European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 9, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Shades of Vietnam afghan War comes Home to Russia by Serge Schmemann new York times a after six years the afghan War has begun coming  outlines May be hazy the size of the soviet Force the scale of the fighting the casualties and the Western reports of soviet atrocities Are not widely known in Moscow or Are dismissed As Western propaganda. Yet in conversations with russians the War has become More familiar and tangible. Although the soviet Union has made no statistics Public hundreds of thousands of soviet youths most of them draftees Are known to have gone and returned from the Dusty and dangerous mountains to the South. Thousands have been wounded and killed. Some have returned crippled some troubled. High school seniors compare notes on ways to beat the draft while their mothers talk openly of their fears. Television broadcasts and newspapers carry reports of heroic feats and imperialist backed bandits. But in the streets the talk is of danger hashish and death. Many a russian knows where there is a Gravestone with the legend killed fulfilling his internationalist  a new Slang has evolved Afghanistan is Tarn Over there and afghan is the Soldier who fought there. The rebels Are contras after the rebels in Nicaragua or Dushman for a Tadzik word meaning opponent foe to which the russians now ascribe the meaning of  the War is not a social problem for us the Way Vietnam was for you one Moscow writer said. But it definitely has become a social reality. Everybody has heard How bad it can be Over there and nobody wants to  although the figures Are not made Public most people seem to agree that education deferments from the draft have become All but impossible to get. Draft age youths speak with impressive erudition of medical deferments and army units to avoid. One youth described How a classmate tried to feign madness begging the draft Board to Send him to Afghanistan so he could Start killing. There Are haunting echoes Here yet Little in the soviet attitude toward Afghanistan can compare with the american anguish Over Vietnam. No Public opposition Here no mass doubts not even Graffiti on the Walls. The Long habit of entrusting such matters to the government the shared sense of threat from abroad and the tight control on information have evidently combined to Block most Domestic dissent. In official accounts the soviet Force in Afghanistan remains a limited contingent doing its. Internationalist duty in an undeclared War launched by Western imperialism through reactionary rebels. Even news dispatches about the fighting Bear the dateline with the limited contingent of soviet forces in  still the soviet coverage of the War has abandoned the Early description of dedicated soldiers giving purely humanitarian assistance. Accounts these Days talk of combat missions and pitched Battles. In Geneva during the Summit meeting a soviet official acknowledged that soviet casualties were on the increase although numbers have never been disclosed. And the press has slowly come to publicize a Domestic Side to the War. One recent report in Komsomol Skaya pravda the paper of the Young communist youth league was strikingly different from anything written before. It told the Story of Anatoly a Veteran who had returned to Togliatti an Industrial City on the Volga profoundly affected by his service in Afghanistan racked with guilt for having survived and furious at the complacency greed and shallowness he found Back Home. It was a profile with distinct echoes of coming Home the Deer Hunter even rambo. The Story presented Anatoly not As a victim of the War but rather As a Young Man whose vision had been purified by the experience. In Afghanistan Anatoly was overwhelmed by the poverty the brutality the resignation of the peasants the violence. He watched a girl die of hunger and was horrified at his helplessness. He was wounded and several times came close to death. He says that now one of the most frightening things for him is the approach of night wrote Aleksandr or Obodov a criminal investigator who wrote the account of a meeting with Anatoly. The distractions and concerns of the Day Fly off and he is left alone with his thoughts and his  he thinks that he was not always Brave enough that often he should have been killed but always someone bolder than he was at his Side the account continued. And now he carries out his self imposed sentence. He was second in Battle he believes and must now live for those who were first and stayed there  to this Day Anatoly believes he did not have time to fully pay the bandits Back. Already then he formed in his soul the distinction Between us and them or rather us1 and the contras.1 and As a Rule the contras had to be destroyed or there would be another string of deaths new  returning Home Anatoly was appalled at the clamouring after Blue jeans and music cassettes the Black marketeers and drunkards that now seemed almost a desecration of the suffering he had seen. In his mind the corrupt became the new contras. He had come to or Obodov to demand punishment for a Black marketeer whose Case the investigator had just dropped for Lack of evidence and he threatened to dispense Justice himself if the authorities would not. The investigator Learned that there were others with Anatoly. It was easier for them together or Obodov wrote. They found several others who had served Over there they meet at agreed places they talk about the past train keep up their skills. They decided that too Many contras thieves parasites had soviet soldiers held prisoner in Afghanistan. Many Young soviets Are now trying to evade the draft. A photo Page 14 the stars and stripes Dpi photo two soviet soldiers who defected because they were sick of killing women and  sprouted and that the government would Only gain if they dealt with the contras  the meeting or Obodov wrote profoundly affected him. Though he tried to explain to Anatoly the dangers of vigilantism he found himself in Awe of the Veteran. He brought that purity from the ringing revolutionary Spring of Afghanistan of which most of us have Only the most Distant perception the investigator wrote. The Stark figure of Anatoly and the sympathy expressed for him in the pages of Komsomol Skaya pravda seemed to introduce a new figure into the coverage of the War. And instead of analysing his problem the paper seemed to sympathize with his