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US 'backs opening Taliban office in Qatar'
AFP via Herald Sun - Mon Sep 12, 9:20 am ET
THE US has endorsed plans for the Taliban to open political headquarters in the Gulf state of Qatar by the end of the year, British newspaper The Times reports.
Afghan MPs' boycott leaves parliament in limbo
By Hamid Shalizi
KABUL (Reuters) - More than half of Afghanistan's lawmakers are boycotting parliament over an election authority's decision to replace nine MPs, a walkout that has pushed the legislature below quorum and extended a nearly year-long limbo.
US-backed Afghan police accused of serious abuses
By Katherine Haddon | AFP
An Afghan police force funded and supported by the United States is getting away with serious abuses including rape and murder, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report published on Monday.
Patchy progress on education
KABUL, 12 September 2011 (IRIN) - Despite billions of dollars in aid and government funding over the past decade, Afghanistan still has about four million school-age children out of school, officials say.
Pentagon: Haqqani group behind Afghan bombing
By Pauline Jelinek Associated Press / September 12, 2011
WASHINGTON—The Pentagon says the Haqqani insurgent network was behind the powerful truck bomb that wounded 77 U.S. soldiers and killed five Afghans this past weekend.
Afghan refugees in Pak don't want to return to 'chaos'
Islamabad,Sept 12(ANI): Afghan refugees, who are languishing in Pakistan, have little hope of stability in their home country inspite of ten years of US-led efforts to restore peace.
Ryan Crocker’s ‘strategic patience’ in Afghanistan
By Jackson Diehl, The Washington Post Monday, September 12, 3:48 AM
Ryan Crocker sounds very far from Washington — and not only because he is talking over an uncertain phone line from Kabul.
Pashtuns suffer as messy war rages nearby
Financial Times By Matthew Green September 11, 2011
Jalozai Camp - Niaz Wali picks up a pebble and sketches a memory in the dirt. With a few deft strokes, he recreates his former home – a mini-fortress commanding views of wheat fields, orange trees and vineyards in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
Program to bring Afghan interpreters to Canada ends with most turned away
The Canadian Press By STEPHANIE LEVITZ Sunday, Sep. 11, 2011
OTTAWA - Two of every three Afghans who sought refuge in Canada after risking their lives working for the military in Kandahar have been turned away, including some who worked alongside Canadian soldiers during the bloodiest days of battle.
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US 'backs opening Taliban office in Qatar'
AFP via Herald Sun - Mon Sep 12, 9:20 am ET
THE US has endorsed plans for the Taliban to open political headquarters in the Gulf state of Qatar by the end of the year, British newspaper The Times reports.
The move is designed to allow foreign powers to begin formal peace talks with the Taliban, diplomats told the paper.
The office of the self-styled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would be the first internationally recognised representation for the Taliban since it was ousted from power by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Foreign diplomats told the newspaper it was hoped that opening a Taliban office in Qatar would push forward the prospect of talks intended to reconcile insurgents with the Afghan government and bring an end to the decade-long war.
Washington is believed to have insisted that the office be located "outside Pakistan's sphere of influence", the report said.
"It will be an address where they have a political office," one diplomatic source, who was not named, told The Times.
"It will not be an embassy or a consulate but a residence where they can be treated like a political party."
The diplomat stressed that the Taliban would not be allowed to use the office in the Qatari capital, Doha, to raise funds.
The Times reported that the Taliban was seeking assurances that its representatives would be free from the threat of harassment or arrest.
Britain, which has the second largest contingent of troops in Afghanistan, declined to say whether it supported the creation of a Taliban office in Qatar.
"This is a matter for the United States," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.
The US ambassador to Kabul said last week that the Taliban must feel "more pain" from increased military pressure before progress can be made in peace talks.
"The Taliban needs to feel more pain before you get to a real readiness to reconcile," Ryan Crocker said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
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Afghan MPs' boycott leaves parliament in limbo
By Hamid Shalizi
KABUL (Reuters) - More than half of Afghanistan's lawmakers are boycotting parliament over an election authority's decision to replace nine MPs, a walkout that has pushed the legislature below quorum and extended a nearly year-long limbo.
The fraud-marred elections for parliament were held last September, but months of disputes between President Hamid Karzai and parliament over the results first delayed the opening of the 249-member assembly and then kept it barely functioning.
The uncertainty over the fate of the parliament is undermining an already weakened institution at a critical time, with violence at record levels and the withdrawal of foreign combat troops set to be complete by the end of 2014.
