Afghanistan: Voiceless and Displaced

Abstract

Kabul—In the traditional pose of Afghan men, Abdul Zia sits quietly—squatting down on his haunches close to the ground. But something about Abdul Zia doesn’t look like the rest of the men crouched along the streets of this capital city. Over his Pashtu turban are khaki, military-issue ear warmers. The hood of his dirty, 1970s ski jacket, likely a western cast off, is riddled with holes. His beard is grubby and matted.His posture carries none of the pride associated with most Afghan men, who hold themselves like warriors. His hands, when they emerge from beneath his thin and ripped shalwar kameez, are mottled and scarred. Between the black dirt lining his fingers, is dried and fresh blood from the wounds caused by the biting, relentless wind. He would wash, if all the water didn’t turn to ice. He is curling himself into the tiniest possible ball, trying desperately to keep warm. Abdul Zia is just one of almost 400,000 Afghans displaced from their homes by the fighting—now living in appalling conditions in camps in the capital city. Throughout the country, the official statistics are fast approaching 750,000, but the reality is much worse.Overflowing with more than 20,000 residents with nowhere else to go, the Nasaji Bagrami internally displaced people’s camp in the center of Kabul must be as close to hell on earth as any place on the planet. Yet, these lost people displaced by an international conflict rarely capture the world’s or even their own nation’s attention. A sprawling mass of mud huts and UNHCR logo-ed tarpaulins, the camp is a freezing nightmare of poverty, misery, and death. Amongst the bitter and hungry, Taliban recruiters find easy pickings to join their radical insurgency. The ground sparkles with ice particles, formed around the mud—a perilous quagmire where the incautious slip or sink. The ice goes down at least a yard, probably more. The Kabul River, normally a trail of brown sludge snaking through the city, is now frozen solid and piled high with at least three feet of snow—the same snow that falls on tarpaulins, precariously balanced above hastily built mud walls. Not strong enough to bear the weight, tarpaulins collapse regularly onto freezing families who must then spend the rest of the night digging themselves free. “We huddled round her to try and keep her warm,” Abdul Zia says. “I sat here, and my wife sat there,” he adds as he motions to two people sitting opposite each other with crossed legs. Just four days ago, in that space between them, lay their two-month old daughter Shah Gul. In temperatures 4 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, with the worst snowfall the country has seen in decades, Shah Gul was freezing to death. She contracted neither pneumonia nor hypothermia. Her little body simply froze, and there was nothing her desperate parents could do to stop it. Just a week earlier, their two-year-old son, Akhtar, had succumbed to the same fate. Abdul Zia and his wife are not alone. In the first week of February, as many as 40 children froze to death in the Nasaji Bagrami camp—one of at least 10 camps in Kabul and several hundred throughout this war-torn country. There’s no tally of how many other children like Shah Gul or elderly people succumbed that week. The same day Abdul Zia told his story, 16-year-old Fatima was desperately thin and struggling to breathe. Her frantic mother described how the effects of the cold had cost her daughter the use of her legs. Fatima died later that day. Abdul Zia and his family have been living here for six years. A sprawling maze of mud, open sewerage, and ripped tarpaulins, there is no infrastructure or logic to the “informal settlements” that so many people now call home. But it’s not really home—home is 400 miles away, on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of war-ravaged Helmand province. Helmand is a sprawling expanse of over 22,000 square miles. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was dubbed the “America of Afghanistan,” with a huge hydroelectric plant and dam designed for massive cotton production, which needs substantial water supplies. These ambitious plans sputtered along through the arrival of Russian troops and later the Taliban. For if it wasn’t cotton, other crops could use the vast irrigation promised by this massive investment in water resources. Indeed, with low production costs and easy export routes, the fertile soil of Helmand province provided the perfect growing conditions for poppy. Helmand became the epicenter of the Afghan heroin trade. Today, the province produces over half of the opium in the global drug trade. Whatever the roots—rich poppy crop or tribal affiliations—Helmand is one of the most strongly held Taliban areas and has proved one of the biggest headaches for American-led forces since the invasion in 2001. In fact, the majority of all combat and civilian casualties alike have been in this province. The total civilian casualties are impossible to quantify, but since 2007, nearly 25,000 have been recorded. Yet nearly six years since the start of the major western offensive known as Operation Mountain Thrust, the Taliban, rather than showing signs of retreat, are stronger than ever. One of the principal justifications for the “Security Assistance” in Afghanistan is the protection of the civilian population from the worst Taliban excesses. Yet UN figures suggest that from 2001 to 2005, more civilians were killed by NATO forces than by insurgents. The Taliban aren’t the only ones from whom civilians, like Abdul Zia and his family, need protection. What’s striking is that, with NATO’s formal mechanism of compensation for civilian casualties, much less attention is being paid today to the hundreds of thousands who are neither killed nor injured, but internally displaced by the fighting. Abdul Zia, like 90 percent of his fellow Helmandis, worked as a farmer. His wife was looking after their seven children in their modest but comfortable home when it was suddenly hit in an airstrike. Six of his children were killed instantly. His home lost, Abdul Zia fled to Kabul with his wife and only surviving child. Few in Abdul Zia’s position have the courage or knowledge to confront those who killed their family members and ask for compensation. While NATO has rightly recognized the need to redress families for civilians deaths and that the pre-2006 levels of “collateral damage” were unacceptable, it is not enough. The internally displaced population of Afghanistan requires sustainable, practical solutions that enable them to go home or to re-establish themselves