Kuchi people

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Kuchis (from the Pashto word Koch meaning "migration"), are tribes of Pashtun nomads primarily from the Ghilzai tribes. The population of nomads in Afghanistan was estimated at about 1-2 million people in 1979.^[1]

The group have been identified out by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) as one of the largest vulnerable populations in the country.

Kuchis historically abstained from politics, because they are nomadic, but under Afghanistan's constitution, they were given ten seats in parliament. Hashmat Ghani Ahmadzai is one of the famous individual who belongs to this ethnic tribe.^[2] Provisions are written into the Afghanistan Constitution (Article 14) aimed at improving the welfare of Kuchis, including provisions for housing, representation, and education.^[3]

Possibly, Kuchis are descendants of the ancient Kushans - the Tocharian Yuezhi,^[4][5] who were recorded by the Chinese source to be living in the grasslands of Western Central Asia, in modern-day Kunduz, Kucha and Pamir regions.

According to the UN High Commission on Refugees, before the 30 years of war, Kuchis owned 30 per cent of the country's goats and sheep and most of the camels for years. They traded things such as dairy products, tea, sugar and wool with the sedentary people for food staples such as wheat and vegetables.^[6] They formed the spine of the Afghan economy and their trading caravans bridged South Asia and the Middle East.^[6]

Kuchis were also favored by the Kings of Afghanistan, themselves of Pashtun origin, since the late 1880s. They were awarded "firman," or royal proclamations, granting them use of summer pastures all over Afghanistan in a long-lasting Pashtunization campaign.^[7][8][9] During the Taliban era, Kuchis were a main factor and supporter of the Taliban and their leader Mohammed Omar^[10] As a result, the northern ethnic groups (Hazara, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Turkmens) have a long-standing distrust of the Kuchi. This political dispute has been deepened over the decades of Kuchi transhumance, whereby some Kuchis became absentee landlords in their summer areas in the north through customary seizure procedures to attach debtors' land. However, the Kuchis themselves see the northern minority groups as a non-Afghan race, and claims the Kochis were natives of northern Afghan region, and that during many years of invasion such as Genghis Khan and Timur, they escaped south.

As Afghanistan's population grows, competing claims over summer pastures, both for rainfed cultivation and for grazing of the settled communities' livestock, have created conflict over land across central and northern Afghanistan. Paying head-count fees for each animal crossing someone else's property is exacting a harsh economic toll on the Kuchi way of life, one that is already having to contend with recurrent droughts that are now occurring with increasing frequency^[11][12].

Haji Niam Kuchi, a senior tribal leader within the Kuchi, was captured and held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp.^[13]

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