The Diplomat, 30 March 2016
Another extensive refugee-related quote of AAN, here from an AAN dispatch Jelena Bjelica authored:
Unfortunately, those that return to Afghanistan are still in for considerable uncertainty. In a recent report for the Afghanistan Analysts Network, Jelena Bjelica dives into why many Afghan returnees remain landless, despite several laws and initiatives that aim to provide or return land to them. There has never been a calm moment in the past several decades to sort out ownership of land and during that time laws and norms have changed, resulting in a confused mess. For example, Bjelica writes “Although the recovery of property was recognized as a right [by the 2001 Decree on the Dignified Return of Refugees], in practice, many returnees found they could not just walk in and reclaim their original houses and farms. New occupants often held documents supporting their own claim to the property.” In fact, the 2001 decree “revoked all land rights people had gained through the land reforms in the 1970s and 1980s.” Lack of documentation and conflicting claims is one problem; another is that many refugees never had land to begin with.
Subsequent decrees included a system to allocate land to returnees, but the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation has been mired by corruption and incompetence and as Bjelica writes “The implementation of the land allocation scheme was far from smooth.” (Check out the full report for just how badly mismanaged this scheme has been.)
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 9 Mar 2020
