Accusation also against Chancellor Merkel: “people deliberately left behind”


Status: 08/24/2021 3:03 p.m.

The sponsorship network of local Afghan workers accuses the federal government of failing to provide assistance. Afghan aid workers were “deliberately left behind”. Chancellor Merkel is also responsible for this.

By Kai Küstner, ARD capital studio

One thing is already clear: the airlift is too short. There won’t be enough time. The USA, Germany and the West will not be able to fly all people out of Afghanistan who are in need of protection.

Marcus Grotian is all stunned. He chooses a memorable image to describe the situation: “You are now standing next to a burning house everywhere. And you point out how you are now trying to extinguish it.”

Started repatriation much too late

As chairman of the “Sponsorship Network Afghan Local Workers”, Grotian has his eyes on those who once helped the Germans in the Hindu Kush. It is now important to him to remind the federal government how the fire started in the first place: The repatriation of the former helpers began much too late, and their number was calculated down using bureaucratic tricks.

Even now people at Kabul Airport are rejected because they are not on lists. “All other countries are now evacuating all local staff, we are evacuating those who have been selected.” So Grotian, who is himself a soldier, literally.

His conclusion: The federal government has been accused of “failure to provide assistance”. The responsible ministries, interior, exterior, development and defense have had to put up with probing questions about the local staff since May at the latest. Most recently, they liked to point out that the government in Kabul had behaved too bureaucratically. Grotian sees it differently: “I have the impression that we have consciously and knowingly left people behind here.”

Marcus Grotian raises serious allegations against the federal government.

Image: dpa

According to Maas, the airlift time will not be enough

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas now frankly admits that the airlift time will not be enough to fly out everyone who you want to help. The United States and Great Britain have begun to consider how people can be brought out of the country after the evacuation mission: “Our partners and we both agree that we would be ready for it, too in favor of providing the organization. So that the end of the military evacuation does not mean the end of the possibility of getting people out of Afghanistan, “said Maas at Bild TV. This is unlikely to work without the consent of the Taliban.

From the point of view of the sponsorship network for Afghan local staff, not only the mutually blocking ministries but also Chancellor Angela Merkel bear a major part of the responsibility for the failures of the past few weeks. She could have acted as a “block looser”, so to speak.

The situation for local workers in Afghanistan is worsening

Kerstin Breinig, RBB, daily news 4 p.m., 8/24/2021

No answer to five letters

He never received an answer to five letters, according to Grotian: “The Chancellery could have intervened, but unfortunately did not.” In his view, there are a total of around 8,000 Afghans, including their families, who would be entitled to a German visa. According to his information, around 2000 of them could already be in Germany.

The captain himself was once on duty in Afghanistan. Many Bundeswehr soldiers are now reporting that they have been “re-traumatized” in view of the images from Afghanistan. This is understandable for Grotian. “We are morally injured,” he says. And not from the Taliban, but from their own government.

Afghanistan local staff – allegation of failure to provide assistance

Kai Küstner, ARD Berlin, 8/24/2021 1:36 p.m.

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