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Introduction
As the world began to see peace initiative after the end of
the
catastrophic Second World War, the new power blocs started
to polarize
the Mother Earth into spheres of influence. The world
experienced the
rise of the Cold War. As a consequence, smaller nations
engaged in proxy
wars that were usually bloody and violent. Afghanistan is
one of the
examples of the same. In December 1978, Moscow signed a new
bilateral
treaty of friendship and cooperation with Afghanistan, and
the Soviet
military assistance program increased significantly. The
regime's
survival increasingly was dependent upon Soviet military
equipment and
advisers as the insurgency spread and the Afghan army began
to collapse.
By October 1979, however, relations between Afghanistan and
the Soviet
Union were tense as Hafizullah Amin refused to take Soviet
advice on how
to stabilize and consolidate his government. By early
November 1979
contingency military preparations for an Afghan operation
were well
under way.
These measures included the gradual build-up of
Soviet forces
along the Afghan-Soviet border, the introduction of Soviet
small-force
units into Afghanistan itself, the preparation of facilities
to receive
additional forces, and direct pressure on Amin either to
resign or to
allow the Soviets to take over greater control of the
anti-rebel
campaign. As Soviet troop concentration along the border
rose from three
to five divisions, a special mission, headed by Soviet
Lieutenant
General V. Paputin of the Soviet Internal Security Forces,
was sent to
Afghanistan to attempt to obtain permission from Amin to
build full
military bases inside Afghanistan in return for 5,000
additional Soviet
troops; the mission failed.
In mid- December 1979 foreign observers noted a build-up of
Soviet
forces on the Afghan border and a large movement of combat
troops into
the Bagram air base forty miles north of Kabul. On December
21, 1979,
Washington reported that three Soviet divisions had amassed
at the
Afghan border and Soviet troops were nearing Kabul. At the
end of
December, as Kabul government began to weaken from internal
dissention
and external rebel pressure, 100,000 Soviet troops had
entered
Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin was assassinated and
Babrak
Karmal, former head of the Parcham communist faction and
Afghanistan's
former ambassador to Czechoslovakia, assumed power with
Soviet backing.
Moscow applauded Karmal's role as the new head of the Afghan
government
but Carter warned Moscow of the threat to US-Soviet
relations and the
damage that could occur if the Soviet Union continued its
ventures in
Afghanistan.
Soviet leaders claimed repeatedly that the Afghan government had
made requests for Soviet military assistance to which Moscow
responded as an "international duty". In hindsight such a request
from Amin seems improbable since there was tension between him and
Moscow in December 1979 and he was executed during the invasion.
By the beginning of 1980 there were an estimated 100,000 Soviet
troops in Afghanistan. In response to this influx Carter
announced, sanctions against the Soviet Union, including an
embargo of American grain sales. He also announced the "Carter
Doctrine" that called for resisting Soviet expansion beyond
Afghanistan. The Karmal government came under mounting pressure
from anti-Soviet strikes in its commercial sector and eventually
conducted mass arrests. The resistance was taking a significant
toll on the Soviets and by the first few months of 1980 it was
rumored that there had been over 5,000 Soviet casualties in
Afghanistan. Moscow and Kabul found that they could control the
major urban centers, but were unable to penetrate rural areas
which were controlled by the resistance. The Afghan conflict was
taking shape as a classic guerrilla war against a conventional
army.
Role Of Un
In Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan
Negotiations
On February 11, 1981, UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim
demonstrated his commitment to resolving the Afghan crisis by
appointing Under-Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar as his
personal representative to Afghanistan. In July it was revealed
that the United States was assisting the resistance with more than
$20 million for the purchase of weapons. Saudi Arabia claimed that
it was committed to contributing aid "equal to or greater than
that of the United States", while the Egyptians were providing
material left from the days of Egypt-Soviet relations. The crisis
was beginning to dominate the international theater.
In August 1981 de Cuellar could report that Pakistan and
Afghanistan had agreed on the goals of prospective negotiations to
resolve the crisis. In September the beginning of the negotiations
was stalled when. Pakistan refused the format of direct talks that
Kabul had demanded. Kabul insisted that the issue of a Soviet
withdrawal was between Moscow and the Afghan government and could
not be part of the negotiations between Pakistan and Afghanistan
as Islamabad had insisted. On September 28, 1981, the Afghan
foreign minister criticized the increasing role the United States
was playing in the crisis by supplying arms to the Afghan
resistance. He also stressed that an accord with Pakistan would
only constitute "an opportunity to determine by agreement between
Afghanistan and the USSR the time-table for the withdrawal of
Soviet troops". This implied that Pakistan would have little
influence in negotiating Soviet troop withdrawals. This Afghan
posture forced Pakistan to harden its position and insist on a
greater role in the negotiations. Eventually Pakistan would gain
its demands and negotiate directly with Kabul. After becoming
Secretary General of the UN in February 1982, de Cuellar appointed
Under-Secretary-General Diego Cordovez as his personal
representative for Afghanistan.
