The implications of the Soviet troop tude as only a "political maneuver," and stressed heavily the military value that they thought the "Afghan laboratory" represented for the Soviet army.?
For those who accept the view of "Russian expansionism," Gorbachev's decision must seem totally extraordinary. On the other hand, as was noted recently by a CIA expert: "Only those who might have argued in 1979 that the Soviet Union never really wanted to go in the first place, that such an act was atypical of Soviet behavior, can now say that they are less than deeply im-
SOVIET TROOPS began their withdrawal from Afghanistan on May 15. Half of the 100,300 soldiers that the Soviet general staff has recently declared that it has in the country are to be withdrawn before August 15. The evacuation is supposed to be completed within nine months, that is, before
February 15, 1989.
SALAH JABER
HESE ARE the terms of the ac-
T cord signed in Geneva on April
14 by the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, the USSR and the United States. Indirect negotiations under the aegis of the United Nations between the representatives of Kabul and Islamabad began in 1982. For a long time, they focused on the question of the timetable for the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The initial
Soviet/Afghan proposal was to spread out the withdrawal over four years. On the other hand, the Pakistan/US side demanded a time limit of three months.
But the gap between these two positions was to narrow quickly after 1986. Then, suddenly, on February 8, Mikhail Gorbachev announced that the USSR and the Republic of Afghanistan had agreed to reduce the withdrawal schedule to ten months beginning on May 15, expecting the accord to be signed in Geneva on March 15.
The agreement was finally signed a month late because of differences that arose among the parties. It was not the final reduction of a month in the timetable proposed by Gorbachev that was involved this time, but new demands formulated by
Washington and Islamabad that seemed to
As a new condition for signing the accord
Pakistan raised a prior understanding on a provisional government to replace the one in power in Kabul. The Reagan administration, under pressure from Congress, revised the meaning to be given to the mutual disengagement of the two big powers. In exchange for cutting off US military aid to the Afghan rebel forces, Washington no longer demanded simply the withdrawal of
Moscow's troops, but also the breaking off of Soviet military aid to the Kabul
Gorbachev had already given a peremptory answer to the Pakistani demand in his
February 8 statement. "This is a purely internal Afghan problem. Only the Afghans
International Viewpoint #145 • July 11, 1988 can settle it.... When it is suggested that the Soviet Union must take part in negotiations over this, and still more with third states, we answer clearly: Spare us this, it is not
Faced with Washington's new position, Moscow threatened after March 17 to conclude an agreement on the withdrawal of its troops with the Kabul government alone. This was a thinly veiled threat to Pakistan, inasmuch as the Geneva accords also involved an agreement that Kabul and Moswould stop supporting subversive activities on its territory.
US and USSR agree on aid parity
Finally, a tacit agreement was concluded between the US and the Soviets on a "positive symmetry" of aid from each of the two great powers to their respective protégés. In other words, Washington pledged to measure out the aid to the Mujahideen in proportion to Moscow's aid to Kabul. Pakistan would continue to serve as a bridge for foreign aid to the Afghan rebellion, but the rebels were to shift their military equipment and the training of their troops into Afghan territory. The Geneva accords could finally be signed, although they were tacitly emptied of a good part of their
The determination shown by Moscow to begin the troop withdrawal confirms the assessment we made a year earlier that Gorbachev was "genuinely anxious to disengage" from the Afghan bog, and that, to this end, if the US attitude stood in the way of an accord, "it is not out of the question that Moscow will try to pursue its strategy of disengagement all the way without an
This judgement was far from a unanimous one at the time it was expressed. Many commentators saw Gorbachev's attipressed by the implications of the move."3
Withdrawal not the result of a military defeat
The discomforted advocates of the theory of Soviet expansionism are now trying to save face by saying that the Kremlin's decision was the result of a military defeat. But if there was a "defeat," it had been evident for a long time. As we pointed out a year ago, for several years it was the case that "the balance sheet of the intervention of Soviet troops shows an appalling bankruptcy."
