By Cam Lucadou-Wells
After a thorny debate on “genocide”, a majority of Greater Dandenong councillors have voted in support of Hazaras in Australia and abroad.
The ‘Stop Hazara Genocide’ motion tabled by Cr Rhonda Garad on 24 October acknowledged “systematic discrimination and violence” targeting Hazaras by state institutions and extremist terrorist groups in Afghanisatan.
“The Hazaras have long been subjugated and subjected to discrimination, forced displacement and genocide primarily because of their ethnic and religious identity,” the motion stated.
Under Taliban rule over the past year, they have faced “massacres, persecution, destruction of their cultural heritage, de-population from their ancestral lands and the erasure of their identity.”
“There are growing concerns that the Hazara people are at risk of the crime of genocide.”
Against the motion were Crs Tim Dark and Bob Milkovic, arguing that a “genocide” had not been officially declared by United Nations bodies.
As a self-described “war refugee”, Cr Milkovic said “in no way, shape or form do I oppose peace but I oppose political virtue-signalling”.
He said the council was not the “responsible body” for labelling the situation as a “genocide”. The move risked bringing “divisions” into the “heart of our community”.
Cr Milkovic, who waited for two years in a refugee camp before being accepted into Australia, was also against a “rushed decision” to increase Australia’s humanitarian intake from Afghanistan.
In response, Cr Garad said there was “no doubt that what is happening is genocidal in nature”.
She rejected that the motion would create conflict in Dandenong.
The 12,000-strong Hazara community in Dandenong held “real and palpable” concerns for their loved ones at risk in Afghanistan, she said.
And the council should “recognise the pain” and lobby on their behalf.
The council will lobby for the Australian Government to condemn the “dramatic escalation of genocidal violence” and to convene an emergency round-table with the Australian-Hazara community.
It will also urge for Australia to increase emergency humanitarian places from at-risk groups fleeing Afghanistan to 20,000, and to grant permanent protection to Hazaras on temporary protection visas in Australia.
The motion noted the impact on the Australian-Hazara community in Australia, many who still have families in Afghanistan. About 12,000 are estimated to live in Dandenong.
