come up again at the end of the war -whether that was in five or twenty years. But he did not make any clear-cut proposals. Massud is an Islamic fundamentalist.
Q: Did you have any contact with anybody from the left parties in the Afghan resistance?
A: No! They are certainly a very small minority. The most important - one hears it talked about a little - is the SAMA which carries out some actions inside Kabul, has some members throughout Afghanistan(2) but which always fights in the ranks of other movements, because they are not big enough to act independently. It seems their relations with other movements are clearly better than those of these movements with the Hezb-e Islami, who are Pashtuns, but who are considered, for example by Massud, as 'bad Muslims'. The rejection is so strong that Massud let it be known that at Rabani, at the time of the formation of the Islamic Alliance of the Mudjahedin of Afghanistan,(3) that if Hezb-e Islami were
Afghan resistance (DR)
A: During the first offensive it was not ance.Massud is only 27 years old. It is the part of it he would leave Jamiat-e Islami.
Q: Do the Mudjahedin know what is going on in Poland?
A: Yes, the Panchir region is a valley where cultural development is extraordinarily important. Practically all the Mudjahedin know how to read and write whereas for example last year, Hazaradjat region only two percent at the maximum of the people knew how to read and write. In the Panchir region on the other hand, information passes by small pieces of paper - for population evacuation, food supplies etc. They nearly all have radios and they particularly listen to the BBC in Persian. Therefore they get news from all over the world. I spoke about Poland with Massud who thinks that the best aid he could hope for would be a war involving the Soviets in Poland because he considers that in a choice between Poland and Afghanistan the Soviets would drop Afghanistan. He also knows what is happening elsewhere in the world such as events in El Salvador. This worries him. It causes him problems. He told us: There is also Fidel Castro. Where do the arms which go to El Salva. dor come from? They are Soviet arms aren't they?' This intrigues him. Furthermore since he meets lots of French people and he speaks the language, he follows the ins and outs of French politics. A person he finds difficult to understand is Regis Debray. He counts on him to get the French government to do something about Afghanistan, even if he is a friend of Fidel Castro. That is an enigma for him. "How do the French people see him,' he asked. Incidentally, we should be aware that Massud is a Sunnite and Sunnites are generally more tolerant and open to ideas than Shites. Thus I had a few problems with the Shi'ites of the Hazaradjat region who I met last year. So did other French doctors, particularly on the question of women. Whereas even the Sunnite mullahs are very open, very hospitable.
Q: What about people's living conditions? 14 possible to carry on any agricultural production since nothing had been irrigated fields. In the second offensive some cultivation was carried out. But in the Panchir region the situation could become catastrophic. Already before I left I saw evidence of big problems for children. It is not famine but a state of malnutrition which weakens the body for future epidemies. The children have a lot of diarrhoea problems. This illness is generally part of the classic pathology of refugees.
Things could turn very bad As soon as we arrived in France we did all we could to send out as much medical material as possible. It takes about a month to arrive. As concerns food aid we've made contact with organisations in Peshawar but these official bodies are always a bit blocked up because they depend on governments. We can only hope all the same.
The Mudjahedin are standing up to the since they have few wounded. It is the civilian population which suffer terribly from the bombings. During this second offensive there were more than 200 civilians killed in bombing
Q: From the point of view of social organisation has society changed through the experignce of the resistance?
A: For women not at all. For us this was the most shocking problems: women stuck at home, who are put outside as soon as a man enters, who have no right to say or do anything. But it is true - and this is also the opinion of all the women doctors with whom I checked my impressions - that Afghan women, for the moment, do not seem to worry much about their status. For them what counts is that they stop bombing their children. Perhaps it isn't very progressive but that's the reality. In each family there are tw or three kids who have been killed by the bombs and that is certainly what counts for them. As for the social hierarchy it has been very shaken up by the resistyoung people alongside him and leadership which is much more important than the 'whitebeards' who formerly were the masters of the region. To take another example. Noor Mohammad Taraki's (1978) land reform failed because it was not able to resolve the crucial water problem, (the essential condition for any such reform) or seed distribution. A wide-rang.
change has come about in this ng domain.
The Mudjahedin have transformed the water distribution system in the aim of achieving, quite simply, maximum agricultural production. They don't worry about the interests of those who won the sources, nor about a better social shareout - only in maximising production -getting water to the best land, to the best areas so that as much as possible is produced. Food is distributed in such a way that families of Mudjahedin killed in battle or families whose homes have been bombed, can survive. The Jamiat-e Islami of the Panchir region also shares out its funds to these families. We're talking about very modest sums - 1,500 to 2,000 Afghanis per month (about £18) -for a ten-person family it is not a great deal. But in present conditions this is very important. After the first offensive in Spring 1982 members of the French/ Afghanistan friendship association (AFRANE) came to the Panchir region with 130,000 French francs which was shared out by Massud's lieutenants in accordance with the need caused by war damage. All money was distributed to meet specifically humanitarian ends (2). The SAMA (Sazema-e-Azadibakheh-e Afghanistan: Afghanistan Peoples Liberation Organisation, axis of the National United Front) replied to questions on this in an interview given the Afghan Marxist bulletin, Dierga (the Council) which appeared in Rouge F1) So. 1033, 8th to 14th Oct. 1982 weekly of the LCR, French section of (3). The Islamic Alliance of the Mudjahedin of Afghanistan is an organisation formed in March 1982 by the following three parties: National Liberation Front (Jebha-e-Nejate-Melli), the Movement of the Islamic Revolution (Harakate-Enquelab-e-Islami) and the Islamic National Front (Mahaz-e Melli-Islami).