The fact remains, however, that the strategy that Gorbachev has followed in Afghanistan since 1985 has unquestionably borne fruit, even though it is far from having decisively changed the relationship of forces. Besides, can anyone seriously believe that the USSR did not have the means to send more than 100,000 soldiers to control a territory of 650,000 square kilometers on its borders, when Israel dispatched as many soldiers in 1982 to occupy 6,000 square kilometers of Lebanese territory, and when in 1973 more than five times as many US soldiers were deployed over the square kilometers of south Vietnam? Moreover, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan never aroused domestic and international opposition comparable in scope and intensity to that experienced by the United States and Israel in the cases cited.
In fact, it is the economic and not the military vulnerability of the USSR that explains the course followed by Mikhail Gorbachev. For the United States, Vietnam represented a major stake in its policy of dominating the world market. At the same time, it was a windfall for its "militaryindustrial complex." However, for a Soviet bureaucracy frightened by the expansion of Islamic fundamentalism on its borders after Khomeini's victory in February 1979, the stakes in Afghanistan were essentially "defensive" and political.
The objective was not to "Mongolize" Afghanistan, or effect any "structural assimilation," but to prevent the development
2. A sampling of such views by "specialists," such as Hélène Carrére d'Encausse, can be found in the special feature published in Défis Afghans 13, March/April 1987, under the title "Que veut Gorbatchev?" 3. Graham Fuller, in the Washington Post, republished in the International Herald Tribune, March 8, 1988.
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AFGHANISTAN withdrawal
AFGHANISTAN
of a fundamentalist regime in
Kabul, which was considered certain in 1979. The limitations of the Soviet deployment in Afghanistan continued to be dictated by this objective. Even with these restrictions the Soviet ASGHANISTAN intervention represented a serious drain for Moscow. It increased the overall burden of military spending in a faltering and uncompetitive economy, in which the military industries did not represent any special private interest.
Moreover, settling the Afghan conflict seemed to be one of the main prerequisites for a detente with the United States, an objective put back on the agenda by a Gorbachev anxious to improve the external conditions for his perestroika. A secondary but still important consideration was that, far from stopping the Islamic contagion in the By RAESIDE in the Times-Colonist Central Asian republics of (Victoria, Canada). C&W Syndicate. the USSR, the Afghan intervention had given impetus to it.
That the Soviet decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is an inseparable part of Gorbachev's overall foreign policy is attested to by the way that it has been presented by the Kremlin leaders themselves, as well as by their Afghan protégé. Since the inauguration in 1986 of the "national reconciliation" policy in Afghanistan, "Dr. Najibullah," the new president of the republic, has not missed an opportunity in Ho-Chi-Minh City, Havana or in the international publications sponsored by Moscow to note that this policy has "aroused interest among many people abroad, especially in Kampuchea and the five Central American countries. The idea of reconciliation has in itself an essentially universal human character." 4 "Gangrenous infections on the body of humanity"
In January, Shevardnadze, Gorbachev's minister of foreign affairs, told the Afghan press agency that this policy was "a reflection of great worldwide trends," and was having "a beneficial effect on the international climate." He went on to say quite clearly that "having been tested in Afghanistan, it is more and more frequently being adopted as a model for settling conflicts in other regions." S
Finally, in his February 8 statement, Gorbachev was even more explicit, resorting extensively to the surgical metaphors that he seems to like: "If the arms race...is an insane rush of humanity into the abyss, regional conflicts are bloody wounds that can create gangrenous infections on the body of humanity. The earth is literally ulcerated by these dangerous points of infection, each of which causes not only suffering for the peoples directly involved but also for everyone else, whether in relation to Afghanistan, the Middle East, the Iran-Iraq war, South Africa, Kampuchea or Central America... Achieving a political settlement in Afghanistan would be a breakof regional conflicts... and would make it possible to raise the question: What will be the next conflict to be overcome? Because it would necessarily lead to that."
This is the language of a future Nobel Prize winner, which the Pope himself could approve of. In the area of "peaceful coexistence," the late Khrushchev has been put in
The universal policy of "national reconciliation" and disengagement of foreign troops advocated by Gorbachev has already had the practical consequences that we have seen in the regions mentioned. What is generally forgotten, on the other hand, is that it has taken its inspiration directly from a rather inglorious precedent, that is, the US disengagement from Vietnam, and that it harks back to the foreign policy of the first decade of the Brezhnev era, before the US debacle in Indochina. The "interventionist" decade in Soviet policy that followed has tended to make people forget what went before. From this standpoint, Gorbachev's foreign policy is far less original than it might seem at first glance, even if it is a good deal more spectacular.
