EDITORIAL: It seems the UN (United Nations) opposes forced repatriation of Afghan refugees not just in principle but also because, with all the restrictions placed by the Taliban, the agency is forced to work in close liaison with them to gauge the real temperature inside the isolated country.
Yet perhaps if Islamabad had articulated its position a little better, the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) wouldn’t have found the plan to deport undocumented Afghans “disconcerting” and its senior officials wouldn’t still be seeking “clarity” from “our government partners”.
The decision of the government also drew a sharp reaction from the Taliban chief spokesman who urged Islamabad to reconsider its decision.
Let’s not forget that Pakistan hosts the highest number of refugees in the world – almost all of them Afghans – to the point that it has allowed a lot of them to assimilate into Pakistani society since they first arrived in droves at the onset of the so-called anti-Soviet jihad.
They didn’t just come to Pakistan, of course, and repeated wars and multiple humanitarian disasters saw them spilling over into all neighbouring countries, especially Iran. Yet, all countries except Pakistan kept them under careful watch in refugee camps and duly told them to return once the situation improved.
There’s also the fact that quite a few of the refugees did not hold up their part of the bargain about respecting and protecting Pakistan’s laws. Often they were caught running smuggling rackets across the border, especially currency smuggling by leveraging tribal networks on both sides and, worst of all, facilitating Afghanistan-based terrorists carry out their activities inside Pakistan.
That’s why the government’s policy of accepting all refugees with open arms, no questions asked, began to irritate and worry increasing numbers of Pakistanis when the security situation first started deteriorating some years ago.
Even now, with TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) resuming its insurgency, and the Taliban government not helping, Islamabad is only asking the undocumented among the refugees to return to their country.
If such a course of action is unpalatable for the UN, or the civilised western world that was responsible for the wars and chaos that triggered wave after wave of refugees out of Afghanistan, then they should help Pakistan create the kind of refugee camps that can house millions of families.
They should also extend finances needed for monitoring and surveillance, and also to afford such a large number of aliens when the local economy is weak.
The world has witnessed numerous wars, civil wars and insurgencies over the last couple of decades. And the one thing wars are sure to create is refugees. That means this subject is up for debate and policy discussion in many places in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
This situation calls for internationally recognised rules for managing the flow and future of refugees – people whose lives are already thrown into chaos for no fault of theirs.
Arguably, the best example comes from the Arab world, which has had to absorb millions of Palestinians in the seven-and-a-half decades of Israeli occupation. They are mostly kept in well-organised refugee camps the size of small cities and, perhaps with the exception of Jordan, no country has offered the privilege of ID cards and passports to outsiders.
Pakistan has clearly been the most gracious refugee host in all this time. Most Afghans that found sanctuary here are now Pakistani citizens. But now, with its own security situation deteriorating once again, the government is forced to revise its earlier position.
There’s no doubt that anybody who has been creating trouble, or unable to explain his/her presence in this country, must duly return. Hence the government’s move to cleanse the country of all undocumented refugees is a step in the right direction.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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