Akbar’s Story (2003)

“I had to get my eldest son out of Afghanistan; it was my duty to save him”

Akbar’s father sold his truck to help his son escape the Taliban – and Akbar ended up a prisoner on Nauru

The barren hills of Wardak are littered with thousands of makeshift graves, each identified by a broken rock stuck into the dirt. Rocks point skywards, others lie flat. Occasionally they are marked by faded red, green and black flags marking fierce battles where the brave and the brazen were martyred.

So many battles have been fought around Wardak over so many years – it is the southern approach to the ancient capital of Kabul just 100 kilometres away – that the countryside often appears as one extended graveyard. Buried here are the armies of the present and the distant past: Russians from the Ukraine, mujahideen fighters from Pakistan, warlord warriors from Afghanistan’s numerous ethnic groups, and of course, the Taliban that ruled with a brutal ferocity and fanaticism.

Buried among them are the troops of Ahmad Shah Masud’s Northern Alliance that drove the Taliban out just 15 months ago, with the help of US B-52 bombers and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Ahmad Ali despairs when he thinks back to the day five years ago when the Taliban arrived in his village of Sarcasma, to take revenge on the Hazara people resisting the Taliban’s brand of fundamentalism, with its literal imposition of Sharia law, including executions, beheadings and amputations.

“We had resisted the Taliban and they were sent to crush us,” Ali says. “Six hundred Hazaras died in the fighting. The Taliban rounded up 118 men women and children, and shot 60 of them in the bazaar.

“I knew then, I had to get my eldest son out of Afghanistan; it was my duty to save him.”

Today, the bazaar is mostly boarded up, the village almost deserted. Many Hazaras who fled in 1998 are yet to return. To return, they must travel through Pashtun villages where Taliban loyalties have not dimmed. Hazaras account for about 20 per cent of the population; they are Shiite Muslims, and were frequently targeted by Taliban, who are Sunni Muslims.

For Ali, a 42-year-old farmer and goat herder, the bid to save his son Akbar was not only personally impoverishing, because of the Australian Government’s Pacific solution policies, it was an ultimately futile endeavour.

Ali sold his Toyota truck to pay a Kabul-based people smuggler $14,000 to get Akbar, Ali’s nephew, and another boy to Australia.

“We are now looking for the people smuggler and we will kill him when we find him because the Karzai government is not prepared to punish him.”

Ali said initially all had gone to plan. Akbar slipped across the border into Pakistan and took a flight to Jakarta. But, on the second attempt to reach Australia from Kupang on an overcrowded fishing boat, things went dangerously wrong. The boys were rescued, along with 438 other asylum seekers, by the Norwegian freighter, the Tampa.

Akbar takes up the story: “Everybody thought they were going to die before the Tampa saved us. The boat had broken down and water was coming in through a large hole.”

That was just the beginning of Akbar’s journey of disappointment that would bring him back to the ghostly village near Wardak and a countryside of gravestones. Over a lunch of kebabs, fried eggs, chick peas and green tea, Akbar, now 23, recounted his journey, producing UNHCR documents and letters from authorities and Australian refugee advocates he has kept from his journey.

He says he finds it hard to believe the way he was tricked, manipulated and misled by Australian authorities.

“They did everything they could to sink our case for refugee status. We were denied access to lawyers, we we never told of our rights and we were held illegally on Nauru for two years. We were genuine refugees and we were denied asylum.”

After first refusing to leave the Tampa, Akbar says the asylum seekers – including many Iraqis – agreed to go when the Australian commander on the boat “told us that they would take us to Nauru for an interview and then on to Australia. We were tricked into leaving the Tampa. They had no intention of ever letting us get to Australia.

“The trip to Nauru took 17 days, when it should have taken seven at the most. We were kept at sea while they built the camps on Nauru. But they were also waiting for the Taliban to be defeated so that our claims for asylum would be rejected.

“They knew that the longer interviews about our claims were delayed the less chance there was of us being accepted as refugees. We were tricked into thinking that Nauru was just a stopover on the way to Australia.”

Akbar says the conditions on the Manoora were “bad”. He and the others on board were given only bread and jam to eat, and water.

“Many people had to sleep on the floor. The toilets did not work properly and many people were sea sick. When the Iraqis refused to leave the Manoora at Nauru, they were taken off by force. The soldiers would wait for them to go to the bathroom and then they would grab them. Some who resisted were beaten with batons.”

Conditions on Nauru, he says, were no better. Fellow Afghans went mad from the combination of oppressive heat, isolation and uncertainty about their status.

“One man had a problem with his mind. He came out into the area where we were screaming insults about Australia and shouting `Oh God, Oh God’. He later suddenly dropped dead and nobody knew why. He had borrowed $16,000 from a money lender and he said he could not go back to Afghanistan because he could not repay the money. I think he died of a broken heart.

“Other people just went crazy. They would take them to hospital for a few days and nights and then bring them back. After a few days they would be just the same. One boy slashed himself many times. After the riot, I decided to leave. I was dying inside from boredom and sadness. I thought anything, even the Taliban, would be better than Nauru.”

Akbar claimed he was interviewed by a Pashtun interpreter who was unsympathetic to his plight.

“I told the interpreter how the Taliban had killed women and children and that my father had organised my escape to Pakistan and then to Indonesia. I pointed out my village on a map. But I was not believed. I was told I have provided them with contradictory information.”

Akbar’s travel documents, which he made available to The Age, show that he arrived on Nauru in October 2001, and that he was formally rejected as a refugee about six months later because “the situation in Afghanistan had changed”. The letter, signed by Michael Gabaudar of the UNHCR, said in part: “You were unable to substantiate that your fear of persecution is well founded in the light of information about the situation in your country of origin.”

Along with his cousin and another boy from the village, he accepted the Australian Government’s offer of $2500 to return to Afghanistan; he arrived home last December.

“I hate Australia, but not Australians. I thought Australians had a love of humanity, but they smashed my dreams.”

Akbar works on his father’s farm, which has been devastated by years of drought. But heavy spring rains have brought with them some hope of relief. Asked if he plans to stay and make his future in Sarcasma and the decimated Hazara community, Akbar says no.

“There is nothing for me here. I have lost three years of my life and I cannot afford to lose any more.”

Report by Russell Skelton in The Age, May 27 2003.