WHAT AFGHAN FREEDOM FORCES SEEK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000403970001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: September 12, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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KAREN MCKAY
WASHINGTON TIMES
12 September 1985
What Afghan freedom
forces seek
There is no way, under
present circumstances, that
a negotiated settlement in
Afghanistan could work.
Anything acceptable to the Russians
would be unacceptable to the
Afghans, and vice versa.
The Soviets demand a settlement
guaranteeing them a hand in the
future government of Afghanistan,
ensuring that they would be free to
use that country to their own ends.
Under the Brezhnev doctrine,
Afghanistan's "Communist rev-
olution" is irreversible.
The Afghans demand a total and
unconditional withdrawal of Soviet
troops and restoration of unfettered
self-determination. The Soviet-
backed "revolution" of May 1978
that overthrew the republican gov-
ernment of President Daoud and
installed a Communist regime was
universally and spontaneously
rejected by the Afghan people. The
devout, God-fearing, and fiercely
independent Afghans will tolerate
no Communist presence or influ-
ence in their nation.
Yet for several years now we have
had the charade of "United Nations-
sponsored negotiations" over the
fate of Afghanistan. U.N. Secretary
Javier Perez de Cuellar has claimed
that 90 percent of the problem is
solved - we just have to agree on a
timetable, for Suviet troop with-
drawal. Yet these "negotiations"
have taken place between the quis-
ling government in Kabul and the
government of Pakistan. The free-
dom fighters and their leaders are
not even consulted.
As Jim Phillips said in a Heritage
Foundation report a couple of years
ago, these "negotiations" are noth-
Karen McKay is executive direc-
tor of the Committee for a Free
Afghanistan.
ing more than a fig leaf for the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan - a pan-
tomine lending legitimacy to a geno-
cidal occupation force. They're also
buying time for Soviet
entrenchment in that country.
The Soviets have no intention of
quitting Afghanistan. They may
have paid what to us would be a
heavy cost for their aggression, but
for them it is a cheap price to pay for
the strategic staging base they have
gained - not to mention an invalu-
able laboratory in which to blood an
army and to develop weapons tech-
nology and tactics.
The Soviets are rapidly convert-
ing Afghanistan to a Soviet republic,
changing the judicial system, the
educational system, integrating the
electrical gird, changing the very
road signs to the Soviet mode.
They would get out only if the
military and political costs of occu-
pation became untenable.
But the mujahideen, the freedom
fighters, have received precious lit-
tle other than rhetoric - undying
admiration for the admirable way
they die.
The U.S. State Department
appears to remain unalterably
opposed to any effective, traceable,
or visible aid to the Afghans.
If the Afghans had effective anti-
aircraft defense - shoulder-fired
heat-seeking missiles - it would be
a different war. There wouldn't be a
refugee crisis. There wouldn't be a
famine. There wouldn't be a medical
crisis. Those marauding helicopter
gunships and carpet bombing MiGs
would not be able to sow the death
and destruction that they do today
with impunity.
Other than some ineffective and
defective beaten-up SAM 7s, how-
ever, the mujahideen have been
denied effective anti-aircraft
defense. They need Stingers, or even
our obsolete Redeyes, or Blowpipes
if you insist on non-American stuff.
But all they have are captured Das-
hakahs, some Zukuiaks, and a hand-
ful of guns that were supposed to
have been supplied last year. You
can't fight the Mi24D Hind armored
helicopter gunship, the workhorse
of the Red Army and the most lethal
weapon system in the world today,
with that sort of things.
Still, the Afghans have held on.
With virtually no outside help, they
fought the Russians to a standstill,
liberated some 90 percent of their
country, and made fools of all the
smart guys who dismissed their
struggle as hopeless and predicted it
would all be over within a week.
They've done it at terrible cost.
Fifty percent of the original pop-
ulation of 15 million has been
destroyed in six years. Five million
or more are refugees outside
Afghanistan - Louie Dupree calls it
migratory genocide. Another 2-3
million are dead in the carpet bomb-
ing, massacres, artillery bombard-
ments, of famine, and war-related
disease.
