Rural communities fight for Afghan refugees

January 21, 2004
Issue 

Anita Lumbus

Two Afghan proverbs: "A broken hand can work but a broken heart can't" and "What you do to your enemies today, you will do to your friends tomorrow".

Ali is 11 years old and lives in the Western Australian coastal town of Albany. He arrived in Australia with his family from Afghanistan three years ago and was granted sanctuary as a refugee. He is in year six at school, and speaks English fluently, though he never had the opportunity for an education or to learn another language in his country.

His favourite pastimes are typical of most eleven-year-olds — playing cricket and playstation with his friends and going to the beach. When asked about how different life is in Australia, Ali said that leaving Afghanistan was like being freed from prison. He spoke of some of the violence he witnessed before he left. "I remember that it was winter and the Taliban came", he said. "I was at the window and I was watching. I saw a Taliban man come straight up to my Dad's friend and hit him with the back of a gun. Then my Dad's sister came and got me and told me not to look."

Ali and his family are Hazaras, a severely oppressed minority group in Afghanistan. Comprising 19% of the Afghan population, the Hazaras are of Turko-Mongol ancestry and live predominantly in the high mountains of Central Afghanistan. Their faith is Shiite Muslim, whereas the majority of the Afghan people belong to the Sunni sect. Because of their ethnicity and religion, they are the most persecuted group inside Afghanistan.

Ali's father was forced to leave his family a year before the rest of the family could escape. They had no idea if their father was alive. Ali traveled with his mother and younger sister across six countries to Indonesia then boarded a crowded boat to Australia.

They were intercepted by the Australian navy and imprisoned in a detention centre for six months. After they were granted asylum, they discovered their father was living in the Western Australian town of Albany, working in an abattoir as a meat worker. It was a joyous reunion, although Ali said he had trouble recognising his father at first.

Ali spoke of what he loved about Australia, in particular school and playing sport. "I like school because I get to learn lots of subjects, like art," he said. "I'm really good at art. My best sport is cricket, I learnt it in Australia."

There are about 60 Hazara refugees living in Albany, out of a total population of 25,000 people. Most of them are young men and work at Fletcher Abattoir, a highly productive business and one of the major suppliers of halal meat in Australia. The Hazaras have been a part of the community for more than four years and have come to know many of the other locals through their work, social activities and English lessons. Many of the native English speakers in Albany are volunteer home tutors to the Afghans as part of a Western Australian government-funded literacy program.

Despite the contributions the Hazara refugees have made to the community, and the fact that many have lived in Australia for up to four years, it is likely that they will now be deported to Afghanistan.

Although recognised as genuine refugees, they were only offered temporary protection visas because they arrived in Australia without authorisation. These visas have expired and their claims for permanent residence rejected. As they appeal against the decisions made by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) with interviews at the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT), the federal government is claiming that it is safe for them to return to Afghanistan.

The government's position has been condemned by both international human rights organisations and the Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA), which has called the repatriation program "inhumane". The UNHCR has suspended its program helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan return to Afghanistan, after a young aid worker was murdered in November by suspected Taliban supporters.

Of the 2.3 million people that have returned to Afghanistan since March 2002, up to 40% have gravitated to Kabul, afraid to go to their home villages which are still under the control of warlords with private armies. Many live in squalor, struggling to survive, as Kabul does not offer adequate infrastructure for such an influx of people.

In the town of Albany, the community has responded with overwhelming support for the Hazaras to continue living in Australia. In October, the Albany Council voted to assist the Hazaras in their appeals and wrote to Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone asking that they be granted permanent refugee status. The assistant general manager of Fletcher Abattoir has also publicly declared them to be consistent, valued workers and is assisting them in their cases. Locals generally have become active in the campaign to keep them in their town.

