The latest demand by EU Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson for “legal and safe escape routes” for Afghans fleeing from the Taliban has irked at least Vienna.
As the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten (OÖN) reported, Austrian Minister Nehammer has now demanded “clarification” from the politician and spoke of a “wrong signal” by Johansson. In 2015 and 2016 in particular, the mainstream media presented almost only women and children fleeing, although between 80 and 90 percent of male “asylum seekers” flooded into the EU. This time too, mostly men are fleeing the country.
The OÖN quoted Nehammer’s statement from Thursday, August 19: “I assumed that the EU Commission learned from 2015 and would no longer want to repeat such mistakes.”
Johansson had previously justified her request by stating that the situation in Afghanistan was “clearly not safe” and that this would not be the case in the foreseeable future either. However, it is primarily important to continue to support other countries – especially in the neighborhood of Afghanistan – in accepting fleeing Afghans. Some 80 percent of the people forced to flee are women and children, the EU Interior Commissioner claimed. Pictures and videos on social media of those fleeing, again show mostly men.
Incidentally, those now fleeing Afghanistan probably fear Taliban retribution for having raped boys.
In an interview with Deutschlandfunk, the AfD parliamentary group leader Alexander Gauland questioned the rights of those now boarding the evacuation flights. He spoke out against including local staff in the current evacuations who had worked with German aid organizations in Afghanistan. “It cannot be that people who fear that they will be threatened in the future must come,” said Gauland. The Taliban has said that people would not be persecuted, while intensifying searches for those who worked with US and NATO forces, a confidential United Nations document revealed. Gauland has nevertheless said that one has to “wait and see”.
Germany has an asylum law that grants the persecuted a right to enter. “But we don’t know whether these people were persecuted.” In his opinion, it should be limited to Afghans who had worked for the Bundeswehr.
The neighboring countries of Afghanistan have already taken precautions with wise foresight to stop the mass exit from Afghanistan and to protect themselves. Turkey already started to secure its border with Iran with a three-meter-high concrete wall, which is militarily guarded. Iran has set up buffer zones at three border crossings while Pakistan has closed the main border crossing into neighboring Afghanistan. Turkmenistan has moved its army to the Afghan border to block any movements of people from the neighboring country. Almost all neighboring countries expected a flood of refugees from Afghanistan some time ago and have all initiated measures.
Washington is very pragmatic when it comes to refugees from Afghanistan: It sends them to other countries, such as Uganda. It is an “interim solution”, but in the end they will move on to Europe under the guise of “contingent refugees”.
While Austria has already signaled that it does not want to take in Afghans, German Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has rushed forward, eager to please Washington, announcing that Germany would go it alone. Some brave politicians have ludicrously maintained that there would not be a second 2015, nor could there be, since this time it would not be Syrians who had lost their passports – these refugees were being flown in by airlift.
Focus Online reported that Seehofer felt a great moral responsibility: “If we fail here, especially together with the European Union, it would be the second great, grand failure of the Western community.[…] And now we have to gather the strength that lies in this community of values to bear with it when it comes to moral obligations,” said the Interior Minister.
But Seehofer also suspects that convincing other nations to import people from Viagra-dependent warlord communities might not be a viable solution. “I tell you, we are to a large extent ready to act alone as Germans. And that’s why I don’t want to convey confidence or optimism now. It will be hard work in the European Union.”
