placed under house arrest. For two days he was left alone. Then Amin told a presidential Guards officer, Ruzi, to take Taraki's family to some other place. Nobody was allowed to enter Taraki's room without Amin's permission.''
In the course of the inquest, another defendant 86 A. Hadud testified: "I had just been made chief of RAM ( security service---Ed.) and I was on duty on October 8, 1979. In the evening I was summoned by the Guards chief, Jandad, who told me that I was to kill Taraki on orders from the Party and the Revolutionary Council. I asked him how I should do that. Jandad answered that everything had been prepared, including the grave and the shroud. He said that Ruzi and Eghbal would also take part in the killing.
``When I went off-duty, Jandad summoned us to his office and repeated the assignment. He said it had been decided to put Taraki to death. Ruzi, on his part, added that we had no right to disobey the Party's orders. Thereupon we left the office, boarded a white landrover and drove to Kote-Bahchi (apartment of the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council in the former Royal Palace in downtown Kabul). On arrival, we parked our car at the entrance, entered the building and went up the first floor where Taraki was. Ruzi was the first to enter the room, we stayed behind in the corridor.''
Asked by the examining judge who Ruzi was, Hadud said that at that time Ruzi was the Guards' deputy political commissar. Eghbal was the Guards' intelligence chief and subsequently chief of KAM. Both were senior lieutenants.
``When we entered Taraki's room following Ruzi, Ruzi told him that we were to take him to another place. Taraki gave Ruzi his Par.ty card asking him to give it to Amin. He also gave Ruzi a black bag containing money and jewels, asking him to give it to his wife if she was still alive. Then, we all went downstairs. Ruzi led Taraki into a room in which one of the servants must have lived and told me to fetch a glass of water for Taraki. However, he then changed his mind and said that neither I nor Eghbal were to go but I still ran out of the room. I could not find a glass for the water, and when I came back I saw that Ruzi and Eghbal had already tied Taraki's hands with a towel and placed him on a bed. Ruzi was strangling Taraki, having blocked his mouth with a cushion while Eghbal was holding him by the feet. Ruzi ordered me to hold Taraki by the feet, but I wouldn't do that. About fifteen minutes later Taraki was dead. Then we wrapped his body into the shroud and carried it out of the building.''
Asked by the examining judge what time it was then 87 Hadud testified that it was about 23.30. "We put Taraki's body into a car which had been parked by the entrance. .With Ruzi at the wheel, we drove towards the main gate of the palace. On our way there we were stopped by Jandad who handed Ruzi a small transmitter, ordering him to keep in contact with him, Jandad. Later, we drove to the cemetery in the same car and found the grave ready for Taraki. I was ordered to act as a sentry.
``Once Taraki had been buried, Ruzi contacted the Guards' commander by radio and reported to him that the assignment had been fulfilled. Then we all went to the Guards' premises to find Jandad in his office. When he saw us he called a soldier and ordered him to serve us a meal, but we declined it, because we were much too agitated. Jandad reassured us saying that we were not responsible for anything since we had only carried out the Party's orders. At that moment there was a call for Jandad from the militia chief AH Shah Paiman and Jandad ordered him to post a militia guard by Taraki's grave.''
Asked by the examining judge what he now thinks of the murder of Taraki, the founder and leader of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, Hadud declared: "After the December events and what I learned about Atnin's betrayal, I understood that all of Amin's orders and injunctions, circulated by Yakub, Chief of the General Staff of the Afghan Armed Forces, and by Jandad, the Guards Chief, were those of a traitor. It is quite clear to me now that a conspiracy by Amin was behind it all.''
The investigation of Taraki's murder has shown that Hanzullah Amin was a traitor and an agent of the American secret services and that he was responsible for that heinous crime.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Condemnation by N. M. Taraki's WidowWashington and certain other capitals began to mown Amin as soon as his dictatorship collapsed on December 27, 1979. A statement by the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan reads: US President Carter was not ashamed to take H. Amin under his protection, as the country's legitimate president, which was anything but the truth since Amin usurped power and 88 cooked up and carried out a conspiracy against N. M. Taraki. He then established a bloody dictatorial regime and killed everyone who disagreed with him. Why did the US Administration kept silent when H. Amin destroyed, without trial, thousands of honest people---intellectuals, clergymen and workers---- innocent citizens of Afghanistan? Noor Bibi Taraki, widow of Noor Mohammad Taraki, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, President of the Revolutionary Council of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, made the following appeal to US President I. Carter.
"As you know,'' the appeal states, "in April 1978 a popular revolution took place in Afghanistan. You undoubtedly know that the revolution was carried out by the national armed forces under the guidance of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, headed since its inception by my late husband---Noor Mohammad Taraki. The April revolution was accomplished in the interests of the overwhelming majority of our people, and therefore it is not surprising that it was received by my countrymen with enthusiasm and inspiration.
``During the subsequent period of time extending to the middle of September 1979 my husband, being the legitimate head of state---President of the Revolutionary Council, tirelessly worked to create a new, prosperous Afghanistan. But in September last year the conspirator and apostate Amin, who did not disdain using the most perfidious methods, took power in the country in a treacherous and foul manner. He killed my husband---I repeat---the legitimate head of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and put all of our family, including myself, in his terrible prison.
``Your attempts to defend the criminal and murderer Amin provoke wrath and indignation in rne and in all honest Afghans. You allow yourself to call him the ' lawful president' of Afghanistan. Your words insult the memory of my late husband, Noor Mohammad Taraki, who was villainously killed by Amin and his butchers. These words cannot be anything but blasphemy to the memory of thousands of Afghan patriots who were tortured to death by him, although they were innocent.
``I was unfortunate enough to witness the crimes of that blood-thirsty gang who didn't even spare women or 89 children. My relaltives and I were among those who fell victim to the crimes of Amin and his men. And now, when retribution has come, when the Party formed hy my late husband, its glorious sons and daughters, and all Afghan patriots has cleared our dear motherland, Afghanistan, of these criminals, you take under your protection those who were cursed by the people for their criminal deeds.
``Why did you keep silent, Mr. President, when they villainously killed my husband, the legitimate President of the free Afghan people, the man who gave up his life for the happiness and the bright future of his countrymen? Why didn't you, Mr. President, display your concern at the time when the killer and traitor Amin imprisoned, tortured and killed genuine Afghan patriots?
``I am happy and take pride in the fact that our children, disciples and successors of the cause of my late husband, Noor Mohammad Taraki, have again lighted the flame of freedom and restored justice to our native home. They have always fought for the happiness of their unfortunate people, and the people supported them. The people believe them and will be with them till the very end in the cause of defending their motherland and the revolution.
``We, the Afghan people, love freedom, peace and independence more than our own lives and are ready to shed our blood for their sake. We are putting things in order in our own home and demand that no one prevent us from following the road we have chosen for ourselves. We wish no ill and commit none against your country. What is going on now is quite the contrary---it is your government which gives covert and overt support to the dark forces which are coming out against our people.''
__ALPHA_LVL2__ A Conspiracy Against the RevolutionThe seizure of power and the leadership of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan by that agent of imperialism Hafizullah Amin and his followers had disastrous consequences for the country. The April revolution departed so far from its original goals that if the healthy forces in the Party, taking into account the will of the people of Afghanistan and using the national liberation army of Afghanistan, had not deposed Amin and his clique and ensured a transition to a new stage of the revolution, the consequences of Amin's rule for the country would have been catastrophic.
90 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Statement by Afghanistan's Minister of theThe facts irrefutably demonstrate that Amin and his associates were CIA agents on the payroll of imperialist forces hostile to Afghanistan. The information we have obtained indicates that, ordered by the CIA, Amin joined forces with the counter-revolutionary rabble hiding in Pakistan and planned, acting in collaboration with the leaders of the reactionary "Islamic party of Afghanistan'', to carry out a coup d'etat on December 29, 1979. He intended to murder all honest leaders and Party activists devoted to the revolution and establish his dictatorship in the country.
Shortly after the cold-blooded assassination of Noor Mohammad Taraki, the founder of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and the first head of the free Afghan state, Amin stepped up his activities aimed at establishing and broadening contacts with counter-- revolutionary elements in Afghanistan and abroad. Late in September 1979, Amin's emissary had a secret meeting with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leaders of the "Islamic party of Afghanistan,'' whose headquarters were in Pakistan. An agreement was reached at this meeting "on ending confrontation and on possible cooperation''. At. the same time Amin's elder brother. Abdullah, began speaking more openly about the need "to stop playing revolution" and urged the appointment "to all top Party and government positions of relatives and loyal people''. The CIA stated that the Amin regime, taking into consideration its internal evolution, could meet the long-term interests of the United States.
On October 4, 1979, Amin held a secret conference in Kabul at which he and his associates discussed and approved the terms on which they were prepared to form an alliance with the "Islamic party of Afghanistan" and also adopted specific plans for jointly preparing a coup d'etat. The conference decided that immediately after the coup, all slogans put forward during the April revolution must be renounced, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan dismissed and its leaders and activists eliminated as soon as possible. In "a new state of Afghanistan" Amin, a CIA agent, was to become President, counter-revolutionary Gulbuddin Hekmatyar---.. 91 Prime Minister, and M. Yakub---Minister of Defence. The government was to be composed of Amin's brother Abdullah, his nephew Asadullah, M. Eghbal, N. Suma, A. Jalil, H. W. Katawazi, former minister of information and culture, and S. D. Sahrai.
In mid-December 1979, Amin's personal envoy left Kabul on board a special plane of the Afiana Afghan Airline Company to visit Paris, Rome and Karachi where he was to meet American intelligence agents and inform them of the progress in the preparations for a coup. On December 22 to 24, Amin's special ``envoy'' for the same purpose visited the Pakistani city of Peshawar, one of the centres of Afghan emigre counter-revolutionary groups. Hekmatyar's headquarters was situated near Peshawar.
Washington's representatives in Kabul assured Am in that the organisers of the coup would be supported "by the strength of US armed forces in case of necessity''.
The only reason December 29, 1979, did not become another tragic date in the list of many similar dates in the history of Afghanistan was that the Party and all patriotic forces stood on guard to defend the gains of the revolution and when the decisive moment came, exposed and eliminated Amin.
Press conference, Kabul, January 21, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Aim of the Conspiracy Was toBabrak Karmal, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan:
The thwarting of the plot which was organised against independent Afghanistan by US imperialists in collaboration with Peking and the regimes of Sadat and Begin was one of the main results of the current new stage of the April revolution.
Babrak Karmal reaffirmed that the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan had indisputable documented evidence, including Amin's personal records, which showed that this agent of imperialism and the CIA would not have hesitated to annihilate half of 92 Afghanistan's population to further the imperialists' objectives. Amin and his followers carried out CIA assignments and, forging an alliance with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other leaders of counter-revolutionary organisations hiding in Pakistan and maintaining contacts with Israeli secret services, planned to carry out a bloody coup in Kabul late in December, 1979, and physically destroy most Party members, intellectuals and army officers. If Amin and his clique had not been exposed and stopped in time, Afghanistan would have been plunged into a tragedy like that which took place in Chile when a fascist junta seized power there, or in Kampuchea when power in that country was usurped by the Pol Pot clique.
Press conference, Kabul, January 21, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ To Build a New, Free and Independent``I greet you and congratulate you on behalf of the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the Revolutionary Council and the state and government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan on the overthrow of the regime of Hafizullah Amin, that blood-thirsty agent of American imperialism, oppressor and dictator. I greet you, my long-suffering fellow-- countrymen, faithful Muslims of Afghanistan, Sunnites and Shiites, Ulems and clergymen, soldiers and officers of the country's heroic army, Afghan traders and businessmen, patriotic landowners, hard-working craftsmen, the tribes of Afghanistan whose peace has been disturbed, herdsmen and nomads of our country, government employees, intellectuals and progressive youth, workers and peasants, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, all those who have been oppressed by that hangman, murderer and charlatan of history Hafizullah Amin, and his henchmen.
``I am telling the whole world that a link in the chain of despotism, the regime of Hafizullah Amin and his henchmen, has been destroyed in the heart of Asia. The autoo ratic and bloody regime of that traitor to the people and 93 the country has collapsed under the weight of its own crimes and an end has finally been put to its atrocious adventures.
``Guided by the principles and ideals of the great April revolution, executing the will of the freedom-loving people of Afghanistan and encouraged by the Party's victorious revolt and the support of Afghanistan's patriotic soldiers and officers, the Revolutionary Council of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan has resumed state power.
``The Revolutionary Council emphatically states that it will ensure freedom and genuine inviolability of the individual, release political prisoners, establish genuine democracy, provide jobs for the jobless, improve working conditions and give land to the peasants. The Revolutionary Council will ensure favourable conditions and a safe return for our compatriots whom the Amin regime's oppression forced to leave the country. The fate of those persons who were involved in the armed struggle against the government will be decided by political means.
``The Revolutionary Council will ensure and safeguard the rights of all classes and democratic sections of society---soldiers, workers, peasants, clergymen, craftsmenj small and medium landowners, traders and businessmen, teachers and scientists, doctors, engineers, cultural workers, and others. The Revolutionary Council will seek to create favourable conditions for life and peaceful work and ensure the vital needs of the population in both cities and villages. The Revolutionary Council will respect the rights of people of all nationalities, large and small, living in Afghanistan, ensure genuine respect and guarantees for the holy religion of Islam and the clergymen, and for the fundamental national traditions and customs, family principles and personal property. The Revolutionary Council will submit Amin's criminals to the harsh trial of the people and subject them to legitimate and just punishment. It will compensate moral and material losses and repay the blood of thousands of hard-working Afghan people. The Revolutionary Council is urging you heroic soldiers, sergeants and officers of our country to courageously defend, wherever you are, the great April revolution against the encroachments of internal and foreign enemies. The Revolutionary Council will do everything to end the crisis and tension in the country, protect the honour and dignity of the nation, and solve the problem 94 of the oppressed people who had to leave their coantry.
``Be vigilant, well-disciplined and united. Don't let the enemies of freedom, independence and territorial integrity of your country worm their way into your ranks. Your national and revolutionary government will take measures to meet all the needs of Afghanistan's national liberation army, improve the position of servicemen's families, and safeguard the rights of Party workers, employees and military and civilian persons who have never come out against the interests of the people and the great April revolution.