The latest dispute was sparked by the Independent Election Commission's (IEC) decision to unseat nine lawmakers, based on the findings of a special election court established by Karzai.
The members of parliament who have joined the boycott say they do not recognize the court, and see it as a tool for the president to meddle in the legislature's make-up.
They plan to stay away until they reach a deal to resolve the stand-off with the speaker of the house, or until the nine newly instated members relinquish their seats -- which they refuse to do, on the grounds they were the original winners.
"We will not attend the parliament until we reach an agreement with speaker of the house whether it takes days or weeks," said Asadullah Sadati, spokesman for the Support for the Law coalition, which is leading the boycott.
"We have proposed to the speaker that we could go to the parliament if the new nine MPs stop attending," he added.
Monday was the fifth day the parliament could not officially sit, because it was below the quorum of 125 to pass laws, although around 50 members of parliament who had not joined the boycott were scattered around in their seats.
A few hundred meters away, in a big tent set up in the grounds of a private house, opposition MPs have gathered to discuss tactics and bolster their resolve.
"When the law is broken and principles are not respected, there is no need to attend the parliament," Haji Abdul Zahir, the head of the "Support for the Law" group, told Reuters.
"The house of people must have independence -- they should not be represented by 'hand-picked MPs'," he said, accusing Karzai of meddling in the electoral process.
DEMONSTRATIONS
Even if a compromise can be reached over the status of the nine new members of parliament, it may not mean an end to the bitter disputes over who should be in parliament.
The special poll tribunal ruled that 62 lawmakers had won their seats through fraud and should be replaced, but the IEC only endorsed nine of the changes.
That decision to unseat only nine MPs satisfied neither the remaining 53, nor many of the sitting members of parliament, who although they were not affected by the changes, saw them as evidence of presidential meddling in parliamentary affairs.
Hundreds of supporters of the group of 53 are staging regular protests in the capital and provinces around Kabul, demanding that the IEC recognize all candidates endorsed by the court.
Under tight security, the nine new lawmakers have been regularly attending parliament, and say they won't back down.
"I am a legitimate member of parliament and there is no way I shouldn't attend," said Ahmad Khan Samangani, who was awarded a seat representing northern Samangan province.
(Additional reporting by Mohammad Ibrahim; Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison)
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US-backed Afghan police accused of serious abuses
By Katherine Haddon | AFP
An Afghan police force funded and supported by the United States is getting away with serious abuses including rape and murder, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report published on Monday.
The findings raise fresh questions about the Western exit strategy from Afghanistan and about handing full control of security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014, when all foreign combat troops are due to have left.
The 7,000-strong Afghan Local Police (ALP), set up last year and touted as key to the security handover, arms local people to protect their communities in areas where the Afghan army and regular police have limited reach.
They do not have law enforcement powers.
HRW found evidence of ALP abuses including killings, rapes and arbitrary detentions in three provinces -- Baghlan, Herat and Uruzgan -- out of seven where it conducted interviews.
It said such cases raised "serious concerns" about ALP vetting, recruitment and oversight and urged improvements including the establishment of a complaints body.
"Pressure to reduce international troop levels should not be at the expense of the rights of Afghans," said HRW's Asia director Brad Adams.
"Poor governance, corruption, human rights abuses and impunity for government-affiliated forces all are drivers of the insurgency and these issues need to be addressed if true stability is to come to Afghanistan."
The report said that the ALP "should be judged on whether it can bring security without violating the rights of the local communities it has been tasked to defend.
"If it becomes just another abusive militia, it will not only cause immense harm to local communities but risks undermining support for the central government and inflaming ethnic and political fault lines."
General David Petraeus, former commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, in March called the ALP "arguably the most critical element in our effort to help Afghanistan develop the capability to secure itself".
A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-Colonel Jimmie Cummings, said that it would work with the Afghan government to investigate the report's claims.
"The ALP programme is a critical component to bringing governance and security to the Afghan people at the local level," he said.
"Where relevant, we will endeavour to improve this programme and work diligently to correct these observations."
HRW also raised concerns about the role of Afghan government-backed militia groups controlled by local strongmen, which it linked to rapes, smuggling, extortion and targeted killings.
The militia are small groups loyal to warlords with roots in Afghanistan's bloody past, while the uniformed and salaried ALP was only set up last year.
"With patronage links to senior officials in the local security forces and the central government, these groups operate with impunity," the report said.
Afghan interior ministry spokesman Siddiq Siddiqui denied that the government had supported militia groups, insisting it was actually breaking them up after issuing a deadline for them to disband by October.