Following visits to Kabul, Islamabad and Teheran in April,
Cordovez secured agreements from Kabul and Islamabad for the start
of negotiations. Pakistan and Afghanistan would sit as formal
negotiating parties while the United States and the Soviet Union
would guarantee the talks and conduct the true negotiations behind
the scenes in Geneva. Beginning in June 1982 and leading up to the
Soviet retreat from Afghanistan, there were eleven rounds of
negotiations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The negotiating
rounds were the result of a General Assembly resolution on
Afghanistan advising the Secretary-General to seek a settlement of
the crisis. The settlement was to be based on four points of the
resolution calling for a politically independent and nonaligned
Afghanistan; the withdrawal of foreign troops; self-determination
for Afghanistan without outside interference; and conditions for
the return of refugees, "in safety and honor". Geneva I, the first
round of talks, took place under UN auspices in June 1982, but was
conducted indirectly as a compromise to the two parties. Cordovez
shuttled between the Afghan and Pakistan representatives sitting
in the same building at different times so as to avoid direct
government-to-government talks. Although little resulted from this
first round, it did mark the beginning of an official forum for
the discussion of a Soviet withdrawal.
The month of June was characterized less by political than by
military maneuvering. As talk of a Soviet withdrawal entered the
official debate and the Geneva talks commenced, military activity
intensified throughout Afghanistan. The specter of a Soviet-free
Afghanistan and potential political vacuum sent the Soviets and
Afghan government on the offensive to be positioned better in the
event that a settlement was reached in Geneva. Indeed, there
seemed to be a correlation between Soviet statements of withdrawal
and heightened offensives by the Afghan government and the Red
Army. Soviet intentions were revealed somewhat at Leonid Brezhnev
funeral in November 1982 when Uri Andropov told Zia ul Haq that
the Soviet Union wanted to get out of Afghanistan and would
withdraw quickly if Islamabad ceased aid to the rebels. However,
the 1980s was a decade of instability for the Soviet leadership as
four heads of state occupied the Kremlin. From the hard line that
Brezhnev took on Afghanistan to the more conciliatory approach of
Andropov, the retrenchment of Chernenko to the final withdrawal
initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, it was difficult to judge Soviet
policy on South and Central Asia. Yet, Moscow seemed incapable of
extricating itself from South Asia.
The Geneva talks continued through 1983 as the Soviets experienced
growing losses in terms of casualties, material and international
prestige. On April 8 Geneva II began optimistically after Moscow
indicated that under the right conditions it was willing to
withdraw from Afghanistan. Geneva II was suspended on April 22 so
that delegates could consult with their governments. At that time
the Soviets told Cordovez and Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Yaqub
Khan, that they were prepared to undertake a phased withdrawal if
Pakistan would commit itself to cutting off arms to the
resistance.
In June 1983 Geneva II was reconvened with both Afghanistan and
Pakistan assuming hardened positions. Pakistan insisted on
reopening issues concerning its obligations under principles of
"non-interference", the repatriation of Afghan refugees and a time
frame for a Soviet withdrawal. Following the death of Andropov, on
February 9, 1984, and the succession of Chernenko, the Soviet
position on Afghanistan hardened and threatened negotiations. The
points of contention for Moscow were the conditions and time-frame
for a Soviet retreat. To placate the Soviets, Cordovez revised the
framework for negotiations and based the new format on four
"instruments". These instruments included "noninterference",
international guarantees, the return of Afghan refugees and
"interrelationships". The compromise was based on the elimination
of any terminology referring specifically to a Soviet withdrawal.
The issue of a withdrawal was to come under the fourth instrument
of "interrelationships".
Geneva III began on August 24 and ended six days later with little
progress. The collapse of this third round may be attributed to
the absence of a Soviet negotiator on the Afghan side. The
Chernenko government was unwilling to negotiate a settlement of
the Afghan war or to accept a negotiated withdrawal of Soviet
troops, the Kremlin still seemed intent on achieving a military
victory. In fact, the talks took place following a major Soviet
offensive in the strategic Panjshar Valley and incursions into
Pakistan, prompting Islamabad to complain of extensive border
violations. Despite the setbacks in negotiations, Cordovez
reported that there had been a significant narrowing in the time
span that the two sides proposed for a Soviet withdrawal closing
their differences to less than a year. The fighting forced Afghan
refugees to continue fleeing to Pakistan at the rate of 8,000 a
month, involving numerous international aid organizations to help
Islamabad cope with the influx of new settlers. By the middle of
1984 five million Afghans had fled their country, about three
million settling in Pakistan and two million in Iran.
