The awful logic of genocide

National Review, Oct 4, 1985 by Jean-Francois Revel

In August 1979, the Afghan garrison in Kavul realized the the unpopularity of Communist President Nur Mohammed Taraki was starting to provoke rebellion in the country and that it would be prudent to replace him with someone less openly under the orders of Moscow. This garrison was then massacred by Soviet troops, including air units already stationed in the area. How could Western governments not have known about it? After having first killed Taraki, then his successor, Hafizullah Amin, and installed intheir place a "faithful friend," Babrak Karmal, the Soviets knew that no Communist leader in Kabul could stay in power without strong Soviet support. The invasion and the occupation were anything but an "accident" since they constituted the natural consequences of a systematic course of action.

The second reason the West resists information about Afghanistan is the Soviet violations of human rights in that country. These violations are so widespread that our governments are scared even to raise the question, knowing very well that Moscow will, in its usual humiliating manner, refuse even to discuss it. That is why he press and other media greeted so tepidly the February 19, 1985, United Nations report on the condition of human rights in Afghanistan by Felix Ermacora, Special Rapporteur--a report whose very existence is practically miraculous and which deserves a salute on that ground alone, but which was quickly relegated to obscurity. What does it teach us?

The repression takes two forms: the torture and execution of opponents and resistance fighters, and the massacre and deportations of the civilian population. In "Le Grand Jeu Afghan" (Politique Internationale, Spring 1985) Michael Barry reports that between April 27, 1978 (the date of the pro-Soviet coup d'etat), and January 1980, 27,000 people were executed in the Poli Charki concentration camp, situated six miles east of Kabul. "This is not an estimate," writes Barry. "This is the simple addition of the names of the victims posted by the regime in public places to discourage the families from crowding around the gates of the prisons with packages of clothing and food." A major portion of the educated elite, the author adds, perished in this carnage: diplomats, doctors, professors, engineers, non-Communist officials, spiritual leaders. While estimating the number of those shot at "only" 12,000, the UN report corroborates the basic story.

In this context, according to the information received, a number of political prisoners were also tortured. One of the complaints relates to Mr. Sayed Abdullah Kazim, a former dean of the Faculty of Economics, imprisoned at Poli Charki at the same times as Mr. Ludin. In this connection, Mr. Ludin, himself arrested in June 1978 and detained until 11 January 1980 in the Poli Charki prison, revels that he himself was present during the torturing of Mr. Kazim, who had the fingers of both hands crushed under the legs of a chair on which two of his torturers sat. Having himself been tortured, the witness drew the attention of the Special Rapporteur particularly to events which had taken place on the nights of 31 May to 1 June 1979 in the Poli Charki prison. Shots fired in the prison courtyard had been heard by the witness, who was told by the prison guards that about 118 prisoners were being executed. The shooting was followed by the departure of buses carrying the bodies, some of them still showing signs of life. The testimony of a former female detainee of Poli Charki likewise revealed that during her detention between May and November 1978, she had several times heard shooting in the prison courtyard along with the departure of the corpses of prisoners in buses. The same witness spoke of the existence of a section of the prison reserved exclusively for women, and the Special Rapporteur had the occasion to interview a woman who had been incarcerated in that prison.