Voices of an Embattled Regime

Talking with Afghanistan's three top leaders

When TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott arrived at the Presidential Palace in Kabul last week, he found President Babrak Karmal as affable in manner as he was doctrinaire in his pronouncements. At the beginning and the end of a 90-minute interview, the first Kar mal has had with an American journalist, the President and party leader kissed Talbott on both cheeks in the traditional Afghan greeting, urging him to "come back some time and hunt Marco Polo sheep in our beautiful mountains." Karmal spoke mostly in English, which he said he learned in King Zahir's prisons during the 1950s, and proudly recited the opening lines of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, explaining that he ad mired Americans as people with "a great revolutionary and anticolonialist tradition." Karmal's chef de cabinet and one of his principal military aides were more comfortable speaking Russian.

Karmal, 52, is a revolutionary of un abashedly pro-Soviet leanings. In the mid-'60s he formed a faction of the People's Democratic [Communist] Party that hewed closely to Moscow's line. After the 1978 coup that brought rivals in a more in dependent party faction to power, he was sent off into diplomatic exile as Ambassador to Czechoslovakia. In December 1979, when the Soviets invaded and killed his predecessor, Hafizullah Amin, Karmal emerged as the new leader.

Western observers are convinced that Karmal was in the U.S.S.R. at the time of the invasion, that he broadcast his inaugural address as President from Tashkent, and that he was flown into Afghanistan only after the Soviet occupation force was in place. "Lies and fabrications," said Karmal, adding that he had been living secretly in Afghanistan for a few months during the previous regime, and that it was he who "requested" the So viet intervention on instructions from the Afghan party central committee.

Karmal insisted that the war is going well: "We have defeated the counterrevolutionary bandits even though we have not yet completely destroyed them." Most of the fighting, he said, is handled by the Afghan armed forces, not by the Soviets: "The limited contingent of our Soviet friends is to be held in reserve, as a potential force to be used against the massive outside aggression in this undeclared war that is being waged against us by terrorists operating from some 80 bases in Pakistan.

They are armed by the American imperialists and the Chinese hegemonists, and funded by the petrodollars of Saudi Arabia. If the outside interference were to stop, we could solve all our problems in a matter of months, and the limited contingent of our Soviet friends could go back to their home in the peace-loving U.S.S.R."

The U.S. and other backers of the mujahedin, Karmal claims, are not really interested in a Soviet pullout: "The forces of hegemonism and imperialism do not want the contingent to withdraw. Why? Because for them the continued presence here of our friends is a pretext that they can exploit against the Soviet Union."

Asked if he or his government disagreed in any way on any issue with the Soviet Union, Karmal answered firmly, "No, not the slightest one." But he insisted that the coincidence of interests does not mean he is a puppet, nor does it make Afghanistan any less sovereign: "There is no power in the world that can crush the spirit of freedom of the Afghan people. It is in our nature to be free and to fight for our freedom."

Prune Minister Sultan Ali Keshtmand, 47, is the No. 2 man in the regime, having recently taken over the prime ministership from Karmal. He is a longtime Communist and a mem ber of the pro-Soviet faction that gained dominance after the invasion.

In response to the suggestion that the government he titularly heads is really run by the Soviets, Keshtmand shook his head with weary indulgence: "I can say this is absolutely wrong.

We run everything ourselves.

According to its own policy, the Soviet Union never interferes in the internal affairs of any country in the world. Of course, they are helping us in every field."

Foreign Minister Shah Mohammed Dost, 52, is a remarkable study in survival. He has been a career diplomat for 25 years, serving King Zahir until he was deposed in 1973, Mohammed Daoud, who was overthrown and killed in 1978, and then a succession of three Communist leaders, Nur Mohammed Taraki, Amin and now Karmal.

Long before the 1978 Communist takeover, Dost was a clandestine party member. He is now leading Afghanistan's worldwide diplomatic campaign to head off another U.N. resolution calling for the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

The U.S., Pakistan, China and other sponsors of the resolution are confident that it will pass by an overwhelming majority, close to the 111-to-22 vote by which it carried a year ago. Dost expressed guarded hopes to the contrary: "It is possible that there may be a resolution with the same wording as last year. But it is my impression that the tempo of the debate on this question may be changing, and the wording may be not as tough against Afghanistan. I think it may be much softer and more flexible. After all, all countries have to submit to the realities in Afghanistan and around us. The principal reality is that there has been a revolution here, there is a government with power and control over the whole country, and there is a party working for the welfare of the majority of the people."

Asked if he truly believes that the government controls, speaks for and has the support of the majority of the population, Dost nodded emphatically and said: "Exactly so. The revolution is being consolidated and the situation turning toward normalization. There is no place in the country where these counterrevolutionary elements have control. Now it also must be said that no one can deny the intervention and aggression against Afghanistan from abroad."

Afghanistan is now pressing for negotiations with Pakistan to seal the rugged 1,125-mile frontier against the influx of aid to the rebels, holding out the possibility of a Soviet withdrawal if the condition is met. Questioned on whether there were any conceivable circumstances in which his government might participate in talks with the rebels, Dost answered, "Categorically no. After all, they [the mujahedin] represent no one but themselves.

They are mercenaries and bandits. We will not agree to their presence any time, anywhere, in any talks, with anybody, at negotiations in which we participate."

Would the beginning of negotiations with the Pakistanis permit the initial, partial withdrawal of Soviet troops? Said Dost: "Both we and the Soviet Union want this limited contingent of their forces withdrawn. But for that to happen, these interventions from abroad in our affairs should stop, and international guarantees should be given that intervention will not recur. First we must reach that stage: the cessation of all armed intervention and aggression from abroad."

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