Whom History Leaves Behind: Lessons from Ireland and Afghanistan

General David Petraeus, when he took command in Iraq, famously asked, ‘How does this end?’ Perhaps a better question might be, ‘When does it end?’ A year ago, a plan to commemorate the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), the predominantly Roman Catholic police force that served Ireland between 1836 and 1922, fell through because of the controversy surrounding its role in the bloody 1919–21 confrontation with the IRA – even if that had been largely conducted by RIC ‘gendarmeries’ in the shape of the ‘Black and Tans’ and ‘Auxiliary Force’. Old enmities and feelings die hard.

This story is being played out again in relation to the fate of the UK’s former Locally Employed Staff (LES), which includes interpreters, from Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of the same arguments – over eligibility for support, recognition, redundancy payments, and whether or not to relocate them – are being heard again and for many of the same reasons. So too, the fears: direct attacks on RIC men, or their families, occurred even after the ceasefire of July 1921; RIC family members were socially ostracised, while their menfolk were concentrated in ‘barracks’ for their safety; and threatening letters, to RIC men and their families, were common. All of these have been seen in Afghanistan: we may now refer to the threatening letters as ‘night letters’, but they have the same sinister intent; the LES may not be concentrated in barracks but many have been advised to move to Kabul, as it was deemed – at least initially – to be safer; and their families have been attacked and threatened.

What was evident in 1921 – that there was no easy security for former RIC men in the new Irish state – is also evident in Afghanistan, even if, in the latter case, there has been significant resistance to recognising the obvious. Serving in Iraq in 2004–5, I had been consulted on what we should do with our former Iraqi interpreters; the issue was being recognised some three years before we started to plan our withdrawal from that campaign. On arriving in Kabul in 2008, I also raised the issue, but it was deemed too early at that stage as we had no sense of the ‘end game.’

Wider politics has always had a role. In 1921, while the UK government publicly lauded the RIC’s service, there was considerable reluctance among UK mainland police services to take on former RIC members. Moreover, a plan to send them out to police the dominions often fell foul of the dominions’ inability, not just reluctance, to accept them. Put simply, the dominions themselves were broke, struggling to support their own returning servicemen and to re-establish trade and commerce, let alone take on new and controversial recruits. It is perhaps telling that the UK’s League of Nations mandate, Palestine, was the most willing imperial territory to accept former RIC men.

The Afghanistan Episode

In the case of Afghan LES, there has also been plenty of public praise, but their fate has similarly been linked to wider issues: primarily, the working through of first, the 2010 Coalition government, and second, the 2016 Conservative government’s immigration policy (referred to as the ‘hostile environment’ policy).

Until the papers are eventually released, we cannot be unequivocally sure of what happened, but we do know that, from 2010, UK governments were deeply concerned by the disquiet caused by the mass immigration into the UK that began in 2004. We also understand that the Cabinet Office directed that the Home Office should lead on producing solutions, and that other Departments of State, in the usual fashion, were directed to be ‘supporting’ departments. The Ministry of Defence’s reaction to this new strategic direction was evident almost immediately.

In June 2010, the defence section in Kabul was asked by the Camp Bastion medics to arrange for the definitive treatment of a badly injured interpreter. Initially, we were confused as to why he wasn’t just being transferred to the UK to Selly Park, like all our other badly injured personnel. The answer, which still shocks to this day, was that the UK government was worried that he might claim asylum and that, by ‘repatriating’ him, ‘this might set a precedent’. In the end, with the assistance of the Indian Defence Attaché in Kabul and the UK Defence Advisor in New Delhi, it was arranged for the individual – along with a companion to support him – to be air-evacuated to India, where he received first-class medical care. The moral case – that having been injured in the UK’s service, he was entitled to the best treatment that the UK could give him alongside injured UK personnel – had been trumped by the broader strategic and political direction to reduce immigration.

By 2012, it was clear that the UK was going to withdraw from direct combat operations in Afghanistan by 2014. However, in devising schemes to support former Afghan LES, the overweening strategic imperative to reduce net immigration remained operative, and this is evident in the schemes’ design. Two schemes were produced: the Redundancy or Ex Gratia Scheme (EGS), originally a series of redundancy options for those still serving, and the Intimidation Scheme. The latter was roundly criticised by the House of Commons Defence Committee, but it was also notable just how limited in scope the EGS was.

The possibility of relocation to the UK for interpreters was included, but only if they had served in Helmand between 11 December 2012 and 11 December 2013; all other service, no matter how dangerous or long-lasting, did not count. The deliberate net effect was to severely limit the number of people who were eligible to relocate; of the 2,500 interpreters employed between 2001 and 2013, probably no more than 500 were eligible for relocation by default. The remainder were supposed to be supported by the Intimidation Scheme and, while there was a theoretical possibility that someone subject to that scheme might be relocated to the UK, from 2014 until the scheme was replaced in April this year, only one interpreter was relocated. In short, the strategic policy intent was well and truly fulfilled.

To be sure, there were changes. The then Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson declared in 2018 that he would allow a further 50 interpreters in, but this was in direct response to the Windrush scandal revelations, in which a number of long-term residents of the UK were suddenly denied settled status and citizenship. He made the declaration at the weekend to a newspaper first, and hadn’t consulted with his officials. It was a political knee-jerk reaction – albeit a welcome one – but it made no difference to the overall policy, and showed well the context in which that policy had been written.

The Denouement

Significant change has only occurred in the last six months with the launch of the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy in April 2021, shifting the policy from what Julian Lewis – the former Chair of the Defence Select Committee – had criticised as a 'relocation in extremis’ policy to a 'relocation by default' option for ‘those who worked or work for HMG in exposed meaningful enabling roles’. An amendment to the EGS was also issued in December 2020. On 1 June 2021, the government announced that the prime minister had agreed that the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will now ‘rapidly accelerate applications through the policy’ in light of the imminent withdrawal. At the beginning of July we saw the first flight under the new policy, with 30 arrivals, but the pace and scale seem painfully slow for what may be a major movement of people – up to 3,000 LES and their families – against what is now a rapidly deteriorating situation.

The consequences of leaving things too late are known. French President Emmanuel Macron asked whether the former French interpreters were likely to become ‘Les Harkis Nouvelles’ – a reference to the North Africans who supported the French colonial administration, only to be abandoned to a cruel fate when France decided to relinquish its colonies. As Afghanistan is unlikely to be the last significant overseas deployment by the British Armed Forces, it is worth recalling the convoluted evolution of this policy, which is not yet over. The answer to the question, ‘when does it end?’ appears to be ‘never’.

Simon Diggins served as the UK Defence Attaché in Kabul from 2008–10.

The views expressed in this Commentary are the author’s, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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