Rebel Journalists to Be Trained in Program : U.S. Will Aid Afghans in Telling Story

Guerrillas in Afghanistan are about to get money from the United States government for a public relations campaign intended to bring their struggle against Soviet troops to the world’s attention.

The money will be used to train Afghan rebel journalists to use television, radio and newspapers to advance their cause. Reporters will be given minicameras to photograph the war inside Afghanistan.

“It is the goal of this project to facilitate the collection, development and distribution of credible, objective and timely professional-quality news stories, photographs and television images about developments in Afghanistan,” said a notice in the Federal Register.

The program will be overseen by Uncle Sam’s own propaganda arm, the U.S. Information Agency. Congress appropriated $500,000 to hire experts and may provide more.

The American effort will enable the rebels to disseminate “the message to the world of what is going on there,” said Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey (R-N.H.), who proposed the idea to Congress. “The Soviets, unfortunately, have largely succeeded in their efforts of hiding that war from the people of the world and from world opinion.”

Humphrey, who thinks the Reagan Administration has failed to provide enough assistance to the anti-Soviet fighters, told the Senate in June that the project was cleared with the National Security Council. Congress’ understanding is that the Administration may ask for another $500,000.

Afghan rebels, called the Moujahedeen, have been battling 100,000 Soviet troops who have occupied the rugged, mountainous country since December 1979. The rebels’ headquarters is in Peshawar, Pakistan, on the Afghanistan border.

The Federal Register said the project is aimed at helping media representatives “overcome substantial obstacles” in bringing the story to world attention and to train Afghans “to develop an independent, self-funded media organization.”

As a first step, the USIA hired John O. Koehler, a former Associated Press administrator, to travel to Islamabad, Paris and other capitals to assess the problems guerrillas face in telling their story and of Western journalists in covering their efforts.

Most Western reporters assigned to cover the Afghan conflict are based in Pakistan and manage to slip over the border occasionally for a first-hand look at the war.

“It’s a story that hasn’t been told,” Koehler said.

Koehler was paid $9,000 plus $4,600 in expenses for his monthlong feasibility study. He said he will also look for “people who are trainable.”

Rosanne Klass, director of the New York-based Afghanistan Information Center, said the project could be helpful in promoting the story and persuading the Western press “to start using this stuff.”

Besides the media project, Congress has authorized the Board of International Broadcasting, a government agency, to begin a new service, Radio Free Afghanistan, to transmit news in Dari and Pashto, the Afghans’ native languages. The new service, scheduled to begin as a token operation this fall, will be similar to Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, government-financed news services distributed to communist countries.