Organization: The American University - University Computing Center
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 12:26:35 EDT
From: <OMARS@auvm.american.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.afghanistan
Subject: Afghan news item #8

From: clarinews@clarinet.com (ANWAR IQBAL)
Subject: U.N. agrees to supervise Afghan meeting
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 10:52:53 PDT



        ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (UPI) -- The United Nations is willing to
supervise a meeting between rival factions in Afghanistan to devise a
new system of government in hopes of ending bloody fighting, a U.N.
official said Sunday.
        ``The United Nations will respond positively to any request from the
government in Kabul for assistance in the country's planned grand
assembly,'' said Sottroes Moussouris, special U.N. envoy for
Afghanistan.
        The statement issued by his office in both Islamabad and the Afghan
capital Kabul said the United Nations would participate in any activity
which promoted peace in the war-ravaged country.
        Moussoris was responding to a Radio Kabul report which said Afghan
President Burhanuddin Rabbani was asking the United Nations and the
Organization of Islamic Conference to supervise a meeting of a
consultative assembly.
        The assembly, which will include at least 10 representatives from
each province as well as Afghan expatriates, will consider proposals for
a new governmental system.
        Rabbani is the second interim president to rule Afghanistan since the
collapse of the Soviet-installed regime last April. The first interim
leader was Sibghatullah Mojaddedi.
        Both presidents were appointed under an agreement signed April 24 in
Peshawar, Pakistan by all Muslim fundamentalist factions. Members of
those groups were known as mujahideen rebels during Afghanistan's long
civil war, when they battled Soviet and Afghan troops defending the
communist government.
        Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, but President
Najibullah managed to hold onto power until early this year. After
Najibullah's government collapsed, rival mujahideen groups began
struggling for power. The Peshawar accord was a power-sharing agreement
meant to resolve differences.
        Under the Peshawar accord, Rabbani was appointed for four months and
as such, he is to relinquish his job by the end of this month. However,
Rabbani told a news conference in Islamabad last week that he would call
a grand consultative assembly to decide on ``a neutral administrative
set up for Afghanistan.''
        The structure would be acceptable to all and would end the fighting
between the rival groups. In August alone, about 2,000 people were
killed in Kabul in the fighting between government troops and forces
loyal to dissident Afghan leader Gulbadin Hekmatyar.
        Although the two sides have so far respected a cease-fire agreement
signed in August to end the fighting in Kabul, their forces have
continued to clash in other parts of Afghanistan.
        Hekmatyar's Afghan News Agency reported Sunday that about 150 people
were killed in four days of fighting in the western Afghan province of
Herat.
        The agency also claimed that Hekmatyar's forces arrested 200
government soldiers and captured a large area around the Shindand
Airport in Herat.
        The agency also reported fresh fighting in the Baghlan Province.
        The Afghan Islamic Press, a news agency affiliated with the Yunus
Khalis group of mujahideen, said the fighting between the government and
Hekmatyar's troops continued Sunday near the Shindand Airport and the
headquarters of the Herat divison.
        However, the agency said only 12 government troops and five of
Hekmatyar'sfighters were killed.