Two Articles on Afghanistan
Dunya. Published October 9, 2023
New Afghanistan Policy
Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi
Political attention is once again focused on Afghan Refugees because of the latest Pakistani policy of ordering the undocumented and illegal foreigners to leave the country by 31st October 2023. The Government of Pakistan also announced that all those illegal aliens who did not comply with the deadline to leave voluntarily would be arrested and deported. For this purpose, the search operation would be launched from the First of November. As the Afghan refugees constitute about 97 percent of foreigners living in Pakistan, the focus is on undocumented and illegal Afghan refugees. Some undocumented Afghan refugee have already been arrested and a small number of them have started leaving for Afghanistan. However, not many are expected to leave voluntarily because a large number of them have been living in Pakistan for the last over twenty years. Some of the undocumented refugees have the support of their Pakistani relatives and friends who would declare them as the members of their extended families.
Pakistan’s decision to force out the illegal Afghan refugees is a reaction to the increased terrorist incidents in KP and Balochistan involving terrorists from Afghanistan. Pakistan experienced more terrorist attacks in August and September than was the situation in the past. The investigation of these incidents showed that most of suicide bombers and others planting roadside or motorcycle bombs came from Afghanistan. All of them had local links and support system involving Afghan refugees and local Pakistanis. When the government raised this issue with the Afghan government and demanded that Afghanistan territory should not be used for terrorism in Pakistan. The Government of Pakistan named the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Islamic State Organization (Daish) and their affiliated groups for sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan. The response of the Afghan Taliban government in Kabul was not helpful to Pakistan because it did not commit to containing the activities of the TTP in Afghanistan. The spokesman of the Kabul government argued that terrorism in Pakistan was the internal matter of Pakisran and that Pakistan should look after its internal security rather than accusing Afghanistan of the violence in Pakistan.
Though Pakistan continued to ask the Kabul government for not allowing any group to use Afghanistan territory for terrorist activities directly or indirectly in Pakistan, the government of Pakistan decided to adopt some measures to strengthen Pak-Afghan border security as well as internal security. The decision to regulate illegal Afghan refugees is a major step in this direction. These undocumented refugees are living all over Pakistan, from Karachi to Quetta, Peshawar and the tribal districts of KP. It would be an uphill task to enforce the new refugee policy.
The present-day refugee problem can be traced back to 1978-79. Within one year of the take-over of the Kabul government by Noor Muhammad Taraki in April 1978, refugees began to arrive in Pakistan in small number. They were alienated from Marxist-oriented socio-economic policies of the Taraki government. However, most Afghan refugees arrived in the decade of the 1980s. It was in the last week of December 1979 the Soviet troops marched into Afghanistan and took control of the government by knocking out Hafizullah Amin and appointing Babrak Karmal as the President of Afghanistan. The Islamic-Afghan resistance to the Soviet troops was built up by Pakistan in cooperation with the United States and conservative Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia. According to one estimate around 4 million Afghan refugees entered Pakistan in 1980-89.
These Afghan refugees were enthusiastically welcomed in Pakistan with official and non-official hospitality. The affiliate organizations of the United Nations joined with Pakistani authorities to register these refugees, set up their camps and provide humanitarian assistance. A large number of Afghan stayed with their relatives and friends and several non-official organizations, especially some religious parties, also extended humanitarian help to these refugees.
The withdrawal of Soviet troops began in May 1988 which was completed in February 1989. In the post withdrawal period, a slow return of the Afghan refugees began which continued during the years of the first Taliban government (1996-2001). However, majority of the Afghan refugees stayed on inside and outside the refugee camps in Pakistan. A new wave of Afghan refugees came into Pakistan after the United States launched military action in Afghanistan in October 2001, as a part of its self-defined war against terrorism. Since then, the two-way traffic of refugees has continued between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
According to official information there are 1.3 million Afghan refugees registered with the UN system in Pakistan in 2023. In addition to this there are 880,000 Afghan refugees granted Afghan citizenship cards. They are not the target of the new policy. However, there is no exact data available about undocumented and illegal Afghan refugees in Pakistan. There are also Afghans who came to Pakistan on passport and visa but stayed on beyond their sanctioned period. The conservative estimates of non-official sources is that around one million undocumented Afghans are living all over Pakistan. Some of them have acquired Pakistani documents like national identity cards and passports, to claim Pakistani citizenship. There are those who have purchased property and pursue agriculture and commercial activity, jobs and labor work.
It will be a challenging task to track illegal and undocumented refugees because they are living in all provinces. It will not be an easy task to pursue search operation because they overlap with Pakistani Pashtuns. Pakistan had made an unsuccessful effort in 2017 to track down illegal Afghans in various cities which caused much inconvenience to Pakistani Pashtuns because the police also subjected them to questioning. This led to the complaint of “ethnic profiling” by KP based political leaders. The government of Pakistan abandoned that exercise after some time.
The new Afghan Refugee policy will face the problems similar to those confronted in 2017. An important challenge would be to distinguish an Afghan refugee from a local Pakistani Pashtun?
Pakistan has issued new regulation for the Afghan transit trade through Pakistan to cover the transit cost as well as to ensure that the goods in transit do not slip out of the trucks for Pakistani market. Some transit trade goods are smuggled into Pakistan after these reach Afghanistan. Both practices undermine Pakistani economy. There is also smuggling of food items and other goods from Pakistan to Afghanistan. These illegal activities cannot take place without the involvement of Pakistani businesspeople and officials, especially those who manage the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Given the above problems, the implementation of the new Afghan policy is a big challenge for the policy makers and implementers.
