Sir Laurie Bristow says it is “totally in our best interest”. for young Afghan refugees who have resettled in the UK to succeed in life. Photo: Charlotte Graham
The UK has an obligation to the Afghan refugees who have helped its forces for two decades, said the former ambassador to the country.
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Sir Laurie Bristow, the most senior British diplomat in Kabul, when he fell to the Taliban two years ago, said the UK had an obligation to help at-risk Afghan refugees who worked alongside British soldiers, and this was not an act of “generosity.”
The government has faced criticism over a scheme to resettle Afghan refugees that has dragged on. Some refugees who have reached the UK have been accommodated in hotels instead of permanent accommodation.
According to Afghans, the largest proportion of those who arrived in the UK were on small boats in the first half of 2023 in preliminary data from the Home Office.< /p>
He added that it was “totally in our interest” that young Afghan refugees who resettled in the UK succeed here.
In his first newspaper interview about the fall of Kabul, Sir Laurie told The Telegraph that the Afghan refugees “are people to whom we are indebted, they worked with us, they worked for us on many occasions to achieve what we had to achieve in Afghanistan ”.
A former civil servant who no longer works for the government said: “I think at least sometimes [we should] remind ourselves that these are not just refugees, these are people who worked for us ”.
Two-year anniversary
On the eve of the two-year anniversary of the chaotic airlift in Kabul, Sir Laurie mentioned his guilt over not being able to save everyone who helped the British effort in Afghanistan.
The former ambassador and his colleagues managed to evacuate 15,000 people during an airlift to Kabul, more than double the number they thought possible.
But many of the Afghans who assisted the British effort, along with their families, were unable to get out in time and found themselves in significant danger from the ruling Taliban.
A couple of days before the fall of Kabul, Sir Laurie received an email from a Foreign Ministry colleague with experience in organizing evacuations.
“I remember her saying be prepared to feel guilty because you can't get everyone out. And of course we won't be able to get everyone out,” he said.
Sir Laurie and his team of civilian staff, diplomats and Home Office staff on the ground worked 18 hours a day or more to process as many British citizens and refugees as possible.
He remembers the staff telling him, “I can't go and sleep because no one comes out while I'm sleeping.”
Did he feel that way too? “Of course. Everything, absolutely everything.”
The Foreign Office managed to evacuate 15,000 people during Operation Pitting. Credit: Mirwais Khan Amiri
Sir Laurie remained until the end of the evacuation, known as Operation Pitting, making the last flight from Kabul with the last British soldiers on 8 August. November 28, 2021
The most dangerous two weeks of Sir Laurie's 32-year career at the Foreign Office followed as he and a handful of civil servants who chose to stay on tried to evacuate as many people as possible to the UK without getting captured or killing yourself.
“I don't think anyone could explain or foresee the speed of the final collapse. It was difficult,” Sir Laurie said.
As for the British embassy in Kabul, “the very expedited closing plan was about five days. In the end, the team had nine hours.”
“Describing this evacuation [as] carried out by WhatsApp is not really an exaggeration. I would say that the arrangements around were quite improvisational, but that's the way things are,” he said.
Praying letters
He received pleading emails from people in the UK who desperately needed help getting their family members to safety.
“One of the really scary moments for me was when you were looking through your email and there was an email from someone from the UK, a British citizen of Afghan origin, whose wife and twin boys stood out in this crowd.
“He sent me a picture of twin boys, two years old, on the floor sleeping on a piece of cardboard.” The boys got out safely.
Reminders of danger for those in the crowd were always there. On August 26, an Islamic State suicide bomber attacked the crowd outside the abbey gate.
This was one of the moments when Sir Laurie was most concerned about the safety of his staff and British troops. .
“We knew an attack was coming, what we didn't have was that it would happen at this place and at this time in this form. This is unlikely to ever happen, but we knew an attack was coming.”
The attacks killed 13 American servicemen. No British servicemen or employees were killed.
He added: “I broke the news to our prime minister that this had happened, and of course the first question any of us asked was, 'Have we lost anyone? Our answer was no, but everyone knew there was a big “but” here. It could have been different.
Sir Laurie Bristow on the ground during Operation Pitting at Kabul Airport. Photo: PA
The bombing killed 170 Afghans. Among them were two British citizens and a child of a British citizen.
Looking back two years and now out of government, Sir Laurie firmly believes that the UK still has an obligation to Afghan refugees.
“The most important point I want to emphasize here is that we are not doing this out of a kind of generosity towards people. These are the people we owe to, they have worked with us, they have worked for us on many occasions to achieve what we needed to achieve in Afghanistan.”
When asked whether the UK should consider linking up with the Taliban, Sir Laurie said, “Let's be clear about who we're talking about. The Taliban overthrew the internationally recognized government of Afghanistan by military means.
In doing so, they killed 457 of our soldiers, as well as thousands and thousands of Afghans, Americans and many others. This is an undeniable fact about who these people are.”
Less brutal
He added: “By the way, if Afghanistan is less violent than it may have been many years ago, it's because the violent people are now in power, so there's a problem here.”
However, he acknowledged that while the UK should not be supporting the Taliban, “we really need to support the Afghans and we need to stop the population of this country… suffering from lack of food, disease, poverty, extremism, misogyny – all of which threaten our security”.
But Sir Laurie doesn't think now is the time to reopen the embassy in Kabul. “I have no confidence in the ability or desire of the Taliban to create the conditions necessary to maintain an embassy there,” he said, also pointing to the presence of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the country.
resettlement scheme
The former ambassador, who held this position from June to November 2021 and left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last August, also stressed the need to listen to the Afghans themselves, especially women.
“The most important and valuable thing that we what we can do now is to seriously address the issue of education, especially the education of girls,” he said. “If we lose a whole generation of girls, we will lose a whole generation of Afghans, and we simply cannot let that happen.”
Sir Laurie continues to wonder what could have been done to stabilize Afghanistan. “Over 20 years, the ballpark figure is that Americans have spent $2 trillion in Afghanistan. The UK spent billions.”
But when he landed on the airstrip at Brize Norton Air Force Base on August 29, Sir Laurie tried to tell his staff that he had saved more than 15,000 people in two weeks.< /p> >
“They all go through this too: 'If only I did X, if only I did Y'” This is something these people need to be constantly reminded of. These soldiers, as well as civilians, in fact what you achieved was something we just didn't think was possible.”
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