Pakistan’s eventual decision on Afghan refugees will have global consequences

Pakistan's request for Afghan refugees to leave coincides with a suspicion that Modi and Ahmedzai are playing...

Encouraged by the precedent of its next-door neighbour, Iran, the government of Pakistan (GOP) seems set to pre-empt Donald Trump and his Grand Old Party (GOP) by requiring its three million Afghan refugees to leave, apparently unaware of the far-reaching consequences of a decision that risks compromising tomorrow for the day after.

The ‘request’ – for now – creates a case study for refugee situations elsewhere and has not provoked the international shock and horror that a European country would, were it to take a similar decision.

Iran’s handling of its own three million Afghan refugees estimated by its interior ministry offers Pakistan a precedent that has stayed off the press radar. The refugees have not only been confined to camps and disallowed from any political activity, but been submitted to deportation procedures initiated in 2006 by expelling about 146,387 undocumented Afghans.

Pakistan, suitably emboldened, set a deadline in December 2015 for its own refugees to leave, prolonged it by another six months and also closed the main Afghan-Pakistan border crossing.

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, refugees had poured into Pakistan. Before the influx could further challenge Pakistan’s fragile economy, the Americans and Saudis had started picking up the tab. Refugee numbers swelled, they integrated into Pakistani society, and a complete generation of now middle-aged Afghan offspring of refugees was born in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Citizenship Act of 1951, last amended in 2000, upholds the principle of jus soli i.e. unconditional citizenship rights by birth on its soil. If this law is applied in letter, these middle-aged Afghans born in Pakistan can claim citizenship and then sponsor their kin.

It would be interesting to see how the GOP handles this possible consequence of its decision. After all, there are enough prosperous Afghans, brilliant lawyers and successful stay-order artists in Pakistan to ensure that the GOP is entangled in a multitude of lawsuits. Moreover, a mass return of Afghans is liable to challenge the Afghan economy and reduce its government’s leisure time, something Pakistan would not be averse to at this juncture.

Almost a decade following the Iranian decision, the Pakistani ‘request’ for the Afghan refugees to leave seems to oddly coincide with a general suspicion that Narendera Modi Jee and Mohammad Sarwar Ahmedzai Saab have started playing footsie. India is perceived to be getting too close to Afghanistan for Pakistan’s comfort and might eventually be able to outflank it, thereby justifying Pakistan’s controversial strategic depth doctrine. In this writer’s perception, considering the historical Afghan raids on India with Somnath as a reminder, juxtaposed with the Afghans’ resulting disdain for the ‘Hindki’, this proximity is tactical and not strategic. When push comes to shove, a Muslim country will not forsake another one, even though it might seek to appropriate it in the aftermath of the crisis.

Yet, in principle there is nothing odd in the Pakistani ‘request’.

When conditions in the home country stabilise, refugees are expected to honourably return to their countries of origin. The United Nations’ 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol do not include permanent residence or citizenship procedures as a right.

Nevertheless, in western countries, refugee status has usually come to mean a package including permanent residence and eventual citizenship. Under the shelter of this practice, economic immigrants and a handful of terrorists have had such success that, triggered by the current waves of refugees, an on-going, contentious political debate has started fissuring the left and the right, with the potential of creating new alliances.

Proportionally, Pakistan is feeling the pinch from the economic pressure of refugees and the Indo-Afghan cuddles. The GOP’s ‘request’ is a probing counter-move. At this stage of gesticulation, it is up to President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai’s government to make a conciliatory gesture to ensure that Afghanistan is not inundated with returning refugees dissatisfied with resettlement procedures and, consequently, baying for political blood and open to recruitment by any of the unfortunate Republic’s armed and battle-hardened factions. Not to talk of their Pakophobia conjuring nightmares of saboteurs among returning refugees. Accordingly, Ahmadzai Saab’s government has asked the GOP for an extension to its ‘request’ while it scrambles for a soothing offer.

Pakistan’s eventual, full-fledged regional decision on refugees also bears global consequences.

It sets a precedent for European countries seeking to shed the hot potato of the present refugee crisis stuck to their squirming backsides.

If Pakistan goes through to the bitter end of ignoring jus soli (right of the soil) and insisting that Afghan refugees includes those born in Pakistan, and that they all return to their home country, many European countries are liable to act likewise, followed by other conflict-ridden Asian, African and Latin American countries overflowing with displaced persons.

This could engender an unprecedented world crisis of incalculable proportions and consequences.

And, of course, if Donald Trump leads his GOP into the White House, expect him to have a field day smugly following the GOP’s footprints on the sands of time.