COMMENT
Empty promises in Afghanistan
By M Ashraf Haidari
More than 30,000 returned Afghan refugees - including women, children and the
elderly - are now living under thin plastic tents pitched in an area without
running water and electricity miles away from urban centers in eastern
Afghanistan. They cannot return to their villages due to insecurity and
unemployment.
With a harsh winter looming, more than 300,000 Afghans remain displaced
throughout the country. Their deplorable situation is compounded by food
insecurity and high food prices, a lingering drought and large-scale crop
failure, and frequent casualties caused by the United States-led coalition's
bombing of Taliban fighters who often use civilian shields.
The recent returnees face severe hardships as Afghanistan has reached its
absorptive capacity for refugees and cannot effectively
assist returnees. Now, the world has taken notice.
Delegations from more than 30 nations and international organizations
participated in a day-long conference on the return and reintegration of Afghan
refugees this past Wednesday in Kabul. Co-hosted by the Afghan Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
the conference highlighted the government's limited resources to receive and
successfully reintegrate large numbers of Afghan refugees from neighboring
countries under the current precarious conditions in Afghanistan.
"Return, alone, does not mean success. It must be followed by successful
reintegration, enabled by conditions conducive for the social and economic
well-being," said Afghan Foreign Minister Dr Rangin Spanta, who co-chaired the
conference.
Heads of the delegation - which included senior officials from Pakistan, Iran,
Saudi Arabia and the United States - admitted that preconditions such as
security and availability of basic social and economic services had to be in
place before Afghan refugees could be reintegrated successfully. They pledged
strong support for the government's reintegration strategy within the
Afghanistan National Development Strategy, whose implementation over the next
five years is estimated to cost some US$509 million, but only if the situation
in Afghanistan and neighboring countries allows.
The saga of Afghan refugees began in late December 1979: Afghans were an
impoverished people but content with their agrarian and traditional way of
life. They hardly ever wished to migrate abroad for economic opportunities. But
their normal lives abruptly ceased in the days following the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan as the country became a major victim of the Cold War, and Soviet
tanks rolled into Afghan villages indiscriminately killing innocent civilians,
destroying their livelihoods, and driving most Afghans abroad in search of
protection and human security. More Afghans fled violence, persecution and
ethnic cleansing and genocide as a result of regional proxy conflicts in
Afghanistan throughout 1990s. Many sought refuge in neighboring Pakistan and
Iran.
However, over the course of the past three decades, Afghan refugees have never
hesitated to return home as soon as conditions have given them hope for the
restoration of peace and justice in Afghanistan. In 1992 and 1993, for example,
following the fall of the Afghan communist regime, more than 2 million Afghan
refugees voluntarily repatriated from Pakistan and Iran. But their return
ground to a halt shortly after the breakout of the civil war that plunged
Afghanistan into anarchy and chaos for a decade.
Buoyed up by international re-engagement in Afghanistan after the fall of the
Taliban, more than 5 million Afghan refugees have returned home from Pakistan
and Iran, making the largest voluntary repatriation in the UNHCR history.
Despite Afghan refugees' record repatriation and the many hardships they face
on return, Iranian and Pakistani officials have occasionally politicized what
is actually a humanitarian issue - inappropriately labeling Afghan refugees as
"burden on our economy" or potential "recruits for terrorism". Unfortunately,
these political stereotypes not only mischaracterize Afghan refugees but also
disregard the many contributions that refugees actually make to their host
societies and the world at large.
After all, refugees are ordinary civilians with dignity and human rights but
whose normal lives have suddenly changed for the worse due to circumstances
that have forced them to abandon their home for safety elsewhere. German
physicist Albert Einstein and French writer Victor Hugo, for instance, were
great intellectuals of their time, but they were suddenly refugees in a strange
land after escaping persecution in their home countries. While in exile, they
gave back much in knowledge to their host societies and continued making
significant contributions to science and literature.
The millions of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran are assets to those
countries' economies. Many Afghans in both states fill a glaring need in the
labor sector, working casual jobs at wages much lower than that paid to locals
who may not even be willing to accept such jobs because of social taboos
associated with casual labor. Other Afghan refugees use their special skills -
such as carpet weaving - to produce quality Afghan rugs, which local firms
purchase below market price, brand them made in the host country, and then sell
them in developed countries for manifold profit.
Still, another large segment of the Afghan refugee population, particularly in
Pakistan, receives monthly remittances of US$800 to $1,000 from their relatives
in developed countries (mostly Europe, North America, Australia and the Gulf
states), and spend the funds on housing and services in the local economies.
Moreover, a great number of well-off Afghan refugees run businesses in
Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf states, making notable contributions to those
countries' economic growth. Since 2001, a large number of exiled Afghan
businessmen have returned home and invested in key sectors such as
telecommunications, construction, transportation and logistics, which in turn
have facilitated increased trade and commerce through and between Afghanistan
and its neighbors, particularly Pakistan and Iran.
Other allegations that terrorists recruit from Afghan refugee camps are utterly
baseless and a political excuse to avoid cooperating sincerely in the "war
against terror". Afghan refugees are actually victims of violence and
terrorism, and abusing their status is clearly a violation of their rights
under the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Countries
party to the Geneva Convention and other international human rights pacts are
obligated to respect refugee rights as human rights and safeguard them by
providing refugees with protection from the violence, persecution, and
insecurity that collectively make it impossible for most refugees to return
home.
