An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World (36 page)
Read An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World Online
Authors: William T. Vollmann
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Personal Memoirs, #History, #Military, #Afghan War (2001-), #Literary
The Soviet-Afghan Treaty of Neutrality and Non-Aggression of 1931 is renewed. Meanwhile, U.S. assistance to Afghanistan continues to average $22 million a year.
1966
Khalq
is closed by the government.
1967
Prime Minister Mawamdal is replaced by Nur Ahmad Etemadi. A split occurs in the D.P.P. between the Khalq and the Parcham (which remains affiliated with the Shu’la-yi-Jawed).
1968
The share of socialist countries in the total foreign trade turnover of Afghanistan reaches 47 percent. Some conservative members of Parliament propose that Afghan women be prohibited from studying abroad. A demonstration of Afghan women students makes them change their minds. The Parcham and the Shu’la-yi-Jawed split apart.
1969
Parcham
is closed by the government. In a melee in Parliament, Babrak is severely injured and sent to the hospital. His and Ananhita’s terms expire.
1970
The magazine
Mujalla-i-Shariat
(
Shariat Journal
) appears, edited by Professor Rabbani.
1971
Pakistan and India go to war. Pakistan loses. As a result, East Pakistan becomes the sovereign state of Bangladesh. In Afghanistan, Dr. Abdul Zahil becomes Prime Minister, and a student strike begins which lasts until 1972.
1972
Rabbani becomes head of the Jamiat-i-Islami.
1973
Supported by the Parcham and others, Daoud overthrows the monarchy while Zaher Shah is in Italy (July 17).
‡
Daoud becomes both President and Prime Minister. He declares martial law. Over the next half-decade he strives to continue the policy of gracious nonalignment, but with increasingly less success. The Soviets improve the border routes of Afghanistan and strengthen the roads between major Afghan cities. Some Cassandras say that the roads are being given a much greater weight capacity than the Afghans require. It is almost as if (ignoble thought!) the roads had been designed to accommodate Soviet tanks. Daoud meanwhile sends 1,600 Parcham cadres to the country to assist in modernization. This effort fails, and many of them leave their posts, convinced that a more radical approach is needed.
On October 20, former Prime Minister Mawamdal, convicted of a plot against Daoud, “commits suicide” in prison.
1975
Dissatisfied with what they see as increasingly anti-Islamic tendencies of the government, Gulbuddin et al. begin to build up their own political organizations in the provinces and in Peshawar, where they are given support by Pakistan’s Bhutto government in retaliation for Afghan-supported subversive activities in Pakistan. On the night of July 21–22, religious leaders launch the “Panjsher Insurgency,” which is not limited to Panjsher but includes Paktiya, Jalalabad and many other areas. Ninety-three people are brought to trial, and three executed. In September, a military plot against Daoud is uncovered.
1976
Daoud and Bhutto exchange visits.
1977
In February, a new constitution is passed, and the country officially becomes the Republic of Afghanistan. In July, the Parcham and the Shu’la-yi-Jawed reunite. General Zia seizes power in Pakistan and arrests Bhutto, who is imprisoned for two years. Zia visits Daoud for consultations in October. In December, another plan for a military coup against Daoud is discovered, and the perpetrators arrested.
1978
On April 17, Daoud tells confidants that he will soon announce sweeping reforms. But ten days later he and his family are efficiently liquidated. Nur Muhammad Taraki accepts the call of the nation and becomes President and Prime Minister.
§
The Soviet Union expresses congratulations; the United States does not. Surviving members of the Royal Family are arrested and deprived of citizenship. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan is now governed by a coalition of Khalq and Parcham members. Babrak Karmal becomes Deputy Prime Minister for a little while, and Hafizullah Amin, who had set the coup in motion through his party contacts in the army, becomes Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Taraki signs a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union, kindly reaffirms the equality of women in a Decree Number Seven, and then gets to work. In July, when he feels secure, he reduces the Parcham leadership to ambassadors and packs them off—Babrak to Prague, Ananhita to Belgrade, etc. In August, the remaining Parcham members are arrested on charges of conspiring against the government. Babrak, Ananhita and the other ambassadors are stripped of their powers and recalled home, but they wisely go to Moscow instead.