``My dear fellow-countrymen, the Revolutionary Council declares that state power in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan belongs to the whole people. We shall create as soon as possible a broad-based front of national and democratic forces under the leadership of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the party of the working class and all working people. We shall guarantee all democratic freedoms, including the freedom to create progressive patriotic parties and people's organisations, freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Revolutionary Afghanistan will pursue a peaceful foreign policy, a policy of positive and active neutrality. On the basis of the principles of peace and friendship between nations it will promote friendly relations with all nations in the world, particularly its neighbours. Afghanistan will seek to eliminate misunderstandings in relations with other countries. In the international arena, Afghanistan will cooperate with the forces of peace to ensure freedom, independence and progress and resist the forces of war and reaction, imperialism and all those who sow strife and violence. It will be a loyal and active member of the United Nations and the non-alignment movement and a loyal friend and ally of working Muslims of the world. Afghanistan reaffirms its commitment to all treaties and agreements concluded with other countries and to the UN Charter.
``Comrades and friends, the national liberation army of Afghanistan, our struggle is great and just. It is the struggle of the people of Afghanistan for justice and the general good. May you be inspired in this struggle by the memory of your valiant and great fathers, those who gave their lives for the freedom of our glorious and proud nation, 95 our beloved Afghanistan, the memory of the leaders who died during the great April revolution, our comrades Noor Mohammad Taraki, M. A. Haibar and other heroes who gave their lives for the revolution.
``Let us seek to attain the goals of the great April revolution, peace and freedom, independence, democracy, work and struggle, progress and prosperity, equality and brotherhood, justice and the happiness of the people of Afghanistan!
``Under the banner of the great April revolution, let us ensure universal and full equality, the ultimate victory of the national-democratic, anti-feudal and anti-- imperialist revolution and build a new, free and independent Afghanistan.''
Kabul, December 29, 1979
[96] __ALPHA_LVL1__ EYEWITNESS REPORTS __ALPHA_LVL2__ I've Fallen in Love with You, FreedomAs we hit the main highway leading out of Kabul we saw coming from the opposite direction a strange caravan. It was made up of almost anything on wheels: taxicabs, old cars, trucks, buses. And inside them were the luckiest people in the world: Afghan men, women and even children who had just been freed from Puli-Charkhi where they had been imprisoned on no charge whatsoever except that they were suspected of opposing Hafizullah Amin's tyrannical and bloody regime.
These men, women and children, crying, laughing, dazed still, were alive. Thousands, it is said---nobody still has the exact number for there's not enough time to uncover the secret graves and count all the missing in the entire country---were killed on Amiii's orders.
We were not fated to go inside the prison that day. When we arrived at the gate of this long oblong of gray walls, stretching for perhaps a half mile, hundreds of people were still there crying for their relatives. The prisoners had already been freed. We had seen them in the strange caravan of cars rushing to Kabul. But these people still clamoring at the gates were calling for the release of prisoners, some of whom would never be released, for they were dead.
Finally, the prison administration opened the gates and let them in.
But they found the prison empty. But they also found some cells in which Amin's men had been put, and at the __PRINTERS_P_97_COMMENT__ 1420 97 sight of them, they broke into a frenzy of hatred and revenge. They tried to kill them on the spot. Only then the prison authorities acted. One shot was fired into the air--- and the people broke and ran. We saw them running past us.
Next day we returned. Nobody was at the gates any longer and we went in. It was a strange, almost eerie, experience. For this prison, in which 2,000 prisoners had been crammed just a day before, was now totally empty, except for the guards. All the guards were still there, guarding the empty cells.
Twenty-seven-year-old Ahmad Shah Taghian took us to his cell. He showed us where he had spent six months crammed together with about 10 men in a cell meant for two. He also showed us his slogan written on the wall: "Long Live Freedom of Mankind!" Here men had lived in daily horror and at night some would be taken out never to return.
It was ridiculous that anybody would want to kill this young medical student, who, when he had been arrested by the KAM, Amin's secret police, had been put to torture and then was thrown into this bleak prison, not only was the brutality of it fearful to bear, but more fearful, more disheartening, was the fact that he knew his party had been betrayed and the betrayer was in power...
The night of the 27th of December, Ahmad told us, he knew something was afoot because at 7 o'clock the radio in the prison went dead. Then, at 10, Kabul came on the radio with the proclamation of victory and amnesty. And soon after, military men arrived at the prison, shot upon the gates and he was free.
In the prison Ahmad introduced me to Moneer, another Afghan medical student, 19 years old.
He told me that he had gone underground during Amin's rule but had been expecting arrest any moment. Looking at the grim cells, the high prison walls I said to him: " Moneer, how do you feel now, walking here in this prison?''
``Free!" he burst out.
And that is how the country felt---free. Free of oppression, free of fear, and---with the Soviet troops guarding their frontiers---free of the menace of invasion.
There was no question about this---the general feeling among the people that the new government was truly a democratic a^d humane government and that the Soviet 98 troops had come, in the nick of time, not only to save the life of Ahmad and Moneer, but of the country itself.
Happiness was in the very air one breathed.
__*_*_*__Soviet aid to Afghanistan is not new. When the Soviet Union complied with the desperate appeal of the Afghanistan government, brought to acute danger by the policies of Amin, to save it, most Afghans not only considered the response of the Soviet Union normal, they would have been shocked and amazed if it had refused.
In eight days in Kabul (between January 9-17), I attended two press conferences with Babrak Karmal. I had meetings with two other members of the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party who had helped direct the underground struggle against the Amin regime. I interviewed the Minister of Education, Dr. Anahita Hatebzad, who is also a member of the Politbureau of the PDPA. I talked to prisoners, ``ordinary'' people, students, to merchants in the bazaar, the inevitable taxicab driver, bourgeois correspondents from the West, prison guards and those they guarded. I talked to Afghan soldiers. I talked even to children. I listened to the stories of all these people and saw with my own eyesfaow a tormented country was at last finding its soui; we heard with disbelief and amazement quite another version of those very events from the ``voices'' coming to^us over the unresisting air.
During his press conference with the Western correspondents Karmal answered 3 provocative question by BBC crying: "Very well, you BBC correspondent! Suffice it to say, your organisation is the biggest fabricator of lies in the world!''
And it was precisely this BBC (seconded by Voice of America) that broadcast the most shameless inventions about ``clashes'' between Soviet and Afghan troops--- ``clashes'' claimed to have taken place, so to speak, right under my window!---but which somehow had been so muted, so discreet, that nobody but the BBC had heard them!
Take the following piece of non-reporting which appeared with a Kabul dateline in the January 18th issue of the International Herald Tribune (which is jointly owned by The New YorA Times and the Washington __PRINTERS_P_99_COMMENT__ 4* 99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1980/TAA157/20071204/157.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.12.04) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+
Post): "Meanwhile reports reaching diplomats in Pakistan (in Pakistan!) said that fighting broke out today near Kabul airport between Soviet troops and Afghan army units. Unconfirmed (!) accounts said that clashes also took place near the Bala Hissar fort, the site of the Afghan Army mutiny last August. Embassies near the airport were reporting fighting there. The diplomats reported hearing aircraft flying over and a lot of shooting, which they thought was coming from the planes although they were not certain.''
This is what passes for reporting! There is not a fact in it! I was in Kabul airport half the day when ``fighting'' between Afghan and Soviet troops was ``reported'' to ``diplomats'' in---Pakistan! And I heard nothing---not even a bird chirping. Nor did any of the reporters who were with me hear anything, as commercial planes came in and out of the airport, as they had been doing all week.
The aim of the horde of Western newspapermen who came pouring into Kabul after the government had agreed to let them in was to try to convince world opinion that Soviet troops were an actively repressive, occupying force, opposed by the people and the army! This was directly in line with the Carter-Brzezinski plot to transfer world attention from American imperialism's threat to Iran and the whole Mid-East to Afghanistan.
During our days there, reports came coming in from all over the country that more and more groups, tribes and organisations who had been up in arms against Amin's cruel regime had now laid those arms down and had pledged support to the Karmal government.
Karmal's proclamation in the very first days of the new government of a universal amnesty had had a great effect upon the people, who saw in that action---and later Karmal's visit to the mosque to mourn for the murdered victims---the new government's true intentions.
Phillip Bonosky, special
correspondent of the "Dallu
World" (USA)
(Specially for APN)
How far from the truth is some of the stuff propagated by the Western media I could see the moment I set foot in Kabul on January 9, 1980. I did not see a single Soviet soldier anywhere on the premises of the airport. All the sentries I saw were Afghan soldiers. Rather strange a sight for an ``occupied'' country. Afghan officials were efficiently dealing with the incoming passengers, as in any other airport.
While we were waiting for the bus to take us to the town, I saw a number of old men move towards one end of the hall. It was just past midday. They spread the small blankets they carried with them on the floor, knelt down and started praying. Just a few yards away stood an armed Afghan soldier on duty, to whom this was apparently a daily sight. But for us it was certainly revealing in view of the widespread propaganda that the Godless had taken the reins of power in Afghanistan and that devout Muslims were being persecuted.
While we were driving into Kabul, I looked out for the Russian tanks and armoured vehicles which were supposed to be crawling all over the city. I did not find any. What I found was a busy, bustling city like any other Oriental town, with crowded bazaars and shops doing brisk trade, Afghan policemen controlling the heavy traffic, and the people going about their business as usual.
This, of course, does not mean that nothing has changed. Indeed, since December 27, 1979, a profound change has taken place in the life of the Afghan people. With the overthrow of Amin's reign of terror, the atmosphere in the country has changed dramatically. By his policy of naked repression, Amin was adding grist to the mill of the enemies of the Afghan people who, from the very first day after the April revolution in 1978, were hatching plots against the new government. The feudal landlords who lost their privileges as a result of the land reforms introduced by the government, the reactionary sections of the clergy, the counter-revolutionaries had all fled to Pakistan where, with the open connivance and active support of the Pakistani rulers, they established 101 a number of camps. Now on the territory of Pakistan, near the Afghan border, there are no less than 50 attack-points and at least twenty special bases where subversive groups are given arms and special training by Pakistani military instructors under the guidance of American and Chinese ``advisers''. In the last year alone, more than 15,000 mercenaries underwent training there. They cross the border into Afghanistan arid terrorise the people, perpetrating mass killings in which not even old men, women and children are spared, burning down schools and hospitals and forcibly taking away young men to join their bands.
In the course of our stay in Afghanistan, we came in contact with a number of activists of the People's Democratic Party who were jailed by Amin's henchmen and subsequently released by the new government. One of them is Dr. Farouk, a member of the Party since its very inception. This 36-year-old medical practitioner was OHO of those who conducted secret political activities in the army before the April revolution.
Ahmed Shah, who acted as our interpreter during our stay in Kabul, was himself in jail for several months. A medical student at Kabul University, he had barely three months left to finish his studies when he was arrested by Amin's men. In Kabul University and the Polytechnical Institute we met many others who had shared the same fate. They were the lucky ones who got away with their lives. We were told that from the Kabul Polytechnical Institute alone, more than three hundred students and teachers lost their lives under Amin's regime.
Against this background of unbridled terror unleashed by Amin's regime, and that regime's consequent isolation from the people, the counter-revolutionary gangs from across the border intensified their attacks. They waged what amounted to an undeclared war against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The very existence of the republic was in danger. The best sons of the People's Democratic Party, both within the Army and outside it, those loyal to the ideals of the April revolution, decided to overthrow the tyrannical regime of Arnin in order to save Afghanistan. Abdul Zuhoor, one of the youngest members of the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party (he is only 27 years old) and an engineer by profession, told us that the preparations for 102 the uprising had actually begun several months ago. An elaborate system of secret signals and codes was established among Army officers and Party functionaries regarding the time of uprising and the modus operandi. " Except for the guards protecting Amin, we had comrades in every unit. And when the actual uprising took place, not a single unit opposed it, except Amin's guards,'' Abdul Zuhoor said. Their resistance was quickly overcome.
Abdul Zuhoor ridiculed the story widely spread by the American, Chinese and Pakistani media that Amin's overthrow was the handiwork of the Soviet Union which allegedly ousted him by bringing in the Soviet Army. The entire planning and execution of the uprising of December 27 was the work of the Leadership Committee of the People's Democratic Party, in coordination with the Kabul City Committee and Army units loyal to the April revolution, he asserted.
There has been a great deal of hullabaloo as to who invited the Soviet Army into Afghanistan. This was one of the several questions put to Babrak Karmal, General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party and Prime Minister, at a memorable press conference, held on January 10, 1980. Western correspondents threw at Karmal one provocative question after another but with supreme self-confidence and poise he deftly dealt with all of them. Karmal said it was the old government that had invited in a limited contingent of Soviet troops. This was not done by Amin, who has been proved to be an agent of the CIA, but by the majority of the Revolutionary Council, he explained. He pointed out that the Soviet troops were there to guard the country against the danger of foreign intervention and that they would be withdrawn the moment that danger is removed.
The very first action of the new government was the release of all political prisoners. Speaking on the 15th anniversary of the People's Democratic Party, Babrak Karmal declared a general amnesty throughout the country. On January 6, the dreadful ``Puli-Charkhi'' prison, the central jail near Kabul and known as Amin's Bastille, swung open its iron gates to let out more than two thousand inmates. They included old men hardly able to walk, some even on crutches, women, and even small children. Whole families had been clamped behind bars. Tens of 103 thousands of people had gathered in front of the jail to welcome their nearest and dearest.
The release of political prisoners took place not only in Kabul but in all the provinces as well. The government proudly declared that there was no longer a single political prisoner in the whole country. Simultaneously, KAM, Amin's dreaded secret police, was abolished. These steps, taken by the new government, have won it universal acclaim.
While we were in Kabul, the government declared the 13th of January to be a Day of Mourning. On that day, flags flew half-mast on all government buildings, and prayers were held in mosques all over the country in remembrance of those who lost their lives under Amin's tyranny. Karmal and all the leaders of the government took part in these prayers.
We saw on television in Kabul an interview given by Abdul Gafiar Khan, who is loved and respected all over India as one of the leaders of its freedom struggle. The 92-year-old veteran freedom-fighter now lives in Jalalabad, centre of one of the Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan. He hailed the change of government as the advent of a new era and warmly welcomed the timely assistance of the Soviet Union.
