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| India-Pakistan |
| Afghans resist camp closure, forced return to Afghanistan |
| 2007-06-26 |
| Afghans living in the Jungle Pir Alizai refugee camp are resisting the government’s enforced closure of the camp because many are reluctant to return to a country at war while others claim they are Pakistanis. The authorities want to shut down the refugee camp and send its residents to Afghanistan, because they say the camp is infested with militants, guns and drugs. The camp in southwest Pakistan was first setup in 1979 during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and according to the government has lately become a haven for the Taliban. It is one of four such camps scheduled for closure this year. The UN refugee agency, which is running a voluntary repatriation programme for Afghans, refused to help the camp in 2005 after its lost its “humanitarian value”, an agency official said. “It could no longer be considered, by UNHCR standards, a humanitarian camp. There was trafficking of arms, drugs and miscreants were living there,” said the official. However, the closure of the camp is facing resistance. Many Afghans say they don’t want to return to a country at war, while other inhabitants say they are not even Afghans, but Pakistanis – and they have the identification to prove it. One resident, Ahmedullah, has spent his entire life as a refugee in Pakistan and says he desperately wants to go him. But the war is preventing him from returning. “Give us peace and we will go home,” he said. Abdul Ghani, 65, said many people had been killed, including hundreds of Taliban militants, by NATO forces in his home region of Panjwai, in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. Another problem facing the authorities is many of the inhabitants claim to be Pakistanis and not Afghans at all. According to a 2005 UN census, the camp was home to 35,000 Afghans, but thousands of Pakistani villagers fleeing drought and tribal feuds have moved to the camp, raising its total population to more than 100,000, residents say. Some residents said up to 80 percent of inhabitants were Pakistani ethnic Pashtuns. “We’re Pakistanis. I have as much right to be in Pakistan as you do. Why are you forcing me to Afghanistan?” said Haji Zardad Kakozai, head of a 25-member residents’ committee that manages camp affairs. He showed his Pakistani identity card to Reuters to prove his statement. “All of us have decided that if the government wants to send us to jail, we will go to jail. If it kills us, we will die, but we will not leave,” Kakozai added. However, officials say many Afghans have acquired identity cards through marriage and other means. Many Afghans live and run businesses in Pakistani cities and towns across the country. “They carry both identities. They show their Afghan cards when they get aid meant for refugees, otherwise they show themselves as Pakistanis,” said a government official in Quetta. Kakozai also denied there were any Al Qaeda or Taliban guerrillas hiding out in the camp. “I have told authorities that if you find a single Al Qaeda man or training camp for militants you should slaughter all 25 of us,” he said, referring to the committee. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 "many are reluctant to return to a country at war while others claim they are Pakistanis." Well, they're not really all that reluctant to return to a country at war - they're the ones making the war when they return; it's just that they like having a safe haven to go back to in between attacks. And many of them ARE Pakistanis now - the camps have been there 28 years - that's three generations in some families. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-06-26 07:36 |