AFGHANISTAN SITUATION REPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00287R001301710002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 19, 1984
• Content Type: REPORT

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Directorate of
Intelligence
coy
Afghanistan Situation Report
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19 June 1984
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AFGHANISTAN SITUATION REPORT
Faced with a serious fuel shortage in Kabul, the government has
announced steep price increases in diesel fuel and gasoline.
NEW ROUND OF GENEVA TALKS
Indirect talks will resume August, but progress toward an
agreement is unlikely.
AFGHANISTAN: EDUCATION AND INDOCTRINATION
Soviet efforts to use the public education system to indoctrinate
Afghan youth are unlikely to win many converts. The system has
deteriorated seriously because the government cannot protect
schools from urgents, and now functions only in the major
cities.
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This document is prepared weekly by the Office of Near Eastern and South
Asian Analysis and the Office of Soviet Analysis. Questions or comments
on the issues raised in the publication should be directed
19 June 1984
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--- not necestarll~ authoritative,---.---- i - 19 June 1984
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KABUL FUEL PRICES INCREASE
The Afghan regime announced on 6 June that gasoline prices
were being raised 135 percent and diesel fuel 65 percent,
according to the US Embassy. The Afghan government offered
financial assistance to owners of private tanker trucks and was
considering similar aid to drivers of government-owned tankers.
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Afghanistan imports all its gasoline and diesel fuel from the
USSR and the Soviets may now be requiring the regime to pay a
higher price. Fuel prices in Afghanistan were low by world
standards. The price hike probably also reflects the continuing
fuel shortage in Kabul. Insurgent attacks on tanker convoys, the
fuel pipeline to Bagram Airfield, and bridges have strained the
fuel supply system and caused shortages in Kabul since early this
year. Government financial assistance is designed to induce
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NEW ROUND OF GENEVA TALKS (C)
UN Special Mediator Diego Cordovez announced on 13 June plans
for a new round of Geneva "proximity talks" between Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
Cordovez said that in
mil visits to Kabul and Islamabad, he found "a real
determination to move forward" and cited, without elaboration,
Kabul's satisfactory response to his invitation for a new round
of talks.
Comment:
Cordovez' optimism notwithstanding, prospects for the new
talks are dim. Neither party seems eager to make concessions on
the central issues which have stymied earlier Geneva rounds: (1)
linkage between the withdrawal of Soviet troops and guarantees of
noninterference by Pakistan and other states, and (2) Pakistan's
refusal to negotiate directly with the present Afghan government.
Both sides, however, believe maintaining the appearance of
negotiations is politically advantageous.
or Afghanistan.
killing 6 children and wounding a woman. Pakistani officials
have given US diplomats contradictory accounts of the incident
and disagree about whether the children were killed in Pakistan
-- According to the Pakistani press, on 16 June two Afghan
aircraft bombed a refugee camp about 300 yards inside Pakistan,
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-- Pakistani officials are concerned about the quantity and
quality of arms that have entered Pakistan from Afghanistan.
Bandits once armed with .303 rifles now have AK-47s. Some tribes
have RPGs, mortars, and Iandmines.
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AFGHANISTAN: EDUCATION AND INDOCTRINATION
Afghanistan's education system is in a shambles. Never widely
effective, the system has seriously deteriorated since the Communist
takeover, primarily because the government cannot protect the schools.
The regime uses what is left of the education system mainly as a
mechanism to indoctrinate students, and to reward them for party and
military service. Thousands of Afghans each year also receive education
and indoctrination in the USSR. In our view, the program will be
successful with only a small share of Afghan students.
Before the Soviet Invasion
Afghanistan's education system has always been dismal by Western
standards. the system met the needs of
only a fraction of the people before the Communist takeover in 1978.
Advancement in the schools often depended on government favoritism.
Despite two decades of government claims of concern over illiteracy, 3
less than 20 percent of Afghan youth had access to schools. More than
80 percent of those enrolled attended substandard primary schools, which
lacked adequately trained teachers and such basic materials as pencils
and paper.
Secondary school enrollment accounted for barely four percent of the 9
total school enrollment. Of those fortunate enough to graduate, only
one percent could gain admission to a university.
Afghanistan nevertheless had been improving its schools.
the numuer or eiemeniary anu
secondary schools had doubled in a 10 years before the April 1978
revolution, reaching a total of 2,700. A new curriculum, developed witn
the help of Columbia University, was being implemented.
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Deterioration and Indoctrination
We believe that the school system has ceased functioning everywhere
but in a few major cities. By mid-1983,
the number of elementary an secondary schools had
dropped to 50. Kabul University--the only major university in the
country--saw enrollment drop from 14,000 in 1978 to 6.000 in 1983
according to a former Afghan professor.
the other post-secondary institution, Nangarhar University in Jalalabad,
was attended only by about 30 women in autumn 1983; prior to the
Communist takeover, enrollment was about 400.
Before 1980, as is common in male-dominated Muslim societies, men
comprised most of the student body. Now most of the students are women.
