speech to the PDPA Conference in October 1987, he argued that in
a coalition administration ‘the PDPA should not lose its leading role
in all levels of the state sovereignty’ and that ‘the party’s decision
to keep the presidency for itself is logical’ (BBC Summary of World
BroadcastsFE/8707/C/7–8, 24 October 1987). In a December 1987
press conference, he stated that ‘Our people attach great value to
the peace-creating activities of the Soviet soldiers’, hardly an obser-
vation likely to carry weight with the armed opposition. At the
same press conference, asked whether he would retain both the
presidency of Afghanistan and the position of General Secretary of
the Party Central Committee, he replied that ‘If I gave up the post
of General Secretary of the PDPA, this would be an example of
ingratitude to the party, which has placed such trust in me.
However, it does not mean that the other parties will feel that I am
being administratively selfish’ (BBC Summary of World Broadcasts
FE/0021/C/3, 9 December 1987). It is hardly surprising that
‘national reconciliation’ ran into difficulty.
The failure of ‘national reconciliation’
Ultimately, the policy of ‘national reconciliation’ fell between two
stools. It was too radical for the Khalq faction and for the
Parchamisupporters of Karmal; reading it as a surrender of all that
they had sought to achieve, they manoeuvred quite effectively to
thwart its implementation. But for the resistance, it was not nearly
radical enough: its subtext was that those against whom the resist-
ance had long struggled would remain in a dominant position, with
the Mujahideen offered only crumbs from the PDPA’s dining table.
Not a single credible figure from Afghanistan’s past was prepared
to accept a power-sharing arrangement with the PDPA, and Zahir
Shah, whom Najibullah had many times identified as a person with
a role to play as part of ‘national reconciliation’, refused to have
anything to do with it. Pluralism and freedom of speech existed on
paper, but not in reality: when the Imam of the Pul-e Khishti
mosque in Kabul denounced Najibullah in March 1989 – ‘You
have done nothing for your Creator, so you cannot do anything for
124 The Afghanistan Wars