The major features of Gorbachev's Afghan policy seem modeled in every aspect on the US precedent in Vietnam. The Afghanization of the Soviet war came after a Vietnamization of the US war, against the background of withdrawal of the interventionist troops in both cases. The "national reconciliation" touted by Gorbachev and Najibullah echoes the "National Council for Reconciliation and National Harmony" provided for by the US/Vietnamese accord signed in Paris in 1973. Spectacular measures for
"national reconciliation"
There are even some similarities in the text of the accords, notably the peculiarity of not mentioning directly one of the parties in the conflict - the Provisional Revolutionary Government in 1973 and the Islamic Alliance in 1988. "The accord that ended the war in Vietnam," Henry Kissinger wrote in his memoirs of his White House years, "to my knowledge is the only document in diplomatic history that does not mention all the parties involved." It is no
A major difference between the two cases, however, is the attitude of the native forces. In this regard, the dangers are the opposite. The US strategy of disengagement from Vietnam ran up against the recalcitrant attitude of Thieu in Saigon, described at length by Kissinger in his memoirs, while their enemies showed a great tactical flexibility. In Afghanistan, on the 4. La Nouvelle Revue Internationale 353, January 1988. 5. Interview given to the Bakhtar Agency, January 6, "dest god racist he describes Thie's methods as 9 1988. "detestably Vietnamese"! July 11, 1988 • #145 International Viewpoint
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USSR ESSB
AFGHANISTAN other hand, the Mujahideen are the instransigent ones, while Najibullah is toeing the line of Gorbachev's strategy meticulously, even if he sometimes needs to be cajoled a
Since he came to power in Kabul with the Kremlin's blessing in May 1986, Najibullah has championed "national reconciliation. " In line with this course, spectacular measures have been adopted. The main ones up to March 1987 were described in a previous article? The subsequent steps have gone further in the same direction. In the following months, the regime passed a new law on investment in the private sector. The tax exemptions and other facilities it includes make Afghanistan one of the countries that offers the best conditions for private enterprise, were it not for the uncertainties that hang over its political future!
A new agrarian law raised the maximum land holding from six to 20 hectares on the most fertile soils. At the same time, Najibullah confirmed that "the size of the land owned by those who have played a great role in the realization of the policy of national reconciliation" — that is the collaborationist big landlords — "is not to be limited"! 8 The Islamic rules of inheritance were restored and even legitimized by the new constitution, which accords Islam and traditional practices a much larger juridical and legislative role than the preceding one.
This new constitution was adopted at the end of November 1987 by an ad hoc meeting of the Loya Jirgah, the regime's own version of the traditional assembly of notables that figured among the institutions of the Afghan monarchy. The official designation of the state was changed in a moderate direction, with the term "democratic" being eliminated. Even the emblem and the flag of the state have been Islamicized! More than a thousand mullahs and ulemas (theologians) have been "elected" to various positions in the institutions of the
Real and token measures for political democracy
Some real political democratization measures have been adopted, alongside others that were more symbolic than real. In particular, several thousand political prisoners have been released. The regime's desire for a political opening is not a pretence. Najibullah summed this up in the formula "anyone who is not against us is with us." He offered a share of legal power to anyone willing to cooperate with his government.
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) no longer holds a monopoly of the leading posts. According to Najibullah, the only civilian posts that are still held exclusively by the party are the presidency of the republic and the ministries of defence, the interior and finance 10 cral ministries have been given to non- — in a nutshell, the key posts. In fact, sevInternational Viewpoint #145 • July 11, 1988 members of the PDPA who held responsible positions in the regimes that preceded the party's seizure of power in April 1978.
The most spectacular measure in this respect was the appointment in May of Hassan Sharq as premier. He was Prince Daud's chief of staff when the latter served as premier under King Zaher Shah from 1953 to 1963. He then became deputy premier under the same Prince Daud when the prince seized power, ousting his cousin the king and declaring a republic in 1973, before being overthrown in his turn five years later by the PDPA. From 1980 to 1986, Sharq enjoyed the gilded exile that the job of ambassador often represents. He was recalled to the country in the context of the new policy of "national reconciliation." Will the regime survive the
Soviet withdrawal?
