Email: info@behsudaid.org

The people in the centre of Afghanistan need your urgent help to recover from the recent devastation of nomads’ attacks. The Nomads destroyed these people’s pastures and homes, wiping out their villages, killing dozens of innocent people including children and forcing them off their land. These attacks were organised by a heavy armed group of Pakistani and Afghan Nomads, who have strong links with Taliban and al-Qaida. Last year, due to an attack by nomads in Behsood, a district in Wardak province, dozens were killed and thousands of local people were forced to flee the area and seek safe refuge in Kabul and neighbouring areas. The Afghan government turned a blind eye to nomads’ attacks despite all the efforts by Hazaras to persuade the government to protect them from these attacks. A few months ago, thousands of people protested in Kabul to warn President Karzai of nomads attacks this year in Hazarajat but the government has failed to undertake any steps to protect these people.

The people of the central Afghanistan have been victim of historical, institutional discrimination for over 100 years. Due to this systematic discrimination, this region is the least developed place in the country and their people are the poorest in Afghanistan. From 1889 to 1891, Abdur Rahman’s regime carried a genocide process against Hazaras in order to establish a geographical area, which today we know as Afghanistan. Abdur Rahman was able to carry out this process by promising Hazarajat’s lands and wealth to Pashtun’s nomads. During this time, 62% of Hazaras were massacred, their lands were given to the conquerors and the captive Hazaras were traded as slaves all over Afghanistan. This abhorrent exercise of inhumanity was officially sanctioned as the central government even imposed a tax on slave trading. The Hazara slavery trading was continued for a further 30 years until 1919, when Amanulah Khan finally ended the slavery in Afghanistan.

Until the mid-1970, these people were forced to pay several additional arbitrary taxes to central government in order to live in Afghanistan. The central government never attempted to build schools, construct main roads, hospitals or any basic utilities in this area. Even the Hazaras who lived in Kabul were not allowed to attend some of the schools or study some of the subjects that were available to other Afghans. They never had an opportunity to have a military post higher than infantry, or attain a high level of education or work in government offices. These restrictions were based purely on their ethnicity rather than their ability. Until the most recent revolution in Afghanistan in 1978, the nomads were allowed to freely enter the Hazarajat on the precedence set by Abdur Rahman and with the full backing of central government to use the pastures of these impoverished people despite these local people not having the sufficient resources to feed their own domesticated animals.  The discrimination toward these people is based upon the oriental ethnicity and difference in their religious conviction compared to the rest of the Afghan populous.

During the Taliban period these people faced further brutal massacres all over Afghanistan, especially in Bamiyan, Mazar-e-Sharif, some of which were reported in the western media. After the Bonn Conference, Hazaras were the first who aided the international community in the global fight against terrorist groups in Afghanistan and supporting the democratic process in Afghanistan backed by the international community. This is evidenced for example in Bamiyan, the main province of Hazarajat, which has a women governor. This is an unprecedented step in the history of Afghanistan and a clear positive sign of progression. In a traditional country like Afghanistan it is not easy to persuade the people to accept women in roles of authority, but these people have showed that they appreciate the international human rights declaration and have been trying their best to implement this in Afghanistan. Since 2001, central Afghanistan has been the most peaceful area in the country as a result of INGO’s employees and has provided foreign visitors an opportunity to enjoy their holiday after finishing their developing work in the rest of the country. However, the international aid for developing all Hazarajat, which contains 20% of the country population, is just a small fraction of the money spent in one province in the south of Afghanistan. Hazaras believe that the current government has been following the same historical institutional discrimination against them and that the international community also turns a blind eye to their situation. The common answers given, which Hazaras hear from all the international donors about this unfair distribution of aid are very simple, such as “the area is quiet” and “we need to work in those areas to be able to support our troops.” 

So far, these people have been supporting the central government despite all the discriminatory acts against them because they have been living in peace in absence of the brutality of the Taliban in their region. At the beginning of the Disarmament Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) process, Hazaras were the first people in the country to hand over their weapons to government since the government and international community promised them to protect them against any outside attackers. But the government followed a contradictory policy by not disarming nomads. As a result, in the past 3 years every summer, nomads who are heavily armed have attacked the Hazarajat. Every year the government sets up a commission just after the conflict in the region is over to resolve the problem between nomads and local people but so far no one has seen any improvements or of these commissions achieving anything. This year once again the Hazaras in the centre of Afghanistan were victimised by nomads attack. Their homes were burnt, women and children were killed, and people were driven off their land. If the international community and government do not act as soon as possible this year, people of Hazarajat will face the biggest humanitarian crisis since the collapse of the Taliban. Also, in the long term, if the international community and Afghan government keep ignoring them then the people of this region is unlikely to be as supportive and helpful to the current government and the process of democracy, and any hopes of peace will be severely under threat in Afghanistan. 

As people who live in Central Afghanistan, we demand:

·      Fair and Justice policy in Afghanistan that every one should be treated the same without any discrimination.

·      Disarming of nomads in the same manner that the government disarmed Hazarajat

·       Passing a legislation to discard all claim of nomads toward Hazarajat pasture (As some Nomads claim that they have the order from brutal government of Abdur Rahman to use the Hazarajat’s pasture)

·       The international community and Afghan government should protect our region from any attempt of disturbing the peaceful environment of Hazarajat

·       The government should have a long term plan to settle the nomads in the south of the country where there is plenty of land.

Now we need your help to support the survivors of this conflict and also your assistance to put pressure on the international community and Afghan government to solve the nomadic problem.

We believe that without your assistance there is little chance for the survivors and for keeping peace in this key region of Afghanistan.