 Since 1979, the Soviet Union, in violation of every convention protecting the rights of a sovereign nation, has tried to impose its will on the people of Afghanistan. Despite the death and destruction brought by the Soviets, the Afghan struggle for freedom continues. Afghanistan is an ancient country, a rich mosaic of ethnic traditions whose identity is shaped by Islam. Geography has placed it at a crossroads of trade. And throughout the 19th century, it was the object of imperialist rivalries. Since modern times, Afghanistan has outlined a careful policy of non-alignment and has maintained peaceful relations with its neighbor to the north. For years, Afghanistan accepted development aid from the Soviet Union to upgrade its agrarian economy. A network of modern roads was built to link its major cities to the Soviet border. This aid, however, was not without its consequences. Only years later did this become obvious. A former official in the Afghan government, who, like others in this report, cannot be identified in order to protect their family and friends, recalls the early days of Soviet aid to his country. Initially, people found some advantages in these assistance programs. Some areas were developed, roads were made and some factories were constructed. But after almost two or three decades, we found out that Russians had bad intentions right from the very beginning. Apparently, it was aid and assistance, but in reality, it was a program of exploitation. They exploited the country economically. And we found their ill-intention when the military coup of 1978 took place. This was the time that we found they wanted to change the country to a communist country, to a country which apparently would be a free country, but in reality, it would be one of their satellites, a country which would literally follow their instructions and their behavior. The oppression of this regime and the way they were killing the people, the way they were imprisoning the people, persecuting the people and torturing the people all showed that all these things were planned. As a result, people could not tolerate this and resistance started in different parts. Resistance was local and initially, it was wiped out quickly by the government forces. But people did not give up and they continued to resist. These resistance pockets grew and finally, they found it was too difficult for the government to cope with this. Recently, Radio Free Kabul has started broadcasting and provides once isolated resistance bands with news about the struggle against the Soviet invaders. One of the founders of this clandestine radio service is Vladimir Bukovsky, Soviet emigre and essayist, who has followed closely recent events in both his country and Afghanistan. What actually happened with the Afghanistan and the Soviet involvement there is very typical of a Soviet pattern of international relations. No matter how friendly is the neighboring country, they still work internally, subverting it, placing more support at one part of political spectrum to the disadvantage of another spectrum. They can't help it. The usual way, I mean they're committed to support so-called progressive forces, the forces of liberation. But then the next thing happens, it appears that this particular political group is not popular in their own country and the only way to keep it in power is by a very strong support supply of the external forces from the Soviet Union. When it looked as though the communist government of President Amin might prove unreliable or be deposed, the Soviets moved. In late December 1979, in their greatest show of force since the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, they airlifted thousands of soldiers into the Kabul area and moved tens of thousands more overland across the border into northern Afghanistan. One of the important points of the situation like that, why they can't really leave alone this country at the particular moment, is that they cannot tolerate the collapse of so-called friendly government on their own borders. Because then it may be a very dangerous precedent. It may set up, it may trigger a chain reaction inside of a Soviet Union, which is, as you know, consists of 130 different nationalities. Most of them occupied at one or another point of our history by the Soviet Union as actually Afghanistan was occupied. Four days after the Soviet invasion began, a radio message supposedly from Radio Kabul but actually from Radio Tashkent in the Soviet Union announced that Hafizullah Amin had been sentenced to death and that Babrak Karmal, then actually in the Soviet Union, had been unanimously elected as the new president. What proof exists that the Soviets came on the invitation of President Babrak Karmal? There is known for the simple reason that Babrak arrived with the Soviets. I mean, Babrak Karmal was not in Kabul in Afghanistan. When the Soviets invaded on December 27, they brought him with themself to Kabul. He was brought the very next day after Amin's assassination. Right after that, and within the next hour, practically, the relief between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan started to intensify. So there is no evidence that Babrak called for help. Since he was brought, I repeat, brought by the Soviets themselves. