Afghan Promise -- Holding the Liberal Gov't of Canada to Account

"The Taliban [interrogating those they suspect of having worked with the West in Afghanistan] the first question is, 'Why do you need a family passport?"

"Who did you work for and who did your family work for'?"

Ghulam Faizi, former Afghan interpreter, Canadian citizen

 

"They were promised that they would bring their family members here to Canada within weeks."

"It has now been almost three months since they submitted their applications following the government's instructions."

"Three hundred families have submitted their applications. Not one family member has made it to Canada."

New Democrat Member of Parliament Jenny Kwan 

Members of the Afghan National Police meet with soldiers from the Canadian Armed Forces in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, on April 20, 2006. When Canadian soldiers left Afghanistan in 2011, they left behind local Afghans — former interpreters and mission staff — who helped them navigate the country they had landed in nine years earlier. (John D. McHugh/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Canada's federal government has been in no hurry to rescue vulnerable Afghan citizens who had worked with the Canadian military, diplomatic missions and NGOs and whom the Taliban regard as traitors they mete out capital punishment to. Despite having pledged that it could be relied upon to bring these interpreters, office workers, maintenance people, to Canada to start a new life in the West, as recompense for placing themselves in danger during the years that Canada had a military/diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has failed to respond.

It is well enough known the danger that these Afghan citizens live under. That the Taliban has a punishment agenda it carries out, despite denying that it targets former government workers, those who collaborated with the NATO-member countries in the U.S.-led, UN-approved mission to oust al-Qaeda and the Taliban from Afghanistan. The U.S., tired of its unending role in the war-torn country, chose to negotiate a 'peace agreement' with the Taliban. This, even while the Taliban kept mounting violently deadly attacks in the country.

With foreign Western troops geared to depart the country, led by the United States in a hasty retreat, the Taliban made swift strides in gaining control, and finally toppling the government in Kabul. So much for a peace agreement, a power-sharing deal. Despite that the Taliban leadership claimed they had no intention of hunting down those they consider to be traitors, this is precisely what has occurred, making the urgency to withdraw the vulnerable slated for death an imperative.

A recent press conference organized by one of the government's opposition parties saw interpreters warning they plan to hold a hunger strike in protest against government inaction to save their loved ones. Although these are people who managed to make it to Canada in previous organized flights out of the country to arrive in Canada, their families were left behind. Families they now say are fleeing from house to house in hopes of evading the door-to-door searches the Taliban have undertaken.

Afghans who applied for passports to leave the country following Canadian government instructions, points out Ghulam Faizi, now a Canadian citizen, formerly an interpreter in Afghanistan, are being interrogated by the Taliban. He spoke of the long wait for Canada to process papers in neighbouring countries like Pakistan, where the Afghans there seeking temporary haven see their visas expiring and the threat of deportation back to Afghanistan looming.

Afghans gather outside the passport office in Kabul on Oct. 6, 2021, after Taliban officials announced they would start issuing passports to citizens again following months of delays that hampered attempts by those trying to flee the country after the Taliban seized control. (Jorge Silva/Reuters)

"We feel like we have been lied to from day one", he said. Jenny Kwan, the Member of Parliament, urged the government to treat Afghans in the same expeditious manner as they do Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. To stop the persecution of these vulnerable Afghan families, their entry to Canada must be speeded up, the processing of their papers and biometric data can be carried out once they arrive, rather than waiting for everything to be done before they're permitted entry to Canada.

To date, none of the promised Afghan families have been enabled to travel to Canada under special immigration measures already introduced last year. This, despite interpreters living now in Canada, anxious about their families' fate in Afghanistan repeatedly met with government officials and the immigration minister citing delays and logistical problems.

To date, the government brought close to 10,000 Afghans to Canada, of the 40,000 they promised would be arriving. Meanwhile the situation in Afghanistan is fraught with danger for those implicated and identified by the Taliban as accessories to the 'criminal acts' of their relatives who had worked under the former government of Afghanistan with foreign forces.

Afghan people fill out their details to register to leave the country in front of the British and Canadian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 19, 2021. Those trying to arrange a way out of the country following the Taliban takeover say it's taking too long and their window for escape is narrowing. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images)