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| A young Hazara tells of his experiences since fleeing Afghanistan at a story telling event hosted by the Bendigo branch of Rural Australians for Refugees. |
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| Photo by Merrill Findlay, June 2003, for Journey on the Wind and The Homeland Project. |
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My name is Rahmat. I am from a small village in Afghanistan, and belong to the Hazara ethnic group. I fled Afghanistan because my life was in danger from the Taliban.
The Hazara people have lived in Afghanistan since ancient times. The Bamiyan statues of Buddha destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 demonstrate this because they were sculpted with Hazara features. Most Hazaras live in Afghanistan’s central mountain core, a 50,000 square kilometer region known as Hazarajat. We make up about twenty per cent of the population of Afghanistan.
During the years of civil war thousands of Hazara were forced to flee our homeland after our villages and crops were destroyed. We were also the victims of many massacres and other atrocities committed by the Taliban. A Human Rights Watch report, entitled Massacres of Hazaras in Afghanistan, published in February 2001, details some of these atrocities.
By the end of 1996 the Taliban were the most powerful military and political force in the country. To them, the Hazara people were not Muslim, so many Taliban fighters believed it was not a sin to kill us. They carried out systematic searches for Hazara males, and at least one report suggests that up to 8,000 civilians were killed in Hazarajat during this time.
But our suffering didn’t begin with the coming of the Taliban. It started under Amir Abdul Rehman, who came to power in 1880. Hazara resistance to Rehman’s regime was ruthlessly crushed, and, as a result, Hazara folklore abounds in tales of towers built from Hazara skulls. Hundreds of Hazara were picked up and ‘disappeared’ after Abdul Rehman’s conquest. Some historians claim that sixty-three percent of the Hazara population was wiped out during Rehman’s rule.
In 2002 the United States and its allies bombarded Afghanistan and the situation went from bad to worse for ordinary people. The same warlords who had been in power before the US intervention continue to dominate the provinces, and each one enforces his own rules and policies. They still don’t allow women to see a doctor if they get sick, for example, and they don’t allow girls to study. The situation for Hazara people still remains very dangerous.
At present Kabul is controlled by United Nations Assistance Mission (UNAMA) but the UN police have no control over the armed gunmen who attack Hazara people, steal their property and often kill them. Hazara women are continually threatened if they go out onto the streets of the city. The Prime Minister, Mr Karzai, has a plan to leave Afghanistan if the situation worsens, but the Hazara people have no place to escape to.
I came to Australia in 2001 in fear of my life, and was detained at the Woomera Detention Centre. I arrived there at two o’clock in the morning and all I could see was barbed wire and lots of officers. I was very scared and thought to myself Why do they want to put me in a jail? I had been told that Australia would help refugees. Being in detention was a very bad time for me.
I was released after three months and given a Temporary Protection Visa. I came to Melbourne and started searching for a job, but I couldn’t find one, because I was unable to speak much English. I didn’t know where to go to get help and I felt very alone and very lonely. After a while I found a house to live in, and I met people who were kind and sincere to refugees, but I worried about how I could learn English and find a job to support myself.
I went to Dandenong TAFE to see if I could attend classes there, but they said I could not enroll because I did not have a permanent resident’s visa. The Monash Student Association heard about the problems refugees on Temporary Protection Visas were having in finding English classes so accepted the challenge of teaching us. These classes have made a big difference to our lives. They have increased employment opportunities for many of us, and we also enjoy the friendships we have made with our student-teachers. I think these students are very brave people. They have very busy lives studying for exams, and yet they give up their time to teach us English. The Afghanis who attend their classes are very, very thankful for their support and we can only pray and wish them happiness in their future lives.
We Afghani refugees have much to offer Australian society and we want to form friendships with Australian people. I hope that Australians will help us live a safe life here.
This story was written with the support of Rahmat’s volunteer English teacher at Monash University. The author’s full name is withheld to ensure his continued safety.
Photo of Rahmat's former school in Afghanistan.
FURTHER READING
External links will open as new pages, which should be closed once you've finished reading them.
About Afghanistan
BBC News (2003) Country profile: Afghanistan
Library of Congress (1997) Afghanistan: a country study
CIA (2002) World Fact Book, Afghanistan
Children and Armed Conflict Unit, Afghanistan links, University of Essex, Britain
Reports on war and atrocities in Afghanistan
Amnesty International (June 2003) Out of sight, out of mind: the fate of the Afghan returnees
Herald, M.W. (2002) A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting, Whittemore School of Business & Economics
University of New Hampshire, USA.
Hazara.net
Bearak, B. Where Buddhas fell, lives too lie in ruins, New York Times, December 9, 2001,
News updates from Afghanistan
Afghan News Network
Radio Afghanistan
Relief Web (2003) Afghan Weekly Situation Report
Hazara Radio
Hazara Net
Views from Australia
Amnesty International (Australia), Defending Refugees Rights
ABC 7.30 Report, 27 May, 2003, Asylum seeker suicides while on temporary protection visa
Maley, B. (March 2001), Security, people smuggling and Australia’s new Afghan refugees, working paper no. 63, Australian Defence Studies Centre, Canberra
Refugee Council of Australia: current issues
Community Aid Abroad, Refugees and Temporary Protection Visas
Study calls for the abolition of Temporary Protection Visas, RMIT University
Rural Australians for Refugees: know the facts
Asylum Seekers Project, Hotham Mission
Asylum Seekers Resource Centres, Melbourne
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