Afghanistan

Identity, Society and Politics Since 1980

Micheline Centlivres-Demont

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781784530815
• eBook ISBN: 9780857735812
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Over the last three decades Afghanistan has been plagued by crisis - from Soviet invasion in 1979 and Taliban rule to US invasion following the events of 9/11. Here the top specialists on Afghanistan, including Olivier Roy, Ahmad Rashid and Jonathan Goodhand, provide a unique overview of the evolution, causes and future of the Afghan crisis. Covering political and military events and examining the role of ethnic groups, religious and ideological factors and the role of the leaders and war chiefs of the period - from the anti-Soviet resistance to the presidency of Hamid Karzai - this book will prove essential reading to all interested in Afghanistan and the wider Middle East region. Examining recent events in the light of the country's economy, Afghan civil society, cultural heritage and state reconstruction attempts, this is a comprehensive and diverse look at a country whose recent history has been marked by internal conflicts and foreign intervention.

PART I

THE PDPA REGIME, 1978–89

1

THE BRIDGE ON THE AMU DARYA

Micheline Centlivres-Demont
(Neuchâtel, May 1982)

It took until 1982 for Moscow’s planned bridge linking Soviet Central Asia with Afghanistan to be built over the Amu Darya river (the Oxus of antiquity).

On 12 May 1982 Babrak Karmal, president of the Revolutionary Council of Afghanistan, officially opened the road and rail bridge between Termez and Hairatan, 60 km north of Mazar-i Sharif. Work has already begun on extending the railway to Pul-i Khumri, 200 km south of the frontier.

The bridge had been talked about for a long time:

Facing Afghanistan, in the middle of the [Termez] fortress, two huge blocks of dried-brick masonry lie embedded in the shore. They look like separate fragments of a bridge pile, as if the water has eroded the base and undermined the foundations, causing the front of the pile to become detached from its main bulk. Has an entire bridge ever existed in this place? We think not – and we assume that here, as in the vicinity of Samarkand, on the Zerafshan, we are in the presence of a bridge scarcely begun.¹

Around the same time, Major P.J. Maitland of the Afghan Boundary Commission (1884–86) said of Hairatan:

The width of the river here is about the same as at Tarmex [Termez], say 1,000 yards. The opposite bank is high and more or less scarped for a mile and a half up, when the river suddenly expands. There is a strip of low jungly flat along the foot of the scarp in most places. Good site for a bridge here, or for a ferry. The current is not stronger than elsewhere.

In May 1931 there was a Russian project to build a bridge between the Turkmenistan shore and Kilift (125 km north-east of Mazar-i Sharif). British reports indicated that work on it was about to begin: men and materials were ready. At the time, the river crossing was made with the help of four ferries (two Afghan, two Russian).

A British memorandum from 1932 informs us that all the materials for the construction of the fixed bridge were on site, but that the Afghans eventually vetoed the project. Goods in both directions (wool, karakul pelt, cotton, livestock, grapes and almonds for Russia; sugar, oil, kerosene, cotton fabrics, matches, metal utensils and cooking oil for Afghanistan) were mainly crossing from Termez to Peta-Kessar on 30 or so flat-bottomed boats.

By 1934 the new highway from Kabul to Mazar-i Sharif crossed the Hindu Kush by the Shibar Pass. The Soviet military attaché suggested taking this road over the Oxus, by a bridge that would make it possible to connect with the railway at Termez; he promised substantial financial aid. But the Afghans grew concerned about the risks of an invasion of their northern province and rejected the proposal.

In 1936 construction of the road between Mazar-i Sharif and the Amu Darya ran into difficulties because of the sandy terrain, but the Afghans were aiming to extend it as far as Kilift. This put the plan for a bridge back on the agenda on the Soviet side. But the Afghans refused permission for the Soviets to build the bridge and merely agreed on an improved motor-boat service across the river.

Things have certainly changed since 1936. Now occupying both sides of the Amu Darya, the Soviets are in a position to dictate terms to their protégé.

NOTES

1.Gabriel Bonvalot, En Asie Centrale: De Moscou en Bactriane (Paris: Plon, 1884), pp. 231–2.

2

ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME

Aziz Zekrya
(Lausanne, October 1983)

The world’s largest concentration of firepower finds itself at a dead end and, after more than four years, realizes that no army on earth can defeat a people, however weak and isolated, if it is determined to defend at all costs its national sovereignty and cultural, spiritual and religious values. What a formidable living example for every nation! On this wretched earth of ours, no freedom can be won without suffering and bloodshed.

The national uprising against the Soviet invasion might have been less bloody if, despite the people’s diversity and ethnic partitioning, the resistance had fought under one command. It would then have been necessary to have only a single representation to defend the interests and rights of the Afghan people on the international political stage and to seek a negotiated solution for withdrawal of the aggressor’s troops.

