Well, I don't think those are the same thing. I'm not denying the tragedy of Afshar, I'm just questioning which of the involved parties was most responsible. You're talking about an incident that involved men known for massacring civilians and one who went out of his way not to.
Now this is quite egregous. That not only was it not his fault but that he also was not part of the problem and was trying to save people while his group conducted a massacre. A commander is responsible for the actions of his forces.
"As the defense minister, you can argue it was his fault regardless, since his role was to provide safety and stability through military force and he failed to do so (and he himself regarded it as a shameful failure) but that doesn't seem the same as saying he systematically targeted civilians for torture and murder."
But he did just that and it wasnt just Afshar but also in kabul in general for example:
When night fell, in one of the buildings where eighty women were, many guards entered, and a mass rape started. By flashing torches the victims were selected and raped on the spot. There were terrible cries, women and girls were
also taking away never seen again. These mean acts repeated night after night. There was no sanitation and soon disease started. There was no food for the first three days, and very little afterwards. Within the two days, forty babies
had died in their mother’s arms in the confinements. The women were kept there for many weeks and the number of deaths increased. Babies died every day, up to fifteen a day.
https://www.milestonesjournal.net/s/Demystifying-a-Warlord.pdf
I actually recall that he had men executed for atrocities performed in Afshar, not that it changes what happened. And the Hazara took the bulk of the casualties in Afshar and they apparently trusted him enough to look to him for protection from the Taliban later on.
Thats a terrible take since Massoud replaced his commander with a hazara who began to massacre and rape pashtun civilians.
As far as the Soviets, nobody is denying that he made a truce with them; but at the time, he was dealing with the Soviets as well as the aggression of Hekmatyar, who was getting the bulk of US funding funneled to him through ISI. But at least by public record, the terms of that truce was the Russian evacuation of Panjshir, not the guaranteed safe passage of Russians through Panjshir. As far as I know, the claims about the fake skirmishes didn't come about until much later, used by people with a vested interested in undermining Massoud's legacy or credibility for whatever reason. And you have to admit, that's quite a large claim that both sides would come together to stage phony battles, especially in a valley cut off by sky high mountains on all sides.
Massoud denied it by virtue of not announcing such a thing to even his own men. Heres what steve coll writes:
"Massoud decided to cut a deal. In the spring of 1983 he announced an unprecedented truce. Under its terms the Soviets would stop attacking in the Panjshir if Massoud
allowed the Afghan army to operate a base at the southern
end of the valley. The truce followed three years of secret negotiations. For as long as Massoud had been fighting the Soviets, most Afghans outside the Panjshir Valley were shocked to learn, he had also been talking with them…Massoud and his counterparts conversed like colleagues…Massoud’s deal was a blow to the mujahedin just “as Benedict Arnold was a blow to the Americans,” one American pundit declared. Leaders of Jammat, Massoud’s own party, felt particularly betrayed since Massoud had not bothered to consult them beforehand. "
The link above also mentions that he'd help soviet helicopter pilots. The same ones that were killing scores of Afghan civilians in their raids on villages:
"Then he came to me by night, and we signed an agreement, [Massoud] would not attack Soviet or Afghan government troops on the territory he controlled, and would help any Soviet pilots who were shot down, so long as we left him alone and helped him with medical supplies, food and ammunition"
From the link below:
http://www.rawa.org/massoud3.htm
"[General Gramov] He reveals that when the first Russian troops left Hairatan on Afghan-Uzbek border for Kabul via land route in 1980, the soviets feared that the passage of the army through Salang valley and high peaks of Panjsher valley which were manned by the mujahideen of Ahmad Shah Masoud was not only difficult but also almost impossible. The army of famed Jihadi commander Ahmad Shah Masoud, Gramov said, could convert the area into graveyard for the Russian troops by only throwing rocks.
Gramov says at that critical time the then Khad chief Dr. Najibullah acted very shrewdly and contacted Ahmad Shah Masoud who demanded direct talks with the Russians. The Soviet General says they immediately met Masoud and signed an agreement with him that
ensured safe passage of Russian army through the dangerous Salang and Panjsher valleys and thus onward to the southern, central and eastern Afghanistan."
You could argue that I'm being too easy on him but I don't think you're acknowledging the difficulty of either situation. Any Mujahiden opposed to Hekmatyar was in a precarious situation; you've got the Russians on one hand and the man who openly bragged about killing more Afghanis than the Soviet Union on the other. That's a lot for anyone to deal with.
While i can understand that hekmatyar was a ruthless man, massoud was just as deceitful, self serving and ruthless
at times. They werent just accidents or happenstance but the features of political rivalries taking place behind the scenes of the war that would culminate in and be a big part of the civil wars of the 1990s. Perhaps its "too soon" for some Afghans and allies to criticize Massoud since Massoud is still relevant as an anti-Taliban symbol (his son is currently trying to start an insurgency in panjshir) but the facts are there for people willing to dig that the symbol of the world's most corrupt government was not some saint but was instead very much a man that highlights the 1990s civil war like hekmatyar and the rest of the gang that fought a civil war which culminated in the Taliban of all people restoring some semblance of law and order in much of Afghanistan.