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan had big impact on the attitude of the developing countries in the third world against Russia. And for years, they were preaching that they were supporting developing countries, supporting them to maintain their freedom, and they just want to help them. But when they invaded Afghanistan, people found that Russia is not a reliable friend. It is difficult to rely on Russians. The same way they invaded Afghanistan, they could invade their country also. The world simply could not stand by and permit the Soviet Union to commit this act of aggression with impunity. Fifty nations petitioned the United Nations to condemn the USSR and to demand the immediate withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Actually, the Soviet invasion does not represent anything but imperialist expansion aimed at establishing and consolidating a communist rule against the will of the peaceful Muslim Afghan people. No words there for which I shall say today can fully convey the deep sense of disappointment and dissolution which the government and people of Nigeria felt when they heard the news of Soviet armed intervention in Afghanistan, a third world developing non-aligned country which posed no immediate threat to the peace and security of the Soviet Union. The countries of the third world and the developing nations had believed, perhaps, optimistically that the time had passed when the major powers would send their soldiers and tanks into small countries and that war-like aggression had been ruled out as legitimate conduct in international life. But they were mistaken. The third world nations stated unequivocal opposition to Soviet aggression in Afghanistan. The final vote on the resolution calling for Soviet troop withdrawal was an overwhelming 104 in favor and 18 against. Again at meetings of the 42 nation Islamic conference, strong condemnation of the Soviet Union was virtually unanimous and called for the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops. Even in November 1981, the non-aligned nation sponsored a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly calling upon the Soviet Union to stop its aggression against the people of Afghanistan. The foreign minister of Malaysia stated that what was happening in Afghanistan was a cause for concern to us all. Particularly the small developing nations were anxious to free ourselves from external power domination and influence and consolidate our hard-won independence on the basis of the policy of non-alignment. The fact that the Soviet Union was not mentioned by name in the communique of the non-aligned movement relating to the situation in Afghanistan could not hide our deep disappointment and indignation and action of a superpower that often claims itself to be a supporter of the third world and the non-aligned movement. Once again the vote calling for the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan was overwhelming, this time 116 in favor and 23 against. The reaction of third world was rather strong, unexpectedly strong, more than anybody could expect it and probably for the first time in since 50s the majority of our countries in the United Nations condemned the Soviet aggression. Independent filmmaker and former British Army officer Nick Downey has been a close observer of Soviet military aggression in Afghanistan. In the first year after the invasion, during 1980, the psychological shock to the guerrillas of this sudden influx of Russian troops did seem to set them back, they almost seemed to be stunned by it and the Russians did with the Afghan army take back fairly large areas which they had lost in the previous 18 months fighting before the Russian invasion. And then the Russians from what one can gather having re-established the bases in the countryside withdrew to the main towns, to the main carousels and left the Afghan army to hold the areas they'd retaken and in this last year, 1981, the guerrillas in many cases retook the land which they'd lost the year before and so now the situation is very much the same as it was in 1979 before the Russian invasion and in some ways from the government point of view is much worse. Michael Berry, a representative of the International Federation for Human Rights, a Paris-based lawyers organization, has spent almost 10 years in Afghanistan. Apparently the Soviets had felt that simply bringing in their tanks into the country would be enough to terrorize the population into submission and seeing that this was not the case, they launched a total war attack. There was a wave of helicopter fire, parachute troops were landed on the houses, parachute troops went into the houses and simply shot everybody in them, forcing the population either to run away or die in the spot. Christian science monitor correspondent Edward Jurade has made several trips inside Afghanistan and has written extensively about the refugee camps. I visited numerous camps along the Pakistan-Afghan border. There are now an estimated two and a half million refugees, legal refugees, inside Pakistan and they're still coming over. The guerrillas leave their families in Pakistan and then groups go back inside maybe to fight three, four, five, ten weeks, whatever it be, also to collect supplies. But I think also they are justified in bringing their families because there's been a lot of bombing going on in the villages and in some parts they just cannot survive. The farms have been destroyed, their food storages have been destroyed