`` While we were in Kabul, reports came in from various provinces about mass meetings at which the people pledged their support for the new government. Tribal elders and religious leaders are all happy that the dark days of Amin's tyranny are over once and for all. They are enthusiastically rallying behind the new government. As we were told by Dr. Anahita Ratebzad, member of the Politbureau of the People's Democratic Party and Minister of Education, the situation in the country as a whole is normal. "We get reports from all over the country,'' she said. "Only in a few places is the situation not yet normal. But even there the process of normalisation is proceeding fast.'' She explained that earlier, because of Amin's terror, many had been forced to flee to the mountains, but now the situation had radically changed and thousands are returning to their native villages.
The people of Afghanistan desire only one thing---to have the possibility to manage their affairs by themselves. Relying on the all-round support of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries and the powerful 104 solidarity of the progressive and democratic movements of the whole world, they are confidently marching forward along their chosen path.
K. Gopalakrishnan, ``
Janayugam'' correspondent (
India)
(Specially for APN)
Kabul---this word can be heard today in all countries of the world. The Afghan people are going through a truly historic period and one of great importance not only for the present day, but also for the future of the country.
We flew into the capital of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan on January 10, 1980 and the first thing that struck us was the tranquillity and order that reigned in the city. The streets were thronged with people, factories were working, trade was brisk in the shops and markets, the mosques were open, there were queues for tickets at the cinemas, the papers were coming out, and radio and television were functioning.
Apart from the increased security measures---Afghan soldiers guarded vital points throughout the city and a curfew was in force---there would have been nothing to remind one of the recent turbulent events, or the fact that Afghanistan was subjected and continues to be subjected to overt imperialist interference from outside.
The fact that law and order, both in Kabul and in the country as a whole, was restored in less than a fortnight after the overthrow of the Amin regime is explained by the support given by the public at large to the new government, headed by Babrak Karmal, the measures it took for normalising the situation, and the solution of serious problems confronting the nation.
``Our people,'' we were told by A. Keshtmand, Editorin-Chief of the newspaper Truth of the April Revolution, "were fed up with the promises and empty words of the previous government. They will judge the new government by its concrete deeds.''
One of the first steps of the new government was to announce an amnesty for all political prisoners. More than 4,000 people were freed in Kabul alone. We watched 105 on television the emergence of the first group of prisoners from Puli-Charkhi, the Afghan Bastille, and were on the spot when the second group was released. It was impossible to remain indifferent to the sight of tens of thousands of people waiting with bated breath for the prison gates to open allowing them to rush forward and embrace their nearest and dearest.
We spoke with an old man, Zaman, who used to come to the prison every day In the hope of finding his son, who had been arrested three months before. Nothing has been fieard of him since. Tears rolled down his cheeks when he begged us to help find his son.
What answer could be given to this gray-haired peasant by President Carter or the Chinese rulers, by those who today bemoan the fate of the "lawful president'', Amin, who tortured thousands of Afghan patriots, or by those who train and arm gangs of counter-revolutionaries, bringing death and devastation to Afghanistan?
Among those freed were Doctor Farouk and a student, Ahmed Shah. As active members of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, they had been thrown in gaol by Amin, in his attempt to destroy the party and erase the gains of the April revolution. "Our party and people'', says Dr. Farouk, "have now confidently embarked 011 the course indicated by the April revolution, and no intrigues by our enemies will divert us.''
The young republic is faced with many complex and difficult problems and the situation is complicated by the fact that these problems have to be tackled in the face of unceasing armed provocations by counter-- revolutionary forces, which are now entrenched in Pakistan.
One of the most acute problems is that of illiteracy. In the streets of Kabul and in the noisy city market, one sees children between the ages of 8 and 14, who, instead of sitting at school desks, are at work all day. Ninety per cent of the population is illiterate.
``Our government,'' Anahita Ratebzad, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and Minister of Education, told us, "has drawn up an extensive programme for combatting illiteracy. We are enlisting the services of the intelligentsia, the military, and even the clergy in implementing this programme. Wide use is being made of the experience of other countries, including that of the 106 Soviet Union. This is a difficult matter, requiring enormous efforts, but we are fully resolved to carry it out to the end.''
Each day of our stay in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan convinced us that the real situation in the country had nothing in common with that pictured by the bourgeois mass media, which continue to spread lies about Afghanistan.
A student at a Kabul institution of higher education, Farida Hatif, told us about her recent visit to relatives in the city of Kandahar. "You can't imagine how surprised we were,'' said she, "when we heard on the BBC that evening that 'fierce fighting' was going on in our tranquil city.''
The Washington Post wrote about "clashes between Soviet and Afghan military units" around Kabul Airport though everything was absolutely quiet there. We can give many examples of this kind. How much talk there was about the new Afghanistan being an "enemy of Islam'', but we were awakened every morning by the voice of a muezzin calling believers to prayers.
On January 13th, the Day of Remembrance of Amin's Victims, we saw tens of thousands of Afghans assemble in front of the mosques. Among those present inside Kabul's main mosque were Babrak Karmal and others of the country's leaders. It should be added here that, according to the Ministry of Information, not a single mosque has been closed since the April revolution. In fact, many new ones have been built. Thus the anti-Afghan lies and slander poured out by the imperialist and Peking's propaganda centres are fully refuted by the real facts.
This could also be said about the falsehoods spread concerning the fraternal assistance rendered by the Soviet Union to Afghanistan at the request of its government. No matter who we talked to in Kabul---from workers to. government Ministers---it was unanimously emphasised that in lending this aid, military included, the Soviet Union had acted like a true friend who did not leave Afghanistan in the lurch. We became convinced more than once of Afghanistan's high appreciation of th« friendship and cooperation of its great neighbour, the Soviet Union. This was also pointed out to us by Hair Mohammad Mamoud, rector of the Kabul Poly technical 107 Institute, which had been built and equipped by the Soviet Union and handed over as a gift to the Afghan people. The new residential neighbourhoods, built in the capital with the help of a Soviet house-building plant, were further evidence of this.
Another circumstance, which completely refutes the slanderous concoctions about "Soviet occupation of Afghanistan'', is the almost total absence of Soviet soldiers in Kabul. The limited Soviet military contingent is not interfering in the country's-internal affairs: its task is to help the Afghan army repel aggression from outside.
``The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to recognise our independence back in 1919,'' Nadmuddin, Secretary of the Kabul City Committee of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, told us in an interview. "All these years the Soviet Union has lent us allround assistance. Our relations have entered a new stage since the victory of the April revolution. The border with the Soviet Union has always been peaceful and friendly. And today, too, our people are sincerely grateful to the Soviet Union for its help, which frustrated the designs of reactionaries and imperialists against our country.''
A bright winter sun was shining as we flew out of Kabul. The clouds over Afghanistan are indeed clearing away. The Afghan people and their new government are fully determined to repulse any attacks by the enemies of the revolution, and to advance along the road of peace and progress.
Janis Ligas, correspondent
of the newspaper ``
Rizospastis'' (Greece)
(Specially for APN)
If you take a walk in Kabul even toward the end of the day, you will see a city with its usual routine life. All the factories, offices and shops are working. The roads from the city are open in every direction and the traffic is heavy.
The first decrees and practical steps of the government which came to power at the end of December are yielding good results. Newspapers report the return to normal life in most of the country's provinces. But they also carry 108 alarming news. Attacks by subversion groups occur now in one part of the country, now in another. They blow up bridges, disrupt communication lines and kill people.
Dark clouds hang over the republic from the Pakistani and Chinese borders. It is from there that arms and propaganda literature, and trained and well-armed raiders and bandits are sent into Afghan territory. It is there that the United States, Britain, China and a number of other countries have set up their main centres of subversion against Afghanistan, which has long been under threat of large aggressive operations.
It is natural that in this situation the Afghan army should be in a state of combat alert. A number of its units are fighting the bandits who sometimes manage to seize an inhabited locality.
We asked Afghanistan's Minister of National Defence, Mohammad Ran, to tell Pravda readers about the situation on the borders of his country. This slim 36-year-old tank officer with manly features was one of those who in 1978 ensured the success of the April revolution. Later, however, on Hafizullah Amin's orders, he was flung into the notorious Puli-Charkhi prison where he spent over a year in solitary confinement. With the change of government in December he was set free and appointed chief of the military department.
``First I want to point out,'' he said, "that the new stage of the April revolution is also a new stage in the life of our army. Our entire Army---soldiers and officers---backs the present government and is determined to defeat the subversive actions of imperialism. We are confident that this will be the case, but today the USA, China and Pakistan are threatening us.''
``Tension is greatest in the eastern part of the country,'' continued the Minister, "where bandit groups trained by American and Chinese instructors operate. During the last few weeks fightings broke out in the areas of Taluqari, Takhar, Faizabad and Baghlan and south of Jalalabad. We have also noticed increased activity on the other side of the Afghan-Pakistani border. It seems that sites for establishing artillery positions are being selected there. We have information that the Chinese Foreign Minister, Huang Hua, has gone to the border recently; he visited one of the camps for training saboteurs, as well as the Khyber Pass area. It is also reported that dozens of 109 American transport planes are delivering arms, ammunition and military supplies to Pakistani airfields. All this is for the camps where forces hostile to us are being assembled.''
The Chief of the General Staff of the Afghan armVj Lieutenant-General Babajan, who was present at th« talk, said that American spy planes had more than once violated Afghan airspace in recent weeks. They had been spotted in the areas of Barikot, Pathan, Chamkani and Asadabad.
Our conversation then turned to the vicious propaganda that is being directed at the Afghans these days. Dozens of radio stations---the Voice of America, the Voice of Peking and the "independent voices" of rebels---are trying to spread confusion and doubt among the Afghans, circulating fabrications and false reports. A few days ago, for example, several such ``voices'', referring to anonymous Pakistani sources, broadcast in many languages: "A fight broke out between a Soviet tank unit and an Afghan rebel regiment near the Kabul Airport''. Mentioning this, the Minister smiled for the first time during our talk. He continued: "What nonsense! There was no clash, and there is no mutinous regiment. Simply one battalion conducted exercises. As I've said, our Army is united. The imperialists are conducting a propaganda war against us because we are one of the contingents of progressive forces. They dislike the changes in Afghanistan and our friendship with the Soviet Unioja. But we «re glad that the Soviet Union is on our side at this critical moment. Afghan officers and soldiers regard their Soviet comrades as brothers,"
Pavel Demchenko and Leonid Mironav, ``Pravda'' staff correspondents (USSR), January 28, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The End of the Dark NightIt is difficult to describe briefly what I saw and felt during my recent stay in Afghanistan. I at once feel frustration at the impossibility of expressing in one phrase what is now being experienced by this patient, tough and cheerful people, firm in their determination to defend their revolution and sovereignty; also at the impossibility of opening the reader's eyes to the utter monstrosity of 110 the conspiracy which has failed, and to all the unimaginable falsity of the arguments used by the imperialists in their anti-Afghan and anti-Soviet campaign.
In conversations I had during my journey through the country I could not detect even a shadow of doubt as to the necessity and timeliness of the unselfish aid given by the Soviet Union at the request of the legitimate government of Afghanistan. What is more, everywhere there were signs of really generous material and spiritual support which has been given over the years. To become convinced of this one need only look at the roads, agricultural complexes, irrigation systems, factories and mills, the Kabul Polytechnical Institute and the University standing next to a picturesque mosque, all of which have been designed by Soviet specialists and built with their help.
The situation in Afghanistan ia returning to normal. Simps are opening again and, as usual, one can hear street vendors praising their wares. Boys selling sweets and cigarettes, and the unemployed who spend hours gazing at the sky,, and women in their centuries-old veils and tattered clothing create a contrast between the old and declining, and the new.
Although the struggle against the feudal elite and mercenaries, supported and armed by the imperialists and the Chinese ruling clique is not yet over, the people and government of Afghanistan have entered" a battle which is as hard as repulsing aggression from outside: the struggle to implement the Programme to Save the Revolution adopted on December 29 of last year.
The release of all political prisoners (I attended one of these acts amidst hundreds of jubilant Afghan families); respect for religious beliefs; the drafting of a constitution wliich extends democratic rights; the further implementation of the agrarian reform and the elimination of illiteracy (90 per cent of the population cannot read or write)--- these are only some of the aspects of the new stage in the country's development since the overthrow of Amin. Incidentallyj it is no secret now that this dictator served the interests of the CIA and- counter-revolution.
There is no need to recapitulate all the numerous facts: th& thousands who were executed, including Noor Mohammad Taraki,. the leader of the April revolution, the brutal tortures and the more than 10,000 political prisoners, among them 2^000 members of the People's Democratic 111 Party. Out of 2,000 students of the Kabul Polytechnical Institute, 700, that is, more than a third, were arrested. As we were told by students and lecturers, two hundred of them died, whilst nothing is known about what happened to the rest. These facts also include the deliberate violation of religious traditions to foment hatred and antagonise the people against progressive reforms, and, lastly, the unnatural forcing through by Amin of his revolutionary programme which went against national sentiments, the growth of the political consciousness of the masses, and the economic and social realities of the country.
Taking cover behind pseudo-revolutionary slogans, Amin's bands crushed any expression of disagreement with fire and the sword. It is quite obvious that the whole policy was linked with external aggression, which started in the neighbouring provinces of Pakistan and on the border with China and escalated into the operation ``pincers''. It is an example of the tactics repeated every time the CIA calls in its specialists in ``destabilisation'' so as later to stabilise its own interests in another region of the world. This operation was directed in the first place against the revolutionary and anti-feudal gains of the Afghan people and had the aim of winning back the lost imperialist positions in the region and ultimately of turning Afghanistan into a base for attacking the Soviet Union.
The strategy of destroying Afghanistan from within, which was pursued during Amin's rule, is clearly seen in the well-thought-out and systematic extermination of members of the People's Democratic Party, into which Amin had cleverly wormed his way after returning from the USA, where he had led an organisation of Afghan emigre students. On Amin's personal orders over 600 Party members were executed, while the rest were imprisoned or forced to flee the country. And all this took place in a matter of three months! It is easy to imagine the threat that hung over the future of the Afghan people: the working population, peasants, students, professionals and / all honest men and women. Many of them are religiousminded and they earlier opposed the government; now, however, in many parts of the country they are expressing their support for the new course and the programme of revolutionary changes.