To make up for this lack of unity, Afghans from every horizon and social layer and from every political tendency supporting its own model for the country’s future society and government went to Rome to demand that, in the present situation, Mohammad Zahir Shah, the ex-king of Afghanistan, must absolutely be present at the centre of a National Union. After all, the king himself had stressed on a number of occasions the vital necessity of a union of the various resistance groups.

During the indirect negotiations in Geneva about the fate of Afghanistan (mid-June 1983),¹ which took place without the representative of the resistance, Mohammad Zahir Shah took a new step in solidarity with the resistance. On 22 June he gave an interview to Le Monde in which he placed a question mark over the outcome of the talks. On the same occasion, he launched a vibrant call for unity among the Afghans. To achieve this objective, he placed himself as a simple servant and conciliator at the disposal of his people. His only wish was the liberation of his country and he harboured no ambitions to restore the monarchy. His appeal found favour among a large majority of the Afghan people, both inside and outside the country, except for the fundamentalist group whose ideological orientation is based on considerations other than national sentiment. The important and significant element in the picture is that Moscow has not reacted against this move.

This new démarche in Rome is now assuming a clearer structure through the joint efforts of various groups that have rallied in support of it. The backdrop of integration is being achieved as a result of the meeting in Rome on 17 August 1983 which brought together representatives from the Islamic Union of the Mujahedeen of Afghanistan as well as Afghan support groups in the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and elsewhere. The meeting appointed a 14-member committee, which in turn will draw up the procedures and functioning of a Constituent Assembly. This Constituent Assembly will adopt a platform and make arrangements for the holding of a Great Gathering of the People, which will certainly take place in a friendly country.

In the end, as we can see, the form of society and the future government of Afghanistan will be chosen by the people and for the people. The task of Mohammad Zahir Shah will come to an end when Afghanistan has regained its total independence.

As this is both a delicate and important undertaking, which concerns the liberation of an unjustly oppressed people, we wish that everyone enamoured of liberty, justice and other inalienable values of humanity will show active solidarity so that this action can achieve its objective in the best conditions.

Inshallah.

NOTES

1.On 15 June 1983, the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan met in Geneva for talks aimed at securing the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

3

THE GEOPOLITICAL STAKES FROM THE SOVIET POINT OF VIEW

Michel Foucher
(Paris, March 1984)

The USSR has approximately 20,000 km of land frontier and many neighbours. For a third of this length its neighbour is Chinese. Another third connects it with four East European satellite countries and Mongolia. Across the final third lie two NATO states (4 per cent), Finland (10 per cent), Iran (9 per cent) and Afghanistan (10 per cent). This geopolitical diversity rules out any determinism based on proximity.

The USSR exerts formidable pressure on its margins, and its territorial continuity is by definition a strategic trump. It is precisely to dissuade it from playing this card that two European countries have equipped themselves with the arsenal we know. But even there the pressure has remained strong since NATO took its famous ‘twin-track decision’ in December 1979.¹ Although the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan had already been decided in principle, its implementation in late December may be interpreted as a riposte to those same European governments. The message was delivered at the Afghans’ expense.

HASTY REASONING

The Europeans’ first concerns were over possible threats to the famous oil route, based on a hurried inspection of maps of scant detail and a decidedly Western view of Afghanistan. But the oil market shook considerably more as a result of the present Iran–Iraq conflict, which is incomparably closer. Another conclusion – that the Russians were pushing inexorably towards warm waters – overlooked the fact that the Soviet navy was already present in the Indian Ocean.

Above all, it ignored the fact that the Kabul river does not flow south but joins the Indus to the east. A geohistorical analysis shows that Afghanistan is first and foremost a gateway to India, but since 1947 it has no longer been the buffer state that the British had to handle with care. The British left, and the first agreements between India and the Soviet Union were signed as long ago as 1956. The Russian long-term strategy is to create a strategic political and economic axis all the way from Moscow through Tashkent and Kabul to Delhi – otherwise, why would the Soviets be putting the finishing touches to the vast steelworks in Karachi, in Pakistan, whose government by now gives refuge to two and a half million Afghan oppositionists? There, too, spatial determinism does not apply to the Afghans, and the choices made by the Pakistanis play an essential role.

The military occupation of Afghanistan – an intermediate step in all this – is accelerating a colonial-style policy whose economic implications have not been sufficiently analysed in Europe. Why should an area have to be overseas, a long way from the frontiers of the home country, in order to be considered a colony? Because of its temporary situation as a buffer state, there was no formal colonization of Afghanistan. It is a fait accompli, rather, at least in parts of the country judged useful and ‘rewarding’.

