Afghanistan’s Blood Flows On : Strongman’s resignation is unlikely to bring calm to war-scarred land

Nabjibullah, the one-name former secret policeman left in charge by the Soviet Union when it withdrew its occupying army from Afghanistan in late 1989, has been forced from power. But his country, ravaged by war for more than a dozen years, still seems to be a long way from achieving true peace.

Ancient ethnic rivalries that are reflected in the more recent competition among well-armed Muslim militia forces threaten to plunge Afghanistan into a tragic new era of bloodshed and destruction. The United States, which spent an estimated $2 billion to arm anti-Soviet guerrilla forces through the 1980s, now finds itself virtually without influence among its former clients. State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler can only plead with rival forces on behalf of the U.S. government not to resort to violence, a call almost sure to be lost in the maelstrom of events. The United Nations, whose emissary has been working for weeks to win agreement for transitional political arrangements, also finds its good offices scorned.

The withdrawal of the last Soviet troops from Afghanistan three years ago, and the U.S.-Russian agreement to stop arming their former clients as of last January, eliminated one of the final points of Cold War confrontation. But it has not brought a suspension of influence-seeking by other outside forces. Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, whether for religious or political reasons, all continue to back their favorite factions in a chronically faction-riven land that has never had a unifying central government.

The strong possibility that ethnic strife will explode anew, particularly between militias representing the Pushtuns in the south and east and the Tajiks in the north, bodes ill for the 5 million refugees--about one-fourth of the population--who have been waiting in camps in Pakistan and Iran for a chance to return to their country. It bodes worse for those who remain in Afghanistan, which has already suffered as many as 2 million war dead, most of them civilians. Can outsiders hope to play any effective part in heading off new civil conflict? Perhaps not, given Afghanistan’s divisive history. But certainly the moral obligation to try is compelling.