Following the advice so readily offered by Moscow, after December 1986 Najibullah stepped up his appeals to all the tendencies in opposition to his regime, and especially to the monarchist components of the Peshawar-based Islamic Alliance, offering to share power with them in the framework of a coalition. Up until now, these appeals have received little response. No major personality or tendency in the opposition, in particular in the armed opposition, has grasped the hand offered by the regime. Doubtless, however, some have been tempted to do so and still are. Why
The first reason is the uncertainty about the regime's ability to survive the withdrawal of Soviet troops. If the regime collapsed, anyone who had accepted Kabul's offer would share its fate. The second reason has to do with the composition of the opposition itself, its heterogeneity. In fact, whereas the very homogeneous, if not monolithic, Vietnamese resistance could afford to maneuver politically, the Afghan Islamic Alliance is a conglomerate of rival organizations, held together by nothing but their fight against a common enemy?
The most important components of the Islamic Alliance, the fundamentalist organizations, because of their fanatical ideological rigidity have little inclination to exhibit any tactical flexibility. The resulting atmosphere in Peshawar is of the various groups constantly trying to outbid each other, of great tension among the components of the Islamic Alliance, which is in continual danger of breaking up.
The heterogeneity of the opposition to the PDPA regime is a major consideration in Gorbachev's Afghan strategy. In fact, Moscow and Kabul are relying on divisions among their Afghan enemies to beef up their "national reconciliation" policy. They know that, aside from their role of channeling the hundreds of millions of dollars in aid of all sorts that they get from the United States and the reactionary Muslim regimes, the Peshawar organizations enjoy very little popularity.
These organizations are not even very well thought of among the 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan, who they are trying by every possible means to prevent going home as the Kabul regime has invited them to. After the signing of the Geneva accords, this invitation is more likely to be listened to.1°
The unpopularity of the leaders ensconced in Peshawar has been attested to by sources that can hardly be suspected of harboring sympathy for Kabul. For example, a Western diplomat stationed in Islamabad was quoted in the May 9 issue of the US magazine Newsweek as saying: "The leaders are not popular with the refugees. There's grumbling in the camps that the leaders are getting rich and passing the war in comfort in Peshawar, far from the front and from the refugee hovels."
A poll was recently carried out among the Afghan refugees in Pakistan and cited in the international press. The US researcher, Selig Harrison, a specialist on Afghanistan, referred to the results in an article in the April issue of Le Monde Diplomatique: "All the exile leaders have been discredited by persistent rumors of drug trafficking and diversion of US aid to the black market. Out of 2,287 refugees questioned in 106 out of the 249 camps, 71.65% wanted the former king — who symbolizes a period of relative stability and good neighborly relations with the USSR — to preside over the future government. Barely 1% wanted this role to be given to a leader of the resistance."
Divisions in the Islamic
Alliance
This poll confirmed what was said, a few months before his assassination in Peshawar, by one of the most eminent intellectuals in the Afghan opposition, Professor SB Majruh: "The Soviets know that the leaders in Peshawar will never represent a real obstacle because of their political weakness, so the only danger could come in the person of the king. Their intention was to eliminate this possibility by presenting it as a solution coming from the Soviet side. They hoped that this maneuver would also have the effect of aggravating the divisions in the Alliance.'
Whatever the Soviets' intention, that has indeed been the effect. The cordiality of relations in the Islamic Alliance has been illustrated recently by the episode reported by Western reporters stationed in Peshawar. 12 When he was accused at a meeting of the Mujahideen by the leader of one of the 7. IV 117, April 6, 1987. 8. "Comrade Najib's Speech at the Plenum of the PDPA CC, Afghanistan Today Publishers, Kabul, June 1987. 9. See /V 117, April 6, 1987. 10. Correspondents stationed in Peshawar have noted a sharp rise in the value of the Afghan currency on the local market, a clear sign of people preparing to retum. 11. Défis Afghans 15, November 1987.
three traditionalist (monarchist) components of the Alliance of having ordered Professor Majruh's assassination, Hekmatyar, chief of the most powerful and most fanatic of the four fundamentalist organizations in the Alliance, pulled his gun and nearly shot down his accuser.