The war continued to intensify and was carried over into Pakistan
and the Soviet Central Asian Republic of Tadjikistan. Pakistani
border villages became subject to increased bombings and rocket
fire from across the Afghan border. Islamabad waged protests with
the United Nations citing cases in which entire villages had been
destroyed by Afghan government or Soviet reprisals against
suspected rebel strongholds. The war also carried over into Iran
where Afghan Shiite rebels based their operations. For the Soviet
Union, Iran and Pakistan, the war was no longer confined to
Afghanistan but had spilled over to affect border areas, villages
and their domestic populations. Pakistan claimed that attacks on
its border villages were an attempt, to intimidate Islamabad and
force it to compromise in the Geneva talks, especially on the
issue of supplying the resistance with weapons. But in early April
and with Pakistan's encouragement, Reagan announced that his
administration would continue to supply material aid to the
resistance, and through Pakistan. The announcement came in the
midst of an American congressional debate over the consequences of
introducing advanced weapons into a region where they might make
their way into unfriendly hands.
Reagan linked the Afghan crisis with weapons negotiations, detente
and the future of US-Soviet relations. In August 1984 the third
round of Geneva talks convened and ended, and Washington announced
that it was supplying the Afghan resistance at the rate of $280
million a year. Once again the foreign ministers of the European
Community renewed their appeal to Moscow to resolve the crisis by
withdrawing from South Asia. Europe's role in condemning the
Soviet Union put pressure on Moscow to rethink its Afghan policy
at a time when Moscow was pursuing relations with the West. In
October the US Congress approved a resolution declaring "it should
be the policy of the United States to encourage and support the
people of Afghanistan to continue their struggle to be free of
foreign domination". In 1985 Gorbachev assumed power in the Soviet
Union following the death of Chernenko on March 10. Although it
was not immediately evident, Gorbachev's government would
eventually embark on overhauling Soviet foreign policy, including
Moscow's Afghan policy. In many respects the assent of Gorbachev
marked the beginning of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. A
determination to restructure the domestic economy forced Moscow to
rethink expensive and unpopular foreign policy initiatives in the
Third World and Europe. Gorbachev also had to weigh the relative
advantages to be gained from continued involvement in countries
like Afghanistan with potential gains to be derived from normal
relations with the West and China, both of which were critical of
Soviet policy in South Asia.
In April 1985 Ronald Reagan signed a National Security Decision
Directive (NSDD No. 166) directed specifically at the Soviet
presence in Afghanistan. The effort to drive the Soviets out of
South Asia was to be conducted "by all means available". In March
the Reagan Administration decided to equip the resistance with
sophisticated Stinger missiles. The missiles would not reach the
rebels until late in 1986 but this would eventually be regarded as
a turning point in the Afghan conflict . Geneva IV took place
between June 20 and 25, 1985, ten months after the failure of the
third round. Cordovez held talks with US Assistant Secretary of
State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Richard Murphy,
and Yuli Alekseyev, Chief of the Middle Eastern Department of the
Soviet Foreign Ministry but neither side deviated from positions
taken in the second round. Two days before the talks opened,
Murphy met in Washington with Alekseyev and Oleg Sokolov, second
ranking official at the Soviet Embassy. This meeting was meant to
improve the conditions for concrete agreements in Geneva. Geneva
IV led to an understanding on non-interference, international
guarantees and the return of refugees.
However, under the instrument of "interrelationships", the issue
of a Soviet withdrawal was left unsettled. Pakistan insisted on
the implementation of the four instruments simultaneously, while
Kabul sought consecutive implementation of the instruments
beginning with "noninterference".
During this period, particularly intense fighting took place along
a forty-mile stretch of highway between Kabul and Jalalabad where
the heaviest rebel offensive of the war was launched. Thirteen
aircraft were also downed in three weeks of fighting in the
Sauglagh valley 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Kabul. The
offensive for this strategic valley was waged by the Shiite party
of Harakat-i-Islami based in Iran. While fighting continued
throughout August, veterans of the Afghan campaign in the Soviet
Union protested against the war. The protests were significant
because Moscow tolerated them. This new-found permissiveness
seemed to be Moscow's way to prepare the Soviets for a withdrawal
from Afghanistan, possibly without a clear-cut victory despite
substantial national sacrifices. Increasingly, domestic opposition
to the Afghan war questioned the wisdom of involvement in South
Asia while the Kremlin could only make pronouncements couched in
vague Marxist/Leninist cliches. Near the middle of 1985 Washington
pressured the Afghan resistance to organize into an alliance as a
pre-condition for receiving American aid. The new alliance based
itself in Peshawar, Pakistan and presented a relatively united
front despite internal friction.
