The Parcham leader installed by the Soviet invasion who presided over seven years of war but never won legitimacy
"The Soviet comrades love me boundlessly, and for the sake of my personal safety, they don't obey even my own orders": the puppet president's confession to a friend about his gilded imprisonment.
Babrak Karmal was a founding member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and leader of its Parcham (Banner) faction, serving as deputy prime minister after the 1978 Saur Revolution before being purged by the Khalq faction and exiled as ambassador to Czechoslovakia. Dismissed from that post and hunted by an Afghan hit squad, he spent months hiding in a remote forest lodge under the protection of the Czechoslovak secret police until the Soviet invasion of December 1979 installed him as president. During his rule he attempted to broaden the regime's base through amnesties, a new tricolor flag, and a constitutional framework, but was widely dismissed as a Soviet puppet as the war against the mujahideen bogged down. In 1986 Mikhail Gorbachev engineered his removal; he spent his final decade in Moscow exile, dying of liver cancer in 1996.
Career Timeline
- 1965Co-founded the PDPA, led the Parcham faction
- 1965–1973Member of Parliament
- 1978.4–6Deputy Chairman, Revolutionary Council
- 1978.7–9Ambassador to Czechoslovakia
- 1979.12–1986.11Chairman, Revolutionary Council; PDPA General Secretary
- 1979.12–1981.6Chairman of the Council of Ministers
- 1986–1996Exile in Moscow