PRESS REVIEW: Soviet-Afghan relationship analyzed (12/29/85)

PRESS REVIEW

Soviet-Afghan relationship analyzed

by Thaya Salamacha

NEW YORK - Islamic World Review, the largest English-language Arabic journal, published in London, carried an article titled "Some Lessons For Teacher?" in which the author, Taras Kuzio, analyzes the relationship between the Soviets and the Afghan people after five years of Soviet occupation.

According to the article, published in the December issue, although much time has passed with no sign of a Soviet victory, buying more time is the Soviets' aim. Mr. Kuzio argues that "the Soviet Union appears to be thinking decades ahead and not in terms of annual military campaigns."

The Soviets have launched an educational campaign for Afghan youths to instill in them Communist ideology and loyalty to the Soviet government. Like children in Soviet Central Asia, Afghan children are taught the Russian language in schools, Afghan teachers are sent to the Soviet Union annually to study Soviet communism and are taught how to apply it.

Mr. Kuzio concludes that much effort has been expended to build ties between north Afghans and Soviet Central Asians as a way to more easily assimilate and eventually incorporate Afghanistan into the Soviet Union.

Soviet authorities are unable to justify their war crimes against the Afghan people to their own citizens. After five years many soldiers have returned home and told their stories to relatives and friends, writes Mr. Kuzio. Many soldiers have died, and the losses have made people inquire into the mystery which still continues to take young human lives.

In his article Mr. Kuzio shows that the lack of support for the war in Afghanistan is prevalent among Ukrainians. He quotes Ukrainians from different regions of Ukraine on the war in Afghanistan. One man from Lutske retold a young soldier's story of how people of an entire village were killed by being thrown over a precipice. The Soviet Army did this to save ammunition. Another Ukrainian describes how parents with sons who are called to enlist offer bribes to have them exempted from military service.

Popular disapproval of the Soviet policy in Afghanistan may indicate a political problem for the Soviets. Mr. Kuzio refers to a survey conducted by Radio Liberty, which found that among Soviet citizens only 25 percent disapproved it, and 50 percent were ambivalent or held no opinion on the war.

Mr. Kuzio also refers to the Ukrainian Catholic Chronicle, which began its underground existence in 1984. The Chronicle expenses the view that the war in Afghanistan is a result of "Russian chauvinism," and that it is a war which Ukrainians don't want to fight. Other samizdat sources are mentioned to show that Russian pacifists and Estonians, too, have taken a stand against Soviet aggression in Afghanistan. The article notes that Ukrainians are well aware of the war's objective, that is, to create a new Soviet republic out of Afghanistan, and they express their discontent over this ever more openly.

Mr. Kuzio writes that the Soviet media's recent more detailed coverage of the war in Afghanistan is being used to raise patriotic sentiments among Soviet citizens. More patriotism is urged from recruits into the military, and there has been increased emphasis on Russian-language education for non-Russians.

"Effects of the war are felt most strongly in Central Asia," writes Mr. Kuzio Central Asians are treated badly by the Russians because they are suspected of sympathizing with the Afghan resistance. And in the Central Asian republics, Islam has experienced a resurgence since the war in Afghanistan began.

Demonstrations protesting the Afghan war in the summer of 1985 in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, and Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, show that people are not afraid to reveal their disapproval of the war.

Mr. Kuzio concludes his article with the statement: "The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan has made the Soviet public more acutely aware of the human cost of the war, and it is no wonder that large numbers of them transform their discontent over this human cost into opposition to the over-all policies of the Soviet regime."