Big send-off for Karmal

Press, 22 October 1980, Page 8

Big send-off for Karmal

NZPA-Reuter Moscow I' Soviet authorities yesterday staged a huge send-off for the Afghan leader, BabIrak karmal, as he left Moscow after a visit marked by ringing pledges of Kremlin support for his rule. Tens of thousands of Muscovites. given’time off from work for the occasion and supplied.with Soviet and Afghan ffags>to wave,W lined therouteajSqhis'SmotOfbade drpye from, .the Kremlin the Vnukovo 2 V.I.P. airpdrt. brivihg” with Mr Karmal) brought to power as Soyiet troops) poured into his- country last-December, was President Leonid Brezhnev arid other members of the senior Kemlin hierarchy. < The mass street send-off, reserved in Moscow for very); special visitors, was clearly I intended as another sign of| the Soviet Union’s complete l !

1 commitment to keep’ Mr Kafm’al in power. ' The treatment given to f him/during his visit recalled - that-accorded in 1968 to the thejikPresident Ludvik Svoboda; of wlioywas taken to Moscow for’.talks soon after•, the .So-viet-led intervention' in .hisi country. .- . Mr Karmal, who ,-tS’ also party, chief andWiinfeMiriiSA teri.wasportrayediat/die'.’-tdp. of < the Soviet’ JComitiuriist Party newspaper “Pra,vda ? S” front-page in’private conversation with Mr Brezhnev./ He;- was taken to Moscow University to address student's and academic staff as wejl as representatives of the Soviet intelligentsia, and ■ delivered ?a 15- minutt {address on television to the Soviet people, I In. that address, he I thanked. Soviet forces in his •country for their ‘‘courage

;and heroism” in helping res-, ist what he called outside aggression — a formula both Moscow and. Kabul use to cover the anti-Govern-ment - insurgency in Afghanistan. , v , „ • „-: ./Mr fKannal yesterday flew to Tbilisi,- capital of Soviet Georgia, where he was expected to be given similar treatment, and from there-he ' was due to go back),to Leningrad in the north/before 1 returning home. .• ’ A joint Soviet-Afghan , statementdssued and front- { paged by, "Pravda” yesterday . indicated/ that the Kremlin , intended to do* all in its! power .to ensure the survival of Marxist rule in Afghanis- . tan. < In a blunt message -to ' Western and Islamic coun- < tries that no settlement j would be countenanced by ‘ the Kremlin that did not i

jmaintain Mr Karmal in power, the statement sajdr ~ “No •.plans affecting the sovereignty, of the people or the-'.Democratic Republic of Afghanistan or disregarding its legitimate Government would be a success.” . A date for a Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan could be examined 0n1y.,, when all aggression against that country had ended, indicating that there would be no pull-out soon. _ Pledging continued Soviet aid to Afghanistan, possibly covering an increased military commitment there, the statement said' Mr Karmal’s Government would “further count on solidarity and the internationalist aid of the Soviet people." Kabul radio said that the ; Soviet Union would help Af- i ghanistan build -a dam and i with several agricultural < projects. I]