The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

Nuristani, personally instructed the participants of the forthcoming operation todemonstrate lawful and ethical behavior. He ordered all of the conversations during thearrests to be tape-recorded so that the minister could monitor the actions of hissubordinates. Later, all of the recordings were obtained by the leaders of the new Afghanregime.Babrak did not protest or express any concern in regards to his arrest. The politicalstruggle he had led for almost thirty years had developed in him a readiness to perseverethrough the most severe trials and challenges. His revolutionary experience hadtransformed him into a particular sort of person with standards drastically different thanother, ordinary people. Babrak was a professional warrior, a man dedicated to an idea forwhich he would sacrifice everything: material wealth, physical well being, even life itself.He had experienced imprisonment. In the 1950s, as a student at Kabul University, he hadspent four years in prison for participating in anti-government demonstrations. Whilethere he changed his name to “Karmal,” which meant “a worker” in Pashto. He was notafraid of prison. He was not afraid of being shot or executed. There was only one thing thathe was afraid of: being broken by modern, refined torture devices or psychotropic drugs.Sitting on the concrete floor of a solitary confinement cell in the investigation unit ofthe Ministry of Internal Affairs, Babrak considered the possible allegations that thegovernment could level against him and the sorts of questions that might arise for which heshould prepare himself. The Hazara guard, with a silly and almost guilty smile on his face,brought him tea, then lunch and dinner. The guard did not respond to Babrak’s attempts tospeak with him. Time passed, but Babrak was not summoned to any questioning. Hethought, “They arrested me and now they don’t know what to do with me. They are63