On the accusations of ALP abuses, he said that officials were looking into them.
"We take all accusations seriously," he said. "We'll investigate them and will take action if required."
In May, a separate report by Oxfam highlighted growing rights abuses by Afghan national police and troops, including killings and child sex abuse.
Afghanistan's army and police have grown quickly to over 300,000 and received billions of dollars of funding from the US in a bid to build them up ahead of the foreign combat force withdrawal in 2014.
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Patchy progress on education
KABUL, 12 September 2011 (IRIN) - Despite billions of dollars in aid and government funding over the past decade, Afghanistan still has about four million school-age children out of school, officials say.
"Overall our biggest challenge is our operating budget, which is not enough to cover the salaries of our teachers... and of the roughly 14,000 primary and secondary schools in the country, some 7,000 lack buildings, forcing children to study in the open, under trees or in tents," Education Ministry spokesman Aman Iman said.
Mir Khan, 10, a pupil at a primary school in Argu District in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, said his school did not have a building or even a wall around the compound, making learning difficult.
"My class is very close to the main road - in a tent. Sometimes even stray dogs get in," Khan told IRIN. "Passing cars blow dust into our tent, which gets into our clothes, hair and even notebooks. I really do not want to go to school, but what can I do? My family is forcing me to go."
The Education Ministry's budget is 15 percent of the government's budget, but 67 percent of all civil servants come under the Education Ministry, placing intolerable strains on the ministry's budget, said Iman.
"We have made good progress in the last 10 years with support from our international partners, but still it is not enough," he told IRIN, adding that the shortage of professional teachers was "another serious problem".
In 2002, Afghanistan had 3,400 primary and secondary schools, but that number has risen to 14,000 countrywide. The goal, according to the Afghan Education Strategy, is to increase that to 17,000 by 2014 and to 23,000 schools by 2020. By 2020, every Afghan child should have access to school, says the strategy. Observers say this is a tall order.
Currently, only eight million of the 12 million school-age children are in school, according to the Education Ministry.
Conflict
A major impediment to education is conflict. Some 500 schools are still closed in insecure southern and eastern areas due to fighting, assassinations and threats against teachers and students by different anti-government elements, according to the Ministry of Education.
With the help of tribal elders, the ministry has reopened around 200 schools in the southern and eastern regions in the last couple of years. But in Zabul Province, in the south, 160 are still closed. According to Shir Agha Safi, Education Ministry director in Zabul, only 25 have reopened in different districts over the past year.
Countrywide, the Education Ministry estimates that closures have deprived more than 400,000 schoolchildren of an education. "We are very concerned that hundreds of thousands of our children can't go to school due to insecurity," Iman said.
Taliban not keeping their word?
Commenting on the Taliban, Iman said: "Officially the Taliban have never taken responsibility for any threat against schools, teachers or students, and they have repeatedly said they were not against education. But in insecure parts of the country we have got unidentified enemies."
In March Taliban "supreme leader" Mullah Mohammad Omar issued a decree instructing insurgents not to attack schools and intimidate schoolchildren. However, in some provinces the Taliban do not seem to have kept their word.
Shahi Mohammad from Arghandab District, Zabul Province, for example, recently left his home after the Taliban threatened to close all the schools in the area.
"I am a farmer and illiterate, but my biggest desire is to educate my children," Shahi, a father of four, told IRIN in Kabul as he looked for an apartment to rent. "But my desire wouldn't be fulfilled if we lived in my village any longer."
The Taliban and its factions - the Haqqani network, Hizb-e-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Tora Bora Front, the Latif Mansur Network and Jamat Sunat al-Dawa Salafia - are also known to be recruiting children into their ranks.
According to the UN, such recruitment was observed throughout the country in 2010, with some children being used to carry out suicide attacks, plant explosives and transport munitions.
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Pentagon: Haqqani group behind Afghan bombing
By Pauline Jelinek Associated Press / September 12, 2011
WASHINGTON—The Pentagon says the Haqqani insurgent network was behind the powerful truck bomb that wounded 77 U.S. soldiers and killed five Afghans this past weekend.
The Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attack Saturday outside a combat outpost in eastern Wardak province.
But Defense Department press secretary George Little said Monday that it was Haqqani operatives. Little said it is highly likely their top leadership supported and was aware of the attack.
The Haqqani network is a Pakistan-based group affiliated with both the Taliban and al-Qaida. It has emerged as one of the biggest threats to stability in Afghanistan.
