As tensions between Kabul and Islamabad rise, Afghan refugees living in Pakistan for well over 25 years have been asked to go back to their country. Whatever may have prompted Islamabad to undertake this Herculean task, the sensitivities involved in the issue must not be overlooked, otherwise Pakistan may have to rue its decision

Authorities in Islamabad and Peshawar appear to be determined to remove the country’s two refugee settlements near Peshawar in March 2007. Thousands of Afghan refugees will be asked to vacate the land that they have been living on for well over 25 years. In March 2007 thousands of Afghan families will be facing, yet again, a difficult situation. They will be required to abandon their mud huts and repatriate.

The authorities concerned say that there will be no ‘forced repatriation’ but sound determined to get the two camps – Kachaghari and Jallozai – cleared forever once the repatriation process starts from March 1, 2007. The situation has made many to raise the question: how can the government achieve its desired goals without applying force?

The scepticism seems to be justified in view of the government’s earlier such attempts which didn’t achieve much success.

For Sahibzada Mohammed Anees, head of the Afghan Refugees Commissionerate (ARC), Peshawar, this time round there is no going back as far as implementing the government’s decision is concerned. “Afghan refugees living in the Kachaghari camp have to move and repatriate once the repatriation process starts in March,” says Sahibzada. The same decision will also apply to the refugees living in the Jallozai camp on the outskirts of Peshawar.

The decision to close down the Kachaghari camp -- which housed more than 125,000 refugees till 2003 and currently has a population of more than 70,000 -- and the Jallozai camp, has been taken under a two-and-a-half-year-old agreement between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UNHCR, members of a tripartite commission. According to the agreement, Afghan refugees cannot be forced to repatriate.

However, official circles are of the view that Pakistan is on its way to devise a strategy to send the refugees back to Afghanistan once the three-year term of the tripartite commission’s agreement ends (in 2006), and if the accord between the three parties is not extended.

Under the UN-assisted repatriation programme, 2.7 million Afghan refugees have returned in the last four years ever since the programme was launched in 2002. A considerable number of these Afghans (1.8 million) returned from Iran after the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But not many refugees returned from Pakistan because of the freedom of movement and economic opportunities that they enjoy here. Because of its strategic interest and close bonds between the Pakistani military establishment and Afghan Mujahedeen commanders, Islamabad, until now, did not vigorously pursue one of its policy objectives envisaging closing down all the refugee camps in the country by 2010.

To achieve this goal, the strategy devised aims at encouraging voluntary repatriation under the UNHCR-sponsored programme for which last year the agency conducted a census.

Bearing this in mind, official agencies, i.e. the ARC, the Federal Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) and the NWFP government had been assigned to clear the Kachaghari camp in May 2006 and the Jallozai camp in June 2006. But the repeatedly issued notices to the refugees living in Kachaghari camp, situated close to the University of Peshawar, and to the 120,000 refugees living in the Jallozai camp, went unheeded.

In accordance with the tripartite commission agreement, Pakistan cannot force the refugees to repatriate. Therefore, the refugees have options like getting relocated to any other similar facility elsewhere in the country or return to Afghanistan.

It was in this context that the authorities issued notices to Kachaghari and Jallozai camps to move to any other facility or repatriate. But they failed in their bid.

“We would like to see them going back to their country, and if they are not willing to return then they have to get shifted to any other camp and vacate their existing abodes,” says a senior officer.

Official sources say that the option of getting them relocated to any other camp is aimed at keeping the refugees away from Peshawar. While the refugees showed no intentions to comply with the notices, the officials concerned kept posturing that the refugees have no other option but to leave. The authorities’ efforts to close down the camps ended without achieving any results.

When the refugees did not comply with the April 30 deadline, government extended the closure date to July 31, 2006. The tripartite commission, involving Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UNHCR at its meeting held in Doha in May last had also agreed to the July 31 closure date. However, that date too passed without any success.

Insiders say that the refugees’ leaders, enjoying strong bonds with the Pakistani establishment, played their cards well and ‘successfully’ managed to keep the official plan at bay. The majority of the 9,740 families living there as of April 2006 paid attention to the officials’ deadline only to the extent of making their leaders to put brakes on the official plan. “The refugees had their reservations about the April 30 deadline, so they were given a one-year extension,” says Sahibzada. The refugees defied the deadline because of their high economic stakes in and around Peshawar. Those with economic stakes were of the view that the government should give them at least one more year so that they could have ample time to wind up their businesses and dispose of their vehicles.

After being issued notices in January 2006 for vacating the camp in a span of just three months, many believed that the move would make the refugees suffer huge financial losses.

According to a conservative estimate by the refugees’ leaders, the market value of Kachghari refugees’ assets comes to about 740 million rupees as hundreds of them have established businesses here. Some 2,000 own transport vehicles, more than 2,500 have shops in various markets and some 2,000 have auto-rickshaws.