Sarah Lembo teaches English at Albany TAFE and is a member of Albany Community for Afghan Refugees (ACFAR). ACFAR was initially formed by around 20 teachers in direct response to the letters the refugees began to receive from DIMIA. It has since grown, to include a broad section of the community and its targeted activities aim to raise awareness about the danger the Hazaras will face if they return home, along with the economic and social benefits they bring to the community. Sarah Lembo said that she has become close friends with some of the refugees and has devoted much of her time to helping them.

"They're lovely people", she said of her students. "They are not a group of people that won't mix. They try to integrate through sports, they come to TAFE, and they try to learn the language really hard. They are often very tired because they work in the abattoir from about six am till half past three and it's a very physical job, repetitive and quite hard. When they come to English lessons they are tired but they still try, they still come."

Lembo explained that the refugees were afraid to return to Afghanistan yet because of their past experiences are afraid to speak up in their appeals to the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT).

"They've got lots of good reasons why they can't go back. Some of them have personal reasons they won't even talk about because they are so terrified. Even though we took them to their interviews and we told them 'back yourself up on personal things', 'say that you're scared, that if you go home this will happen to you because of so and so'. But they won't."

"The question they always ask you is 'will anyone in Afghanistan hear about what I said in the interview?' and no matter how many times you say 'no, it's private', they won't believe you because they're so scared. They've seen their own fathers, brothers, sisters killed for stupid reasons."

She also said that the Albany Community for Afghan Refugees was undertaking a range of campaign tactics, from petitions to public meetings and a community festival. "There's Room at the Inn", held in December 2003 as a national day of action and solidarity with Afghan TPV holders around Australia, was initiated by the Albany group.

"We as a group are doing everything we can. I mean we've written letters, we've expressed our point of view with all the reasons to back it up", said Lembo. "In my personal view, the loss is that we are losing friends and people we know. From the other point of view it is the financial loss."

Nazary is in his late twenties and has lived in Albany for four years. He was one of the first Afghan men to begin work at the abattoir and likes living in Australia, its culture and people, though he misses his family. He was forced to leave his wife and five children in Afghanistan and has not been able to contact them since. He does not know if they are still alive. He spoke of the hardships of being an Hazara in Afghanistan.

"When we were in Afghanistan we lived in the mountains. Not like humans, but like sheep", he said. "Some Hazara people in Afghanistan live in one room they make from rock. Inside the room they have a sheep, or maybe a donkey. Inside the one room all the family sleeps, and the donkey and sheep, all together. They cook inside there as well."

Nazary also talked about the difficulty in applying for the government's humanitarian refugee program outside of Australia and his desperate need for refuge in a peaceful country.

"Many times [former immigration minister] Philip Ruddock has said you must come from the door not the window. I ask Mr Philip Ruddock, can you show me which people from the Hazaras do you bring from the door? We don't have any embassy in Afghanistan. We don't understand where the embassy is."

"When the smugglers brought me to Australia we did not want to come to Australia especially. We came out of Afghanistan to go to any country, just for life", Nazary said.

Nazary and Ali both expressed their deep sadness and frustration over their situation. Ali said that he would particularly miss his friends if he were forced to leave Australia.

"I kind of feel sad because I'd leave my friends in Australia. They couldn't visit me again. They come and say to me why are you going? You're really good in Australia. You're really good at sports; we'll miss you because you're a good bowler. If you go we'll lose our team."

There are more than 3500 Afghans around Australia on temporary protection visas, inevitably facing a similar plight to the Albany Hazaras. Many are a part of many country towns, employed in physically demanding industries in constant need of workers. As the government continues to push its hard-line immigration policy, with no compassion towards asylum seekers who were unfortunate enough to arrive in Australia without a visa, thousands of people that have facilitated our economic growth and enriched our culture will be sent back to a politically unstable, dangerous country. Their lives will be put at risk by the federal government, intent on maintaining a policy based on myths and lies circulated within society about refugees and asylum seekers.

From Green Left Weekly, January 21, 2004.
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