Unification was difficult, however, as enmity groups often had
deep roots going back decades and including religious, ethnic,
linguistic and regional differences. Using the Soviet Union and
the government in Kabul as common enemies to all the parties,
however, enabled the resistance leadership to temporarily coalesce
in a common effort. Geneva V took place from August 26 to 30,
1985, and was noteworthy for Kabul's effort to establish
government-to-government talks with Islamabad. Pakistan objected
to such talks until some agreement was reached on refugee
repatriation and the Soviet withdrawal component of the
"interrelationship" instrument. Pakistan's position was stated by
its Foreign Minister Yaqub Khan in an address to the UN General
Assembly in which he criticized the Soviet and Afghan negotiators
for attempting to change the format of negotiations. Geneva V
ended without significant progress.
At the November 1985 summit between Reagan and Gorbachev the
United States took a more positive attitude toward the
negotiations over Afghanistan. In a letter delivered to the UN
Secretary-General, Washington noted that it was willing to act as
a guarantor of the Geneva process provided that the central issue
of a Soviet troop withdrawal and its interrelationship to the
other instruments were resolved.
In December 1985, Geneva VI ended without progress due to an
impasse over the negotiating format. Kabul claimed to have a
time-table for the withdrawal of Soviet troops if Islamabad would
agree to direct talks. Pakistan stood firm on indirect talks but
sensed a softening in the Afghan and Soviet positions. Without
having made any significant concessions Pakistan forced
Afghanistan to reintroduce the concept of withdrawal into the
negotiations. Although this round of talks ended without progress,
the rhetoric of Soviet withdrawal had been introduced into the
official debate for the first time in meaningful terms. Islamabad
gained renewed support for its position on November 13 when for
the sixth time the UN General Assembly passed with a vote of 122
to 19 and 12 abstentions a Pakistani resolution calling for the
withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
International proclamations continued to plague the Soviets and
contribute to their diplomatic isolation. A special report by the
UN Human Rights Commission was typical of the disclosures that
embarrassed Moscow. The report was critical of the Soviets and the
Karmal government for "gross violations of human rights", and
called for Moscow to resolve the crisis. About the same time the
International Institute of Strategic Studies in London published
its annual survey citing significant Soviet losses in the
five-year occupation and mass desertions by the Afghan military.
In January 1986 the sixteenth Islamic Council of Foreign Ministers
reaffirmed its commitment to the Afghan rebels and called for the
Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan. Moscow, always
sensitive to its image among Moslems, was apparently influenced by
the decision.
Early in 1986 Moscow and Kabul began to talk more openly about the
prospects of a Soviet withdrawal. In a February 1986 speech to the
27th Party Congress Gorbachev stated a desire to withdraw forces
"in the nearest future" indicating that he "had agreed with the
Afghan side on the schedule for a phased withdrawal as soon as a
political settlement was reached that would insure an actual
cessation in fighting and a dependable guarantee for the
non-resumption of foreign interference." The Soviet leader
referred to the Afghan crisis as a "bleeding wound" and admitted
that the venture was flawed, costly and debilitating.
The announcement by Gorbachev should be understood against the
background of overall changes in Soviet foreign policy, especially
in relation to Third World allies. This changing posture could
have been responsible for making Pakistan secure in standing its
ground on the issue of a troop withdrawal. One month later the UN
Human Rights Commission released its second report critical of the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as international criticism of the
Soviet Union mounted. Geneva VII was held in four separate rounds.
The first round of Geneva VII was held from May 19 to 23, 1986.
This followed the May 4 change in Afghan leadership from Babrak
Karmal to Lieutenant General Muhammad Najibullah, head of the
Afghan secret police. The change in leadership was an attempt to
make the Kabul government more acceptable to Islamabad but
Najibullah's close ties with Soviet intelligence raised doubts
over Moscow's intentions. The May talks in Geneva achieved little
and left the two sides at odds on a time-table for a Soviet
withdrawal. The Afghans sought a three-to-four year period, while
Pakistan insisted on six months or less.
In June, four leaders of the Afghan rebel alliance met with Reagan
in Washington and were reassured of American support for the
resistance. In a July speech given at Vladivostok, Gorbachev
announced that six regiments (6,000 to 7,000 troops) would be
withdrawn from Afghanistan by December 31; typically a major
Soviet offensive followed the announcement. The US administration
was critical of the proposed withdrawals, referring to them as
public relations efforts without making meaningful changes in the
Soviet presence in Afghanistan. The regiments to be withdrawn
would not change the course of the war since they did not include
combat troops but rather personnel that had been deployed just
weeks earlier.