and I think this is one tactic of the Soviets to destroy food, to try and burn the crops just before harvest time and so of course what are these people going to live on? They have to leave the country and I think this of course serves the purposes of the Soviet Union to try and remove people from certain areas so as to reduce the resistance or the ability of the locals to support the resistance. Elsewhere the Soviets are seeding the country with mines which not only hurt children especially who have trouble identifying these objects which blend very well with the terrain but also these mines are destroying the flocks, the goats, the sheep, the cattle are walking on these mines and blowing up on them. So through a combination of starvation tactics, bombing, wholesale attacks of villages, they will keep the pressure on a particular village so hot that they will force the population to flee. Recognized authority and author on resistance movements around the world, Professor Gérard Chalayan. The main tactic is of course to remain in the cities, to hold them tightly to create low on order especially in Kabul and also to control communications. They do that essentially with tanks. If they are attacked they send immediately their helicopters and their losses are moderate. On the other hand they are not controlling the country. It's a big country populated by at least 15 million people. There are around 90,000 Soviet troops which is not enough to control a country of 50 million people which is big like France. And I think their choice is politically at this stage and militarily to keep a low profile, to make hit and run big operations wherever the Mujahideen are too strong. For instance in provinces like Kunar in the valley of Panjshir not far from Kabul or in the city of Kandahar. Apart from purely military operations there is absolutely no attempt to use that overwork phrase win the hearts and minds which is an essential part of any counter-gurler campaign. They are just sitting there and it is or it looks like a holding operation as if the order has come from Moscow this war is to be fought as cheaply as possible. Well the Soviets are using a hot and cold strategy which consists of hitting one populated valley very hard and destroying the population forcing it to flee or killing it actually in order to convince other populations and other valleys that resistance is absolutely hopeless. And because the Soviets so far have not been able to convince the population of the hopelessness of any resistance they have been forced to rely increasingly on such terror tactics. An entire country has risen I mean almost as a man against the invader and that is almost unique in a guerrilla situation. I mean normally it's a tiny percentage of the population who are doing the fighting supported by a comparative minority amongst the civil population whereas in Afghanistan you have 17 to 20 million whatever the population is no one quite knows 17 to 20 million people have risen as one group the fact that they're not organized is what holds them back where they organized where they disciplined and trained no power on earth could hold them down. In the valley of Panshir there is some organization going on there are small units better organized more efficient as far as insurgency is concerned better disciplined something which is not that easy with Afghans who are traditional warriors and this is changing. A leader of one of the six major Mujahideen groups based in Bashar who himself has seen action in the field and who understands the need for better organization and cooperation among the various groups is Yunus Khalas. I don't think that the unification of the Afghan factions is impossible. We are fighting the same enemy all the Muslims are fighting the Russians. He is sought by all the groups and in fact we are fighting the same enemy young Mujahideen from different parties are fighting in different parts of the country and all the Muslims are with us nobody's waiting for the other ones to be the first to fight all the Muslims everywhere are fighting against their enemy and their enemy is one and that will be a mistake to say one is fighting and the other is not. To most Afghans to be a communist is to be against Islam. Soviet aggression in Afghanistan is viewed as a communist effort to eliminate those who are believers. What is obvious to any observer is that an Afghan's faith is intricately bound up in his identity. Independent filmmaker Christian de Panfili was impressed by the role of Islam in the Afghan struggle for freedom. We have often heard about their religious fanaticism in fact their faith is necessary I believe it is an indispensable drive to the resistance but there isn't just this fuel for their resistance they are also fighting for the respect of their particular lifestyle so the struggle for their religion is also a nationalist struggle. For a long time we did not understand that the Russians had invaded our country they wanted to make us communists thank God we are Muslims we are following God's path we do not want communism in Afghanistan we want a true Islamic republic in Afghanistan. Well the role of Islam first of all is identity you are a Muslim just like you are in Afghan I would make a parallel easy to understand for westerners it's a bit like the role of the Catholic Church in Poland you are a Polish you're a Paul and you're a Catholic