Afghan Leader reinforces peace offer

Press, 5 January 1987, Page 8

Afghan Leader reinforces peace offer

NZPA-Reuter Islamabad The Afghan communist Leader, Najibullah, has launched a peace drive with an emotional appeal to Muslim rebels to come down from the mountains and end the countiy’s seven-year-old guerrilla war. At a meeting of a newly-formed Reconciliation Commission yesterday, he called on the rebels to forget the past and return unarmed to their families, under guarantee of safe-conduct, the official Kabul Radio reported. “We are ready for open talks. You are welcome in any village in any town, and our leaders will receive you in the Delkasha Palace,” Mr Najibullah said, referring to the seat of the country’s parliament, the Revolutionary Council. While conceding that the war was sapping the strength of the country, Mr Najibullah declared that the Government was stronger than ever, adding: "The revolutionary process in Afghanistan is irreversible.” Kabul Radio also gave further details of a truce announced three days ago and already dismissed by the Pakistan-based Mujahideen guerrillas and the United States. Quoting a Revolutionap’ Council resolution, it said that from January 15 Government forces would stop offensive actions and return to their permanent bases. Artillery and air strikes might also end. If the Mujahideen agreed to the ceasefire it

would last initially for six months. Mr Najibullah said commanders had been ordered to exercise patience and ignore provocations, while troops would only fire in response to open attacks. Mujahideen spokesmen in Pakistan have denounced the ceasefire as a fraud and pledged to continue their struggle until the estimated 115,000 Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan. The Soviet news agency, Tass, said the new reconciliation policy, introduced two weeks after Afghanistan’s top communist echelon visited Moscow, would be sent to foreign leaders. These included the Governments of Iran and Pakistan, where the guerrillas have their bases, the United Nations, Islamic Conference Organisation and Non-Aligned Movement. Reiterating a pledge to form a coalition government of national unity with non-communists, Mr Najibullah said he was prepared for compromise with Islamic organisations, monarchists and rebel leaders in exile, and opponents now in jail. While denouncing the guerrillas as unpatriotic and enemies of their own people, he declared: "We are even ready to talk to extremists — this should not be considered a sign of weakness.” Mr Najibullah said both sides were tired of the war, which has sent about five million refugees — almost one-third of the

population — into exile abroad. He sought to distance himself from earlier leaders who had governed Afghanistan after the communist take-over in 1978. “We are not the same people of eight years ago, everything changes, the leaders change,” he said. “Many things which were at one time important have now, with the passage of time, lost their importance.” Mr Najibullah took over as Communist Party chief last May in place of Babrak Karmal, who was put in power by the intervention of Soviet forces in December 1979. Many Karmal supporters have now been removed from powerful positions. The Revolutionary Council resolution declared that Islam, the faith of the overwhelming majority of Afghans, would be enshrined as the national religion in the second article of the new constitution. It also ordered the setting up of district reconciliation commissions with far-reaching powers of local government, made up of village elders, leading Muslims, and “in certain cases leaders of armed groups” — a reference to the guerrillas. The bodies would be overseen by a Supreme Extraordinary Commission for National Reconciliation, and would have control over such things as courts, distribution of State medicines and seeds, and conscription.