A Taliban fighter (Image: AP/Rahmat Gul)

On Wednesday afternoon I spent 90 minutes on a video call with local United Nations workers trapped in Kabul, asking about their conditions and any message they want to send Australia and our prime minister.

They are in terrible danger because they have been part of nation-building programs sponsored by Australia and other Western nations, and the Taliban plan to hunt and kill them.

When asked who they are looking to for assistance, they replied that the UN had been utterly useless and provided no support whatsoever. Funding organisations are uncontactable, foreign embassies have closed and they have no knowledge of who to apply to, where and how.

Thus they are talking to former colleagues like me around the world who, although largely powerless, can at least try to create awareness of their plight.

No countries are offering them asylum, and they fear for their lives. They explained that a senior Taliban commander has issued instructions to his militia not to enter houses or pursue government, NGO or international workers until the Taliban has full control of the country, at which point they can search for and kill them.

Despite this instruction there are hangings and disappearances. They spoke of one worker who was taken in his vehicle from his house and his family expect never to see him again. Several military commanders have been hanged; other workers have been whipped, shot or beaten.

They lack detailed information because they are in hiding and reluctant to go out. They are moving from house to house because neighbours and even relatives may turn them in.

There are disputes within the Taliban. In Doha, senior leaders are attempting to appear conciliatory on issues like women’s education and revenge of former opponents in order to gain recognition as a government — their caveat is that this must still comply with their interpretation of sharia law. However, on the ground local commanders are as brutal and medieval in attitudes and methodologies as they have always been. They say one thing, yet do another.

The department of religious affairs has yet to be established, but once it is this will be disastrous for women. In the previous Taliban administration there was a department for the suppression of vice and enforcement of virtue with thugs who would beat or kill people with inappropriate haircuts, ill-trimmed beards and music on a SIM card, and target women who were unaccompanied by a male, not wearing a full burqa or, worse yet, working.

Education was regarded as pointless for women, unless it was from a madrassa which concerned itself with fundamentalist religious instruction and frequently bred terrorists and suicide bombers. A woman committing adultery would be stoned to death; a girl holding hands with a boy in a village before marriage could lead to generations of interfamilial conflict, so was often resolved by an “honour killing” by her parents.

The Taliban are not the only threat. Dangerous prisoners have been released, so at night there are kidnappers, armed thieves and thugs taking advantage of no police presence. During the day there are roadblocks manned by bearded brutes who ask where you are going, why, and where you work.

I asked these local UN workers what do they want to say to Australia and the Australian prime minister? They discussed it at length, and came up with the following:

“We worked with you on nation-building programs you actively supported. Now you have left, and we will be hunted and killed.

Please do three things this week:

  1. Expand the number of visas available to your nation-building allies whose lives and families are at imminent risk of death. Visas should not just be granted to those who partnered the military
  2. Get us information about how to apply instantly and put it online, sorting out details once we are safe
  3. Get us a plane and, ideally, passage to the airport.

We are hopeful because Australians famously don’t let their mates down.”

It remains to be seen how serious Australia is about protecting our allies. What is not in doubt is the seriousness of the death threats.

I worked with the UN in Afghanistan briefly in 2009 on a team of 27. Just after I left the Taliban raided our guesthouse, killing five who couldn’t escape in time.

The locals I spoke to are even more despised by the Taliban than Western UN staff, and will be tracked down and slaughtered unless we act.

It goes beyond simple political will to our national character. Do we have either?