SPEAKING
FREELY Iran pulls the rug from Afghan
refugees By Haroun Mir
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
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Since the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the following
years of internal fights between different armed
groups, more than 5 million Afghans have sought
refuge in neighboring countries. Afghan people
have been thankful for the assistance that
Pakistan
and
Iran have provided the refugees, despite the
economic burdens it has created on them.
Now both countries are threatening to
expel the refugees - Iran has already started - in
a move that will create unprecedented economic and
social crises for the Afghan government.
According to the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), close to a
million Afghan refugees live in Iran and more than
2 million in Pakistan. In addition, there are a
considerable number of illegal refugees in both
countries.
While a small number of Afghan
refugees have been integrated into their host
societies, the majority want to return home, but
the Afghan government lacks resources and the
capacity to take care of their elementary needs,
such as housing. For instance, many refugees who
have returned in the past five years still live in
temporary tents exposed to Afghanistan's harsh
climatic conditions. They lack basic services such
as water, electricity and sanitation.
Yet
with the economic situation in Afghanistan being
so poor and with scant employment opportunities,
the flood of refugees to Pakistan and Iran, as
well as other countries, continues.
The
Afghan government, with the help of the UNHCR, has
been negotiating with Iranian and Pakistani
authorities on comprehensive mechanisms to
repatriate its nationals in multiple phases
because it does not have the capacity and
resources to take in all of them at once.
The majority of returnees converge on big
cities such as the capital Kabul. In the past six
years, the population in Kabul has almost doubled
from 2 million to nearly 4 million. In addition to
returnees, a number of poor farmers moved to Kabul
in the hopes of making a relatively better living
out of large reconstruction projects that were
promised but never fulfilled.
The
unexpected decision by Iran to force a massive
expulsion of Afghan refugees is a political
decision in the context of its confrontation with
the West. For instance, the United States has
accused Iran of involvement in the trafficking of
arms and ammunition to the insurgency in
Afghanistan.
Iranian authorities have
never used refugees as leverage against
Afghanistan, even when they massed their troops at
the Afghan border after the assassination of one
of their diplomats by the Taliban in 1998. Now it
seems they want to use the refugees as a political
tool to remind the Afghan government and North
Atlantic Treaty Organization forces of Tehran's
destabilizing capacity in Afghanistan simply by
kicking out masses of refugees.
Every day
thousands of Afghans, including women and
children, are dropped off by the Iranian
authorities on the Afghan side of the border. Here
there are few facilities and Kabul does not have
the resources to help them. In desperation, the
Afghans can only look to the West for assistance.
Reporting that some 44,000 people have
been returned to Afghanistan from Iran as illegal
immigrants since April 21, the United Nations
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has called on
the governments of the two countries "to make sure
that humanitarian considerations are taken into
account", MaximsNews reported.
The Iranian
government has the legal right to expel any
unwanted Afghans from its territory, but it also
has the moral responsibility not to abuse them.
Many of the Afghans who have been forced
out of Iran are furious. The majority of them were
picked out from their workplaces without being
given the opportunity to take their family members
or their belongings.
Afghanistan's dire
economic and social conditions make it vulnerable
to malevolent policies of unfriendly governments.
The only way for the Afghan authorities to cut off
the influence of its neighboring countries in its
internal affairs is to resolve the issues of
refugees as soon as possible.
Haroun
Mir is a policy analyst for SIG & Partners
Afghanistan. He served for more than five years as
an aide to the late Ahmad Shah Massoud,
Afghanistan's former defense minister.
(Copyright 2007 Haroun Mir.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
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