BY TAMARA PEARSON & SARAH STEPHEN
Zaher and Riz are "illegal" Afghani refugees who were held in an immigration detention centre and eventually granted refugee status. They are now living in Sydney on three-year temporary protection visas. Green Left Weekly spoke to them about why they fled Afghanistan.
Zaher left Afghanistan on September 26, 1999 and Riz left in early March, 1999. Both arrived together in Australia in November that year.
"It's impossible for anyone to live in Afghanistan", Zaher told Green Left Weekly. "There are no human rights, and ... Islamic rule has changed very little since its beginnings. People here wouldn't be able to imagine the facilities and technology there, and as you are probably aware from the media, war is ongoing."
Afghanistan is a desperately poor and underdeveloped country. Pre-capitalist relations dominated until the 1970s, with power held by patriarchal tribal chiefs and theocratic landlords. In April 1978, a revolt in the armed forces led to power being seized by the urban-based, leftist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The PDPA was committed to modernising Afghanistan. Its program included radical land reform, a massive expansion of education and the abolition of the chattel status of women.
The PDPA's Stalinist methods and endemic internal factionalism, however, enabled the landlords, with CIA support, to mount a counter-revolutionary guerilla war under the guise of defending Islam against the "Communist" regime in Kabul. Thus the Mujahideen was born.
In December 1979, the USSR launched a direct military intervention to back the PDPA government in its war against the Mujahideen.
The Soviet Union withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in 1989. However, the US and its ally Pakistan continued to back the Mujahideen's war against the PDPA government.
The United States used its favourite tactic for financing covert operations — trading arms for drugs, which turned Afghanistan into the world's second biggest opiate exporter, producing billions of opium, which the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) distributes. The ISI worked closely with the CIA during the war against the PDPA. Together they channelled over US$3 billion in support and weapons to Mujahideen factions.
Following the disintegration of the USSR in late 1991 and the withdrawal by Moscow of military assistance to the PDPA (which had renamed itself the Watan, or Homeland, party), the Mujahideen overran Kabul in April 1992. The civil war continued, this time between rival right-wing groups.
Taliban
The Pakistan-created Taliban emerged as a new faction in 1994. With ISI assistance, Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of a dissident Mujahideen faction, recruited illiterate Afghan youth from refugee camps in Pakistan and sent them to religious schools funded by religious political parties. Taliban means "theology students".
The ISI provided weapons, training and troops, and by November 1994, the Taliban had control of the major southern Afghan city of Kandahar. In 1996, the Taliban secured control of all but a small region in the north of Afghanistan.
Zaher explained: "Islamic militants have power in Afghanistan. When they came to power it seemed like they'd destroy the country, but they did more than what we thought.
"In 1993 Islamic rule became official. Women have no rights and neither do minorities. Political activity isn't allowed and media is banned. Now the only thing you can see is murdering and fighting, and nothing else. The militants in power are supported by other countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the US and France."
The Taliban rule through public hangings, mutilations and floggings. They have banned popular music and television, forced people at gunpoint to attend mosques and made beards compulsory for men.
The restrictions on women are the most draconian in the world: all participation in education or work outside the home is outlawed, as is appearing in public unaccompanied by a male relative, or not being dressed in a burqa (which is like a tent, covering a woman from head to toe, including the face). No exemption to these laws is made for women who are the sole economic providers for their children.
Zaher described his experience under the Taliban regime: "Islamic militants threatened my life several times. In Afghanistan if you don't grow a beard or moustache or go to the mosque five times per week they imprison you. I don't follow Islamic rules. I don't believe in God.
"The Taliban were going to arrest and imprison me. We had a magazine which we tried to print at least once a month from European countries. I distributed it to the people in the village and those against the Islamic rulers' ideals. It aimed to make people aware of women's rights, of the rights people enjoy in other countries and what [the Islamic rulers are] doing to these rights."
Explaining additional reasons for leaving Afghanistan, Zaher said: "Over the last four years there has been almost no rain and little food. There isn't much industry in Afghanistan and most people depend on agriculture. I believe that if any person can escape (except the Islamic militants) they would."
Not allowed to go to school
Riz told a similar story: "I was not personally involved in politics, but my family isn't Islamic either. My brothers were involved in armed struggle against Islamic militancy with the Marxist group, Shula-e-jaweed. I am the youngest of my brothers, and because of their beliefs and actions I hold similar beliefs."
"I was not allowed to go to school", Riz told GLW, "for the mosque is where Islamic education is given, and it is believed that if you go to a school you might not hold Islamic beliefs. In early 1998 they asked us to join to fight for Islamic militant groups. It was hard for me to go and fight in the front line for them because I'm not a fighter."
The number of people fleeing Afghanistan has risen steeply in the last four years, making them now the second largest group of refugees in the world. The governments of the five countries bordering Afghanistan have become increasingly hostile to the presence of these refugees. Pakistan and Iran currently host the bulk of the four million Afghani refugees. Many are being deported. The introduction of a new law in Iran restricting the employment of foreign workers has thrown thousands of Afghanis out of work.
Many Afghani refugees are making the journey to Europe, hoping to find some safety and security. A small number have made their way to Australia. Last year, Afghanis applied for asylum in at least 68 countries.
Riz's father arranged his journey to Indonesia. Zaher escaped to Pakistan, where he contacted one of many smugglers who helped him get to Indonesia, and arranged a boat from there. Riz joined Zaher on the boat, which Zaher describes as "a small fishing boat which stank and still had fish on it". They then endured a six-day trip to Australia.
The journey was a terrible experience, Zaher recounted. "Some people were ill and there was no food, and at the end came months of detention."
Riz explained why there was no way for him to legally come to Australia: "In Afghanistan there is no Australian embassy... We have to go to India to officially apply [for a visa], but even to get there is still illegal."
If he went back to Afghanistan, Zaher said, "according to the Islamic rules they will punish me. If someone says something against Islam or stops following it, he has to be killed... Now I am worried about my family. I don't know what happened to them since I left Afghanistan. They have similar ideals to me."
People fleeing Afghanistan, along with those fleeing Iraq, make up the vast bulk of people arriving on boats seeking asylum in Australia. They flee a combination of political repression, religious fundamentalism and a life-threatening lack of health care, food and medicines.
Along with the US, past Australian governments have enthusiastically backed the anti-communist movement in Afghanistan which later became the fundamentalist Taliban. Past Australian governments have also given unfaltering support to the crippling decade-long imposition of sanctions on Iraq, which has disproportionately affected ordinary Iraqi people while helping to strengthen the grip of Saddam Hussein's repressive government.
The Australian government must be challenged to accept the consequences of the continued rule of the brutal Taliban regime, and the ongoing effect of Western economic sanctions on Iraq. This includes opening Australia's borders to Afghani and Iraqi refugees.