It is not that often that foreign policy provides an opportunity for campaigning activity. Major issues of injustice occasionally capture the public imagination – like Joanna Lumley’s championing of the Gurkhas or Bob Geldof’s attempts to end world poverty. However, there is an issue that should unite progressives in anger: the plight of Afghani interpreters.
They have risked their lives supporting British and coalition forces should be a matter of outrage. Hundreds of them fear for their safety when our troops leave Afghanistan – planned in 2014. However, the government has refused an amnesty programme for translators to come to Britain.
Over 500 work alongside coalition troops in the country, often accompanying troops on dangerous missions and witnessing suicide attacks and IEDs. The BBC interviewed Mohama Fawad, 25, who managed to escape to the UK:
‘Interpreters who work for the British army are really scared. That’s why some of us come to the UK. The intimidation you get is from three sides: from the local people because they don’t like you working for the “infidel”. The Afghan government as well because some of the higher ranks see you with different eyes and think you’re a spy if you work for coalition forces or Americans. And also the Taliban and the intimidation you get from them, if you go to work you get killed. When the troops leave Afghanistan, they will be in most danger.’
According to a report by Channel 4, another translator was kidnapped by the Taliban in Pakistan and tortured for two months. He was forced to pay a ransom and promised to give them the addresses of other interpreters working for NATO.
When I worked on The Iraq Commission for the Foreign Policy Centre in 2007, one of the main recommendations was to provide amnesty for translators who had worked in Iraq as we withdrew troops. Thankfully, the Labour government changed its mind and allowed many interpreters to seek refuge in Britain.
The current MoD seems to take a strange position in regards to this:
‘The scheme established for our locally employed Iraqi staff reflected our judgment at the time that the circumstances in which they had served the UK had been uniquely difficult. The same conditions do not currently apply in Afghanistan.’
With reports of intimidation, violence and kidnapping, that seems to be a difficult line to sustain.
I have never advocated an open-door immigration policy, but with around half a million migrants coming to the UK every year, we can surely make an exception for a few hundred people who should be treated as much as war heroes as the Gurkhas?
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