A/42/PV.61 General Assembly

I shall now ca.ll on tbo!:'l~ reprasentativeswho wish speak in exercise of the right of reply. May I remind members that, in accordance with General AS!IH!:l\'lbly decision 34/401, statements in exercise of the right of reply are limited to 10 minutei5 f?or the first intervention and to five minutes for the second and should be IlUilde by delegations from their seats. Mr. KHAN (Pakistan): The statement made this morning in the nal1\eof Afghanistan was filled with abUSE! and slander against my country clOd my Governmeht which is not worthy of response. But I wish to address certain false <Hill!HU~t16ruII made in that statement which need to be exposed for the r('!Jcord. The first and foremost is the set of assertions relating to so-called outside interference. It has been unabashedly stated once again that the over 100,000 Soviet troops entered Afghanistan on invitation to help in rebUffing outside interference. The myth of such an invitation was rejected by the world community when it was first contrived to provide a post-facto justification for the Soviet military intervention eight years ago. It remains equally discredited today. Indeed, the tragic consequences of the military intervention have served to highlight its illegality and brutality. One may ask, when these over 100,000 foreign troops descended on Afghanistan where did they go and what did they do? They did not proceed to the southern borders of Afghanistan to defend it against a so-called and imaginary ~ggression, but concentrated in Kabul to dilillodge th@! " f th d The. f1' rst repo.·rts emanating. from the I\fg. han capital weIe of the reg1me 0 e ay. assassination of the then President and the installation of a new pUpp(!lt regim@. they are operating in 18 of the 30 provinces of Afghanistan. Indeed, these foreign troqpa are e.ngaged regl.ll.arly, year after year, in relentless military operations ill an attempt to liquidate the Afghan resistance, which is indigenous and has spread throughout the length and breadth of the country. More can be said about the real source of aggression. Throughout history, refuge~s have taken shelter away from the direction of the aggressor. If Pakistan were to be the aggressor, as the statement attempts to argue, Pakistan would not have had 3 million refugees seeking shelter on its soil. The location of the A.fghan refugees undoubtedly indicates the direction of the aggression. The only foreign presence in Afghanistan is that of the Soviet forces, and it is the Afghan nationalists who have launched a freedom struggle against the occupation of their country. The Afghan people refuse to be SUbjugated by the onslaughts of a foreign army. Their struggle is just; they have the right to carry it on by all means, and they deserve international support. The Afghans living in exile and the Afghan emigres, who include intelligentsia and prominent Afghan personalities, have all of them, without exception, with one voice lamented the occupation of their country and the suffering of the Afghan nation under foreign military SUbjugation. The second set of assertions relates to refugees: that they have left their country on account of malicious propaganda by world imperialism, that they are living in inhuman conditions in Pakistan and that Pakistan is preventing them from returning. The tragedy of Afghanistan is of staggering proportions and a measure ot" it ill; ctle Ci:lct: cl'1at ortCl' Chi.N of b~"", ~.1... t-jOJ.l h-"l.s: .f.lQQ the country. Over 3 million Afghans are in Pakistan. They face a life of exile and deprivation. They suffer hardship, but it is the inhuman conditions of foreign occupation and the ravages of the conflict resulting from it that have forced them to leave their These conditions cconttuue to persist in Afghani~tanand so does th{\! refugQll\l influx into Pakistan. We continue to receive refugees f.rom all O\fet" Afghanistan. Last March, when the province of Kunduz in the north was subjected t.o harsh mili tary reprisals, thousands of Afghanstrek.ked hundreds of miles to SEH~k. safety in P.akistan. The Afghan refugees refuse to return to Afghanistan unless the conditions which drove them away are changed. This requires the termination of the foreign military intervention. The United Nations and other international agencies and impartial observers can asert.ain the facts for themselves. The Afghan refugee camps are open and many international humanitarian agencies operate there to provide relief. The third Set of assertions related to the so-called programme of national reconciliation and the allegations that Pakistan \l(as obstructing its progress. 'The Afghan resistance, the refugees and pro,minent Afghans all over the world have rejected Kabul's national reconciliation. They rightly maintain that reconciliation cannot materialize under conditions of foreign occupation. It is strange that the Kabul regime, which is Seen by the Afghans as puppets sustained by a foreign army, which has maligned the resistance as handits and counter-revolutionaries for nearly seven years. should now expect the Afghan people and the resistance to rally round it and accept its leadership in response to promises of national reconciliation. It is equally astonishing that the Kabul regime expects this national reconciliation to materialize under the patronage and protection of foreign forces. The farce of national reconciliation is exposed by the brutal fact that, throughout the summer, Afghanistan was once again subjected to intensified military operations involving foreign forces. The aim of those operations, which wreaked destruction in several provinces and major cities, was to consolidate the control of the puppet regime. KabUl's national reconciliation seeks the same objective, but the puppet regime continues to depend on the foreign forces for its survival as it dirl earlier. It thus remains devoid of legitimacy and discredited in the eyes of the Afghan people. The fourth set of assertions relates to the Geneva negotiations to mislead international opinion. Kahul's statement attributed progress at Geneva to its own initiatives, proposals and flexih1lity. The actua1 position, howevar, is different. Kahul's initiatives and proposals are no more than manoeuvres to avoid the iSSUE! of the time-frame for withdrawal. iSvailable. Since then, new auestions have been raised by Kahul to avoid the time-frame issue. Ontil now, the situation has: not Changed. At the last GeneVa round, Pakistan was willing