More Agony

An odd peace offensive

All along the main highway north of Kabul, Soviet and Afghan air and ground artillery bombardments rained down on guerrilla positions. Earlier, Soviet helicopter gunships and fighter-bombers had pounded Charikar, the capital of Parwan province, and villages in the nearby Kheyr Khaneh Pass, sending thousands of refugees into the capital city of Kabul. Those who were able to flee across the border into Pakistan called last week's attacks the heaviest since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After the attacks, Soviet helicopters dropped leaflets saying "Peace is on the way."

Washington publicly deplored the "extremely heavy, brutal and prolonged" Soviet bombing of rebel regions, and repeated the U.S. desire "to see Afghanistan's agony brought to an end through Soviet troop withdrawal as part of a negotiated settlement." Western military analysts in Pakistan said that the Soviets may be trying to soften up their withdrawal routes for the time when a pullout is arranged. But Moscow was hardly taking any chances. In Ghazni, south of Kabul, some 10,000 Soviet troops, along with ground and air support, were reportedly massed in preparation for a maneuver to seal off the border with Pakistan.

The northern Pakistani city of Peshawar, which serves as headquarters for the Afghan rebels, was rife with rumors last week that some kind of deal was about to be worked out between the Soviet-installed regime of Afghan President Babrak Karmal and the government of Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq. Diplomats from the two countries, have been meeting in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations in an attempt to negotiate an agreement, but the rebels are opposed to the talks on the grounds that they are not represented.

Pakistan has good reason to hope for a solution to the 3 1/2-year-old conflict, which has sent 3 million Afghan refugees, many of them heavily armed, streaming across the border. Pakistan recently ordered the guerrillas to move out of Peshawar and into more remote regions closer to the Afghan border. In an attempt to reassure the rebels, Zia said last week that Pakistan would continue to support the Afghan resistance until a satisfactory political solution had been achieved.

In preparation for the next round of talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which are set to begin in Geneva in June, U.N. Under Secretary General Diego Cordovez has been trying to put together a comprehensive plan. It would include 1) the withdrawal of the 105,000 Soviet troops now in Afghanistan, 2) the repatriation of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan and an additional million who are in Iran, and 3) a guarantee of Afghanistan's right to self-determination without external interference in its internal affairs. Last month, Cordovez declared that an accord was "95% in the bag," but he may have been overly optimistic. Says a U.S. State Department specialist: "We do not see the Soviets leaving a volatile situation behind, and we do not see any Afghan government, even a coalition, acceptable to them that would not face continued resistance from the people."

Relations between Washington and Kabul became even frostier than usual last week after Afghanistan expelled U.S. Second Secretary Peter Graham, accusing the diplomat of selling pornographic literature in exchange for rugs. Calling the charge "ludicrous and wholly without foundation," the State Department retaliated by ordering Masjaedi Hewadmal, second secretary at the Afghan embassy in Washington, to leave. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.