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Afghan refugees in Pak don't want to return to 'chaos'
Islamabad,Sept 12(ANI): Afghan refugees, who are languishing in Pakistan, have little hope of stability in their home country inspite of ten years of US-led efforts to restore peace.
Many refugees fear chaos in Afghanistan after withdrawal of US troops, the Daily Times reports.
"I grew up here and Pakistan is my country. When my father pushes me to go back to visit, I end up having a fight with him. I'm never going to live there. I want to get Pakistani nationality. This is my home," an Afghan refugee, Nabi said.
"It doesn't matter if it is America or anyone else trying to watch over Afghanistan. I will still be looking around to see if anyone is pointing a gun at me," he added.
Some refugees regard Pakistan as their home despite its several disadvantages.Without proper Pakistani identification cards, Afghans can't open bank accounts or buy or lease property in the country.
Many Afghan refugees are skilled labourers who could boost construction and help revive a weak economy if they return to their home country,which seems quite unlikely.
Most Afghan refugees work for Pakistani citizens as welders or carpenters and tailors.
The Afghan elders have set up a jirga or tribal gathering to resolve their internal disputes. (ANI)
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Ryan Crocker’s ‘strategic patience’ in Afghanistan
By Jackson Diehl, The Washington Post Monday, September 12, 3:48 AM
Ryan Crocker sounds very far from Washington — and not only because he is talking over an uncertain phone line from Kabul.
The U.S. ambassador is one of the great protagonists of the post-9/11 era, serving more than half of the last 10 years in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Along with Gen. David Petraeus, he rescued the United States from catastrophe in Iraq four years ago; now he is trying to repeat the feat in Kabul. He finds himself repeating many of the same phrases: “It’s hard. It’s going to go on being hard. But it’s not hopeless,” he said in our conversation last week.
And: “The key is strategic patience, which is hard for us Americans. We need it here, we needed it in Iraq and we certainly need it with Pakistan.”
But is anyone still listening? As Sept. 11 approached in Washington, Republicans and Democrats were talking about the wars against al-Qaeda and the Taliban as an enterprise in need of rapid closure — if not a monumental folly. “Ten years later, we look at the situation, and we say, we have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. This is not about nation-building in Afghanistan. This is about nation-building at home,” Jon Huntsman said in last week’s GOP presidential debate, echoing President Obama’s words in June, when he announced a faster troop withdrawal than Petraeus recommended.
“Our core is broken. We are weak,” Huntsman went on, sounding a lot like George McGovern in 1972. “I say we’ve got to bring those troops home.” Remarkably, none of the other seven Republicans on the stage at the Ronald Reagan presidential library challenged that conclusion.
Crocker gets it. “I know Americans are tired of war. I’m kind of tired, too,” he said. In his years of service he has endured rocket fire; verbal barbecuing by congressional committees on national television; and endless, painstaking parleys with prickly, unpredictable characters such as Nouri al-Maliki and Hamid Karzai. He’s 62; he tried to retire once, after Iraq, but was coaxed back into service by Obama and Petraeus after U.S. relations with Karzai deteriorated to the breaking point.
But Crocker has two simple points to make. First: Wanting the war against al-Qaeda to be over doesn’t mean that it can be ended soon. “There are still a lot of nasty and brutally determined al-Qaeda figures out there,” he said. “I do not think that al-Qaeda is out of business because they lost Osama bin Laden. Not by a long shot.”
The second hard truth is that al-Qaeda’s future is inextricably linked with that of Afghanistan and the Taliban. “Al-Qaeda is not [in Afghanistan] because we are,” Crocker said. “If we decide to go home before it is ready, you could see a Talibanization of this country and a return to the conditions that existed pre-9/11. You will see regenerated al-Qaeda getting back into the global jihad business.”
So: “We have got to get it right,” he said. Can we? Despite the prevailing mood in Washington, Crocker thinks so. The situation he found in Kabul this summer, he said, is considerably better than what he saw in 2002, when he helped set up the first post-Taliban government.
“It’s better than I thought,” he said. “The biggest problem in Kabul is traffic. Out in the provinces, even in Kandahar, you see traffic jams there. Kabul is a more liveable city by far than the Baghdad I left in 2009.” And not only for Americans: Afghan school enrollment has risen from 1 million to 8 million — and from 0 to 2.5 million girls. Life expectancy has increased by 20 years in the past decade.
