Abstract:
The priority has changed! Unrest in the Middle East have caused millions of people to flee their countries to a third safe country. This has shifted priority among refugees seeking asylum in European States from countries such as Afghanistan, the second largest exporter of international refugees. It undermines the eligibility of Afghan refugees to be considered as rightful for asylum as compare to any refugee from Syria. It ignores the fact that Afghanistan still goes a lot through terrorism and unrest even in the decade of democracy after the Taliban regime had been toppled and Al-Qaeda has been chased out. Moreover, the stance against Afghan refugees got stronger with the arrival of the new Afghan Unity Government showing support for refugees repatriation to their country. European Union has been very supportive of President Ashraf Ghani’s remarks on the refugee issue, and it's been said that a secret deal that promises more aid to Afghanistan is behind the Afghan Unity Government’s strong rhetoric against refugees in Europe. However, the problem lays beyond the repatriation of the Afghan refugees that this paper will try to highlight, it is in the secret deal that unlawfully forces legal asylum seekers into illegal immigrants amid war conditions, while taking leverage against the government of Afghanistan in return for aid. And the capacity of the Afghan government to take back the large number of refugees and provide them with sustainable means of living with respect to the increasing escalation of conflicts in more than six provincial capitals around the country, not to mention the management of already deported more than 800,000 Afghan refugees from Pakistan and the deportation of million more in near future. With so many upheavals the question remains whether the Afghan Unity Government is ready to face the challenges and provide a Meta policy that can solve the issue of Afghan refugees and the ongoing unrest to insure a peaceful repatriation of its refugees.
Introduction:
The number of refugees turning to European States has increased immensely after the Syrian civil war. This has greatly affected the status of Afghan refugees fleeing to Europe as a result of war, violence and fear of personal persecution. Not to mention European States have put greater restriction on the arrival of refugees by drawing fences alongside borders and blocking roads in the face of international refugees. However, the refugee’s wave is far from over, and therefore, another door for solution has been knocked by the European States. It is obliging the Afghan government to take refugees back despite the fact that Afghanistan is not in the position to commit to such a responsibility. But as reports indicate a secret deal that promises more financial aid to the country has been the motive for Afghan government to use strong rhetoric against its refugees in the European States specifically, calling them to return to their unsafe homes which they have fled taking potential life risks in the first place. Moreover, this comes in circumstances that the country is enduring intense political instability among the political elites as well as Taliban’s grip on the countryside is getting stronger and they are gaining ground in the country. That alone gives the refugees a legal ground to stay in a third safe country until their home country is wholly safe for their return. This fact has largely been ignored in recent Brussels talk where a deal has been struck based on which thousands of Afghan refugees will be sent home in coordination with the Afghan government. In the first part of this paper I will analyze the criterion for Afghan refugees to seek asylum in a third safe country and their deportation from Europe on the bases of Brussels agreement considering its policy problem evaluating outcomes and effectiveness of the policy, while the second part of the paper will talk about the policy problem solutions.
Analysis:
It is worth knowing that safety conditions in Afghanistan are not very stable, a report from Internal displacement Monitoring Center on July 2015, shows more than half million people are internally displaced due to various ongoing conflicts in the country (Glatz, 2015). And this number of internally displaced people has doubled from 2014 onward to 1.2 million people, reports Amnesty International (Amnesty International , 2016). Meanwhile, the latest storm of internally displaced people from Kunduz province is a good indicator of weak immigration institutions in the country, not only it did not do anything significant for the IDP’s inside the country but it also largely failed to secure peace and security in the aforementioned conflict driven provinces. Moreover, the government’s long-term policy for IDPs is affected by immediate allocation of resources to the newly internally displaced people due to ongoing conflicts, this makes the government efforts to IDPs multi-dimensional with emerging need for assistance in different provinces that requires immediate focus leaves the long-term policies for IDPs unstable (Glatz, IDMC, 2015 ). Moreover, the focus of international organization is also diverted by the emerging refugee crisis in the world, which adds to the problem of processing a policy that can be implemented in increment way with the help of their technical assistance and allocation of resources. Likewise, the IDPs internal displacement from rural to urban areas comes with financial burdens, which the government is ineffective to provide, they are further drawn to rural sites of the urban areas where they eventually faces shortage of standard necessities of life, such as clean water, electricity and education, that eventually leads to their forced eviction to a third place and in most cases outside domestic borders.
