[CivilSoc] Plight of 50,000 Afghans in Moscow

[Civil Society International]

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This item comes from 
Johnson's Russia List
#5574
30 November 2001
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org
#10
Baltimore Sun
November 29, 2001
Afghan exiles in Moscow look anxiously homeward
Harassed and beaten, most long for return 
By Douglas Birch
Sun Foreign Staff
MOSCOW - As Afghanistan's political factions meet in Germany to try to reach 
agreement on how best to piece together their shattered country, hundreds of 
merchants in a dingy hotel complex here are praying that the talks succeed. 
Over the past two decades, Afghanistan has been stripped of most of its 
professionals, civil servants and technical experts, people crucial for 
running a modern state. Many are here, wondering if they should return. 
Educated Afghans living in the West "are well off, they have legal status, 
and their children go to school - you can't expect them to return," says 
Gullam Muhammed, the unofficial leader of Moscow's Afghan community. In 
Moscow, it is different, he says. 
"Even my 7-year-old, when she sees Afghanistan on television, she always asks 
us, 'When are we going back?'" 
Deprived of official status, harassed by police and increasingly preyed on by 
thugs, most Afghans here say they have little reason to remain in Russia, 
where many have lived for more than a decade. 
"Of course we will leave, as soon as we find out that life is going to be 
normal there," says Abdul Habibullah, a former army colonel who now peddles 
key rings, pens and knickknacks. "We don't have any home here." 
For Habibullah, as for most Afghans in Moscow, life revolves around the Hotel 
Sevastopol, a cluster of gray concrete slab structures dominated by two 
16-story high-rises southwest of the central city. In what were originally 
tiny hotel rooms, exiled politicians, generals, journalists and engineers 
hawk cheap necklaces, battery-powered toy cars, Turkish leather coats and, 
although the sellers are Muslims, Christmas lights. 
Bargain-hunting Muscovites bundled in winter clothes line up outside to pay 
the 12-cent entrance fee. Some shoppers bolt glasses of vodka at the bar in 
the lobby before jostling their way down the corridors, painted a purplish 
green, or cramming into shops jammed with merchandise. 
Presiding over this transplanted Oriental bazaar is Muhammed, a beefy man 
with broad features and a hairbrush mustache, who once governed Afghanistan's 
Kunar province in the Hindu Kush mountains north of Jalalabad. The 
43-year-old father of five serves as president of the nonprofit Afghan 
Business Center, the equivalent of the community's tribal council. 
The association, in addition to running the market, publishes a newspaper, 
negotiates with the complex's Russian owners and has spent years trying to 
persuade the Kremlin to release Russia's Afghan refugees from legal limbo. 
It has been a losing battle. Although Afghan elders such as Muhammed have 
managed to get resident visas, he says the vast majority are in Russia 
illegally. Their illegal status means they can't send children to public 
schools, are ineligible for state-supplied health care and are subject to 
constant harassment by corrupt officials who know that the Afghans can't 
complain to authorities. 
In his second-floor office, Muhammed nervously watches a bank of television 
monitors linked to cameras at the hotel entrances. With the rise in attacks 
on dark-skinned foreigners in Moscow, he and other Afghans increasingly fear 
for their safety. 
Hundreds of youths, believed to be followers of the ultra-rightist Russian 
National Unity group, attacked merchants from Asia and the Caucasus in a 
Moscow market Oct. 30. After clashing with police, about 300 youths slipped 
away to the Hotel Sevastopol. There, armed with iron pipes and brass 
knuckles, they savagely beat more than a dozen Afghan shopkeepers. A 
40-year-old immigrant died. 
Habibullah was on the first floor of the Sevastopol with his 5-year-old son 
when the assault began around 9 p.m. 
"The hooligans are here!" shouted a man with a bloody face. Habibullah 
dragged his son up 11 flights of stairs and locked his shop door until the 
rampage ended. 
