Deposed Afghan leader found in unmarked grave
Feb 02, 2009 04:30 AM Carlotta Gall NEW YORK TIMES
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KHOJA GHAR, Afghanistan–Ordered to bury 16 bodies in the middle of night in 1978, a wary young army officer did his best to remember the location, quietly counting the paces from the unmarked mass grave to the roadside.
He gathered from his fellow soldiers that they had just buried Afghanistan's first president, Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan, and his family. His assassination, during a communist coup in those tumultuous days, precipitated three decades of war in Afghanistan, a succession of conflicts that are still not spent and that have since touched every Afghan family.
It took 30 years and the relative stability and freedom under President Hamid Karzai for the former officer, Pacha Mir, to reveal his secret. With his help, the government has at long last identified the remains of the former president and his family and announced preparations to reinter the bodies with a state funeral in coming weeks.
Daoud was the founder of the Republic of Afghanistan. He overthrew his own cousin, the last king of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah, in a coup in 1973, but it was his own assassination five years later that plunged the country into bloodshed and turmoil.
Eighteen members of the Daoud family were killed that night in the presidential palace, along with a number of officers and aides. They were buried under cover of darkness outside the city. But virtually no one knew quite where.
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Feb 02, 2009 04:30 AM Carlotta Gall NEW YORK TIMES
Article Link
KHOJA GHAR, Afghanistan–Ordered to bury 16 bodies in the middle of night in 1978, a wary young army officer did his best to remember the location, quietly counting the paces from the unmarked mass grave to the roadside.
He gathered from his fellow soldiers that they had just buried Afghanistan's first president, Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan, and his family. His assassination, during a communist coup in those tumultuous days, precipitated three decades of war in Afghanistan, a succession of conflicts that are still not spent and that have since touched every Afghan family.
It took 30 years and the relative stability and freedom under President Hamid Karzai for the former officer, Pacha Mir, to reveal his secret. With his help, the government has at long last identified the remains of the former president and his family and announced preparations to reinter the bodies with a state funeral in coming weeks.
Daoud was the founder of the Republic of Afghanistan. He overthrew his own cousin, the last king of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah, in a coup in 1973, but it was his own assassination five years later that plunged the country into bloodshed and turmoil.
Eighteen members of the Daoud family were killed that night in the presidential palace, along with a number of officers and aides. They were buried under cover of darkness outside the city. But virtually no one knew quite where.
More on link
