[asia-apec 1718] Influx of Refugees & their conditions in Pakistan

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Influx of Refugees and their conditions in Pakistan
7th IRAP Conference- South Africa January 2001
       by: Ayaz Latif Palijo (Pakistan)

Background

54 years after the 1947 Independence of the Indo-Pak Subcontinent, 30 years 
after the creation of Bangladesh and  12 years after the withdrawal of the 
last Soviet soldier from Afghanistan, Pakistan is still a country in which 
refugee-based politics, resettlement process and armed conflicts involving 
millions of refugees still continue. Dealing with issues like poverty, 
corruption, bad governance, gender discrimination and social injustice, 
South Asia today faces the struggle for survival by  millions of 
poverty-ridden destitutes, and tomorrow threatens the future of millions of 
illiterate adults. In Pakistan, which has one of the lowest literacy rates 
and indicators of gender development in the world, widespread poverty 
prevails because of most powerful industrial-feudal interests and 
illiteracy. Since early 90s of the last century more than 80 million  people 
in South Asia have become unemployed, millions of people have been reduced 
to absolute poverty and hundreds of thousands have been forced into crimes.
Now a days when internationally more and more emphasis is being laid on
civil and human rights worldwide, on creating the pre-requisite onditions 
for the return of refugees to their homes, on their proper resettlement and 
on helping them to overcome the trauma of forced exile. South Asia and 
Pakistan lag behind even many developing countries of the third world in 
terms of Human Rights awareness, refugee rights, gender balance, prisoner 
rights and individual security. At the beginning of the 21st century, we 
live in the worst governed region in the world where more than one-half of 
women and one-third of men live on or below the poverty line, where history 
remains distorted, intolerance is on the rise, where displacement, honour
killings, child marriage  and  bonded labor are upheld in the name of facing
poverty, traditions, development and religion,  where the weaker sections of
society e.g. women and refugees and  minorities  continue to struggle
against prejudice, discrimination and denial of human rights. Much of the
blame in the case of Pakistan for this complete destruction of our already
weak social fabric rests with the 11 years of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq's regime
(supported by West) during which children took refuge in abandoning books
and taking up the Kalashnikov & drugs.

According to the statics of 1995 of the  more than 20 million refugees of
the world, 6.4 million were living in Southeast Asia (mostly Iran and
Pakistan), North Africa, and the Middle East, 5.7 million in Africa south of
the Sahara, 4.4 million in Europe and North America, 1.2 million in Latin
America and the Caribbean and 1.9 million in the remaining countries of Asia
and Oceania. In terms of refugees and immigrants, Pakistan (population: 140
millions with a density of 170 persons per sq km increasing at a rate of 2.7
% a year) has been facing and accepting four main groups of refugees from
neighboring countries for the last 5 and half decades:

1. India (since 1947)
2. Bangladesh (since 1970)
3. Afghanistan (since 1979)
4. Burma, Iran and some African and South Asian countries.

