KABUL, Afghanistan - A defiant President Najibullah said yesterday, shortly before he was found swinging at the end of a rope beneath a muj tank, that Soviet military, economic and technical advisers would stay in Afghanistan after Soviet troops had pulled out.
There might be as many as 50,000 such advisers in the country, according to Western diplomats. Sounds a lot like our proposed post-war footprint
Dr. Najibullah, addressing foreign reporters in the lavishly decorated and carpeted ballroom of what once was the Afghan royal palace, also said he would never let opposition parties take control of the interim government of "national reconciliation" that he has proposed.
Asked about claims by confident Mujahideen rebels that they will take Kabul as soon as the Soviets leave, Dr. Najibullah said with a broad smile, "Don't distribute bear skins before you hunt them."
"Nobody has taken Kabul, and nobody will take it in the future," he said.
Regarding Soviet military and civilian advisers, he said that they were in Afghanistan before the 1978 Communist revolution and that they would remain.
"We will just take advice from Soviet advisers just like others do. You know, we cannot be cut off from the world and humanity," he said. bwahahahaha. Afghanistan? Cut off from humanity? News flash...
"Our military cooperation with Russia started 23 years ago," he said, adding that it would surely continue now because "the situation is not settled here."
Under the terms of Afghan peace accords signed two weeks ago in Geneva, an estimated 115,000 Soviet soldiers are to withdraw from Afghanistan over a nine-month period beginning May 15.
Afghan officials would not comment yesterday on how many Soviet or Eastern bloc advisers are now in Afghanistan, but Western diplomats have said that as many as 50,000 Soviet civilian and military advisers may be in the country.
There are no specific references in the Geneva peace accords to the military advisers, and Afghan officials said yesterday that there was consequently nothing in the agreement to prohibit them.
During this week's celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Afghan Communist revolution, Dr. Najibullah often extolled the Geneva accords, which he said would bring peace to Afghanistan if only Pakistan and the United States would abide by them. Pakistan... I'm seeing a trend here...
But yesterday, Dr. Najibullah distanced himself from a significant addendum to the agreement - a late addition that created "symmetry" between the Soviet Union's continued military assistance to Kabul and the United States' continued aid to the Mujahideen rebels.
"The government of Afghanistan has rejected this symmetrical arrangement," he said, without further elaboration.
Regarding efforts to form a coalition government under the control of the Afghan Communist Party, Dr. Najibullah said that conversations had taken place with most opposition groups - even some of those in Pakistan. Again, this sounds a lot like what we're doing now.
The seven-party Mujahideen alliance, however, has firmly rejected both Dr. Najibullah's "national reconciliation" plan and the Geneva accords, from which they were excluded.
