Friday, May 18, 2007

Afghan Refugees Forcefully Returned

The massive human tragedy, created by decades of imperialist ambitions and patriarchal religious delusion is about to take a new, perhaps more depressing turn.

Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan are being forcibly returned to their war-torn, devastated homeland.

Almost 30 years after Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan, Pakistan is still home to more than two million registered refugees and Iran to more than 900,000. As many as one million more Afghans live in Iran as illegal immigrants.

...

The flare-ups heighten international concerns that both Iran and Pakistan have accelerated measures to purge their Afghan populations. With violence in Afghanistan at record levels and basic services already overwhelmed, their moves could be catastrophic for the region, analysts say.


We like to crow about all the great stuff we do for the people of Afghanistan. But the reality is that the Soviet-US struggle, the criminal warlords, the Taliban, and the renewed US mass-slaughter after 9-11 has produced a massive human catastrophe.

The SENLIS Report (linked to elsewhere on this blog and easily searchable) reveals the 5-years of failure on the part of Western-backed reconstruction. This disaster has failed the people of Afghanistan, and now close to 3 million more people are to be added to the mix.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. This is a huge story, thwap, with lots of ramifications. It's horrible for all those people, and it also means that the NATO forces in Afghanistan are being dealt another wild card. I'd love to know the full background of this decision.

thwap said...

You're right. This is a crime of monstrous proportions.