The Guardian of Liberty - Nemzetőr, 1984 (7. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)

1984-01-01 / 1. szám

BI-MONTH I Y B 20435 V THE GUARDIAN OF LIBERTY (NEMZETŐR) Vol. ^ XXVIII JANUARY — FEBRUARY, 1984 "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion" Article 18 Universal Declaration of Human Rights Invaders Secretly Extract Afghan Uranium S oviet mining engineers are secretly extracting uranium from deposits dis­covered recently in the mountains near Kabul, according to Mir Zaman Mohmand, former head of the Geological Survey Department of the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Industry. Engineer Mohmand, who recently arrived with his family in Pakistan, told the Afghan Information and Documentation Centre in Peshawar: „I was myself working with Rus­sian geologists prospecting for minerals in the Khwaja Rawash mountains and I was an eye­witness of the search for uranium. „Geophysical indications of the presence of uranium were discovered and subsequently confirmed by laboratory tests. The discovery was considered so important that the chief Russian adviser to our department took the samples to Moscow himself.“ Engineer Mohmand added that when the discovery was confirmed, Afghan personnel were removed and all activity at the site was put into the hands of Russians. The Soviet authorities have long shown themselves to be sensitive over their exploita­tion of Afghanistan’s mineral resources and seem to be particularly anxious to preserve secrecy in the case of important minerals such as uranium. The Soviet-controlled Afghan news agency, Bakhtar, on January 26 denied that there were any uranium deposits in Afghanistan. But, presumably because of a censorship error, Kabul Radio, which is also controlled by the Russians, had already (on December 3, 1983) revealed that a uranium mine is one of several mineral projects in Afghanistan in which the USSR is participating. The Kabul broadcast reported these projects as including the extraction of copper at Ainak, south of Kabul, fluorite at Yakhut, barytes (barium sulphate) at Sangiwal, magnesite (magnesium carbonate) and talc at Achin and Mama Khel, graphite at Charkha and asbestos in Logar Province. The Ainak copper deposits are estimated at 3,5 million tonnes. A huge mining and smelt­ing complex is now under construction. When it comes on stream in 1988 it will produce about 250 tonnes of copper concentrate an­nually. The USSR is also said to be interested in the large iron ore deposits at Hajigak, be­tween Kabul and Baruyan. These are estimat­ed to contain about 2,000 million tonnes of the ore. High priority is being given, under Soviet direction, to mineral prospecting and mining but since the Afghan economy has only a tiny industrial sector, it cannot make use of the output. Almost all production will therefore go to the USSR, whose own output of several essential minerals is slowing down. About 95 per cent of the natural gas ex­tracted front the Khwaja Gugerdak and Jar­­qaduq fields in northern Afghanistan is al­ready piped direct to Soviet Central Asia. According to Mir Zaman Mohmand, the Rus­sians fix the price for Afghan gas well below that which they charge for their own gas exports to western Europe. In any case no actual payment is made since the value of the gas is credited against the huge debts which Afghanistan accumulates as a result of its increasing integration with the economies of the Soviet bloc. In 1982 it was reported that the USSR was paying $100.34 per thousand cubic metres of natural gas while charging the West $180 per thousand cubic metres for its own gas. Engineer Mohmand has also confirmed ear­lier reports that the meters on the Afghan gas pipelines are located on the Soviet side of the frontier, where Afghan officials are unable to verify the amount of gas pumped out. Russian invaders terrorize the Afghan population CONTENTS: When Party Activists Become Professors 2 How Communisls Cheer and Boo... 2 1984 Dispute with Marx 3 Romanian Democrats Appeal to UN 4 Comrode Prince Gets Top Youth Job 5 Grenada’s Marxist Experiment Fails 6-8 Castro’s Cuba 25 Years on 9 123,000 Appeal for Priests’ Release 10 The Cost of Believing 10 Bangladesh Smashes Spy Ring 11 Pollution and Drug Addiction in CSSR 12 PAKISTANI STUDENTS MURDERED’ Two young Pakistanis studying in Uzbekistan, one of the USSR's central Asian constituent republics, were mur­dered by Soviet citizens in 1983, ac­cording to information received recent­ly from student sources. Several other Pakistani students have been assaulted in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. In January, it was reported in the West European Press that a number of Pakistanis had recently begun studying political ideology at a special school in Tashkent. Some of them had been provided with Afghan passports.

Next