Refugees, Resettled and Illegal Immigrants in Pakistan

The British ruled the Indian subcontinent for nearly 200 years (1756-1947).
After the great national revolt in 1857, the British allowed the formation
of political parties and The Indian National Congress, representing the
majority of Hindus, was created in 1885. The Muslim League was formed in
1906 to represent the Muslim minority. The division of the subcontinent
caused awful dislocation of populations, it resulted in the forced exchange
of 18 millions Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan and Muslims from India-the
greatest population transfer in history. The subcontinent was divided and
sub-divided on the basis of majority provinces. Four Muslim majority
provinces - Punjab, Bengal, Sindh and Frontier out of total eleven provinces
were separated and sub-divided to form a separate State, which was named
Pakistan and seven Hindu majority provinces remained with India. As per
original plan, no significant migration between the two states was
envisaged. Both the Hindu and Muslim communities were expected to continue
residing in the state where they resided on the partition day. But the
religious fanatics and fundamentalists of both the communities and the last
British Viceroy Lord Mount Batten saw to it that the partition was taken as
requiring that India be divided among Muslim and Hindu population of India,
so that all Indian Muslims should live in Pakistan and all Hindus should
live in India. This huge human migration transformed for the worse the
entire ethnic, linguistic, economic, social and political composition of
Sindh a province of Pakistan. It took away a sizable chunk of Sindhi Peoples
' historical national resources and reduced their percentage of the total of
the population of the province. In fact Sindh was independent when the
British conquered it in February 1842 and later designed it as a Province.
In all fairness, it ought to have been allowed to resume its previous status
as a sovereign state in August 1947, when the British Raj (Rule) came to an
end but on the contrary in the course of 50 years confiscatory black laws,
called the Evacuee Laws, were used as a weapon for usurping Sindhi property
worth billions of Rupees and the indigenous Sindhis of Karachi, Hyderabad,
Mirpurkhas and Sukkur were colonized by refugees and illegal immigrants from
UP, CP, Bihar (India), Punjab and Afghanistan. The demographic shift caused
an initial bitterness between the two countries that was further intensified
by accession to each country of a number of princely states. On August
14-15, 1947, the princely states of Hyderabad, Junagadh, and Kashmir whose
treaties with British government lapsed on partition day became technically
independent, but when the Muslim ruler of Junagadh, with its predominantly
Hindu population, acceded to Pakistan a month later, India annexed his
territory. Hyderabad's Muslim prince, ruling over a mostly Hindu population,
tried to postpone any decision indefinitely, but in September 1948 that
issue was also settled by Indian arms. The Hindu ruler of Kashmir, whose
subjects were 85 percent Muslim, decided to join India. Pakistan, however,
questioned his right to do so, and a war broke out between India and
Pakistan. Although the UN subsequently resolved that a plebiscite be held
under UN auspices to determine the future of Kashmir, India continued to
occupy about two-thirds of the state and refused to hold a plebiscite. This
deadlock, which still persists, has intensified suspicion and antagonism
between the two countries and has been resulting in migration of millions of
people during the last 55 years. In fact  no transfer of population was ever
suggested at any stage of the struggle for independence from British rule.
The Pakistan Resolution of 1940 itself, which is the founding document of
the struggle for Pakistan, did not envisage imposing population burdens upon
the new states and their constituent Provinces. It did not oblige any
Province to accept  a single person from any other place including India.
Much less does it envisage people having their historical homelands, turned
into petty minorities in these very homelands by wholesale population
transfers. Nothing could be clearer on this point than Mr. Jinnah's historic
inaugural speech to the first Constituent Assembly three days before the
coming into existence of Pakistan, in which he directed the people to forget
the bitter past and bury the communal hatchet so that the entire story of
Hindu-Muslim strife and communal hatred may become a thing of the past.

Until December 1971 Pakistan included the province of East Pakistan, in
1971, however, East Pakistan seceded from Pakistan and assumed the name
Bangladesh. India claimed that nearly 10 million Bengali refugees crossed
its borders, stories of atrocities by Pakistan and specially its Bihari
vigilantes upon Bengalis abounded. Afterwards thousands of Muslim rightists
/ fundamentalists (Biharis) demanded to go to former West Pakistan a place
thousands of miles away they had never seen before. Biharis have never set
foot on the soil of present Pakistan, but instead of continuing to live
where they have always lived after the establishment of Pakistan and where a
great number of them were born, they are migrating to Pakistan as "Stranded
Pakistanis" and have got settled in Karachi the capital of Sindh province
destroying its socio-economic fabric.