The Taliban, says Crocker, is weary of war, too. “The Afghans and our own soldiers are picking up a lot of signals that the Taliban foot soldiers are tired of it all, and ready to put their guns down if they can be assured that they can be fully reintegrated” into society. The ambassador is dubious that the largest Taliban factions, whose leaders are in Pakistan, will be ready to seriously negotiate with Karzai’s government, or with the United States, anytime soon.
But the enemy fighting force can be substantially reduced. The Afghan army, despite its own defections, is still growing. That leaves the biggest challenge — building workable Afghan political institutions by the time Karzai’s term in office, and the U.S.-NATO military mission, come to an end in 2014.
That is what Crocker is there to work on, along with a strategic partnership deal between Afghanistan and the United States that would extend beyond 2014. Yes, it is an uphill battle. But when this sober stalwart of American diplomacy says it can be done — and that it must be — he sounds a good deal more credible than Jon Huntsman, or Barack Obama.
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Pashtuns suffer as messy war rages nearby
Financial Times By Matthew Green September 11, 2011
Jalozai Camp - Niaz Wali picks up a pebble and sketches a memory in the dirt. With a few deft strokes, he recreates his former home – a mini-fortress commanding views of wheat fields, orange trees and vineyards in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
The army razed the 300-year-old house during an operation against Taliban insurgents in Bajaur, forcing Mr Wali to flee to a camp crammed with tens of thousands of others uprooted in the fighting.
For the past three years, his family of nine has been sleeping under canvas. Worst of all: no more firearms.
“A Pashtun who doesn’t have a gun is not a Pashtun – he’s nothing,” says Mr Wali, speaking in his enclosure in Jalozai, a tent town outside the north-western city of Peshawar. “We have a million problems.”
The US remembered the trauma of the 9/11 attacks at 10th anniversary services on Sunday. At peace when the twin towers collapsed in New York, Pakistan’s Pashtuns are living with their share of the consequences – a messy, unresolved war.
There are few groups whose destiny is as closely tied to western security fears – and whose future remains as uncertain – as the ethnic Pashtuns living in the mountainous tribal belt hugging the Afghan border.
The US invasion of Afghanistan pushed al-Qaeda’s leadership across the frontier, serving as a catalyst for the rise of an insurgency against Pakistan’s nuclear-armed state.
The conflict has been a magnet for transnational jihadists and undercut the Pentagon’s strategy in Afghanistan, prompting Barack Obama, the US president, to dub the tribal areas “the most dangerous place in the world” for the US.
The territory has become even more dangerous for the Pashtuns themselves. Marginalised even before 9/11, the community has had to face suicide bombings, army offensives and a systematic Taliban campaign to overturn the traditional Pashtun social order by murdering hundreds of elders.
The next decade will test whether traditional Pashtun systems of rule can recover, or whether the upheaval has pushed the community down the path of perpetual war.
The Pashtuns are facing a crisis of leadership, said Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan who lives in Peshawar. “The Pashtun ship is a rudderless ship,” he said. “Pashtuns are confronted with one of the biggest catastrophes in 1,000 years.”
A bane of imperial ambition since the days when musket-wielding tribesman picked off Eton-educated officers of the Raj, the Pashtuns have been both protagonists and victims in the games played by great powers for centuries.
Straddling the Hindu Kush, the ethnicity numbers some 27m in Pakistan and an estimated 12m in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s Pashtuns trace their troubles to their role as the launch-pad for a US and Saudi-funded jihad against the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s that brought radical Islam to their mosques and militancy to their villages.
When the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the stage was set for a showdown between Pakistani militant groups and the army that had once nurtured them. Ordinary Pashtuns found themselves in the centre of a conflict.
Thousands of people have been killed in suicide bombings – a tactic virtually unknown in Pakistan before 9/11. When the conflict peaked in 2009, more than 3m people in the Pashtun heartlands of the north-west were driven from their homes.
Skies are abuzz with US drones firing missiles at militants – many of whom are the wayward sons of Pashtun villages.
The rise of brash young Pashtun mullahs reflects a radicalism that Pashtuns say is alien to their ancient “Pashtunwali” code of hospitality, loyalty and revenge.
“Mullahs have taken over; elders were killed or marginalised,” says Ismail Khan, editor of the Dawn newspaper in Peshawar. “Those who were able to stand up, they were all eliminated.”
After years of appeasing militants, Pakistan’s army has overrun former Taliban stronghold in the north-west, leaving their inhabitants under effective military rule.
There is as yet no clear sign of how the weak civilian government in Islamabad will be able to tackle grievances that long pre-date 9/11.
