Tears of the Oppressed

The Soviets should have known better. But they ignored history. Afghans are fiercely independent, with allegiance only to his tribe and Allah. For an Afghan, failure to seek revenge is regarded as loss of honor; and honor is the core of every Afghan's thinking. These traits, combined with the harsh environment provided a fertile field for the rapid and early growth of the mujahideen resistance to the Soviet invasion. The extensive Soviet bombing and brutal scorched earth policy, however, soon reduced the ability of the people to support themselves, much less the resistance movement. In rural areas medical care, primitive at best, was rendered almost non-existent. Of approximately 1,200 physicians practicing in Afghanistan before the invasion, only 200 were left after the Soviet purge. Resistance parties had been formed prior to the Soviet invasion. By late 1979 six groups had been established with their headquarters in Pakistan. As might be expected from the fiercely independent Afghan nature, frequent bickering and disagreement between the party leaders occurred, particularly between fundamentalist members of the Muslim Brotherhood and more moderate theologians. As time passed, pro-western countries in the region extended their support to the resistance movement. The Soviets made another miscalculation. They believed Afghan communists would fight along with the Soviet troops as ferociously as their heritage dictated. Again, the invaders should have remembered their history. Casualties were heavy among the invading troops, especially against the military genius of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the charismatic resistance leader in the Panjsher Valley. Massoud's constant successes sent a message of hope to the other resistance groups. After five years Soviet forces were hopelessly bogged down. The Soviets employed lethal chemical warfare agents and inflicted unspeakable atrocities on the local population. The land was laid waste, but the Afghans fought on. Terror was used as a deliberate weapon. "Butterfly" anti-personnel mines were sown into the fields indiscriminately to kill and maim the children; water supplies were poisoned; farm animals killed. Villagers were captured, tortured and executed. Still the mujahideen would not yield. Medical help for the freedom fighters was initially provided by the few remaining native physicians and French volunteers of "Doctors Without Borders." Still, the maxim prevailed: "To be wounded in Afghanistan is to die in Afghanistan." An unbelievably courageous Afghan physician, Dr. Abdullah Osman, escaped from Afghanistan with his family but later returned to document the appalling conditions and atrocities. His report reached Dr. Robert Simon, an American physician of Lebanese origin who was training Emergency Room physicians at UCLA. Dr. Simon visited Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1984, and entered Kunar Province in Afghanistan to observe first-hand the desperate need for medical personnel. Upon his return, he and his associates founded the International Medical Corps to send American physicians and nurses into Afghanistan. Reports such as those of Dr. Simon and Dr. Osman, plus articles by European journalists, publicized the genocide being inflicted by the Soviet invaders. As a result, in late 1984, the Soviet Ambassador to Pakistan stated publicly in Islamabad, "I warn you, and through you, all of your . . . colleagues about trying to penetrate Afghanistan with the so-called mujahideen. From now on, the bandits and the so-called journalists, the French, Americans, or British and others that accompany them will be killed and our units in Afghanistan will help the Afghan forces do it," Soon the price in Afghanistan for an American journalist alive or dead was $12,000; for an American doctor, $10,000.