1979
(
January
) 12,000 Afghan troops are moved to Konar Province to fight 5,000 guerrillas.
(
March
) Radio Kabul claims that Iran has sent 4,000 troops in disguise across the border, along with 7,000 Afghan dissidents, in order to unseat Taraki. Iran denies this. The Afghan government also accuses Pakistan of harboring and supporting the Mujahideen (as of course it is doing). A new all-Khalq cabinet is announced. Amin becomes Prime Minister, and thereby takes on responsibility for pacifying the countryside. Nuristani rebels commence operations. In Herat, rebels kill Soviet technicians and their wives and children.
(
April
) Bhutto is hanged in Pakistan.
(July) Guerrilla activity is reported in all twenty-eight provinces of Afghanistan. Amin asks Taraki to request increased Soviet military aid.
(
August
) Thirty Soviets are killed by Afghans in Kandahar. It is fair to say that Amin’s pacification of the countryside is not going swimmingly.
(
September
) Taraki meets with Brezhnev in Moscow. What they discuss is a secret. But shortly thereafter Taraki summons Amin to his office, and gunshots are heard.
(
October
) Taraki’s death is officially announced on Radio Kabul. The Soviets are silent. Amin releases some political prisoners, appoints a constitutional convention (here I must laugh), and launches major offensives against the Mujahideen in Paktiya and Badakhshan.
Christmas Day, 1979
The Soviets airlift troops and tanks into Kabul. Amin is liquidated, together with his family. Succeeding him is Mr. Babrak Karmal, a man for whom the Soviets have the warmest feelings.
In these hideous years the Soviets followed a principle of counterinsurgency set forth by Brigadier Frank Kitson. Borrowing an analogy from Mao, Kitson describes the insurgents as a fish, and the population is the water in which the fish swims
. “If a fish has got to be destroyed it can be attacked directly by rod or net, providing it is in the sort of position which gives these methods a chance of success. But if rod and net cannot succeed by themselves it may be necessary to do something to the water which will force the fish into a position where it can be caught. Conceivably it might be necessary to kill the fish by polluting the water, but this is unlikely to be a desirable course of action.”
‖
The chaos of the invasion years gave way to a system of liquidation based on the establishment of zones of terror, which continued until the Soviet pullout.
Soviet deserters
describe atrocities
in Afghanistan
Mercury News Wire Service
LONDON—Two soldiers who deserted the Soviet army in Afghanistan … spoke publicly for the first time of atrocities committed by the Soviet army on unarmed civilians.
They said that entire villages of as many as 200 people were being massacred on the orders of senior Soviet commanders in regular sweeps of the mountains in search of Afghan rebel forces. In one village, Bazartcha near the town of Kandahar, where spent cartridges were found, all the men and boys were shot where they stood. The women were then herded into a house, into which the Soviet officer in charge, Lt. Vyacheslav Osdchi, threw grenades.
…[Igor] Rykov, an armored personnel carrier driver of the 70th motorized infantry brigade, described one incident in search of settlements around Nangarkhar in which a senior official ordered a young private to kill a 16-year-old Afghan boy with a knife.
Slaying
“Our lieutenant, 1st Lt. Anatoly Gevorkyan, ordered the members of our platoon to bring out a young Afghan boy, about 16 years old. He then ordered Pvt. Oleg Sotnik to kill him with a knife, saying: ‘Now then, Sotnik, here is the knife. Stick it into this young man. They tell me you are afraid of blood. You must get used to killing in cold blood, like I do.’ ”
When the private’s attempt was unsuccessful, the lieutenant cut the boy’s throat himself…
1988
In Pakistan, General Zia is killed in a mysterious plane crash.
1989
Soviet troops pull out of Afghanistan. Benazir Bhutto comes to power in Pakistan.
