Appeal for the survivors of Nomads ((kuchi)) attack
Email: info@behsudaid.org
The people in the centre of Afghanistan need your urgent help to recover from the recent devastation of nomadsâ?? attacks. The Nomads destroyed these peopleâ??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 nomadsâ?? 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 Rahmanâ??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 Hazarajatâ??s lands and wealth to Pashtunâ??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
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