Most eligible men have fled the country, joined the resistance, or been
conscripted. The few remaining male students Ire members KHAD (the
Afghan intelligence service) or the ruling party.
since the Communist
to eover percent of Afghanistan's teachers have fled the country or
have been executed or imprisoned. A third of the teachers and
administrators now are Soviet, and the rest are poorly qualified Afghan
party members. According to US Embassy sources, the Soviets control the
teacher training programs and seminars, including those funded by
UNESCO. materials espousing
ideology contrary to Communism are destroyed, and owners of "subversive"
literature are interrogated or imprisoned.
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Curriculum Changes
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Most of the Soviet-prompted curriculum changes are desioned to
promote Communist ideology.
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traditional disciplines
are arge neglected. In the
elementary and secondary schools, the 25X1
curriculum developed through Columbia niversit was replaced with the
Soviet curriculum in the winter of 1979 and reduced from 12 years to 10.
Afghan textbooks are published in Tashkent.
-- US Embassy sources report that a recent law on middle schools
declares that important goals are "to inculcate a revolutionary
spirit in youth, to strengthen their devotion to party
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principles, and to prepare them to defend the achievements of the
April revolution."
-- In the first grade, the first lesson concerns the April
revolution; Marxism-Leninism is introduced in the ' second grade.
-- According to US Embassy reports, a Ministry of Education
document prescribes that children in the seventh grade study
"Socialism, the Dream of the World's Working Class," "The
Struggle of the Two World Systems," and "The Three Principal
Forces of the Revolution." These subjects are also taught in the
higher grades, along with others concerning the party. the A ril
1978 revolution, and aid from the "fraternal" USSR.
Religious education before the revolution, although included in the
public school curriculum, was conducted primarily by clergy, either in
the public schools, or more commonly in schools attached to mosques.
Socialist indoctrination appears to have replaced religion in the public
system, but the mosque schools still function, when local security
conditions permit, in both government and insurgent controlled areas.
Kabul University's curriculum has undergone similar changes,
In May 1978, required subjects
were introduced concerning Marxist-Leninist theories of economics,
history, and sociology. Russian language also became mandatory. The
world literature course deals only with Marxist authors, and
Afghanistan's history has been rewritten to emphasize Soviet aid and
Western colonization. US Embassy sources indicate that the social
xience texts at Kabul University are sophisticated rehashes of party
formulas carried regularly in the regime press. Pro-government clergy
are trained both at the university and in the USSR.
As part of its propaganda effort, the regime has introduced widely
ourses in Kabul.
7 the course content is almost wholly political. Of
the approximately 2,000 persons who attend the courses most are women
Ithe Soviets require many civil servants to have a
good working knowledge of Russian or face dismissal.
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Patronage and Rewards
The Soviets and the Afghan re ime use the education system to
d
militar service and rty work.
since 198', students--even those in medical
training--have been promoted on the basis ork rather than
academic achievement. the caliber of
students deteriorated mare y after t e Communist takeover, because
admission examinations to Kabul University have been waived for students
who entered the Army upon graduation from secondary school. As of fall
1983, men are no longer admitted to the university until they have
completed three years of military-,or police service,
Party members,
are admitted to the university without having to take the
require entrance examination. As early as 1981, the regime would not
give anyone a diploma for secondary or university studies until
completion of military service.
Afghan Students in the USSR
Thousands of Afghans annually attend Soviet institutions of higher
and vocational education. According to Kabul press reports in January
1984, Afghan students in the USSR were attend in 66 educational
institutions at 24 different locations.
many students who return
rom training in the USSR show greater loyalty and dedication to the
regime than before: others, however are not successfully indoctrinated.
many Afghan students return
emoitterea by their Soviet experience and complain that Russians
sometimes blame Afghans for the war and for Soviet casualties.
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Popular Reaction, Insurgent Attitudes
In Afghanistan, the use of schools to propagate Communist ideology
has reinforced widespread hostility to formal education. Even before
the Communist takeover in 1978, many, especially in rural areas,
distrusted government schools. In their view, government teachers,
usually outsiders from cities and larger towns, corrupted the young,
especially girls, by teaching concepts contrary to local tradition.
Rural Afghans also questioned the value of formal education for children
destined to be hersdmen and subsistence farmers.
the insurgents
attack schools when they are used to garrison soldiers or when the party
youth association takes over rooms for propaganda and indoctrination
activities. Prime Minister Keshtmand publicly charged in February 1984
that in the last three years insurgents had destroyed 1,847 schools.
in 1983 attendance at a large
school in Mazar-e Sharif had decreased because some parents resented the
indoctrination efforts, and because they and others feared an insurgent
In our view, it will take many years, at best, for efforts to produce
significant change in Afghan attitudes through the education system.
First, to rebuild and control the schools, the Soviets and the Afghan
regime would have to establish control over most of the countryside and
fully secure the major cities. The prospect of that happening in the
next few years is dim. Second, most Afghans have little interest in
education, distrust the Kabul regime, and distrust nonreligious
education. Finally, most Afghans being educated in the USSR as well as
the Afghan youth who share the Young Pioneer experience probably will
reject the doctrinal aspects of their Soviet training because it is
incompatible with their own background and beliefs. Still, even if
indoctrination through the education system does not win many converts,
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it probably will eventually provide the Soviets with a dedicated
minority of competent Afghan Communists to run the government.
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