Sarah Stephen
Many Afghan asylum seekers who are enduring their third or fourth year in immigration detention have remained there because of disputes over their identity — most commonly, the allegation that they are from Pakistan. In the past few weeks, they have been subjected to a further round of language tests and visits from Afghan and Pakistani government officials to verify their identity. Every test has confirmed that they are Afghan.
Then, as if to squash any remaining hopes they may have of being granted refugee status, immigration minister Amanda Vanstone announced on May 17 that the Australian government had signed an agreement with the Afghan government to enable the forcible return of Afghans who remained in detention.
Nineteen Afghan asylum seekers will be forcibly deported from Baxter and Nauru if they do not accept "voluntary return". A further 37 Afghans are still having their nationality examined, and may be subject to the same fate.
The immigration department (DIMIA) is luring them to go voluntarily with the promise of $2000 each or $10,000 per family, plus the cost of airfares and short-term accommodation in Afghanistan. This package will be offered to eligible Afghan asylum seekers over the next fortnight, and they have 45 days to respond.
Pamela Curr from Melbourne's Asylum Seeker Resource Centre noted on May 18: "Many of these people have had four and five years stolen from them by these DIMIA identity games. They are now depressed, physically and mentally run down and not in a fit state to survive in an increasingly violent and turbulent Afghanistan where they will be targeted for coming back from the West."
"The Afghans have joined the East Timorese as refugees targeted for deportation", said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for Sydney's Refugee Action Coalition. "The idea that Afghanistan is safe is ridiculous. Only on May 7, three people were killed in a bombing in Kabul. In other areas the security situation has worsened. In some areas Taliban forces mount daily attacks. Hazaras and others continue to be persecuted by warlords supposedly in alliance with the Afghan government."
On May 17, a refugee advocate in Australia received an email from an Afghan who had returned that stated: "I could not go to my own homeland but I went to some other districts; there were many Pashtoons ruling. Then I went to the state of Oruzgan; there were a lot of Taliban. Every day I have been caught by them. They keep asking me different kind of questions, like 'Why are you here? Whom do you work for? Where are you from?' The day when I was there, Americans had killed 15 locals in different places... I came back to Pakistan. I have no future."
From Green Left Weekly, May 25, 2005.
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