GOING BACK

by RAY FLEMING “AFGHANISTAN is not in a state of war.” That judgement will come as a surprise to many people, particularly the thousands of troops who are fighting there and their anxious families. The ruling came this week from three judges of Britain's Immigration and Asylum Tribunal which assesses pleas from Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers in Britain who are fighting deportation orders that require them to return to their home country against their will. The Tribunal said that the level of “indiscriminate violence “ in Afghanistan is not high enough to establish that the lives of those ordered to return will be in danger. This ruling, just one of many that has attracted attention, comes shortly after the fiasco of the forty-four Iraqi subjects who were forcibly returned to Baghdad last week after their pleas to be allowed to remain in Britain were rejected. At Baghdad airport those on the plane were told by Iraq authorities that they could disembark or remain where they were; thirty-four remained in their seats and were eventually flown back to Britain (with ninety security guards) to an uncertain future. It is always difficult to separate genuine asylum-seekers and refugees from economic migrants. What is clear, though, is that the act of leaving one's country is never an easy thing to do and that to have done so in conditions of war will always make return an uncertain and often dangerous course to take.