*people who have been educated in the U.S.;

*people who might have suffered because of their ties with the U.S.

The Kirghiz, regardless of their suffering at the hands of the Russians, maintain no ties with the United States other than their involvement with Dupree, Jones, and Nassif Shahrani--an anthropologist at UCLA who has done field work with the Kirghiz in Afghanistan. As a result, Lynch says, Qul and his tribe do not stand a chance on earth of qualifying for the U.S. refugee program.

With their romantic appeal, the Kirghiz--fierce mountaineers left suddenly destitute--have drawn more attention than other Afghan refugee groups. They are also one of the few not wanting to return to Afghanistan. During the past 50 years, the Kirghiz have fled from the Communists twice: first from Soviet Kirghizistan to Xinjiang--Chinese Turkestan, whence they fled to Afghanistan at the time of the Communist take-over in China. The Soviets, according to Dupree, have annexed the entire Wakhan Corridor, the sprit of land jutting off to the northeast of Afghanistan, where they are busy building roads to consolidate their claim to the area.

Qul says, acording to Alan Jones, no one has heard from Kirghiz remaining behind in the Pamirs, or the families who returned home, unable to adapt to their new life.

The tribe's only choice is finding some place else to live. Despite the plentitude of high-altitude land in Pakistan, they can not stay in the country. The government does not want any single group of Afghan refugees sticking around, Dupree says. Also, if they were to stay, they would lose their status as refugees.

Qul and his tribe have one recourse under the law. An act of Congress could circumvent the immigration laws and allow the Kirghiz to come to America. Their cause is not hopeless, for the Kirghiz have generated considerable publicity: WGBH recently aired a television program about them; the Boston Globe ran a front-page story about them in December; Reuters News Service has carried stories about them, as has the Associated Press. Indeed, it is because of the AP stories that Qul and his two sons have received an invitation from the Institute for Alaskan Affairs, a non-profit group in Fairbanks, to visit Alaska during the last two weeks in March and discuss the possibility of settling there.

Marilyn Dudly-Rowley, who heads the institute, says she read the AP dispatches in he local newspaper a year ago and got in touch with Dupree. She has since won the promise from Alaska's two Senators and one Representative to consider sponsoring the bills that would allow the Kirghiz to come to America. Dudly-Rowley said the State Department recently issued visitors' visas to Qul and his two sons allowing them to come to Alaska at the end of March. Part of the two week visit will be spent talking to land experts about the best locations for the Kirghiz to settle. Qul would then visit those sites.

The trip might dispell any romantic notions Qul has of Alaska. It reached 30-below-zero in Fairbanks last Friday. Actually, Jones says, Qul got the idea of moving to Alaska from a picture book he saw in the Kabul, on one of his annual visits to trade, get supplies, and tell the new government things were fine in the Wakhen. (The last task was crucial, to keep the government from bothering them).

While the prospects are brightening for Qul and his people, several obstacles might still prevent Qul from accepting the invitation to Alaska. Getting permission to leave Pakistan might create the largest problem. It's not a matter of getting their papers in order, but whether they even have papers. The Pakistani Embassy, apparently, is looking into the matter.

Dudly-Rowley says the shortage of private land in Alaska might make finding a home for the Kirghiz difficult. The bulk of it, she says, is owned by--or under the control of--the federal and state governments and the native corporations. But she adds that the state's new landage laws probably won't leave the state closed to the Kirghiz.

The publicity the Kirghiz have received has brought in money. Along with unsolicited donations from Americans who have heard of their plight, the Kirghiz benefit from the approximately $500,000 the International Rescue Commission earmarks each year for Afghan refugees in Pakistan. The committee has also helped out with the lobbying the Kirghiz desperately need to get to America. The Ford and Tolstoy Foundations and the Young Mens Christian Association have also expressed an interest in helping the Kirghiz. But all who are working on the project agree that it is difficult to find funds.

The State Department, which has come off as something of a cretin in this whole affair, is limited to what it can do by law. Murphy, with the State Department Pakistan desk, says the case of the Kirghiz has been "flopping around for about two years because of a lack of focus to it." He adds that he was "delighted" that the Institute for Alaskan Studies had taken up the Kirghiz cause. But the department, Murphy says, is a bureaucracy, and as such does not have the means to help beyond the processing the papers.