An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World (26 page)
Read An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World Online
Authors: William T. Vollmann
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Personal Memoirs, #History, #Military, #Afghan War (2001-), #Literary
I imagine that every word of this is true.
Well, perhaps it was no wonder that almost every Afghan or Pakistani I talked to believed that I was some omnipotent C.I.A. manipulator; —that almost every Afghan or Pakistani thought that he was controlled;—that in Peshawar they kept saying that a secret deal had been made whereby the Soviets would be allowed to hold on to Afghanistan and the Americans were to take over the Middle East. —What would
these people have thought if they could have been, say, in San Francisco on February 12, 1987 (a rainy day), watching an anti-Asian rally in front of the Korean Embassy, the workmen with their heavy slickers, the good old boys twirling unbrellas, waving American flags and yelling,
“Flag! Flag! Flag! Flag!”
o
—The young men looked serious and stupid. The older ones were smiling. Everyone was tremendously excited. The iron-workers’ union was there, saying that Korea was exporting unemployment.
—“GET THE GOOKS OUT OF AMERICA!”
—For the Americans also believed that they were controlled.
And yet the situation was not entirely symmetrical. For when the Young Man learned that so many Mujahideen groups had come into play long before the final change of government, as maliciously twiddling and poking fingers of Pakistani
Realpolitik
, he felt a deep sense of shock—and yet he ought to have known how matters stood as soon as he saw the Brigadier’s letter!
…that after two months of the agreement we will be helped with the following: …40 Powerful explosive Bumbs…
Somehow when his own government did it, it did not seem either surprising or bad. Why was this?
“How do you think we can best help the Mujahideen groups now?” the Young Man said.
“The problem is still the same as it was,” said the Reliable Source. “It requires a central leadership; it requires a central figure who enjoys the confidence of all the elements of the Mujahideen, and that is the only way you can bring about unity amongst them. It is first amongst
themselves, and then between them and the tribal elders, but first of all a program must be chopped out, about what is the best form of government that should come about initially in Afghanistan.”
“And who can that figure be if it isn’t Zaher Shah?”
“Well, it has to be someone by consensus. In tribal society that is always simple. But the mullahs—Gulbuddin and Rabbani—they will not accept that. The tribes will accept that, yes, but not the mullahs. So again you are at cross-purposes. The fact was, in 1973 to ’77, though we voted that we wanted Zaher Shah and we did not get him, the fact is that they remained an effective group, because there was effective coordination. And that could be brought about even today. —Now, the history of Afghanistan is that the kingmakers have been the tribesmen of Pakistan. What is the kingdom of Afghanistan? It’s a grouping of tribal groups brought about by Ahmad Shah in 1747. It is a medieval age there still, a tribal society, and this is what the Russians miscalculated, and this is why there are uprisings always. Now, what was Ahmad Shah doing? If there was uprising in Kabul you use Kandahar. If an uprising in Kandahar you play off Kabul. So these two elements were always made to balance each other. Or the Pushtuns were made to balance the rest. And so this sort of thing carried on. And this was how we operated as well. This was part of our program:
that the groups of Gulbuddin and all were just to raise the issue
, or bring it to the focus in case something happened. Our own tribesmen, of ethnic commonality, would also move in such large numbers that they would then have their effect and bring about that change. That was the program. Now, this government again miscalculated and lost an opportunity between April of ’78 and December of ’79
p
—this could have been successfully achieved.”
“Given this tribal predominance and the fact that the tribes move back and forth across the Durand Line, can the Soviet Union digest Afghanistan without also digesting Pakistan?” asked the Young Man.
“It depends, you see,” said the Reliable Source. “They have, let us say, already digested Afghanistan to all intents and purposes. Now with the Geneva talks I think they are just going to give the situation
de facto
or
de jure
recognition. I do not think the Russians will enjoy any additional advantage by taking Pakistan. Now, Afghanistan was important from our point of view in the old times, when their objective was Delhi, and the army must move through the N.W.F.P. and those regions. But with that violently left movement in 1971, the Treaty of Friendship and things, the Russians and the Indians have a common axis, a common interest. So the objective is not Delhi anymore. If it is the Gulf, or denial of the Gulf oil to the West, then the next objective will automatically be Iran; it will not be us. If the goal is Baluchistan, then it will be us.”
“So you don’t think the Russians will care that they won’t have entirely subdued the tribes in eastern Afghanistan?”
“The point is, if the Pakistan government is not willing to interfere in Afghan affairs, then these tribesmen will be neutralized, as they are today. With all these events taking place in Afghanistan, the tribesmen on our side remain neutral. But if the government had motivated these tribes, then of course the question would have come about.”
“What would you say the chances are of the Russians being pushed out of Afghanistan?”
“None whatever.”
Well, and so the Reliable Source was wrong, for the Soviets did, of course, leave Afghanistan in 1989, and yet the Great Game may not be over.
*
The Qur’an puts this prettily, remarking what a divine wonder it is that the place from which milk issues is located between the blood and the dung.
†
See the entry in the Chronology for that year.
‡
That is, since the very birth of Pakistan.