112The dark night is over. The Afghan government and people are enthusiastically building their future and, with the international support of the Soviet Union, are reliably defending their frontiers from aggression from outside. Nothing in the streets of Kabul indicates a state of either war or rebellion, as the Western press claims. On the contrary, one can see only demonstrations in support of the new course. A colleague of mine who made a trip to the environs of the Pakistani town of Peshawar (the headquarters of counter-revolutionary rebels) told us that in the Afghan districts bordering on Pakistan he had not seen "a single soldier, a single Soviet army vehicle, or anything that would indicate unrest among the population.''
According to this eyewitness, Peshawar contains half a million Afghans who escaped to Pakistan during Amin's rule and who live there in conditions of appalling poverty. The overwhelming majority of them had left the country to flee from the terror unleashed by the assassin of Noor Mohammad Taraki. These people are not "Muslim rebels'', their only concern being to earn their livelihood or find a job. It appears these facts came as an unpleasant shock to the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, who tried to demonstrate the intensification of counter-- revolutionary activities in Afghanistan.
Naturally, refugees will take a "long time to return: most of the emigres, illiterate, isolated, and scared by the counter-revolutionaries, do not know clearly what is happening and why.
The Western press has written much which must have presented a distorted picture of the developments in Afghanistan. There is no need to repeat all that here. It will only be noted that fabrications are refuted by the calm confidence (which I witnessed personally) with which the Afghan people are consolidating the fruits of their revolution.
In conclusion, there is one more important aspect worth dwelling on.
On January 17, together with other journalists, I was at Kabul Airport, waiting for a plane to take me home after a nearly 10-day trip around this country, whose people have kept alive their hopes for the future, social progress and peaceful labour. My strolls along the calm and yet bustling streets of Kabul, its friendly inhabitants and 113 its typically Oriental bazaars were all left behind. I must admit I felt a little sad.
At the airport I learned that American journalists had been expelled from Afghanistan. The day before a simijar action had been taken by the authorities in Iran. This did not surprise me because the American journalists had made provocative sallies during the press conferences which had been conducted openly and on democratic principles by President Babrak Karmal. They had tried to distort any rumour or fact with the purpose of using them in the anti-Afghan and anti-Soviet campaign. But the most unexpected thing occurred the next day when I was already sitting at my desk.
The American newspaper the Washington Post reported from Kabul "fierce fighting between Soviet and Afghan units opposite the Kabul Airport building" at a time when I, surrounded by my colleagues and leafing through my notes on that cold but sunny day, was calmly waiting for a plane.
Can it be that the American journalists ox the staff of the American embassy confused burd twitterings with gun reports? Or the whine of passenger airliners with the rumbling of heavy artillery? Or the mist: that veiled the peaks of the mountains around the airport with the gunpowder smoke of "fierce battles''?
There is only one answer to that: these are shameless and intentional lies. For the other journalists who were with me and myself they are no more than a figment of morbid imaginations. There can be only one truth: what we saw with our own eyes.
Hodcrlfo Medina,
Argentinian journalist
(Specially for APN)
What do we know about distant Afghanistan? Next to nothing.. The media have long;kept siteHt about a country which a democratic revolution has shown the way to get rid of the relics of the Middle Ages. Here are a few facts er insight into the true course of events.
114If Faim whom we met on a dust-covered path of Bamian, trudging along through the drought-wasted contryside with his only treasure---a goat;
If Hassad whom we saw on the road leading to Mazari-Sharif as he was threshing his grain crop with an outdated flail, just a stick, to be exact, his sole possession apart from his tatters;
If Nassar whom we surprised in Ghazni eating his usual meal: a glass of tea with a scone of pressed mulberries;
If the urchins in a Kabul bazaar whose importunacy beyond one's powers of resistance is essential to their very existence as it determines how much they can earn by selling flick-knives;
If all of them should ever miraculously come across what is written in the French press, they would all be amazed. It has been devoting so much space to them! And that at a time when they were convinced that nobody on Earth cared a damn about them. Have, indeed, their poverty and hunger at last found a response in that distant world, poverty and hunger that held them for centuries in a grip so fast as to make them used to it by the time they first had an opportunity, of getting rid of their chains? So, why should dozens of nations suddenly display this concern for them?
A pure figment of imagination! Neither Faim nor any of those children can read French or any other language, including their native one, for that matter. For close on 90 per cent of the population of their country are illiterate.
One is eventually led to wonder how the state had been reduced to the condition in which it remained for so many centuries?
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Hell or Something Like ItI was in Kabul in August 1978, at a time when everything was changing right before my eyes. In bazaars and in villages away from the capital, Communist activists from the People's Democratic Party were telling the amazed peasants that there were no more kings, nor princes 115 in the land; that the new edicts obliged major landowners to give the poor back the land they had been robbed of long ago; that the owners of water could no longer dispose of it at their own discretion; and that debts\ to moneylenders had been partly quashed. On April 27, 1978, a rotten government had fallen under the blows directed by the People's Democratic Party supported by the bulk of the Army.
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan had been in existence for at least a year. The assassination of the editor-in-chief of the party's newspaper on April 29, 1977, led to the most impressive popular uprising in the history of Afghanistan. It was Babrak Karmal who led it in person. The frightened Daoud ordered seven of the principal leaders of the Democratic Party, with Babrak Karmal and Noor Taraki among them, to be arrested. With that the countdown started for the Daoud regime whose time ran out a year later.
One may, however, get a false impression of how it all happened because it looks much simpler on paper. It was not the whole of the people that rose then. In fact, one could hardly call that armed uprising a national one. Besides, Afghanistan was living under a feudal system which kept the rural population in a state of total dependence and submission. The revolution was the brain-child of the revolutionary party and a product of its unity with members of the commanding contingent of the Army, incensed over the country's backwardness which hurt their national pride. The revolution was bound to grope uncertainly forward in its opening days. This is typical for young regimes which, far from being well-established, are still very much in the making.
Men whose names the Afghans never cease to repeat, since they are unique in the nation's entire history, came to power. Among them a Hazara, Ali Keshtmand, Minister of Planning. A Hazara as a Minister? They are the poorest of all, the people who were given the dirtiest jobs for centuries. And yet these poor people now have their own government minister! I happened to see this quicktempered man in Kabul on August 18, 1978. He spoke with great emotion about his people and it was clear to me that he knew everything about their beggarly existence and would take it into account in planning for the future.
116 __ALPHA_LVL2__ De Facto Slaves78 per cent of the rural population were landless. Feudal landlords used to let plots of land to them on nothing short of crushing terms: under an Act which was in force until April, 1978, in some areas, such as Helmand, Kandahar and Herat, a peasant used to get one out of every six sacks of wheat he grew.
It was quite common for such a peasant to leave his family and go to Iran or Pakistan. As the Minister of Culture told me, until 1979, some two million Afghans travelled to Iran in search of work every year. Afghanistan was an inexhaustible source ,of cheap labour. The feudal landlords bled the peasants white. It seemed that their fate could never change. It was then that the great announcement of the start of a new way of life reached the steppeland settlements, the village huts and the valleys closed even to wind. The announcement was full of unfamiliar words, like cooperative, agrarian reform, cancellation of debts to money-lenders arid abolition of illiteracy. But these words had an immense power of attraction, a power that compelled the feudal owners of land and water to get down to negotiating a new type of relationship with the peasants.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Hope of the Feudal EliteIt was then, too, that some unexpected events occurred in Kabul, events which held up the progress of the revolution and led to some disorganisation: the party's principal leaders were removed and arrested. Babrak Karmal was expelled from the country and Ali Keshtmand imprisoned. The Minister of Defence, General Abdul Kadir, who had played a decisive role in the April revolution without ever belonging to any of the political groups, was also arrested. These arrests carried with them the stark danger of dividing and misguiding the people who were still in the grip of age-old fears. Disorder in the army was even more evident: nobody understood anything. So, the men keen on preserving the feudal order had their hopes reinforced.
A few days after Ali Keshtmand's arrest, leaflets signed by the "Muslim Brothers" threatened death as the only 117 ``remedy" for the unfaithful, that is the Communists. The village mullahs got as bold as to proclaim again that God was one and that man had to stay in his image. They condemned cooperatives, and all efforts to end women's illiteracy were out of the question. The people had to be kept in ignorance and woe betide those who dare resist. Full of enthusiasm on their mission to teach and enlighten people in out-of-the-way villages, many young Communists met their death at the hands of merciless enemies. These had massive and undisguised assistance from Pakistan which had become a haven of counter-revolution. Its territory was openly used to train an army which carried out more and more wanton raids every day, causing the alarm of all. The feudal caste concluded that it was the right time to try to regain everything it had lost. It goes without saying that their interests closely intertwined with those of Pakistan, the US ally in that part of the world.
The news of the assassination of Noor Taraki by Hafizullah Amin, who had long plumped for the removal of Babrak Kannal and then for the arrest of the organisers and leaders of the revolution, shocked progressive people everywhere. It became obvious that Amin exploited the revolution for his own self-seeking, ambitions, exterminating the most prominent democratic figures.
What had taken place earlier in the land, the promulgation of laws of a new way of life which gave Afghans the right to a human status, had to be saved.
The new Afghanistan, which bold men dreamed of creating for their own people, was in danger of destruction by home and foreign reaction. This was what made It Imperative for its leaders to ask for Soviet troops to be moved in.
The present Afghan government is headed by the men who had prepared and led the revolution of April 27, 4078.
Roland Michel, special correspondent of the French newspaper, ``L'Humanltf Dimanch?', January 9-15, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ In Puli-Charkhi PrisonKabul bathed in the bright morning sunlight. It was cold, but the only places where, the snow had not melted away were up in the mountains.
118Our car left the capital in the direction of Jalalabad. Our destination was Puli-Charkhi and, specifically, its Well'known prison from which thousands of political inmates had been freed.
Up till recently, a long, high, grey stone wall had kept the horrible deeds behind it a secret from the rest of the world. Sentinel towers were set up at the corners of the wall; there were two more in the middle of the frontal fortifications, with heavy gates between them. A number of tanks and armoured vehicles guarded the prison entrance from inside, while out in front, several hundred inhabitants waited calmly and patiently. The morning frost made them stamp their feet. Flat cake and cigarette vendors made their way through the crowd.
Dr. Sebo of our representation tried, with his knowledge of Farsi, to gain permission from the military patrol to go inside. Several sergeants came up and, after a brief dialogue, they summoned the prison superintendent. We presented our journalist identification cards issued by the Afghan Ministry of Information.
We saw a group of prisoners through the lattice. We had no idea who they were. According to information which we had received in advance, the only inmates left were criminals.
The superintendent told us to wait until the prison yard was cleared. He promised to let us in then and we waited. Soon afterwards, a fleet of cars with officers inside drove up to the prison. One of the officers climbed on a tank and addressed the people assembled in the prison yard.
While waiting, we fell into conversation with some of the people outside the gates. There was a flurry of excitement from time to time when some kind of news came from inside. We heard that two of Amin's cutthroats were supposed to be executed that day and, therefore, \we kept a careful eye on what was going on in the yard. We stayed out in the frost for nearly two hours until the first group of women emerged from the prison. They did not look like inmates at all, but rather those who had come to seek their relatives. We spoke with one of the Women who was dressed in European style---a knitted woollen cap, short coat, long skirt and boots. We saw her come out of the prison. She said that her whole 119 family had been put to death. Dr. Sebo translated to the woman that his comrades, TV correspondents from Czechoslovakia, would like to interview her but she refused. "She's very religious,'' one of the Afghans surrounding us explained.
At noon, we decided that it was a waste of time to wait any longer and we left. It was only after our departure that we learned that Amin's agents had been mingling among the waiting crowd, spreading slanderous information cooked up by enemy propaganda agencies and transmitted by radio stations from sabotage centres in Pakistan. The cock-and-bull story spread by the agents was that the government had freed only members of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, whereas the other inmates were left behind bars. The aim was to try to provoke the crowd to break into the prison.
When Amin ruled the country thousands of people were shot and tortured to death in prisons: many families will never see their near and dear ones again. This is what Western propaganda agencies are trying to play on. They want to create an atmosphere of distrust in the new government and abuse any faint hope of the suffering families that they will possibly still find their next of kin. The Western propagandists wish to cause confusion and take advantage of it to get the agents of imperialism and Amin's hirelings out of jail.
The Puli-Charkhi prison authorities gave permission to everyone who still hoped to find their relatives among the inmates to enter the prison territory and continue their unsuccessful search.
Accompanied by officials of the Afghan Ministry of the Interior, we returned to Puli-Charkhi three days later. The local doctor, a member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, joined us in the inspection tour of the prison of which he, too, had until recently been an inmate.
We were taken over to the second prison block which was now empty. We saw several cesspools in the yard. We were told by those who accompanied us that several hundred prisoners, driven outside to relieve themselves, had been given so short a time to do this that many returned to their cells without having taken advantage of even this ``convenience''.
We were shown a cell into which 150 people had been 120 packed and forbidden to talk with one another. Those who talked were immediately beaten up, tortured, thrown into solitary confinement with exercise outside and even ``visits'' to the cesspools banned completely.
Infectious diseases, dysentery most frequent of all, raged inside the prison on account of the filth and poor food. The sick inmates were kept in common cells without any medical attention at all. The stone prison was as cold as a burial vault. Many prisoners wore only the clothes they had been arrested in. They were without warm clothing throughout the whole period of their detention.
But even this fascist-type brutality did not break the will of the Afghan patriots. We saw sentences written in charcoal on the cell walls. Some of them were translated to us by Abdul Ahad Razmenda who had studied in Czechoslovakia: "I learned by the flute how to sing, and by the clouds how to weep,'' "I spit in the faces of Amin and his fascist scum,'' "My guilt is that I love my country. Even a hundred years here won't change my convictions.''