*
Phil. Inv
.; Ilxi, p. 223
e
.
†
Louis Dupree,
Afghanistan
, p. 92.
‡
Afghan calendar: 26th of Saratan, 1352.
§
“After the bloody coup of 7th of Saur,” says a Jamiat-i-Islami publication, “… our dear country was falling in the mouth of social Imperialism dragon. Inferior slaves and country-selling elements have changed this country into a horrible prison.”
‖
Frank Kitson, Low-Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peace-keeping, p. 49.
| PAGE | | |
| xi | | Philosophical Investigations : Ludwig Wittgenstein, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1958). |
| 3 | | From an interview with Leonid Brezhnev : U.S. government, Historic Documents of 1980 . |
| 9 | | Holy Qur’ān : Arabic text, English translation and commentary (rev. ed.) by Maulana Muhammad Ali (Chicago: Speciality Promotions Co., Inc., in arrangement with Ahmadiyyah Anjuman Isha’at Islam, Lahore, Pakistan, 1973). |
| 15 | | Holy Bible: The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (An Ecumenical Study Bible) , expanded ed., rev. standard version, ed. Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). |
| 24–25 | | Lenin on religion and women’s rights : “Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution” (1921), in Selected Works , 5th ed., Vol. Ill (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), p. 581. |
| 25 | | “the land is fabulously rich”: The Soviet Way of Life (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), photo insert after p. 94. |
| 109 | | Tass statement on Afghanistan (December 1979) : U.S. government, Historic Documents of 1980 . |
| 188–89 | | Afghanistan : Louis Dupree (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980). |
| 190 | | What Type of Struggle? : Professor B. Rabbani, P.O. Box 345, G.P.O., Peshawar (Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan, September 1981). |
| 234 n. | | U.S. Department of State Special Report No. 98: Chemical Warfare in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan , from Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr. (March 22, 1982). |
| 280 | | “If a fish has got to be destroyed” : Frank Kitson, Low-Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peace-keeping (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1971). |
M
y thanks to various Pakistanis and Afghans whose names I promised not to mention. Information which in my opinion could conceivably be of any value to the Soviets or their successors has been omitted. Such deletions only involve dates, places, etc., and in no way bias the record.
The Afghanistan National Liberation Front took me into Afghanistan and out again, fed me, guarded my safety, and was patient with my limitations. To all my friends there, especially to Suleiman, and to “Poor Man,” the leader I went in with, I wish to express my thanks. I cannot say how much I appreciate their kindness.
I owe even more, however, to General N. and his family—so much more that I cannot begin to write it all here. I hope that they will take this book as an earnest of an intention that I sought, however unsuccessfully, to fulfill.
Mr. Don Climent, Mr. Mark Ice, Dr. Levi Roque, Ms. Mary McMorrow and other International Rescue Committee (I.R.C.) personnel were extremely hospitable and helpful in arranging for me to visit their refugee camp operation near the border. I will always cherish my memories of Mary and Levi’s friendship. Mr. Hassan Ghulam of the Austrian Relief Committee (A.R.C.) permitted me to visit his organization’s camps near Mardan.
I thank all the people that I interviewed. Most of the transcripts have been considerably abbreviated in this book. Many crying necessities in 1982 are irrelevant now. Yet my purpose and theirs is not.
My thanks to the Ella Lyman Cabot Trust, which gave me $990 for use in distributing my fund-raising slide-tape presentation (which, like this book, was called “An Afghanistan Picture Show”), and to Aid for Afghan Refugees (A.F.A.R.), which provided $150 to duplicate the show. Mr. John Schaecher, then president of A.F.A.R., furthered my trip
in many ways. I am very grateful to him. Mr. Seth Pilsk and Ms. Linda Ohde put in many hours with me preparing the slide show (and later a radio presentation). Both also gave generously of their resources for fund-raising. Mr. John Hotaki of Bennett Photo went beyond the call of duty in his help with photo reproduction for various fund-raising events.