'Obstacles' to the 'Return'
of Afghans
December 10, 2001
The ink hasn't
dried from the agreement setting up an interim government in Afghanistan, and
European and regional governments are already stepping up plans to 'return'
Afghans back to Afghanistan. Pakistan
has been sending refugees living in cities for years to refugee camps in order
to facilitate their return. 24,000 have 'voluntarily repatriated' from
Iran, though the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) admits that 'some Afghans
may have been deported'. The UK
government is also talking of setting up a program to facilitate such
'returns.' Moreover, the UNHCR has
renewed its efforts to drum up support for Afghan 'repatriation'. High
Commissioner Ruud Lubbers has noted that the return of the world's largest
population of refugees and displaced people will have a significant impact on
the stabilization, rehabilitation and economic recovery of Afghanistan. He adds that even the hundreds of thousands
of Afghans who have been born 'in exile' over the past two decades and have
'never seen their homeland' can now return.
No matter their citizenship, where they were born, the length of their
residency abroad, and their own wishes – they must all return!
In
planning the 'repatriation' program, however, Mr. Lubbers does manage to
mention some 'obstacles' to the return of Afghans, namely 'enormous destruction
of homes and infrastructure throughout the country and the scourge of millions
of landmines'. He forgets to add
'bombings, civil war, drought, famine, Islamic reaction, continued sexual
apartheid and rights violations. In
Afghanistan, millions are at risk of starving to death this winter. Recent factional fighting prompted the
United Nations to pull its international staff out of Mazar-i-Sharif though
that agency continues to go ahead with preparations to send Afghans back. Last week, armed men stopped a bus outside Kabul and
hacked off the ears and noses of six men on board as punishment for shaving off
their beards. Women are still forcibly veiled and continue to be denied their
rights, including the right to protest (the last time a women's rights
demonstration was banned, the orders came from the Bonn Summit itself). Another 'obstacle' Mr. Lubbers fails to
mention is the fact that the transitional government that is to take control in
a few weeks is made up of mostly war criminals who should be tried for crimes
against the Afghan people rather than run the country. And that is not all. From the standpoint of the UN and Western
governments, Afghans are such sub-humans that they are not eligible to
participate in free elections and live in a secular society. Power is divided among the most brutal, and
after a while, an ethnic council from pre-historic times called the Loya Jirga
will run the country some more. Even
the rights of Afghans are relative. The Bonn agreement 'acknowledges the
right of the people of Afghanistan to freely determine their own political
future in accordance with the [antithetical] principles of Islam, democracy,
pluralism and social justice'. There will also
be a Judicial Commission to 'rebuild the justice system in accordance with
Islamic principles, international standards, the rule of law and Afghan legal
traditions' – which means more stonings, floggings, compulsory veiling, child
marriages… Once again religious and ethnic reaction
has been imposed on the Afghan people.
This must be resisted. The
forcible return of Afghans who have fled two decades of this Islamic reaction
must also be resisted. Afghans must be
given protection and their right to asylum and their universal human rights
must be recognised. Anything less is
unacceptable.