It was a slightly cloudy morning in Assad Abad  -- the provincial capital of, Kunar province, Afghanistan. The year was 1980.  A new government headed by Afghan communists had just seized the power . Since then, detainment of people,  house search and night raids by CAM (Cargari Aistikhbarari Mossisa-Intelligence Bureau of Proletariat} was the order of the day. This had naturally filled the hearts of people with terror, suspicions and mistrust.

The government was issuing the so-called revolutionary decrees almost every day to ostensibly change the life of the people.

A new  post under the name of  Chairman of Political Affairs had been added in the organizational set-up of the newly-formed  government. Before that, during the Dawood Khan regime { former president of Afghanistan }, there was no office by the name of chairman of political affairs at provincial level.  

The new chairman was proclaimed to be a great revolutionary - that really meant zero tolerance with the so-called anti-revolution elements. He had already shown his extraordinary loyalty to the new communist government by using iron fist against alleged anti-revolutionary elements - detaining them and sending them to death squads without trial. Upon assuming new office in Kunar, he sent a group of police to Karalla village located just on the outskirt of the Assad abad, on the riverside of Kunar province. The soldiers told the villagers to immediately and collectively assemble on the governor house ground ... They said:" The Governor and the new Chairman of the Political Affairs want to talk with you. It is very important and necessary. All should come. No one should remain behind".  

It was a government order. The miserable villagers had to obey the order, went to the governor office and gathered on the governor house ground.  The governor and the chairman of the political affairs soon appeared before the gathering of the people, they at first lauded the communist government and then lambasted American and Western imperialism and capitalism.  Then he told the gathering that they were American agents and anti-revolutionary elements who wanted to topple the revolutionary regime.

The people appealed that they were peaceful citizens and most of them farmers who, as they claimed, were natural allies of the revolution, "Neither we are landlords nor wealthy industrialists" they  tried to assure them, but to all the appeals, beseeching of the people and lack of evidence, the chairman of the political affairs, turned a deaf ear and left the gathering .  

When the chairman of the political affairs and the governor left, the armed soldiers who were encircling the villagers including young, and old men, started firing pointblank at the gathering. The defenseless participant of the gathering began falling to the ground in cold blood. The volleys of Kalashnikove increased and so did  the number of  dead bodies.

The cries and beseeching of the dying people did not move the troops and they did not stop until every one was put down. In total, they killed 1300 people of the Karalla village. The whole male residents of the villages were finished; their village was destroyed. The dead bodies were later taken by residents of the surrounding villages and buried in a collective grave by the Kunar River, on the outskirt of Assad Abad city.

The collective grave of Karla village is still there, in  Assad Abad, reminiscent of the heinous crime of the communist regime of Afghanistan, carried out under the revolutionary name of house, shelter and clothe to every one .
 

I visited this grave of collective burial in 1990. Then, Najibullah regime-the last communist president of Afghanistan --  was in place in Kabul. He had pulled out his troops from the border provinces in Afghanistan and re-deployed them in Jalal Abad and other  provinces away from borders. After the withdrawal of Najibulla's troops, Mujahideen had established their own administration in Kunar, headed by Ghulam Rabani as governor of the province.  He was  very humble person and a Mujahid commander from the ethnic minority group of Pashai..  At that time,  I was editor of a journal published in English. I went with the convoy of a leader of Mujahideen who was on his itinerary trip to Afghanistan to visit Mujahideen outposts in Kunar Province.

It was dusk time that we offered Fateha - recitation of Quran for blessings - at the Collective Grave and those who remembered the massacre told me how it happened.  On the proposal of local commanders, the Mujahideen leader inaugurated a religious school at Karalla in memory of those who had been collectively and gruesomely killed by the Afghan communist regime  

Nowadays American military base is there in Kunar, near the site of the massacre. But neither American nor UN have made any investigation into this carnage.  Other human rights organizations have also not taken any step to unearth the faces behind this and other massacres in Afghanistan.

In short, Karalla massacre is an iceberg of what have happened during Russian invasion of Afghanistan and in the reign of the Communist regime. Many similar massacres occurred in other provinces. They need investigation to unearth the facts behinds such genocides..

As an Umma, we have born the brunt of massacres and tortures through the ages at the hands of those who loudly boast of being advocate of human rights, civilizations, and democracy.

By: Brother Suhail Lamar
MuslimBridges Correspondent - Afghanistan / Pakistan

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