Rebels Turn Peace Celebration Into Blood Bath : Afghanistan: Two government officials die and many others are hurt in guerrillas’ gunfire. The violence is seen as a blow to Najibullah’s presidency.

Afghan rebels turned a reconciliation ceremony into a massacre Friday, killing two generals and wounding many other government officials, witnesses said.

Foreign journalists and East Bloc diplomats dived for cover as a group of rebels suddenly opened up with automatic weapons at the surrender ceremony in northwestern Afghanistan.

About 10,000 people who had gathered for the occasion in a valley 30 miles east of Herat scattered in all directions to escape a gun battle that lasted more than 15 minutes.

Foreign Ministry officials at the scene said Deputy Security Minister Gen. Jalal Razmanda was killed and the governor of Herat province, Fazle Haq Khaliq Yar, was wounded.

A second general died of wounds as he was being flown back to Kabul with the journalists.

Witnesses saw at least 10 bodies, some of them children.

They said more than 50 people were wounded in the battle, which was fought with pistols, assault guns and the heavy machine guns of two government tanks.

The first shots were fired as Khaliq Yar embraced one of the moujahedeen guerrilla commanders. A handful of gunmen standing behind the commander cut the governor down and the whole area erupted in a withering cross-fire.

Despite being only a few yards from the heart of the battle, the foreigners appeared unhurt. An Afghan television cameraman was wounded in the head.

Kabul Radio, reporting the incident with unusual promptness, blamed a “small terrorist group” for the carnage. It acknowledged that several top officials had been wounded.

The ceremony had been designed as a showpiece for Afghan President Najibullah’s policy of national reconciliation under which he has persuaded many anti-government guerrillas to lay down their arms.

Foreign journalists and diplomats were flown 400 miles across the country from Kabul to watch the ceremony, one of many the Soviet-backed government says it has organized in the past three years.

The massacre will be a major blow to Najibullah, who narrowly survived last month when renegade air force officers bombed his Kabul palace in a coup attempt.

The reconciliation policy has been central to Najibullah’s efforts to widen the appeal of his government since the last of the Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February, 1989.

Razmanda, whose Security Ministry controls the hated security police, was a leading negotiator with those bands of guerrillas that had begun to lose their appetite for war after the withdrawal of Soviet forces.

Guerrilla leaders in the Pakistan city of Peshawar refuse to talk to Najibullah but have been unable to prevent some of their field commanders from making local deals.