I gave you the reason, it was the afghan war against the soviets, we were a buffer between you and the soviets, you let us in to use us against the russians. Tell me how did we ruin your economy? no rants please, talk about facts.
Only pashtoons of afghanistan want to break your country, and they are the only ones who are loved by pakistanis-be it gov or public.
No sorry i cant do the maths!! You tell me the details and how we made your economy suffered.
We barely were the owner of our own destination, the superpowers and regional powers were/are playing with our fate, we were never given the chance of our own country. And please kindly remove the names of the kings of Khorasan such as Mahmoud and Ahmad Shah from your misiles if we are that bad.
We never had drug problem in our country before war, thanks to the imposed war on us, we got all the problems now.
And you called us bastard on top of other stupid things.......
How?
That is the only thing i agree with you, yes, we need to go back.
I will counter your post latter but first this:
Pakistan and the Afghan Refugees
Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema
Governor of Balochistan Justice (retd) Amirul Mengal's recent assertion that Pakistan is not really in a position to bear the burden of more Afghan refugees seems logical. Reminding the UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mr.Kenzo Oshima Mr. Mengal highlighted the fact that Pakistan has been playing host to more than two million Afghan refugees for the last 20 years. Similarly the refusal of NWFP's Governor to accept any more Afghan refugees are indeed appears to be convincing and well founded. Those who have already entered or are still pouring into Pakistan because of the porous nature of Pak-Afghan border, enormous sympathies among the Pakistanis on this side of the Durand Line, humanitarian considerations, and guarded reluctance to enforce strict security system at the borders have enormously increased the existing burden.
The initial influx of the Afghan refugees started almost immediately after Sardar Daud's coup in 1973 but the large-scale migration began to take place after the Saur revolution in April 1978. The subsequent events like the introduction of Hafizullah Amin's hurriedly prepared reforms and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 accelerated the flow of refugees at an alarming pace.
Approximately 20,00 to 100,000 Afghan refugees walked into Pakistan almost every month soon to touch the four million mark. By any yardstick this number of refugees was too large for Pakistan to provide for even the basic needs and requirements.
Just as the numbers of the Afghan refugees were overwhelming, the nature and extent of problems emanating from refugee concentration in bordering provinces of Pakistan were equally frightening. Although mere feeding and housing of three to four million Afghan people confronted Pakistan with complex difficulties of alarming magnitude, the government and the people of Pakistan especially those of NWPF and Balochistan were able to cope with the problems rather admirably.
While many outsiders including UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF, WHO, FAO along with many independent relief agencies and humanitarian groups helped Pakistani authorities in their massive relief operation,
the major burden in terms of total expenditure incurred was borne by the Pakistanis. Generally it is stated that roughly around fifty percent of the expenditure incurred was cuffed up by the Pakistani sources. In addition to financial burden, Pakistan was lumbered with many complex problems that were less obvious but extremely disturbing. The refugees not only introduced ethno-demographic imbalances within certain areas of Pakistan but also substantively contributed to complex social, economic, political and security problems.
Until the advent of the 80s organized terrorism was virtually absent in Pakistan.
But with the influx of refugees, Pakistan began to experience acts of terrorism in varied forms. The province of NWFP was particularly at the receiving end. The Kabul regime had managed to penetrate into the great reservoirs of resistance; namely the refugee camps. In fact it was commonly believed in Pakistan at the time that many saboteurs had come into Pakistan in the guise of refugees who indulged in many acts of terrorism. In addition the internal feuds between various resistance groups and factions also manifested in different forms of irresponsible acts of terrorism.
Acts of terrorism not only continued even after the signing of the Geneva Accords of 1988 and subsequent establishment of the Mujahideen's own government but increased enormously. Part of the contributions came from Indian Agency RAW's concerted nefarious activities following the intensification of Kashmiris' struggle for self-determination. Soon the agreed governing formulas degenerated into discords and varied groups of Mujahideen started an unending struggle for power and Afghanistan plunged into a fierce civil war. It has not yet been able to extricate itself from the clutches of civil war. Apart from making period peace efforts and sending food and other necessary food supplies, Pakistan refrained rather scrupulously from getting deeply entangled in the ongoing civil war. Yet Pakistan continued to experience acts of terrorism.
