NEW DELHI: Two Afghan diplomats posted in Delhi recently defected to the West, rather than obey orders to return to their homeland. Being members of the Afghan secret service, KHAD, they feared persecution by the new regime if they returned to Kabul.

First Secretary Rehamtullah Aimaq and Second Secretary Mohammed Shohib received orders transferring them back to Kabul sometime in June. Instead of going back, they surreptitiously left India on July 11.

The Afghan Embassy in Chanakya Puri is not in a panic over the defections, however, Charge d’ Affaires Syed Sahdi Naderi told “The Pioneer’ that the two gentlemen had left fearing that the Government in Kabul would take action against them.

They were members of the security service KHAD, so they were probably afraid that they would be identified with President Najibullah,” Naderi candidly admitted,

Airport sources revealed that although the two diplomats left India on a flight for Moscow, they were both armed with visas for Czechoslovakia and Germany. Naderi, however, claimed he did not know where they had eventually landed up; he seemed nonplussed about the matter.

Naderi would not confirm, however, whether these defections were a phenomenon at Afghanistan’s missions around the world nor would he call them defections.

Some people, even if they were not criminals, are afraid of what will happen to them if they go back to Kabul, even though (interim President) Mojadidi had promised general amnesty soon after Najibullah was toppled,” he said.

 “These people, identified with the former regime, have preferred to stay back in the country they were posted in, or go off to a third country,” the Charge d’ Affaires said. Government sources claimed that one such defector may have been the acting Charge d’ Affairs. Formerly an Afghan refugee living in India, he was posted Czechoslovakia.

Naderi, however, denied this, although he could not prove to his predecessor’s whereabouts. “He’ll be going to Czechoslovakia in the near future,” he said.

Government sources also claimed that there was one other diplomat at the Afghan Embassy here in Delhi who may defect in the near future, rather than go back to Kabul. It is not known whether the diplomat in question was also a member of the KHAD, although it is assumed to be unlikely.

KHAD was a reputedly brutal undercover service that served to suppress dissent to Najibullah and keep a check on his opponents among the refugees in other countries, prominently Iran, Pakistan and India.

Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 28, 1992