Milos Krejci, special correspondent of the Czechoslovakian newspaper "Rude Pravo'', January 22, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Real Situation in AfghanistanKABUL: The first thing that strikes one here is that it is not the Kabul Western media are frantically trying to present to the world. On my transistor I have been listening to Western broadcasts and it seems from here that they are not talking about this place where I walk about. Here the city is living a normal life; shops are open, transport is working, offices, factories are working normally, music is playing in the bazaar, tea-shops.
At the airport, for example, helicopters which belong to the Afghans and have the red round state emblems of the DRA are to be seen. Many Western correspondents are even describing them as belonging to Soviet air force. They are Soviet-made planes which belong to the DRA.
Soviet troops are exclusively concerned with defending the republic. Their presence has given a new 121 conftdence to the working people here. There is a new sense of security and a feeling that they can now build their new life without foreign interference.
One of the big lies of Western media has been that the Afghan army and police had been disarmed and only Soviet troops were carrying arms. This is absolutely not true and the situation is that one sees only the armed Afghans here guarding their buildings and city establishments. And they are determined to defend the people's regime.
The biggest impact on the situation has been the restoration of liberty to thousands who had been illegally ajrested by the Amin regime.
I watched the scenes of rejoicings as the last prisoners came out from the Puli-Charkhi prison and were united with crowds of waiting relatives outside.
Along with rejoicings there are heartrending scenes of grief as many were killed.
The relatives of these ``disappeared'' people still hope that maybe they are alive somewhere and will be still released. These people were admitted into the prison to see for themselves that the prison is now empty of political prisoners; only the common criminal elements remain there and some culprits of the previous regime who were personally responsible for the tortures, illegal arrests and killings.
The relatives of these victims in sheer anger wanted to attack the perpetrators of the horrible crimes. The guard had to fire in the air to restore order. The Western media gave this incident their own colour as if it were some demonstration against the present authorities.
Of course, those who were killed by the Amin butchers cannot be brought back to life.> The scale of these crimes and cruelties had taken huge proportions and caused grave damage to the revolution and its cause. It will take some time for the wounds to heal.
Thousands of party members have been released. I have met some of them. They are determined to serve the new united party and cause of the people's revolution of April 1980.
I have also met a nmmber of people who give the lie to Western propaganda about rebel successes and lighting in various parts of the country. Similarly, Western media are spreading blatant lies about Soviet losses in fighting, 122 about hundreds of executions since the new DRA government took over, etc. These are pure fabrications and have to be taken as such.
The people of Afghanistan support the newly organised leadership and government and the aims and achievements of the revolution. They know that Soviet helping hand has been extended to them. The external threat from foreign imperialist intervention and through Pakistan and China Is clear to all.
Without fraternal aid the Country would be today a victim of foreign aggression and civil war. Arrival of fraternal Soviet military aid has strengthened peace and security in tlie whole region.
Masooii Alt Khan, correspondent of the newspaper "New Age' (India), Janimry 20, 1980
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Devil's Sabbath of Right-WingersDuring a debate in the Assembly of the Republic--- the Portuguese Parliament---on the new government's program I was struck by how ``knowledgeably'' ministers and reactionary deputies spoke of Afghanistan. Only a few months before, most of these gentlemen would have had great difficulty in even finding it on the world's map.
All of them now sang like bad actors in a chorus conducted from afar. With slight variations they uttered the same speeches and repeated the same words and gestures as the reactionaries of dozens of Western countries.
From the rostrum of the Assembly, Alvaro Cunhal gave them a worthy reply: "The Afghan people will be able to uphold their revolution ... It is not subservience to the aggressive circles of imperialism that makes Portugal proud or can solve its problems. We must not raise anti-Sovletism to the rank of Portuguese foreign policy and place it above the interests of our national independence.''
The right-wingers were unambiguously reminded that true revolutionaries always support a revolution endangered by imperialism. Cunhal exposed the roots of their 123 ``fuss over Afganistari"---hatred towards the Soviet Union and existing socialism.
Last summer I was in Moscow together with a group of Afghan officers. We often met in the park of a hospital where we were taking a course of treatment. I told them about Portugal and our revolution. They told me about Afghanistan and we became great friends.
``Our country is one of the poorest in the world,'' they said. "The national income hardly exceeds 90 dollars per person per year. Only 10 per cent of the population can read and write. Many define their age referring to such events as an earthquake or flood. Not so long ago it was quite lawful to sell a woman for one dollar. Now you can imagine what the April revolution meant for our country.''
``The agrarian reform,'' I was told by my friends from Kabul, "has given land to almost 3.5 million peasants. But in a backward country like ours, one law is not enough to change the way of life. Moreover, former feudal landlords have got the same allotments as peasants. Thanks to their knowledge (they are often the only ones who can read and write) former landowners and members of their families occupy leading positions in the cooperatives. The peasants are very religious. A landowner comes along during a prayer and says: 'You can't pray here. The Allah forbids theft, and this land has been stolen. He will damn the impious.' This kind of trickery seriously complicates the situation. Of course, people who are most aware rise against the landlords. Wherever the People's Democratic Party stands firm the class struggle is mounting, the rightists give up and the agrarian reform forges ahead.''
With love and affection the young Afghan officers spoke of Noor Mohammad Taraki, his life, his struggle and his work. They gave me a book with his biography. The President was a true revolutionary, exacting toward himself and the people surrounding him.
I noticed that they were very restrained about Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin and rarely spoke of him. Only now, many months later, after the events that have attracted world attention to Afghanistan do I understand why my Afghan friends would say nothing when I asked them about his role in the April revolution.
``We are aware of the complexity and greatness of the tasks facing us,'' my Kabul friends told me. "But when we 124 look back and see what has been accomplished in such a brief span of time, we feel our strength grow. How valuable free education at all levels is, including university! All the citizens of a country where 90 per cent of the people are illiterate have now received access to education.''
``The rightists are trying to play on religious feeling and even exploit the old enmity between the Sunni and Shi'a sects against the revolution. But they will not succeed. The most outstanding religious leader in the country is with us, he supports revolutionary transformations.''
``And Afghanistan?" the Portuguese reactionaries of all factions continue to shout furiously. "What do they count on?''
The situation in Afghanistan has now changed for the better. Its people have asserted themselves in the struggle and will protect the revolution from any imperialist attacks and conspiracies. The Soviet people deserve only words of respect for having lent brotherly help to the revolutionary people of Afghanistan, for taking its side in the struggle against imperialist-financed counterrevolutionary forces which are seeking to revive the feudal past.
Many months have elapsed. But how pertinent the words of a young Afghan captain are which I heard earlier in Moscow: "They are erupting mountains of slander against the Soviet Union, yet they conceal the fact that intervention, aggression, and disregard for our sovereignty and our right to freely build our future emanate from imperialism. Pakistan is full of special camps where Pakistani, British and American instructors are training saboteurs who are then sent into our country to sow death and destruction.''
But the April revolution has fortified its positions and has given a fitting rebuff to all these designs; it cannot be intimidated with imperialist threats. On the ancient soil of Afganistan tribes and peoples have developed a national awareness and do not spare their lives in protecting the future which the April 1978 revolution has opened before them.
Miguel Urbano Rodrigues, editor-in-chief of the newspaper ``Diarlo'' (Portugal) (Specially for APN)
125 __ALPHA_LVL2__ On the Wave---KabulIn Kabul news spreads with immense rapidity. For a country where the majority of people cannot read, the wireless has become the most accessible and popular of the mass media. Nomads, cameleers and drivers of motor vehicles seldom part with their transistor radios. Wh«n important political events happen, crowds of thousands gather near the loudspeakers in Zarneghar Park, located in the centre of the Afghan capital.
``We know the role of the radio in the life of our multinational state,'' says Said Fazl Akbar, director of Afghan Radio. "Every nomadic livestock breeder can buy a transistor set. During the events of December the radio never stopped its transmissions and now the broadcasting time of our programs, which we conduct in many of the languages spoken in Afghanistan, amounts to 27 hours a day. Apart from Dari and Pushtu, we broadcast in Baluchi, Nuristani, Uzbek and Turkmenian. We also conduct programs in Russian, English, Arabic, German and Urdu.''
Radio, however, is not only the source of information on political events. One of its principal aims is to bring culture to the masses. I talked with the director of musical programs, Babrak Wasa, on this subject. We spoke without an interpreter---he had studied in Moscow.
A bust of Tchaikovsky stands on Babrak's desk. The young musician graduated from the Moscow Conservatoire, majoring in chorus conducting. He recalled with great warmth his teachers---Professor V. Sokolov, Assistant Professor B. Tevlin and Bolshoi's choir-master I. Agafonnikov.
``We have a wealth of folk songs and plenty of fine voices,'' says Babrak Wasa. "But there was no choral polyphony in our country. When my wife and I arrived in Kabul we were full of radiant plans. In Moscow I had tried my abilities by rearranging a song of our people, 'The Saxaul Seller,' for several voices. I had invited Afghan students to do the first performance and was extremely anxious to see how they would cope with harmony.
``Back home, we created Afghanistan's first youth chorus of radio aad television---a real many-voice mixed chorus of 45. We had to start from scratch. Our dream is to come to Moscow in a few years and enter a chorus 126 contest. I know how high the musical culture of the Soviet republics is, but just to participate in such a creative competition would itself be a great honour to us.
``We also had disappointments,'' Wasa went on. " During Amin's dictatorship art was on a low level, and completely incompetent people were in charge. How many times I received orders from the ministry to admit people into the chorus who had neither a voice nor an ear...''
Now in Kabul any talk inevitably turns to politics. This is what happened this time. An energetic young man entered the room. He was Mashur Jamal, a popular Afghan singer. He is only 35 years old, although he has a shade of greyness in his hair. Mashur together with another singer, Ahmad Murid, had been arrested by Amin's men and put into the Puli-Charkhi prison, which the Afghans called Kabul's Bastille. He was released along with other prisoners just a few days before.
``They arrested me in the evening,'' recounted Jamal. "I didn't know the people who told me I must appear in a`concert'. They forbade me even to change my clothes and I was taken away in my pyjamas. They arrested Ahmad at the same time. The night interrogations, beatings and tortures began. The interrogator was usually an officer who sat behind the table, lounging in an ' American style', with a bottle of whisky or brandy. He would ask the most absurd questions. I was to confess my `involvement' in a conspiracy and name non-existent accomplices. They tortured me by electric current...''
The time of Amin's dictatorship is now being recalled like a nightmare. I was told that soldiers often refused to shoot prisoners. Then a savage method was revealed: they put live people into boxes which were then nailed up and had a human silhouette painted on them. The soldiers were then told that it was "shooting practice''. After the shots blood trickled from the boxes. They were then bulldozed into a pit, though the executioners knew that many of the people were still alive.
That is why ashen greyness now covers the head of the young singer, Mashur Jamal.
There was a deep pause before we returned to our conversation about culture. The horror of the story, the pain and bitterness of it all... I remembered Babrak Karmal, leader of the People's Democratic Party and the 127 Afghan stale, saying at his first press conference that Amiri had even surpassed the Nazis in brutality.
``It seems to me that Amin made every effort to create a favourable situation for internal and external enemies,'' said Babrak Wasa. "We were particularly outraged by the artificial fomenting of strife among the nationalities of our country. Now, after the mess left by Amin's clique, a great deal will have to be done, especially in the field of culture.''
The country has, as yet, no professional theatre. Television is poorly developed and very few people can buy a TV set, though I must note that colour images are excellent and reliable. The only studio, Afghanfilm, is making its first steps and turns out mainly short newsreels.
Today, now that the April revolution has entered its normal course, there are many opportunities and bright prospects for people concerned with ancient and modern Afghan culture.
Vladimir Nakaryakov, APN special correspondent, January 25, 1980
[128]
Babrak Karmal, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, and Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
[128b]
Afghanistan has entered a new stage of the April revolution. Afghans welcome the decisions taken by the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan headed by Babrak Karmal.
[128c]
Afghans reading the first Issue of a new paper called "The Truth of the April Revolution".
[128d]
The new government paper " The Truth of the April Revolution" being sold on the streets of Kabul.
[128e]
The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan vigilantly.guard the national Independence of. their homeland.
[128f]
[128g]
These American- and Chinese-made guns were sent" to Afghan counter-revolutionaries.
These three bandits have been captured by the Afghan security forces. They were trained In special camps in Pakistan where American and Chinese instructors taught them to kill and rob peaceful villagers.
[128h]
The Investigation agencies of the
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
have studied the case of the
assassination of Noor Mohammad Tarakl. The
former head of the Amln Guards,
Jandad, giving evidence to the court of
Inquiry.
Under arrest---Mohammad Eghbal, one of Tarakl's assassins.
[128j]
Zbignlew Brzezinski, during a visit to Pakistani troops positioned near the Khyfoer Pass, casts a malignant glance at Afghan territory through the sight of a Chinese-made light machine gun.
[128k]
A press-conference with Babrak Karma I, General Secretary of the PDPA Central Committee, Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
[128l]
[128m]
Ten thousand political prisoners, convicted Illegally by the reactionary Amln regime, were released under one of the first acts of Babrak Karmal's government.
[128n]
Working people of Afghanistan are carrying out the economic development plan* of the April revolution. The photo shows women-workers of a textile mill In Kabul.
[128o] __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE JUST CAUSEEvents in Afghanistan have attracted the attention of the world public. The ruling quarters of the imperialist countries and Peking have been outraged by the failure of the reactionary forces to carry out their treacherous designs against democratic Afghanistan. On their order, imperialist and Peking propaganda has started a brazen anti-Soviet and anti-Afghan campaign, deliberately and shamelessly distorting the USSR's role in Afghan affairs.
The USSR's internationalist assistance to the Afghan people in their struggle against crude outside interference, including military assistance in the form of stationing temporarily a limited military contingent in the country, at the request of the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, has met with understanding and approval on the part of all democratic and anti-imperialist forces in the world.
Communist and Workers' parties, the socialist countries, young independent states, statesmen, politicians and public figures, and international organisations support the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, which is firmly upholding the gains of the 1978 April revolution, and the act of solidarity of the USSR with regard to the people of that country.
