Afghanistan An End in Sight?

By EDWARD W. DESMOND

Mikhail Gorbachev may finally get his way. Two months ago, the Soviet leader said he wanted to begin withdrawing the 115,000 Soviet troops mired in Afghanistan by May 15, but deadlocked negotiations in Geneva over the precise terms of the pullout cast doubt on his schedule. The snag was caused by Washington's insistence that the U.S. could arm Afghanistan resistance fighters as long as Moscow continued to provide military help to Kabul's Communist regime.

The Geneva talks were about to break down over that contentious point last week when Gorbachev decided to yield to the U.S. demand. Having won support from the Politburo, all that remained for Gorbachev was to secure agreement from Afghanistan President Najibullah, a former secret-police chief who is reportedly displeased with the Soviet pullout plan. Gorbachev summoned Najibullah to Tashkent, 200 miles north of the Soviet-Afghan border, where the two men conferred along with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. No details of the talks were released, but a Western diplomat in Moscow said, "I think it is a fair assumption that the Gorbachev meeting with Najibullah was the ultimate persuader, a combination of arm twisting and reassurance."

When the discussions ended, Gorbachev and Najibullah were all smiles. A joint communique declared with notable finality, "The last obstacles to concluding the agreements have now been removed." It stated that the withdrawal of the first Soviet units could still begin on May 15. The next day, at the United Nations-mediated talks in Geneva between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the gloom of recent weeks lifted almost instantly. Diego Cordovez, the U.N. troubleshooter who has shepherded the negotiations for the past six years, emerged from morning sessions with Afghan and Pakistani diplomats and told reporters, "We have discussed; we have negotiated. That's over. I want to inform you that the documents are now finalized and open for signature."

Though Cordovez announced that all the parties to the negotiations -- directly, Afghanistan and Pakistan; indirectly, the U.S. and the Soviet Union -- were prepared to sign the accords within a week, the response from Washington was more cautious. Administration sources noted that the Soviets had yet to answer formally the U.S. demand for the right to arm the rebels at a level "symmetrical" to Soviet military assistance to Kabul. Since the superpowers' symmetry discussion has not been a part of the Geneva negotiations, it will probably be covered in a separate declaration. Speaking on U.S. television after a futile round of shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz said, "Perhaps what we suggested . will be agreeable to them, but we still want to see the answer."

In Pakistan, which has suffered Afghan air and artillery attacks along the border as well as terror bombings in retribution for Islamabad's support for the mujahedin, the response to Gorbachev's concession was more clear-cut. Legislators thumped their desks in approval as President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq told a joint session of the parliament that a Soviet pullout was imminent. He called the development the "miracle of the 20th century, God willing."

Mujahedin leaders, most of whom are based in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, were less pleased. Not invited to the Geneva talks at the insistence of Kabul and Moscow, the rebels made it clear that since they were not part of any pact, the war would go on. Said Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a key mujahedin leader and spokesman for the seven-party resistance alliance: "The accords are not binding on us. Even if the Soviets start withdrawing, we will attack."

Despite the threat of more fighting, Gorbachev had good reason to be satisfied. Bringing the troops home will mean an end to Soviet casualties -- an estimated 30,000 men killed in action over the past eight years -- and to growing antiwar sentiment in the Soviet Union. More important, Gorbachev hopes the move will help burnish Moscow's international image, which was tarred by Leonid Brezhnev's decision in 1979 to invade Afghanistan in the first place. Thus it was perhaps no coincidence that Gorbachev wanted to see the withdrawal begin before President Reagan arrives in Moscow for a summit meeting on May 29.

The agreement, however, will not necessarily bring peace to Afghanistan, which has seen more than a million people killed since 1979 and at least 3 million, a sixth of the population, flee to neighboring Pakistan and Iran. In fact, last week's Tashkent accord may be just the opening bell for the war's final round. The main question remains unanswered: Who will control the country, the mujahedin or the forces of the Najibullah government? Moscow apparently feels that Najibullah can survive with Soviet military and economic aid or at least hold heavily fortified Kabul and a broad corridor leading north to the Soviet border. Officials in Washington and Islamabad, on the other hand, are confident that the mujahedin will score telling successes against the unpopular Najibullah regime and its 150,000-man security forces, fewer than 20,000 of whom are considered reliable. In preparation for what may become the final showdown, both Washington and Moscow have been shipping large amounts of arms to their allies. Says a U.S. Defense official in Washington: "Both sides appear to be very well supplied at the moment."

The texts of the documents that are to be signed at Geneva are still secret. Cordovez said last week that they would bind Kabul and Islamabad to "noninterference and nonintervention" in each other's affairs, provide for the voluntary return of Afghan refugees, name the U.S. and Soviet Union co-guarantors, and stipulate a Soviet withdrawal within nine months. In a separate memorandum, the United Nations will agree to monitor compliance. At week's end translators were busy turning out copies of the 40-page document in Urdu for the Pakistanis and Pashto for the Afghans, as well as Russian and English.

If the envoys at Geneva sign this week, it will bring to an end Moscow's major military involvement of the past 20 years. Soviet troops invaded in December 1979 in order to replace one Communist leader, Hafizullah Amin, with Babrak Karmal, another Communist but one more amenable to Soviet thinking on many issues. Soviet troops quickly became enmeshed in fighting with the budding resistance movement. Moscow has tried to defeat the rebels with everything from carpet bombing to lightning commando attacks, all to no avail. Soviet offers of bribes, cease-fires and amnesties have also failed to quell the mujahedin.

Negotiations for a peaceful settlement started in 1982, but began to move ahead only last February, after Gorbachev declared that he would bring his troops home in ten months, instead of the twelve on which Moscow had insisted earlier, and would ensure that a "greater proportion" of the withdrawal would take place at the start -- a key U.S. concern.

