The Netherlands performed worse than other NATO countries, such as Canada and the United States, in the evacuation of Afghans. This is the conclusion of research by Dutch scientist Sara de Jong, who works at the University of York, UK. “The Dutch government assumed mistrust of Afghans,” De Jong told NU.nl.
Published in Wednesday report De Jong compares the different ways in which eight NATO countries dealt with the refugee crisis in Afghanistan, where the Taliban unexpectedly seized power in August 2021. Thousands of Afghans then tried to leave the country, which led to chaotic situations at the airport in the capital Kabul. Among them were many Afghans who had participated in the NATO mission in the country or worked in embassies.
The report shows that NATO countries had not aligned their policies towards former Afghan employees. As a result, Afghans who were equally at risk were treated differently by each country.
The Netherlands is not doing well compared to the other countries. According to De Jong, the evacuations only started late, and only with interpreters who met strict criteria. For a long time it was unclear for those interpreters and their families where to report. They also had to demonstrate who they were, which turned out to be a huge bureaucratic hurdle for many, while they had often been known to the Ministry of Defense for years.
De Jong’s report follows an initial evaluation by Leiden University, which was published in January. This established that the pace at the Dutch government “was not high for a long time” and that the process at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) “laid on a bit”.
In February, the cabinet appointed a committee to investigate the chaotic evacuations. The results will be presented to the House of Representatives by May 2023 at the latest.
The Netherlands set up an unnecessary bureaucratic mill
According to De Jong, Dutch policy was characterized from the start by distrust of applicants for residence permits. According to her, an unnecessarily complex bureaucratic mill was set up in the Netherlands, in which the Afghan interpreter was not central and the employees of the IND functioned as “gatekeepers who let hardly anyone through”.
The bureaucratic attitude of the Dutch authorities towards the interpreters before the fall of Kabul has made the evacuations unnecessarily difficult. “Before August 2021, it was safer, easier and cheaper to get passports,” she says.
De Jong also criticizes the fact that the Netherlands did not allow Afghans, who often worked for years for the Dutch army or the Dutch government, to take more family members (such as parents or unmarried sisters, who often lived at home) with them. A country like Canada pursued a much broader policy in this regard. Furthermore, countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia immediately give their former employees permanent residence permits. In this way, people gain certainty about their future, while the Netherlands initially issues a residence permit for five years.
One of the big mistakes the Dutch government has made, according to De Jong, is closing the possibility to apply by email to be transferred to the Netherlands. She calls this a “panic reaction” which makes it impossible for Afghans who have often worked for years for Dutch organizations or the Dutch government and who are still in Afghanistan to be evacuated.
‘Allow Afghans who have not yet been able to report’
“Now it seems that the matter is under control. The House receives neat tables that show how many applicants have already been transferred and how many are still in Afghanistan,” says De Jong. “But that’s a false certainty.”
“In reality, many Afghans are still entitled to evacuation according to the original motion of D66 MP Salima Belhaj, but they can no longer show that they want to be evacuated. That mistake must be made up for. compared to people who have championed Dutch and Western ideals for years and are now in a difficult position.”
De Jong also hopes that the Netherlands will still give Afghans a warm welcome. She wonders why Prime Minister Mark Rutte never visited the Afghan interpreters and guards and why a 31-year-old former interpreter’s application for a scholarship was rejected because the maximum age for such a scholarship is 30 years. “Didn’t those people have worked for years to guide the Dutch military in Afghanistan through unsafe situations?”
She points to a country like the United Kingdom, where the government’s campaign A warm welcome has started and the British Ministry of Defense also separates the campaign New Hopesomething that has never started in the Netherlands.