being a Catholic and a Paul means that you're not Russian and Orthodox or you're not a Protestant and German it's the same thing with the Afghans I mean the religion is part of their own identity it's part of their way of living it's part of themselves. When we ask Commander Massoud the man in charge of the military in the puncture valley how by what miracle his 5000 men with only 500 weapons could manage to hole in check the army which is supposed to be the most powerful in the world the Red Army the first answer he gave us was the Mujahideen were believers that the fight a holy war and that if they die they inherit the garden of God and immediately Islamic answer one must remember but the second part of his answer was the nature of the countryside was responsible it is a fact that a large part of Afghanistan consists of mountains and that by definition these mountains are very difficult to occupy. Since the Soviet invasion many of Europe's leading television correspondents have made several trips to Afghanistan to document the struggle for freedom. Minodomato of Italian television and what struck me very much during my first trip was above all the extreme poverty of means on one hand there had great determination and on the other hand their extreme poverty of means they were all equipped with all infill guns of the 19th century and there were really very few Kalashnikov machine guns maybe one gun for every 50 guerrillas. Two years later and after six trips I found in the Afghans the same determination that I had found during my first encounter but there was also a greater sense of responsibility a greater sense of political responsibility. Of course the situation has been improving during the last two years the freedom fighters are very equipped but the fight is still uneven and one of their major difficulties is indeed to be able to defend themselves against the attack of these gunships the Russian attack helicopters which are armored equipped with very sophisticated equipment and electronic devices to locate men as well as bombing and laser guided weapons. The hind helicopter attack gunship provides the Soviets with an awesome weapon against the Mujahideen sweeping across the countryside at speeds of up to 300 kilometers an hour its armaments 128 57 millimeter rockets and 12.7 millimeter machine guns rain death and destruction from the skies another television correspondent who has filmed several military operations in this war is French televisions Jean Bertolino. The weapons used by the Afghans do not come from the states nor from China for the most part most of the weapons held by the Mujahideen that is to say the Afghan freedom fighters are weapons which were garnered in the course of operations first of all there are an incredible number of desertions in the Afghan army don't forget that since the Soviet invasion a great many Afghan army units along with the weapons and equipment have defected to join the resistance so it is mostly these weapons which the Afghans are using but there are a lot of Afghan deserters this comes by the fact that this is not a popular war at all most people in the Afghan army have families who are against the regime there is no motivation to fight the Mujahideen are all over the country they are numerous they have the backing of the population and it's not really motivating for an army to be fighting against its own people I think that's the main reason of those desertions. Mujahideen tactics have improved to the point where even the cities are no longer totally secure for Soviet troops Kandahar a major Afghan city has changed hands several times the Afghan guerrillas are now able to infiltrate the Soviet camps in the city they are capable of launching attacks on the Soviets and then fleeing the technique of hit-and-run however attacking the Soviet camps is somewhat like stabbing a dragon's tail a deluge of metal and fire bursts up around you now you find small well armed commando units which have gotten used to Soviet methods of warfare and know how to counter them. Let me give you an example last year when helicopters were flying overhead the Afghans were paralyzed with fear they were afraid of these helicopters against which they were unequipped to fight today they know exactly how to gauge a threat of a helicopter they know how to evaluate its potential danger according to its distance and altitude they know that at a certain altitude it's not dangerous but that at a lower altitude it becomes dangerous therefore they know exactly how to position themselves. One of the young Mujahideen who has experienced urban guerrilla warfare first-hand is codenamed Suleiman. All the organizations which are fighting for the freedom of Afghanistan have well organized resistance activities within Kabul the objective of all these activities is to assassinate the Russian officers and members of the Communist Party of Afghanistan that is to say members of the Khalkhan Parcham factions and to eliminate all those who work against the people of Afghanistan. A number of people who work for the government to earn a living for themselves and for their families they also help the Mujahideen during the daytime. At night most of these same people organize guerrilla activities. Their activities are well organized. Within the military units most officers and servicemen are faithful to their country and their people. They