Victory Taken Away, Some Afghans Say

Afghan refugees are increasingly blaming Muslim guerrillas they once hailed as heroes for the 12-year-old civil war that keeps them from going home.

“There is no peace because these people are not united,” said a refugee named Feramoz, referring to the seven guerrilla groups that received support from the United States, Saudi Arabia and other sympathetic Arab states.

While the superpowers seek a compromise in the Afghan war, resentment is growing among refugees over the lethal infighting among the guerrilla groups and the opulent lifestyles of their leaders in Peshawar, near the Afghan border.

A two-day summit between U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze--whose government continues to back Afghan President Najibullah after the Soviet pullout in February last year--ended Thursday with little indication of progress on Afghanistan.

That lowered expectations of a quick settlement that could allow the repatriation of an estimated 3.8 million Afghans who live in dried-mud huts and weather-worn tents in refugee camps across Pakistan’s rugged Northwest Frontier Province.

“We’re forced to live like this. What can we do?” asked Feramoz, who uses only one name.

Guerrilla leaders are rumored to have made fortunes during the long war, siphoning off weapons, money and supplies earmarked for the war effort and using the proceeds to build colonial-style homes and buy four-wheel-drive vehicles.

The United Nations in late July launched a cash-and-food program for refugees who agree to return to Afghanistan, but few have accepted.

Refugees say Islamic clerics have been issuing threats from mosques and condemning those who return to Afghanistan as infidels. There have also been reports of guerrilla leaders forcing returning refugees back to the camps.

“Those who wanted to go back are being stopped at the border by moujahedeen (Islamic holy warriors),” said Sadar Gul, an Islamic cleric who preaches in the Nasir Baugh camp dominated by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami, or Party of Islam.

The moujahedeen leaders, once lionized, are now seen by many as bickering warlords who have lost the faith of their backers and the support of most of the refugees.

“We have been cheated of our victory,” said Aga Shah, a young Afghan who longed for the days when Soviet soldiers were fighting alongside Kabul’s communist-style government--because the presence of a foreign force brought unity to the armed opposition.

“When the Russians were there we were happy because all Muslims were united,” he said. “Now they are all fighting for power.”

Moscow withdrew its combat troops in February, 1989, after nine years of direct military involvement.

“Now it’s just Afghans killing Afghans,” said Hamed Gailani, whose father heads a pro-royalist National Islamic Front of Afghanistan guerrilla group.

The guerrillas’ government-in-exile, once seen as a replacement to President Najibullah, has tested Washington’s patience--some say to the breaking point.

A U.S. Senate intelligence committee has voted to slash $100 million from its military allotment to the guerrilla fighters who last year reportedly received $300 million.

Washington has agreed that Najibullah, the Soviet-installed leader, can remain president providing he cedes power over his military, secret police and state media.

Gailani said the only solution to peace is the return of Afghanistan’s former monarch, Mohammed Zahir Shah, who was overthrown by his cousin Mohammed Daoud in 1973. Zahir Shah has been living in exile in Rome.

But Islamic radicals within the rebel leadership condemn the former king, saying he opened Afghanistan’s door to communism and then remained silent throughout the war.