After such sacrifices, it is hardly
likely that the Afghans would now
consent to give the Soviets what they
want, particularly through negoti-
ations in which they have no part.
The Afghans have always said
they were willing to negotiate an end
to their bloody war. And they have
four uncompromisable conditions
for a settlement in which the Paki-
stanis have unfailingly supported
them:
1. Unconditional withdrawal of all
foreign troops;
2. Non-intervention by foreign
troops in Afghanistan or Pakistan
and non-interference by any nation
in same;
3. International guarantees for
No. 2;
4. The honorable return of the ref-
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Z.
ugees with the right to choose their
own non-aligned government.
Until the past year, the United
States also supported these condi-
tions. Then, those who closely watch
Afghan affairs began to detect a
shift in U.S. policy. At an off-the-
record briefing at the State Depart-
ment, Afghanistan Desk Officer
Phyllis Oakley (now detailed to the
staff of Sen. Charles McC. Mathias
Jr., R-Md., the lone Senate opponent
of the Tsongas-Ritter resolution in
support of the Afghan freedom
fighters) stated that "we recognize
that Afghanistan is in the Soviet
sphere of influence."
Another line that began to emerge
was that "we recognize that the
Soviet Union has a right to a non-
hostile Afghanistan on its southern
border."
Who are we to arrogate unto our-
selves the right to condemn another
people to the Soviet sphere of influ-
ence? And what was Afghanistan,
with a friendship treaty with the
Soviets prior to the invasion, if not
non-hostile?
In any case, the United States,
which has provided precious
military or humanitarian aid to the
Afghans, speculation and disinfor-
mation about alleged CIA suyport to
t Ye contrary, appears now to have
wearied of this bothersome little
war. Where once the State Denart-
ment led the pack in florid rhetorical
condemnation of the Soviet occupa-
tion off' Afghanistan, it is clearly try-
ing to cool the issue.
Indeed, State has engaged in its
own war of disinformation to con-
vince Congress, the White House
and the public that we are "doing all
that is appropiate and necessary for
the Afghans:' in the words of various
officials. And lately, they have been
trying to convince us that there
really isn't any problem in Afghan-
istan - that the Afghans have more
food, medicine, weapons, and ammu-
nition than they know what to do
with, that there really is no famine,
no medical crisis, no big deal.
Is the State Department prepar-
ing to sacrifice Afghanistan on the
altar of appeasement to the god of
disarmament? Many fear so. Cer-
tainly our record as a faithless ally
demonstrates our ability to sell out a
people like the Afghans. Afghan-
istan would, to those officials com-
mitted to peace at any price, be a
cheap coin fora disarmament treaty.
Did Rajiv Gandhi, devout disciple
of the Soviets and apologist for the
quisling government in Kabul, carry
a message to Mikhail Gorbachev
from the United States, as is
rumored, offering the Soviets a set-
tlement on their terms in Afghan-
istan? That message reportedly
promised the Soviets that the United
States will agree to a political solu-
tion at the Geneva talks, that Wash-
ington will agree to a "non-aligned"
(presumably on the Cuban model)
government in Kabul, and that the
United States will agree to a time-
table for the withdrawal of Soviet
troops.
Was it a coincidence that Zbig-
niew Brzezinski in recent Senate tes-
timony floated a new plan for a
settlement in Afghanistan that
would include a U.S.-Soviet guaran-
tee of Afghanistan's "neutrality"
along with other points that would
render void the terrible sacrifice
made by the Afghans?
So far, Pakistan, under incredible
pressure from the Soviets, has stood
firm behind the Afghans. If Pakistan
can be forced to betray the Afghans,
the Afghans will still fight, fight to
the last Afghan. But they will fight
without hope. And Pakistan should
look with a wary eye in that case on
more than a million disenfranchised
Afghans who have taken refuge in
their country.
We can do no less than to support
to the hilt, unashamedly, the valiant
Afghans and their Pakistani ally. We
owe that to a people willing to pay the
ultimate price for a value we also
cherish: freedom.
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