§
The ideal or specter (depending on who looked at it) of a separate state for the Pakistani and Afghan Pathans, in Pakistani territory. The inhabitants of the North-West Frontier Province were mainly Pathans, like my friend General N., like his guest the Brigadier, like the refugees whom I interviewed. They had more in common with their fellows in eastern Afghanistan, with whom they had traded and intermarried for thousands of years, than with someone from Sind or Baluchistan. It was impossible for a foreigner to understand much of what they thought and what was important to them. The tribespeople on the border passed easily through the Soviet checkpoint on the Durand Line to trade with their counterparts. In those early days before the United States and the Arabs had begun to give much of their so-called covert aid to the Mujahideen, Pathans sold to Pathans. The principal business of the town of Darra, through which I passed in an International Rescue Committee van (it was a tribal area; we were not allowed to stop), was the manufacture of arms, from .38 caliber pistols made to resemble ballpoint pens to antiaircraft guns, all hand-produced. The General said that the people of Darra could copy any weapon so well that external inspection could not determine the original. He also said that those replicas sometimes blew up when fired. The Afghans were faithful patrons in Darra in 1982.
‖
The Pakistan-Afghanistan border (especially in the North-West Frontier Province). See Chronology, entry for 1893.
a
The war between Pakistan and India, which Pakistan lost.
b
An indecisive skirmish between Pakistan and India.
c
An attempted putsch against Daoud. See Chronology, entry for 1975.
d
The two rival leftist groups in Afghanistan, whom the Russians were to use in their chess game. See Chronology, entry for 1965.
e
Daoud’s brother. Daoud was Prime Minister under Zaher Shah from 1953 to 1963, when he resigned over an imbroglio over the Pushtunistan issue. Daoud and Naim were members of the Royal Family. The Constitution of 1964 prohibited anyone in the Royal Family from holding political office. Daoud seized power on July 17, 1973, when Zaher Shah was on a visit to Italy. Naim was one of his advisers during his five years of power. Both of these men and their families were liquidated in a leftist coup on April 27, 1978 (see Chronology).
f
Louis Dupree,
Afghanistan
, pp. 530–33.
g
P. 9.
h
See the Chronology’s entries for 1844–1907.
i
I.e., Taraki’s coup in 1978.
j
This would have been a few months after Daoud’s coup. He had already begun to send his 1,600 Parcham cadres into the rural areas to preach modernization. The mullahs’ hackles were rising.
k
Which he did the year after the Panjsher Uprising (see Chronology, entry for 1976).
l
Here a recapitulation may be useful. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ran the right-wing group Hezb-i-Islami, Maulvi Mohammad Yunus Khalis controlled a splinter group from Hezb-i named after him, and Maulvi Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi ran Herakat-i-Inqelab-i-Islami, an organization somewhat more to the liberal taste. † This sentence makes it clear that the Reliable Source is not always so reliable in the matter of dates, for earlier (see p. 176) he had said that Rabbani came in 1974.
m
I.e., after Zia displaced Bhutto.
n
In June 1982, when this interview was given, the United States had not yet admitted that it was supporting the Mujahideen via Pakistan. Therefore this was interesting news to me at the time. Five years later, it seemed only vaguely sad and sordid, like the Panjsher “Uprising”—and sadder and more sordid still because I support overt and covert aid to the Mujahideen. How true, alas, that there are so many things that one cannot say directly!
o
Or, as they must say in Afghanistan:
“Parcham! Parcham! Parcham! Parcham!”
p
I.e., the civil convulsions in Afghanistan just before the invasion.
A MATTER OF POLITICS:
FRIENDLY ENEMIES
(1982)
It is not important whether an Afghan is Shia or Sunni. We are all brothers … All those who lead the present resistance and fight against the Russians are patriotic and great personalities. Professor Rabbani is both Shia and Sunni. I am both Shia and Sunni. Everybody is both Shia and Sunni in Afghanistan, and the one who is not is not Muslim.
(Young Man: Is Gulbuddin your brother?)
Yes, of course he is my brother. He has very courageously fought against the Russian invaders. It is a matter of politics which causes disunity among the parties. There are Russian agents who make mischief and cause disagreement and difficulties among the leaders. They are all great men of their time.
S
HIA
M
UJAHIDEEN
C
OMMANDER
O
f course the Afghans were unified now. The Young Man knew they must be; he had read it in the papers over and over. They had even formed a common organization called Islamic Unity of Afghan Mujahideen. —Well, no. Actually there were two rival organizations by this name, and they hated each other. But everyone told him that until recently there had been some trouble, but now the factions were as tight as the Three Musketeers. (In his notebook he wrote: “Need to know how often they kill each other before I know whether I can countenance supporting them.”)
*
“So now the Mujahideen never fight each other?” the Young Man inquired.
“That is very much exaggerated, you see,” said the refugee camp administrator quickly. “That news item is very much exaggerated now. There might have been some very few cases, but not the thing it has become in Western media. It was individual enmity that developed. That was one case. Another case was the soldiers of the Karmal regime, you see. They wanted to surrender to one party of the Mujahideen. While they were on the way, Jamiat-i-Islami people caught them. And they were going to shoot them. And the other party, Hezb-i-Islami, told them that you shouldn’t. And a fight developed … There
was
a fight, a long, long time ago. But now it has finished.”
“So everyone is unified now?”
The administrator nodded. They were drinking
lessee
in a guest tent, and the administrator finished his cup and held it up until an old man gave him more.
Secretary-General Pizzarda, holding the helmet of a Soviet soldier
“Everyone is united and quite satisfied,” he said. “And if somebody body wants to surrender, he surrenders to the whole organization, you see.”