It was only the latest in a series of escalating attacks on Afghans. 
Habibullah said he was assaulted in a Moscow metro station in 1998. The 
toughs broke 13 of his teeth. 
A one-time officer in the army of Kabul's former Communist regime, Habibullah 
thought the Russian government would welcome one who had fought on the side 
of the Kremlin. But when he applied for residency papers, Russian officials 
were unimpressed. 
"They said to me, 'Why not go work for the Taliban?' And I said, 'To me, the 
Taliban are strangers, are foreigners. I would be a traitor to my 
motherland.'" 
Afghans say police routinely stop them to demand documents they are 
officially denied. By law, they are supposed to be fined $3 the first time 
they are caught, warned the second and deported the third. Instead, they say, 
the police demand bribes, often several times a day. Police even come to the 
Sevastopol, some merchants say, to collect monthly payoffs. 
Amir Shafikullah, 23, an Afghan without a residency permit who works in a 
shop selling shoes and Turkish-made leather coats, said police often search 
him and seize whatever cash he is carrying. Other officials can be just as 
predatory. 
"When a child is sick," Shafikullah says, "we call an ambulance. And when 
they see we are dark people, they say, 'You must pay us $500 or $1,000 to 
take the child to the hospital or we will not take care of your child.'" 
Immigration authorities contend that the Afghans are partly to blame for 
their plight. They use false names and destroy their passports, authorities 
say, making it impossible to obtain accurate information on their status. 
Officials say the immigrants fuel the criminal traffic in fake passports and 
false marriages. 
Leaders of the Afghan community say they offered to pay the Kremlin $10 
million a year for residency permits for about 50,000 Afghans living in 
Moscow, but the government refused. 
"It is more profitable for the police to take the money from us," says 
Shafikullah, who wants to return to Afghanistan. "Life is so hard here." 
Moscow Afghans who are former Communist officials may not be welcomed home. 
One thing most people in Afghanistan seem to share is a bitter hatred of the 
Soviet-backed regime of President Najibullah, which was toppled by mujahedeen 
rebels in 1992. 
But those former officials say the jealous clans, tribes and warlords who now 
control Afghanistan can't rebuild the country themselves. 
"These local, wild people - they cannot settle it between themselves," 
Muhammed says. "They are not able to create a civilized state." 
Others here share his disdain for Afghanistan's dominant factions. Omar 
Nanagair, a Najibullah-era journalist on state-run television, calls the 
Taliban and the opposition Northern Alliance "two sides of the same maniac." 
Nanagair now sells shoes in Sevastopol. 
Faruk Safi, a former Afghan mining engineer who helps run a clothing store, 
is a big, beaming man in a red jacket who enthusiastically describes his 
country's mineral wealth. He shakes his head when describing how untrained 
Taliban have quarried precious marble with dynamite, ruining much of the 
stone. Northern Alliance warlords have blasted emeralds out of mines in the 
Hindu Kush, he says, destroying many of the precious gems. 
Afghanistan has the natural resources and its exiles the expertise to rejoin 
the modern world, he says. But he acknowledges that he has a more 
self-centered reason for wanting to return to his native country. 
"I'm nobody here. In my country, I will be wanted. I will be somebody." 
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>This item comes from </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Johnson's 
Russia List<BR>#5574<BR>30 November 2001<BR>A CDI Project<BR></FONT><A 
href="http://www.cdi.org"><FONT face="Times New Roman" 
size=3>www.cdi.org</FONT></A><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>#10<BR>Baltimore Sun<BR>November 29, 2001<BR>Afghan exiles in Moscow look 
anxiously homeward<BR>Harassed and beaten, most long for return <BR>By Douglas 
Birch<BR>Sun Foreign Staff<BR><BR>MOSCOW - As Afghanistan's political factions 
meet in Germany to try to reach <BR>agreement on how best to piece together 
their shattered country, hundreds of <BR>merchants in a dingy hotel complex here 
are praying that the talks succeed. <BR>Over the past two decades, Afghanistan 
has been stripped of most of its <BR>professionals, civil servants and technical 
experts, people crucial for <BR>running a modern state. Many are here, wondering 
if they should return. <BR><BR>Educated Afghans living in the West "are well 
off, they have legal status, <BR>and their children go to school - you can't 
expect them to return," says <BR>Gullam Muhammed, the unofficial leader of 
Moscow's Afghan community. In <BR>Moscow, it is different, he says. 