Disagreements have been increasing among the organizations in Peshawar since the signing of the Geneva accords. Disagreement over what attitude to take to the accords'3, disagreement about what to do about the Soviet troops while they are withdrawing and so on. But the fundamental difference between the seven groups in Peshawar, the one around which all the others turn, is what attitude to take toward former King Zaher Shah, who is in exile in Rome. "Elections contrary to the principles of Islam"
What could be more natural when you consider that the three main organizations in the Alliance, all of them fundamentalist, were founded under the monarchy and in opposition to Zaher Shah, who was accused of being a puppet of Moscow and an anti-Islamic modernist? This fundamental difference is also reflected in the contrasting proposals about how to choose the political representatives of the Alliance.
For example, Hekmatyar, who holds the advantage in Peshawar because he gets the most foreign aid and has the best structured organization, proposed general elections among the refugees in Pakistan (for men only, of course). The chief of another fundamentalist group that split from Hekmatyar's group did not like this suggestion according to B. Delpuech, writing in a publication devoted to supporting the "Mujahideen."14
"Since Yunos Khales expressed the opinion that democratic elections would be contrary to the principles of Islam, a theological-exegetical dispute developed over the way prescribed by the Koran. Assemblies of mullahs were even called together in Peshawar to come up with a solution acceptable to all."
For their part, the royalists favor the idea
I THINK WE BETTER DUMP THIS MIRROR.
of a Loya Jirgah, an assembly of notables, tribal chiefs and religious dignitaries, harking back to the tradition of the old regime. According to Delpuech, Mujaddedi proposed initially "to form an electoral college in which each of the organizations in the Alliance would appoint 15 representatives (10 theologians and five "laymen"')," on the model of the system of cooptation employed under the second and third califs of
Finally, the seven organizations in Peshawar decided for the time being simply to name the members of their government themselves. So far, they have only managed to agree on the "president" of this government, a certain Ahmed Shah, whose principal virtue is probably that he is a bland enough figure to be accepted by the seven organizations. This selection provoked a sour commentary from one of the royalist leaders in the Alliance: "Anyone who has not been chosen by all the Afghans will not be supported by the Afghan
So by opting to make public overtures to the ex-king in exile in Rome from 1986 on, Gorbachev — whose line was reproduced by Najibullah — was on target. Informed by their services, both know that Zaher Shah (like Sihanouk in Kampuchea) enjoys the widest popularity among Afghans, and especially among the Pushtoon tribes who make up the great majority of the refugees in Pakistan. Is this only a "machiavellian" maneuver by Moscow and Kabul? Nothing could be less certain, especially for Moscow, which has nothing to lose and everything to gain from collaboration with the
In April 1987, we wrote: "The minimum relationship that Moscow can accept with Afghanistan is one of the Finnish type. Within these well-defined limits, the Kremlin is ready to contemplate any sort of socio-political compromise, even a return of former King Zaher Shah from his exile in Rome, if he agreed to play the game."
This last condition means, however, that for the moment what Moscow is offering the monarch does not go beyond an honorary role, perhaps even a presidency of the republic devoid of its present powers, in
AFGHANISTAN
AFGHANISTAN the framework of a regime where the real power will continue to be held by the PDPA. Inasmuch as today a big question mark hangs over this regime, Zaher Shah has nothing to gain by accepting the offer. He prefers to wait, relying on an erosion of the Kabul regime that would force the Soviets to turn to him as a "savior," thereby putting him in a strong position in relation to them. He has definitely not lost hope of reestablishing his throne.
Everything is going to depend, then, on what happens to the Kabul regime in the coming months. Will it fall or not? - that is the question that everyone is asking today. Many in the Western media think that they can proclaim peremptorily that Kabul will inevitably, sooner or later, experience the same fate as Saigon. That is, of course, the view of the opposition forces. Najibullah retorts, on the other hand, that his detractors are trying to count their chickens
Quasi-feudal mosaic of territories
One thing is certain: A large part of the Afghan countryside, and probably some cities as well, especially those closest to the Pakistani frontier, will slip entirely out of the PDPA's control. To a large extent, this has already happened. Even if these regions are put under a single political authority, this authority will remain purely theoretical. The tribal fragmentation of the country will be combined with a quasi-feudal mosaic of the territories of the local military chiefs, who are virtual warlords.
