Our Afghan workers deserve help

With the Taliban and its al-Qa’ida allies making rapid advances on Kabul, concern for the fate of hundreds of locally employed Afghans who worked with our Diggers or on Australian aid projects is well founded. All, to a greater or lesser extent, are likely targets for retribution and revenge by murderous Islamist terrorists for helping what they term the “infidel enemy” during the 20 years we were in the country as part of the US-led coalition. Many “Afghan angels”, unsurprisingly, fearing for their lives, want to move to Australia with their families.

Since April 15, as Ben Packham reported on Tuesday, more than 230 Afghans, many of whom did vital work for Australia as translators operating alongside our forces in treacherous circumstances, have been granted special category locally engaged employee visas. These hopefully will get them out of the firing line in time and enable them to settle in Australia. But many more remain potentially in grave danger as the last US troops prepare to retreat, leaving the door open to the medieval-minded Taliban, with its determination to impose sharia law.

Australia has an obligation to do what we can to help those in danger, without delay. But doing so would not be easy. The Morrison government’s shortsighted decision in May to close our Kabul embassy will hinder the ability of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to handle the many applications from those who believe they are in danger. Nor can the Australian Defence Force be of much help. The last of our 80 soldiers left without fanfare or even an announcement in the middle of last month.

Caution will need to be exercised to ensure that only genuine applications from legitimate workers are granted. The last thing Australia needs are would-be Islamist terrorists taking advantage of the situation to slip in under false pretences. But despite such difficulties, the government has a clear responsibility to do the right thing by those in danger who have legitimate claims to Australian help. Applications from those who did great work as contractors or as subcontractors helping to build Australian aid projects but who may not have been employed directly by the government also deserve to be treated with compassion.

Such contracted workers are excluded from the special LEE visa scheme. But one, cited by Packham, helped deliver a $6.7m AusAID infrastructure project. Others were involved in Australian-led projects such as the flagship Children of Uruzgan program delivered by Save the Children. At this stage such workers are likely to have to join the offshore asylum-seeker queue alongside millions of other Afghans seeking to escape. Without providing undue hope or opening the way to those without legitimate claims, DFAT needs to do better than the letter, reported by Packham, sent to one who worked as a subcontractor: “The Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade has considered your application … unfortunately you are not eligible for certification under this visa policy as you were not considered an employee of one of the Australian government agencies identified in the legislative instrument.”

As retired army major Stuart McCarthy said, such bureaucratic rejection sent to an applicant, 15 of whose colleagues reportedly already had been murdered, amounted to a potential “death warrant … These people delivered projects that were vital to our counterinsurgency campaign at the height of Australia’s involvement, yet we are leaving them to be slaughtered.”

The need is to strike a balance between what academic William Maley termed a “highly legalistic” approach by the government to applications from genuine “Afghan angels” and the reality that the Taliban “doesn’t care if a person was an employee or a contracted worker – it is a meaningless distinction from their point of view”. The threat is real. A note from a Taliban commander to one disclosed he was aware of the man’s work “for a long time with infidel enemies of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as an interpreter and a slave. Await your death very soon.” Australians can take great pride in what was achieved in Afghanistan. But those who did so much to help us should not be overlooked.