20 years after the 1979 Soviet support of the communist Govt, Afghanistan is
still a country in which armed conflict has been supported by the
neighboring countries and the western world. Throughout the following years
a bitter struggle over power between the various mujahideen (fundamentalist)
groups ensued and the country has in the process been devastated, producing
the world's largest ever single refugee case-load (6.2 million persons). In
1998, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees assisted about 107,000
refugees to return to Afghanistan, of whom 93,000 returned from Pakistan and
14,000 from Iran. While this is probably the largest ever repatriation of a
single group, more  than 2.6 million refugees still live in exile, giving
the Afghans also the  unfortunate distinction of remaining the largest
single refugee group in the world, for the 20th year in succession. Their
numbers in Pakistan peaked in 1990 at 3.27 million and today there are still
around 1.2 million in refugee settlements. This does not include refugees
living in  urban centers such as Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi. Initially
Several NGOs and HR organizations including UNHCR, Red Cross, CARE, US
Committee for Refugees, SNPO, Church World Service, Amnesty International,
CRS and others  started new schemes to identify refugee groups in urban
areas of Sindh and NWFP Pakistan but ultimately they realized that the
remaining refugees were not very keen to return home due to  destroyed
houses, lack of employment opportunities and poor irrigation systems.
Despite the fact that 84% of returnees reported were feeling safe, and had
not experienced problems either with landmines or  other personal security
issues and they were able to recover their land and/or houses without
difficulty, the majority was quite satisfied in staying in Pakistan where
they have been earning a lot from drugs and arms business.  These Afghan
mujahideen, molvis and talibans have been  destroying the already wounded
Sindh, Balochistan and Seraiki belt, economically and socially. The ban on
modern English education, NGO activities and progressive literature,
repression of women, many of whom live like prisoners in their own homes, is
only a harsh symptom of a larger disease. These refugees have decreed that
women could no longer work and study and must be veiled in the
all-enveloping chadar, or shuttlecock burqa, they can not marry the groom of
their choice they can not refuse to marry elderly sick married men. They
have been forced to remain in their homes and even not allowed to visit
hospitals and rural health centers and to die of suffocation. Small boys as
well as girls are being denied education because many teachers were women
who have not been replaced, and their male counterparts who remained in the
schools are often not paid and therefore do not show up. The mullas and
madarsa teachers have also been found involved in sodomy on small kids. In
remote villages and surrounding areas of Madarsas in Pakistan the Afghan
refugee leaders  have not only enforced strict rules on what women must
wear, but now they have banned men from wearing western clothes, un-bearded
villagers or forced to leave the area. These Afghan refugees and Talibans
justify, encourage and facilitate the trafficking of AK47 and other weapons
and use of local made drugs including NASWAR, OPIUM, HEROIN and BHANG. Their
leaders and Mullas import these drugs from Afghanistan which produced 4,600
tons of opium last year, more than doubling its 1998 output and accounting
for 75 per cent of the total world opium production for the 1998-1999
season, according to ODCCP. The total estimated production of illicit opium
for 1999 was about 6,000 metric tons, roughly 60 per cent more than the
3,750 metric tons recorded in 1998.

  The economy of Pakistan grew by 5 % annually during the period from 1965
to 1980 and by 6 percent during the 1980s and early 1990s. Nevertheless, in
the early 1990s, the majority of the Country's citizens remained poor and
heavily dependent on the agricultural sector for employment. This was
largely a result of the country's high rate of population increase, influx
of Afghans & Biharis and political factors, such as the war of subjugating
East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971, involvement in Afghan crisis and a
coup d'état in 1977 which slowed economic growth and modernization.

  As for as the displacement is concerned every year government projects,
natural catastrophe and man-made disasters destroy and contaminate several
villages and towns of Pakistan. Cyclones in Thatta and Badin districts,
drought of Thar, Kacho, Kohistan, Urenji and Khuzdar and mega projects like
Tarbella and Kalabagh Dam have threatened millions of indigenous people and
the poor villagers are forced to flee every year. These environmental
refugees uprooted from their native land will have to be away from their
ancestral homes for seasons, years or even for lifetimes.

Indigenous Opinion, Demographic Aggression & Meager Resources

If you would ever find an opportunity to discuss the refugee and illegal
immigrants questions with Sindhi, Baloch and Seraiki democrats, nationalists
and common literate people of Pakistan you would hear following rational and
logical arguments:

1. Grant of Pakistani citizenship to millions of Afghan, Indian and Bihari
refugees and illegal immigrants is not only a matter of concern to the
government of the day but is a question of life and death for Sindhis and
Balochs.

