TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/022089/02208900.039

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 9.2 KB | 179 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 42

AFGHANISTAN

Without a Look Back


As the Soviets leave, rebels prepare to strike

By Jill Smolowe


    Along the streets of the sleepy Soviet border town of
Termez, anxious wives, restless children, curious journalists
and proud military officers began to assemble shortly after
dawn. As local Communist Party officials arranged a banquet of
fruits and nuts on a long white-clothed table, a small troupe of
Uzbek dancers rehearsed their steps. Seven Young Pioneers, their
trademark red scarves flapping in the breeze, clutched flowers.
Just after 11:30, a military band burst into lively music to
greet the first of 60 armored personnel carriers rumbling into
sight across the steel "Friendship Bridge" at the border. When
the lead vehicle clattered past the last checkpoint and onto
Soviet soil, the six young soldiers on board broke into
ear-to-ear grins.

    After nine years and two months of humiliation, frustration
and defeat on the battle grounds of Afghanistan, the Soviet
Union was bringing the last of its boys home. For the
demoralized Soviets, the deceptively festive homecoming in
Termez marked the closing phase of a nine-month pullout that is
scheduled to conclude this week with the return of the last
20,000 Soviet troops.

    In an effort to patch together a political future for the
Moscow-backed regime of Afghan President Najibullah, Soviet
Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze made a quick trip to
Islamabad, where he conferred with Pakistan's leaders. But this
attempt to cloak the embarrassed retreat with some diplomatic
fig leaves failed, surprising few Soviet citizens, who have
long since made up their minds about the misdirected war effort.
"It was a noble cause," said a returning soldier last week, "and
a mistake." Moscow's task will be to resurrect dignity from the
rubble of a bitter defeat that cost 15,000 Soviet lives and
produced no tangible gains.

    For shattered Afghanistan, the outlook ahead is far grimmer:
more war, more bloodshed, more despair. With 1 million dead, 2
million uprooted from their homes and another 5 million claiming
temporary asylum in neighboring countries, Afghanistan is
bracing for a duel to the death between Najibullah's shaky
regime and the U.S.-backed mujahedin rebels. No one knows
whether the Soviets will mount cross-border air raids to thwart
the rebels' designs, or if Washington intends to keep open its
not-so-covert arms pipeline through Pakistan to the rebels. But
even if the superpowers bow out entirely, both sides in the
Afghan conflict have enough stockpiled arms to keep the
conflagration raging for months. "No one is operating under any
illusions," warns a U.S. specialist on Afghanistan. "The
situation is going to get a lot nastier."

    Afghanistan's only hope for a halt to the savagery rests
with the shura, or consultative council, that convened in the
Pakistani city of Rawalpindi last Friday. The 526-member
council is composed of representatives from the seven-party
mujahedin alliance that operates out of Pakistan and the eight
mujahedin parties based in Iran. Their aim is to designate an
interim government that would supplant the Najibullah regime.
But last week's meeting, attended by 420 delegates, gave little
cause for optimism. The council's session lasted just 40
minutes, then disintegrated into chaos over the question of just
how much power should be allocated to the Tehran-based groups.
At week's end the shura was postponed indefinitely. "It is like
trying to make a circle from a square," sighs a rebel commander.
"You cannot make a coalition out of bitter enemies."

    As the factions disagreed over everything, from the role
that ex-King Zahir Shah should play in the rebuilding of
war-torn Afghanistan to the composition of the shura itself,
some spectators had the eerie feeling of watching a car
accident taking place in slow motion. "This is the last chance
for Kabul," says a Western diplomat based in Islamabad. "If it
collapses, Afghanistan will collapse into fratricidal
bloodshed."

    Even if by some miracle the squabbling mujahedin political
leaders and their allied military field commanders reach
agreement, their determined resistance to any Communist
representation in the new government all but ensures that
Najibullah will continue to struggle for his political life.
Last week, his voice cracking uncharacteristically, Najibullah
proclaimed, "God is with us. The people are with us. We will
win the war." But the extent of the President's fear was evident
as the regime summoned the 30,000 members of the ruling
People's Democratic Party who have been newly armed with
automatic rifles and are intended to serve as the core of a
neighborhood militia for the defense of the capital city of
Kabul. Only 6,000 party stalwarts turned out for the rally, and
all of them had to undergo body searches by security forces.