It seems probable, moreover, that the Uzbek and Tadzhik areas in the north of the country will remain firmly in Moscow's grip. What will happen to the territory controlled by Kabul? It claims to exercise authority over two thirds of the country's provinces, where a million and a half people are said to have gone to the polls between April 5-15 to elect the 299 deputies in the two houses of the Afghan legislative. In fact, the cornerstone of all this is the capital itself, Greater Kabul, which today, according to converging estimates, includes about 3 million people — that is, about a third of the population living within the country's borders.
Numerically and technically, the PDPA's armed forces certainly have the means to resist the inevitable assault of the rebel forces. But everything will depend on their 12. Among others, Newsweek, April 18 and Le Monde, April 19, 1988. 13. It is significant that the rally called in Peshawar by the Islamic Alliance to denounce the Geneva accords drew only 25,000 people (Le Monde, April 19, 1988), considering that the 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan are tightly regimented by the organizations in the Alliance. 14. Défis Afghans 16, December 1987/January 1988. 15. Le Monde, April 22, 1988.
Editor's note: Since this article was written, the Islamic Alliance announced the formation of its govem. 11 ment on June 19. July 11, 1988 • #145 International Viewpoint
AFGHANISTAN internal cohesion, which is far from certain. Having returned from Kabul, Alain
Gresh summed up the situation in Le
Monde Diplomatique in June 1988:
"When questioned, an important cadre in the Central Committee of the PDPA responded unhesitatingly: We have to prepare ourselves for the worst. First of all, we have to reinforce the armed forces, whose potential has increased considerably in recent years. We have nearly 130,000 men in the regular armed forces — the army and the Tsarandoy (militarized police), and 60% of the 200,000 members of the party are in the army or the militias."
"Wages in the army have been raised seven to 25 times, and there have been a lot of promotions with the aim of guaranteeing the loyalty of the soldiers and cadres. Tens of thousands of them have undergone training in the USSR over the last ten years. It is on them to a large extent that the future depends. The Mujahideen have neither the heavy arms nor the unity of command necessary to take Kabul. Only a swing in the army could offer them a decisive victory. If, on the contrary, the officers and soldiers remain loyal, the PDPA can fall back on its urban bastions and withstand assaults"
If the PDPA can hold out, it is possible that there could be a break in the Islamic Alliance, with a faction — the traditionalists — opting for a favorable response to Kabul's offers. That could substantially alter the relationship of forces throughout the country. Another faction, the fundamentalists, would continue the struggle indefatigably. Their outlook makes them incapable of accepting any compromise whatever, and they can find a human base for their activity in the large numbers of men who have developed a taste for guerrilla warfare, especially among the generation that remembers nothing else. In other words, in all the possible scenarios, the Afghanistan war is not about to end.
"Women in the camps were virtual prisoners"
Two factors will have a considerable importance for the future of the Kabul regime, that is, for its internal cohesiveness. First and foremost is the attitude of Moscow. If the USSR gave the impression that it was abandoning the PDPA, that would certainly mean a debacle for the latter. But there is no sign today, any more than in the past, that this is Gorbachev's intention. As we wrote in /V in April 1987, we continue to think that the USSR could "keep a military force in Afghanistan quantitatively closer to what was there before December 1979 (5,000 military 'advisors') than to the massive military presence it has had in recent years."
The second factor, of course, is the feelings of the Afghan population. Again, we wrote in 1987 that "the Mujahideen will 12 certainlamic stas nen they have found un- i certainly find less recruits for a jihad for International Viewpoint #145 • July 11, 1988 til now for the fight to liberate Afghanistan from foreign troops." In its May 30, 1988, issue, Newsweek expressed the same idea
Melinda Liu, the author of the article, mentioned in particular the aversion to the Mujahideen among a section of the urban
"That apprehension was acute among educated women, who have gained a measure of liberation from the conservative Muslim practice of purdah. "Those people in the mountains, with their long hair and beards, after 10 years we are afraid they will be wild,' said one young Kabul resident whose fashionable Western-style dress contrasted dramatically with the head-to-ankle chador demanded by radical fundamentalists."