Asif Ali Zardari, the president, has moved to ease restrictions on political party activity in the tribal belt, but Pashtun lands remain governed by a colonial-era code and divorced from mainstream national life.
Waiting for permission to return and rebuild, Mr Wali sees scant hope of change. “There’s not a man been born who can solve the Pashtuns’ problems,” he says.
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Program to bring Afghan interpreters to Canada ends with most turned away
The Canadian Press By STEPHANIE LEVITZ Sunday, Sep. 11, 2011
OTTAWA - Two of every three Afghans who sought refuge in Canada after risking their lives working for the military in Kandahar have been turned away, including some who worked alongside Canadian soldiers during the bloodiest days of battle.
The program was announced with much fanfare by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney in the fall of 2009 and brought Canada in line with other NATO countries which had already launched similar initiatives.
It ends Monday.
Applicants had to demonstrate they faced extraordinary risk as a result of their work with Canada. Few didn't. Working as an interpreter for NATO forces in southern Afghanistan was akin to having a Taliban bull's-eye on the back of a shalwar khameez.
Stories of night letters, threatening phone calls, abductions and even hangings were part of the job. As interpreters travelled with soldiers and diplomats, at least six were among those killed during the IED strikes that claimed 161 Canadian lives.
The other major requirement for acceptance was a bit tougher: interpreters must have worked for Canada for 12 consecutive months between October, 2007, and July, 2011, when the mission in Kandahar came to an end.
But Canadian troops began their work in Kandahar in 2006, as did the hundreds of interpreters who would go on to work for the Canadian government.
The demand for their services was extraordinary. The military says that over the five years of work in Kandahar, they had more than 6,000 requests from soldiers for assistance in speaking with the local population.
Between the summer of 2006 and the summer of 2007, Canada endured some of its heaviest fighting and the beginning of the IED scourge.
Some accepted the risks, like Muhibollah Karegar, 32, who said that being an interpreter was the only way to make a good living.
He started working at the provincial reconstruction team base in 2006 and before long was travelling out to assist in Operation Medusa, a pitched battle for control over the restive Panjwai district.
“I have seen the most dangerous days in my life with Canadian Forces,” Mr. Karegar said in an e-mail interview.
“And that was a very dangerous time when I was working.”
In his application to the program, which he provided to The Canadian Press, he recounted how he was followed home and in the market by the Taliban.
He told his military supervisors and they kept him inside the PRT base for three days. He asked if he could carry a gun, but was told no.
The calls and threats continued. In 2008, an interpreter friend of his was killed in front of his house, and Mr. Karegar said he'd had enough.
“I thought that quitting [my] job at the PRT would save me and my family,” he wrote.
Burned out by the stress, he remained at home, which he says caused his wife to leave him and take their children to Pakistan. He moved to Kabul for a time, but couldn't find work.
The threats continued and eventually, Mr. Karegar said he decided he had no choice but to go back to work for the coalition forces as they would give him a place to live on the base.
After seeing his interpreter colleagues apply to move to Canada and be accepted, he decided he'd leave as well and join family he already had in Toronto.
“I want to start a new and peaceful life in Canada,” he said.
But his application to come to Canada was denied. While he worked more than 12 consecutive months for the Canadians, it was not the right 12 months.
Mr. Karegar admits he knew about the time-frame restrictions, but rumours swirled among the interpreters that others in similar situations had been accepted. When his application was denied, he appealed but was rejected again.
A spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration says the program needed a start date and “logistically, October 2007 was judged to be most appropriate as a reference point for employment.”
“As the program ended in July 2011, there is in fact almost a four-year employment window open to potential applicants,” Rachelle Bedard wrote.
At the time he launched the program, Mr. Kenney said he expected “a few hundred” successful applicants at a cost of $3-million a year.
The minister declined an interview request.
“Our government recognizes the significant contributions made by these brave and courageous Afghans to our important mission,” his press secretary Candice Malcolm said in an e-mail.
Around 550 Afghan nationals are expected to settle in Canada as a result, including translators, as well as their spouses and children.
The Associated Press recently reported that 2,300 Afghans applied for a similar program run by the U.S. government. The U.S. Afghan Allies program is supposed to award up to 1,500 visas each year through 2013. Not a single visa has been handed out.
After Mr. Karegar was turned down the first time for the Canadian program, he made a passionate plea to the government panel.
Interpreters have no place in their communities in Kandahar, he wrote, and will always be a Taliban target.
“Do you think if they find me they will let me [live] and forgive me?” he wrote.
“There will always be risk for the lives of interpreters.”
The Canadian Press
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