    For the moment, Afghanistan's major cities remain in
government hands, thanks largely to massive Soviet bombing
attacks in recent weeks. But no one expects Najibullah's
tenuous grip on the country to hold for long. Rebel commanders
in the field, who sense that a military victory is within reach,
are not going to let that long-sought opportunity slip away.
The only remaining question seems to be precisely how they will
take the cities. Full-scale assaults are tempting, but the
mujahedin insurgents fear that the civilian toll may be high and
that a successful attack may draw Soviet retribution from the
air. That is what happened last August, when rebels took the
northern city of Kunduz, then were forced to flee under a hail
of fighter-bomber fire.

    The more likely strategy, if the rebels do not divide and
self-destruct, is a slow and steady strangulation of the major
cities. "We want to collapse the city from within," explains
Abdul Haq, a powerful commander whose men are positioned around
Kabul. Key targets include the shutdown of airports, the
closure of the government's arms pipeline and the cutting of the
Salang Highway, the 264-mile road that stretches from Kabul into
Soviet territory.

    Heavy fighting and rebel attacks on food convoys have made
many of the roads virtually impassable, giving rise to
deepening food and fuel shortages. Last week when the United
Nations attempted an emergency airlift of food, medicine and
blankets to Kabul, the effort was temporarily stalled because
crew members of the EgyptAir cargo plane feared rebel attacks.
Two days later, however, Ethiopian Airlines delivered the first
supplies from the U.N.

    By breaking down the morale of government troops, the rebels
hope to trigger defections or even rebellion within the army
ranks. Some rebel commanders boast that army garrisons around
the country have arranged for their own surrender, and that
soldiers will turn themselves over to the mujahedin shortly
after the last Soviets pull out. But according to one scenario
making the rounds in Washington, the rebels will not need to
manipulate the economic and military noose for very long. The
ruling party, these analysts conclude, will hang itself. "The
rot within the ((ruling party)) is already pronounced," says a
State Department official. "It will only get worse after the
Soviets are gone." According to U.S. officials, contingency
plans are already in place for the evacuation of Najibullah and
as many as 5,000 members of his party to Moscow.

    As for the U.S., which has given $2 billion in aid to the
rebels over the past decade, the Soviet pullout provoked smug
smiles among State Department officials. At the American Club in
the Pakistani city of Peshawar, a hangout for aid workers,
diplomats and intelligence types, the champagne was already
flowing. Still, the U.S. has difficult decisions to make in the
months ahead, as do the Soviets. In the ten months since the
accord was signed in Geneva securing the Soviet withdrawal, the
operating word has been "symmetry." Last week the Bush
Administration held a one-hour high-level review of U.S. policy
toward Afghanistan that resulted in no announced changes. That
means that Washington would continue to fund and arm the rebels
as long as Moscow supplied Najibullah's forces.

    Were the Soviets to continue cross-border raids after this
Wednesday, the U.S. might maintain its own involvement, though
any sort of step-up is unlikely. Some statements suggest that
Washington has formulated no policy beyond the expulsion of the
Soviets and is eager to wash its hands of the entire mess.
"We're not interested in a proxy war," says one official. "The
Afghans should be allowed to settle this themselves."

    That challenge will begin this week, if all goes according
to plan. At precisely 10 o'clock on Wednesday morning, Lieut.
General Boris Gromov, the commanding officer of Soviet troops in
Afghanistan, will walk alone across that steel bridge into
Termez, the final Soviet soldier to leave Afghanistan.
According to the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, Gromov will then
deliver a short, private speech that "would not be written down
or listened to." Then he will continue on his way, "without
looking back."

-- Paul Hofheinz/Termez and Cristina Lamb/Islamabad