Todor Zhivkov, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bulgaria: The USSR's Assistance to Afghanistan Is Putting a Stop to Aggression
Imperialism and reactionaries, with the CIA playing an active part, had for some time been systematically training, arming and smuggling into Afghanistan thousands upon thousands of bandits with the aim of overthrowing the lawful government established by the democratic anti-feudal revolution of April 1978. They refuse to accept the fact that the Afghan people have taken a new road, the road of profound transformations and elimination of age-old backwardness. The April revolution's gains were in grave danger. Defending their power and their revolutionary gains the Afghan people and the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan had repeatedly asked the Soviet Union for assistance, including military aid, to combat the aggressors.
How could the Soviet Union fail to respond to the request of the government of friendly neighbouring Afghanistan at a moment crucial for the latter's destiny, when the aggression against it had assumed proportions threatening its very existence? It was a case of honouring an international obligation taken under the Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation between the USSR and Afghanistan, of helping the people's power of that country to bar the way to export of counter-- revolution, of preventing a friendly state from being turned into a state hostile to the Soviet Union, into an anti-Soviet bridgehead.
The Soviet Union has fulfilled its treaty obligations and has done so fully in keeping with the norms of international law, with the UN Charter.
To grasp the vast international importance of the Soviet Union's help to Afghanistan, it should be borne in mind that at that time the United States had already embarked on the path of a new arms race and aggravation of the international situation; that under the United States' powerful and unceremonious pressure some West European NATO countries had agreed to the deployment on their territory of medium-range nuclear missiles aimed at the Soviet Union and other socialist countries; that 130 the counter-revolutionary alliance between imperialism and Chinese hegemonism had ever more clearly been assuming sinister features; that increasing armadas of American warships had been heading towards the western part of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf; and that the threat of force had become ever more open.
Such is the true picture of Soviet military assistance to Afghanistan. It is not aggression, but putting a stop to aggression. It is not export of revolution, but stopping the export of counter-revolution. It is not an act of aggravation of the international situation, but action to prevent events that would inevitably have had many grievous consequences for peace not only in that region but in the whole world.
The People's Republic of Bulgaria supports the stand taken by the people's government of Afghanistan, its resolution to uphold its independence and the democratic path of the country's development, its peaceful foreign policy, its will to develop friendship and cooperation with socialist countries and with all peaceloving forces in the world, and Afghanistan's participation in the movement of non-aligned countries. The Bulgarian people are convinced that the just cause of the Afghan people will prevail.
The People's Republic of Bulgaria approves and fully supports the assistance rendered by the Soviet Union to Afghanistan.
From a speech in Sofia at a Plenary Meeting of the National Council of the Fatherland Front of Bulgaria, February 11, 1980
From the Decision of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic: Internationalist Assistance
Of late, imperialist and reactionary forces from abroad have intensified their aggressive activity against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Groups of armed terrorists and armaments for counter-revolutionary bands and elements are being shipped to Afghanistan. In view __PRINTERS_P_131_COMMENT__ 6* 131 of the predatory policies of Amin and his supporters, who as a result of a coup d'etat displaced the General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, Noor Mohammad Taraki, and who by despotic and terroristic methods have undermined the democratic and progressive gains of the Afghan revolution, aggressive acts and counter-- revolutionary intrigues are becoming increasingly dangerous. Thus, on the one hand, there is a threat that the significant benefits for the Afghan people brought about by the 1978 April revolution will be done away with, and on the other, that peace and security in the Middle East will be jeopardised. Gross interference in the internal affairs of the Afghan people and the assistance rendered on a large scale by foreign states to the counter-revolutionary forces are all part and parcel of undisguised attempts of the imperialist and other reactionary forces to increase tension and revive policies based on strength in international relations...
The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic support the measures taken by the party and state leadership of Afghanistan to protect the country's sovereignty and independence and maintain that the inalienable right of the Afghan people to collective and individual self-defence should be respected. In this connection the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic express their full support for the internationalist aid given by the Soviet Union on the request of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in repulsing aggression and restoring peace. The campaign of slander unleashed by the enemies of peace and detente is spearheaded against the Soviet Union which has rendered legitimate aid to the Afghan people and which is in full accord with the UN Charter. The campaign is aimed at distracting the attention of the peoples and states from the aggressive activities of the imperialist circles in the Middle East and from their policy of building up armaments, the line which was adopted at the recent NATO session.
Together with the USSR, the other fraternal socialist countries and all peaceloving forces the German 132 Democratic Republic will continue to uphold peace and implement the policy of peaceful coexistence, detente and disarmament and will oppose all encroachments on the vital interests of the peoples of the world. The German Democratic Republic will continue to give aid to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in the spirit of solidarity.
__FIX__ Indentations missing.``Neues Deutschland" (GOR), December 31, 1979
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party Edward Gierek: Striving for the National and Social Emancipation Is the Main Trend of Our Time
We also with good faith have welcomed a return in Afghanistan to anti-feudal and anti-imperialist ideals of the April revolution. This return fully meets the vital interests of the Afghan people. We feel solidarity with working people and with all progressive forces in Afghanistan, supporting them in their striving to put an end to interference in their affairs of the outside reactionary forces.
From a speech at the 8th Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party, February 11, 1980
General Secretary of the Communist Party of France Georges Marchais: The Forces of Imperialism Must Be Made to Respect the Principles of International Relations
The forces of imperialism are never idle, they are always at work in those areas of the world where the situation is, in some degree, unstable. Take, for instance, NATO's recent horrible decision to deploy, in a number of West European countries, new US nuclear missiles trained on the Soviet Union. Another example is the imperialist interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs, as a result of which the Soviet Union, fulfilling a provision of the Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation with Afghanistan, gave assistance to that country. In an atmosphere in which the forces of 133 peace oppose those who heighten tension in certain areas of the world, we have arrived at the only possible conclusion: it is necessary to struggle even more actively to make the forces of imperialism respect the principles of international relations.
From a speech on Soviet television, January 11, 198U
From a Statement by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Finland: Imperialist Forces Are Responsible for Worsening of International Situation
It is the imperialist forces, above all, the US government, that are responsible for a worsening of the international situation. As regards the situation in Afghanistan, its people have the right to decide their own domestic affairs and relations with other countries. The Communist Party of Finland expresses solidarity with the peoples of Afghanistan and their People's Democratic Party struggling for the independence of the country, its territorial integrity, against outside pressure and domestic counterrevolutionaries and reactionaries.
January 9, 1980
From a Message from the National Council of the Communist Party of India to the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan: A Timely and Fully Warranted Step
India's democratic public at large emphatically denounce outside interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union came to the assistance of the Afghan working people to repulse outside imperialist aggression. This timely and fully warranted step was taken in accordance with the Soviet-Afghan Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation.
The actions of the United States and China pose a grave threat to the sovereignty of India and the security of the region.
January 22, 1980
From a Statement of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the People's Party of Panama: USSR Loyal to Its Internationalist Policy
Washington has launched a campaign of lies and slander in an attempt to mislead world opinion as regards the real events in Afghanistan and to cover up its military preparations in the Middle East. Loyal to its internationalist policy, the Soviet Union rendered all-round assistance to Afghanistan. This is not interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, as Washington is trying to make out, but fraternal assistance to a people subjected to aggression by the forces of reaction backed by the United States and Peking. It is a bold and resolute reply to the forces which continue war-mongering and which try to intimidate peoples waging a just struggle.
January 12, 1980
Member of the Central Committee Executive of the Communist Party of Argentina 0. Arevalo: The Soviet Action Is of Historic Importance
Despite the malicious propaganda campaign about developments in Afghanistan, the truth of what is happening in that country is becoming increasingly clear to all, disproving the allegations of imperialism and its agents, the Peking clique. The actions taken by the USSR in rendering disinterested aid to Afghanistan are of truly historic importance.
TASS, January 18, 1980
Secretary of the Central Committee of the Lebanese Communist Party A. Mroue: Support for the Afghan Revolution Means Support for All Embattled Nations
The Soviet Union's Internationalist support to the Afghan people provides ah example of how help to a nation fighting for progress and a better life should be rendered. Support for the Afghan revolution is at the same time support for all embattled nations. The Soviet position has the approval of Arab nations.
TASS, January 17, 1980
Member of the Politburo CC of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka D.E.V. Gunasekera: Imperialism's Threat to Afghanistan
Question: Can the dispatch of Soviet troops to Afghanistan be considered as an invasion of that country?
Answer: It is by no means an invasion. Were Soviet troops sent to Afghanistan against the wishes of that country? Definitely not. On December 5, 1978, the governments of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union signed a Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation. According to Article 4 of this treaty, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union undertook to consult between themselves, and, provided both sides were in agreement, to take appropriate measures to ensure the security, independence and territorial integrity of both nations. The whole world was thus notified that in case of a threat to Afghanistan arising from outside the country, Afghanistan would apply for assistance from the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union would render such assistance. This treaty was in conformity with international law.
Why is it that those who continue to harp about this ``invasion'' make no reference to the Treaty of Friendship or to the United Nations' Charter. They cry out that a threat has arisen to the sovereignty and independence of Afghanistan but the lawful government of that country declares that no such threat exists.
In the recent past, 600,000 Chinese soldiers invaded Vietnam, murdering peaceful citizens and conducting a campaign of destruction in the northern part of the country. The Chinese government admitted this invasion and declared that it was intended as a means of teaching Vietnam a lesson. The government of Vietnam vigorously protested against this aggression at the Conference of Heads of Government and State of the Non-Aligned Countries, and at the United Nations. What position was taken then by those who are clamouring about the Soviet `` invasion'' of Afghanistan? Did they at least make some protest against China's actions? Did they label such actions as aggression? No. And why not? Whenever there is an aggravation of tension on the international scene, the bourgeoisie regards these events from its own class point of view.
136Question: Some people say that the United States and the Soviet Union are equally responsible for such situations arising. What is your opinion about this?
Answer: I would imagine that the materials published only in the capitalist press organs in our country would be enough to allow one to conclude whether there is any external threat to the gains of the Afghan revolution or otherwise. Anwar Sadat has announced that Egypt is helping to train the rebels. The newspapers have informed us that when the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs visited Pakistan, he met with the insurgents. It has been reported in the press that the Afghan counter-- revolutionaries are equipped with US and Chinese arms.
All these facts and many others testify that this situation has been created by the imperialists and their puppets.
An interview to the newspaper ``Aththa'', February 1, 1980
From a Statement by the Political Commission of the Socialist Party of Costa Rica: Camouflaging US Interference in the Internal Affairs of Afghanistan
By fanning anti-Soviet hysteria, US propaganda is trying to camouflage US interference in the domestic affairs of Afghanistan. Exposed to threats from US imperialism, hegemonistic China and Pakistani reaction, the Afghan people exercised their legitimate right to request aid from a friendly state.
January, 1980
From a Statement by the Leading Council of the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon: Aims of Anti-Afghan Ballyhoo
Allegations about Soviet interference in Afghan affairs pursue aims which have nothing in common with concern for the wellbeing of the Afghan and other Muslim peoples. What makes this evident is that this campaign was started by the selfsame forces which carried out armed intervention against Vietnam and interfered in the affairs of other states.
137What makes this inflammatory ballyhoo dangerous is that it opens up the possibility of preparing US intervention in Iran, the Middle East and other regions.
January 16, 1980
President of SWAPO Sam Nujoma: We Resolutely Condemn Anti-Soviet Hysteria
The South-West African People's Organisation (SWAPO), together with all progressive mankind, resolutely condemns the anti-Soviet hysteria started in connection with events in the Middle East. The imperialist forces and international monopolies, whose provocations in Africa have collapsed, are trying to distort the true state of affairs and represent the USSR's internationalist assistance to Afghanistan as a ``violation'' of international law.
January 22, 1980
Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi: The Reaction of Some Powers to Events in Afghanistan Could Not but Cause Concern
Members of parliament are justifiably concerned about recent events in Afghanistan and the decision of the United States, China and some other states hastily to deliver arms to Pakistan.
In relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan a number of problems did exist. They are the legacy of colonial domination in the area. What, happened in Afghanistan is the internal affair of that country. In the course of the last two years Afghanistan has faced a lot of problems both domestic and international. According to reports, the country was attacked from military bases situated outside its territory. The Afghan government, referring to the provisions of the treaty signed with the USSR asked it to render Afghanistan military assistance to ward off the imminent danger.
We could not but feel apprehension because of the reaction on the part of some powers to the events in Afghanistan. Pakistan asked for military aid worth thousands of millions of dollars. The US has already promised it such aid amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars and is trying to persuade other countrie to contribute 138 to turning Pakistan into a military arsenal. The Chinese People's Republic has also promised to supply arms and render other necessary assistance to Pakistan. In the Indian Ocean the buildup of naval forces is still going on and a huge armada is being deployed in the Arabian Sea; all this is being done for the sake of securing unhampered oil shipments from the Persian Gulf region to the industrially developed countries of the West. This should inevitably give rise to a certain reaction.
From a speech in the Indian Parliament, January SO, 1980
Prime Minister of Syria A. Khaddam: The USA Is an Enemy of Islam
The main intention of the forces of imperialism, Zionism and the Egyptian regime is undoubtedly to aggravate relations between the Arab nations and the Soviet Union. This would serve several goals. Firstly, it would deprive the Arabs of a friend who has-unvaryingly supported Arab countries in their struggle against Israeli aggression and in other affairs. Secondly, it would encircle the Soviet Union and undermine its prestige among the third world nations, enabling imperialism to draw them into its orbit and undermine their independence and progress.
What else could explain the present campaign that imperialist Zionist circles and the Sadat regime are conducting against the Soviet Union, in which they are exaggerating events in Afghanistan while being well aware of the fact that anyone who truly supports Islam should not give vast amounts of aid to Israel, which*is occupying Jerusalem, a city sacred to Muslims, driving the people of Palestine away from their land, trespassing on Arab territories and sowing destruction in Lebanon's south.
Any nation which encourages Israeli aggression by giving it aid and support should figure in the list of the enemies of Islam and the Muslims.
Islam has always been and will remain a movement hostile to the yoke of colonialism and oppression, and as such has an anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist nature.
We have made clear our attitude towards the present onslaught by the forces of Zionism and imperialism. Our 139 reply to that onslaught has been and will remain the samei we do not place a friend who is on our side on an equal footing with those who side with our enemy. Thus we refuse to place on the same footing the Soviet Union---a true friend of the Arab peoples---and any other force or state which gives support and aid to our Israeli enemies.
