The Revolutionary Organisation of the Working People of Afghanistan (), also called the Against National Oppression Party (), more commonly known as Settam-e Melli was a political movement in Afghanistan, led by Tahir Badakhshi. The organization was affiliated with the Non-Aligned Movement, and was opposed by both the Afghan monarchy and by the Soviet-aligned People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. Its followers were mostly Persian speakers. Most of its members were non-Pashtuns—Tajik, Uzbek, and other minorities—and it has been variously described as an anti-Pashtun separatist group and as a Tajik and Uzbek separatist group.Diego Cordovez & Selig S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 34–35.Dan Caldwell, Vortex of Conflict: U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2007), p. 24.Senzil Nawid, Language Policy in Afghanistan: Linguistic Diversity and National Unity, in Language Policy and Language Conflict in Afghanistan and Its Neighbors (Koninklijke Brill NV 2012), p. 42.M. Hassan Kakar, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 (University of California Press, 1995), p. 58.Asger Christensen, Aiding Afghanistan: The Background and Prospects for Reconstruction in a Fragmented Society (NIAS Press, 1995), p. 24.Frank Clements, Badakhshi, Tahir (?–1979), in Conflict in Afghanistan: A Historical Encyclopedia (2003), p. 37. "Information on Settam-e-Melli is vague and contradictory, but it appears to have been an anti-Pashtun leftist mutation."Anthony Arnold, Afghanistan's Two-party Communism: Parcham and Khalq (Hoover Press, 1983), p. 39. The group was founded in 1968 by Tahir Badakhshi, an intellectual, author, political activist who formerly had been a founder of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and split with the party. The group emphasized "militant class struggle and mass mobilization of peasants" and recruited Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and other minorities from Kabul and the northeastern provinces.
During the communist ruling of Taraki-Amin period, the organisation members withdrew to the countryside to resist against the tyranny, though as an urban movement this removed them from their powerbase. Almost 4000 members had been arrested by the communist regime and killed. Later on, during the 1979–1986 rule of Babrak Karmal, the organisation rehabilitated itself and became closer with the government.Gilles Dorronsoro. Revolution unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the present.. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2005. , A Setami leader, Bashir Baghlani, went over to the government in 1983, and was made Minister of Justice.J. Bruce Amstutz. Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation. DIANE Publishing, 1994. ,
References
Notes