Mujahedin Join Army Elite

Abdurazaq is 42, and he’s been a soldier all his life. He’s only partially literate, but he’s determined to do well at the country’s military college - where he and other mujahedin are being trained as future officers of the Afghan national army.

“We did Jihad for the sake of God - if someone was a mujahedin, they can learn anything,” said Abdurazaq, who along with another 520 men who fought the Soviet Union and the Taleban have been selected to go through accelerated training to become officers.

The move was made possible by the dismissal in April of around 1,170 students at the military and air force colleges, set up in 1884 and 1939 respectively. Those who lost their places to the mujahedin officer cadets - many of whom cannot read or write - staged a demonstration in protest at their treatment by the authorities.

Reflecting the view of some of the dismissed students, Zia Uddin, 22, who had to leave the air force college in his first year, said it was unfair that mujahedin were getting preferential treatment.

“Since the government announced that the only ones who will be admitted to the military universities are those who did Jihad, we do not know if Afghanistan is only for those who did Jihad or also for other people,” he said.

To the former students, the dismissals seem to run counter to Afghanistan’s official goal of creating a new national army representative of the whole nation.

Those who fought the Taleban were predominantly Tajik, but the fight against the Soviet Union, from 1979-89, drew in all ethnicities - indeed, the new military college students include those aged 18 to 60. The exact figures of the ethnic mix, however, were not available.

While some might see the move to train mujahedin as political, it does have clear practical benefits. Many of the fighters had no real future, and incorporating them into officer training is one of the ways to keep them from fighting the government, as one student pointed out.

The new national army must somehow mix these upcoming officers with the fresh recruits trained by international military instructors from the West. How that will happen remains to be seen.

The soldiers now at the military college were in different groups of fighters during the years of civil war, and now they’re training and studying together, noted Abdurazaq, who believes this will ultimately be a good thing for the new national army.

Students who had previously been studying at army and air force colleges - an ethnically diverse, young group - were allowed to transfer to ordinary universities around the country this spring. Another 960 students, from the military high school, were sent to civilian ones.

About half of the former military college students have opted to abandon higher education altogether, and have returned to their villages to farm or stayed in Kabul to drive taxis, become labourers or join the ranks of the unemployed.

“If we’d wanted to go to a civil university we would have done that in the first place..with the coming of the new transitional government all our hopes have turned to disappointment,” said Zalmai, 24, a former military college undergraduate.

Those who accepted transfer to civilian universities were disappointed that they could only enter under-subscribed faculties such as literature, teaching, fine arts and social services, where they were put back a year on the orders of the defence ministry.

Mohammed Idriss was in his third year at the military college, but is now a second year social sciences student at Kabul University. “This is not my chosen faculty, but I’m obliged to study here,” he said, complaining that the people who replaced him at the military college are uneducated and would not be able to cope with new technology as they had “spent all their lives fighting”.

The student affairs director for the teacher training university, Khalida, said she’s had to accept 136 unhappy undergraduates from the military colleges. “[Those] who come here are very dissatisfied, and they come with cold hearts,” she said.

Idriss and the other dismissed students are young and all have completed high school - their ambition was to become professional officers.

Many of the men who they have replaced have had little or no education other than in how to fire weapons. The only qualification they required, by decree of President Karzai, was that they fought the Taleban or the Soviets in previous wars - although those who are illiterate are required to do remedial education as part of their training. Soldiers over 60 years old will be retired.

Some former students accused the government of “taking orders from foreigners”, arguing that because the Northern Alliance and former mujahedin soldiers fought American enemies, they have been given priority in officer training as well as in appointments to government positions and control of key ministries. Defense and interior ministries are filled with these former soldiers.

The new students will go through an accelerated course of nine months to three years, instead of the usual four-year term. That’s because the need for officers in the new army is so pressing, said Major General Jumma Nasir, head of training and education at the defense ministry.

The new national army needs 70,000 soldiers, but only around 5,000 have been trained so far.

The top 80 students at the military high school were allowed to continue, but they will not automatically be admitted to the military college.

A 19-year-old former high school student, who didn’t want to be named, said he doesn’t know what to do, “I was so interested in military service when I was a child, and now I don’t know if I will study at a civil school or work as day labourer.”

The instructors at the colleges, many of whom were trained in the Soviet era, were reluctant to comment on the changes. All of them have kept their jobs, despite the dramatic decrease in students.

One instructor at the air force college, who asked not to be named, said that it’s not been easy for the new students to adjust, “They have experience in fighting, but studying is difficult.”

The students themselves agree, but they’re happy to be in officer training. If it weren’t for this plan, said a smiling 32-year-old Sultan Aziz, the mujahedin might be jobless and even decide to fight the government.

Aziz fought the Taleban in the north and previously only studied at a madrasa. He thinks the decision to place him and his fellow fighters in the military college will result in a better national army in the end.

Shahabuddin Terakhel is an independent journalist in Kabul.