Afghanistan Part Three

Part Three of the Six-Part ‘Afghanistan’ Blog Series

Last week’s blog ended with the Soviets giving the nod of approval to former Afghan Prime Minister, Mohammed Daud’s (Ma Dude) plan to take power from his cousin, the King of Afghanistan. The current Afghan PM Musa Shafiq had pissed off the Soviets for openly declining to join their communist club so they wanted someone in power, who was A) on the Soviet’s side, and B) someone who would do as they were told, making Afghanistan the ideal pawn piece on the chessboard of Asia.

And who better than former pro-soviet, bezzie m8 of Nikita Khrushtev… Ma Dude!

During his term as Prime Minister, Ma Dude brought Afghanistan closer to the Soviets. In 1963 he was forced to resign by the King of Afghanistan (his cousin, awkward…) and in response, immediately began plotting to regain power… which the Soviets now supported. On the 17th July 1973 at precisely 4 o’clock in the morning, Ma Dude overthrows his cousin, King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan and comes to power (which really takes falling out with your cousin to a whole new level…”MUUUUUUMM!! Mohammed just toppled my government and removed me from power! Tell him to stop!” .

Don’t worry, the coup wasn’t violent. Rumours had been circulating and when the King got wind of it, he yeeted himself out of Afghanistan ASAP. So when Ma dude ordered his followers into action and took control of Kabul that morning, it was relatively straightforward as the King was conveniently out of the country in Italy. The following morning, Ma Dude announced on Kabul Radio that he had acted to end Afghanistan’s slide into anarchy and economic meltdown, and made clear that the King had been removed and would not be allowed to return. King Zahir Shah, on the other hand, decided not to retaliate, and he formally abdicated on the 24th of August, remaining in Italy in exile (Arrivederci x).

Ma Dude abolished the monarchy altogether and declared himself the President of the newly established Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (oh, the irony). Whilst settling into his new role as President and in the sPiRiT oF dEmOCrAcY (Yes, Spongebob meme), he decided to get rid of his political opponents after accusing them of plotting against him. His primary targets were members and supporters of the previous governments, followed by his Islamist critics. Remember, these were the guys that were constantly clashing with Ma Dudes mates, the communists (Communism = atheism + Islam = Shitstorm).

Many prominent Islamists were tortured and killed as a result of Ma Dude’s government purge, HOWEVER, some managed to escape… (Mujadidi, Sayyaf, Hikmatyar and Rabanni – remember these names). They fled to Peshawar, Pakistan to form an Islamist movement dedicated to taking Afghanistan away from Soviet control and bringing the country back to its traditional Islamic ways. This movement was called the Mujahideen… 

Once in power, Ma Dude tried to avoid making the same mistake he made when he was Prime Minister, i.e. cosying up to the Soviets and pissing off the majority of Afghans. Remember, Afghanistan remained neutral during the Second World War so most of them wanted Afghanistan to remain neutral in the Cold War, too.

Ma Dude understood this now and wanted to distance Afghanistan away from the Soviets. So he focused on building up foreign relations with other countries, which he did, pretty well. However, this relationship-building exercise (particularly with the West) pissed off the Soviets. To them, their little ‘puppet’ leader who they thought they had total control of, had appeared to have cut his strings and strutted off!

It’s also important to note that during this period, Afghanistan became increasingly popular with Western hippies who were journeying along the ‘Hippie Trail’ (Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal). Naturally, this brought an influx of young Western tourists with an appetite for cannabis to Afghanistan.

In 1977, Ma Dude paid a state visit to Moscow. The Soviet leadership was determined to make sure the Afghan President knew his place and made it quite clear that the USSR was deeply dissatisfied with his government’s policies.

The Soviets complained about the increasing numbers of Westerners arriving in Afghanistan and demanded Ma Dude to remove the foreigners as “were nothing more than spies bent on promoting Western imperialism”.

Ma Dude for his part was equally determined to reaffirm Afghanistan’s neutrality and independence and was furious that the USSR thought it had that much control over him.

He boldly declared, ‘We will never allow you to dictate to us how to run our country and whom to employ in Afghanistan,’ he retorted, ‘how and where we employ the foreign experts will remain the exclusive prerogative of the Afghan State.’ (oooh go on Mohammed ya sassy betch!)

