Afghanistan: unequal treatment for local army auxiliaries on departure
Flag withdrawal ceremony at an American base, May 2, 2021. The withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan poses the problem of the security of their local auxiliaries.
AP
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5 mins
The US intervention in Afghanistan will soon end after 20 years of conflict.
On the ground, the meteoric advance of the Taliban, who would henceforth control ¾ of the territory, arouses the fear of several thousand former auxiliaries of the foreign armies, accused of treason by the insurgents.
But state policies are not the same.
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The repatriation policy for former local staff is very uneven depending on the country.
Germany has repatriated more than 760 auxiliaries with their families out of some 800 recruitments.
In the course of the week, the United States will carry out an initial evacuation of around 2,500 translators and assistants from the American army, out of 19,000 requests for protection and repatriation.
Portugal and New Zealand good students
Among the good students, we can cite Portugal and New Zealand which, when their troops left, repatriated all their Afghan personnel without exception.
In the United Kingdom, despite a gigantic military and civilian mobilization to repatriate as many auxiliaries as possible, the procedures are dragging on.
Only a fifth of the 2,000 interpreters have been relocated.
London recently announced that because of the danger of retaliation from the Taliban, the country has a moral duty to repatriate former collaborators as soon as possible.
Over 3,000 additional people are expected to benefit from this program.
Collective of lawyers
Since 2014, France has accepted to accommodate 222 Afghan auxiliaries, a total of 768 people with their families.
But many claim to have been forgotten by the French authorities and to be in danger of death.
A new group of volunteer lawyers has been formed to provide them with assistance by relaunching urgent legal proceedings, the ultimate attempt to obtain their repatriation.
The collective is based on the census work carried out by Quentin Müller, a freelance journalist who has listed around sixty former auxiliaries who fear for their lives.
Last month, a former army cook Abdul Basir was kidnapped and murdered in Wardak by the Taliban.
His visa applications at the French embassy in Kabul had been rejected three times.
For the journalist, it is urgent.
Behind all these somewhat technical files, there are human beings, stories, people who are suffering (...) And then there are deaths.
Quentin Müller, freelance journalist, co-author "Tarjuman, a French betrayal" (Bayard)
A few days ago, a lawyer called me up and said: I would like, with a dozen colleagues, to relaunch an urgent legal procedure - because there is a real urgency for the lives of these people. Behind all these somewhat technical files, there are human beings, stories, people who are suffering. They have been suffering since the departure of the French. They are out of work, or they have a job, but live in hiding. They have wasted ten years of their lives living in paranoia, fear, with no prospect of the future. They have sometimes suffered collateral damage from attacks, and then there are deaths. There is Kader Daoudaï, who had nevertheless begged the French state, who had even written to parliament that he felt in danger. He jumped along with a Taliban,in a suicide bombing. And there is the last one, Abdul Basir. And then all those who left with the migrants, and of whom we have lost track. So behind this super cold, super budgetary management, there are people who have suffered, people who have died, there are families who are bereaved.
Quentin Müller is the author of “Tarjuman, une betrayal in France” (Bayard), a work co-written with Brice Andlauer.
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