Expelling Afghan refugees

In a move that appears linked to the attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar, the government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) has unilaterally decided to expel all Afghan refugees from the province after a month — commencing the end of January 2015. The decision was taken recently at a meeting of the provincial cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak. Governance in the country has taken a number of idiosyncratic turns in the last year, this being yet another example of this phenomenon.

It is reported that the origins of the attack on the APS have been traced back to Afghanistan — which does not mean that the origins of the attack were traced back to Afghan refugees. The matter has already been taken up with the Afghan government as early as the day after the attack, when the COAS General Raheel Sharif visited Kabul and shared intelligence with his Afghan counterparts and the Afghan government. Both countries appear to be collaborating in the search for those responsible. Whilst the Afghan refugees in K-P have proved to be a considerable drain on the scanty resources of the province over many years, the justification for their return by the K-P minister for information M A Ghani is not entirely convincing. He was of the view that if Afghanistan can hold elections and make a successful transition of power, “then its citizens in Pakistan can also go home”. This flies in the face of the federal government decision to extend the stay of the refugees until next year, and will have provoked deep concern in the various humanitarian agencies that will find this in their laps within the month. Expelling Afghan refugees is going to do little to reduce the terrorist threat. Knee-jerk reactions serve nobody well, and in this case, demonstrate a failure of joined-up thinking at the highest level of provincial governance. What we also need to consider is the practicality of this move. It is doubtful that sending a large number of Afghan refugees back to their country at such short notice will even be possible in practical terms.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2014.

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