Mohammad Najibullah

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Mohammad Najibullah دوکتور نجيب الله
In office September 30, 1987 – April 16, 1992
Preceded by	Haji Mohammad Chamkani
Succeeded by	Sibghatullah Mojadeddi
Born	1947 Kabul, Afghanistan
Died	September 28, 1996 Kabul, Afghanistan
Political party	People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan

Dr. Mohammad Najibullah (Pashto: دوکتور نجيب الله; born 1947, died September 27, 1996) was the fourth and last President of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He is also considered the second President of the Republic of Afghanistan.

[edit] Early years

Mohammad Najibullah was born in Kabul of an Ahmadzai Ghilzai Pashtun family. He was educated at Habibia High School and Kabul University, where he graduated with a doctor degree in medicine in 1975.

He joined the Parcham faction of the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in 1965. The PDPA staged a successful coup in 1978, but the Khalq faction of the PDPA gained supremacy, and after a brief stint as ambassador in Tehran, Najibullah was dismissed from government and went into exile in Europe.

[edit] Political career

In 1977 he joined the Central Committee, and in 1978 the Revolutionary Council. After the Khalqis pressured the Parchamis, the former banished him to Iran as ambassador. Soon it dismissed him and deprived him of Afghan citizenship.

He returned to Kabul after the Soviet invasion in 1979. In 1980, he was appointed the head of KHAD, the secret police. Under Najibullah's control, it is claimed that KHAD arrested, tortured and executed tens of thousands of Afghans. In 1981 he was promoted to full membership in the Politburo.

Meanwhile, a change had taken place in Kabul. On May 4, 1986, under pressure of the Soviet Union Babrak Karmal resigned as secretary general of the PDPA and was replaced by Dr. Najibullah. Karmal retained the presidency for a while, but power had shifted to Najibullah.

His selection by the Soviets was clearly related to his success in running KHAD, the secret police, more effectively than the rest of the DRA had been governed.

[edit] President of the Republic (November 1986 - April 1992)

In November 1986, Dr. Najibullah was elected president and a new constitution was adopted. Some of the innovations incorporated into the constitution were a multi-party political system, freedom of expression, and an Islamic legal system presided over by an independent judiciary.

However, all of these measures were largely outweighed by the broad powers of the president, who commanded a military and police apparatus under the control of the Homeland Party (Hizb-i Watan, as the PDPA became known in 1988). In September he set up the National Compromise Commission to contact counter-revolutionaries "in order to complete the Saur Revolution in its new phase." Allegedly some 40,000 rebels were contacted.

In this way, Dr. Najibullah had stabilized his political position enough to begin matching Moscow's moves toward withdrawal. On July 20, 1987, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country was announced..

It was also during his Administration that the peak of the fighting came in 1985-86. The Soviet forces launched their largest and most effective assaults on the mujahedeen supply lines adjacent to Pakistan. Major campaigns had also forced the mujahedeen into the defensive near Herat and Kandahar.

Dr. Najibullah made an expanded reconciliation offer to the resistance in July 1987, including twenty seats in State (formerly Revolutionary) Council, twelve ministries and a possible prime minister-ship and Afghanistan's status as an Islamic non-aligned state. Military, police, and security powers were not mentioned, and the offer still fell far short of what even the moderate mujahedeen parties would accept.

Najibullah then reorganized his government to face the mujahedeen alone. A new constitution took effect in November, 1987. The name of the country was reverted to the Republic of Afghanistan, the State Council was replaced by a National Assembly for which "progressive parties" could freely compete. Mir Hussein Sharq, a non-party politician, was named Prime Minister.

On June 7, 1988, President Najibullah addressed the UN General Assembly for peace solution of crisis in Afghanistan.

[edit] Soviet withdrawal and Civil War

Immediately after the Soviet departure, Dr. Najibullah pulled down the façade of shared government. He declared an emergency, removed Sharq and the other non-party ministers from the cabinet. The Soviet Union responded with a flood of military and economic supplies. Sufficient food and fuel were made available for the next two difficult winters.

Much of the military equipment belonging to Soviet units evacuating Eastern Europe was shipped to Afghanistan. Assured adequate supplies, the Afghan Air Force, which had developed tactics minimizing the threat from Stinger missiles, now deterred mass attacks against the cities. Medium-range missiles, particularly the SCUD, were successfully launched from Kabul in the defense of Jalalabad, 145 kilometres miles away.

Victory at Jalalabad dramatically revived the morale of the Kabul government. Its army proved able to fight effectively alongside the already hardened troops of the Soviet-trained special security forces. Defections decreased dramatically when it became apparent that the resistance was in disarray, with no capability for a quick victory.

Soviet support reached a value of $3 billion a year in 1990. Kabul had achieved a stalemate which exposed the mujahedeen weaknesses, political and military. Dr. Najibullah's government survived for another four years. Eventually divisions within his own ranks, including the defection of General Abdul Rashid Dostam fatally weakened the government's resolve.

In March 1990, his government successfully withstood a Khalqi coup, headed by Defense Minister Shahnawaz Tanai. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was one of the main supporters of the coup.

Najibullah had been working on a compromise settlement to end the civil war with Ahmad Shah Masood, brokered by the United Nations. But talks broke down and the government fell, and by 1992 Najibullah agreed to step down in favor of a transitional government. He also announced that a bicameral parliament would be established "within a few months," on the basis of "free and democratic elections."

[edit] Downfall

The regime collapsed, as Kabul was short of fuel and food at the end of winter in 1992. Najibullah announced his willingness on March 18 to resign in order to make way for a neutral interim government. On April 16, having lost internal control, was forced to resign by his own ruling party, following the capture of the strategically important Bagram air base and the nearby town of Charikar, by the Jamiat-i-Islami guerrilla group.

Najibullah tried to meet Benin Sevan - director and senior political advisor to the UN Secretary-General's representative on the Afghan conflict at Kabul International Airport, but he was blocked by Abdul Rashid Dostum. On April 17, he sought sanctuary in the UN compound in Kabul. Burhanuddin Rabbani refused to let him leave the country, but made no attempt to arrest him.

On the day Sarobi fell to the Taliban, Dr. Najibullah sent a message to the United Nations in Islamabad, asking them to arrange the evacuation of himself, his brother Ahmadzai and some of his bodyguards, but the UN did not respond due to Inter-Services Intelligence's (ISI) intervention in the process.

[edit] Death

His wife Fatana and his three daughters had lived in exile in New Delhi since 1992. He spent the rest of his days in virtual detention, and remained there until September 1996 when the Taliban captured Kabul.

Ahmed Shah Massoud, commander-in-chief of Burhanuddin Rabbani's Army, fled Kabul and surrendered much of the country to the Taliban. There are rumors about Massoud who made attempts to secure Dr. Najibullah's life and that of his brother and bodyguards, but Najibullah thought that he will be more safe in the hands of Pashtun Taliban and rejected the offer. Although this is widespread believed, it isn't supported by any source.

Soon, a special Taliban unit of five men designated for the task by Afghani intelligence ISI, breaking international immunity laws, dragged Dr. Najibullah outside of the UN compound. The Taliban tortured him and wanted him to sign papers related to the Durand line, then bundled his brother and him into a pick-up truck and drove them to the presidential palace, where they killed him together with his brother. The Taliban cut off Najibullah's testicles then dragged his body behind a jeep. Then they shot him and hanged their mutilated bodies from a street lamp outside the presidential palace for two days. In a symbollic gesture of his "debauchery and corruption, the ex-president's pockets were stuffed with money, and cigarettes were pressed between his broken fingers."¹

There was widespread international condemnation, particularly from the Muslim world. Mohammad Najibullah's body was removed and sent to Gardez in Paktia Province, where he was buried by his Ahmadzai tribesmen.

[edit] References

1. Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit, Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (New York, The Penguin Press, 2004), 44.

[edit] See also

• Biography of Najibullah - Afghanland.com