2. The province of Sindh has just so much quality and quantity of resources
which are less than sufficient for its own people who have been living here
and have been protecting, developing and preserving these meager resources
with their sweat and blood for over a score of centuries.

3. The mass migration of Indian Muslims after the establishment of Pakistan
to Sindh has already taken away a sizable portion of Sindhi Peoples'
national resources, reduced their percentage of the total of the population
and consequently their effectiveness as the owners of their homeland.

4. The Pakistan resolution which is the Political foundation stone of the
struggle for Pakistan did not envisage putting of enormous Population
burdens on and reduction of the economic Political and demographic status of
the People who had volunteered to become parts of Pakistan.

5. No people in the world including Afghans and Biharis have any vested or
moral right to go on changing their places of residence like shirts every
other day at their sweat will, to go on abusing the hospitality of one
people and thrusting themselves upon another when ever they like.

6. The Afghans had their chance to return back after the withdrawal of the
Soviet troops and Biharis have had their choice after leaving Bihar, to live
in their new Bengali home in fraternity with their peaceful Bengali brothers
but they failed to live or rather chose not to live with their Muslim
brothers in peace and chose to help turndown their chosen homeland into fire
and blood.

7. Every one knows that a number of Indian Muslims, Biharis and Afghans were
supporters of General Yahya Khan's and General Zia's disastrous actions
against their own people.  They have already reached Pakistan illegally and
are living and working here and are demanding full civil rights and
facilities as Pakistani citizens and due to their presence Pakistan was
beset by domestic unrest in the mid-1990s. Violence between rival political,
religious, and ethnic groups erupted frequently within Sindh Province,
particularly in Karachi. More than 650 people were killed in 1994 and
thousands in 1995-1999 including political leaders, lawyers, human rights
activists and two U.S. diplomats, the first violent incident directed at
Westerners.

8. The mass migrations of People has been one of the forms of uprooting
historical owners of different territories and it has caused uprooting of
natives from their own historical homelands by more powerful neighbors.
History shows that all the immigrants who have legally or illegally come to
Pakistan, have always converged on Sindh causing torment and destruction to
the People of Sindh in the from of over-strain on their already exhausted
meager resources

Refugees,  Jails and Violence

  As for as the question of Bengali, Iranian, Burmese and other refugees and
illegal immigrants are concerned they are living a terrible life in
Pakistan. The refugee, women and children related laws of Pakistan have a
number of contradictions between customary practices, old conventions,
Muslim jurisprudence, statutory law and the desires of Pakistani human
rights organizations. Illegal immigrants and refugees awaiting criminal
trial in Pakistani prisons outnumber those convicted of a crime by a ratio
of 4-1 and more than 1500 Afghanis, Biharis, Bengalis and Burmese are
imprisoned in  the country's jails. Of these prisoners who have been
incarcerated in different jails almost 78 % are awaiting trial, a process
that can take months or even years due to the delayed submission of police
investigation reports and the frequent adjournment of hearings. These
helpless prisoners including more than 50 children are maltreated and
manhandled in jails where they sleep without mattresses on bare cement
floors, or on raised cement blocks that serve as beds and are provided with
improper and sub standard food, are not allowed to meet their relatives
without KHARCHI (bribe) and complain of conditions unfit for animals. In
addition, more than one-third of the illegal immigrants do not have a lawyer
to defend them and hence they languish for months in jails and police
lockups. Police and prison officials frequently use the threat of abuse to
extort money from these prisoners. The extent of this warped system is even
more evident when the victim is a non-Muslim. The violence against refugee
and illegal immigrant women has escalated to an intolerable level and the
most worrying and disturbing factor in these crimes is the absolute impunity
with which they are committed. The increasing level of gender-based violence
is exacerbated by the indifferent attitudes of government institutions like
the police, legal system and legislature which are deeply biased against
women. In August 1999 the Pakistani Senate voted to block debate over a
draft resolution condemning incidents of violence against women and only
four members of the Senate voted in favor of discussing the draft. There are
very few women's shelters for rape victims and for many women, prostitution
and suicide appears to be the only means of escape. Child abuse is one of
the most unacknowledged of crimes and the majority of the children abused
are 10 years of age or less.