help the Mujahideen by sending them secret information. For example when the government deploys a unit somewhere the officers who are loyal to the Mujahideen pass over whatever information they can such as the number of persons in the unit the course and place of deployment. Thus the Mujahideen can get an advanced knowledge about what we expect and thereby prepare themselves either to defend or attack accordingly. For the Soviet troops explanations of their mission in Afghanistan are minimal and often confusing to the young recruits. You understand that one of the important points of the Soviet invasion of invasion of Soviet troops anywhere is the lie of propaganda of their propaganda. Right now as we know from the prisoners of war in Afghanistan and from other sources all the soldiers who sent to Afghanistan in fact don't know why they sent over there. Few Soviet soldiers are taken prisoner by the Mujahideen. These two were captured by the Hesbih islami of Gulbadan. Yura Povranitsyn a chemical scout analyst was captured a month after he arrived in Afghanistan. Recently a freelance journalist was able to interview Yura and his countryman Muhammad Kuli a Soviet Turkoman from a collective farm in the village of Bashir. Soviet soldiers think that they are liberating Afghanistan from possible Chinese invaders. We came to Afghanistan the officers told us that we were sent by the Soviet government to Afghanistan to protect it from Chinese and American soldiers. As much as I have been around Afghanistan as long as I have been here I haven't met a single Chinese or American soldier. The main thing is that this war is senseless. They should withdraw the army from Afghanistan. What do Soviet soldiers here in Afghanistan think of this war? Well each thinks differently. One thinks that this is a senseless war another supports it but in reality it is a senseless war. A Russian soldier has become a barbarian here. He becomes more and more brutal. Some soldiers especially those who go on reconnaissance they rob homes, kill women, children and rape them. Yes there was a case when soldiers went into a house, killed the father an old man, killed the old mother and raped a 13 year old girl and then killed her so that she wouldn't tell anyone. You are aware that the government in Kabul is first a puppet and toy of the Soviet Union. Therefore all the actions performed within Kabul or Afghanistan are wholly directed by the KGB but whatever they do such as destroying, burning, killing, looting of the houses and villages in the countryside they put the blame on the Mujahidin. In Kabul the Afghan Secret Service and Security Police usually keep 15 or 20 Afghans and the very severe inhuman conditions in small rooms and they torture them by electric shocks, beatings etc. It is difficult for me to describe all of what they do and it would be hard for others to listen to such acts of savagery. For example I know an Afghan compatriot who worked very hard for freedom of his beloved country. He was caught by the Afghan and Soviet officers and they gave him so many electric shocks that half of his body was paralyzed. Ordinary people are very much strongly opposing to this war, much more than I expected for example. And now I can understand why I can assess why because the majority of people realize there is no whatsoever the national interest in Afghanistan for us. There are no the interests of that type. Moreover the war is total waste. It costs us dearly both in terms of resources and in terms of human lives and there is no sense in this war whatsoever. That's absolutely a general feeling in the country. There are several examples of open political outbursts of feelings in Central Asia and Kazakhstan last year in some other areas against this war. One of the very illustrative examples or indicators of this feeling is that since the last year the Soviets stopped practice of sending the dead bodies in sink coffins back to their homeland because every time such coffin arrived to the native village or town it sparkled up immediately the sort of demonstration of the population against this war and because of that this practice was stopped and the corpses are buried now in Afghanistan. Since the Soviet invasion the few Afghan doctors serving the rural population have fled. Healthcare services for those who have stayed behind is maintained by volunteer medical teams mostly French such as Medecins Sans Frontier and Ed Medecal international. In the two years since these medical teams have been serving in Afghanistan they have observed the evolution of Soviet tactics against the civilian population. Dr Claude Marguerite of Medecins Sans Frontier spoke of what the medical teams have witnessed. And now we are witnessing a third phase in the war crimes and that is the bombing of hospitals. Our hospitals have been purposely destroyed during the last few weeks. Here you can see the hospital of Chowri with its buildings before the Soviet helicopters arrived. The bombings lasted a few minutes and at the end of those few minutes here is what's left of the hospital. This photograph also explains something else. This hospital is located away from the neighboring village and as you can see there are fields and trees around the hospital. The hospital was destroyed on purpose and the trees were not even touched. The helicopters only went after the hospital. The same thing happened in the