afghanistaneven publicly renounced Marxism and did his best to convince a sceptical
nation he was a good Muslim. All his efforts, however, were in vain and in
the end only a handful of mujahidin gave up the struggle.
The Geneva Accords and the mujahidin reactionJust two months after Najib Allah became president, Gorbachev accepted
that a military victory in Afghanistan was impossible and ordered his chiefs
of staff to plan an orderly withdrawal. Behind the scenes Diego Cordovez,
the un Special Envoy to Afghanistan, began a series of proximity talks
between Pakistan and Afghanistan in an attempt to smooth the way for
the Soviet departure. After months of protracted negotiations, on 14 April
1988 the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan signed the Geneva
Accords, which formalized a phased withdrawal of Soviet forces, the volun-
tary repatriation of Afghan refugees and principles of non-interference in
each other’s internal affairs.
The usa and ussr welcomed the Accords since they opened the door
for lifting sanctions and the resumption of bilateral negotiations on the
reduction of nuclear arsenals. The Peshawar parties, however, unanimously
rejected the Accords, for though they were consulted they had not been
invited to take any direct part in the talks. One cause of their anger was
that the Accords indirectly legitimized the government of President Najib
Allah and made no provision for the transition of power to the mujahidin.
President Zia-ul-Haq bluntly told the Peshawar parties they should recon-
cile themselves to sharing power with the pdpa, while the un Special Envoy
publicly advocated the return of King Zahir Shah. The mujahidin retali-
ated by accusing Pakistan and the usa of betrayal and intensified their
attempts to topple President Najib Allah. In August 1988, with the Soviet
withdrawal already under way, Hizb-i Wahdat, the Iranian-backed Shi‘a
coalition, overran Bamiyan and a few weeks later Hikmatyar’s Hizb-i Islami
occupied the Kunar valley. In October a coalition of mujahidin tried, but
failed, to cut the Kabul–Jalalabad road, but did manage to inflict heavy
casualties on a government armoured column.
In February 1989, as the last Soviet troops crossed the Amu Darya, the
Peshawar Sunni Islamist parties convened a shura and agreed to form the
Afghan Interim Government (aig). The aig, however, did not represent
the views of all the mujahidin factions, for Hizb-i Wahdat and other Shi‘a
parties, as well as royalists, intellectuals and humanitarian representatives,
were excluded or boycotted the meetings. From its inception the aig was
riddled with factionalism and one outcome of its formation was a war