This is the eighth installment in a Washington Examiner series detailing the struggles of Afghan activists and allies affected by the August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
U.S. company Olive Group employed Mahmoud, whose name has been changed for his protection, as an Afghan national election adviser between December 2018 and June 2020.
Because Mahmoud was employed on a United Nations contract, he is ineligible for the Department of State’s special immigrant visa program. Faiz, whose name has also been changed, worked under the same contract as Mahmoud, but he was eligible to apply for a SIV. Constellis, formerly Blackwater, has joined with Olive Group. They told me Faiz is eligible for a SIV because he previously worked “in support of a U.S. government project.”
Constellis did not respond to questions about whether employees or employers decided whether individuals worked on contracts funded by the U.S. or other entities. Mahmoud alleges Olive Group employees could not choose their work based on a contract’s originator. The decision nonetheless affects his entire future.
Since Aug. 10, 2021, a group of Olive Group employees has been exchanging desperate emails with the leaders of Constellis and reaching out to individuals such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken to secure passage out of a country descending into madness. Their attempts were in vain. Not only is Constellis unable to support Mahmoud’s and others’ SIV ambitions, but as a for-profit company, Constellis cannot issue endangered employees Priority-2 referrals to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.
On Aug. 26, 2021, objecting to Constellis’s “prejudice,” Mahmoud asked, “What is the difference between us?”
Another group fails to see the difference between Faiz and Mahmoud. The Taliban consider all U.S. employees to be enemies of their regime. Mahmoud says the Taliban overtook Olive Group’s Kabul offices and obtained personnel information. So far, he told me the Taliban have killed “up to 10” of his fellow Olive Group employees. In a threat letter provided to the Washington Examiner, the Taliban warned Mahmoud and several others to surrender to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan so they can be held accountable for their past work.
The Taliban rule by force and abhor democracy. In December 2021, the Taliban dissolved Afghanistan’s national election commissions. In the past, the group has violently disrupted national elections and killed election workers.
Mahmoud told me he lives in hiding in Kabul and can hardly afford to feed his children. His wife, a former civil society activist, is also known to the Taliban. Mahmoud fears the Taliban will assassinate him and leave his family homeless.
Aqila, whose name has also been changed for her safety, was employed by Olive Group as a logistics manager on a project paid for by the Afghan government. Although U.S. and international funding paid for 80% of the Afghan government’s budget, Aqila is also ineligible for a SIV. She has, however, been identified by the Taliban as an employee of the U.S. In a threat letter, the Taliban have warned Aqila that they will kill her if they arrest her.
Aqila now lives with her out-of-work husband, her 10-year-old son, and her disabled mother, who suffers partial paralysis in the aftermath of a stroke. The Taliban killed Aqila’s father during their first period in power in Afghanistan. Her savings nearly spent and terrified of the Taliban, Aqila has lost hope. “I will die here, trust me,” she told me.
Mahmoud and Aqila are endangered after providing faithful service to a U.S. contracting institution. They had no agency in decisions made half a world away. Decisions that have doomed them to remain in a country where they cannot work and where extra-judicial killings, starvation, and subjugation of women are the disturbing new normal.
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer from the Detroit area.
