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H ~ ;. ; o FIRinG Line GUESTS: JOHN BIRCH LEO CHERNE SUBJECT: "SOVIET WORDS AND DEEDS: AFGHANISTAN" #759 SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION SECA PRESENTS ~ FIRinG Line HOST: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. GUESTS: JOHN BIRCH The FIRING LINE television series is a production of the Southern Educational LEO CHERNE Communications Association, PO Box 5966, Columbia, SC 29250 and is transmitted through the facilities of the Public Broadcasting Service. FIRING SUBJECT: ·SOVIET WORDS AND DEEDS: AFGHANISTAN. LINE can be seen and heard each week through public television and radio stations throughout the country. Check your local newspapers for channel and time in your area. FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN STEIBEL This is a transcript of the Firing Line program taped in New York City on December 3, 1987, and telecast later by PBS. SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION © Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. MR. BUCKLEY: On November 10 of this year the General Assembly of the United Nations, no less, voted to condemn the continuing Soviet occupation of Afghanistan by a vote of 123 to 19, with 11 abstentions, including India, Iraq, Nicaragua and Uganda. And toward the end of November it was hinted that the Soviet Union's losses in its war against the peasantry of Afghanistan were driving Mr. Gorbachev to such desperation as actually to consider withdrawing from a genocidal eight-year war that has killed 1.5 million Afghans and driven one third of the population to exile. On the other hand, Mr. Gorbachev, in his recent interview with Tom Brokaw, derided the notion that the .Soviet Union was engaged in Afghanistan in anything more than to answer fraternally the call of a friendly government for help against reactionary fascist forces. Although in 1985 Gorbachev spoke of the "bleeding wound~ of the Afghan engagement, he has made no credible offer to stop his ingenious war characterized by airdropping toys for Afghan children to play With, Which toys contain hand grenades. We have two animate and one inanimate guest here today. Leo Cherne is among the most distinguished Americans. His accomplishments as a lawyer, economist and in art is Widely heralded, but he is here today as chairman of the board of directors of the International Rescue Committee, founded in 1933 at the suggestion of Albert Einstein. No man knows more about, nor has done more to aid, political refugees. @ 1'987 SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL And Ambassador John Birch from Great Britain, deputy permanent COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION representative to the UN. The British delegation, by the way, played a prominent role in the motion to condemn the Soviet bloodbath. Mr. Birch has served the British Foreign Service since 1959, and has served in Kabul, where for three years he was deputy chief of mission before returning to London to serve as undersecretary of state. After a preliminary conversation, we will show a British documentary on Afghanistan never before shown to an American audience. It is a 23-minute film depicting the Afghan story since the movement into that country of 110,000 Soviet troops. Mr. Cherne, the sUbject of this hour is "What are our responsibilities to Afghanistan?" I begin by asking this: How is it possible to provide for refugees When they number three to five million? MR. CHERNE: Well, it really is not possible to provide for refugees in that number. It is possible to make a massive effort to reach as many as one can. In the case of the International Rescue Committee, we are reaching What we would estimate to be at times up to a half million people and rather regularly at least 300,000. We have 12 mobile medical teams and 12 health clinics along the northern Afghan border, all of these in Pakistan, and almost all of these efforts being conducted either by Afghans whom we have trained or had the skills previously or Pakistanis, in order not to further inflame a delicate political position. Other organizations are 1 © Board of Trustees of the leland Stanford Jr. University. undertaking to aid in other areas, but one would have to very that burden of looking after the refugees. reasonably say that even with the efforts additionally of the MR. BUCKLEY: Incidentally, before I forget to ask you, why United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees, that a would India, though India is freakish in these matters, why substantial number of the three million who have fled from would they have voted not to condemn the Soviet Union? Is it Afghanistan into the area along the border of Pakistan are not because they don't like anything which Pakistan is involved in in fact receiving more than occasional or marginal help. I on the other side? never have understood, in fact, why the American people, who do, it seems to me, feel so strongly about Afghanistan, have AMB. BIRCH: I think it's partly that. It's a feeling of not responded to this lead more actively and more generously difficulty in their relations with pakistan, but also they have than they have. very close relations, political and economic, with the SOViet Union, and I think that that is the explanation of their vote. MR. BUCKLEY: Could it be because the average American really thinks that refugee aid is really a paramilitary operation and MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, I remember Nehru refused to condemn the that we are here up against an extra-territorial Soviet salient Hungary suppression, remember? and that the entire theatrical response is one that calls for everything from providing Stingers to Afghan patriots to MR. CHERNE: Yes, I do. providing bandaids and hot soup for refugees, and therefore they simply assume that they don't need even the rock singers MR. BUCKLEY: That great patron of humankind. to mobilize our philosophic sentiments? MR. CHERNE: Yes. MR. CHERNE: I feel absolutely certain that you have identified one of the elements-- MR. BUCKLEY: Well, did you use any muscle on India? MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. AMB. BIRCH: We conducted a very strong campaign in the General Assembly for the vote on the resolution on Afghanistan, but I MR. CHERNE: --and it may even be the critical element. think the fact that, you know, the vast majority, year after year, of the nations of the world have voted to condemn Soviet MR. BUCKLEY: Ambassador Birch, is your country cooperating in action really speaks for itself. And it's against that the actual aid to the refugees movements? background that the Indian vote in this matter sticks out like a sore thumb. AMB. BIRCH: We have indeed. We have given a very considerable amount of aid to the refugees. But of course the best solution MR. BUCKLEY: Well, I should know the answer to this, but I for the refugees is a settlement in Afghanistan that permits don't. Is there an organization within the United Nations that them to go back to Afghanistan. devotes itself to helping out such projects as Mr. Cherne is engaged in? Specific aid to refugees? MR. CHERNE: That's correct. AMB. BIRCH: There is indeed, yes. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, I think that's obvious, yes. But meanwhile they've got to eat, and if I understand Mr. Cherne, people are MR. BUCKLEY: Which one is that? not living up to what we think of as our conventional responsibilities to look after our brothers in need. MR. CHERNE: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. AMB. BIRCH: Well, I think that-- MR. BUCKLEY: Oh, yes, the one. that the Aga Khan was head of. MR. CHERNE: Insufficiently. AMB. BIRCH: Sadruddin Aga Khan. MR. BUCKLEY: Insufficiently, yes. MR. CHERNE: That's correct. AMB. BIRCH: But there is a good deal of aid anyway given from MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, right. And they collect money via the UN Britain, where the Afghan cause is very strongly supported. or-- MR. BUCKLEY: Is it privately given or pUblicly given? AMB. BIRCH: They get voluntary contributions from member states, and the contributors in fact to that fund are the AMB. BIRCH: A mixture of both. I think it's more or less Western world and not the cdmmunist countries. evenly matched between government and the private sector, and of course the government of Pakistan bear an enormous part of MR. BUCKLEY: Right. Well, let's crank up a little bird's eye 2 3 © Board of Trustees ofthe lefand Stanford Jr. University. view of what's been happening there. This film was made by the Russians decided to overcome their resistance by force, and the British Information Office, and as I said, has never been seen war has been going on ever since. For the first five years in America, and tells us a story, including some of the there was no sign that the Russians would withdraw. But by chronology. I think we have to dim the lights.