Failure To Connect To Commitment
Families airlifted from Kabul are seen arriving at an airport in Chantilly, Va., on Saturday. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/The Associated Press) |
"Slowly but surely the connectivity in Afghanistan will start dropping off. It will be harder and harder to track these guys.""What's happening now is the equivalent of what happened during the Second World War when we turned back Jewish [German] refugees and said, 'It's not that bad, it's OK'.""This is where people are going to start disappearing."Robin Rickards, Afghanistan veteran, Thunder Bay, Ontario"Their life is in danger I pray for them.""All their kids were so excited about going to the land of opportunity. They were so happy ...""Now they are going back to the war zone."Abdul Ahmadullah, ex-interpreter, Canadian military"The situation in Kandahar is very bad right now.""The Taliban is looking house by house for everyone who was working for the [former national] government, who was working for the Canadians or Americans."Azizi (last name withheld) Kabul, Afghanistan
"As a country that prides itself on equality, on women's rights and on taking care of children, it's absolutely mind boggling to me the government hasn't made it a more significant priority.""The fact is that our bureaucrats are failing us. this isn't business as usual, this is an emergency, this is a catastrophe of global proportions."Corey Shelson, spokesman, Veterans Transition Network
Months
before the actual August evacuation of vulnerable Afghans out of Kabul
with the takeover of the country by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
terrorist Taliban from the duly democratically elected Republic of
Afghanistan, the government of Canada committed to withdrawing Afghans
who had worked with Canadian forces out of harm's way, in the certain
knowledge that the Taliban would seek to punish them as traitors for
working with foreign nations.
Thousands
of Afghans along with their families were identified as former workers
for Canada in Afghanistan, and they were encouraged to produce I.D.,
official papers attesting to their status and to apply online for
documentation to Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada for review
and ultimate issuance of travel visas. Very few applicants saw their
paperwork completed in Canada and were in receipt of the waited-for
visas sent to Afghanistan.
Canadian
veteran rescue groups attempted to intervene, to prod the government
agency to work on their files, but in the event, a relative handful of
the workers were flown out before the Kabul airport was closed to
further evacuations in the face of chaotic and desperate throngs of
Afghans attempting to find air passage away from the Taliban and their
suddenly-dangerous existence where Taliban forces set out to punish
former government elite, government workers and those they deemed to be
traitors.
Those
same Canadian aid groups operated mostly by Afghan veterans who had
close contact with the Afghan workers encouraged them to leave Kandahar,
the base of the Taliban, and where formerly Canadian troops had been
stationed, to travel to Kabul and to wait there for their visas to
arrive. The Afghans were housed in safe houses paid for by private
Canadian philanthropy and the veterans' groups.
As
months went by with little progress in resolving the situation and the
Afghans waiting to be taken out of Afghanistan increasingly concerned
over their safety from Taliban reprisals, the veterans' groups funding
began running out, and they turned to the government for financial
assistance. There was no governmental response to their pleas. And the
Afghans in hiding in safe houses could no longer remain in them. They
were left with little option, with the approach of winter, other than to
return to Kandahar.
No
fewer than 9,500 former employees and their dependents had been
approved by the Canadian government to come to Canada to be settled
there, yet most remain stranded in Afghanistan. Overland escape through
Pakistan is difficult and chancy, since the Afghan/Pakistan border has
been tightened and most Afghans lack passports and are still awaiting
single-use travel documents from the IRCC. 95 percent of the 1,700
people who lived in the safe houses were forced to leave when funding
ran out.
There
are reports out of Kandahar that Talibs have been hunting down former
government officials along with others, hustling them from their homes
at night and mounting summary executions. Former interpreter Abdul
Ahmadullah's home in Kandahar was burned down by the Taliban and he has
nowhere to return to, so he is hoping somewhere that he may be able to
remain in Kabul, awaiting the required visas, with his wife and his
children, and hope he will be able to evade capture and death in the
interim.
Photo supplied by Jawed Ahmad Haqmal |
Azizi,
who had worked at a Canadian base in Kandahar, borrowed money to try to
remain in Kabul at a safe house where he, his wife and three children
fled to from his home in Kandahar a month and a half after news reached
him that the Taliban were searching for him. Canadian veteran Rickards
spoke of one of the Afghans he is attempting to help as an Asiatic and
Shia ethnic group member, persecuted by the Taliban yet considering
having to return to Kandahar.
In
his opinion the Liberal government in Canada, despite its sanctimonious
claims of the imperatives of women's rights and that of children,
ignores the fact that those now leaving the safe houses in Kabul for the
dangers awaiting them in Kandahar are mostly women and children. It is
his view that the Liberal government is simply disinterested in
following through on its promises, as yet another instance where it
speaks the language of human rights but fails to deliver.
Wali Sabawoon/The Associated Press
Labels: Afghanistan, Canada, Canadian Veterans, Danger, Persecution and Death Rescue of Afghans, Taliban
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