KABUL, Afghanistan – The U.N.-organized mass repatriation of nearly 2 million Afghan refugees last year was premature and has caused serious disruption to the country’s reconstruction process.

That’s the conclusion of a study conducted by the highly-regarded Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. The report concludes that the program to bring so many displaced persons back so quickly after the overthrow of the Taliban regime was driven by internal and external political pressures rather than the best interests of the refugees themselves.

AREU is an independent research institution aimed at helping international humanitarian and development programs to operate more effectively in Afghanistan. Its management board includes representatives from donors, U.N. agencies and non-governmental organization. The study was funded by the European Commission.

The research group’s report contends that the U.N., along with those nations involved in rebuilding Afghanistan, badly misjudged the cost and length of time it would take to rebuild the shattered country.

Having been encouraged by promises of financial assistance, huge reconstruction aid and a multinational military presence to ensure security in the country, many refugees opted to come back quickly, only to be sorely disappointed.

“It is safe to say that many returnees found themselves in a worse position after their return than before, and that the scale and speed of the return helped to divert yet more of the limited funds available for reconstruction into emergency assistance,” said the study’s authors, David Turton and Peter Marsden.

People have been fleeing Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion in 1979. By the end of the 1980s, there were an estimated 3 million refugees living in Iran, with another 3 million believed to have fled to Pakistan.

Many more fled while the mujahadeen and Taliban ruled the country during the 1990s. For many, the overthrow of the Taliban at the end of 2001 offered the first glimmer of hope that they could return to their homeland.

In March of last year, the UNHCR began its program to assist returning refugees. It expected that about 800,00 would return from Pakistan and Iran. Instead, by the end of September, more than 1.5 million had come back from camps in Pakistan, while another 220, 000 left Iran to return home.

In addition, there were about 1 million more people internally displaced in the country, partly by the effects of a drought now in its fourth year, and partly because of ethnic unrest in the north of the country, the study said.

More refugees meant less help available for each returnee.

“UNHCR’s initial plans for reintegration assistance had to be scaled down drastically because the returnees so greatly exceeded the number budgeted,” the study found. “Meanwhile, reconstruction assistance was taking much longer than expected to materialize, and calls for the extension of (international security forces) beyond Kabul continued to fall on deaf ears.”

But rather than slow the number of returnees to a more manageable level, all of the involved parties continued to encourage the exodus.

The study argues that political pressure both inside and outside Afghanistan was the major factor driving the repatriation program.

For the new Afghan government, it was a vote of confidence as it struggled to exert control over warlords. For the United States and its allies, every returning refugee could be seen as proof that its policy to oust the Taliban had been a success.

Meanwhile, “For the governments of Pakistan and Iran, it represented a reduction in what they saw as an unfair economic burden of hosting Afghan refugees. For UNHCR, it emphatically demonstrated its ‘relevance’ to the international community,” the report found.

So, while a delay in the mass return of refugees might have been beneficial for the returnees, such a policy shift has “been ruled out because of political constraints on UNHCR’s freedom of action – coming from its funders, from the government of Afghanistan and from countries of asylum.”

“Our principal conclusion,” the report stated, “is that it was these external factors that led UNHCR to launch an assisted repatriation program in early 2002, which was, arguably, in the interests neither of the majority of its intended beneficiaries nor of the long-term reconstruction of Afghanistan.”

A UNHCR spokesman said the report covered “a very complex subject in a creditable way considering the short time available, “but defended the agency’s repatriation program as a positive step.

“It is clear that the return and reintegration of so many people into their homeland does represent a sharp social and economic challenge, and that this will certainly be assisted by an increase in future support for rehabilitation and reconstruction programs in Afghanistan,” the spokesman said.

But AREU’s director, Andrew Wilder, said that other lessons need to be drawn from the Afghan experience “to avoid unnecessarily creating another humanitarian crisis.”

The report called for increased international aid for reconstruction, along with more donor support for countries hosting refugees to enable them to stay where they are until the situation at home improves.

Unless such actions are taken soon, the report warns, “we risk contributing to political destabilization in Afghanistan by increasing the number of landless and unemployed Afghans fighting over scarce resources.”

Colin McIntyre is a journalist who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization that trains journalists in areas of conflict.