Aslam Arshad
Security situation in Afghanistan is worsening day by day; Afghan forces have continuously failed and shown their inability to handle the deteriorating security situation of Afghanistan. It is also a quite worrisome situation for the regional countries and the international forces stationed in Afghanistan. In such a scenario, chances of timely repatriation of Afhan refugees to Afghanistan are rare. Earlier, our Finance Minister has reminded the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Fillippo Grandi that Pakistan had borne the brunt of the global war on terrorism and the economy had suffered huge losses during the last many years.
Pakistan had also hosted more than three million refugees for more than three decades. He clearly conveyed that Pakistan had single-handedly managed the resources for operation Zarb-e-Azb against the militants as well as meeting the financial requirements of the internally displaced families. He said that with the presence of an elected government in Afghanistan, the situation for repatriation of Afghan refugees should improve. The international community also needs to play its due role in ensuring that conducive atmosphere is created in Afghanistan for voluntary return of Afghan refugees. As regards to human aspect of Afghan conflict, new UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has aptly said that Afghan refugees had already been forgotten by the international community before they began arriving in Europe en masse last year. Grandi urged international community to stabilize Afghanistan so that these refugees could return to their country. He noted that “voluntary repatriation has gone down to very few numbers”. Pakistan has been hosting up to 6 million refugees at the cost of strains on its economy and law and order.
To see the positive aspect, hosting of refugees alongside investment by Pakistan in numerous grass root people welfare projects in Afghanistan and generous grants/scholarships to Afghan students, Pakistan enjoys tremendous goodwill amongst the Afghan people. It is quite supporting that on ground, Afghan people’s sentiments about Pakistan are much different from the dry attitude of successive Afghan governments. Contours of Afghan conflict management are changing fast. Americans have long been working to go back on their promise of pulling out of Afghanistan. Crimean crisis came as a God-sent occurrence that helped enhanced marketing of the idea within American strategic community and its European camp followers. The day President Obama announced extension of stay of his troops in Afghanistan, it was clear that peace had no place in the American thought process. Turmoil in Afghanistan also syncs well with Indian dream to sandwich Pakistan between Eastern and Western theatres, so as to keep its Armed Forces in a state of overreach and perpetually engaged status while maintaining pressure through proxy warfare for destabilizing Pakistan’s tribal belt and urban centers through sponsored terrorism. For this Kabul’s present political dispensation is gleefully playing in Indian hands.
The US strategy for reverse paddling its drawdown hinged on creating circumstances that justify Afghan government’s request to the US for augmenting its military deployment and broadening its scope of military operations from advisory to active combat. Erstwhile, Murree peace process came in the way of this plan and was scuttled. Yet, Taliban were about to come to negotiation table and to prevent this Mullah Mansour was killed in a drone attack against the sovereignty and consent of our country. Even then reportedly the successor leadership of Taliban has indicated its readiness for talks. However, they rejected calls for entering into dialogue with ‘powerless Kabul administration.
Even though the jigsaw was falling in place, in an indecent haste and without waiting for formal request from its proxy Afghan government, President Obama has abandoned his troop withdrawal plan, and has instead allowed the American troops to undertake combat missions against the Taliban. America wants to enhance and perpetuate its military presence in Afghanistan. Its proxy Ashraf-Abdullah duo is fully on board as they are beneficiaries of continued turmoil in Afghanistan. Peaceful Afghanistan would throw up apolitical dispensation that would erode their power.
Since 1979 till 2016, Afghanistan has always been in a state of war; the unfortunate Afghans could never see dawning of a peaceful day. During all that period they were left only with two options; either to become a part of that war or take shelter in Pakistan as refugees. So most of the Afghans went for the second option; they simply crossed the Durand Line and entered a safe haven named as Pakistan. Today according to an estimate there are more than 2.7 million Afghan nationals living in Pakistan. Economy experts comment that these refugees are a huge burden on Pakistan’s economy because Pakistan has to spend a lot on their food, accommodation, clothing, health and education. So many of these refugees have succeeded in getting fake identity cards and now they claim that they are the nationals of Pakistan. Many times, it was pointed out that some of these Afghan Refugees are involved in serious crimes like drug-trafficking, targeted-killings and kidnapping for ransom. But the most painful aspect of their presence is that so many agents of the Indian intelligence agency; RAW and Afghanistan’s NDS entered Pakistan in guise of the refugees and created law and order problems. Such agents were arrested from different parts of Pakistan for their involvement in terrorist activities. Recently the law enforcement agencies arrested six agents of the Afghan intelligence agency, NDS from Balochistan. According to the media details they were arrested from different Afghan refugee camps. The culprits have confessed that they had killed at least 40 innocent Pakistanis during last few months. Now the situation regarding the Afghan refugees is getting more serious day by day as the agents of the NDS are simply trying to make things complicated for Pakistan. The better option for the government of Pakistan is to send respectfully all the Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan, so that Pakistan may concentrate on its own problems in a better way.
