http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/567/567p28.htm
Rural communities fight for Afghan refugees
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.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.
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