A British man and his South African colleague became the latest victims of
deteriorating security in Kabul when they were shot dead outside their
office by a security guard who then killed himself.
The shootings occurred on the eve of the funeral of Gayle Williams, the
British charity worker killed last week, who was buried yesterday in the
Afghan capital’s British cemetery.
The British Embassy named the dead Briton as David Giles, 42, the country
director of the international courier DHL in Afghanistan. He died with Jason
Bresler, the freight company’s South African deputy director, when an Afghan
security guard at the DHL offices sprayed their car with automatic fire as
they arrived for work on Saturday. The guard placed the gun under his chin
and shot himself.
Officials said that they remained unsure of the motive for the killing and
were investigating the guard’s background. Some reports suggested the man
joined the British-run security company that protected DHL only a month ago.
“No one knows if this person was recruited [to carry out the killing] or
there was infiltration of the enemy,” said Zmarai Bashery, spokesman for the
Afghan Interior Ministry.
A spokesman for the Taleban denied involvement in the killings. Privately,
Western officials said that Taleban involvement in the latest attack was not
thought likely.
Mr Giles’s former wife, Julie Wilson, 37, told of having to break the news to
their ten-year-old son. “When he walked in we sat him down and said, ‘James,
something very terrible has happened, your daddy’s dead’. We were very open
and honest with him and told him to ask us any questions he wanted. But I’ll
never forget the look on his face as the news hit him. He went so pale and
quiet.”
The attack spread further alarm through the expatriate community after the
shooting last Monday of Ms Williams, which Taleban militants said that they
had carried out because of proselytising by Christian charities such as
Reach Afghanistan, for which she worked.
Gayle Williams’s family issued a statement in which they they forgave the
militants who killed their daughter, saying that it was what she would have
wished. Her sister, Karen, said: “I know Gayle would forgive those
responsible for this act, and she would tell us not to hold a grudge against
them. We also forgive them, just as Gayle would have done.”
Ms Williams, a devout Christian, was buried in a small ceremony in the
19th-century British cemetery in Kabul in front of her mother, Patricia, her
sister and about 50 colleagues and friends. There was a heavy security
presence around the ceremony, which included hymns and prayers. Ms Williams
had specified that in the event of her death she wished to be buried in
Kabul.
Soon after her funeral, Afghan officials reported a Taleban atrocity in
Helmand province, where alleged militants had gouged out the eyes of a
farmer accused of spying for Western forces. “They held my hands and took
out my eyes with a knife. It was very painful and the world turned black,”
Sayed Ghulam, 52, told reporters from a hospital bed in Kandahar. He said
that the gunmen put a gun barrel in his mouth while they blinded him. He
said the men wore black turbans, which are common among Taleban fighters. A
Taleban spokesman denied the group’s responsibility.
In a recent address to militants in honour of the Muslim festival of Eid, the
reclusive Taleban leader Mullah Omar warned his fighters against committing
atrocities that would alienate Muslims around the world, in particular
noting claims that militants had chopped off ears or noses.
On Saturday there were protests against a previous Taleban atrocity in
Helmand. Hundreds of people took to the streets in the eastern province of
Laghman to protest at the killing of about 40 men from the area who were
abducted from a bus in Helmand and later found executed. Some had been
beheaded.
Amid the increasing violence in the country there are signs that aid workers
are no longer seen as neutral and are becoming targets.
Figures obtained by The Timesshow that in June, July, August and
September Western aid agencies working in Afghanistan were subjected to more
direct threats and attacks than in any other months since 2001, averaging
almost one incident a day.
Thirty aid workers have died in the country so far this year, more than twice
the number killed in the whole of last year. A further 92 aid workers have
been abducted, according to figures compiled by the United Nations; 22 UN
aid convoys were also attacked.
According to continuously updated maps held by the United Nations in Kabul, 90
out of 400 districts in the country, most across the south and east, are now
considered areas of extreme risk. The Afghan Government has lost control of
12 districts.
Matt Waldmann, the policy director of Oxfam UK in Kabul, said there was no
longer any doubt that aid workers were being directly targeted by militants.
“This killing [in Kabul] is part of a pattern of increased violence,” Aid
workers say that areas where aid agencies can now work effectively have been
reduced to less than half of Afghanistan. Many feel that a blurring of the
distinction between the military and aid workers has led to an increase in
attacks on aid agencies. They are particularly critical of the concept of
provincial reconstruction teams – joint civil-military bases that undertake
reconstruction work that was previously the preserve of aid agencies.