Even if we do undermine the serious impact of IDPs in Afghanistan and their forced eviction across domestic borders, we cannot undermine the millions of refugees that are forced back home on daily manner from neighboring countries Pakistan and Iran. With over three million refugees in these two countries the priority for the Afghan government should not be the deportation of refugees from European States but providing the basic necessities for the refugees that are most likely to return home and the abolishment of the threat of them fleeing offshores, because once they return to Afghanistan it has to be made sure that they find the conditions appropriate for their living so that they will not embark on journeys across international borders (EU deal clears deportation of unlimited Afghan refugees, 2016). Moreover, the stand of the Afghan government seems ambiguous when it comes to taking back refugees, in one hand it signs a secret deal with the EU to send the Afghan refugees from European states back home, and on the other hand, it requests the government of Pakistan to extend the stay of 1.3 registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan legal until 2020 (Ali, 2016 ). On the Afghan Unity Government side this is both unfair and ineffective in maximizing its efforts to better conditions of its people. There is a double standard in the refugee policy of the Afghan government: firstly, there are no difference in refugees in Pakistan and Europe if conditions at home is equally safe for both, then the question comes why the government insists on the repatriation of refugees in Europe more than it does for refugees in its immediate neighboring countries. Yet, the concern should be more focused about the displacement and allocation of basic needs for refugees that are more at risk than those who are in developed countries.
Therefore, the government of Afghanistan for all the aforementioned reasons should be supporting the refugee status of Afghans in the European states, however, according to the Brussels deal which turns legal immigrants into illegal ones with respect to the capacity of the Afghan government in providing refugees with minimal welfare domestically, the government should not bargain funds for developmental projects at the expense of refugees, because their concern comes for their life expectancy that is highly threatened by the ongoing violence countrywide, and the development projects matter less compare to the risk of being dead. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reports in September 2016, that civilian casualties have a reached a new level with at least 2,562 dead and more than 5835 injured (Feroz, 2016). According to Schuster, Brussels deal will only increase in instability since the working conditions are not stable and refugees return could be manipulated at the hands of Taliban and local militia groups by recruiting them into to their lines, Schuster further adds, “This particular agreement allows European governments to ride straight through all the argumentation that’s been made over the past 15 years that it’s not safe to return people at the moment.” (Rasmussen, 2016) Therefore, we can say that this deal can only mean a leverage for more aids that has no positive outcomes to the lives of refugees and that developmental projects cannot take priority over security and peace in the country.
Despite the international developmental struggle in the country, security remains the main obstacle to the goal of bringing peace and development to the country in the light of which international Afghan refugees could be repatriated. And as long as the issue of security is not resolved any step by the international community towards funding towards the development of the state building has little effect. Therefore, the goal of Afghan refugees to return to Afghanistan is conflicting and vague because the situation to which they are invited is not wholly settled. Therefore, the policy problem should be resolved with consideration of the criterion the goal wants to achieve. Since the goal is to repatriate the Afghan refugees from Europe it is worth taking into account that developmental aid means less if security that is the main criterion for the refugees to flee the country is not resolved. Since the policy input does not produce the optimist result about refugee status, therefore, the issue has to be reconciled from a different dimension. To produce optimal result the policy process should focus on the allocation of the resources to building up security capabilities to combat anti-peace elements in the country, as well as seek the cooperation of the neighboring countries like Pakistan who share the same cost as the Afghan government to refugees and instability.
Thus, this seems to be a feasible option that can ensure peace and long-term repatriation of the Afghan refugees.
