Afghanistan has experienced close to four decades of perpetual violence and wars, political upheavals, and religious and ethnic conflicts, resulting in millions of Afghans fleeing for protection to neighbouring countries, primarily Pakistan and Iran. In consequence, after the first exodus in 1979 and followed by waves of refugees, Afghans turned into the largest global refugee population.
By Dr. Siegfried O. Wolf
Afghanistan has
experienced close to four decades of perpetual violence and wars, political
upheavals, and religious and ethnic conflicts, resulting in millions of Afghans
fleeing for protection to neighbouring countries, primarily Pakistan and Iran.
In consequence, after the first exodus in 1979 and followed by waves of
refugees, Afghans turned into the largest global refugee population. This
changed only last year, before the Islamic State (Daesh) started its ‘Jihadist genocide’ in Syria and the
local multi-dimensional armed conflicts reached a regional unprecedented level
of intensity and brutality. Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 and
hopes for peaceful and socio-economic prospects, some 5.7 million Afghan refugees turned home, marking almost one quarter of the entire
population. But in the current migrant crisis, Afghans make up to the second largest
group in Europe, after the Syrians. This pertinent
issue raises some crucial questions: First, why again an extraordinary huge
number of Afghans decided to flee their country? Second, what measures does the
Afghan government and the international community need to take to stop even
more Afghans from leaving their country?
Basically
there are several mutually enforcing reasons that quantify as to why Afghans
are again entering the refugees trail in a large scale.
First,
Afghanistan suffers from a sharply deteriorating
security situation. This
is mainly due to the massive return of the Taliban and the expanding activities
of ISIS and other Jihadist groups which led to a tremendous increase in
terrorist attacks leading to an extraordinary high level of civilian
casualties.
Secondly,
there is a rising influence of
Islamic fundamentalist clerics in state and
society, pushing towards Islamization and the eradication of all achievements
made in the last decade in terms of
women and girls’ rights, human/fundamental rights and the general situation of the civil
society.
Thirdly, the
people are disenchanted about the democratic and
economic performance of the country.
Especially, due to the corrupt and nepotistic governments of former President
Hamid Karzai which truncated and violated any notions and fundamental
principles of ‘liberal democracy’.
Fourthly, the
western engagement in the country produced a new generation of Afghans, which are not only skilled and educated, but also
socio-politically much aware. Inspired by the new potential opportunities,
these Afghans had much hope for a better life and high expectations on an
economic, social and politically prosperous Afghanistan which is freeing
themselves from the shackles of the past. Subsequently, the Afghans are not
only deeply afraid but also much disappointed about socio-political and
economic prospects of the country. In other words, the people fear a fall back
into the erstwhile living conditions as suffered under the Taliban regime.
Fifthly, the fact
that more and more areas are under control of the Jihadists and the
fruitlessness of peace negotiations. For the Afghan government’s willingness to continue the peace
negotiations (despite all former failures) with the
Taliban is making Afghans extremely insecure. Here, it seems that Pakistan’s government and especially its security agents are continuing its
traditional support for the Taliban. This will make it even more complicated
for the Afghan armed forces -which achieved some success in fighting the Taliban (and other militant groups) but are still
nascent and insufficiently equipped- to guarantee security.
Sixthly, it
became increasingly clear that the transfer of power from the NATO/ISAF to
Afghan authorities looks rather like shirking than
shifting of responsibilities. By having said
that, one can identify much frustration among the people that the new
government has no capacities to improve the security situation and no political
will to bounce back the influence of the fundamentalist Islamic clerics in the
political-administrative state structure.
Seventhly, Pakistan’s and Iran started to expel thousands of refugees (around 130.000 since beginning this year only from Pakistan) and pushed them back into
Afghanistan. Finding themselves in meagre and hopeless living condition, these
refugees will join increasingly the refugee movement towards Europe, in rising
numbers taking the couple of millions Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran into
account.
Finally, against
the backdrop of the dramatic situation of the refugees trying to enter Europe
as well as the internally displaced persons who are on the edge to leave the
country too, it is most crucial to deal with the puzzle of necessary steps that
need to be taken to stop the exodus of Afghan people.