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Second Article
Dunya published September 23, 2023
Major Problems in Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations
Dr Hasan Askari
We often talk about historical and cultural relations going back to many centuries between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is true that this relationship is deep rooted in history but despite all this the relations between these two countries are complex and problematic. There were serious problems in the relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan during 1947-1979. Their diplomatic relations were suspended in 1955 and 1962. In the post 1979 period has not been free of problems. Pakistan played a key role along with the United States and conservative Arab state in dislodging the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Pakistan also hosted several million Afghan refugees in the years of Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan and the “gun-culture” was introduced in Pakistan by the veterans of the Afghan war. Even today, around 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees are based in Pakistan. In addition to them, the unregistered Afghan refugees are said to be around one million in Pakistan.
When the Taliban took over Kabul from the Afghan and American authorities in August 2021, the Taliban sympathizers in Pakistan, especially the orthodox religious groups, expressed happiness, arguing that a Pakistan friendly government had come to power in Kabul. This hope did not materialize. The Afghan Taliban are more critical of Pakistan at the nonofficial level than their government in Kabul which criticizes Pakistan in a cautious manner. The Taliban activists complain that Pakistani authorities, especially the intelligence establishment, behave like an “overlord,” expecting the Taliban to comply with their directions and that they manipulate contradictions in Afghanistan.
Pakistan is a victim of terrorist activities by the violent groups based in Afghanistan. The TTP and the Islamic State and their affiliated groups are in the forefront of terrorism in Pakistan. These groups have their sympathizers in Pakistan who help them to resort to terrorism against military and civilian targets in Pakistan. In Balochistan, the TTP works with some Baloch dissident groups. Pakistan repeatedly complained about the use of Afghan territory by the TTP and other groups for launching terrorist attacks inside Pakistan. The Kabul government repeated its official policy that the Kabul government did not allow any group to use Afghan territory for activities against its neighbors. When Pakistan repeated its complaint from time to time, Afghan government’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid made a counter charge against Pakistan. He told the AFP that the Afghan Taliban government’s security forces also faced terrorist attacks by Pakistani citizens associated with the Islamic State. He maintained that the Kabul government did not complain to Pakistan but it eliminated those terrorists. He advised Pakistan to “put its house in order” and that instead of blaming Afghanistan, Pakistan should strengthen its internal security. The violence in Pakistan is Pakistan’s internal matter and that Pakistan should deal with it.
Pakistan may continue to approach the Afghan Taliban government about the anti-Pakistan activities of the TTP. However, Pakistan should not expect the Kabul government to remove the TTP and other groups with anti-Pakistan disposition from Afghanistan. Pakistan held inconclusive talks with the TTP in 2022, but its security authorities have decided now not to talk to the TTP. They declared that Pakistan would continue to take up the terrorism related issues only with the Taliban government in Kabul.
Pakistan needs to review its total approach towards Afghanistan. Leaving aside the rhetoric of historical and cultural ties, Pakistan should treat Afghanistan only as a neighboring state with whom it should have relations on mutually beneficial considerations. Economic relations, especially trade, travel between the two countries and consultation on border related and other bilateral issues should be handled on a professional basis. Trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan has to be distinguished from smuggling of all kinds of products and live animals. The groups on both sides benefit from smuggling but the Pakistani states loses revenue. If the KP and federal governments resist the influence of these groups. Pakistani authorities can reduce smuggling to the minimum.
We have heard a lot about the fencing of the Pak-Afghan border and establishment of new security posts for monitoring it. We also know that the Kabul government and the violent groups are opposed to fencing and some fencing was damaged by some of these groups. Why have the fence and its monitoring system not been effective for checking the illegal movement of people and goods across the border? The effective border monitoring for illegal movement of people and goods is one major security strategy against terrorism in Pakistan. However, legal movement of people and trade through the legal channels should be facilitated so that the interested people do not think of illegal methods. There are family linkages across the border; many people come to Pakistan for medical treatment, education and economic activity. Pakistanis should be discouraged from illegal visits to Afghanistan or the students going there for higher education or for jobs.
The border fencing can be useful only if there is a strong monitoring of the border by Pakistan. The people should be allowed to cross over to the other side only through the official crossing channels. Electronic monitoring in and around the border fence should also be used so that the movement of terrorists on the Afghan side of the border is in their knowledge. The linkages of the TTP and the Islamic State inside Pakistan should also be monitored and dealt with effectively.
However, only punitive actions and restrictions are not enough. The social and economic factors that alienate people from the Pakistani state or force them to join hands with the extremist and dissident groups should also be addressed. Tough border policies should be accompanied by persistent efforts to cope with the issues of poverty and underdevelopment in Balochistan and KP. The youths need to be assured that their future is secure under the Pakistani state system. The on-going inflation and price hike of petroleum products, electricity, gas and food items has increased human insecurity in Pakistan. The poor regions and people are facing extremely difficult situation and the government does not appear to be taking any tangible steps to reduce the socio-economic sufferings of the people. These problems are contributing to spreading extremism and intolerance. The tribal districts of KP and most of Balochistan are adversely affected by severe economic challenges. All this alienates people from the state and the government and makes them vulnerable to the appeals of the extremist groups. ======================