The Guardian of Liberty - Nemzetőr, 1987 (10. évfolyam, 2-6. szám)

1987-05-01 / 3. szám

BI-MONTH L Y B 20435 V THE 6UARDIAN OF LIBERTY (NEMZETŐR) vo1' 3xxxi MAY—JUNE, 1987 "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion" Article 18 Universal Declaration of Human Rights Hundreds Killed in Reprisal Atrocities S oviet bombers, helicopter gunships and land forces have in recent months killed hundreds of civilians in a large area of Afghanistan bordering the USSR. This action against defence­less men, women and children followed several raids by Afghan guerrillas into Soviet territory. The aircraft, based in the USSR, bombed and fired at villages in the Imam Sahib district of Afghanistan’s Kunduz province in mid-March and the end of April. Soviet troops, dropped from helicopters, entered what remained of Imam Sahib village late in Mardi and murdered about 20 people. Jamiat-i-Islami, the main guerrilla organisation in northern Afghanistan, has reported that there was widespread carnage and material destruction in the province. “Hundreds of people have been killed. The Russians are everywhere,” one guer­rilla leader said. The Soviet air-force and army took similar action in neighbouring Takhar province. This in­cluded bombing Khunja-i-Ghor early in April after soldiers had sealed all exits from the village. The apparent aim of such operations — under­taken in a period of so-called ceasefire declared by the Kremlin and the Kabul regime on January 15 — is to depopulate the vicinity of Afghanistan’s border with the USSR. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s new policy of glasnost (openness) has not, of course, extended to reporting such punitive warfare against Afghan civilians suspected of materially supporting the guerrillas who raid Soviet territory. However, the official Soviet media recently, for the first time, reported one of these guerrilla incursions, although such raids have been made from time to time since shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December, 1979. On April 22 Izvestiya, the Soviet Government daily, described a raid by Afghan “bandits” (guer­rillas) on Soviet Tadzhikistan which had been detected by KGB Border Troops on April 8. The newspaper claimed total victory for the Soviet side but mentioned that two soldiers, Privates A.P. Kurkin and Ramil Yamilov, had heroically lost their lives. Izvestiya also indicated that 60 guerrillas, in groups of 40 and 20, participated in the incursion and that they crossed a river on rafts and on skins filled with air. The Soviet Communist Party daily, Pravda, reported on April 2 that Afghan “dushmans” (another derogatory name for the guer­rillas) had fired rodcet shells on the administrative centre at Pyandzh, in Tadzhikistan, on the evening of March 8. One person had been killed. According to the newspaper, about 250 guerrillas from the Imam Sahib district participated in this incident. They included about 100 gunnery “specialists” who fired from “about two to three kilo­metres" from the Afghan side of the frontier. The hand of “friendship" is offered. The Kremlin and the Kabul regime, speaking of the need for “national reconciliation," declared a ceasefire on January 15. Since then Soviet air and land forces have killed hundreds of defenceless civilians. (Cont'd page 2) IN THIS ISSUE Village Attacked Five times 2 Militia Quit with Tanks 3 Bid To Cut Muslim Birth-rate 3 Sakharov Says: Freeing of Prisoner Has Stopped 4 How Communists Cheer and Boo “Liberalism“ 5 Lost Hero of the Holocaust 6 Rumanians Pollute Hungarian Rivers 7 Australia Closes Libyan Bureau 8 Nicaragua: Raid on Newspaper 9 Breaking up Solidarity Marches 10

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