The spat in Moscow was the last straw as far as Brezhnev was concerned and it was decided that Ma Dude had to go. (ALEXA! Play ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ by Queen).

On the 17th of April 1978, prominent communist figure, Mir Akber Khyber. was shot dead outside his house. The PDPA (the Communist party) used this as an opportunity to publicly demonstrate their anger with Ma Dude and his government.

Two days later, thousands of people poured onto the streets of Kabul in the funeral procession of Mr, Khyber. They denounced the government of President Daud Khan and held it responsible for this murder. Roughly 15,000 people lined the streets, throwing red garlands (a symbol of Martyrdom, which means dying for what you believe in).

The size of the crowds terrified Ma Dude who had seemingly underestimated 1) how unpopular he was and 2)the levels of support for the PDPA. Ma Dude became a paranoid mess and ordered the arrest of the PDPA leadership. Nur Taraki, Babrak Karmal and the others were rounded up but Hafizullah Amin avoided arrest.

Amin believed at this point that Ma Dude was about to kill his commie mates and so he sought support from some of his fellow leftie mates in the military, urging them to remove Ma Dude QUICKTIME.

Nine days later, an emergency meeting between Ma Dude and his cabinet was abruptly interrupted by gunfire. Amin’s leftie military mates shot the living shit out of Ma Dude and the rest of the cabinet. Their corpses were later thrown in an unmarked grave (savage). A few days later the Kabul Times released a paper with the headline “Remnant’s of Monarchy Wiped” (remember, Ma Dude was the King’s cousin). This was known as the Saur Revolution which saw the PDPA rise to power to form the Afghan government.

More than 30 years after his assassination, Mohammed Daud Khan, Afghanistan’s first President finally got a proper burial in 2009.

Right, are we all up to speed? The communist PDPA are now in government. Are they stable? Absolutely f*cking not.

The new communist PDPA government was essentially a coalition of two rival Marxist parties (Parcham and Khalq). Alongside this, President Taraki, the leader of the PDPA goes and slaps heavy restrictions on Western activity in Afghanistan so as to bring the USSR closer.

The Afghan government then signed a series of treaties with the USSR (basically committing itself militarily and culturally). However, one key treaty that was signed (FOR GOD’S SAKE REMEMBER THIS TREATY IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT, OK?) was the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighbourliness and Cooperation. This treaty basically allowed the USSR to fully “protect” Afghanistan, an agreement that would later be used to justify the Soviet military intervention.

Ultimately, President Taraki’s PDPA government, just like Ma Dude’s last government, came to power by snatching it from someone else. There were no elections held or ballots counted and so many Afghan’s were like “we didn’t get a say in this”. Worsening this, was the government’s communist policies which pissed off the powerful and wealthy people as well as the poor, damaging long-standing islamic values in the process. Ultimately, the people that ended up hating communism the most were the very people that it was supposed to help!

Moscow, 9th of September 1979, Soviet leader Brezhnev (right) next to him stands Nur Muhammed Taraki, leader of the PDPA and President of Afghanistan. Within a week of this photo being taken, Taraki would be Amin’s prisoner, and in a month, dead.

During the eighteen months of President Taraki’s reign, hundreds of thousands of people were rounded up, imprisoned and tortured – with as many as 50,000 people ‘disappearing’. Consequently, revolts broke out all of the country, floods of Afghan refugees poured out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan – where they joined the increasingly popular Peshawar Islamist resistance movements.

Pakistan, who was obviously involved now as shit loads of Afghan’s had begun fleeing into its territory gave money and military assistance to these Peshawar Sunni Islamists movements. In January 1979, the first major attack by the Muhahidin occurred in Nangahar, marking the beginning of a jihad that would last for more than a decade.

August 1985, Mujahideen fighters crossing into Afghanistan from the Pakistani border.

Later that year, President Taraki ordered the arrest of several members of the opposition communist group Parcham, However, the head of Parcham, Babrak Karmal evades arrest and is given sanctuary in the Soviet embassy (can you guys see a pattern forming here?)

On the 29th of March 1979, a popular uprising led to the slaughter of hundreds of pro-government supporters, soviet advisors and their families. President Taraki phoned the Soviets and asked them to intervene and take back control but they said “Nah, but don’t worry we’ll bomb some shit for you instead” which they did… killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process.