Damascus, January 27, 1980
Permanent Representative of Cuba to the UN Raul Roa Kouri: ``No'' to Attempts to Whitewash Imperialism
The government of the United States, which advocates intervention in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and is intent on reimposing on the countries of that region the status of pawns of its imperialist policies, requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council and has launched a formidable propaganda campaign in the midst of the rolling drums of a new cold war and, of course, threats to another member state of the United Nations.
For Cuba this debate implies the need to take a definite stand before a historical dilemma. The uncouth manipulation by the United States imperialists of events in Afghanistan, their attempt to profit from what took place in that country as a means to disguise their cynical support for the worst international forces in order to promote their bellicose policy and draw a smokescreen over their political and moral crisis while once more projecting their primitive hatred of socialism, leaves no margin for nuances.
It is not the right of peoples to their sovereignty which is at stake in the present debate. Cuba will always uphold that right, as it has done at the cost of shedding its own blood. But when it is sought, in the name of that right, to show the validity of a sinister imperialism which has brought death, oppression, backwardness, illness and ignorance to humanity, Cuba says ``No''.
We shall never carry water to the mill of reaction and imperialism. We shall never align ourselves with the perpetrators of genocide in Vietnam, with those who invaded Mexico and robbed it of a considerable part of its territory, with those who landed in Central America, Haiti and Santo Domingo to defend the interests of their, 140 monopolies and who returned to the Dominican Republic a few years ago to prevent the people of that country from attaining democracy.
From a statement by Cuba's permanent representative tt the UN at the 6th emergency session of the UN General Assembly. ``Granma'', Cuba, January 15, 1980
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Algerian People's Democratic Republic Mohammad Ben Yahia: A Serious Threat to the Policy of Detente
Algeria condemns US attempts to revive the cold war spirit in international relations, using events in Aghanistan as a pretext. Those who shout about this the loudest are themselves champions of military interference in the internal affairs of the developing countries. Examples of this are still fresh in our memory. The plans of expanding the network of military bases and setting up new aggressive blocs in South-East Asia, the real possibility of which is underscored by the frequent visits of late of Washington's emissaries to different countries of this region, present a serious threat to the policy of detente.
From a statement on French radio. TASS, January 22, 1980
Chairman of the National Council of Palestine Khaled al-Fahoum: Conspiracies Are Being Organised Against Afghanistan
The news media in the United States and some other Western countries have launched a campaign of slander against democratic Afghanistan. Washington is enraged by Afghanistan's decision to build a progressive society.
From the first days following the April revolution the United States has been trying to push Afghanistan off the road to freedom and independence. Washington and its satellites are interfering in the internal affairs of Aghanistan, organising conspiracies against its lawful government, supplying domestic reaction with arms, and provoking mutinies and disorder.
141We Palestinians share the ideals and goals of the struggle waged by the Afghan people, for we have been fighting for many years for the right to have our home and an independent state. The Soviet Union is giving us great material and moral support. We have always felt its support.
The anti-Soviet and anti-Afghan uproar cannot conceal the sinister activities of the US military in the Persian Gulf, Washington's cooperation with Zionism and US protection of the criminals responsible for the death of hunderds of thousands of people. Whatever lies the US administration may resort to in slandering Kabul or Teheran, the Palestine Liberation Organization or the Soviet Union, it will not be able to whitewash imperialism which is guilty of wars and genocide and atrocious crimes agahist peace and humanity.
January, 1980
(Specially for APN)
From a Statement by the World Peace Council: Firmly Resisting US Actions
Exercising its sovereign rights, the government of Afghanistan has dealt a blow to imperialist interference and CIA subversive activities. President Carter, a mouthpiece of the US military-industrial complex, used it as a pretext for escalating the US military presence in various regions of the world and also for distracting the attention of world public opinion from the real threat to peace.
At this crucial moment the World Peace Council calls upon all peaceloving forces to unite and show maximum resolution in upholding detente. International stability and peace are in danger. The World Peace Council calls upon the peaceloving forces firmly to resist US actions directed against peace. Our task is to strengthen the cause of peace and detente and not to allow the forces of war to plunge mankind into a catastrophe.
Helsinki, January 16, 1980
President of the World Peace Council Romesh Chandra: The USSR Helps Afghanistan to Repulse Imperialist Aggression
It is only natural that progressive forces all over the world, those who defend the interests of peace, justice and national independence, are disturbed by the 142 development of international events, and specifically by the new stage of arms buildup now launched by the United States and their allies, the most aggressive circles of NATO, and the Peking leaders. I believe that this circumstance largely explains the current developments in Afghanistan.
I myself was in Ai'ghanistan in August 1978. Being a citizen of an Asian country linked by close ties for many years with Afghanistan, I felt deeply that what was happening in that country concerned me too.
From the start of the April revolution of 1978 in Afghanistan the US impelialists, in league with the Chinese expansionists, tried to do everything they could to prevent it from being a success. Obviously it did not suit them that the revolution, among other things, had destroyed the previous structure of feudal relationships and opened to the people the way to a new life. It was an inspiring example for the countries of this region of the world and for all countries of Asia.
The government of Afghanistan could have coped with its ``own'' counter-revolutionaries---the feudal lords and others who opposed the revolution; such people were very, very few. We had travelled throughout Afghanistan, and therefore I say this with absolute certainty. President Taraki told us about his fear lest the armed intervention, relatively- small in scale in those days, would grow quickly, and he said that it would be impossible to repel foreign intervention without the support of friendly countries. Today it is perfectly clear that by last December this armed intervention, organised by the CIA and its Peking allies, had noticeably increased. Not only Afghans who had been trained and armed and whose ranks had markedly grown were then involved in the events there. It was a case of armed foreign intervention. Under these circumstances the Afghan government had every reason to repeat its request to a friendly neighbour, the Soviet Union, a request which it had made on several previous occasions, that it give Afghanistan assistance in accordance with the Treaty signed between the two countries and also with the United Nations Charter which recognises the inalienable right of a state to defend its sovereignty and its independence.
Now Western propaganda is trying to present the gigantic arms buildup by imperialists in Asia as a " 143 reaction" to the events in Afghanistan. Nothing of the sort! Long before the events in Afghanistan President Carter had issued an order on concentrating armed forces in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf area. Long before Soviet troops were sent to Afghanistan on a friendly mission, NATO had planned a new round of arms buildup in Europe and had taken a whole series of steps undermining the process of detente. The present, potentially dangerous arms buildup by the forces of imperialism takes place not at all in ``response'' to the events in Afghanistan; it is part of the Pentagon's global military strategy.
The arming of Pakistan, China's threats against Kampuchea, new conspiracies against the Palestinian and other Arab peoples---all these are details of the dangerous schemes nurtured by the new Washington-Peking-NATO axis.
The Soviet Union has not only supported Afghanistan in its struggle against imperialist armed aggression, but has helped to frustrate the plans of the imperialists designed to turn Afghanistan into a base of aggression against all independent states of our continent.
The imperialists and their allies are vainly attempting to cover up their far-reaching aggressive actions against the peoples of the world with fabrications about the " Soviet threat''. They need to do this in order to justify their arms buildup in all parts of the globe, to justify their concentration of large military formations in the Indian Ocean and to justify their military aid to Pakistan. The peoples of the world know very well that the Soviet Union has no colonialist ambitions in any part of the world, including Asia. That is why they do not believe the lie about the "Soviet threat''.
The United States is planning not only to provide arms to Pakistan, but also to establish new military bases there. In exactly the same way it is setting up bases in the Persian Gulf area. Its explanation for this is the usual one---the myth about the "Soviet threat''.
Pakistan is being sacrificed in the name of US-Chinese designs. But we do not lose hope that the people and the government of Pakistan will understand that by supplying Pakistan with arms the United States and the Chinese leaders want to use it against independent Asian countries, in particular, against India.
As for the Indian people, we have feelings of deep love 144 and friendship for the people of Pakistan. We have every reason to hope that it will not allow anybody to set up aggressive bases on its territory.
India is seriously concerned about the military supplies to Pakistan. We remember that each time they provided Pakistan with new arms the USA and its Chinese partners declared that they would not be used against India. But each time they were used against it. Therefore we have every reason to be seriously concerned. At the same time, we rely on the strength of our people and on the support of our friends. In particular, we rely on our friendship with the Soviet Union, which has always stood by us and with which we are bound by the Treaty of Friendship which is a reliable barrier to any intrigues against India.
Announcing new militarist steps the US government was going to take in Asia, and specifically arms supplies to Pakistan, which is on its way to becoming a nuclear power, President Carter called on all Muslim countries to unite around the United States.
On my visit to Afghanistan in August last year, I, together with representatives of the Muslim countries of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, travelled throughout the country. The Muslim leaders were greatly interested in the state of religious affairs. We saw Muslims pray in the mosques, and all the mosques we visited were as usual filled with worshippers. The country's leaders were taking vigorous steps to protect and support all religious groups. This is a well-known fact.
Now the United States has suddenly become a great defender of Islam. One may be sure that Muslim countries will not fall into the American trap. Experience has shown that imperialism has never been a defender of Islam. All Muslim countries had for a long time been under the oppression of imperialist forces, and we are therefore confident that they will not be caught in the trap which these forces are setting for them now.
January, 1980
(Specially for APN)
From a Statement of the World Federation of Trade Unions: Condemning the Policy of Imperialism
The World Federation of Trade Unions has condemned US military huildup in the Middle East and the machinations of imperialism designed to turn Pakistan into a base for its aggressive actions.
The policy of imperialism, the aim of which is to turn Pakistan into a base for expanding its aggressive actions and for setting up military alliances and pacts represents a serious danger to peace and stability throughout the world.
The WFTU urges the working people and trade unions of the whole world to mount a campaign against US and Chinese arms shipments to Pakistan and the anti-Afghan gangs of mercenaries.
Prague, January 30, 1080
From a Statement by the Afro-Asian Solidarity Organisation: In Support of the April Revolution
The Afro-Asian Solidarity Organisation is anxiously following the current escalation of US military preparations. This escalation has expressed itself in the Pentagon-enforced decision to deploy new US missiles in Western Europe, in the increased US military presence in the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, in the decision indefinitely to postpone ratification of the SALT-2 treaty, and in a new agreement on military bases in Turkey. Its other manifestations are US arms deliveries to Pakistan, the enlargement of the Diego Garcia base and Washington's growing military ties with most of the former members of the defunct CENTO bloc. The US administration and the militaryindustrial complex advocate the construction of new military bases in various countries and the conclusion of .new military pacts.
The peoples of Asia and Africa are well aware of the true aims of this policy. They remember that they were the first victims of the aggressive military forces which always wanted to strangle the national-liberation 146 movement, to continue the imperialist exploitation of other peoples' resources, to preserve peoples's dependence on imperialism and reaction, and to keep the world on the brink of a destructive nuclear war by increasing international tensions. Having suffered a series of crushing defeats in various regions of the globe, American imperialism has not given up its old policy. It is now trying to use the events in Afghanistan to whip up the arms race hysteria and is pushing the world to a nuclear war which will destroy all mankind's achievements and undermine the principles of peaceful coexistence and detente, for the affirmation of which the people of the world have conducted a long and stubborn struggle.
Cairo, January 17, 1980
A Member of Workers' Commissions in Spain, A. Gonzalez: The World Peoples Are Confident of the Rightness of the Soviet Union's Actions
The replies of the Soviet leader convincingly explain why the Soviet Union met the request of the Afghan government and sent a limited contingent of its troops there. The world peoples are deeply confident of the Tightness of the Soviet Union's actions and see them as a manifestation of fraternal solidarity with the people of Afghanistan which has begun to build a new life.
TASS, January 17, 1980
France's Representative in the European Parliament, Louis Baillot: A Mere Pretext to Undermine Detente
I consider that each nation has the right to choose its own methods of solving its internal problems. Every nation, every government, has the right to ask its allies for assistance in repelling counter-revolutionary" forces which are set on toppling the existing legitimate system. Proceeding from this principle, I fully recognise the right of the Afghan people and Afghan leaders to resort to the much-needed temporary and limited military aid from the USSR, as envisaged by the Soviet-Afghan treaty.
I have available information which proves that 147 Afghan counter-revolutionaries are receiving aid from abroad. All those who benefited from Afghanistan's backwardness and the miserable existence of the bulk of the country's population, were not prepared to accept the 1978 revolution and spared no effort to smash its gains. In my view, the events in Afghanistan are a mere pretext for Washington to bring about a deterioration in its relations with the Soviet Union. Evidence of this can be found, for instance, in the fact that the SALT-2 Treaty, which was signed in June, has not yet been ratified. US reactionary forces will stop at nothing, not even total fabrications (such as the imaginary Soviet troop presence in Cuba or the alleged invasion of Afghanistan) to promote their success in the election campaign. They would like to reverse the prevailing world tendency towards detente and normalisation of relations between the USSR and the United States, on which the stability of world peace greatly depends.
January, 1980
(Specially for APN)
Rector of Imam al-Bukhari Muslim Academy, Imam Shamsuddin Babakhanov: The Attempts to Slander Soviet Assistance
Muslims of the Soviet Union condemn imperialist intrigues against Afghanistan and the attempts to cast aspersion on the support rendered by the Soviet Union to the Afghan people. The fraternal Afghan people with whom we Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan have maintained close ties for many centuries, were threatened by outside interference. And the Afghan people had every right to ask the Soviet Union for help, including military help. This is provided for under the Soviet-Afghan Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation of 1978. The treaty says that, at the request of one of the sides the other side may render it military aid to ensure its independence and the inviolability of its borders. Interference by imperialist circles could have resulted in the restoration of the old exploitative order in Afghanistan. But the Soviet Union has always honoured its commitments in its relations with other countries. 148 The assistance which the USSR has rendered Afghanistan is in keeping with the UN Charter and with the task of preserving peace in the region.
APN, January, 1980
Muslim Board for Transcaucasia, Mufti Hadzhi Ismail Akhmedov: Imperialism Is the Worst Enemy of Muslims
We resolutely take the side of the friendly people waging a courageous struggle for a new and happy society, and against the intrigues of imperialism and its accomplices.
The fact that" Afghanistan has asked the USSR for aid shows that our country enjoys the reputation of a reliable guarantor of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of friendly countries.
