(Image: Jalil Rezauee/EPA)

An Afghan contractor who worked on a critical Australian-backed aid development project in Afghanistan is on the run after the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade rejected his visa application. He says nine other men working on the project have been murdered by the Taliban.

“D”, whose name we have withheld for safety reasons, has been forced into hiding and separated from his family as the Taliban surges through Afghanistan ahead of the Western withdrawal in September. He’s faced death threats and survived attempts on his life. But this week, DFAT’s assistant secretary for Afghanistan Ian Biggs rejected D’s application on the grounds that he wasn’t considered an employee of the relevant Australian government agencies at the time.

Facing a Senate question time grilling about D’s case from independent Senator Jacqui Lambie yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said there were a “number of factors” that had to be taken into account: “Each case is examined and considered in terms of the individual’s experience in the role they held with Australian forces and Australian staff.”

But the department’s rejection is a death warrant for D.

“I’m not safe,” he says in voice recordings from Afghanistan. “If I will die, the responsibility will be on the shoulders of the foreign [affairs] minister.”

Nine from ‘landmark’ project are dead

The implication behind D’s visa rejection is that he never worked for Australia. Instead, he was a contractor on a project backed by AusAID, now merged with DFAT. But the project was critical. Lambie said it was AusAID’s “landmark development and stability project” in the particular region of Afghanistan. Former army officer Stuart McCarthy who served in Afghanistan tells Crikey it was one of the best projects Australia carried out in the country.

And although years have passed since the project, D’s plight is a sign of the devastating security situation in Afghanistan, and the ruthlessness of the Taliban, willing to kill anyone with links to allied forces.

Crikey has seen the names of nine people who worked on the project, mostly as security guards, who have been killed. One was blown up by an IED. Another was shot dead in the doorway of his home alongside his son, who survived.

Meanwhile, many among the approximately 1400 locally-engaged Afghan employees brought to Australia under the visa program have expressed fear about friends and family back home, whose applications have been rejected or ignored. One man who moved to Australia two years ago told Crikey his name still appears on Taliban kill-lists.

Lambie, veterans, slam ‘non-response’

Every country involved in the Afghanistan conflict is grappling with the challenge of repatriating people who helped them. Italy is leading the way, running special evacuation flights. Britain intends to resettle 3000 more people, with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace admitting accelerating their plans was “only right”.

In Australia, Payne discusses the issue only when cornered. In question time yesterday, she admitted 186 people had been resettled in Australia since April. But the repatriation has drawn sharp criticism; Lambie says the government’s approach is “utterly shameful”.

“Your Coalition has had seven years to get this job done,” she said. “The world is watching how we treat our mates here.

“What kind of message does it send to the rest of the world that when you work with the Australian government you’re taking your life into your own hands?”

Veterans are also worried the failure to help people who helped them could undermine future defence and strategic policy.

“The implications of leaving these people to die in Afghanistan would be catastrophic on foreign policy, defence capability, and Australia’s ability to be engaged in any country overseas where there’s any political instability,” McCarthy said.

There’s so much concern in the veteran community that even normally media-shy SAS veterans are speaking out.

And McCarthy says that ahead of the withdrawal, we’re now seeing the consequences of a resettlement program that was “designed to fail from the outset”. Eight years ago, when it was first set up, ADF personnel in Afghanistan were told not to help Afghans with their visa applications. And with the country in chaos, visa decisions are still made between Canberra-based bureaucrats at three different agencies.

Back in Afghanistan, D remains grateful to Australia for giving him the chance to work on a project he says brought development and safety to his province — despite his passage to safety being rejected.

“I have no words to express my love to Australians,” he said. “When they were here, we slept well at night. We didn’t have fear in our hearts.”

Years later the country that once protected him has left him to die.