THE PLACE OF HERAT IN A MODERN AFGHANISTAN: LESSONS FROM THE MARCH 1979 UPRISING
2015; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 46; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/03068374.2014.994958
ISSN1477-1500
Autores Tópico(s)Belt and Road Initiative
ResumoAbstractIt is often assumed that Herat is a backwater in Afghanistan's national politics. Many consider it to be merely a conduit for Iranian influence, and that it doesn't have the relevance of provinces such as Kandahar or Helmand. This analysis challenges these assumptions. The article looks at Herat's place in Afghan politics over the period from 1978 to 2014, with specific and detailed reference to the anti-Soviet 1979 uprising, examining the influence that actors such as the USSR, Iran, Peshawar and various mujahedeen factions have attempted to bring to bear on the city, and focusing on how despite these pressures the city has in many ways been a self-directed and autonomous player, often setting the lead in terms of Afghan national politics. Herat and Kabul relations have frequently been marked by suspicion, but the author argues that Herat is still an integrated part (even if not well integrated) of the Afghan polity, and its troubled relations with Kabul are of more moment than its relationship with Tehran. Notes1. Herat was under Persian control or de facto independent for many periods from the 16th to 19th centuries.2. Mike Martin, An Intimate War: An Oral History of the Helmand Conflict. London: Hurst & Co., 2014.3. Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge. University Press, 1990, p. 34. The Saur Revolution, of 27–28 April 1978 was less of a revolution and more of an internal putsch bringing to power the Khalqi faction of Afghanistan's PDPA, and headed by Nur Mohammad Taraki, who began a disastrous period of reform and a brutal suppression of dissent and execution that, in part, dragged Herat to the uprising of March 1979, and which put the city in the front line of the war against the Soviets.4. ‘Remnants of Monarchy Wiped'. Kabul Times Vol. XVII. Issue 33, May 4 (1978): 1.5. Mark Urban, War in Afghanistan. London: Macmillan, 1990, p. 12, and Farzan, Qiam-e Herat, p. 24.6. Interviews in Herat, February 2014.7. See Olivier Roy, 1990, p. 89.8. Ahmad Shah Farzan, Qiyam-e Herat [Herat's Uprising], Mashhad: Entesharat-e Farbad, 1995, p. 25.9. Afghan People Unanimous In Supporting Revolution, Kabul Times, Vol. XVII. Issue 63, Saturday June 10, 1978, Jauza 20, 1357 SH, p. 1.10. Interviews in Herat, February 2014.11. Anthony Hyman, Afghanistan Under Soviet Domination, 1964–83. London: Macmillan, 1984, p. 112.12. Farzan, Qiam-e Herat, p. 39.13. Amnesty International, Violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (AI Index ASA 11/04/79), and Olivier Roy. Despite the release, in 2013, of a document of nearly 5,000 names of those executed under the Taraki and Amin regime, there is no official recognition of the scale of this slaughter; families to this day remain unaware of the fate of their loved ones. Whilst the majority of reports from the time focus on the abuses which occurred in Pul-e Charkhi, Afghanistan's largest prison, located just outside Kabul (a prison in which I have spent a good deal of time, working with the ICRC), reading accounts of Herat's prisons one gets a vivid and often graphic impression of the Khalqi regime's atrocities. For an excellent article on the publication of this list and the legacy of torture in Afghanistan, see Kate Clark, ‘Death List Published: families of disappeared end a 30 year wait for news', 26 September 2013, Afghan Analysts Network, at https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/death-list-published-families-of-disappeared-end-a-30-year-wait-for-news/; accessed on 19/09/2014.14. The qiam is discussed in more detail by Gilles Doronsorro in Revolution Unending, pp. 98–102.15. The suppression of the uprising in Herat saw government tanks from Kandahar attack enfeebled rebel positions in the city and a bombing campaign which took out posts taken by rebels on the Rignah Bridge and other strategic points in the city. The aircraft, Ilyushin Il-28s, sent in from Shindand air base, were effective in scattering the resistance, and caused damage to people and buildings alike, Herat's first taste of war from the air. Within a week, the qiam had ended and retribution was to follow. In the suppression of the qiam, it has been alleged by Ismail Khan and other Mujahedeen that over 24,000 Heratis were killed in the course of the Khalqi repression, which entailed both the army's response and the AGSA's systematic rounding up of suspects in the months following the qiam. This number was given some credence with the discovery, in 1992, of a mass grave to the north of Herat, in which the bodies of 2,000 were found, but many Heratis I discussed this with maintain that these were actually bodies killed before the qiam had erupted.16. For agrarian reform as a motivating cause, see, R. Grönhaug, ‘Scale as a Variable in the Analysis: Reflections Based on Field Materials from Herat', in F. Barth (Ed.), Scale and Social Organisation. New York: Wenner-Green, 1973. For anti-Pashtun and Shiite motivation, see Richard Newell, ‘The Government of Muhammad Mussa Shafiq: the last chapter of Afghan Liberalism'. Central Asian Survey (1982): 92, and for the work of Rabbani and Jamiat-e Islami, see Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 86–92.17. Afghanistan: Implications for Warning, http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0000278538.pdf; accessed on 19/08/2014.18. For a truly excellent and meticulous account of Ismail Khan's Emirate and his role in the Jihad, see Antonio Guistozzi, Empires of Mud: Wars and Warlords in Afghanistan. London: Hurst, 2009.19. Farzan, Qiam-e Herat, pp. 101–2.20. ‘The Soviet Union and Afghanistan, 1978–1989: Documents from the Soviet and East German Archives', and ‘Transcripts of CPSU Politburo Discussions on Afghanistan, 17–19 March 1979', Woodrow Wilson Center, Cold War International History Project Bulletin 8–9, Winter 1996–97, pp. 136–145, hereafter cited as E-Dossier, at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/e-dossier_4.pdf, p. 71. Accessed on 08/12/13.21. E-Dossier, p. 137.22. Interviews in Herat, January 2014.23. Interviews in Herat, January/February 2014.24. Interviews in Herat, January 2014.25. UNHCR, Herat Background Report, 1989, p. 53.26. ‘Afghan News, 1985'. A Biweekly Bulletin of Jami'at Islami Afghanistan Vol. 1. (1985): 5.27. United Nations Humanitarian and Assistance Programmes relating to Afghanistan, Salam 1, 8–14 December, 1988, Tehran, 1988, p. 6.28. Mohammad Zaher Dastgard Azimi’, Hout, Mah-e Tajali-ye Iman [Hout, A Month of Glorious Faith], Herat, Emarat-e Velayat-e Herat, 1992, p. 8. See also Said Sharif Yosoufi, Qiam-e Golgun-e Kafnan-e 24 Hout-e Herat, [The Blood-Soaked Uprising of Herat of 24th Hout] Kabul; 1985, p. 98.29. Ettefaq-e Islami, Herat, April 21, 1992, pp. 1–3.30. It is interesting to note that material relating to the Jihad as a whole, written in Peshawar at the time, rarely mentions the notion of an Islamic Revolution, preferring the term Jihad.31. E-Dossier, p. 37.32. E-Dossier, p. 26.33. see n. 20.34. E-Dossier, p. 40.35. E-Dossier, p. 41.36. E-Dossier, p. 32.37. National Committee for Human Rights in Afghanistan, Russia's Barbarism in Afghanistan Vol. II, July 1985; Peshawar, p. 123.38. Habib Kawyani and Jonathan Tinker, Report of a Journey to Herat, 1988: For Afghanaid, Autumn 1988, p. 7.39. Interviews in Herat, January 2014.
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