Diplomats to Leave Afghanistan

12/04/2001| IslamWeb

KABUL, Afghanistan (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Rejected by the Taliban, three diplomats said Monday they had to give up for now on their bid to see foreign relief workers, including two Americans, who were jailed for propagating Christianity in this Muslim nation.But the envoys from the United States, Australia and Germany said they would continue pressing Afghanistan's Taliban rulers to give them access to the eight workers.
``We're leaving, but it's not over,'' said David Donahue, consul general at the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Pakistan. (Read photo caption below)
The diplomats have spent the past week in the Afghan capital meeting Taliban officials and pressing in vain to see the detainees.
The Taliban returned the diplomats' passports late Monday without an extension to their visas, which run out Tuesday. The foreign ministry said they would escort the three men to the airport Tuesday to board a U.N. aircraft to return to Islamabad.
The eight aid workers - two American women, four Germans and two Australians - have not been seen since they were arrested along with 16 Afghan staff members of Shelter Now International, run by the German-based Christian organization Vision for Asia.
The Taliban have said they won't allow access to the detainees while authorities are still investigating whether any other Western relief agencies are involved in alleged proselytizing to convert Muslims to Christianity.
The Taliban probe has worried aid groups, some of whom have said they will leave the impoverished nation if there are any more arrests. Under Taliban rules, foreigners convicted of proselytizing serve a jail term and are deported, while Afghans face execution.
The diplomats said they were loath to leave Afghanistan.
Donahue said he would be less able to provide comfort for the families of the two young American women. He has been in daily contact with the relatives in the United States.
``They would like us here. My proximity to their children is very important to them,'' he said. He spoke to the families Sunday, he said, to assure them that rockets fired by opposition forces landed outside Kabul, far from where their daughters are thought to be held.
The two American women were arrested on Aug. 3 and the rest on Aug. 5 when the Taliban raided the offices of Shelter Now International and confiscated Christian literature and materials translated into local languages, which the Taliban said were used to convert Muslims.
The six women are confined in a whitewashed cement building on the grounds of a reform school for delinquent children in the heart of the capital. It's believed the two men are being held in the Taliban's ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.
Donahue refused to reveal the names or hometowns of the detained Americans, or other information except that they are in their mid-20s and single, citing U.S. privacy laws.
Unable to see their nationals and only occasionally meeting Taliban officials, the three diplomats spent much of their week inside the U.N. guesthouse, surrounded by a 10-foot wall, blue steel gates, guards and sandbag fortifications.
Should the eight foreigners go on trial in Afghanistan, the diplomats said they would expect to monitor the court proceedings.
PHOTO CAPTION:
U.S. diplomat David Donhuea speaks to Reuters Television at the United Nations staff house in Kabul, August 20, 2001. Afghanistan's ruling Taliban on Monday rejected new visas for three Western diplomats seeking to see eight detained foreign aid workers and handed back their passports. "They (the Taliban) delivered our passports to us," U.S. Consul General to Pakistan David Donahue told Reuters in Kabul. "We will be returning to Islamabad tomorrow (Tuesday) because our visas expire tomorrow." REUTERS/ Mian Khursheed