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Humanitarian Crisis
in
Foreign Policy in Focus, USA
By Abid
Aslam, (aaslam@igc.org) Not a shot has been fired -
yet - at Afghanistan's Taliban, but the country's beleaguered population
already is paying a heavy price for the ruling militia's pariah status
as host to alleged terrorist mastermind Osama
bin Laden.
Neighbors have closed their
borders, trapping refugees and, in the case of Pakistan, cutting off the
main source of food purchases. Inside Afghanistan, many shops have closed,
and the price of wheat, the country's staple, has soared.
"In Mazar-e-Sharif
[northern Afghanistan], the price of wheat has increased by 35% over the
last two days," World Food Program (WFP) spokesman Khaled
Mansour told the UN Integrated Regional Information
Networks (www.irin.org)
on September 21. "Other areas have also seen sharp increases. These
prices are beyond the means of the poorest, such as widows."
To some extent, the hyperinflation
is the result of stockpiling by traders, Mansour
said. But, he explained, "Trucks are now being used to ferry people
instead of commodities, and the cost of what transport is available has
increased sharply."
UN and other aid agencies have
evacuated their international staff, handing over operations to local
employees. The Taliban reportedly has told these staffers--including some
700 on the UN payroll--they face imprisonment or death if they communicate
with the outside world. Coupled with Taliban-imposed
restrictions, closure of the Afghan-Pakistan border in particular has
effectively isolated local aid workers and destroyed the UN's ability
to deliver relief food to more than five million Afghans at risk of famine.
In some parts of Afghanistan, locals reportedly have resorted to eating
a mix of locusts and animal fodder; some are believed to have fallen ill
and possibly died after eating poisoned grass.
Large numbers of Afghans continue
to flee their homes for the countryside, or toward Pakistan and other
neighboring countries amid fears of U.S. strikes. Aid agencies are urging
Washington and its allies to adopt special measures to ensure the safety
of the civilian population. Human rights groups, however,
are exhorting Afghanistan's neighbors to open their borders to refugees.
Human Rights Watch (HRW, www.hrw.org)
has rejected the idea of setting up "safe haven" camps within
Afghanistan's borders.
"Past experience from Bosnia,
Rwanda, and Northern Iraq tells us that safe havens have proved to be
anything but safe," said Rachael Reilly, HRW's
refugee policy director. "Instead, any refugee camps established
should be outside the territory of Afghanistan."
The nongovernmental U.S. Committee
for Refugees, in a September 18 statement, said the Afghan civilians trapped
in what soon could become a war zone are "ordinary men, women, and
children who cannot be held responsible for the actions of those who rule
them."
Tens of thousands of Afghan
civilians have fled toward Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Iran, HRW said, only
to be penned in at the border. Afghanistan's three other neighbors, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan, and China, also have closed their borders with Afghanistan.
Some 3.7 million Afghan refugees
who fled the conflict in Afghanistan over the past two decades now live
in neighboring countries--1.5 million in Iran and more than 2 million
in Pakistan.
Some 1.1 million people are
internally displaced within Afghanistan. Fear of U.S. retaliation has
prompted the flight of as many as 100,000 more from Qandahar
alone, the Taliban's seat, according to Amnesty International (AI, www.amnesty.org). The total
Afghan population is estimated at around 24 million people. Frustrated by the large scale
and protracted nature of the refugee crisis and the lack of international
attention to their plight, both Iran and Pakistan have officially closed
their borders to refugees for the past year. In the past week, however,
Pakistani security forces have sealed the border with barbed wire in a
number of places, despite appeals from the office of the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) not to turn back refugees. Only those with valid
visas are allowed to enter, but Pakistani authorities have ceased issuing
permits altogether, AI said. Pakistan's decision to shut down the border
was in direct response to a U.S. request to strengthen security.
Despite border restrictions,
some 15,000 Afghan refugees managed to enter Pakistan last week, most
of them arriving in Baluchistan province on
the southwest border. A further 5,000 refugees, who were massed for several
days at the Chaman border crossing near the Baluchistan
city of Quetta, finally entered the country
and are now encamped on the Pakistan side, HRW said.
The Iranian
government, while reiterating that it is unable to admit any new refugees,
has offered to assist Afghans through cross-border assistance operations.
An estimated 10,000 Afghan refugees
have been camped on several islands in the Pyanj
River at the Tajikistan border since the Tajik government closed its borders
a year ago and stationed 10,000 Russian troops to prevent refugees from
entering, according to HRW.
"Afghanistan's neighbors
face real security concerns at this time," said Reilly. "But
these countries have international obligations to meet their security
concerns by screening out armed elements so that borders remain open for
refugees."
Her organization noted further
that ''Western governments, including the U.S., Australia, and European
Union member states, are also tightening immigration controls in a way
that could further deny protection to Afghan refugees.''
As a result, ''Afghans with
a valid fear of persecution seeking asylum overseas, particularly in Western
countries, may face prolonged immigration detention or deportation,''
HRW said.
Instead, the group called on
Western and other wealthy states to ''explore emergency resettlement possibilities
for Afghan refugees'' and to ensure that tougher immigration controls
do not infringe upon the rights of all asylum seekers to access ''fair
and efficient asylum determination procedures.'' AI also called on rich nations
to chip in money, saying
"The people of
HRW noted that ''the right of
refugees not to be returned to a country where their lives or freedom
are threatened is a fundamental principle of international customary law
and is enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Iran, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, and China are all parties.''
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-Copyright
© 2003 SARID, 675 Mass Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA |
