Afghan nationals have poured into Pakistan with each conflict in Afghanistan in the last 50 years, most of them living in temporary shelters in poor conditions despite millions contributed by the world community. Giving them one month’s notice ending November 1 to move out, the Pakistan Government has heralded one of the largest human movements alarming the world community and prompting the United Nations to oppose it. The UN emphasises that as per global norms, any movement should be voluntary and not forced … writes Dr Sakariya Kareem
Begun this week, Pakistan’s move to deport 1.7 million ‘undocumented’ (non-registered) Afghans from its soil is likely to cause misery to those who have been homeless for generations, promote tensions with Kabul and trigger a stiff response from various militant groups who operate on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border, with or without tacit official support.
Giving them one month’s notice ending November 1 to move out, the Pakistan Government has heralded one of the largest human movements alarming the world community and prompting the United Nations to oppose it. The UN emphasises that as per global norms, any movement should be voluntary and not forced.
The army-backed move is timed by an interim government that has calculated that none of the political parties preparing to contest elections due next January, is likely to protest.
According to the latest UN figures, some 1.3 million Afghans enjoy the status of registered refugees, while another 880,000 have legal status to stay in Pakistan. The UN and global human rights groups have expressed concerns over Pakistani plans to evict illegal Afghan immigrants. They say hundreds of thousands who fled Afghanistan after the hardline Taliban seized power in August 2021 are among those facing deportation.
Afghan nationals have poured into Pakistan with each conflict in Afghanistan in the last 50 years, most of them living in temporary shelters in poor conditions despite millions contributed by the world community. Analysts say Pakistan has the right to evict people illegally staying on its soil but point out that simply pushing them across the 2,600 km-porous and volatile Afghan border is a sure recipe for misery for families. It is bound to be protested by Kabul which cannot push back its nationals but is surely unprepared for the influx.
With this move, Pakistan is yet again pointing the gun to its head, asking the world community for funds. Its record of spending past contributions has been suspect, inviting allegations of mismanagement, corruption and divergence to military spending.
Indicating stern measures once the deadline is over, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti said on October 1: “… if they fail to leave by the deadline, all our state law enforcement agencies will unleash an operation with full-throttle to deport them.”
Relations between Kabul and Islamabad have been bad, with frequent border clashes after which, the border is closed and a landlocked Afghanistan is denied outside access. Islamabad’s latest move could escalate tensions further posing the UN with the dilemma of choosing sides when the uppermost need is to help the civilians forced to move out of their present homes on both sides of the volatile border.
Islamabad’s move is definitely to push on the defensive the Taliban regime in Kabul that it holds responsible for a wave of terror attacks. “We have come under 24 suicide bomb attacks since January, and 14 of them were carried out by Afghan nationals,” Voice of America (VOA) quoted Bugti who alleged that eight of the 11 militants who recently raided two Pakistani military installations in southwestern Baluchistan province were Afghans. “We have evidence that Afghans were involved in these attacks and are taking up the issue through our foreign ministry with Taliban authorities in Afghanistan.”
Kabul has denied that its nationals are involved. But Bugti said the involvement of Afghans in violence against Pakistan showed that “they are not honouring the edict” of Hibatullah Akhunddza, the supreme leader of the Taliban, that forbids cross-border attacks.
The crux is Pakistan’s grouse that Kabul sheltering Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the umbrella group of militant bodies that stages terror attacks in Pakistan with alleged support from Kabul. It is a cosy relationship that has gone sour. Islamabad facilitated the TTP fighters’ participation in the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in 2021 hoping the new regime would evict them. But the Taliban say that is Pakistan’s “internal issue”.
At least 700 Afghans have been arrested since early September in Karachi alone, and hundreds more in other cities, police figures said.
Pakistan has blamed all and sundry, including its neighbours, except its own state policy and management, for terror attacks at home. There was a noticeable 34 per cent decrease in the number of attacks compared to August, but there was a 21% increase in the number of deaths and a significant 66% rise in injuries, the data shows.
It remains to be seen how the West will take its eyes off the Ukraine conflict and revert to the Pak-Af region to meet the new crisis.