Afghanistan

Press, 8 September 1982, Page 24

Afghanistan

Sir,-Despite H. F. Newman's claim, Afghanistan's Prince Daud was no Kerensky and no Communist, but the moderniser of an undeveloped nation done by establishing a one-party (royal family) constitution, economic and agrarian reforms, without offence to Islam.. Taraki, leader of the Communist Party’s Khalq faction, overthrew Daud (coups are twentieth century Afghanistan’s most frequent method of changing governments). Communism meant education, health, land reform, women’s emancipation, atheism, and defiance of traditional Muslim authority. The last three provoked religious rebellion. Soviet counter-insur-gency aid was requested and given, massively. Amin, replacing Taraki, intensified reforms, then was killed. Karmal, of the Communist Parcham faction, became President. This year, still facing rebellion, he abandoned femaleemancipation, re-’

duced land redistribution, and ended religious confrontation. As opposition declines he seems to be consolidating control. Mr Newman’s emotive prejudices - probably derive from United States Information Service propaganda. He should study facts.—Yours, etc;, SUSAN TAYLOR.

September 7, 1982. Sir,—ln conceding that he “could not prove (the word I used was 'show') that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan,” M. T. Mobre (September 2) makes a commendable advance on the confident position he adopted in his previous letters, that the Soviet Union “invaded” Afghanistan. If he sincerely desires objective understanding of contemporary history, and he is a reasonably regular reader of “Soviet News,” he must have seen references therein to the Soviet-Afghanistan Treaty signed on December 5, 1978, which is an historical international document of incontrovertible material reality,’ as valid as the North Atlantic treaty and the A.N.Z.U.S. treaty; Unless he acknowledges this, he is wilfully choosing to ignore solid fact. If M. T. Moore finds official Soviet justification for intervening in Afghanistan “facile and unconvincing,” he has even less convincing grounds for believing Western charges of a Soviet “invasion.”—Yours, etc.,M. CREEL. September 4, 1982.