From a short term
perspective, there is not much the government of President Ashraf Ghani and
Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah can do to stop the speedy flight of
the Afghans from the country. However, it must work towards the fulfilment of
its agreed international conventions, especially, regarding human rights,
protection of women, and civil society organizations. These commitments got
mostly ignored by the
Karzai administrations which added to
the lack of trust of the people in the government and gave Jihadists much room
to entrench their influence in the country. In this direction, the Afghan
government need to take a much harder stand to protect the constitution as well as to ensure the rule of law, and spend much more efforts to
contain the influence of the Islamists within state and society.
Against this
backdrop, it is also clear that peace with the Taliban is not possible and that
they are not willing to accept any democratic principle or procedure.
Therefore, the administration should stop any negotiation with the Taliban
which is adding to the fear of the people about Taliban seizing more power,
outside as well as inside the state structure. The recent announcement that the
international leadership dispute within the Afghan Taliban movement is solved rather led to more concerns
than creating hopes towards a substantial peace process.
Last but not
least, the Afghan government with the support of the international community
especially, China, which developed over the last years a keen interests on
Afghan domestic politics – must find an agreement with Islamabad to stop the expulsion of Afghan
refugees from Pakistan which still shelters 1.7 million
registered refugees. Also, the new
Washington-Teheran rapprochement should be utilized to convince Iran (still
accommodating at least 1 million refugees) to loosen its tough rules to discourage more arrival of refugees while pressurizing their current
refugees to leave the country. In this context, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) should
strictly apply the conditions of its Solutions Strategy
for Afghan Refugees (SSAR, the main regional
policy framework for sustainable reintegration of those returning to
Afghanistan). The violations of the notion of voluntary repatriation possess
the imminent threat that the SSAR is supporting the anti-refugee practices of
Islamabad and Tehran. Furthermore, it determines a challenge towards the
successful implementation of SSAR initiatives regarding sustainable
reintegration of the ‘returnees’. However, an increase of ‘returning refugees’ would worsen the
overall situation for internally displaced persons in Afghanistan and
subsequently enforcing the exodus of Afghans.
About The Author:
Dr. Siegfried O. Wolf, is Senior Researcher (member) at the South Asia Institute (SAI), Heidelberg University, and Director of Research at SADF (Coordinator : Democracy Research Program). He was educated at the SAI and Institute of Political Science (IPW) in Heidelberg. Additionally he is a visiting fellow at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST, Islamabad), affiliated researcher at the Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU, Durham University), and a former research fellow at IPW and Centre de Sciences Humaines (New Delhi, India). He is the co-author of 'A Political and Economic Dictionary of South Asia' (Routledge; London 2006), co-editor of 'Politics in South Asia. Culture, Rationality and Conceptual Flow' (Springer: Heidelberg, 2015), 'The Merits of Regionalisation. The Case of South Asia' (Springer: Heidelberg, 2014) and 'State and Foreign Policy in South Asia' (Sanskriti: 2010), and Deputy Editor of the 'Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics' (HPSACP). Furthermore, he has worked as a consultant for the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany, and is member of the external group of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Federal Foreign Office, Germany. He can be reached at his official email id: swolf@sai.uni-heidelberg.de
About The Author:
Dr. Siegfried O. Wolf, is Senior Researcher (member) at the South Asia Institute (SAI), Heidelberg University, and Director of Research at SADF (Coordinator : Democracy Research Program). He was educated at the SAI and Institute of Political Science (IPW) in Heidelberg. Additionally he is a visiting fellow at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST, Islamabad), affiliated researcher at the Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU, Durham University), and a former research fellow at IPW and Centre de Sciences Humaines (New Delhi, India). He is the co-author of 'A Political and Economic Dictionary of South Asia' (Routledge; London 2006), co-editor of 'Politics in South Asia. Culture, Rationality and Conceptual Flow' (Springer: Heidelberg, 2015), 'The Merits of Regionalisation. The Case of South Asia' (Springer: Heidelberg, 2014) and 'State and Foreign Policy in South Asia' (Sanskriti: 2010), and Deputy Editor of the 'Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics' (HPSACP). Furthermore, he has worked as a consultant for the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany, and is member of the external group of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, Federal Foreign Office, Germany. He can be reached at his official email id: swolf@sai.uni-heidelberg.de
