Moscow's New Stand-in

To Afghanistan's new Soviet-sponsored strongman, Babrak Karmal, toppling governments is old hat. In 1973, as parliamentary leader of the pro-Moscow Parcham wing of the Communist People's Democratic Party, he helped to plot the overthrow of King Mohammed Zahir Shah by Mohammed Daoud. Five years later, he blithely joined in the subsequent plot that ousted Daoud's regime. For that purpose, Karmal had aligned himself with his bitter political rival, Noor Mohammed Taraki, leader of the more radical Khalq faction of the P.D.P., who set himself up as President. But the alliance between the two Marxists soon broke down. After only two months as Deputy Prime Minister under Taraki, Karmal was sent into virtual exile as Ambassador to Czechoslovakia. When Taraki stripped him of his citizenship and tried to call him home, Karmal refused to obey the summons. Had he returned to Kabul, Karmal almost certainly would have been executed.

Instead, Karmal, a 50-year-old bachelor, went into hiding with other members of the Parcham group. Among them was his longtime mistress, Anahita Ratebzad, who had been packed off as Ambassador to Yugoslavia. When Taraki was overthrown--and killed--by Hafizullah Amin last September, Karmal was still underground. Diplomats speculated that the Soviets stashed him away in an Eastern European capital as a sort of strongman-in-reserve. As one expert puts it, "The Russians were keeping [him] on ice until [he was] needed."

The well-born son of a general, Karmal has been a Marxist ever since his days as a student at Kabul University; his graduation was delayed by a stint in prison for left-wing agitation. His Parcham Party always leaned more dependably toward Moscow than Taraki's more broadly based faction, which sometimes espoused a Maoist-flavored brand of Marxism. Says former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Robert Neumann: "Karmal is the original Communist, a dyed-in-the-wool article."

His record suggests that Karmal will continue to be Moscow's man, a custom-tailored partisan, as it were. But no matter how slavishly he follows the policies of his Soviet mentors, Karmal does not appear to have the agility necessary to reconcile the tribal, religious and ideological disputes that divide his volatile country. Concludes Neumann: "He is not a very flexible fellow."

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