elsewhere. For Abdul Zia and his family, it was a perilous journey by foot from the outskirts of Lashkar Gar to Kabul that he undertook because he thought his family might be safe there. In the capital, he found refuge in Nasaji Bagrami, where most of his neighbors are Helmandi. But rather than sanctuary, he found despair with his two youngest children, born in the camp, dying just the same. With the fighting still escalating in Helmand, they have no option to return home—stuck in a city that doesn’t want them.Abdul Zia’s family are direct civilian casualties of the operations of international military forces in Afghanistan. For most here, it is irrelevant whether the culprits were the Taliban or the international military forces. In these camps and in the streets of the city, their only wish, after 30 years of war, is for the fighting to end, allowing them to go home. For many, the victor is besides the point with more and more seeing the return of the Taliban as the only option. As long as the fighting continues, the numbers of those fleeing into the capital will rise. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center now estimates that at least 400 people, literally running for their lives, arrive in Kabul every day. While their displacement may have been caused by international forces, it would appear that they then slip through a series of loopholes. The official mandate of the UNHCR is the care of refugees, but to achieve the status of refugee, civilians need to flee one country and enter another. Internally displaced people are those who have been forced leave their homes but who have not crossed an internationally recognized state border.Even if the internally displaced flee for the same reasons as refugees, the fact that they have not crossed an international frontier denies them the protections afforded to those with official refugee status. While the UNHCR works tirelessly to re-integrate the internally displaced, it has already been overwhelmed by four million refugees who have returned to Afghanistan since 2001, consuming enormous resources to reintegrate, re-house, and support those who have grown up in camps in Pakistan or as exiles in Iran. Because IDPs are not defined as refugees under international law, they remain the responsibility of their own government. But the cabinet of President Hamid Karzai seems generally unable or unwilling to assist them. UN agencies have been known to step in when the problem becomes a humanitarian crisis, like this winter, but in general IDPs remain ignored and abandoned. The areas where they settle do not even receive the official title of “camps,” but rather “informal settlements,” and are thus not afforded the protection of aid agencies or international law that official refugees receive. As fighting has intensified with a surge in military operations against Taliban strongholds, 91,000 Afghans have fled their homes in the first half of 2011, up from 42,000 in the first half of 2010. “This is a largely hidden but horrific human rights crisis,” says Horia Mosadiq, an Amnesty International researcher in Kabul. Furthermore, Western military forces, while taking positive steps to mitigate the level of civilian casualties, have no strategy for dealing with those who are not injured or killed during operations, but displaced. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, in a 2011 report, found that in the Afghan cables published by Wikileaks in 2010, the U.S. government did not make a single reference to any displacements. The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement require governments to assist their internal refugees, but such demands are not legally binding. There are also no guidelines to identify these individuals in the first place. The right to housing is guaranteed by the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights—a treaty signed and ratified by Afghanistan. The ability to live somewhere with security, peace, and dignity is a fundamental human right recognized under this same pact, which also imposes obligations on signatory nations to provide access to health care, water, and sanitation. Yet, the country’s government officials actively prevent agencies from providing clean water and even basic latrines. Afghan law forbids the intervention of UN agencies in what are referred to as the “Kabul Informal Settlements.” The government argues that rather than civilians fleeing fighting, these people are economic migrants. While it has a responsibility under international law to provide for internally displaced people, it does not have such an obligation to help people leaving the provinces to seek a better life in the bright lights of the capital. Indeed, international aid agencies are barred from giving any assistance that would contribute to the permanence of internal migrants’ settlements, including building latrines, creating schools, and providing health care systems. Who gets assistance from the small number of local Afghan aid groups and international aid groups is all too often a matter of luck. The migratory pressures often go far beyond the simple and direct need for Afghans to remove themselves from military engagements and deadly force to safety. Increasing numbers are also being forced to move to survive economically. While the government brands these as individuals seeking a more prosperous life, more often the move is simply a case of needing to feed one’s self. At the root of this dilemma is a keen desire by the Afghan government and the international community to discourage pure economic migration to the nation’s capital, which is ill-prepared to absorb them. Already bursting at the seams, the population of Kabul has mushroomed from 800,000 in 2001 to over 3 million today. A 2011 report by the Brookings-Bern Institute points out that internally displaced people usually leave their homes for the same reasons as economic migrants—improved security, some hope of integration into a stable social framework. For economic migrants, these factors influence where they go, not when. This is the crucial difference. Internally displaced people like Abdul Zia and his family had no choice but to leave their villages, fearing for their lives and their family’s safety. When they arrive, they are condemned, often for years, to cramped, squalid, desperate conditions in what are effectively refugee settlements with no access to water, education, or health care. For their children to attend school, they need national identity cards, which often get left behind or destroyed in a desperate scramble to flee an attack on their homes. Peter