The first phase of Geneva VII took place against the backdrop of
intensified Soviet military maneuvers to destroy resistance
strongholds on the Afghan/ Pakistan border. There were attacks on
resistance bases within Pakistan and an air engagement in which
two Pakistani F-16s downed two intruding Soviet-made SU-22
aircraft. The second phase of Geneva VII began on July 30 and
lasted into August, but failed to settle the issue of a timetable
for withdrawal.
In September 1986 the United States began to supply the Afghan
resistance with radio-guided Stinger missiles that inflicted heavy
losses on Soviet aircraft almost immediately. For many analysts of
the Afghan crisis the introduction of Stingers was a determining
factor in the Soviet decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. The
supply of Stingers also reopened the debate over the wisdom of
introducing sophisticated weapons in such a volatile part of the
world. In October, Moscow withdrew six regiments as part of the
initiative announced in July.
The American and British response to the withdrawal was critical.
Washington and London restated earlier claims that the withdrawal
of troops followed the introduction of more troops and resulted in
an insignificant net reduction. November saw a landslide of
international criticism for the Soviet Union. The United Nations
General Assembly passed overwhelmingly (122-20) for the seventh
time a resolution demanding the withdrawal of foreign troops from
Afghanistan, the UN Commission on Human Rights condemned the
Soviet occupation and Amnesty International accused Moscow of
participating in the torture of Afghan prisoners. Cordovez also
obtained an agreement in November on measures to monitor a troop
withdrawal but fell short of establishing a time-table. In 1987
negotiations in Geneva started and ended several times without
major breakthroughs and Reagan and Gorbachev met in summit without
significant agreements on Afghanistan. Nevertheless, contacts
between Moscow and Afghan rebel leaders were made and despite
insignificant progress in official forums, there was increasing
evidence of changes in the Soviets' Afghan policy.
In the beginning of 1987 Gorbachev continued to indicate that the
withdrawal of Soviet troops and achievement of a political
settlement were Moscow's primary goals in Afghanistan. The
expectations of a military success were nearly abandoned in
Moscow. In an attempt to coopt the resistance which seemed to be
gaining momentum, Kabul announced a cease-fire and a national
reconciliation policy. The policy was meant to create popular
support for the Najibullah government and encourage various of the
hundreds of resistance groups to surrender with amnesty. Within
days of declaring the cease-fire, the resistance alliance rejected
the overture and instead offered to negotiate directly with the
Soviets.
At the end of January there were growing signs that Moscow wanted
out of Afghanistan but an early withdrawal seemed unlikely unless
the resistance would moderate its position and agree to a
political settlement leading to a broad-based Afghan government
including a coalition with the communist Peoples Democratic Party
of Afghanistan. Sabotage within major, cities, car bombs and
violence against Soviet civilians contributed to-the feeling of
helplessness in Moscow and Kabul over the Soviet presence.
Diplomatic activity increased as senior Soviet and American
diplomats visited Islamabad to seek an acceptable end to the
Soviet involvement in Afghanistan. Much of the negotiations
included ways in which Moscow could extricate itself from South
Asia without embarrassment. For both Moscow and Washington it was
important that the Soviets were offered alternatives for a
graceful way out of Afghanistan. However, Islamabad and Washington
were having a difficult time controlling the resistance and
convincing the Peshawar alliance to compromise and accommodate
Kabul in the interest of an early Soviet withdrawal.
The third phase of Geneva VII was held from February 25 to March
9, 1987. This phase took place amid heavy fighting in Afghanistan
as the resistance launched a major offensive. The offensive was
followed by Afghan incursions into Pakistani territory when Afghan
and Soviet forces tried to destroy rebel strongholds across the
Duran Line. By late 1986 the impact of Stinger missiles was
beginning to be felt. Up to this point the air superiority of the
Afghan government had held the resistance in check. The new
missiles reduced that superiority giving the rebels the ability to
down fighters and helicopters.
This forced the government to adopt high-altitude flights which
severely reduced the effectiveness of aircraft and made helicopter
gun-ships relatively easy prey. According to some American
officials, at least 270 Soviet aircraft were downed from the
introduction of Stingers to the end of the war.
The course of the negotiations changed during the February-March
phase of Geneva VII. Differences on a time frame for a Soviet
withdrawal narrowed to less than one year; Afghanistan's Foreign
Minister, Abdul Wakil, sought eighteen months and Pakistan stood
firm on seven months or less. For the first time the talks touched
on the issue of the composition of the Afghan government following
a Soviet withdrawal.