Washington and Islamabad then realized Moscow was serious about leaving Afghanistan, and with that certain points already agreed upon turned into problems. For example, in 1985 the U.S. promised to cut off aid to the rebels once the Soviets began to leave Afghanistan, provided their withdrawal was rapid enough. But now some U.S. officials and legislators felt such a move would leave the resistance dangerously exposed. Islamabad balked because the Geneva proposals did not make provisions for the removal of the Najibullah regime, the most important demand of the mujahedin.

As talks resumed in Geneva six weeks ago, Moscow turned up the heat, * offering a withdrawal within just nine months. Zia tried to put on the brakes by issuing a demand: there could be no agreement without the establishment of an interim government in Kabul that included representatives of the resistance groups. Under pressure from the U.S. Congress to defend the mujahedin's interests, the U.S. raised the stakes even further by insisting that Moscow stop all military aid to Najibullah after the pullout. Moscow rejected both points, and Pakistan subsequently backed off from its interim-regime demand when it became clear that the fractious resistance leaders would never accept even token Communist representation in any coalition government.

Washington, by contrast, held its ground even as Moscow protested that it was being asked to drop longstanding treaty commitments to provide Kabul with military aid. Then, two weeks ago, U.S. diplomats turned Washington's position on its head in a compromise proposal made to the Soviets: Would Moscow go along with continued U.S. arms supplies to the mujahedin at levels "symmetrical" to Moscow's support for Najibullah? "Unacceptable" was the response by Soviet Foreign Ministry Spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov, and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze threatened a unilateral Soviet pullout without an agreement at Geneva. In the end, Gorbachev apparently decided that a formal accord was too important to lose. "What they needed was a fig leaf," observed a Western diplomat in Moscow. "This allows ((the Soviets)) to preserve their position of principle."

The question now is what specifics for symmetry Moscow has in mind. U.S. State Department officials say they have proposed a moratorium on all arms deliveries for a year, beginning May 15. After that period expires, says a U.S. diplomat in Washington, "our actions will be directed by Soviet actions. If they resupply, we'll do the same. We will watch to see what happens." The approach appears to satisfy most of the mujahedin's supporters in the U.S. Congress. Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, a Democrat, who backed a unanimous Senate resolution last month urging the Reagan Administration to stiffen U.S. terms at Geneva, said last week that his "concerns are being met."

One legislator who challenged the assessment was Republican Senator Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire, who returned last week from Peshawar, where he met with resistance leaders. He warned that "any tacit or spoken agreements ((with Moscow)) are self-delusion." He questioned how the U.S. planned to resolve the contradiction between the Geneva accords, which call for an end to arms shipments to the rebels, and Washington's under-the-table deal with Moscow. Confronted with that question last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, on a tour of India and Pakistan, responded, "The lawyers can work out the details."

Washington may have some lawyers in the wings, but the U.S. plans to maintain a facade of compliance with the Geneva pacts by shipping arms to Pakistan -- and leaving to Islamabad the decision on how and when to release the supplies to the mujahedin. That would put Zia in a tight spot, considering that he has already agreed in Geneva to stop arms from reaching the rebels through Pakistan's territory. Says a Pakistani diplomat: "This creates a problem for us because we have to assure that the mujahedin do not violate the agreement. If they do, we will be held responsible by the Soviets."

Zia believes the situation will not reach that crossroads. In his address to the Federal Legislature last week, he admitted that signing an agreement with Najibullah, a step he once vowed he would never take, was a major concession, but dismissed it as meaningless since, he said, Najibullah's days were numbered. Declared Zia: "The KGB man Najib will never be acceptable to the Afghans." The President predicted that many of the 2 million Afghan refugees huddled in scores of camps not far from the 1,400-mile Afghan-Pakistani border would start heading home within six months. Most of the refugees say they will not leave until the mujahedin prevail.

Although Cordovez has promised to push both Najibullah and the resistance groups to form a coalition government in Kabul once the accords have been signed, most observers believe his efforts will fail, just as a similar effort did earlier this year. In their joint communique issued last week, Najibullah and Gorbachev appeared to leave the way open for a coalition government when they encouraged participation in the government by "all forces representing Afghan society, including those who are currently opposed to one another." However, it remained unclear whether Najibullah would be willing to yield ultimate power, while the mujahedin have repeatedly said they will not deal with him or any other Afghan Communist.

It is no surprise, then, that both sides are girding for more fighting. Soviet supply convoys are pouring into Kabul, while U.S.-supplied armaments are flooding into resistance arsenals in Pakistan. Truck traffic on the main road leading to Peshawar is so heavy that a Pakistani official quipped, "Stay off the grand trunk road, or you'll be run down by a CIA truck." Only six weeks ago, a slowdown in deliveries prompted the mujahedin to accuse the U.S. of a sellout, but by May 15 they may have a year's supply of weapons and ammunition on hand, much of which is better than any they have seen before. The new arms include the Franco-German Milan antitank missile, Spanish-made 120-mm mortars and special mine-clearing equipment.

Such weapons would be crucial to a successful assault on heavily mined and fortified areas like Kabul. Several weeks ago, the rebels tested the mine- clearing equipment outside a government outpost in Paktia province. In a matter of minutes, the attackers detonated most of the mines and forced the demoralized garrison to surrender. Said mujahedin Leader Gulbuddin last week: "Our strategy now will be to attack bigger, more strategic, more important targets instead of wasting our time attacking insignificant outposts. We will also launch attacks on Kabul." The battle for Afghanistan may only be beginning.

With reporting by Ross H. Munro/Islamabad and Ken Olsen/Moscow