Westerners are working in Kabul to evacuate their nationals and as many Afghans as possible who have worked for these countries and who are threatened by the return to power of the Taliban. This also applies ...

Germany: Merkel strongly criticized for her handling of the Afghan file

Armin Laschet, candidate for Angela Merkel's succession from her party, the CDU, on August 25, 2021 at the Bundestag, in Berlin, in front of the Chancellor.

AFP - TOBIAS SCHWARZ

Text by: RFI Follow

4 min

Westerners are working in Kabul to evacuate their nationals and as many Afghans as possible who have worked for these countries and who are threatened by the return to power of the Taliban.

This also applies to Germany, where criticism against the government is numerous, as we saw in Parliament on Wednesday 25 August 2021.

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With our correspondent in Berlin,

Pascal Thibaut

Admittedly, this extraordinary session of the Bundestag gave a broad mandate to the evacuations of Germany in Afghanistan.

But the attacks on Angela Merkel and her government have been fierce, one month away from

the

historic September 2021

general election

For the green candidate for the chancellery Annalena Baerbock, it is "

a disaster

The leader of the parliamentary group of the left party Dietmar Bartsch speaks of "

the Chancellor's worst failure after 16 years in office

The Christian Democrat chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Norbert Röttgen speaks of a "

political catastrophe

►Also read

: The Taliban ensure that Afghans will be able to leave after August 31

The resignations of the foreign affairs and defense ministers have been demanded in recent days.

They are accused of neither having anticipated the situation nor taken into account the alarming information from the German embassy in Kabul;

not to have made it easier and earlier to allow the Afghans who worked for the Bundeswehr to leave the country, too.

A parliamentary commission of inquiry could be set up after the elections.

But for her part, if Angela Merkel defended the intervention on the spot against terrorism in 2001, and the achievements of the German presence for education, infant mortality or the supply of drinking water in Afghanistan, her questions betrayed many doubts.

Were our goals too ambitious?

Have these goals and the associated values convinced the majority of Afghans?

Have we underestimated the extent of corruption?

Has the international community done enough to find a political solution?

Have we overestimated the will of the Afghan army to fight?

The Chancellor, at the end of her reign, estimated that the lessons of this intervention, in the future as for those still in progress, should be learned.

She didn't quote Mali, but the allusion was clear, as many here have often drawn parallels with Afghanistan.

The environmental candidate for the German Chancellery Annalena Baerbock, on August 25, 2021 at the rostrum of the Bundestag, in Berlin.

AFP - TOBIAS SCHWARZ

►Also listen: Annalena Baerbock, a serious contender (The European of the week)

Germany: Merkel strongly criticized for her handling of the Afghan file

Germany: Merkel strongly criticized for her handling of the Afghan file

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