Although more than 5 million Afghan refugees have repatriated from Pakistan and
Iran over the past seven years, most of the remaining refugees are reluctant to
return home. When a UN reporter in June asked one Afghan refugee, Hazrat Shah,
if he planned to repatriate, the carpet weaver now living in Pakistan replied:
"There is no place in the world like home. But where would you go if your house
were ablaze?"
He added, "Today two new graves have been dug for two brothers who were killed
in a landmine explosion in Afghanistan." The two youngsters - not related to
Hazrat Shah - had returned home to Gereshk in Helmand province the week before
to find jobs and gradually to pave the way for the repatriation of their entire
family from Pakistan.
The government and people of Afghanistan appreciate the humanitarian assistance
Pakistan and Iran have provided to Afghan refugees over the past three decades.
But "pull" factors such as improved security, enhanced protection and
reintegration assistance, and increased employment opportunities in Afghanistan
should determine "push" factors in host states.
The Islamic republics of Pakistan and Iran must honor the principle of
non-refoulement rooted in international and Islamic law to refrain from the
forcible deportation of Afghan refugees. The Afghan government maintains
separate trilateral agreements with Pakistan, Iran and the UNHCR - a key
provision of which is to facilitate voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees
from the two countries only if the conditions inside Afghanistan allow.
Although host states have an interest in encouraging refugees to go back home,
the UNHCR is mandated to prevent and protect refugees from repatriating
prematurely if the prevailing conditions at home are not ready for their
return. Except for spontaneous returns during 2002-2003, Afghan refugees must
have been warned about increasing instability and a severe lack of
reintegration assistance in Afghanistan in the following years.
Contrarily, however, Afghan refugees have been encouraged to return home, as
repatriation - voluntary or otherwise - has been viewed as a positive sign of
stabilization and reconstruction progress in Afghanistan. The story of Gul
Haider is an example. He was nine when the war against the Soviets forced his
family to seek refuge in Pakistan in the early 1980s. "Now I have five
children," Haider told an IRIN reporter in August in the Barikab returnees'
township, about 60 kilometers north of Kabul. "We were encouraged to repatriate
and were told that the government would give us a house, work and other
facilities," said Haider. "But those were only empty promises."
The fall of the Taliban in 2001 - coupled with the political rhetoric of
implementing a long-term strategy modeled after the Marshall Plan to secure the
future of Afghanistan - made millions of refugees overly optimistic. Of course,
a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan has yet to materialize. Nonetheless, the talk
of it did re-displace hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees who had a good
life that took them more than two decades to establish in exile.
The fact that thousands of returnees have ended up internally displaced without
assistance should be cause for serious concern to the UNHCR and the
international community to halt further premature repatriation of Afghan
refugees until the conditions in Afghanistan have improved. At the same time,
the international community must honor the principle of burden sharing and
provide relief assistance to states with large numbers of refugees. Assistance
to Pakistan and Iran should aim at empowering Afghan refugees so that they will
gain skills necessary both to contribute to their host societies and later to
use those skills to earn an income on return home.
Additionally, developed countries must expand their resettlement programs,
taking in more Afghan refugees from Iran and Pakistan on an annual basis.
Resettlement of Afghan refugees in the developed countries will go a long way
in helping rebuild and develop Afghanistan. Resilience and high achievement
motivation that characterize most refugees will quickly enable resettled Afghan
families to adapt into their new societies, taking advantage of social and
economic opportunities there to establish themselves and to continue supporting
their relatives at home, as well as in Pakistan and Iran.
In the long run, most resettled Afghans will have gained wealth and education
which they would certainly use to invest in Afghanistan. Proof of this is
evident in the return of many wealthy Afghans and technocrats who have made
significant contributions to Afghanistan's reconstruction since 2002.
Almost 2,500 years ago, Euripides wrote, "There is no greater sorrow on Earth
than the loss of one's native land." Indeed, for most Afghan refugees, like
Hazrat Shah, no foreign land can ever replace their homeland where they will
return as soon as they feel secure to do so. It is obvious that the real
durable solution to the Afghan refugee problem is voluntary repatriation, which
can only be guaranteed by security in Afghanistan. Hence, Pakistan, Iran and
Afghanistan's other neighbors can and must cooperate with the international
community to stabilize Afghanistan first.
Durable stability and prosperity in the country would automatically attract
Afghan refugees to voluntarily return home - negating the need for pressure or
forcible repatriation by the host states. The UN High Commissioner for
Refugees, Antonio Guterres, who co-chaired Wednesday's conference, stressed the
fact that "ensuring sustainable refugee return and addressing irregular
migration have at least one solution in common - an improvement in the overall
economic environment and in employment opportunities. Progress in these areas
will surely encourage more Afghans to return and provide reasons for others not
to leave the country."
Most returnees are at the breaking point given the enormity of security and
socio-economic challenges facing them in Afghanistan. They are indeed an
unfortunate lot. Exiled life was imposed on many by the war against the former
Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Other Afghans' displacement throughout the 1990s
was caused by the West's premature disengagement from Afghanistan - a country
they knowingly allowed to become a regional proxy battlefield and a terrorist
base that saw nothing but death, destruction, destitution and despair for a
full decade.
Allowing Afghanistan to slide back into the chaos of the 1990s is sure to
endanger international peace and security. The international community, and the
West in particular, is morally obligated to secure Afghanistan and must help
its refugees reintegrate successfully in order to rebuild their country in the
long run.
A former refugee, internally displaced person, and UN High Commissioner for
Refugees field officer, M Ashraf Haidari is the political counselor of
the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, DC. His e-mail is haidari@embassyofafghanistan.org
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