Kathy Gannon Substack
Afghans areno longer welcome by those who once helped them leave Afghanistan, abandoning them, no longer wanted. Western Values eh? Go figure.
Germany has turned to Afghanistan’s Taliban to assist its deportation of Afghans back to Afghanistan, from where they fled. It’s quite the about face, even for the West.
On Monday Germany’s foreign ministry made it clear it is stepping up deportation of Afghans to Afghanistan and needs the Taliban’s help, never mind that the Afghans in Germany likely fled the same Taliban, who are now being invited to Germany to arrange their return.
The foreign ministry says there are about 450,000 Afghan nationals in Germany. It didn’t say how many they wanted to deport, but the spokesman, Sebastien Giese made it pretty clear at Monday’s press conference in Berlin that it is Germany’s hope to deport as many as they can.
“It is the clear objective of the Federal Government to increase the number of deportations to Afghanistan. We are also working toward that,” said Giese, thus the need to get the Taliban to Germany to give a helping hand to Germany’s new center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Party.
It seems more than a little hypocritical of Germany to refuse to reopen its embassy in Afghanistan because it abhors the Taliban’s regressive laws which Afghans are forced to live under, including those targeting women and girls, yet Germany invites the Taliban to Germany to help return Afghans, who fled Taliban rule, back to Afghanistan.
Western values eh? Go figure.
Last year, after Germany opened the Afghan diplomatic mission in Bonn to the Taliban, the Taliban launched an advertising campaign looking for interns seeking “to gain practical and professional experience at the Consulate General of Afghanistan in Bonn, working within a diplomatic mission.” The upside: It didn’t say women need not apply.
Germany has sought to sidestep the question of diplomatic recognition, which Germany, like all countries, except Russia, have refused to give the Taliban governemnt, with talk of seeking “technical” aid from the Taliban. But that seems disengenuous given that the Taliban are at the Afghan diplomatic mission in Bonn. You can’t have it both ways Germany.
Germany also says it is deporting those Afghans with a criminal record. Not true. On the last plane load of 81 Afghans sent from Germany to Afghanistan, at least one had no criminal record. It was the first, but given the ramped up efforts to deport Afghans it most certainly won’t be the last.
Germany appears to be the first country to openly seek the Taliban’s assistance in deporting Afghans. However it is not likely to be the last.
Because the Taliban effectively govern Afghanistan, under the international-law principle that those controlling most of a country function as its government, Germany or any country returning Afghans does indeed need their help. Certainly Germany can’t just fly a planeload of Afghans to Kabul, dump them off and fly away. Nor it would seem can any country seeking to fly deported Afghans home.
Germany may just be setting a trend. Certainly much of the west is lining up to deport Afghans from their territory. Bizarrly the United States is simply shipping deportees to third countries, mostly in Africa.
It’s a far cry from the 2021 welcome many western countries gave Afghans fleeing Kabul when the Taliban defeated the United States and its NATO allies and returned to power.
The open arms were never really about affection for Afghans, but more a gesture intended to assuage the collective guilt of the largely western world for its failed 20-year invasion and its desperate and humiliating departure from Kabul.
Rather than admitting they were abandoning Afghans and Afghanistan, taking their planes and going home, the departing invaders sought to take those who had befriended them, ignoring the 42 million other Afghans, who had also hoped for a better day back in 2001 when the invaders first arrived.
As a result, there are thousands stranded in Pakistan, who were helped to leave Afghanistan by their so-called foreign friends, living in fear of being deported back to Afghanistan or thousands more living in western countries, now uncertain of their future, living in countries whose governments want them gone.
Western values eh? Go figure.
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