Several refugees believe that there is no point in getting relocated to any other similar facility in a far-off area in the NWFP or the Federally Administered Tribal Areas after moving out of the Kachaghri camp. They feel that beyond Peshawar they would like to go back to their country, no matter if the conditions are not peaceful enough amidst the rising Taliban insurgency in the southern provinces of the war-ravaged country. “Going back to Afghanistan would be much better than leaving Kachaghari’s mud-house for another such abode in a remote area of the NWFP,” says Noor Mohammed Khan, who hails from Jalalabad.

This makes the situation equally difficult for the authorities responsible for moving the two camps’ population either to any of the other 31 refugee camps inside the NWFP or making them to repatriate.

As the one-year extension period is about to end, the majority of refugee families are reluctant to leave the camps. They neither want to vacate their mud houses nor Peshawar -- home to more than two million refugees for well over two decades. Many refugees are reluctant to leave the camps because they say they have no place to go to in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Some are not ready because of their ‘old enmities’ back home. Others feel the financial benefits being offered by the UNHCR under its voluntary repatriation programme are not attractive enough.

The UNHCR gives each returning refugee $4 to $37 depending on the distance to his/her destination inside Afghanistan. In addition to that, an amount of $12 is given per person to facilitate repatriating Afghans’ reintegration back into their country. However, the incentive has not been attractive enough for Kachaghari’s many refugees who say the amount is insignificant and insufficient to meet even their transportation cost.

No one from the official circles exactly knows how the government will materialise its move to close down the two camps without using force. There also persists confusion as to whose responsibility it will actually be to clear the area at present occupied by the inmates of the two camps. ARC officers say that the powers to get the camp area cleared from the refugees lie with the Home and Tribal Affairs department, NWFP. “The commissionerate has no role beyond issuing the notices and pursuing them for compliance,” says an Islamabad-based official.

“We cannot use force to get the camp vacated,” says another official.

On its part, the provincial department too does not want to intervene in the matter as its officials say that refugee affairs fall under the federal government’s purview and the decision to use force to get the camp cleared should come from the Centre. Perhaps it was in this context that the provincial police department, who always blame Afghan refugees for the increasing street crime in Peshawar, despite the decision did not establish check posts around the camps to check refugees’ movement.

However, Sahibzada is of the view that the police did not establish the check posts after the plan to close down the Kachaghari camp was put on hold. According to him, the check posts were meant to stop the refugees from sneaking into Peshawar once they moved out of the camps. “The check posts would be put in place once the repatriation starts and refugees begin moving out of the Kachaghari camp,” says Sahibzada.

Approximately 50,000 refugees were repatriated between March 30 and May 15 last. But only a few belonged to the Kachaghari and Jallozai camps. According to official figures, some 454 families from the Kachaghari camp and 1,307 from the Jallozai camp opted for repatriation.

Though the agency facilitated repatriation of refugees from Kachghari, it no more recognises the Kachghari dwelling as a refugee camp. It stopped whatever little assistance it was extending to the Kachaghari’s refugees before the April 30 deadline passed.

The UNHCR-funded 14 primary schools, including 10 for boys and four for girls, stopped functioning from May 1 rendering more than 10,400 students without educational facilities. “The deadline given by the government of Pakistan to vacate the camp expired on April 30 and the same day the UNHCR stopped all assistance given to refugees in the camp,” says an official of the UN agency.

The situation has affected students the most. According to an official source, the majority of schools have been closed down permanently. “Only two schools are being run on a self-help basis by the inmates of the Kachaghari camp,” says Sadeeq Ahmed Khan, administrator of the camp.

The decision to close down the schools has added to the problems of the people living camps. The refugees, say their leaders, have been taking care of several amenities on their own. Long time ago, a committee of the refugees’ elders had taken charge of the camp’s water supply system after the motorised water pumps installed at the tube wells by the UNHCR stopped working after developing faults. “Other than schools, neither the UNHCR nor the government of Pakistan provides any assistance to the camp’s inhabitants,” says Haji Dost Mohamemd, one of the refugees’ leaders.

According to him, the refugees developed a power supply system with their own investment to supply electricity to the refugees’ houses as the water and power development authority was not ready to erect power infrastructure inside the camp.

While a couple of health facilities are still being run with foreign donors’ assistance, roads, sanitation and other civic amenities are hard to find in the camp.

Islamabad’s sudden focus on refugees’ repatriation is being seen by some independent observers as an attempt to intimidate Kabul, adding to Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s woes. The policy shift has come at a time when Pakistan does not enjoy cordial relations with Afghanistan, making observers believe that Islamabad’s move is actually meant to create more problems for the Afghan government. “Forceful repatriation of the refugees would lead to chaos in Afghanistan as Kabul is neither ready nor capable to take care of such a large number of poverty-stricken people,” says an observer.

