Skip to main content

Afghanistan

Volume 982: debated on Thursday 3 April 1980

The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.

Q3.

asked the Prime Minister whether, in framing policy in relation to Afghanistan, Her Majesty's Government took into account the torture and massacre of a significant number of Russian technical advisers in Herat on and about 5 April 1979.

I can neither confirm nor deny the report about the treatment of Russian technical advisers in Herat last year. Even if the report is true, it would not have justified the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan eight months later and the subsequent killing of large numbers of Afghan men, women and children.

Will the Prime Minister accept the ghoulish truth, of which I gave her office details 11 days ago, that about a year ago to the day 30 Russian technical advisers were forced to eat their own testicles, they were then skinned alive and their heads were paraded through Herat by Afghan factions? Does the right hon. Lady agree that it is not surprising that Mother Russia will not sit by and see factional crises of militant irredentist Islam on her Central Asian borders—[Hon. Members: "Reading."]

Yes, I am reading, because I am asking a careful and precise question.

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that it is out of order to read questions. As he has confessed before the House to reading, I have no alternative but to ask him to try to remember that.

Do not the British know better than most that once an army is sucked into factional tribal strife it is much more difficult to get that army out?

The hon. Gentleman asked me if I could confirm those reports. I can only tell him that I can neither confirm nor deny them.

The hon Gentleman knows that I am the first to condemn all violence, by whomsoever it is perpetrated. However, the hon. Gentleman knows that the answer to violence is not for one nation to march into another's territory and perpetrate further acts of violence. I hope that he will agree that that can never be justified and will join almost all hon. Members in asking the Russians to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan.

Has my right hon. Friend seen the reports that many hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been murdered by the forces of the Soviet Union since Afghanistan was invaded? Will she accept that my information is that every Afghan to whom I talked during my last visit to Kabul 18 months ago, from Nur Mohammed Tarakki downwards, has been killed? As these massacres are continuing, could a new international initiative be taken to persuade the United Nations to impose universal economic sanctions against the USSR?

I believe that a large number of atrocities are being and have been committed. My hon. Friend and I will condemn them with all the force and power at our command, and also condemn the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

As my hon. Friend knows, the President of the United States suggested that certain measures should be taken against Russia, including sanctions on technological exports and the export of wheat. We do not yet have universal acceptance of those sanctions. We are therefore trying to co-operate with our European partners and our American friends. My right hon. and noble Friend the Foreign Secretary made a most constructive suggestion to help to get troops out of Afghanistan. He suggested that Afghanistan could be a neutral country, and therefore its security would be guaranteed. That should enable the Russians to take their troops out of Afghanistan if they wished to.

With regard to that proposal by the Foreign Secretary, who does the right hon. Lady believe would guarantee the neutrality of Afghanistan? Have the Government had the courtesy to approach the Government of Afghanistan on the matter?

There have been talks between Powers, but not specifically between ourselves and the Government of Afghanistan. The hon. Gentleman is less than welcoming to an initiative that was genuinely meant to try to defuse the situation, to the great advantage of the people of Afghanistan and many of the surrounding countries.

Is not the way to end all atrocities in Afghanistan for the Soviet Union to end its occupation?

In view of the ominous statements from Kabul about the validity of the Durand line, will Her Majesty's Government use their influence, which they still have on the Subcontinent, to try to improve Judo-Pakistan co-operation for the safety of the Sub-continent?

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was the invasion by a foreign Power of an independent country, which bears no relation whatever to our troops being in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.

We shall do all that we can to secure the improvement of relations between India and Pakistan. I agree with my hon. Friend that they are vital to future peace in that area.