<BR><BR>"Even my 7-year-old, when she sees Afghanistan on television, she always 
asks <BR>us, 'When are we going back?'" <BR><BR>Deprived of official status, 
harassed by police and increasingly preyed on by <BR>thugs, most Afghans here 
say they have little reason to remain in Russia, <BR>where many have lived for 
more than a decade. <BR><BR>"Of course we will leave, as soon as we find out 
that life is going to be <BR>normal there," says Abdul Habibullah, a former army 
colonel who now peddles <BR>key rings, pens and knickknacks. "We don't have any 
home here." <BR><BR>For Habibullah, as for most Afghans in Moscow, life revolves 
around the Hotel <BR>Sevastopol, a cluster of gray concrete slab structures 
dominated by two <BR>16-story high-rises southwest of the central city. In what 
were originally <BR>tiny hotel rooms, exiled politicians, generals, journalists 
and engineers <BR>hawk cheap necklaces, battery-powered toy cars, Turkish 
leather coats and, <BR>although the sellers are Muslims, Christmas lights. 
<BR><BR>Bargain-hunting Muscovites bundled in winter clothes line up outside to 
pay <BR>the 12-cent entrance fee. Some shoppers bolt glasses of vodka at the bar 
in <BR>the lobby before jostling their way down the corridors, painted a 
purplish <BR>green, or cramming into shops jammed with merchandise. 
<BR><BR>Presiding over this transplanted Oriental bazaar is Muhammed, a beefy 
man <BR>with broad features and a hairbrush mustache, who once governed 
Afghanistan's <BR>Kunar province in the Hindu Kush mountains north of Jalalabad. 
The <BR>43-year-old father of five serves as president of the nonprofit Afghan 
<BR>Business Center, the equivalent of the community's tribal council. 
<BR><BR>The association, in addition to running the market, publishes a 
newspaper, <BR>negotiates with the complex's Russian owners and has spent years 
trying to <BR>persuade the Kremlin to release Russia's Afghan refugees from 
legal limbo. <BR><BR>It has been a losing battle. Although Afghan elders such as 
Muhammed have <BR>managed to get resident visas, he says the vast majority are 
in Russia <BR>illegally. Their illegal status means they can't send children to 
public <BR>schools, are ineligible for state-supplied health care and are 
subject to <BR>constant harassment by corrupt officials who know that the 
Afghans can't <BR>complain to authorities. <BR><BR>In his second-floor office, 
Muhammed nervously watches a bank of television <BR>monitors linked to cameras 
at the hotel entrances. With the rise in attacks <BR>on dark-skinned foreigners 
in Moscow, he and other Afghans increasingly fear <BR>for their safety. 
<BR><BR>Hundreds of youths, believed to be followers of the ultra-rightist 
Russian <BR>National Unity group, attacked merchants from Asia and the Caucasus 
in a <BR>Moscow market Oct. 30. After clashing with police, about 300 youths 
slipped <BR>away to the Hotel Sevastopol. There, armed with iron pipes and brass 
<BR>knuckles, they savagely beat more than a dozen Afghan shopkeepers. A 
<BR>40-year-old immigrant died. <BR><BR>Habibullah was on the first floor of the 
Sevastopol with his 5-year-old son <BR>when the assault began around 9 p.m. 
