This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org.
License [2]: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/Int'l.
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How Germany failed its local Afghan employees: An insider’s account
By: []
Date: 2021-09
The US's 2001 military intervention in Afghanistan, often hailed as the ‘War on Terror’, paved the way for numerous international actors, including Germany, to actively engage in the subsequent state-building processes in the country.
Since the deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan in May, several countries have announced their commitment to relocating their former Afghan employees. Although some European countries had in recent years already been working on special schemes granting asylum to a limited number of their former employees, they were reluctant to accept that all of their local employees in Afghanistan were exposed to real risk. In fact, there was an understatement of the gravity of the security situation in the country. Despite a request by the Afghan government for a temporary stop on involuntary return, the EU continued deportations of Afghan refugees whose asylum applications were rejected.
Germany’s local employees, for example, have long been categorized based on their vulnerability. Despite the dangers they were all exposed to, many will have been left behind today, after the country failed to bring all its former vulnerable employees from Afghanistan under the Taliban’s threat of arrest and persecution before the complete withdrawal of US forces by 31 August.
Germany deployed the second largest number of soldiers, around 150,000, to Afghanistan in the past two decades. It took responsibility for opening two main Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Mazar-e Sharif and Kunduz, but its area of operation extended to Faizabad in the northeast – covering five provinces. Germany deployed its troops mainly to Kabul, Kunduz and Mazar-e Sharif and became in charge of training and mentoring Afghan police.
The PRTs and their civilian partners such as the German development agency, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Federal Foreign Office hired thousands of Afghans in different roles to work for the German government.
An insider account
Before moving to Germany in 2015, I worked as a local employee for the German government in Kunduz and Mazar-e Sharif. I remember how in 2013, before the handover of Kunduz Camp to the Afghan security forces, the German government was reluctant to think about the future of its former employees. I witnessed the moment former translators for the German military (Bundeswehr) realized that they would be left behind, and a group of 25 gathered in front of Kunduz camp to protest during the visit by Thomas de Maiziere, then Germany’s interior minister, and Guido Westerwelle, then the foreign minister. This pushed officials in Berlin to work more seriously on a special asylum procedure for the former employees of the Bundeswehr, with the Ministry of Interior and Federal Foreign Office dividing them into several categories (A, B, C and D) based on the risk they were exposed to.
However, the assessment of actual threat and risk posed to the local employees was not a transparent procedure and the eligibility criteria were classified as confidential Some of those who were in categories C and D, and are still in Afghanistan, were equally vulnerable as those in A and B, who have arrived in Germany. Former employees who have been recently evacuated or who are still struggling to come to Germany might be those who were once categorized as less vulnerable.
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