By Nandita Sharma

The United Nations estimates that Afghanistan is currently the world's largest refugee-producing country in the world. Over 3.5 million refugees live in border camps and cities in Pakistan. Another 1.5 million Afghans live in Iran. A disproportionate number of refugees are women and their children.

The conditions in border camps are squalid and filled with physical and emotional hardships. Cilocia Zaidi describes the days in these camps as filled with "intolerable heat and insufferable chilly nights, no water, or shade to protect [the refugees] from the onslaught of the weather. They...suffer [a] shortage of food, non-existent health facilities, unhygienic conditions, dust and filth and [a] shortage of fuel and medicines."

In the cities of Pakistan and Iran, many "locals" turn against Afghan refugees and scapegoat them for their own miseries - miseries fueled by public funds being spent on the military instead of social services; the destruction of rural economies; IMF structural adjustment programs that demand lowered wages and increased prices for life's necessities. For Afghan refugees, there is little or no food, no shoes, no work, no education and an ever-growing hopelessness for a better future.

The US-led "war on terrorism", in which Canada is the third largest military force, has led to even more displacement. Since September 11th, hundreds of thousands of people have had to flee their homes, their farms and their only means of support to seek safety abroad. They are fleeing the bombs dropped by British and US military forces, but they are also fleeing the Northern Alliance. Mass executions, rapes and beatings occur daily at the hands of the Northern Alliance and other militarized gangs of thugs wearing uniforms.

At the same time, it is widely acknowledged that currently at least 1.5 million Afghans face starvation if aid agencies cannot return evacuated staff to the country and resume their efforts to feed, clothe, house and provide much needed medical attention to the approximate 7.5 million Afghans in need. Currently, the US-led coalition is insisting that the military can provide the much-needed aid. However, military aid distribution is usually motivated by political and not humanitarian criteria - aid goes to those supporting the US-led occupation and not to dissenters. Reputable aid agencies have criticized this as wrongly associating food aid with military occupation.

Pakistan and Iran have sealed the borders with Afghanistan. Both have stated they are shouldering a disproportionate amount of the responsibility for providing refuge to Afghans. Pakistan has made it clear it will re-open the borders if other countries start to accommodate refugees. So far, most countries have refused accountability.

The Australian government led by the recently re-elected Howard administration has intercepted boats of fleeing Afghans with armed vessels and fighter jets, forcibly preventing them from reaching refuge in Australia.

Canada's response? In November, a new Immigration Act was brought in that drastically reduces Canada's commitment to refugees. Under Bill C-11, the Canadian government will spend a greater portion of its immigration budget on actively preventing people seeking refuge from ever reaching Canada. This is called "interdiction" and it goes against international agreements that Canada has signed (the same agreements it constantly refers to as a shining example of its "progressiveness" at international gatherings).

We can see "interdiction" in action by looking at how much Canada spends on the refugee situation in Afghanistan, and where the money actually goes. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) only about $300,000 out of a total budget of almost $17 million (US) is spent on Afghan refugees - the world's number one refugee-producing region. Every penny of that $300,000 goes towards repatriating (i.e. sending back) Afghans to Afghanistan - not on ensuring that Afghans find safe and viable protection!

Since the start of the bombings in Afghanistan, the Canadian government has not committed a single dollar to ensuring safe shelter in Canada for fleeing refugees. In November, $750 million was newly allocated to the armed forces: nothing for Afghan refugees.

The world is in the middle of an epic crisis in dislocation and forced migrations. The United Nations estimates that over 150 million people are forced, in one way or another, to cross international boundaries in search of safety and livelihoods. This level of transnational (im)migration is unprecedented in human history. It is a direct result of processes of capitalist globalization: war and militarization; the destruction of rural communities and economies; growing unemployment; growing poverty worldwide; forced evictions by government/state forces, and the entrenchment of patriarchal violence and fundamentalisms.

Yet Canada does nothing positive. Tragically, many of the millions of Afghans displaced by this and previous imperialist wars would never be accepted under the restrictive definitions of "refugee" in Canada. They would be deemed "bogus refugee claimants," held in detention if entering Canada through the aid of smugglers (which they would have to do since Canada spends nothing on helping Afghans enter the country), ordered deported to return to a war-torn, fundamentalist regime, and denied avenues of appealing this negative decision under the new Immigration Act.

Calling Afghans "bogus refugees" tells more about the failures of Canadian immigration policy to meet the actual needs of people crossing international borders than it does about the real life circumstances of refugee claimants.

Moreover, we know that no amount of restrictions can prevent people compelled by grave urgency from crossing national borders. More restrictions in a period of crisis of displacement mean only one thing: more and more people forced to live "underground" as undocumented (im)migrants. Being undocumented means being more vulnerable to the demands of employers, unscrupulous landlords and arbitrary police actions.

Through restrictive immigration policies, a group of highly vulnerable, cheapened and weakened people is created to further fuel the corporate, military machine. Capitalist globalization comes full circle.