It is harsh words that Marcus Grotian finds for the federal government. For him, dealing with the local staff in Afghanistan was a “fiasco on an unimaginable scale”. Grotian is a Bundeswehr officer, he was stationed in Afghanistan, in Kunduz. And he is the chairman of the Afghan local staff sponsorship network, and his aid organization has been trying for a long time to support local staff and bring them to Germany. Often unsuccessful: The bureaucratic hurdles are too great, the warnings have been ignored for too long, until the situation in the Hindu Kush spiraled out of control.
On Tuesday, when the G-7 states are fighting for the rescue mission in Kabul, Grotian accuses the German government of “failing to provide assistance”, and in particular he sharply criticizes the Chancellery before the federal press conference in Berlin. He himself wrote five letters to the Chancellor and offered help – there was no response. The Federal Chancellery could have intervened and campaigned for the Afghan local staff, said the captain. “But it didn’t.”
That is why he and his colleagues are “overwhelmed and bitter,” continues Grotian. Overwhelmed by the countless offers of help and the empathy of the people in Germany. Bitter about the federal government’s evacuation plan because the warning signals were apparently disregarded and responsibilities were shifted away. As a citizen in uniform, Grotian was “stunned” that the government was still dismissing responsibility after the catastrophe. “We are morally injured by our own government. And that is shameful,” he says. In his estimation, “passivity” contributed to the disaster.
All local staff should be eligible to apply, so the demand
In total, it is about 8,000 local employees and relatives. Almost 2000 of these are likely to have already flown out, according to Grotian, but the remaining 6000 were “deliberately left behind” in Afghanistan. These people should have been brought to safety in June and July, at the latest when the Bundeswehr withdrew from Mazar-i-Sharif, the officer said. He now demands that everything necessary be done to get as many local workers as possible from Afghanistan without “bureaucratic hurdles”, which are the reason that “at this minute people are being rejected even though they have worked for us” . In his opinion, all local staff should be eligible to apply, and not just under certain conditions.
In front of the microphone, Marcus Grotian speaks resolutely, his words are loud and clear, his anger is evident. Then he takes a short break, looks for something on the cell phone and shows a picture. There is a baby there, a girl born in July. His mother could not fly out before that because the airline does not allow heavily pregnant women on board, and no personal documents were issued after the birth. The family is still in Kabul, the parents are both allowed to leave, but the baby still does not have a visa. A journalist later asks Grotian whether he fears the consequences of an official nature for his criticism. “I’m afraid we’re leaving a lot of people behind in Afghanistan,” he says. The rest will come later.