During the month of May at least twenty-nine Soviet and Afghan
military aircraft were shot down. In July the resistance was
reported to be effectively employing Stinger missiles and downing
Soviet-made aircraft at the rate of one a day. It is difficult to
judge the impact Stingers had on the war but losses sustained by
the Kabul government were substantial and the costs to Moscow were
felt immediately. In the month of July, the rebels downed
forty-two planes and helicopters and destroyed about one kilometer
of pipeline carrying fuel from the Soviet Union to Afghanistan.
The damage to the pipeline disrupted fuel supplies going to the
largest Soviet air base at Shindand in Farah province.
The fourth phase of Geneva VII was held after three months of
intense fighting, heavy losses and desertions through June, July
and August. This phase convened at the unprecedented request of
the Soviet and Afghan governments and took place between September
7 and 10. The result was to close the gap on proposed time-tables
for Soviet troop withdrawals. The Kabul government lowered its
time frame from eighteen to sixteen months and Islamabad raised
its proposed span from six to eight months. Rebels launched a
large-scale operation to capture Afghan government military posts
in the southern province of Kandahar. The effort was significant
in coordinating the approximately thirty-five rebel groups
belonging to six resistance parties. Throughout the Afghan
conflict friction between rebel groups and a lack of coordination
was one of the resistance's major weaknesses, but sensing a
victory over the Soviets enabled the resistance to temporarily
overcome differences. By the middle of September, journalists
returning from Afghanistan's northern areas reported that nine
provinces were controlled by the resistance.
The renowned rebel commander Ahmad Shah Masood had consolidated
his positions in the area lying between Kabul and the Soviet
border, including the strategic Panjshar valley and Salang highway
through which a Soviet withdrawal would be largely conducted. Due
to his military prowess and the strategic region he controlled
throughout much of the Soviet occupation, Masood had become
legendary as a rebel leader and both Kabul and Moscow realized
that he would be instrumental in a withdrawal. Late in September,
Pakistan's Prime Minister Junejo addressed the General Assembly
and met with Reagan. Washington reaffirmed American support to the
resistance while in his address to the General Assembly, Junejo's
appeal for a Soviet withdrawal met with widespread approval.
The Kabul government detailed the severe damage that had been
caused by the eight-year war. In addressing the United Nations,
Afghan Foreign Minister Abdul Wakil noted that the war had ruined
the national economy. The destruction had taken 2,000 schools,
3,500 bridges, 258 production sites, 224 mosques, 131 hospitals,
fifty cultural centers, thousands of trucks and thousands of
kilometers in highways and roads. In response, purges were carried
out within the Afghan government in October. Fifteen prominent
members of the Afghan communist party leadership who had been
associated with Babrak Karmal were removed from office and after
the conclusion of a national PDPA conference there were
large-scale arrests. Some estimates of the purge were as high as
2,000 members of the PDPA expelled from the ruling party.
Confusion and frustration over a likely Soviet withdrawal seemed
to be taking a toll on the Afghan government.
Forced conscription of Afghans as young as sixteen years was
resumed in October. The effect of the policy was hard to determine
but it may have been partly responsible for the widespread
defections that plagued the Afghan military in 1987 and 1988. This
same month Afghan president Najibullah's brother, Mohammad
Siddiqui, defected to the rebel group of Ahmad Shah Masood in the
Panjshar valley of northern Afghanistan. Continuing its attacks on
Soviet prestige, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for
the eighth time on a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. The
margin of this eighth resolution in as many years was the widest
ever with 123 for, 19 against and 11 abstentions. The vote was
also seen as a rejection of intense lobbying by Moscow as Soviet
credibility continued to wane. On November 12, Reagan met with
Afghan guerrilla leaders in the White House.
The meeting occurred amid growing signs that the resistance might
need to make some concessions in the Geneva talks to ensure a
Soviet withdrawal. Reagan assured the resistance leadership that
support from Washington would be strengthened rather than
diminished in the future. The US State Department noted that the
morale of the resistance was at an all-time high as Soviet efforts
in Afghanistan had been unsuccessful in consolidating a hold over
the country, a military settlement was unlikely and a Soviet
withdrawal seemed closer.
In 1987 the Soviets lost aircraft costing $2.5 billion. The losses
were attributed to the sophisticated weapons the rebels were
getting from Washington and through Pakistan, particularly Stinger
missiles. If the training costs of the crews lost with the
aircraft were taken into consideration, the Soviet Union was
carrying a significant financial burden in Afghanistan. By
mid-November Moscow was ready to compromise on a timetable for
withdrawal. The Afghan military continued to be plagued by
defections, the UN passed another resolution condemning the Soviet
Union for human rights violations in Afghanistan, and within the
Soviet Union domestic opposition to Moscow's Afghan policy grew
with more open criticism of the government. Together, these along
with overall changes in Soviet foreign policy confirmed Soviet
intentions for a withdrawal.
