Policy dialogue on Afghan refugees in Pakistan

Experts criticize decision of forceful repatriation

Majority of policy analysts at a roundtable held at IPS on January 26, 2018 rejected the idea of forceful repatriation of millions of Afghan refugees from Pakistan calling it unwise and harmful for the national interest.

Khalid Rahman, director general of IPS, was of the opinion that it is simply not possible to send back 2.4 million registered and an unknown number of unregistered refugees currently residing in the length and breadth of the country without a comprehensive plan and research-backed policy.

He said, there were two views about the presence of Afghan refugees in Pakistan: one considering them an asset and the other a liability. However, the issue must not be seen in black and white as there were many grey areas in it with several shades. Decisions should not be based on perceptions and reactions; a lot of research and policy dialogues was needed to address this issue of critical national and regional importance, he emphasized.

General (retd) Asad Durrani, former ISI chief, said that it was not in the interest of Pakistan to repatriate millions of Afghans forcefully and ruin the investment of four decades. Two generations of them have been born here and majority of their youth have hardly seen their native areas, he added.

There may be fifth columnists among them but it is better that they stay here and are tracked instead of being sent back to do whatever they want against Pakistan with impunity, Durrani suggested.

Jumma Khan Sufi, author of bestseller Fareb-e-Na-tamam and a former Pashtun nationalist leader who has witnessed and documented the role of Afghan government in fomenting terror in Pakistan in 1970s, rejected the approach of viewing Afghan refugees as asset or liability.

He said that most of the anti-Pakistan government officials of Afghanistan have lived here as refugees and they can never respect the sovereignty and reality of Pakistan due to the superiority complex embedded in the historic national narrative of Afghans.

He viewed the Afghan refugees issue as a humanitarian one that should be addressed on the same grounds.

Terming forceful repatriation of all Afghan refugees an illusion, Brig (Retd) Ishaq Ahmed, Director, Intelligence and International Security Studies at South Asian Strategic Stability Institute (SASSI) University, called for categorization of Afghan refugees and offering of Pakistani nationality or business, work and student visas to the eligible among them against certain criteria.

Ambassador (retd) Tajammul Altaf, Ambassador (retd) Ibrar Hussain, Professor Dr Adnan Sarwar, Dr Shehryar Khan, Ambassador (retd) Ayaz Wazir, Brigadier (retd) Said Nazeer Mohmand, Sarwat Sultana, Waqar-un-Nisa, and an Afghan refugee PhD scholar Zakir Hussain also shared similar views among other participants on the occasion.