Though Islamabad has not yet come up with a plan in this respect, the task of repatriating the refugees has been assigned to a high-powered ministerial committee headed by Interior minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao. The committee, involving Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Baber Ghauri and Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions Sardar Yar Mohammed Rind, in its maiden meeting held on May 25 resolved to send the refugees back to Afghanistan in a dignified manner.

With the ever-increasing tensions with Kabul, this time round Islamabad appears to be relentless as it is showing no signs of giving up its plan like 2003 when it abandoned a similar plan after being moved by the Afghan government. No less than 75,000 inmates of the Kachghari refugee camp vacated their abodes allowing them to be razed to the ground in 2003 when Pakistan undertook a move to close down the camp and the nearby Nasir Bagh refugee camp. But the move was abandoned after, what the official circles say, Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a personal request to his Pakistani counterpart at one of their meetings.

According to a UNHCR spokesperson, the move was delayed on humanitarian grounds upon the request of the refugees who had asked for an extension to let them wind up their extensive businesses and other dealings. Haji Dost Mohammed and other elders of the Kachaghari refugee camp, however, disagree with the notion. Rejecting the impression, they say that they had won an extension to their stay through the then corps commander Peshawar Lt-Gen Ali Mohamemd Jan Orakzai and NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani.

In an attempt to materialise its move of creating an environment for the refugees to repatriate, Islamabad has undertaken a move to register Afghan refugees. Officials say the move has been launched in line with a decision taken by the tripartite commission. “All those refugees living in camps are being registered by Nadra with an aim to compile refugees’ database,” says Sahibzada.

The move, say some other officials, is designed to achieve much bigger goals as the data would be used to keep an eye on the refugees’ activities in the country and on their cross border movement.

The Frontier province still has 31 settlements with a total Afghan population of 900,000. Other than that the province has 850,000 Afghans living in different urban and rural dwellings.

Under the refugees’ registration programme, the registered refugees would get identity cards. Sahibzada says that the registration drive would also help the government of Afghanistan to know the exact number of refugees living in Pakistan.

ARC officials say that the UNHCR figures of those who opted to repatriate from Pakistan in 2006 did not paint a healthy picture in the eyes of the authorities in Islamabad and Peshawar wanting to close down all the refugee settlements in Pakistan by 2010. On their part, the refugees too do not appear to be in a mood to go back.

Despite the fact that they run a high risk of being rounded up by the provincial police for crimes they never commit, most Afghan refugees prefer not to go back because of the fragile peace in Afghanistan and because of their economic stakes and social bonds they have developed during their prolonged stay in Pakistan.

“Where should we go? Pakistan is no more willing to tolerate us after having provided us shelter for 26 years, whereas back home we are not acceptable to the warlords and self-proclaimed commanders,” says an elderly Haji Khawalzak.

 

Left with little choice Wearing a traditional black veil, Saeeda Bibi (not real name) is sitting in a temporary shade on a hot July day outside the United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) repatriation centre near Peshawar’s Karkhano market. With two suit cases, a water container and a sack of household items lying close to her, Saeeda and his bearded young spouse is waiting for her brother in-law’s family to come from the Haripur district before they can jointly proceed to Afghanistan. Hailing from the Charsadda district, some 40kms from Peshawar, four years ago Saeeda got married to an ethnic Pukhtoon Afghan, Sattar Khan, with his father not being able to comprehend at the time that she might get settled in Afghanistan permanently in case her in-laws decided to repatriate. “Now it is her destiny to live in Afghanistan away from her family and friends,” says Saeeda’s father Ghulam Dastageer. Her husband’s decision to move to Afghanistan has virtually upset the 25-year-old woman who, with tears in her eyes, says, “what else can I do except leave?” As Islamabad is shrinking space for Afghan refugees by endeavouring to close down a couple of the old refugee settlements in the NWFP in its bid to compel the ‘unwanted’ guests to repatriate, it is time for a large number of local girls to move on as well with their husbands and in-laws of Afghan descent. During their prolonged stay in Pakistan, several Afghans got married to local girls. The ever-increasing pressure on the refugees to leave their settlements or repatriate has left many families in a quandary. Officials of the UNHCR’s repatriation centre say that last summer a number of Pakistani girls moved to Afghanistan after their in-laws repatriated. On a couple of occasions, says a security guard, girls did not want to leave and their parents were heard consoling them and giving them advice, while accompanying them on their way to Afghanistan. Naushad Khan, a burly young man from Attock, Punjab, standing close to a truck loaded with house-hold items of three repatriating Afghan families, is accompanying his younger sister to Sarobi, near Kabul, after his brother-in-law decided that it’s time to move on to his birthplace. “We knew that it would happen one day and all of us were ready for the day she would get settled in Afghanistan with her husband,” says Naushad. — Intikhab Amir