Since the Afghan refugee problem is multi-dimensional with single goal and multi-policy approach, the policy process should be both substantive and instrumental. The EU policy to repatriate Afghan refugees based on a deal that promises aid is neither substantive nor instrumental because the conditions in Afghanistan remains unsafe for the return of the refugees, while its not feasible due to ongoing conflict and the need for security can not be substituted with developmental aid. Therefore, the policy analysis should focus on more substantive and instrumental path such as aiming at the goal that is creating the atmosphere of peace in the country that will eventually make the path for repatriation easy. Europe States as one of the most developed countries in terms of economic, political and military capabilities it can greatly help Afghanistan with military assistance to tackle and eliminate violence in the country. This way it would have helped Afghanistan to aim for the goal of brining peace and would have acquired international support as well as it decrease in the number of refugees fleeing to Europe. And Europe would be freer from the burden of refugees as peace is widened in the conflict driven country Afghanistan. Therefore, instead of taking leverage against the government of Afghanistan it can boost her military capacity to allow the criterion for the safe return of Afghan International refugees. Likewise, the public policy of the Afghan government should also be more driven by peace bringing mechanisms with focus on the goal of security rather than on developmental projects. And it should sought international support in this regard, such as instead of 15$ billion dollars for developmental projects it should be focused on building security capacity that will be used in the process of security brining.
In the same manner, Pakistan shares similar concern in the line of security and future prospect of more than a million Afghan refugees. The issue directly relates the security of both countries; hence, the support of Pakistan in this regard can be of high importance in decreasing security threats as well as can immensely contribute in safe and timely return of refugees back home. As discussed the criterion is one with multi-policy approach that is not limited to international aid but also regional cooperation with shared concern. Pakistan since three decades host’s Afghan refugees and ever since increase in violence in Pakistan lately, refugees are highly targeted and considered as a major threat to the security of the country, calling it a matter of national security (Are Afghan refugees in Pakistan a security threat?, 2016 ). The Afghan policy should be inclusive to all engaging parties in restoring the goal of bringing peace and security to the country and in return the government will show its support of rehabilitation of its refugees back home. This way it is more feasible to achieve the goal since the government of Afghanistan alone can not determined the security problem in the country it can use the refugee dilemma as an alternative to gathering international and regional support to gather the support it needs to eliminate the security criterion that impacts directly in people’s fleeing and returning back to the country. Since it’s a multi-policy goal the dimensional approach towards reaching the criterion is the most feasible option that will not only increase in efforts to bring security through capacity building of the security forces as well as decrease the flow of human capitals from fleeing outside country and help in their safe return in timely manner.
In conclusion, the Afghan refugees deportation from Europe based on Brussels agreement is not the most effective mechanism to deal with Afghan refugee issue in Europe and for their safe return back home. In order to have better accommodated refugees from Europe the Afghan government should take more practical steps towards integrating IDPs and refugees that are returning from foreign countries in the first place, likewise they should take care of the refugees that are at high risk compare to others who are not. For instance, the refugees returning from Pakistan are more at risk compare to refugees that are in Europe, before taking care of the refugees whose return is more certain compelling refugees in Europe to return home is a risk that the government is not ready to take. A shift in the criterion is needed that will permanently resolve the refugee issue by being opt to goal oriented policy of bringing peace and stability first. Likewise, the deal for developmental projects does not take priority over security and peace in the country. Therefore, the government should seek international assistance in bringing peace to the country in the first place, then it can potentially implement developmental projects and only then the refugees could return. And it should be focused both towards attracting international and regional support since refugee and security issue is a common problem shared by both the European States and regional countries especially Pakistan. Furthermore, the deportation of Afghan refugees will not decrease the incentive of the refugees not to seek asylum in a third place. So as long as this incentive is their in refugees, Brussels deal will have little outcome in the life of refugees and it will make their stay difficult in Europe and their return more risky because there is high chance they will try to get back to Europe or any other viable option.
Bibliography
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