Panjshir Valley where the international medical aid is working. One of the doctors with international medical aid spoke of her experiences inside Afghanistan. We witnessed the second bombing which was quite awful. It happened in the beginning of November. The bombing was specifically aimed at our hospital on the day we had planned to live. We heard the helicopters making a first pass over the hospital and the village. So everybody rushed towards the shelters but we did not have enough time to get there. The helicopters were back over us very quickly. We heard the sound of bombs falling right next to us only a few thousand meters away. At that moment we were really scared. We saw bombs exploding very close by. By the end of the day when everything had calmed down we left our hiding places where we had been for hours. The hospital was completely destroyed, the walls torn down and nothing left inside. So first the bombings. Another thing has been talked about a lot and this is absolutely certain. We have verified it. The anti-personal mines which are dispersed around the country and which are very sophisticated. When they are spread over the fields they are green, they are gray when they are dropped among the rocks and they are difficult to spot. These mines are not meant to kill because in this kind of war a dead person doesn't cost very much. One can leave them. On the other hand an injured person can no longer fight in the war because he has a hand or a foot blown off and he has to be looked after. He has to be taken back. He has to get medical treatment and that's lots more trouble for the residents. And the third kind of wound we have to treat is even worse. When the Soviet launch an attack they leave booby trapped items behind in the villages when they have been. Fountain pen, toys and here it is usually the children who get hurt. The adults have learned to be distrustful now so the victims are children. One incident we saw was particularly monstrous. After the Soviets retreated from Azerbaijan about a year ago they had booby trapped the bodies of dead people left in the field and when their relatives wanted to bury them the bodies exploded. We saw that only once but we did see it. The medical teams endure the same harsh living conditions as the Mujahideen as they climb through steep mountain gorges seated with antipersonnel mines. In such an environment the doctors must respond as best they can to whatever emergency. We had been walking since five o'clock in the morning and were about to stop for a break when suddenly we heard an explosion. We all ran and hid behind the rocks thinking it was a helicopter raid. And then there was just silence. We finally came out from behind the rocks to see what happened. There we saw Mujahideen crawling toward us on all fours. His foot had been blown off. We later learned from the leader of the caravan that the Russians had previously dropped antipersonnel mines by parachute. Well we cut off his foot right there. If we are not amputated, gangrene might have spread and would certainly have meant death for him. So we cut off his foot right there with the limited means available. It was certainly very painful for him but he never moaned. It was a very moving experience for all of us. Resistance to the Soviet invasion has marshaled the energies of a whole population. It is this powerful collective will which has galvanized a people into taking on the mighty Soviet army despite terrifying odds. And those who have witnessed this struggle are marked forever by what they have seen. As far as I could ascertain the Afghans are definitely convinced that as long as there is just one Russian invader on the Afghan soil and as long as there is just one free Afghan there will be no peace in Afghanistan. The price we have to pay for the freedom of one's land is to fight and die on the field. It is clear to everybody all over the world that the Afghan people like others love their freedom. They live free and they die free. Until now they have preserved the freedom of Afghanistan with the price of their own blood just as their fathers did and their sons will do. And I am sure that the Afghan people will regain their freedom and will be a free nation once again. It is an Afghan tradition to fight against any kind of invaders. Right now they are the Soviets. The reaction against them shows that the Soviets are not bringing them progress. The Soviet argument is we are coming to free these people from feudalism. But what does this mean? Can one come to free a people with sophisticated combat helicopters, with tanks, with cannons, by bombing villages, killing children, killing old people, killing the innocent? I mean what kind of liberation are the Soviets bringing to Afghanistan? Well, the Russians invade Afghanistan. I believe it affects all of us now and in the future. We cannot close our eyes to a people who are losing their own country. It is so unfair. I feel personally concerned about Afghanistan now that I have lived there and I think that we all share a certain responsibility when we come back from there, particularly since these people count on us enormously and especially because they feel so isolated. I believe we should feel responsible for them. The trauma of this war has left its mark on the children who have suffered most. The drawings of a 13-year-old Afghan refugee reflect her own emotional experiences.