ISLAMABAD, The Soviet armed intervention in Afghanistan was not prompted by any momentary, geopolitical imperative but by the long standing Soviet lust for territorial expansion.
This was stated by Canadian Permanent Representative at the United Nations Stephen Lewis while speaking in the General Assembly debate on Afghanistan.
He said the Soviet Union installed a puppet regime in Kabul by adopting the ethics and the excesses of Stalinism.
Drawing a contrast between Soviet words and deeds, the Canadian representative said it all raises a series of inescapable hypocrisies. The Soviet Union, he said, regularly reminds the world body during debates on regional conflicts that resolutions once passed must be honored. But the resolutions passed by the U.N. General Assembly on the Afghanistan issue are never honored by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, he said, always champions the cause of self-determination during the debates in the assembly but self-determination when applied to the people of Afghanistan becomes a nullity.
Mr. Lewis said the Soviet Union regularly denounces at the world body forum acts of territorial aggression and proclaims the sanctity of territorial borders. But when it comes to Afghanistan he said, the aggression is naked and the increasing cross border violations of Pakistan’s territorial integrity matters not at all.
The Canadian representative father said that the Soviet Union always reminds the General Assembly of gross and massive violations of human rights, but violations of human rights in Afghanistan are not merely gross and massive they are also grotesque and universal. He quoted excerpt from the Helsinki watch report about Afghanistan whose findings were largely confirmed by the U.N. Human Rights Commission. It reads: “From our interviews, it soon became clear that just about every conceivable human rights violation is occurring in Afghanistan, and on an enormous scale. The crimes of indiscriminate warfare are combined with the worst excesses of unbridled state sanctioned violence against civilians. The ruthless savagery in the countryside is matched by the subjection of a terrorized urban population to arbitrary arrest, torture, imprisonment and executions. To talitarian controls are being imposed on institutions and the Press.
The universities and all other as pects of Afghan cultural life are being systematically Sovietized.”
REFUGEES
Referring to the enormous burden of Afghan refugees on Pakistan, Mr. Stephen Lewis said were it not for the selfless response of the Government of Pakistan, coupled with the extraordinary work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR, there would have been an even greater disaster in southwestern Asia.
The Canadian representative said despite the fact that the Soviet Union has unleashed 115,000 troops equipped with the most lethal and technological of modern and conventional weaponry, the people of Afghanistan cannot be subdued and Soviet Union will not win. The Afghan freedom fighters, he said, fight on, no matter to what extent Soviet high altitude saturation bombing and helicopter gunships decimate civilian populations, reduce whole communications to ashes or turn the countryside to cinders.
After nearly six dreadful years, he said, it is now clear that the Soviet Union cannot impose a military solution. The only answer, he said, is a negotiated settlement which embraces the principles in the resolution on Afghanistan passed overwhelmingly by the U.N. General Assembly.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 6, 1985
