says Ukrainian taxi driver and Afghan refugee Abdullah Mirajan

Afghanistan is gripped by war that has actually continued for the past 26 years. Thousands if not tens of thousands have fled their country this month alone, seeking refuge in Pakistan, Iran, or in more remote countries, including Europe. Refugees are a hallmark of that country. One of the waves of emigration dates from the early 1990s, coinciding with the fall of the Najibullah regime. At the time those supporting it and known to have cooperated with the Soviet Union during the Soviet invasion had to leave the country. Many settled in various former Soviet republics, among them Ukraine. Their lives took different courses. The following is an interview with one of these refugees.

Abdullah Mirajan, 34, has a traditionally dark complexion and lively dark eyes. He speaks good Russian. Born in Paktil, Afghanistan, of Pashtun parentage (the Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group that has often produced ruling dynasties and now the Taliban), Abdullah believes that the Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and other ethnic groups that inhabited or still live in his country are a single Afghan people. His father was a colonel in the Afghan army and was killed. For reasons best known to himself Abdullah avoids the subject and is reluctant to discuss his relatives.

After school (the Soviet forces had already entered Afghanistan) he worked in a militia force and took part in numerous battles with the mujahedins, including joint Afghan-Soviet operations. He says he spent five years fighting in various parts of the country and was wounded twice. He still has a membership card of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan and insists that what happened in the mid-1970s-1980s was “our revolution.” Later, he studied at the Academy of the Afghan Militia. In 1989, he went to Moscow and studied at the Academy of the Soviet Internal Affairs Ministry. He has a post-secondary education and an officer’s rank. He returned to Afghanistan in 1990 and was a militia officer in Kabul under President Najibullah, worked as a bodyguard, and chief of staff at a penitentiary. After the regime fell he left the country in 1991. “They’d kill me sooner or later,” he says, “so I had no choice but flee. To me, the Northern Alliance and Taliban meant the same thing, the Mujaheddin whom I fought at one time.”

In Ukraine, Abdullah was helped by Afghan veterans, former comrades-in-arms. They gave him a small house in a village in Zhytomyr oblast. A year ago, he married a Ukrainian girl. He wants to have children, but only when he can earn more. He works as a private cab driver (the car is not his but the employer’s). He is on friendly terms with his immediate neighborhood; people living next door often help one another. He says he is a Moslem but no fanatic. He prays whenever he has time during working hours. He can have a shot of vodka on a special occasion or with friends. “I respect and abide by the laws of Ukraine,” he stresses. He has refugee status, so every three months he has to have his residence permit prolonged. He receives no aid from any international organization, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “I live on what I can earn,” says the former Afghan army officer. Sometimes he meets with fellow countrymen also living in Zhytomyr oblast (not many) and in Kyiv. They speak Pushtu, of course. He is not planning to return to Afghanistan and his mother, two brothers, and four sisters. He has not heard from or about them since he left the country.

As for number one terrorist Osama bin Laden, alleged by US intelligence to be still hiding in Afghanistan, he reminds that the man was supported by the Americans when he fought against the governments of Karmal and Najibullah. “I don’t want war in my country,” says Abdullah, “blood has been shed there for 26 years and millions of people have suffered. The United States wants Osama bin Laden, so let their men get him. Why should the Afghan people suffer? I can’t return home until there is peace.”

— P.S.: Latter-day commentaries on Afghan developments make no mention of yet another political force that played a major albeit equivocal role in that country’s life, the People’s Democratic Party. Apparently international analysts have given it up for lost. True, it is hard to visualize all those exponents of Marxism-Leninism fitting into the fanatical religious pattern of the current regime. Most likely many of them will suffer Najibullah’s lot, if and when they return to Afghanistan, even after the hypothetical fall of the Taliban regime. (A group of zealots burst into the Swiss embassy, dragged Najibullah and his brother out on the square and hanged them there for all to see.) Be it as it may, something is still left of that once powerful political force and that something represents the mood of part of the Afghan people. These people may eventually take part in the formation of Afghan political institutions — that is if they really want to do so, of course. After all, Abdullah Mirajan is only 34 years old.