Apart from acts of terrorism, the presence of large number of Afghan refugees caused many political problems. Ordinarily an external crisis tends to have unifying effect internally but the impact of Afghan refugees largely divided the Pakistanis. Besides the influx of refugees caused ethnic imbalance in some areas of Pakistan resulting into periodic violent clashes. In addition, an intense debate raged for quite sometimes over the question whether or not the refugees would go back to Afghanistan. Despite the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan not many refugees opted to go back. Admittedly the ongoing civil war deterred then from returning to their homeland, but one has to be fair to the Pakistanis and not expect them to absorb such a large number of Afghans into Pakistani society.
Because of the Afghan refugees unwillingness to return to their homeland Pakistan had to experience innumerable economic and social problems, some of which gave birth to security problems. Apart from incurring cost in monetary terms, the provision of fodder for animals (cattle, sheep, goat and camel etc.) population of the Afghan refugees, deforestation, increase in rent that pushed it beyond the capacities of the locals, taking shares in both transport and construction businesses and increasing competition for the locals, increasing unemployment, injecting corruption practices for securing the much desired Pakistani identity cards, introducing Kalashnikov culture, intensification of sectarianism, poppy cultivation and drug trafficking along with massive increase in crime rates were and in many ways still are just some of the problems that were the product of hosting such a large number of Afghan refugees.
With the ongoing civil war, chronic draught, shattered economy, and the approaching winter thousands of Afghans were already trekking their way out of Afghanistan into the neighbouring countries. For obvious reasons Pakistan always attracted disproportionately much higher numbers. While the peace-patches have not been long and frequent, the renewed fighting between the Taliban regime and Northern Alliance has also been causing the flight of the refugees. In addition, the threat of impending American strike has further exasperated the situation.
Following the 11th September suicide attacks on Trade Towers in New York and Pentagon in Washington, all aid shipments to Afghanistan were stopped and the foreign workers pulled out of the country. After a gap of three weeks the aid agencies have restarted to send food to Afghanistan with reservations. Insuring that the aid reaches the right and needy groups of people along with the availability of truckers to move the food and essential goods seem to be the two most frequently expressed concerns of some of the donors.
It has been augured by some quarters that roughly two to three millions Afghans refugees are likely to enter Pakistan once the American strikes begin against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Anticipating such a large influx of new Afghan refugees. Both the Pakistani authorities and the UNHCR are assessing the basic amount that would cater for the bear minimum needs of the incoming refugees. While one can appreciate that the need for such preparations for anticipated influx of refugees, the efforts should also be concentrated how to motivate the refugees to go back to Afghanistan and lesson the burden ob Pakistan. It needs to stressed here that since Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan only two millions out of the total of four millions refugees went back to their homeland. And after a short while even some of them came back to Pakistan.
Undoubtedly the coming humanitarian crisis is likely to further burden Pakistan and the international community need to undertake measures that would ensure that Pakistan is not once again left in lurch as was done in the past.
Being next door to Afghanistan, Pakistan has suffered in many ways. Not only it has and continues to play host to a very large number of Afghan refuges despite its weak economy, it has tried its best to avert the coming crisis through diplomatic means. It has consistently extended sustained support to alleviate miseries of the Afghan people. Despite its economic difficulties, the limited resources, the past experience with donor agencies who left the entire problem of Afghan refugees to the Pakistanis, the people and the governments of Pakistan have always cared for the welfare of the Afghan people. The expressed concerns of the two Governors merely points towards the upper limits of Pakistanis patience, hospitality, and ability to cope with already over-burdened situation.
IPRI :: Islamabad Policy Research Institute
I have highlighted major parts from the article of some to which i am a witness myself such as the increasing of rents and loss of jobs etc.
