Need to Know | Ongoing Humanitarian Crisis: The Plight of Afghan Refugees

In this episode of Need to Know, John Thon Majok, Director of the Wilson Center’s Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative, discusses the ongoing challenges faced by Afghan refugees in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan with host John Milewski. They explore the complex issues surrounding Afghan refugees who have found temporary homes and those that remain internally displaced within the country. Majok describes the root causes of displacement and the long-term commitment that will be necessary to address this global crisis effectively.

[myahsoodinim]

Mr. Majok has been poorly briefed. He says that millions of Afghans "... cannot leave because the Taliban securitized the border, they are not going anywhere and while they are in the country they are also being threatened, especially if they had affiliated with U.S. government... ." Many foreign states, the U.S. included, aren't letting many Afghans into their country, but Afghans with foreign visas can leave freely. The Taliban aren't forcing any Afghans to stay in Afghanistan.

Afghans who had been affiliated with the U.S. government are, like all Afghans, living under a repressive regime that denies them many human rights, but they aren't being threatened because of their affiliation with the U.S. Shortly after returning to power, and following Afghan tradition, the Taliban issued a blanket, unconditional amnesty to all of their former enemies, and have, with few exceptions, been good to their word. Thomas West, the US Special Rep. for Afghanistan said this in the interview with CSIS: "...our assessment is that there is not a systematic, nationwide, effort to conduct reprisals against former ANDSF [Afg. Natl. Defense & Security Forces], judges, prosecutors and the like... Now there have absolutely been reprisals that have occurred... But again, I think that the Taliban are sincere in wanting to see a policy of no reprisals actually carried out... ." [Starting at minute 34 of this You Tube post: A Conversation with Thomas West in the Context of Afghanistan One Year Later]

As of the end of June, 2023, the UN, which has for many years had a team of researchers that tracks civilian casualties and human rights abuses has only learned of 200 killings or forced disappearances of former Afghan military and government employees at the hands of the Taliban. Many of them, the UN acknowledges, were unauthorized, private acts of revenge. That is out of the 1.5 million Afghans who had served the government or in its security forces during the 20 years of U.S. involvement. That's 0.013%. If the Taliban is hunting down its old enemies, it is doing a very poor job of it. The report also cites 600 other instances of "human rights violations" of former military and government personnel - so 0.039% of them.)

The UNAMA report, issued 23 August 2023 is titled: "Human rights violations against former government officials and former armed force members in Afghanistan: 15 August 2021 – 30 June 2023, UNAMA. (I'd link it, but You Tube doesn't permit URLs. It has been posted to the internet and can be Googled).