Conclusions

    The refugee problem has several causes. For centuries refugee movements
were a result of religious and racial intolerance and entire groups were
exiled or deported by religious authorities in an effort to enforce
conformity. Politically motivated refugee movements, frequent in modern
times, have occurred intermittently since the development of governments
powerful enough to oppress nonconformist minorities. People may be forcibly
driven out of their country by an unfriendly government, religious
fanaticism or  law and order situation. Economic reasons have caused people
to lose their homes and ethno-lingual terrorism has also been a frequent
excuse for driving people from their homelands.  While refugees normally
flee from war, tyranny, or political persecution, the voluntary migrants,
whether internal or external leave their homelands to seek better employment
elsewhere. The growth in the number of economic migrants have created a
shift in patterns of movement around the world and the persistence of the
refugee problem has made it increasingly difficult to find places for all
who have been left homeless. Often they arrive in countries like Pakistan,
India and Iran that are too poor to take care of them or that are already
overcrowded. The unceasing inflow of refugees has also caused economic
strains and after a global economic downturn, citizens in the host nations
resent the newcomers' competition for their jobs. The time has come when
South Asian countries would also be confronted with the asylum and refuge
question like Switzerland, Norway, France, West Germany, Singapore, Hong
Kong and other countries. The large-scale movement of refugees in Asia,
Africa and Latin America is bound to continue and even to intensify as the
world's population continues to increase, mostly in the countries least able
to provide for their inhabitants. All of us know that the land, water and
sub soil resources of the earth are not inexhaustible or ownerless. These
are there simply because they have been possessed, protected and developed
by individuals, communities, peoples and nations. Sizable number of people
cannot go from one territory to another and take a share of its resources
without reducing the share of those who are there since centuries with no
where else to go and no other resource to share. Our South Asian helpless
and downtrodden villagers do not have jobs, food, clean water, electricity,
roads, halfway decent homes, effective schools and hospitals. They have been
dominated and oppressed by feudal system, the ruling establishment,
aggressive refugees and  fundamentalism who just want to rule something,
dominate someone. Illiterate villagers, refugees, women and children are
easily available and most vulnerable targets.

  In this catastrophic situation concern for civil, human and legal rights
of refugees cannot be separated from that for the economic, social &
cultural rights of the people of the host countries and the time has come
when recognition and respect for and promotion of indigenous people's civil
& political liberties and securities should be given prime attention and
importance. This consciousness-raising exercise is not generally undertaking
by NGOs and Human Rights groups. As for the governments in countries like
Pakistan are concerned their contribution to upholding human rights is
mainly in the form of rhetoric, proclamations & promises. On the one hand
such governments believe that the only option available to them is to
improve and strengthen law and order and set up commissions for refugees and
on the other hand the Indian, Pakistani, Afghan and Iranian governments are
spending billions on jingoism and defence budgets.  The human rights and
advocacy organizations of Pakistan have been working in partnership with
international networks, coalitions and support organizations to help reduce
human displacement and resettlement but they will have to do more of this by
initiating political debate, influencing peace and encouraging dialogue
between bordering countries and between the natives and the refugees. The
combination of repressive and regressive religious and state policies is a
formidable barrier, which these organizations are seeking to overcome with
the help of sympathetic political parties and media. The sane and
enlightened elements of the society are aware that many religious movements
were progressive in their initial phase, but after the passage of time they
were turned into the handmaiden of those very opposite forces against whom
these movement had come into action. Instead of becoming the weapon of the
deprived and oppressed they became the weapon of their adversaries. So is
the case with the national question. Totalitarian governments and dictators
like Gen. Zia used the fanaticism and made the terms national and the ethnic
justice, a term of abuse for the people. Millions of our South Asian
brothers and sisters have spent their lives in refugee camps, in distant
lands and isolated prohibited areas and thousands of our comrades have spent
several precious years of their lives in jails, bearing the pain and
surviving brutalities and tortures with sheer will-power. It is difficult to
determine which is the higher price to pay under an autocratic dictatorship,
the price of participating in peoples movement in one's own country or that
of going into exile. In truth, it is a difficult distinction to make.