position. No other newspapers have carried anything similar to the Story of Anatoly. But accounts have come to Light about the plight of veterans of the Afghanistan War. The newspaper Ovetskaya Rossiya wrote sympathetically some time ago about a disabled Veteran who was pushed aside for cutting to the front of a ticket queue As is the right of disabled War veterans by people who thought he was too Young to have fought in the War apparently meaning world War ii. The army newspaper Krasnaya zvezda by contrast wrote critically of a 20-year-old Soldier who found it difficult to return to Ordinary life after Afghanistan and would not be satisfied with the benefits and gratuities offered him. Last month Krasnaya zvezda broke new ground by touching on one of the More sensitive new realities draft evasion. The newspaper published by the military focused on the City of Vladivostok in the soviet far East but it was Clear that the article addressed a widespread problem. It described a conscript who refused to enter the army even after spending a year in labor Camp for draft evasion. Another had tried to avoid service by presenting a false medical certificate prepared by a Friendly doctor. Yet another used connections in High places to stave off conscription. One Young Man avoided the draft because a cooperative theater hired him and immediately sent him off on a Long tour. The cases cited Are not typical of our life of course Krasnaya zvezda wrote. But we cannot close our eyes to them since whatever else they have an Adverse influence on a certain Section of Young people and undermine their belief that the Law is the same for one and  the hard an soft faces of Syria Mediterranean sea Firat associated press mus by Elaine Sciolino new York times s Syria shows a Stern face to the outside world with its Domestic system of rigid control its soviet supplied military and its foreign policy of rejecting any peace plan for the Middle East that excludes Damascus. On closer examination however a softer Side can be seen. Syria is also a country whose social climate has always been tempered by centuries of Contact with foreigners a result of its location at the Crossroads of ancient trading routes and at the Center of a larger Arab world. Foreigners mingle freely with syrians and Damascus has replaced Beirut As an Oasis where arabs from religious conservative domains can relax and enjoy a forbidden alcoholic drink. In Damascus almost any occasion merits a party. When a prominent syrian recently published her first novel in French two dozen ambassadors and members of the Best Damascene families turned up for a Book signing. They politely applauded As Naiad Haddam the wife of Syria s vice president untied the crepe paper ribbons in the colors of both the syrian and French flags. Wearing fashionable Black velvet and Mink and rhinestone studded fashion pumps mrs. Haddam chatted easily with guests As the Champagne flowed. What never ceases to amaze me is How Normal it All seems Here said one ambassador As he reached for an Apricot and Pistachio Sweet wrapped in Gold foil. It s such a charming place not at All like the military Camp i expected.". The normalcy can however deceive. The same randomness that touches the entire Mediterranean and makes Damascus seem Freer than the capitals of the persian Gulf can also make it More dangerous. Everyone it seems has a fixer who commands great loyalty and who invariably has uncles and cousins whose sole purpose it often seems is to evade the intricacies of socialism As practice by the baath party. Profit making runs through syrian blood and private entrepreneurs wage fierce Battles to circumvent the bureaucracy. A visitor to Damascus sometimes forgets about the Semi autonomous and often competing intelligence systems which Are ultimately accountable Only to president Hafez Al Assad. International human rights groups have documented in detail How syrian citizens can be arrested held incommunicado and tortured without the Protection of the Law. There is one four letter word that is scarcely whispered in Syria Hama. There nearly four years ago government forces rained shells on the City Center for three weeks putting Down a rebellion by the fundamentalist moslem brotherhood and killing Between 5,000 and 20,000 civilians in what was by far the most serious Challenge to Assad s government since he assumed Power in a bloodless coup in 1970. Most of the rubble has been bulldozed away. Only a few of the bombed buildings still stand relics of the rebellion that have yet to be razed. The government has built dozens of new four Story Stone apartment buildings and shops to replace the 19th-Century bungalows and covered souk or marketplace that were destroyed in the shelling. New City squares have been built. A four Lane Highway lined with Trees has replaced the narrow main Street. On a recent Friday when most of the town was shut Down for the moslem Sabbath a dozen construction workers toiled on the Frame of a new mosque much larger than the one destroyed in 1982. Strangers in Hama draw Long stares. When asked most syrians lament the destruction although they also want to forget it. Privately some believe it prevented the Rise of an iranian style islamic revolutionary movement. One syrian business official said it is a tragedy that so Many people died but sometimes the army gets it right. It was an old souk and very  since the fighting in Hama it has been nearly impossible for an outsider to judge How much the revival of religion in much of the islamic world has touched Syria. The increase in the construction of mosques in Damascus and the sizable number of Young women who cover their Heads with scarves Tell Little of the depth of islamic Fervour in a country of extraordinary religious diversity with its sunni moslem Al wites druse christians shiite moslem and jews. We Don t really feel there is a religious revival the grand Mufti Mahmoud Ahmed Kaftaro Syria s moslem Leader said in an interview. It s just something natural for moslem to learn about their religion and behave according to its  but the grand Mufti does not hide his resentment that islam is not Given More credit in the West As a religion of peace and ecumenism. We believe in Jesus Christ and his life Story just As we believe in Moses and the prophets of the torah he said. We find them All in the Koran he said. But up to now the Christian world has not studied the open handedness of  sunday March 9, 1986 the stars and stripes Page 15