In Pakistan, desperate refugees on dangerous, and shifting, ground

Caught between countries and armed combatants, the displaced are in dire trouble.

BY JOEL ELLIOTT
Special to the Maine Sunday Telegram

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN ­ The war that broke out earlier this month in Pakistan struck one more blow to the security of a refugee population in Afghanistan that already faces a severe food shortage and its own share of violence.

Tens of thousands of Pakistanis fled across the border, joining a torrent of Afghan refugees the government pushed into repatriating.

Pakistan opened fire in frontier cities along the Afghan border in an attempt to rein in a growing threat of militants. The attempted crackdown came in the wake of the devastating September bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad ­ which nearly killed Pakistan¹s newly elected president, Asif Ali Zardari ­ and may also have come in response to intense criticism from the United States.

The fighting had an immediate effect on the civilian populations of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan has been ratcheting up the pressure on Afghan refugees to return to their country of origin, flooding its urban centers this year with 250,000 more impoverished, often homeless people in addition to the 5 million who have returned since 2001, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

Previous military action exacerbated the problem, driving 250,000 Pakistanis from their homes, including a telling 20,000 who fled to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, wracked by its own war, is in no shape to support this influx, and the refugees I interviewed in June knew it. Earlier this month, Pakistan continued its pattern of blaming ­-- sometimes rightly so ­-- Afghan refugees or migrants for its security problems by beginning to deport all 50,000 believed to be living in Bajur, the Associated Press reported.

But the Afghan refugees I interviewed were no militant ideologues. Their desires were the same as those of any Pakistani or U.S. citizen: food, electricity, clean water, education and ­ perhaps most important and elusive ­ security.

Several days I spent wandering the scalding desert in and near Jalozai refugee camp gave me a glimpse of their desperation.

When I found Hameeda, a 16-year-old Afghan refugee, on a sweltering June day, she was sitting beneath a 10-ton truck hiding from the sun and sweating beneath a full-length blue burqa. She, along with almost a dozen siblings and uncles, was waiting for a few straggling family members to complete the repatriation process at a nearby United Nations refugee compound so they could begin the 90-mile journey to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where they hoped to find the family home still standing. Their first task when they arrived would be to rebuild it ­ it had been damaged 30 years earlier in the Russian invasion, and they had not returned since fleeing to Pakistan.

That morning in Jalozai refugee camp, a mud-brick city near Peshawar that once housed more than 100,000 Afghan refugees, Hameeda had watched the demolition of the only home she'd ever known, along with the rest of her neighborhood. She'd never been to Afghanistan, and she was afraid.

"You are placing us in the mouth of war," she said, as though the Pakistani government could hear her accusation. "We are weeping at the closure of Jalozai camp, because there is nothing but dust and mud and violence where we are going."

Hameeda's family faced the task of creating a new life in a war-torn country with a mutilated infrastructure, insufficient education system and a reeling government. New refugee camps are forming, the Times reported, as refugees flowing in from Pakistan compete for space with displaced Afghans who are fleeing escalating clashes between NATO and Taliban forces.

All of this means more trouble in the region, not only for the Afghans and Pakistanis, but also for U.S. troops battling the Taliban, which is sure to exploit the desperation to turn Afghans against their government. In its campaign to improve security, the U.S. leans heavily on Pakistan's military to fight militants who launch attacks on American troops in Afghanistan, almost to the exclusion of efforts to improve governance or economic development in Pakistan, according to the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress. The investigative body also accused the Bush administration of failing to develop a government-wide plan to combat terrorism in the tribal areas.

In short, Afghanistan is in a crisis that goes beyond increasing levels of violence. Refugees like Hameeda and her family face the task of starting a new life in the worst imaginable circumstances. While the government claims that the refugees are returning "voluntarily," none of those I interviewed wanted to go. They were leaving because the government had destroyed their homes and cut off their power.

Back in Jalozai Camp, the few who remain fear the day when they, too, will be forced back into Afghanistan. They told of a miserable existence, with limited education or other resources, and begged for their words to be printed so people in the U.S. would know their situation.

"We are ignorant. We are illiterate," said Shahazada Khan, a tribal leader who blames U.S. foreign policy for much of the region's troubles. Khan stood at one end of a mud-brick room filled with young boys and village elders.

Several of the boys lamented the fact that they could not pursue their dreams because of a lack of funding for education. "With schools and education, we could develop along with the rest of the world," Shahazada Khan said.

"So don't send us guns; don't encourage us to fight," the tribal leader continued. "Send us paper. Send us pens. Send us schools. Education is a light that could illuminate our world."

Joel Elliott is a Waterville-based reporter who traveled to Pakistan in June and July, writing freelance articles on news and human rights issues for The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and the San Francisco Chronicle. His blog from the trip is at: pakistanstories.blogspot.com. His e-mail address is: joeldelliott@gmail.com