This inhabitant of Kabul has indeed good reason to worry, to judge from the fate meted out to women in the Peshawar refugee camps, which was described as follows in the February 1, 1988, issue of Newsweek: "Conditions are especially hard on the women, who end up virtual prisoners. Forbidden by their menfolk to wander among the thousands of strangers in the camps, they must remain indoors, even when the veil of devout Muslim
The comparative fates of women in the two Afghan camps opposing each other since 1978 is one element among many others that confirms, if the socio-political evidence alone were not sufficient, that this is in fact a confrontation between a progressive and a reactionary camp. 16 The origin of the Afghan rebellion, it should be remembered, was a classical Vendée-type rebellion against a regime that had features reminiscent of Jacobinism.
The rebel forces represented, and still represent, a conglomerate of the traditional forces that the PDPA very clumsily tried to shake up or dislodge after it came to power in April 1978, and which were joined by the fundamentalists. The PDPA proposed eradicating illiteracy and promoting secularization, the emancipation of women, detribalization, radical agrarian reform and industrialization, trying to carry this out using dictatorial and bureaucratic methods. On the other hand, the rebel forces defended a continuation of the old medieval, obscurantist society, the role of the mullahs, the inferior status of women, tribalism, the domination of the big landlords and the perpetuation of social and economic backwardness, or even fought for a totalitarian Islamic dictatorship.
The intervention by Kremlin troops after the end of December 1979 had to be condemned and their withdrawal demanded, not because it was counter-revolutionary, as was the case in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1986, nor because we oppose intervention by Moscow's troops in all circumstances. In fact, we called for them to intervene in defence of Vietnam, as we have approved the intervention of Cuban troops in Angola, which was done with Moscow's help. The problem was that the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops as it unfolded could not have any effect other than to strongly reinforce the camp that
Moscow thought it could crush.
However, the civil war that has gone on in Afghanistan since 1978 has not changed in nature because of the Soviet intervention. Even if for eight years it has taken on the appearance of a national war against the
Soviet invader, to the great benefit of the reactionary camp, the latter, even more than in 1980-82, is made up essentially of the same political and social forces that were fighting the PDPA before December 1979.
For a defeat of the reactionary forces
Likewise, although the PDPA has watered down its program considerably since 1986 and is more than ever a hireling of Moscow, its social and political nature has remained fundamentally the same since 1978. It can be described as progressive petty-bourgeois "democratic" in the social meaning of the term.
In this war, which the Soviet withdrawal is returning to the dimensions of a civil war, we cannot be neutral or still less support the reactionary camp. We are firmly for the defeat of the reactionary forces, although this does not mean that we identify ourselves in the least with the Kabul regime. We want to see it overthrown by a genuine revolution. The conditions for that are a long way from having been assembled today in Afghanistan. However, we are convinced that the withdrawal of the Soviet troops will improve the chances for this in the long term. On the other hand, keeping these forces in the country can only further the decay of Afghan society.
This is why we are for the withdrawal of Moscow's troops, even if this leads to a collapse of the Kabul regime. If it proves incapable of maintaining itself, with technical and financial aid from the USSR, against the motley gangs of the Afghan reaction, the past eight years have clearly shown that the attempt by Soviet troops to prop up the regime has drawn this army into an endless
As the resolution adopted by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International in March 1988 declared. "If, however, the government proves incapable of surviving the Soviet withdrawal, its fall would anyway be a lesser evil than the Soviet Union getting bogged down indefinitely in Afghanistan. In any event, in the long run, the withdrawal will benefit the development of a mass revolutionary movement in Afghanistan and in its neighboring coun tries. " 17 * 16. The new watered-down constitution of the Republic of Afghanistan nonetheless includes Article 14, which stipulates: "men and women have equal rights in all economic, political, social and cultural spheres." In an Islamic country this is a revolutionary assertion. 17. See IV 138, April 4, 1988.