AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN: Ethnic bias hinders decision to return

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

KARACHI, 29 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - Haji Juma Khan, a refugee of over 20 years in Pakistan, has yet to decide whether to return to his homeland in northern Afghanistan or not, worried that his Pashtoon ethnicity might prove a barrier for him and his family's future.

“For us having Pashtoon origin, even though we speak Dari, it's pretty difficult to survive in a non-Pashtoon area," the community elder told IRIN in the Zia Colony community of some 150 Pashtoon families in the southern port city of Karachi.

Some people in the Toi Mast village of the Qaiser district of northern Afghan province of Faryab, which has a majority of non-Pashtoon minority groups of Uzbek and Tajik origin, were not open to providing Pashtoons land ownership rights, he claimed, noting: "They don’t allow us to run businesses. Instead they openly condemn us for having the same origin as that of the Taliban."

Following the demise of the Taliban, a largely Pashtoon-based regime, in December 2001, many Pashtoons who form a minority in the north, have expressed concern about returning, worried of possible discrimination they might face at the hands of the majority ethnic groups living in the area.

According to Gul Aqa Adel, an official from the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and facilitator for a recent nine-member delegation from the Afghan Return Commission Working Group (RCWG) - comprising members of various political and ethnic factions in northern Afghanistan, UN bodies and government officials - ethnic and kinship ties form a vital link for Afghan communities.

An integrated approach to resolve such problems based on ethnicity was vital to the refugees, the Afghan government and community leaders like Khan who are now deciding their future, he told IRIN.

The delegation's aim is to update potential returnees about conditions in their places of origin, alleviating some of the many questions people like Khan obviously have.

But many potential returnees remain cautious. "Some of our fellows have recently visited the area to assess the situation for repatriation," the 55-year-old community leader explained.

"But the central government still has no writ there and regional warlords hold much of the control and collect taxes forcefully from the poor and those who are not so influential,” he said, in the courtyard of Zia Colony's local mosque, the venue for his recent meeting with the visiting Afghan delegation.

One important part of the decision-making process was UNHCR's Facilitated Group Returns (FGR) programme to Afghanistan, aimed at removing some of the basic hurdles preventing repatriation.

Initiated in 2003 to support the voluntary return of Afghans, under the programme, refugee groups hailing from one particular place inside Afghanistan are identified from among the refugee community in Pakistan, with the refugee agency helping to remove their concerns.

Since the start of the FGR programme, around 20,000 Afghans have returned to their homeland. During 2003-2004, some 540 Afghan families from Pakistan’s industrial hub, Karachi, repatriated under the initiative.

Over 1,700 families in 22 groups of ethnic Pashtoons, Uzbeks, Turkmen and Arab-origin Afghans, however, remain pending with the agency for a variety of reasons, including issues related to land occupation, shelter, employment and the provision of social services.

“The UN refugee agency does try to assist itself, or through other partners inside Afghanistan that require small investment like tube wells for water supply, schooling, health units or some assistance towards housing and shelter,” Jack Redden, a UNHCR spokesman, told IRIN.

However, Redden noted that the agency was not in a position to solve land, property and large infrastructure development issues given most of the group returns involve such hurdles. “That is beyond our capacity and it comes under the government’s mandate,” he clarified.

Members from the visiting Afghan delegation from the five northern provinces of Afghanistan agreed.

"But the people have to know they can’t get everything by sitting here [in Pakistan]. Property rights and all the other things will move ahead once they get back there and struggle for that as the government authorities are there to help them in whatever possible way they can,” Shuja-ud-Din Khan, an official from Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, told IRIN.

UNHCR's voluntary repatriation assistance programme runs under a tripartite agreement between the UN refugee agency and the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan and is set to expire by March 2006. The three parties are expected to meet in the second week of May to discuss the scenario beyond that agreement for the estimated 3 million Afghans still living in Pakistan today.

[ENDS]