Most Afghans are putting up armed resistance not so much to this growing economic dependence as to the attempted establishment of a communist regime – and there is plenty of illustrative material floating around in Europe that recalls the martial tradition of the Afghan people. The British encountered ethnic Pashtun warriors (or, to be more precise, the Afridi tribes inhabiting the Khyber Pass, almost the sole base of the Afghan state) as soon as they entered Afghanistan from the east. Today, however, the enemy comes from the north, having first crossed spaces occupied by other ethnic groups (Uzbeks, Turkmens, Tajiks) also present in Soviet Central Asia; he makes contact with the Pashtun demographic core only in Kabul and Kandahar, almost at the end of his advance.

Hence the twin strategy: to drive out Pashtun opponents, almost selectively, and to play upon inter-ethnic antagonisms. This is the role of the new Ministry of Nationalities and Tribal Affairs. The construction of a museum of nationalities is being mooted in Kabul, and it is well known how skilled the Soviets are at such things. Pashtuns account for 85–90 per cent of the people living in 331 camps along the Pakistani frontier.

A CONCENTRATION OF REFUGEES

The Bureau International Afghanistan (BIA) mission, in which I took part in September 1983, confirmed, from information collected on the spot, that war refugees, as well as economic and political refugees, in Pakistan make up the largest concentration in the world. Since the Pakistani government and international aid agencies take effective responsibility for them, there is a risk that their presence will become semipermanent.

The question of their return to Afghanistan is political rather than humanitarian. But there is no place for oppositionists in a future socialist republic of Afghanistan, and it is hard to see what could be negotiated between the resistance forces (inside or outside the country) and the present regime in Kabul, which seeks to model itself politically on those in Central Asia and Mongolia. The Afghan resistance wishes to achieve self-determination, but can this be done except through successes on the ground? Contrary to what the Soviets argue, the security of the USSR’s southern frontiers should no longer be treated as if it were the same issue as the character of the political regime in Afghanistan. Is there not the basis here for cooperation between Europeans and Afghan resistance forces?

NOTES

1.On 14 December 1979 a NATO summit meeting decided in principle to install missiles in Western Europe, in response to the stationing of Soviet SS-20s, and at the same time to begin negotiations to secure the withdrawal of these. If the talks failed to achieve anything after four years, NATO would deploy Cruise and Pershing-II missiles in Europe.

4

PAKISTAN ON THE FRONTLINE

Jean-Christophe Victor
(Paris, September 1984)

For those who had placed some hope in the ‘indirect talks’ in Geneva, the Red Army’s massive push into the Panjshir valley in April–May 1984 was a rude awakening. While Tajiks living there again found themselves in a nightmare, Diego Cordovez, personal representative of the UN Secretary-General (whose job, one must admit, certainly required optimism), and the Pakistani federal government snapped out of a dream world. As the first and only frontline country, how would Pakistan be able to handle the Afghan crisis, nearly six years after its outbreak?

Although closely interlinked, three issues facing Pakistan may be distinguished for the sake of clarity:

• the Afghan community that has settled, doubtless for a long time, on the western fringes of Pakistani territory;
• the consequences for the country’s internal policy;
• the conduct of foreign policy, essentially concerning relations with the USSR, the USA and the countries of the Arab Muslim world.

Between 1979 and 1984, roughly three million Afghans sought refuge in the North West Frontier Province and in Pakistani Baluchistan. If we add to these the Afghan exiles in eastern Iran (a figure approaching a million), we get an idea of the scale of the exodus: 25 per cent of the Afghan people, the largest population transfer since 1945. From what are they fleeing? The great majority seek to escape the bombs exploding in their home villages. Others want to organize abroad or join resistance networks that, in some cases, have more powerful weapons than rifles, while a minority has decided to build new lives in Pakistan, the Gulf states, USA, West Germany, France and Switzerland.

Whatever the problems, including tensions with the Pakistani bureaucracy and its corruption or slowness, it is important to note the dignity and perseverance with which Pakistanis in the west of the country and the government in Islamabad have welcomed the Afghan refugees. This laudable humanitarian attitude goes hand in hand with an acute sense of Pakistan’s national interests, and in order to ensure that these are respected the government has granted sanctuaries to the Afghan resistance in a small part of its territory. As we shall see in a moment, there are some advantages to this, but so far the creation of sanctuaries has not led to a Lebanon-style situation: there is no Afghan state-in-exile in Pakistan, no ‘Afghanistan Liberation Organization’ (a future ‘ALO’?), no Afghan militias whose authority or force replaces those of the police in the tribal zones, and few major disputes between the two communities of similar ethnic origin.

BETWEEN PROVISIONAL AND PERMANENT

To achieve the impossible task of balancing the provisional and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I. The Pdpa Regime, 1978–89
• Part II. The Mujahedeen Moment, 1990–95
• Part III. Afghanistan Under The Taliban, 1996–2001
• Part IV. After The Taliban
• Part V. An Evolving Future
• Main Afghan Mujahedeen Parties
• Chronology
• List of Acronyms
• List of Contributors