Banner Graphic, Volume 19, Number 137, Greencastle, Putnam County, 15 February 1989 — Page 3

Afghan War ends for USSR as their troops leave

TERMEZ, U.S.S.R. (AP) The Red Army commander for Afghanistan today led the last contingent of his troops across a border bridge, ending for the Soviets a nine-year war that claimed the lives of 15,000 of their countrymen. “That is it this war has come to an end,” a Moscow Radio correspondent said from the scene. IN MOSCOW, THE Communist Party daily Pravda said the decision to send troops to Afghanistan may have been an error and suggested any future commitment of Soviet forces abroad should be sanctioned by parliament. About 200 cheering, windbumed soldiers, clutching automatic rifles and riding armored personnel carriers, roared across the steel bridge spanning the Amu Darya River just 40 minutes ahead of the Geneva accords’ noon deadline. “I wasn’t looking back,” said Lt. Gen. Boris Gromov, the commander. HE RODE IN THE last armored personnel carrier and was met halfway across the bridge by his 14-year-old son Maxim. Together, they walked the final yards to Termez. Lt. Col. Igor Azarenok of the Soviet Defense Ministry said Gromov’s group was the last to leave, ending what many Soviets

Ortega eyes Contra role, free elections

COSTA DEL SOL, El Salvador (AP) A long-delayed summit of five Central American presidents ended with a promise from Nicaragua to hold free elections and agreement to dismantle the bases in Honduras of U.S.-backed Contra rebels. ~ President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua pledged as the two-day meeting concluded Tuesday that his leftist government would move up elections to February 1990 and let the opposition help organize them. THE PRESIDENTS ALSO said they would come up with a plan within 90 days for disbanding the Contra force in Honduras an estimated 11,000 fighters. “We’re ready to return to Nicaragua when we see that Ortega seriously is going to begin implementing his promises,” Adolfo Calero, a member of the Contra directorate, told a news conference. The United States cut off military aid to the Contras 12 months ago. The summit produced an eightpage accord the presidents said would reinvigorate the regional peace plan they signed 18 months ago. President Jose Azcona of Honduras, whose country became the Contras’ haven at the urging of the United States, said he expected Washington to back the agreement. There was no immediate comment from the State Department. “WE BELIEVE WE have adopted a decision in the interest of the five Central American countries. We also believe that the United States ... will respect the accord that we have signed this day,” Azcona told a news conference. What remained unresolved was the issue of verification of progress

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world

have come to view as their Vietnam. The decision to intervene in Afghanistan in 1979 was made by the late President Leonid I. Brezhnev and a few close associates, high-ranking officials have said, and Pravda said the security threat they perceived may not have merited sending in troops. “IT IS POSSIBLE to doubt the Brezhnev leadership’s evaluation of the level of military threat,” the paper said. “It is possible to say that such vitally important decisions as the use of troops cannot be decided secretly by a small circle of people, without the sanction of the parliament of the country,” Pravda continued. The Soviet parliament has been a rubber-stamp body for

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DANIEL ORTEGA A role for the Contras

toward democracy under the Central American peace plan. Ortega promised to move up national elections, which had been scheduled for November 1990, and to hold local elections at the same time. His term is to end in January 1991 but members of the ruling Sandinista party have indicated that could change. ORTEGA SAID opposition parties would have equal access to radio and television which the government now controls and representation on the national election commission. He also said the entire election process would be open to international observers. Nicaragua promised to free about 1,600 imprisoned Contras and members of the National Guard of dictator Anastasio Somoza, who was overthrown in 1979 by the revolution the Sandinistas rode to power. The five-way agreement on *dis-

decades, but recent reforms under President Mikhail S. Gorbachev have strengthened its role. A reconnaissance battalion and an airborne assault battalion were the last units to leave, according to Moscow Radio, which was monitored in London. “EVERYONE IS WEARING medals and smiling with satisfaction. ... The dust-covered armored personnel carriers are still. The guns of many of them are already under cover,” the reporter said. With Gromov and his troops gone, major cities held by the Soviet-backed government of President Najib were expected to fall to the insurgents in a matter of weeks, if not days. The Foreign Ministry reported that 30,000 rebels were massing

banding the Contras, adopted at the urging of both Nicaragua and Honduras, calls for the rebels and their families to be offered voluntary repatriation or relocation to “third countries.” THE CONTRA LEADERS, consigned to the sidelines during the negotiations over their fate and safe haven, were stung by the agreement. “I would say whatever accord is reached based on Ortega’s promises is equivalent to trying to leash a dog with sausage links,” Calero said after the summit. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for authoring the regional peace plan, said the international community should help relocate the Contras and their estimated 10,000 family members. He said “those who sponsored the Contras for many years” should feel most responsible for finding them new homes. ORTEGA’S PROMISES of democratization, said Contra directorate member Roberto Ferrey, signaled “the burial of the Sandinista dictatorship.” For their part, Sandinista officials said they came to the summit looking for help in burying what Ortega has called the Contra “cadaver” and declaring Nicaragua’s readiness for democracy. That readiness, they said, sprang from the military and political defeat of the Contras and the change of administrations in Washington. The Bush administration has said it would prefer a diplomatic solution to the eight-year Nicaraguan conflict over the military option the Reagan administration had so vigorously pursued.

around Kabul, which has been blockaded for months. Spokesman Vadim Perfiliev said another 15,000 guerrillas were around the eastern city of Jalalabad. Kabul Radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp., reported more insurgents surrounding Herat and Khandahar. SOVIET MEDIA reported looting by troops of the 30,000-mem-ber Afghan army and mass desertions as the U.S.-supplied guerrillas gain ground. “Some garrisons have been plundered. Certain posts and strongholds transferred to the Afghans have been emptied,” an article in the labor daily Trud said Tuesday. “Their troops, who were subjected

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to threats and hostile action, simply fled. The extremists have already moved in.” “The political situation in the republic is becoming tense. Attacks by military formations on peaceful cities are increasing daily, not to mention the artillery and rocket shellings of Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad and other big centers,” it said. TODAY, MOSLEM guerrillas claimed there was heavy fighting around a former Soviet airbase north of Kabul. A U.N. airlift of food to Kabul, which has been plagued by food and fuel shortages because of the guerrilla blockade has been suspended tor fear the planes

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February 15,1989 THE BANNERGRAPHIC

would be shot down. Soviet soldiers intervened in Afghanistan a year after a Marxist coup touched off civil war and an estimated 115,000 were in the country when the withdrawal began May 15 under the U.N.-mediated agreement. THE GUERILLAS HAVE for months blockaded Kabul, whose population has more than doubled to 2.2 million during the war. They fired five rockets into the capital on Tuesday, and one killed four children and an old man lined up in the snow for bread, Kabul state radio reported. Two landed at the airport but Soviet soldiers said no one was injured.

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