This was not the person who said: either the Motherland or the shroud! How stupid we were, who were ready to sacrifice our dear souls to one of his gestures and many times, on his orders, went to certain death.
Author: General Nabi Azimi
We went to Dr. Najib with Asif Delaware, Fattah, and Said Azam. After reporting the situation to Najib, he asked why you came to me as a group.
I said:
- In Kabul, there are rumors that you are going to leave the country, if you have such an intention, please inform us before anyone else, so that, God forbid, there will be no accident. On the other hand, so that we know how to proceed in accordance with your previous instructions.
Dr. Najib blushed a little, but firmly stated:
- Comrades, do not believe groundless rumors. I will defend myself to the last bullet and will not go anywhere until the UN plan is implemented. I ask you to support and protect me in these critical moments. Or have you become a gossip too?
We assured him that we would fight by his side to the last bullet.
From there I made all the preparations. I thought that street and bazaar rumors were not true.
Hamal 26, 1371 (April 15, 1992):
I met with Hussein Boutsali and Benin Sivan.
Hamal 27:
At 8 am, Dr. Najib called me to his place and asked:
- Did you meet with Hussein yesterday?
I said yes, and told him everything that happened between us. He said:
- Thanks! Benin Sivan will meet with you today. Prior to the implementation of the UN plan, a Military Council must be formed. They want to appoint you chairman of the council. Generals Seyyed Azam Said, Lieutenant General Gholam Farooq, Lieutenant General Wali, and including opponents of General Dostum, General Hussam, and General Momen are considered as members of the Council, and in addition, one member each from political parties will be on it.
I said:
- In your presence, this council does not make sense, on the other hand, not all ministers will want to resign, except in the event of a coup d'état. I wonder if the opposition is aware of this issue.
He put the matter to the UN envoy and then said:
- At the request of the Politburo of the Watan Party, especially Baryalai, I allowed four planes to go to Mazar to strengthen the forces of the city of Kabul and the safety of comrades, and General Dostum promised to send additional forces to Kabul. Until the troops arrive in Kabul, watch them yourself and send them from the Kabul airport to Chaharasiyab and where you have a plan.
I was amazed at how, on the one hand, General Dostum was an opponent of Najib, and on the other hand, he sent his forces to protect Najib and his comrades. It didn’t cross my mind, except that the president hadn’t gone crazy.
I looked at him. His moves were normal, or he pretended to be, but he hadn't looked like himself in over a week. Neither desire, anger, nor lust moved him.
He has long distanced himself from us, from his close friends and circles, has become a stranger to everyone. Like he was sick.
We sympathized with him and still considered him a comrade, friend, and leader and placed our hopes in him. We felt the weight of those moments and were ready to do whatever he ordered. Our feelings for him were sincere. At that time, the thought of his betrayal of the Party, the people, and the Motherland did not occur to us, and we sincerely believed in him.
The day passed slowly. My friends contacted me. It was 2 o'clock, but there was no news from the UN representative. Najib called me at 5 pm and said:
- You will meet with Sivan. Are you ready for the meeting?
I said:
- I think that this is a useless conversation and did not discuss it (creation of the Military Council) with comrades.
After a short conversation, I went to work, and then, with the permission of my comrades, I returned home.
It was 12 midnight when Najib called and said that Hussein Oghlu was waiting for me and gave me 15 minutes. I had just returned home after the meeting when Colonel Abdul Wahab Nuristani, the brigade commander of the National Guard Battalion, called me:
- Mr. Deputy, at the intersection of Khaja Rovash Square and the air defense base, our soldiers stopped three Volkswagen buses with UN numbers. Dr. Najib is in one of them. He orders us to let the cars through.
I said to Wahab:
- Why did you stop them?
He said:
- The commander of our brigade, General Abdul Razzak, personally instructed the soldiers not to let anyone through tonight, even the president himself, and that if I let him through, Dostum's soldiers would shoot at him.
I said:
- Wait. I will call and advise.
Soon Wahab called and said that Najib had left for the city.
Najib realized that a trap was set for him, and if he insisted, he could be captured and killed. Five minutes later, Najib called and said with some anger:
- I told you to get Dostum's people out of the airport. Why didn't you listen to me?
I said that they arrived late at night and would leave the airport tomorrow morning.
He said:
- I went to the airport to receive and meet with Benin Sivan. I was stopped at the crossroads by order of General Razzaq. They did not let me go to Sivan. I'm ordering you to take the 717th regiment and get Dostum's men out of the airport, and if they resist, kill them all, understand?
I said:
- If it's only an issue of Sivan, then I'll settle the issue. If the problem is something else, please trust me, I will find a solution.
He said nothing more and hung up.
We were all amazed. We had no idea, we did not believe that, in reality, we would face such a bitter truth. The president, the leader of the party, the commander-in-chief of the army, without directly telling the truth, tried to deceive us. Could the President receive Sivan in the middle of the night in a car without formalities and bodyguards? He considered us so stupid, not only me but all the soldiers, all the inhabitants of the country. Was it an escape? Or betrayal? Secret shameful flight with knavery, deception of his best comrades, and throwing the party, government, and nation to the fate. This was not the person who said: either the Motherland or the shroud! How stupid we were, who were ready to sacrifice our dear souls to one of his gestures and many times, on his orders, went to certain death.
If he shared his dark and hellish thoughts with me, Yakubi and Dilawar, and trusted us, we could, with the same sincere faith that we had for him, send him abroad with honor and respect. After all, nature takes revenge, torments, punishes, tears off the covers, and exposes the soul of a deceiver to ridicule and universal ridicule.
Anyway, we went to the airport and persuaded General Ruzi (Dostum's commander) to let Sivan go. Ruzi said:
- You let Najib escape. I knew. He is the killer of hundreds of thousands of people. He must be judged and punished.
Finally, he believed that we did not know about it. We put Sivan in the car and took him to Najib. We wanted to say goodbye and leave, but he said he wanted to talk to us.
On the second floor of the UN mission, outside the gate, moodless General Jafsar, Najib's chief aide, sat in a chair. We entered. Najib was dressed in a crimson and beautiful, powdered and fragrant dress with a tie, sat on an armchair, and drank coffee. His assistant Ishak Tokhi and his brother Ahmadzai also sat around him.
Everyone was under the impression and kept silent. I sat down and carefully looked at this man - a demagogue and braggart of our history. He, who lost the game and looked very remorseful and depressed, looked like a white and thick carcass that did not bleed after a hundred hits with a spear. He was lost in his thoughts. I suddenly flashed back to that day in parliament, where, in a meeting with the elders, he shouted with pride and arrogance that I was not like the President of Ethiopia, Mengistu Haile Mariam, to run away, and Dinmuhammad Delaware shouted to him that we would not let you run away. If you fly to the sky, we will grab you by the legs, and if you go underground, we will hold you by the hair.
The BBC also reported that during Dr. Najib's escape at the military airport, a soldier stopped him and told him, "Dr. Sahib! Afghanistan has become like a hot tandoor. We and the people are burning in it. You must burn with us!”
It was because of this betrayal of Najib that the army and the system fell apart, and every soldier or officer fled in all four directions, leaving their weapons anywhere to protect themselves. All were abandoned to their fate. Najib cowardly ruined everything and created a great power vacuum, the consequences of which we have all seen. It happened when everything was in place in Kabul.
At that critical moment, we lost in him all the courage and bravery that he spoke of.
From the book "Army and Politics" by General Mohammad Nabi Azimi
