No answers for those left behind in Kabul
VETS `HORRIFIED' AT HOW WE TREATED ALLIES AS PULLOUT FROM AIRPORT ENDS U.S. WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
The Taliban are expected Tuesday to take full control of Kabul airport after the U.S. military completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, leaving hundreds of thousands of people trapped and desperate to flee the country.
The final U.S. C-17 transport plane departed Hamid Karzai International Airport at 3:29 p.m. E.T. — one minute to midnight in Kabul.
As a result, those in Canada trying to rescue their stranded allies must now decide between having former Afghan interpreters and their families attempt an extremely dangerous trek to Pakistan, or following the Canadian government's advice to sit tight and wait.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on the election campaign trail that Canada supported a French and British proposal to create a safe zone at the Kabul airport so Afghans could continue to leave.
Britain's foreign minister is seeking to forge an alliance of international partners — including Canada — to work to provide safe passage to people who want to escape.
“We're continuing as a global community to put pressure on the Taliban, including at the United Nations, to ensure that people with travel documents for ... Canada are able to leave Afghanistan and can begin their lives anew elsewhere,” Trudeau said.
But as Wayne Eyre, acting Chief of the Defence Staff, said last week, only the U.S. has the military might to secure an airport in a place like Afghanistan. Without U.S. involvement it is unlikely any international alliance would be able to provide such security on the ground.
The Taliban have promised to allow free passage out of Afghanistan for people authorized to travel to other countries.
But Dominic Raab, the British foreign secretary, said the Taliban, Islamist militants who carried out public executions and banned girls and women from school or work when last in power 20 years ago, should be judged on their actions and on whether people were allowed to leave.
Meanwhile, grassroots groups in Canada say they don't know what advice to give people now stranded in Kabul after pleading for Canada's help.
The groups made up of veterans, refugee advocates and others say that is because the majority of those Afghans still have not heard back from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada on whether their applications for resettlement have been approved.
As a result, the groups say they do not know whether to tell the Afghans to stay at safe houses in Taliban-occupied Kabul and try to escape on an allied military or civilian flight, or risk fleeing to Pakistan or another neighbouring country.
“I don't know,” said Stephen Watt, co-founder of the Northern Lights Canada refugee group, which has been working with former interpreters and support staff. “I'm saying: `Try to stay alive. Try to get out if you can.' But I don't think any of us have any concrete answers for them.”
The Liberal government has been repeatedly criticized for not acting fast enough to save Afghans who helped Canada during its military mission there, with the special immigration program announced last month plagued by bureaucratic and technical problems.
Global Affairs Canada has warned Afghans who applied under the special program not to travel to the border with Pakistan. A copy of a message obtained by The Canadian Press instead says they should “shelter in place, given the volatility of the situation.”
Yet the message also says that “should individuals decide to assume the risk of travelling, the Pakistan government has indicated they will try to facilitate Canadian-sponsored individuals' entry into Pakistan on request of the Canadian High Commission in Islamabad.”
Watt accused the government of giving desperate Afghans “conflicting messages” by warning against travel to Pakistan while leaving the door open to possible salvation if former interpreters and their families can get there.
“That kind of mixed messaging could possibly get these guys killed,” he said.
Compounding the problem is continued uncertainty and frustration over the state of hundreds of applications from former interpreters, local staff and family members to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, which has failed to provide any update to most.
“We have still around 900 in safe houses waiting for IRCC to approve their applications and decide what to do next,” said retired corporal Tim Laidler, one of several veterans working to save former Afghan colleagues from the Taliban.
Without that approval, Laidler added, it makes it extremely difficult to know what to do next.
“We've got good contacts at the Canadian Embassy in Pakistan. We can build the route line. We can do it,” he said. “We just don't want to build it and then strand 1,000 people in Pakistan for two years and have to hire immigration lawyers. So we need to know decisively and quick.”
Laidler told Postmedia News, “I'm just horrified we treated our closest allies this way, all the people in Afghanistan who stepped up and put their lives on the line.
“The vast majority of them have been left behind so far. We just need to do better, and we need to move fast to get them out of the country.”
One former Afghanistan interpreter told Laidler his family had received an official-looking document from the Taliban that threatened they would be held accountable as spies and traitors.
Some interpreters have managed to immigrate to Canada through a restrictive program under the former Harper government but others have not. And interpreters who had managed to come to Canada are fearful of what the Taliban might do to remaining family members in Afghanistan.
Last month, Canada created a new program that offered some hope to former interpreters and others who helped the Canadian military and embassy officials. But Laidler believes very few interpreters and their families were among the 3,700 airlifted before Canada's evacuation effort ended this week. Laidler noted the Canadian military required identifying information from interpreters, including fingerprints, now accessible to the Taliban.
It is estimated 500,000 people, including Canadian citizens and former allies, want to escape possible revenge from Taliban fighters while also facing a threat from the Islamic State terrorist group.
U.S. anti-missile defences intercepted rockets fired at Kabul's airport on Monday.
An Islamic State suicide bombing outside the teeming airport gates on Thursday killed scores of Afghans and 13 U.S. troops. In recent days Washington has also warned of more attacks.
The United Nations says the entire country now faces a dire humanitarian crisis, cut off from foreign aid amid a drought, mass displacement and COVID-19.
Aid agencies have also warned the health care system could collapse.