TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/022089/02208900.039

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««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