Diplomatic activities increased with the approach of the
Reagan-Gorbachev Washington summit in December of 1987. In
meetings between US Under Secretary of State Armacost and Soviet
Deputy Foreign Minister Yuli Vorontsov (who would later become the
Soviet ambassador to Kabul), it was revealed that Moscow planned
to end its engagement in Afghanistan within a seven to twelve
month period. The Afghan issue was discussed in pre-summit talks
between US Secretary of State Schultz and Soviet Foreign Minister
Shevardnadze, as well as between Reagan and Gorbachev during the
summit itself.
In early December the director of the Soviet Institute of World
Economic and International Relations and one of Gorbachev's key
advisors announced that he expected his country to leave
Afghanistan in 1988. The announcement came days before Reagan and
Gorbachev met in summit. While Gorbachev and Reagan met, fighting
continued in northern Afghanistan. The fighting was so intense
that Soviet villagers were evacuated on the other side of the Amu
Darya river which forms part of the border between Afghanistan and
the Soviet Union. During the summit Gorbachev's proposal for a
Soviet withdrawal included a twelve-month timetable.
The Americans criticized the proposal and the summit ended without
a major agreement on Afghanistan. The same month, broad offensives
were waged by Soviet and Afghan government forces throughout
Afghanistan. Within the Soviet Union demonstrations against the
Afghan war were disrupted and prohibited. Moscow seemed determined
to make at least one last effort to create conditions for a
graceful withdrawal. Although there were no concrete agreements on
Afghanistan, the Washington summit (the third of four
Reagan-Gorbachev summits) was the beginning of a marked shift in
the Soviet position. The requirement of an internal settlement as
a precursor to withdrawal was becoming less important to Moscow.
The summit revealed that Moscow would not link its withdrawal to
the establishment of an interim government of Soviet choice.
Gorbachev wanted to rid himself of the Afghan morass, considered
relations with the United States and the West more important that
Afghanistan, and sought to get on with the business of reorienting
Soviet foreign policy and domestic affairs. As it became more
evident that the Soviet Union was going to pull out of
Afghanistan, the United States needed to propose a suitable
response.
The major issue was whether the accord would require the Americans
to stop support for the resistance as the Soviets withdrew troops.
Critics in the United States feared that Washington might "sell
out" the resistance and should seek a new accord. However, new
demands could make Washington look guilty of stalling the
negotiations. Diplomatic activity intensified in late 1987 and
early 1988 due to the question of achieving an internal political
settlement as a precondition for a Soviet withdrawal. It was
generally believed that the Soviet Union would not leave
Afghanistan without ensuring that the communist government in
Kabul was secure. The subject of the composition of a post-Soviet
government was not within the parameters of the UN sponsored
negotiations yet integral to the successful settlement of the
crisis. At the third Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Washington,
Gorbachev made it clear that he no longer linked the withdrawal of
Soviet troops to the establishment of a friendly interim
government.
The Decision To Withdraw
In 1988 the war in Afghanistan continued to intensify with the
prospects of a Soviet withdrawal. The Afghan government and the
resistance fought to consolidate their positions and to be
well-placed when Soviet forces pulled out of the country. The
Soviets needed to keep the routes open for retreating troops and
to insure at least the temporary security of the Najibullah
government. These final maneuvers resulted in some of the most
intense fighting of the war. There were also severe differences
within the resistance that resulted in military clashes as the
various parties maneuvered to gain the advantage in a struggle for
the future of Afghanistan. The differences between the various
rebel groups would also, prove to be the resistance's principal
weakness. By the spring of 1990 the Najibullah government would
still be skillfully exploiting these differences and maintaining
its hold on Kabul. Defections remained a chronic problem for the
Afghan government and contributed to the disdain the Soviets often
held for the Afghan army and its officer corps. There was little
loyalty among government troops that often colluded with rebels in
overtaking government positions.
When troops defected they took arms, vehicles, supplies and other
material to the resistance, and often proved unreliable in
executing strategies. As the deadline for a withdrawal of Soviet
troops approached, defections increased and subversion within the
military became epidemic. Typically, after a rebel offensive,
Afghan or Soviet planes retaliated by bombing an area held by the
resistance. These bombardments often destroyed houses or entire
villages, crops and irrigation systems killed livestock and
civilians. Bombing in pursuit of rebels also continued into
Pakistan where there would be casualties, villages occasionally
destroyed and inhabitants misplaced. This part of the war created
resentment among Afghans, particularly villagers, and made the
government in Kabul as well as the Soviets unpopular in much of
the region.