Nicolaus, head of the UNHCR mission in Afghanistan, acknowledges the full extent of the crisis. “The problems in the KIS [Kabul Informal Settlements] cannot be overestimated,” he says. This winter, just 10 minutes from the presidential palace and several UN guesthouses, Abdul Zia’s children and at least 38 others were freezing to death. Once the humanitarian crisis kicked in, the and other agencies to provide and the people from the relentless “We have a humanitarian problem every continues, this it was had on a with the other would responsibility for the IDPs in the areas and those in Kabul under the care of In this didn’t go to and up to step in here as over people, and for two in February, were the in an a military position in which and barred all from Afghanistan. while UNHCR were running out of almost half a million and other were in in In the for years, only half the aid was are nearly the snow there will be there will be will have to but the less the less a the aid has still not the UNHCR did under these is to that the IDPs in the “informal settlements” are not the responsibility of the While they look after the million refugees from the problem falls to the Afghan government. While there is an Afghan for and the to be on of rather than on the needs of internally displaced individuals or many that their homes have displaced and The Afghan does some for refugees and But is them to their place of solutions and humanitarian care. most of those go home at this strategy is a of and resources. to a report by Amnesty the Afghan to internal displacement is to that it doesn’t while displaced also on aid The Amnesty report one aid as are not to even call them are told they are and an Afghan official like not in those mass areas where But these are not In to in as an an Afghan needs of and identity is to people like Abdul Zia who fled his home in the of an The Afghan government actively even to the status of that they themselves this title to get Indeed, the government says they have been in the camps for more than two years, they are and would any status like a to life in these most economic are men, IDPs to of and most of the residents of Nasaji Bagrami are Afghan government officials that families are to by the of aid as as and rather than fleeing fighting. his and the of his children, Abdul Zia says that he has been to Nasaji Bagrami by aid and of a “I want to go he want to live like in this There of a substantial for the Afghan government to IDPs their status. they to them as of conflict and them as economic migrants, they have no responsibility to provide them with water, health care, or Afghan officials that they help their own but that they in be to on international aid that may be But because of the government has effectively barred from legally such aid to even the most The of these is to turn an economic or dilemma into a desperate humanitarian crisis or other a for the for and infrastructure for them, they will But they as every of they have on to a government official or He then “The country live in of where these people go becomes by the of in Afghanistan. For over 30 years of a of and have to a of and of the with the of of is a to the of the internally displaced to their their them in in and around Kabul where have it is the on whom usually “I do the says Abdul as most to to all military forces with and western are for lives, because they were their and they killed Nicolaus, has as to is to he “The There is no country in the that could with this of migration into Indeed, head of the UN for the of in Afghanistan points to this just something that in the capital. right Afghanistan. in every major center have these settlements, have these and because of a of of access to water, or health care, it simply the conditions for the most As huddled in the one that to Abdul Zia and six other a has has that there are in the camp, and after other these people and the with a of and One of those who has the is He out from the because of the his position demands or because he has and so many of the residents He does not have the look of Abdul Zia and his His do not frozen by too for any one human to He is the camp and is not huddled into a on the ground. He and “I says “I for all these are and want to them all by the of have into have they the being by the and others to Afghanistan, the of and for the is only the of for there is the of where to these families who have lost In 2005, a with the of providing and IDPs with of But to they their is a bitter and since to it would require vast of that are already for by far more and than the refugees One under this is on the outskirts of Kabul. One aid in the Amnesty report are and it’s There is no water Yet, the need is the government areas in where there is no a “We have to be about the of the a of But if living in a or in the of a city center in temperatures of below zero, but prevent it’s He adds that many of these families have been living in Kabul for 10 years, with no of any in their “We need to prevent this he have to is how to with the of these conditions rather than dealing with the when they A first says of is to a and of even a small of the “We are families out of the KIS and into just Kabul. about and the official he points a of the population of Afghanistan are IDPs or million The international aid officials is that the Afghan government must the that their hands, allowing them to provide basic and stop more civilians from more than any who have succumbed to the of the While enormous have been by western military forces to civilian casualties, it is that the “collateral damage” those who have been displaced and will from or the of Afghanistan. The children freezing to death in the camp are just as much civilian casualties as those hit by At the same must be to UNHCR to make they the vast number of IDPs who they now In conflict like Afghanistan, it is and for the UNHCR mandate to to only refugees who have crossed the UN mandate be in conflict to IDPs a humanitarian crisis like this displacement is migration only has been But there is the reality that military officials need to as Not only do the IDPs a humanitarian crisis, but a and crisis as These housing these bitter people and their are fertile for Taliban is that the Taliban, simply a small of through of refugees in the camps of Pakistan while their Afghanistan was being by of the The same is UN has found that children as as are being by the Taliban for such as digging where are then of these children are being often their as with the being by far With growing the and what are now seen as a of hungry, and people is in the for the Taliban to