Kabul to Try Ex-Officials as Traitors

The new Afghan leadership established a “people’s court” Wednesday to try former Communist officials as traitors, reneging on a promise of amnesty it made last week.

At its first meeting, the new ruling Islamic council also dissolved the old ruling Watan Party, formerly the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the Communist party that ruled the country for 14 years, and abolished the feared Khad secret police and the previous Parliament.

Rival guerrilla factions observed a tentative cease-fire after two days of heavy fighting in the capital that left at least 73 people dead and nearly 400 wounded.

Details of the truce were not disclosed although rebel sources said it was signed late Tuesday by representatives of the fundamentalist Hezb-i-Islami faction and leaders of the Jamaat-i-Islami. But rebels from both sides suggested that the others were buying time to prepare for more fighting.

A spokesman for the new council, the Ayatollah Asif Mohseini, told a news conference that the group has established a special court to bring “justice against traitors and invaders.”

“If a person has violated Islamic or national law and the people want him to be punished, he will be punished,” Mohseini said. He declined to say how the government would determine whether “the people” want officials to be punished.

Last week, the council said that only former President Najibullah would be prosecuted. Najibullah is in hiding.

Mohseini said individuals could register complaints against former officials at the court, which would then investigate and issue judgments. He said the court would be given the power to punish former officials but declined to say if that included executing them.

As many as five high-ranking figures in the former government are missing and one, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, has been killed by unidentified gunmen.

The former civil aviation minister, abducted over the weekend, was released unharmed.

“I am home, I’m all right. Everything is OK,” former Civil Aviation Minister Madir Safi said. He said members of the former regime kidnaped him and that his release was negotiated by the Iranian-backed Islamic Unity Party.

Meanwhile, Sibghatullah Mojaddidi, Afghanistan’s first post-Communist president, suggested that he would govern for two years instead of two months. The proposal was immediately rejected by other guerrilla factions.

Burhanuddin Rabbani, the chief of the powerful Jamaat-i-Islami faction, is to take over as president in two months. He is to govern for four months until an interim government can take power and prepare the country for elections.

The streets of Kabul bustled again Wednesday as shopkeepers opened stores shuttered Monday and Tuesday when forces loyal to radical fundamentalist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar showered the city with scores of rockets.

Hekmatyar opposes the interim government established after the collapse of Najibullah’s Soviet-installed regime.

Hekmatyar has threatened to destroy Kabul if a militia from northern Afghanistan does not leave the city.

The city’s hospitals were filled Wednesday with civilians wounded in the shelling and fighting.

The Kabul hospital for war wounded, run by the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, has treated 600 people the last 10 days.