to continue with the n,egotiations for as 101\9 tUIWli\S necessary in order to finalize the time-frame issue, but the otl'ter side stalled and had no interest in carrying the talks for...ard. In fact, the Kabul statement is disturbing in its reference to the Geneva talks as it impinges on the integrated nature of the settlement being negotiated at Geneva and the agreed pr inciple calling for the simultaneous implementation of 1ts component parts, namely, the four instruments, the texts of which have been elaborated and which await the provision of a short time-frame for: finalization. The ohjective evaluation of the Afghanistan situation is found in the decisions and resolutions of the international community, which clearly identify the Soviet military intervention as the root cause of the Afghanistan problem. This military intervention is not only a violation of international principles: it has produced one of the darkest tragedies of our times. Mr.ROSHAN-RAWAAN (Afghanistan): I have asked to speak to clarify some points raised by the representative of the military regime of Islamabad. Once again, as in previous years, that delegation has tried to portray the presence of the limited military contingent of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan as the only cause for the situation prevailing in and around my country. The fact is that interference in the internal affairs of my country began long b@fore the GovlHl'lIlllent of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan - on the basis of a trea.ty of friendship, co-operation and good neighhourliness with the Soviet Union, and in accordtlinc(!l with the Charter of the Oni ted Nations - invited the limited mil i tary contingent of the Soviet union to assist us. Afghanistan) In this connection, I should li\ice to remind my colleague from Pakistan that., months before we made the decision to reauest the assistance of our northern neighbour, a high-ranking delegation of my country I/isi ted Islamabad to discuss the thr.eats posed to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of my country as a result of interference by Pakistan in the internal affairs of Afghanistan. The position portrayed today by the delegation of Pakistan added no new element 1n this regard and I think it is now clear to the international community, after eight years, that the root cause of the situation prevailing in South-West Asia is interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan from abroad, but mainly from Pakistan. The invitation to the soviet Union to dispatch the limited military contingent to Afghanistan was the result of this interference in our internal affairs. In a campaign of distortion of the truth, which has unfortunately been the practice of my colleagues from Pakistan for some years, they misquoted the secretary-General of the People's Democratic RepUblic of Afghanistan and the President of the Revolutionary Council of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan as if he had said that the limited military contingent of the Soviet Union was operating in 17 provinces in my country, which is not the case. They are not engaged in any military activities. They are there to assist our people and our armed forces to repel any threat posed from abroad to the territorial integrity, Sovereignty and independence of my country. Once again, the ~elegation of Pakistan attempted to speak on behalf of the Afghan refugees ahroad. In fact, they said that the refugees do not want to return to their homeland. If that is the case, then one might ask why the Government of P8kistan refused to accept a delegation from the national commission for ..,hy do we hear Pakistan talking in !:his Assembly on bMalf of the n'Ifugltles? If only rule is to provide humani tar ian ass istance, r think they should allow the refugees to speak for themselves and not arrogate to t.hemselves tl,e right to say on their behalf that they reject the policy of natibnal reconciliation or do not wish to return to Afghanistan. 1 no not think I have to dwell on !:he policy of national reconciliation itself, because it is very clear. on !:he o!:her hand, the reason that the delegation of Pakistan tried once again to assert that. it is not going to work shows its hostility and enmity towards this programme - this humane programme, which is the only alternative to war I bloodshed, tears and destruction in Afghan is tan. I am surprised that the delegation of Pakistan should also have spoken about casualties and deaths. I think one must ask which forces are responsible for all those casualties a.nd are fanning this undeclared war against Afghanistan? Which country· 5 territory is being used as the main springboard for aggression against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan? I believe that, no matter how many Crocodile tears are shed in the General Assembly over the fate of Afghanistan they cannot hide the fact that the Government in Islamabad is directly responsible, as the main conduit for weapons and the main springboard for aggression against Afghanistan, for the suffer lng of the Afghan people. I should like also to shed some light on the question of negotiations, which was also touched upon by the representative of Pakistan. We have always kept our word regarding the understanding that details of the negotiations would be regarded as conf idential. That pledge has been broken many t~mes by the delegation of Pakistan, particularly in this Hall. Today, they also referred to what happened in 1984. Let me clarify that point. Whatever happened in 1984 was the result of the fact that, at the negotiating table, the delegation of Pakistan was trying to put the cart before the horse. It wanted to discuss the question of the withdrawal of troops fiest, and their predence, as I have said, was the result of interference; it was not th~ cause of the situation that prevails. And eventually, as a result of our logic, our reasoning, our arguments, the delegation of Pakistan agreed that we should discuss all four documents constituting the political settlement of the I should st.ress that. the first doc~n't to reaohthe levC'ill ot virtual ,\-""-''Wl!J'.!.II:!!\;..ion at which it n()\;i stands was that on mutualr·elatlOn$lt Ila:rticularly interference and non-intervention. Bear ing all this in mind, I think that what was .:Ulserted by my colleaguQ from Pakistan does not hold water. There is no truth in it. The meeting rose at9.2S p.m •. (MC•. Roshan-Rawaan , ~hanist.an)