<BR><BR>"The hooligans are here!" shouted a man with a bloody face. Habibullah 
<BR>dragged his son up 11 flights of stairs and locked his shop door until the 
<BR>rampage ended. <BR><BR>It was only the latest in a series of escalating 
attacks on Afghans. <BR>Habibullah said he was assaulted in a Moscow metro 
station in 1998. The <BR>toughs broke 13 of his teeth. <BR><BR>A one-time 
officer in the army of Kabul's former Communist regime, Habibullah <BR>thought 
the Russian government would welcome one who had fought on the side <BR>of the 
Kremlin. But when he applied for residency papers, Russian officials <BR>were 
unimpressed. <BR><BR>"They said to me, 'Why not go work for the Taliban?' And I 
said, 'To me, the <BR>Taliban are strangers, are foreigners. I would be a 
traitor to my <BR>motherland.'" <BR><BR>Afghans say police routinely stop them 
to demand documents they are <BR>officially denied. By law, they are supposed to 
be fined $3 the first time <BR>they are caught, warned the second and deported 
the third. Instead, they say, <BR>the police demand bribes, often several times 
a day. Police even come to the <BR>Sevastopol, some merchants say, to collect 
monthly payoffs. <BR><BR>Amir Shafikullah, 23, an Afghan without a residency 
permit who works in a <BR>shop selling shoes and Turkish-made leather coats, 
said police often search <BR>him and seize whatever cash he is carrying. Other 
officials can be just as <BR>predatory. <BR><BR>"When a child is sick," 
Shafikullah says, "we call an ambulance. And when <BR>they see we are dark 
people, they say, 'You must pay us $500 or $1,000 to <BR>take the child to the 
hospital or we will not take care of your child.'" <BR><BR>Immigration 
authorities contend that the Afghans are partly to blame for <BR>their plight. 
They use false names and destroy their passports, authorities <BR>say, making it 
impossible to obtain accurate information on their status. <BR>Officials say the 
immigrants fuel the criminal traffic in fake passports and <BR>false marriages. 
<BR><BR>Leaders of the Afghan community say they offered to pay the Kremlin $10 
<BR>million a year for residency permits for about 50,000 Afghans living in 
<BR>Moscow, but the government refused. <BR><BR>"It is more profitable for the 
police to take the money from us," says <BR>Shafikullah, who wants to return to 
Afghanistan. "Life is so hard here." <BR><BR>Moscow Afghans who are former 
Communist officials may not be welcomed home. <BR>One thing most people in 
Afghanistan seem to share is a bitter hatred of the <BR>Soviet-backed regime of 
President Najibullah, which was toppled by mujahedeen <BR>rebels in 1992. 
<BR><BR>But those former officials say the jealous clans, tribes and warlords 
who now <BR>control Afghanistan can't rebuild the country themselves. 
<BR><BR>"These local, wild people - they cannot settle it between themselves," 
<BR>Muhammed says. "They are not able to create a civilized state." 
<BR><BR>Others here share his disdain for Afghanistan's dominant factions. Omar 
<BR>Nanagair, a Najibullah-era journalist on state-run television, calls the 
<BR>Taliban and the opposition Northern Alliance "two sides of the same maniac." 
<BR>Nanagair now sells shoes in Sevastopol. <BR><BR>Faruk Safi, a former Afghan 
mining engineer who helps run a clothing store, <BR>is a big, beaming man in a 
red jacket who enthusiastically describes his <BR>country's mineral wealth. He 
shakes his head when describing how untrained <BR>Taliban have quarried precious 
marble with dynamite, ruining much of the <BR>stone. Northern Alliance warlords 
have blasted emeralds out of mines in the <BR>Hindu Kush, he says, destroying 
many of the precious gems. <BR><BR>Afghanistan has the natural resources and its 
exiles the expertise to rejoin <BR>the modern world, he says. But he 
acknowledges that he has a more <BR>self-centered reason for wanting to return 
to his native country. <BR><BR>"I'm nobody here. In my country, I will be 
wanted. I will be somebody." <BR><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>
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