The Soviets found that they were unable to penetrate the cultural
links between government soldiers and the Afghan system of clans,
tribes and ethnic groups that excluded foreigners. As the crisis
wore on, domestic loyalty to the government in Kabul became more
remote. Unable to walk safely in cities at night or frequent the
bazaars during the day, increased the tension among those Soviets
living in the major urban areas. Not only did Afghans resent the
Soviet presence but official Soviets and Russian solders resented
the war. By the mid-1980s the war had become a frustrating
exercise for Moscow. At no time during the nine-year crisis, was
either the Kabul government or the Soviet military able to control
the rural areas or substantial parts of the country.
Friction also developed between the Soviet and Afghan
militaries. The
differences were primarily on military points of strategy in
the conduct
of the war and along cultural lines, intensified by
frustrated efforts
to bring a successful end to the conflict. Due to defections
and what
Moscow considered low morale, the Soviets perceived their
Afghan allies
as inadequate, uncommitted, undisciplined and perhaps
ungrateful.
There
was an underlying disdain for their Afghan military
counterparts who
were often considered undependable or otherwise unable to do
an adequate
job. As the date for the completion of the Soviet withdrawal
drew near,
Soviet officers were relatively candid in predicting the
collapse of the
Kabul regime. While this did not occur as rapidly as
predicted, it
nevertheless demonstrated resentment between the two
partners in the
revolution.
For their part, the Afghan military, in particular the
soldier in the
field felt little identification with its Soviet supporters.
The average
conscript identified more with his tribe, his people and
religion and
was often near desertion. The capture of Herat was one of
the best
examples of collusion between Afghan troops and the
resistance.
In
August 1988, members of the provincial government in Herat
and the
central government in Kabul, along with elements in the
military,
cooperated with the resistance in capturing this strategic
western
provincial capital bordering the Soviet Union and Iran.
Prior to the
rebel offensive, 3,000 government troops defected to the
resistance when
the rebels announced an amnesty for government soldiers.
Similarly, when
the important city of Kunduz was captured by the resistance
in late
1988, General Gromov, head of Soviet forces in Afghanistan,
publicly
refused Kabul's requests to help recapture the city. The
influence which
the resistance exercised in the Afghan army helped to
subvert Soviet
efforts in Afghanistan, contributed to tensions between
Kabul and Soviet
strategists, and sabotaged the overall strategy for
consolidating
communist control over the country.
There were also differences within the rebel alliance. These
differences
concerned the future role of the former king, Zahir Shah,
the
composition of a future government and strategy for
confronting
Najibullah. Moderates within the alliance sought a
broadbased government
and the conservative Islamic parties fought against
compromise and
sought an Islamic government dominated by the rebel alliance
and
excluding the communists.
the end of the Soviet occupation and well into 1990,
differences also
evolved between field commanders and the Pakistan-based
rebel
leadership. Those in the field felt that they had made the
greatest
sacrifices and had earned political influence. Those in
Pakistan
considered themselves the leadership, having met with heads
of state and
procured the means to conduct the war. Finally, there was
the leadership
in Iran that demanded a share of influence and would
eventually fight
for political power following the Soviet withdrawal.
Superimposed on
these more prominent differences, were the ethnic,
religious, and social
differences that characterize Afghan society. At no time
during the war
was the resistance unified, rather it was a movement
composed of
disparate groups that occasionally came together for a particular
military effort or on particular issues.
Conclusion
United Nations played a vital role in the soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. Being an international organization, it served in the
interest of the country which was in hour of danger. The way of
dealing with the conflicts of two or more than two countries is
very difficult for an international organization as it has to
serve the best to the affected and innocent country. The same was
done by the United Nations in the above mentioned matter. It saved
the interest of Afghanistan as the invasion of the soviet was
deteriorating the condition of the country. Not only during the
invasion time, but it worked after the withdrawal of soviet from
Afghanistan.
During the Soviet occupation, the United Nations was highly
critical of the U.S.S.R.'s interference in the internal affairs of
Afghanistan and was instrumental in obtaining a negotiated Soviet
withdrawal under the terms of the Geneva accords. In the aftermath
of the accords and subsequent Soviet withdrawal, the United
Nations has assisted in the repatriation of refugees and has
provided humanitarian aid such as health care, educational
programs, and food and has supported mine-clearing operations. The
UNDP and associated agencies have undertaken a limited number of
development projects.
For the fulfillment of the welfare of the country and its people,
it worked very efficiently. The role of UN in Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan shows that international organizations are very
important in present scenario where every country wants to be a
hegemon and are willing to show its power to other state. With the
help of these international organizations, the states can come
over the situation of conflict in this world.
Law links:
1)
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2)
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author can be reached at: romit@legalserviceindia.com/
