1978 in Afghanistan government. Amin becomes Foreign Minister. The country is renamed the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Although Taraki professes a non-aligned policy, there are signs that he is leaning heavily on the Soviet Union for economic aid and advice. Taraki attempts to purge the ruling PDPA of prominent leaders of the Parcham wing of the party. Some are sent abroad as ambassadors, including Deputy Prime Minister Babrak Karmal, who is appointed ambassador to Czechoslovakia. Taraki's reform program - which threatened to undermine basic Afghan cultural patterns - and political repression having antagonized large segments of the population, the first major uprising occurs
1981 in Afghanistan and consumer goods. According to UN statistics, 1.7 million Afghans have so far fled to Pakistan and some 400,000 to Iran in order to escape the strife in their country. President Karmal gives up the post of prime minister; he is succeeded in that position on June 11 by Sultan Ali Keshtmand, another trusted member of the Parcham faction of the PDPA. Keshtmand is also put in direct charge of the National Patriotic Front, set up in December 1980 with the intention of rallying the people behind Karmal's Marxist revolutionary government. Karmal announces a new set of proposals for negotiations