Being profoundly interested in questions pertaining to the relationships between the USSR and countries of the Muslim East, I would like to recall that Afghanistan was one of the first Asian countries with whom the young Soviet state concluded a treaty. It was then, in 1921, that Lenin said that the "independence of the Afghan State will not be shaken by anyone either by force or by cunning.'' As we see, the development of events in Afghanistan confirms the Soviet Union's traditional loyalty to the commitments it has undertaken with regard to friendly states.
Like all Soviet people we have a sincere feeling of friendship and sympathy for the Afghan people and wish them every success along the righteous path to peace, prosperity and happiness. In their prayers the Muslims of Transcaucasia ask Allah to continue to bless our Afghan brothers, and to punish those who spread discord, trouble and dissension among them.
APN, January, 1980
Imam of a Mosque in Kirghizia Duishenbek Otonbayev: We Pray and Call for Peace and Justice
Today, the attention of all people on earth is focussed on Afghanistan. The Afghan people are trying to establish peace and justice in their country. But this 149 apparently is not to the liking of US imperialism which encroaches upon Afghanistan's sovereignty and political independence. That is why the government of Afghanistan has asked its friendly neighbour, the Soviet Union, for assistance.
We must, above all, think of our children and their future. And for this we need a lasting peace. Peace is the main concern of our government and of Leonid Brezhnev. There is probably not a single grown-up person in our country who has not read or heard on the radio Leonid Brezhnev's answers to the questions put by a Pravda correspondent. In these answers Leonid Brezhnev set forth a clear stand and expressed a firm spirit concerning questions of world peace. He said that the colonialists' policy and psychology were alien to the USSR and that all Soviet troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan once the reasons for the Afghan leadership's request . for them disappeared. The clamour around the Afghan question is just another US imperialist provocation. It is a pretext to muddle clear waters, as Leonid Brezhnev said. Had there been no Afghanistan, imperialism would have found another pretext for aggravating the world situation.
APN, January, 1980
A Malagasy Journalist Joel Harrison: The Soviet Union Is a Bulwark of Peace
In the face of dangerously increasing interference by foreign forces, particularly from Pakistani territory, the Afghan government was forced to ask friendly countries, the Soviet Union in the first place, to render it assistance. The Soviet Union, as is known, met this legitimate request in full accord with the Afghan-Soviet treaty and the UN Charter. It should be pointed out that the Soviet military contingent was brought in the country to rebuff outside intervention, and that its temporary presence in Afghanistan is in no way detrimental to the interests of third countries or the interests of peace and stability in the region.
The Soviet Union's actions have not been prompted by a wish for domination, as the West alleges. The Soviet Union has always sought to fulfil its internationalist duty and effectively contribute to the establishment of a lasting and just peace in the whole world. It should be 150 stressed that the Soviet-Afghan treaty provides for not only military cooperation but, in the first place, cooperation in the economic, technological and scientific fields which meets the interests of the Afghan people in the best possible way.
The United States is striving to establish control over the developing countries with the purpose of obtaining new sources of raw materials and strengthening its strategic positions. The Carter-Sadat-Begin alliance and the current actions of the Americans in Africa, Asia and Latin America are evidence of this. The nature of imperialism has not changed. Ignoring the socialist countries' peace initiatives, the USA has forced its NATO partners in Europe to agree to the deployment of new arms on their territory. It is stepping up its activities in all parts of the world, particularly in the area of the Indian Ocean. Fanning an anti-Soviet and anti-Afghan campaign, the USA is seeking in every way to put an end to the Afghan revolution and restore in that region the positions it lost as a result of the collapse of the despotic regime in Iran.
The world has changed, however. The world nations clearly see who are their friends and who are their enemies. The Soviet Union has always been and will remain a bulwark of peace and support for the peoples fighting for their freedom and for the right to be the masters of their own destinies.
January, 1980
(Specially for APN)
Tanzanian Publicist D. Kamuzora: Imperialism: Main Enemy of Peoples
Imperialism is the main enemy of the peoples fighting for their national liberation and progressive development. Thus in Africa it is helping racist Pretoria and seeking to preserve white minority rule in Rhodesia.
All Western speculations about Soviet intervention in Afghanistan's affairs are a camouflage to cover up the true culprits of the difficult situation in that country, to impede detente and give US imperialism a free hand for putting pressure on Iran.
We know that the socialist nations have always helped the national liberation movements and the peoples' struggle for independence. A striking example of such 151 help was socialist Cuba's support for the Angolan people's government in 1976.
Now the lawful Afghan government has asked the USSR for assistance. The Soviet Union and Afghanistan are linked by a treaty which provides for rendering allround assistance including the military. The Afghan government has acted in keeping with the UN Charter. Those who accuse the Soviet Union of ``intervention'' and "illegal interference in Afghanistan's affairs" are slanderers. In the current situation the USSR is acting in the spirit of internationalist solidarity, as a true friend of the Afghan people.
January, 1980
(Specially for APN)
Afghans Feel Themselves Free
At a press conference in Paris a delegation of the General Confederation of Labour (GCL) of France, described its visit to Afghanistan which lasted from January 20 to 25. The delegation included Pierre Gensous and Jean-Claude Laroze, both GCL Secretaries, and Joseph Jacquet, member of the GCL Executive Commission, representing different political trends in this, the largest, organisation of the French working class.
GCL Secretary Pierre Gensous read a statement expressing the views of all the members of the delegation.
``We went to Afghanistan on the decision of the GCL,'' he said, "to see everything for ourselves, to try to understand the meaning of the events taking place there and to inform the French public of them objectively. The members of the delegation had free access to information. They freely met the people of Kabul and went to two industrial enterprises to talk with workers. The delegation had meetings with the leadership of the Afghan trade unions, with members of the government and representatives of public organisations.''
The activities of Afghanistan's new leadership and its policy were supported and approved by all sections of the Afghan public, Pierre Gensous said. The delegation 152 could see for itself that today most Afghans felt themselves free and went calmly about their business.
The delegation became convinced that relations of friendship arid cooperation with the Soviet Union had taken root in Afghanistan. All trade union activists the delegation members met highly valued the assistance the Soviet Union was giving their country, stressing that this assistance made it possible to ward off the threat of foreign interference, avoid bloody clashes and save lives. They said that Soviet assistance, granted without any strings attached, was a manifestation of internationalist revolutionary solidarity.
Pierre Gensous said that Am in had conducted a policy aimed at destroying the principal wealth of the Afghan people. A massive campaign of repression was unleashed in the country. In Kabul alone, nothing was known of the fate of 40 to 50 thousand people. In some aspects the policy of Am in could be compared with that of Pol Pot.
This caused unrest which spread to all the population, Pierre Gensous continued. That was why Amin's overthrow was supported by the broad masses of the Afghan people.
``L' Hi/infinite"
(France),
January 29, 1980
M. K. Abu Yusuf, Journalist, Sri Lanka: US Imperialism's ``Islamic'' Mask
Muslims all over the world should be on their guard against the attempts of US imperialism and its allies to play on their religious feelings in order to win their support, for the new "cold war" they have launched against the Soviet Union over recent events in Afghanistan.
The hysterical and frustrated rage displayed by US imperialism's main spokesmen, from President Carter downwards, shows how much it is smarting under the defeats it has experienced---first in Iran and now in Afghanistan.
But in trying to fight back and make up for its defeats, US imperialism realises that both it and its allies are too highly compromised and suspect to push themselves too much to the forefront. So it has to rely 153 on friends arid backers in the third world to wage a "proxy war" on its behalf.
In the United Nations, the US imperialists sought to mobilise such friends within the non-aligned movement (``Trojan horses'', as Libya's leader Gaddafi once called them) to create a facade that the non-aligned states were spearheading the protest against the Soviet Union helping Afghanistan.
But this cheap trick did not fool anyone other than those who wanted to be fooled. It became clear for all to see that the USA, the Peking hegemonists and certain West European powers were the inspirers and motive force behind this so-called non-aligned ``initiative''.
Now US imperialism is engaged in a similar shabby manoeuvre---namely, an attempt to create a so-called ``Islamic'' front against Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.
US imperialism can hardly parade as the leader of the Islamic world, for its crimes against Islamic peoples are too well known.
It has been---and remains---the staunchest friend and supporter of the aggressive rulers of Israel, which it has supplied with arms, money and political support, in order to seize and subjugate Arab lands.
It masterminded the disgraceful Sadat-Begin accord in order to split Arab unity, defend its oil interests, and acquire now partners and bases to strengthen its efforts to suppress the national liberation movements of the Islamic peoples and oppose the Soviet Union and the socialist community.
US imperialism armed and supported the reactionary leaders of Pakistan in their efforts to suppress the national-liberation movement of the Muslim peoples of Bangladesh.
After the Islamic peoples of Iran overthrew their hated Shah, who was put into power by the CIA and supported by the USA, American imperialism has protected its overthrown puppet, plotted to put him back in power and tried to starve the Iranians into submission by proposing embargoes and a blockade which were only stopped by the Soviet Union's veto. Even today it has a huge naval and air strike force poised to attack Iran.
Such people cannot obviously c6me forward as " defenders of Islam'', any more than Margaret Thatcher or; the Peking hegemonists, who themselves supported 154 the Shah, the Israeli aggressors and the Sadat traitors of the Arab cause.
So US imperialism has to push forward its ``Islamic'' proxies---the oil-rich feudal Arab monarchs with most of their money invested in the West, and tottering dictators like General Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan and the like whom Sino-US support alone keeps from overthrow by their own people.
In other third world countries, too, the US imperialists seek the support of the most reactionary feudal and capitalist sections of the Muslim community.
It is reactionary nonsense to accuse the Soviet Union of being ``anti-Islamic''. Quite apart from the unstinted support it has always given Islamic peoples fighting for their national independence (its veto on the embargo against Iran is the latest example), it is only under Soviet power that the 30 million or more Islamic peoples of its Central Asian republics achieved a degree of material, cultural and scientific advancement far superior to that of any other Islamic country in the world.
It is equally absurd to accuse the new Afghan government of President Babrak Karmal of being "anti-- Islamic''. In fact, even its strongest opponents admit that this new government is reversing the wrong policies of its predecessor, Hafizullah Amin (a secret CIA agent), towards the Muslim clergy and sections of believers in that country.
In an interview given to the Spanish daily newspaper El Pals Abdul Aziz Sadeq, President of Afghanistan's .Tamiat ul Alami (Council of Mullahs), said: "I can assure you that the Soviet Union has not interfered in the religious affairs of Afghanistan and has not tried to spread atheistic propaganda.'' He added that he had travelled widely in the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union and saw that the respect for religious beliefs there was " superior to what I have seen in Saudi Arabia''.
He added that the guidance of the so-called "Muslim rebels" in Afghanistan came not from Mecca but from the US and Britain. Other well-known and highly respected Muslim leaders in Afghanistan, including the "frontier gandhi" Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan have made similar statements.
Muslims should realise that what is at stake in the 155 Afghan events is not any threat to Islam. The only ``threat'' is to the economic, political and strategic interests of US imperialism and its allies.
They should, therefore, oppose all attempts, direct and indirect, by imperialism and Peking hegemonists to draw them into their new "cold war" in the guise of defending Islam.
``Forward? (Sri Lanka), January 4, 1980
US Hegemonistic Aspirations
Conducting its expansionist policy the United States attempts to establish its domination on all continents and is unceremoniously interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign states. For years the US supported the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, it directly participated in toppling the Allende government in Chile, it tried to strangle the Cuban revolution and used bombs and napalm in an attempt to bring the Vietnamese people to their knees. Today the United States is supporting China, assigning it the role of an agent of international reaction in the struggle against the peoples of Asia.
Posing as a defender of Islam, Washington has raised a provocative ballyhoo around events in Afghanistan. But hardly another country has perpetrated half as many anti-Islam and anti-Muslim crimes as has the United States.
``Al-Zahaj al Ahdar" (Libya), January 28, 1980
Posing as a "Defender of Islam"
Posing as a "defender of Islam" and Muslim shrines, the United States is speculating on the religious feelings of ordinary Muslims. Pretending to defend Muslims in Afghanistan, Washington is at the same time violating the national dignity and rights of Afghan Muslims, as it does in Jerusalem, acting on the side of the Zionist occupationists.
If the United States is really concerned with the defence of Islam, it should, first of all, stop assistance to Israel. Those who conduct anti-Soviet propaganda 156 from the US trench are dbing this not in the interests of Islam, but in the interests of imperialism and Zionism. In actual fact, the United States is the main enemy of Islam and Muslims.
``Al-Shaab"
(Lebanon),
January 22, 1980
What Is the Aim of Imperialist Propaganda?
The US imperialists and their henchmen have raised a worldwide hue and cry, alleging that Soviet assistance means interference in the internal affairs of the country. It reminds us of a thief crying "Stop the thief!" The aim of this propaganda campaign of the imperialists is clear: to conceal their own dirty deeds from world opinion. Facts show that the Soviet Union gave assistance to Afghanistan at the request of the Afghan government. This is a matter of the relations between the two countries and in no way affects the interests of third parties.
``Aththa" (Sri Lanka), December 31, 1979
Thanks to Soviet Assistance
Western ruling circles show malice towards the Soviet Union and the new Afghan revolutionary regime, because they see that their own political designs aimed at establishing control over that country have failed. Their hopes to bring Afghanistan back into the sphere of imperialist domination and so establish there the strategic bridgehead which they lost in Iran and which was spearheaded against the socialist countries and the peoples of Asia, have not materialised thanks to Soviet assistance to the new revolutionary government in Kabul. This incenses them.
``Unsere Zeit" (Federal Republic of Germany), January 2, 1980
Preventing Western Connivance with Afghan Rebels
In cooperation with the new Afghan government the Soviet Union took a step to prevent Western connivance with Afghan rebels. In this situation it is our task to defend the interests of our Afghan brothers. This means protecting them from the painful consequences of war. As for our national cause, we must preserve good-neighbourly relations with those countries which show the understanding of our cause, above all, with the Soviet Union.
``Al-Ahbar"
(Jordan),
January 15, 19SO
nPAB/U OB A<t>rAHHCTAHE wa aneJiuucKO Uena 70 ROD.
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