AFFAIRS IN AFGHANISTAN

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 8 March 1929, Page 5

AFFAIRS IN AFGHANISTAN

HORRORS OF REBELLION

AMANULLAH’S REIGN.

FINAL SCENES DESCRIBED

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyright.) (Australian Press Association.) LONDON, Match 7. The horrors of the Afghan rebellion are described by Colonel Ghulam Nabe Khan, once an officer in Amanullah’s army, in a letter from Kabul published in the “Daily Express.” He tells how he was sitting with a companion one morning when suddenly he heard the rattle of chains and the sound of a procession of soldiers shouting to “make way for the unfaithful, make way for the disloyal.” The chained prisoners were priests en route for execution. “When we learned what was their fate our blood froze in our veins,” says the letter. “These were Mullahs who had excited the Shinwaris against the King. “The priests were taken outside the city, buried in the earth up to their necks, and then a troop of cavalry was ordered to gallop oyer them. “In bygone days I witnessed many gruesome punishments, such as leaving a prisoner to die of starvation in a cage, yet I could see that even the populace of. the capital would stand it no longer. Shops were closed in protest, while praying crowds filled the mosques, and only the wailing ol Afghan women, who do not cry easily, broke the silence of the mourning city.” The colonel depicts the final scene of Amanullah’s reign as follows: “Troopers of his bodyguard revolted. Bread riots bi-oke out, while the roar of guns, the whirring of aeroplanes, and the click-clack of bullets came nearer and nearer. Then in the darkness the people piled up and set on fire European hats and clothing before the Royal Palace, shouting like madmen and denouncing foreign dress and customs.

“It meant that duly’ a motor ear was seen threading its way through the crowd. There was a rush to attack it, but someone shouted that it contained only women, so it passed safely—containing Amanullah. “Thus ended the first act,” says the colonel. “The curtain will rise on the second when the spring sun melts the snows.”