Having advised three of our ambassadors on security affairs in Afghanistan, including the late Mani Dixit during the turbulent years of 1978-82, it becomes necessary for me to set the record straight on certain matters pertaining to Afghanistan. I also want to challenge the erroneous deductions and assessments that Jagat Mehta has made about the country’s foreign policy at the time in Central-South Asia (‘‘Today is another day’’, IE, July 18).First, on Afghanistan, the scenario prevailing at the time needs to be fully understood before any pronouncements can be made, as Mehta seems to have done. The Afghan President Noor Mohammad Tarakki had been deposed by his own deputy, the Communist Hafizullah Amin. Amin had started to align himself more closely with Pakistan, and, significantly, the Shah of Iran had been toppled in early 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini and his Shi’ite revolutionaries. The soft underbelly of the Soviet Union was being seriously threatened by a radical Islamic thrust from all sides, including Iran. The future of oil deposits in the region and of the Gulf oil artery was at stake, a situation that the USSR could never accept. Similarly it could not accept Amin going away from the Soviet brand of Communism, and coming down heavily on his rural masses in the countryside.Mehta and his ‘‘perceptive observers’’ have not fathomed the Soviet concern with the arrival of Khomeini at their doorstep, and with the Shia/Sunni divide that was was about to affect the entire region and more specifically the Afghan border with Pakistan and the USSR. It is also wrong to feel that the Soviets had little interest in the Gulf oil-fields or for that matter the warm water ports in the region. The focused American interest and inputs (weapons, money and aid) to Pakistan in this period check-mated the Soviet advance south and westwards. The Mujahideen supported from across the Pak-Afghan border, the rising casualties, and the failing Soviet economy, all adversely effected the well planned Soviet thrust.It is with regret that I must say that despite my early warnings of a likely Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in early-mid 1979 — warnings to not only my Director of Military Intelligence, but also the GOI via the second channel of the Ambassador — no action was taken at our end that could well have prevented not only the sad plight of the Afghan people throughout the 80s, but even the recent armed American intervention in that country. Soviet entry acted as a catalytic agent and threw up many forces like the Mujahideen and later the Taliban, that endangered the very stability of the region. Only history will tell whether an autonomous Afghanistan, with its own kind of government, would not have been the right answer.As former Foreign Secretary Mehta surely ought to know that the USSR was not so much worried about disposing of Amin. In any case, it had moved in Babrak Karmal in Amin’s place. All the tell-tale signs in the wind were missed by the Indian Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister. The inherent insecurity in our foreign service cadres vis-à-vis the defence attachés posted alongside them must be removed, lest the country continues to suffer due to faulty assessments and reporting on the former’s part.Some other observations for Mehta to kindly ponder over: Talking about nuclear weapons, he says that the possession of these ‘‘did not ensure victory even against small countries’’, and gives the example of the US in Vietnam. Was Mehta advocating nuclear strikes by US forces in Vietnam? Again, I was posted in Vietnam in the mid-60s at the height of the war. I was on the International Control Commission, and one would have had to be out of one’s mind to advocate nuclear usage in that country, given the terrain and the prevailing geo-politics, with both China and the USSR breathing down the US’s neck.Then, it was not a case of India ‘‘abdicating non-alignment’’ that facilitated the ‘‘re-militarisation of Pakistan’’, but in part the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the likely counter-measures that the US was compelled to take to safeguard its national interests. Mehta is in part right about India alienating Pushtoon sentiments, but that is not why we could have ‘‘saved the Kargil intrusions in 1999’’. As someone who knew Frontier Gandhi Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and was his neighbour in Kabul for three years, I am well aware of the Khan’s anger and distrust of the Indian government for having ‘‘left the Pushtoons in the lurch’’ at the time of the creation of Pakistan. Frontier Gandhi had a grand vision for his people and even in the years when I was posted in Kabul, he felt let down by the Indian stand on the Pushtoons. But this matter in no way affected the Kargil intrusions. Those were the result of indifferent handling by the most senior men in our army generalship at the time, and of course awfully poor intelligence on the part of our agencies who were dealing with this matter.About Mehta’s assertion that the CIA encouraged Osama bin Laden ‘‘to go to the Afghan caves’’, whatever little is known so far from published accounts about Osama points to his already being there much earlier on, fighting the Soviets who had intruded into Afghanistan.Ultimately, it would be in India’s interest to a. not be Pakistan-centric; b. not be hostile to the US; c. befriend the US in mutually-beneficial fields, like the National Missile Defence shield and nuclear energy, and seek their support as a future counter-weight in any issue concerning China; d. stop interfering in other people’s affairs in the neighbourhood where later on the beneficiaries turn hostile (for example Bangladesh); and e. charter a new strategic direction, where the most knowledgeable and experienced amongst the serving and the veterans in the field of security and diplomacy are permitted a say. We burnt our fingers by intervening in Sri Lanka, and made no friends with the Afghan people by not criticising the Soviet intervention in that country. For a better future, let’s not make the same mistakes again and again on the diplomatic and strategic front.The writer was Indian Military Attaché‚ in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion in Dec 1979. Email: genhimmatgill@glide.net.in
