After failing to kill him through inviting him into a trap and then later poisoning his food, the Soviet Union finally assassinated Hafizullah Amin, the organizer of the Afghan Saur (April) Revolution of 1978, 35 years ago today only after taking the extraordinary step of putting together the one-purpose "Muslim Battalion" of the special forces and invading the whole country to try to kill one man and his ideas. Those "native informants" who manipulated the Soviet Union into invading promised (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4eegGzdbNU) very shortly they would reveal irrefutable proof that he was a US spy, but to this day they have not been able to produce any evidence because he was not a foreign agent. Even the Soviet Union got tired and weary of those they chose to replace Hafizullah Amin with for not being up to the job, forcing Babrak Karmal to step aside in 1985.
Here is an article from the Columbia Spectator of his near-alma mater (he was unable to complete his PhD because of political pressure from the Afghan monarchy you would think if he was a US agent he would have been protected) refuting some of the mountain of lies about him.
http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/columbia?a=d&d=cs19791108-01.2.18&e=-------en-20--1--txt-IN----- (PDF version at http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/imageserver.pl?oid=cs19791108-01&getpdf=true)
All the President's Men
Hafizullah Amin, Afghanistan's new Chief of State, didn't seem "ruthless" to his American acquaintances, despite what newspapers say
Here is an article from the Columbia Spectator of his near-alma mater (he was unable to complete his PhD because of political pressure from the Afghan monarchy you would think if he was a US agent he would have been protected) refuting some of the mountain of lies about him.
http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/columbia?a=d&d=cs19791108-01.2.18&e=-------en-20--1--txt-IN----- (PDF version at http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/imageserver.pl?oid=cs19791108-01&getpdf=true)
All the President's Men
Hafizullah Amin, Afghanistan's new Chief of State, didn't seem "ruthless" to his American acquaintances, despite what newspapers say
By JIM KHATAMI
In the American press, Hafizullah Amin, the new President of Afghanistan, has been labelled a zealous revolutionary, a Marxist strongman, an extremist among extremists. A hard-line Communist with a reputation for ruthlessness.
In the American press, Hafizullah Amin, the new President of Afghanistan, has been labelled a zealous revolutionary, a Marxist strongman, an extremist among extremists. A hard-line Communist with a reputation for ruthlessness.
But some of those who knew Mr. Amin when he was a student at Columbia's Teachers College draw a considerably different picture of the Afghan Chief of State. For instance, William P. Anderson, who was Amin's advisor at Teachers College recently described Amin as "smooth and personable ... a bright guy with lots of ability." Similarly, Pearl Zale, a Connecticut housewife who housed Amin for six weeks in 1957, speaks of Amin with affection and warmth. She describes Amin as a "very mild and thoughtful man" who went out of his way to deliver several presents to her family before he returned to Afghanistan. Hafizullah Amin first came to the United States in the summer of 1957 through the Agency for International Development (AID) education and technical assistance program run jointly by the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan and Columbia University's Teachers College.
Amin, then thirty years old, had been the principal of a high school in Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul. Once in the United States, Amin first stayed with Charles and Pearl Zale in Hamden Connecticut. Like his wife, Charles Zale remembers Amin as "a very decent sort of guy.
"He didn't impress me as a man with blood dripping from the mouth," Zale says.
In the fall of 1957 Amin moved to New York, where he lived until he received his Master of Arts Degree in educational administration at Teachers College. Returning to Kabul, Amin joined Afghanistan's Ministry of Education Then in 1962, Amin returned to the United States to enter the doctoral program at Teachers College.
During his second stay in the United States, William Anderson recalls that Amin began to get involved in politics and became president of the Afghanistan Students Association in the United States. According to Anderson, who was then living in Kabul, Amin's political activities in the United States angered the Afghanistan government. As a result of pressure from Afghan authorities, Amin's visa was not renewed, and he was forced to return to Afghanistan before he could finish his Ph.D.
Anderson notes that there was "some bitterness" on Amin's part, because "we did not fight to have him stay on." "We could not justify our taking a position against his government,"Anderson says.
Before he left the United States, Anderson adds, Amin reached a written agreement with Teachers College that he would be eligible to come back within two years to finish his degree. But he did not return.
Instead, Amin became increasingly involved in political life in Afghanistan. He ran for office twice under the country's new liberal constitution and was elected to Afghanistan's parliament in 1965. During the same period, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (Khalq) was founded by Noor Mohammad Taraki. Taraki, a former employee of the Afghan Mission in Washington and later a translator for the United States Embassy in Kabul, was the founder and editor of the party's newspaper and the nominal leader of the party. But, according to an article in last spring's issue by Columbia professor Zalmay Khalizad in ORBIS magazine, the most powerful figure in the Khalq party was Amin. Under the leadership of Amin and Taraki, Khalq drew its strength primarily from educators, teachers, intellectuals and sections of the military particularly in the Air Force. According to Khalilzad, Amin was responsable for the Khalq's ties with the military, a relationship which was critical both at the time of the Khalq's overthrow of the Daud regime in 1978 and at the time of Amin's ouster of Taraki in September 1979.