Mr Waldman said that the militarisation of aid had damaged the perception of
neutrality that agencies had. “There is now a widespread recognition among
Western diplomats and military officers that the true role of armed forces
is to provide security, not promote development.”
The UN and aid agencies insist, though, that they are not going to pull out of
Afghanistan. Jamie Tarzi, assistant country director for CARE, one of the
biggest aid agencies working in Afghanistan, said: “No one is talking about
leaving, but you have to continuously review. If we can’t monitor our
programmes you can’t stand by the work you do.”
‘It has been like living in a room with the walls closing in on you’
Case studies: Aid workers
Holly Ritchie Bamiyan Province
Former investment banker Holly Ritchie, 32, spends much of her time working in
the remote central highlands of Afghanistan – one of the last areas of
relative calm. But even here, instability is beginning to encroach. Last
week there was a roadside bomb in the area where she works. “It is extremely
worrying,” she says. “People are on edge.”
Ms Ritchie has been in Afghanistan since 2004, initially working for the
British charity Afghan Aid and more recently as a development consultant.
She has watched the space in which aid agencies can work shrink and has felt
the increasing constraints on what used to be a gregarious aid community in
Kabul.
“In 2004 we didn’t think twice about going out into the field. I travelled
through Herat and Ghor provinces back then. Things started to change in 2006.
“I keep a low profile, double check the security situation in the areas I am
visiting and have exit strategies worked out in advance.
“Afghan Aid has been working with these communities for 10 years. The
relationships and trust we have with them are key.”
Sarah Chayes Kandahar Province
“The years since 2002 have been like living in a room with the walls closing
in on you,” says Sarah Chayes, 46, who is thought to be the last Western aid
worker in the southern city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taleban.
This is where Gayle Williams, the British aid worker killed last week, was
based before the Christian charity she worked for decided the risks were too
high and pulled her back to Kabul.
Ms Chayes runs Arghand, a programme designed to give farmers an alternative to
opium poppy by producing essential oils for Western consumers.
She has been subjected to death threats and can no longer work outside the
city limits.
“We are seeing many more targeted assassinations of people in the city now –
relatively unimportant people. They killed a baker who served bread to the
Army recently,” she said. “I don't feel hostility from people towards me but
I do feel fear. Some people might be reluctant to interact with me.” Ms
Chayes feels that the killings of Ms Williams and three international aid
workers in August are the final proof that aid workers are not off limits.
During 2008 Ms Chayes has had to reduce the amount of time she spends in
Kandahar because of the relentless deterioration in security.
Sara Petersson Kabul
One of the youngest aid workers in Kabul to have known the country under the
Taleban, Sara Petersson first visited the country as a 20-year-old in 1997
when her father, also an aid worker, was undertaking supply missions between
the Northern Alliance and the Taleban.
She returned in 2002 with the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan. “I travelled
through Kunar, Ghazni, Paktika and Nuristan back then,” she says. All are
now too dangerous for aid workers to reach.
“I had closer relationships with my Afghan colleagues before. Now I am more in
the expatriate bubble.” Seventeen of her colleagues have been kidnapped in
the past two years. All were unharmed because of the strength of local
community support they enjoy.“Now we see that the communities are scared. If
the Taleban are a part of the community then we can negotiate with them. But
people are coming in from outside. The elders are scared.”
Matt Waldman Kabul
Oxfam UK policy director Matt Waldman, 35, was an international lawyer, the
foreign affairs and defence adviser for the Liberal Democrats and an aid
worker in eastern Europe before he moved to Kabul in 2006. He has since been
a high-profile critic of the Taleban, the Afghan government and Western
commitment in Afghanistan, pointing out that the Western military presence
is financed to the tune of $100 million (£63 million) a day, while aid to
amounts to just $7 million a day.
“There is no question that violence has escalated. In some cases it now
impossible to travel an hour from Kabul; some of our staff are unable to
reach their homes in provinces neighbouring Kabul.
He says: “There is despondency and puzzlement that the Great Powers can’t
bring security, and frustration with the corruption in the government.
Concrete action now is essential.
Afghans are very hospitable, but I find their strength, dignity and resilience
extraordinary. If anything gives me hope it is those qualities.”
Mr Waldman believes that the aid community will stay. “I feel strongly that,
at this point, with the deterioration of conditions, this is the time to
stay.”