The time has come when there should be forged a broad unity in the common
struggle of the peoples of this region, comprising Bangladesh, Pakistan,
India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Maldives. Most of us need peace to work, to
study, to live, to marry, to sing, to dance, to live like human beings with
our share of pains and pleasures. And for that we will have to forge a peace
movement in the shape of greater coordination in the working of all radical
parties and NGOs. This can be done if they join hands to draw up an agreed
programme and work with special integral focus on refugees, native
populations, indigenous interests and empowerment of downtrodden masses
instead of charity, so-called routine census studies and impact assessments.
Empowerment alone can facilitate emancipation and it can be achieved if
people are made aware of their rights and of the importance of freedom from
imposed backward traditions. Additionally, explicit criminalization of all
forms of domestic and familial violence in refugee and illegal immigrant
communities against women is the need of the time. There is a need for
establishment of clear guidelines for police intervention and reenactment in
the case of Pakistan of the repealed provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code
1860, with an amendment to impose a severe punishment for forced and bonded
labour, child abuse and violence against women.   It is necessary to speed
the pace of development and relations between the various countries. What is
important is to emerge out of poverty, to stop wasting our resources in the
arms race. We are still in a sense an economic colony, we are still in a
sense second rate citizens of the world. The recent grassroots developments
and human rights initiatives have shown that there is a new global actor on
the stage. This international grassroots movement can play a significant
role in bringing about significant improvements in the lives of refugees and
illegal immigrants in South Asia. We know that progress is always slow in an
area which has been kept silent for ages. It will take hard work and
relentless struggle to change the status quo. Pushing public opinion on
these issues is a most important achievement and our committed people have
been working for the desired changes in the status quo.  We would have
welcomed if there had been regional discussions and seminars on the refugee
problems of South Asia where we could bring  together refugee women, refugee
rights groups, refugee decision-makers, academics, government
representatives, UNHCR and others interested in ensuring that the refugees
and the displaced receive help, guidance and protection. We should have
people willing to develop the refugee law clinics to undertake the actual
interviewing, counseling, country of origin research, and ultimately the
representation of the refugees and asylum seeker, all in an effort to assist
the governments and UN bodies in providing help, guidance and protection.
The question of the day is not whether gross abuses against refugees and
illegal immigrants are rampant in South Asian society but that how many of
you have spared few moments to support our Human Rights and Advocacy groups
and radical activists, and above all how many of us, who are from the same
historical and cultural background, have changed our defensive and
apologetic attitude and have acted against our tradition our system by
refusing to subject our companions to the barbaric customs of jingoism,
rural traditions, fundamentalism and governmental terrorism.   I can assure
you that the majority of the laboring masses of Sindh and Pakistan are ready
to clasp the hand of any one who is willing to march forward with them on
the path of a peaceful and democratic struggle for a better and peaceful
life for all of us.

Ayaz Latif Palijo Advocate (SRC Pakistan)
Email: psrc at hyd.paknet.com.pk, fsr5st at yahoo.com, fsr5st at usa.net
References
1. Human Development in South Asia 1997 by Mahbub ul Haq-Oxford.
2. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan- Annual Report 1999.
3. People's Summit on APEC, Proceedings.
4. Document & Reports of UNHCR, Red Cross & other Organizations.
5. Reports of 56th Session of UN Commission on Human Rights.
6. Kot Lakhpat Jo Qaidi (Jail Diary) by RB Palijo
7. Amnesty International's reports.
8. Bakh Jee Sakh  Sindhi Book of Columns and Articles.
9. Qaidyani Jee Dairy (Biography of a women prisoner) by Akhtar Baloch.
10. Email discussions on Sindhorg, HelpAsia and LawJuC lists.
11. Issues of Monthly Subuh Theendo & Daily Kawish, Ibrat, Sach & Jago


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