The tragedy of the translators of the American troops left in Afghanistan: the Taliban promise to behead them

One more or less word from the translator may mean the death of the war correspondent or the soldier. Finding a smart interpreter with a good command of English is the first and one of the most difficult tasks for any foreigner in a conflict context. And this is true for journalists as well as for the occupying troops who grope their way and who depend on these premises to move in complete safety. Translators are essential. They are also the first to become waste as soon as space is left. This is currently happening in Afghanistan and it has already happened in Iraq or Vietnam. Translators go from workers who earn a little more in dollars than the rest of their compatriots to pariahs, apostates and collaborators they only deserve death.

This is what happened this week with Sohail Pardís, a 32-year-old Afghan boy who worked 18 months as an interpreter for the American forces. He had already been detected by the Taliban and they told him they would kill him. He was careless and went to celebrate the end of Ramadan with his sister. They arrested him at a Taliban checkpoint outside Kabul, shot his car and dragged him outside, injured. When they identified him, they cut off his head with a saber. According to the No One Left Behind organization, there are 18,000 translators and collaborators in the same situation as Pardís and waiting for the American embassy to rush the issuance of special immigrant visas (SIV) before the total departure of the troops ends in September. Since President Joe Biden ordered the evacuation and end of the longest war in American history in January, Almost all soldiers and support personnel have already left Afghanistan who remained while the Taliban continued to advance and they control more than half of the territory and 90% of the borders. Western intelligence estimates that the democratic Afghan government in Kabul will collapse within six months of the departure of foreign soldiers.

The situation extends to all NATO troops who have withdrawn from Afghan territory or are in the process. According to the German Ministry of Defense, Visa applications from 471 local workers were accepted along with 1,900 family members. And he said that “about 95% of them will receive the necessary documents to go to Germany” at the end of the Bundeswehr’s presence in Afghanistan. Over the past few weeks, the Germans accelerated their retreat after his American colleagues left the strategic base in Bagram and for the sake of safety in Mazar-i-Sharif, the third most populous city in the country, where they were based at the so-called Camp Marmal. The Taliban are closing in. Last Wednesday, a lone Taliban militiaman wearing a black turban was seen in the western part of town and scares the police and all local authorities away without engaging in combat. The Germans could only secure their base and did not allow the entry of any of the local workers working there.

Several districts of the province around Mazar-i-Sharif are already in Taliban hands. And the overland route to Kabul has become extremely dangerous. The last German A400M transport plane took off from Camp Marmal two weeks ago. Drones, helicopters, ammunition and even the 27-ton memorial stone for fallen Bundeswehr soldiers are already back in Germany. the 22,500 liters of beer, wine and champagne that the soldiers did not drink. But the 400 residents who have worked over the past 12 years to supply, clean up and translate troops. This is the case exposed by the magazine Abdul Rauf Nazari, 49, Der Spiegel, who led German soldiers through the narrow streets of the market of Mazar-i-Sharif and the surrounding villages of the desert and was abandoned with a thank you letter. for your services. “They are going to kill me. There is no way I will survive in Afghanistan “he told a journalist from the German magazine.

Last month, a number of non-governmental organizations, led by the International Refugee Assistance Project and including Oxfam, UNICEF and Amnesty International, issued a joint statement calling for help for local workers. “With the current withdrawal, NATO member states must act urgently to ensure the safety of Afghan civilians, past and present, locally engaged. Time is running out. “Time, of course, is not on your side. The bureaucratic visa process and the physical evacuation of people usually takes up to nine months.” This time frame is not more feasible, ”say the NGOs.

In 2014, the vast majority of foreign forces withdrew from the country and those that remained shifted from a combat role to an advisory role. Since, more than 26,000 Afghans and their families have been granted asylum in the United States. But at least 18,000 other people who worked with the Americans remain in Afghanistan. And it is estimated that with their families, they will need some 70,000 visas that should be granted in a few days. The group No One Left Behind claims that more than 300 performers have already been performed for working with American forces.

In Iraq, a similar situation occurred. The US Immigration Service issued 20,993 visas to Iraqi civilian personnel who worked on US bases in this country. Another 200,000 are still being processed. A group of these workers are already in a refugee camp on the American island of Guam. It is the same place where thousands of Vietnamese who had collaborated with American troops spent years when they withdrew from Saigon in 1973.

In each of the conflicts in which the soldiers sent by the Pentagon have intervened in the last century, there has always been a planned withdrawal of troops, tanks and spies from bases of operations, but disastrously failed to protect allied civilians left behind after departure. In Saigon and Laos, as soon as they were released, the horrors began. Hundreds of thousands of dead in South Vietnam, killed in labor camps or in the South China Sea aboard fleeing refugee ships. In Laos, members of the Hmong tribe who had supported the American intervention they were massacred by the Vietcong guerrillas.

Finally, the tragedy of those who tried to flee in the fragile boats and the large number of Amerasians, the children left by the soldiers, forced Congress to intervene, ordering the air transport of the Indochinese exiles to the camps of this country. bestowed special immigrant status on Vietnamese descendants of American soldiers. “We took in over 200,000 people with American visas: there was a strong sense of moral obligation,” explains Becca Heller, director of the Refugee Assistance Project from Wars, a group of influential young lawyers working on behalf of exiles. policies. . “It has created an avenue for people who cannot get regular visas, but to whom we have a humanitarian duty. It was done badly in Vietnam and we need to do better in Afghanistan and Iraq”.

I end this note with Ali’s memory, my translator the first time I was in Afghanistan immediately after the fall of the Taliban in November-December 2001. A medical student at Kabul University with excellent English learned self-taught and secretly watching Hollywood movies. He worked with me and other correspondents for $ 100 a day, a fortune in Afghan terms. When he had had enough, he went to London to do a postgraduate degree in pediatrics. I haven’t heard from him again.

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