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National Geographic : 1981 May
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HE HAD LIVED behind the veil for most of her 25 years, and now, in death, she lay covered by a red-and gold blanket. Probably it was her grandest pos session, that blanket, and when the services were over-when the words had been spok en and the body committed to final rest-it would be returned to her family and perhaps one day be passed along to the son born to her in the final minutes of her life. She died in exile, in Pakistan. As one of the estimated 1.5 Pakistan Under Pressure million persons who have fled across the border since Soviet troops en tered Afghanistan late in December 1979, she had taken up residence in a makeshift camp in the rugged North-West Fron tier Province of Pakistan. With her tribesman husband, a Pathan, she had trekked more than a hundred miles to the camp, and that cost her the strength needed for childbirth. She had made the crossing in winter, when heavy snows in the high country thinned the ranks of refugees as they at tempted to escape bombings and strafings of their villages by moving east until the moun tains were behind them. But even on the other side they were dogged by bitter cold. So it was on this morning. The four men carrying the body pushed against a chilling wind as they walked out of the camp, across the road, and along a dirt path to a hillside burial site more than a mile away. There were but few gentle words of remembrance in the graveside eulogy. Rather, the speaker exhorted those in attendance to vow to drive the Russians from Afghanistan. He cried for revenge. The hawk-faced Pathan tribesmen replied as one: Revenge would be theirs. As the second anniversary of the invasion approaches, cries of outrage have softened, and the presence of 85,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan has taken root. For those op posed to the spread of Soviet influence, one blessing may be counted in all of this: Neigh boring Pakistan has survived. Seldom in its short and troubled history as a nation has so much worldwide attention been visited on Pakistan as it was during the early phases of the turmoil in Afghanistan. The Western world embraced Islamabad Pakistan's gleaming modern capital-and whispered of delicious things forthcoming: aid and arms and nourishments enough to make the country a rock of strength. Or, fail ing that, to get the armed forces in a position where they could handle border skirmishes and put down any Soviet-inspired tribal uprisings within the country. Then, as now, Pakistan was under mar tial law imposed by the military regime of President General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq. The press was censored, and the jails held hundreds of political prisoners. Waves of unrest and anger over the execution of for mer Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto surged through the cities. To some it was a question not so much of whether Zia and his government would fall, but rather when. The question went beg ging, for today the president has moved into a new position of strength. The economy, 678
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