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ZHOUAND

The documented record

Five cables, and
an official history

Samiuddin Zhouand appears by name in the declassified diplomatic correspondence of the United States. The cables below — exchanged in 1975 between the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and the State Department in Washington — trace a single episode: his journey to America for legal study and consultations on Afghanistan's emerging narcotics law. Every cable is reproduced from the WikiLeaks Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy and links to its original source.

CABLE 01 · U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE — DECLASSIFIED 1975KABUL03229
Date
20 May 1975
Route
U.S. Embassy Kabul → Secretary of State
Subject
Request for Zhouand add-on travel to Washington

The embassy reports that Deputy Minister of Justice Samiuddin Zhouand will attend an international law seminar in Dallas (2 June – 11 July 1975), and proposes adding consultations in Washington — its “principal interest” being the role he might play in Afghanistan’s new legal framework for narcotics enforcement and prosecution, together with a visit to the George Washington University School of Law.

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CABLE 02 · U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE — DECLASSIFIED 1975STATE122449
Date
27 May 1975
Route
Secretary of State → U.S. Embassy Kabul
Subject
Request for Washington add-on to Zhouand travel

Washington concurs in the eight-day Washington stopover for the narcotics consultations, confirms funding for his per diem, and sets the itinerary: Kabul – New York – Texas – Washington, D.C. – New York – Kabul.

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CABLE 03 · U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE — DECLASSIFIED 1975KABUL03487
Date
1 June 1975
Route
U.S. Embassy Kabul → Secretary of State
Subject
Zhouand visit to Washington

The embassy’s Political Counselor meets Zhouand to outline the Washington program. Zhouand departed for Dallas on 30 May, hoping for a short break between the seminar’s close and his Washington consultations.

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CABLE 04 · U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE — DECLASSIFIED 1975KABUL03621
Date
8 June 1975
Route
U.S. Embassy Kabul → Secretary of State
Subject
Zhouand visit to Washington

A telling detail: the embassy notes Zhouand’s membership in Afghanistan’s Supreme Judicial Council — which, it writes, “insofar as two legal systems are analogous, corresponds to the United States Supreme Court” — and suggests he be received at the level of a Supreme Court Justice and the Deputy Attorney General.

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CABLE 05 · U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE — DECLASSIFIED 1975STATE179778
Date
30 July 1975
Route
Secretary of State → U.S. Embassy Kabul
Subject
Zhouand return

Zhouand departed Washington on 29 July, returning to Kabul via Frankfurt. He had extended his stay awaiting his government’s decision on a one-year University of Texas scholarship offered by the Southwest Legal Foundation, and had asked about continuing into a two-year doctoral program; Kabul approved the one-year program only.

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In the official history

The official history of Afghanistan's Ministry of Justice records that, after Mohammad Daoud Khan founded the Republic in 1973 and brought the judiciary into the Ministry as the Supreme Judicial Council, Samiuddin Zhwand served as Deputy Minister of Justice and sat on the Council's General Assembly — placing his documented career squarely in the heart of the era's legal institutions.

Source · Afghan Ministry of Justice — official history (moj.gov.af)

“The official position of the government is that the lack of quorum has been caused by the Parliamentarians.”
Samiuddin Zhouand, to a U.S. diplomat — with a wink, 1972
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976

More of the record is being added — academic accounts, the Afghan Official Gazette, and the family’s own papers. If you hold documents or memories of Samiuddin Zhouand, they are welcome here.

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