Afghanistan Messengers from Moscow

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The trip was unannounced, perhaps to ensure that increasingly accurate mujahedin antiaircraft gunners would not be paying special attention to the skies around Kabul, Afghanistan's capital. But when Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Anatoli Dobrynin, the chief of the Central Committee's International Department and for 24 years Moscow's Ambassador to Washington, stepped off their plane at Kabul's international airport last week, it was obvious that the Soviet Union was sending a public -- and very interesting -- message. Shevardnadze and Dobrynin, the most senior Moscow officials to visit Afghanistan since Soviet troops invaded that country in 1979, had come to endorse a peace plan advanced by Najibullah, Afghanistan's Communist leader.

On New Year's Day, following consultations in Moscow, Najibullah had announced that beginning Jan. 15, government troops would observe a cease-fire if mujahedin rebels joined in. Coupling his offer with a vague promise of "national reconciliation," Najibullah proposed that his regime and unspecified opposition groups create a new national government.

Rebel spokesmen were quick to reject the bid as a "deception," noting that Najibullah had not indicated whether the 115,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan would stay in their barracks. Said Mohammed Nabi Mohammedi, spokesman for the Islamic Alliance of Afghan Mujahedin: "We should have direct negotiations with the Soviets, and they should stop hiding behind the puppets in Kabul."

Last week's visit made it clear that Najibullah's proposed six-month cease- fire was more than propaganda. In remarks to Afghan journalists before he left the capital, Shevardnadze praised the cease-fire offer and hinted that a Soviet troop withdrawal was "not far off" so long as "freedom-loving cowboys," apparently meaning the U.S., stop aiding the rebels.

The U.S. greeted the news warily. The Shevardnadze-Dobrynin mission, said Secretary of State George Shultz, showed that the Soviets realized they could not "get their way" in Afghanistan. Indeed, the Soviet army has suffered an estimated 35,000 dead and wounded. Privately, U.S. officials say they are convinced that Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, frustrated by the expensive military stalemate and eager to bolster the ailing Soviet economy, is anxious to bring his soldiers home from Afghanistan. The question facing Gorbachev is how. The rebels refuse to join a government that is not independent, while the Soviets want a regime friendly to Moscow. "Gorbachev cannot afford just to walk away," says a senior U.S. diplomat, "and the Afghan rebels will not be snowed by phony reconciliation."