The following month, exactly one year after the Saur Revolution, multiple uprisings occurred resulting in most of central and northern Afghanistan falling into the hands of various Mujahidin movements.

As more and more districts were lost to the Mujahidin, the military turned to Hafiz Amin to step in, which obviously annoyed President Taraki. In September 1979, Taraki dismissed Amin, who later returned that night and arrested President Taraki and his few remaining loyalist pals (this stuff really is insane, right?).

Anyway, a few weeks later the recently-deposed Taraki was quietly suffocated.

RIP X

Amin’s decision to kill President Taraki and to take power was far from welcome in Moscow. For two reasons, 1) the soviet’s wanted a united communist government in Afghanistan and had been trying to resolve the whole ‘Parcham Vs Khalq’ political fallout which was obviously now ruined due to one murdering the other and 2), the teeny amount of support that the PDPA had would have completely dissipated after all of this drama.

This is where we start to see history repeating itself because Amin, like Ma Dude, sought to distance Afghanistan away from the USSR and bring it closer to Iran, Pakistan and the USA. During his presidency, Amin responded to the issue of the growing Mujahidin rebellions by violent terror and repression which obviously resulted in more people a) hating the government, b) fleeing the country and c) joining the growing islamist insurgency.

It’s important to note here that at this point in time the Mujahidin Islamist movements represented the overall dissatisfaction of the Afghan people. They wanted to free their country from the shackles put upon it by the Soviets and they wanted to rid Afghanistan of communism and restore it back to its traditional islamic roots. The Mujahidin were Afghanistan’s freedom fighters.

At the end of November 1979, it was reported to the USSR that the military situation in Afghanistan was now critical. The Sunni Mujahidin had over 40,000 armed recruits fighting for the freedom of Afghanistan and 70% of the country was out of central government control. It was concluded that without direct Soviet military intervention an Islamist takeover of Afghanistan would occur within a matter of months. 

So when Amin (who the Soviet’s didn’t really like) asked the USSR for military support against the Mujahidin for a second time, he unknowingly provided the USSR with the justification it needed to send in the Red Army. Uh Oh, remember the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighbourliness and Cooperation?

It was decided, the USSR was going to invade Afghanistan. And who better than former pro-soviet, bezzie m8 of Nikita Khrushtev… Ma Dude!

During his term as Prime Minister, Ma Dude brought Afghanistan closer to the Soviets. In 1963 he was forced to resign by the King of Afghanistan (his cousin, awkward…) and in response, immediately began plotting to regain power… which the Soviets now supported. On the 17th July 1973 at precisely 4 o’clock in the morning, Ma Dude overthrows his cousin, King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan and comes to power (which really takes falling out with your cousin to a whole new level…”MUUUUUUMM!! Mohammed just toppled my government and removed me from power! Tell him to stop!” .

Don’t worry, the coup wasn’t violent. Rumours had been circulating and when the King got wind of it, he yeeted himself out of Afghanistan ASAP. So when Ma dude ordered his followers into action and took control of Kabul that morning, it was relatively straightforward as the King was conveniently out of the country in Italy. The following morning, Ma Dude announced on Kabul Radio that he had acted to end Afghanistan’s slide into anarchy and economic meltdown, and made clear that the King had been removed and would not be allowed to return. King Zahir Shah, on the other hand, decided not to retaliate, and he formally abdicated on the 24th of August, remaining in Italy in exile (Arrivederci x).

Ma Dude abolished the monarchy altogether and declared himself the President of the newly established Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (oh, the irony). Whilst settling into his new role as President and in the sPiRiT oF dEmOCrAcY (Yes, Spongebob meme), he decided to get rid of his political opponents after accusing them of plotting against him. His primary targets were members and supporters of the previous governments, followed by his Islamist critics. Remember, these were the guys that were constantly clashing with Ma Dudes mates, the communists (Communism = atheism + Islam = Shitstorm).

Many prominent Islamists were tortured and killed as a result of Ma Dude’s government purge, HOWEVER, some managed to escape… (Mujadidi, Sayyaf, Hikmatyar and Rabanni – remember these names). They fled to Peshawar, Pakistan to form an Islamist movement dedicated to taking Afghanistan away from Soviet control and bringing the country back to its traditional Islamic ways. 

This movement was called the Mujahideen…