The Taliban's deadly "refugees"

Taliban guerrillas are moving into refugee camps inside Afghanistan -- safe havens where they can regroup, skim food provided by aid agencies, and recruit new troops.

By Ben Barber

Nov. 22, 2001 | Refugee camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border, supported by foreign aid, are havens for fleeing Taliban guerrillas, who use the camps to recruit new fighters, for medical services and as a home base. The movement of Taliban troops into the camps -- possibly assisted, one refugee analyst charges, by Saudi Arabian relief workers -- poses a serious challenge to the American-led war effort in Afghanistan.

Thousands of Afghans are already enclosed in camps at Spin Boldak on the Afghan side of the border between Quetta, Pakistan and Kandahar, Afghanistan -- an area that's the last redoubt of the Taliban regime of Mullah Omar. The camps are controlled by the Taliban; refugees are surrounded by armed Taliban guards, who allow armed Afghans into the camps if they are loyal to the Taliban. Food and tents sent by international humanitarian agencies are being distributed by Saudi relief groups, who may be the only nationality operating there -- the U.N. has no control over the camps and is afraid to distribute food because of threats of violence.

A refugee analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, said today that he is "extremely skeptical" of the Saudi relief effort, noting that previous Saudi aid had been used to build up extremist Islamist groups during the anti-Soviet war. The aid went to guns, shelter, food, mosques and the religious schools known as madrassas where Mullah Omar and his Taliban all studied. Those extremist groups eventually morphed in 1995 into the Taliban -- whose leaders were taught to hate the West in madrassas inside refugee camps in Pakistan.

In Afghanistan today, as in earlier conflicts in Cambodia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, the Middle East and during the 1980-1990 anti-Soviet War in Afghanistan, the humanitarian role of refugee camps is being used as a cover for military activity.

In refugee camps, guerrilla groups recruit new fighters -- often forcing them to take up arms. The camps also serve as a place for guerrillas to keep their families safe and fed while they go to war, and a place for fighters to retreat to when defeated in the field, to rest and recuperate from fighting, to receive medical care and to top up their food supplies.

Reporters in Spin Boldak camps today reported they saw weapons in the refugee enclosures, a sign that under the guise of humanitarian protection the camps are being used to either detain unwilling refugees or to arm and train fighters for continuing warfare. By detaining refugees, the Taliban gains both future recruits and a meal ticket: The presence of thousands of refugees means tons of food that the guerrillas could skim.

The camps are funded by humanitarian funds provided by donors in the United States, Europe and other countries -- but they aren't open to inspection. "There is no international access to the camps, which were set up as part of an agreement between the Taliban and Pakistan," said Joel Charny, vice president of Refugees International. That agreement was reached after U.S. bombing began on Oct. 7 and the refugee outflows began.

Charny, who was recently in Pakistan, voiced concern that many of the thousands directed to the camps on the Afghan side are held against their will -- whether by the Taliban or by the Pakistanis. The Pakistanis and the Taliban have a mutual interest in restricting the refugees to the camps: the Taliban get a safe military base and the Pakistanis get to keep the refugees out, while simultaneously maintaining a Taliban/Pashtun buffer against Northern Alliance domination.

The Pakistanis sought to prevent an influx of Afghans after the Oct. 7 American bombing of Afghanistan began. There were already some 2 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan left over from the anti-Soviet war. Mr. Charny said RI has called for the refugees to be allowed to enter Pakistan and to be located in camps away from the border -- both for their safety and to prevent the creation of a Taliban enclave that could fuel a future conflict.

Ironically, the Taliban are simply doing what America did in the 1980s. To refugee camps located in Pakistan along the Afghan border back then, U.S. CIA agents delivered $5 billion worth of guns, ammunition and Stinger antiaircraft missiles that were quickly hauled across the border to fight the Russians. It was payback time for the Soviet aid to North Vietnamese forces, who killed some 55,000 American soldiers in Vietnam.

The technique worked equally effectively in northeastern Thailand, where 330,000 Cambodian refugees -- some of them loyal to and under the control of the genocidal Pol Pot -- ate American relief food and enjoyed U.S.-funded medical care and education services. But after the foreign nongovernmental organization workers were escorted from the camps each evening, the wire fence facing the Cambodian interior was opened for the entry of guerrilla fighters. They would forcibly recruit new troops, stock up on fresh food and supplies and be gone by dawn. Foreign doctors next day discovered new patients in the clinics -- wounded troops left behind to be patched up at U.S. donors' expense.

Both guerrilla wars fought using humanitarian assistance were effective. The Vietnamese, who invaded Cambodia in 1979 after Pol Pot killed a million fellow Cambodians and started invading Vietnam, pulled up stakes in 1988. A senior Vietnamese military commander told me in Phnom Penh that he had lost 50,000 troops to the humanitarian-funded conflict.

Next page: The camps provide a veneer of victimhood