The Kalq Party first became a force in Afghanistan in 1973, when Mohammad Daud overthrew the regime of his brother-in-law King Zahair Shah. Promising reforms, Daud came to power with the strong support of the Khalq Party.
But by 1978, Daud had turned against the Khalq by abandoning domestic reform programs, as well as realigning Afghanistan's foreign policy towards closer ties with the Shah of Iran and with Egypt.
The coup that brought Khalq and Taraki to power was apparently sparked by the murder of a trade union leader and the large-scale arrests of Khalq members in Kabul. Khalq rallied its supporters in the military and seized power after two days of bitter fighting, during which Daud and several thousand others were killed.
In the new Khalq government, Taraki was President and Amin was Foreign Minister and Secretary of the Khalq Party. In his capacity as Foreign Minister, Amin visited New York in September 1978 to address the United Nations. Perhaps on an impulse, shortly before his scheduled speech, Amin dropped in to visit his old friend and former adviser at Columbia, William Anderson. Anderson recalls that Amin wanted "to pay his respects" and he only spoke with Amin for a few minutes because his former student "was late for his meeting at the U.N."
Back in Kabul, Taraki and Amin strengthened their country's traditionally close ties with the Soviet Union. At the same time, the new Afghan leaders sought to implement a far-reaching domestic reform program. Their reforms included land redistribution; abolishing of dowries and the sale of women; and an effort to reduce Afghanistan's 80 percent illiteracy rate by introducing an education campaign aimed at women as well as men.
Predictably, the scope of the reforms and the hurried pace with which the government sought to implement them stirred anger and resentment among the nation's semi-feudal tribal chieftains and landowners. The Khalq government further alienated tribal sentiment by cracking down on Afghanistan's extensive and lucrative opium production. The opposition to the government reforms soon exploded into a series of localized uprisings without central leadership or goals.
Khalilzad, himself a native of Afghanistan, has recommended limited American support for the rebels. He advocates supplying the anti-government forces with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, machine guns and grenades, preferably channelled through third parties such as the Pakistanis or the Chinese. Such aid, Khalilzad claims, would help restore the confidence of American allies in the United States, particularly in the wake of what Khalilzad sees as a "disastrous" American failure in Iran. Further, by providing-arms to the rebels Khalilzad believes that the United States could "cause serious" problems for the Soviets as Vietnam did for us." Finally, Khalilzad believes that US aid could influence the political outlook of the opposition in a "moderate" direction.
In the United States, those who oppose aid to the rebels point to the disorganized and reactionary nature of the opposition forces. They also point to the United States covert action program in Angola and note that a similar program in Afghanistan might cause a great many casulties among the native population— as the Angola program did — without appreciable undermining Soviet global influence.
Khalilzad has argued for limited American military and economic aid to the Afghan opposition in articles in The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal (under a pseudonym) and the scholarly journal ORBIS. But so far, the young Columbia professor does not think that Washington has initiated the type of program he recommends.
With or without American aid, the escalating rebelling against the Taraki government led to the showdown this past September between Taraki and Amin. The upshot of the confrontation, though details are still obscure, was the ouster and subsequent death of Taraki and the accesion of the fifty year old Amin to the Presidency of Afghanistan.
The American press quickly labelled Amin a "hard-line Communist . . . with a reputation for ruthlessness." One New York Times reporter noted that Amin has a bust of Lenin in his office and calls his friends "comrades."
Whatever Amin's exact ideology, Khalilzad thinks that the new President of Afghanistan is "a very energetic and hard-working fellow . . . much more effecient than Taraki." Khalilzad notes that Amin has strong support in the Afghan military, in the intelligence services, and in the Khalq party apparatus.
To date, it is unclear whether the United States has decided to intervene against the government of Afghanistan. But the evidence seems to indicate that the Carter Administration is leaning in that direction.
For instance, in a statement last August, Zbigniew Brzezinski indirectly warned the Soviets to curtail their involvement in Afghanistan. At the same time, Zbigniew Brzezinski stressed the Administration's intention to increase American military presence in the area. Ultimately, the continued success of the well-organized campaign to heighten American fears over an alleged Soviet threat may very well swing the administration toward an interventionist program in Afghanistan —if such a program isn't already underway.
