The deaths of ten humanitarian workers this week in a remote region of Afghanistan underscore the unique but silent work done by American citizens not serving in government or military.
Glen Lapp, one of those killed with the International Assistance Mission (IAM) team of medics, was my host in Afghanistan as I travel back and forth from the country to do my own development work there. I lived with other colleagues at the IAM guesthouse in Kabul and admired the work of this organization that has served alongside Afghans since 1966. The longest-standing international organization in Afghanistan, IAM stayed through the years of civil war, Russian occupation, Taliban tyranny and the ongoing dangers since 2001.
Humanitarian groups like IAM have a unique perspective on the plight of Afghanistan and what could be done to build peace here. While they risk their lives, they also are able to help thousands of Afghans with medical care, clean water, schools and all the other forms of development that help build security from the ground up.
Glen and I walked all over Kabul listening and talking to Afghans on the street and in community organizations. Glen had learned to speak Dari, and as such, had learned a great deal more about Afghanistan than most other foreigners without language capacity.
Glen and I talked a great deal about security. I asked him, "is it safe for us to be walking downtown here - I don't see any other foreigners around?"
While it is mostly safe for foreigners walking and working in Kabul, most foreigners live behind barbed wire, stuck inside cement compounds. Security concerns keep most foreigners from hearing the perspectives of Afghans and prevent them from either fully understanding the situation or being able to work with Afghans in a way that truly empowers and partners with local leaders.
With the US spending billions on security assistance and intelligence gathering each year in Afghanistan, most Americans serving in Kabul have little interaction with Afghans at the community level that could provide them with a clearer sense that current US policy in the region is perceived as confused at best and counterproductive at worst.
The massacre of humanitarians this week shows that there are dangers in shedding security and stepping out onto Afghanistan's dusty roads. Yet US military personnel are taking far more risks.
Why can't the far-too-few US development and diplomacy personnel get permission to venture out of their security prisons so they can gain a better sense of the problems and prospects for US policy in the region? Why should only military personnel and humanitarians take the risks of losing their lives?
What American policymakers would find out if they left their castles is that most Afghans are well aware that the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan has risen almost 6% in the first seven months of 2010. Many Afghans feel that US policy in the region is horribly wrong.
The concept of counterinsurgency and its stated focus on population-centric security and protection of civilians is not perceived as such by many Afghans. Rather, many blame international forces for civilian deaths, for the indignities of night raids and house searches, for stirring up greater violence by fomenting new recruits for the Taliban, for arming militias in the countryside, and for propping up warlords and corrupt Afghan officials.
What they long for the US and the international community to do is to provide diplomatic leadership in the region -- as many Afghans blame interference from Pakistan, Iran, India and other countries as at the root of their problems. Many want a long-term commitment from the international community to work with them in the coming decades to stabilize their country through expanded training for Afghan police. They ask for the US to stop shoving money at contractors in hugely expensive but unsustainable development projects that drive local corruption and instead make a ten to twenty year commitment toward local Afghan-led development with those funds.
The tragedy this week will likely not have a big impact on humanitarian work in the country. Those of us in this profession know the risks and will continue to do the work. The people it impacts the most are the Afghans who benefit from these types of humanitarian missions.
And for Washington, I hope the impact of the tragedy opens their eyes to the risks their own development and diplomacy personnel could take in order to better serve the people of Afghanistan and to better understand how to shape US policy in the region. If US diplomats and development experts can't or won't leave safe compounds, then they should invite more NGOs and Afghan community leaders in to advise them on grassroots perspectives on and recommendations for US policy.
Follow Lisa Schirch on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lisa.schirch
Qu'ran instructs kill anyone who leaves Islam or proselytizes.
Qu'ran 004.089
YUSUFALI: They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks;-
PICKTHAL: They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them,
SHAKIR: They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/quran/004.qmt.html
"Our faith motivates and inspires us – but we do not proselytize," said IAM director Dirk Frans at a press conference in Kabul Monday.
Christian-affiliated aid groups, including IAM, work in Afghanistan under self-imposed international codes of conduct that forbid using aid to further a religious standpoint. This has largely shielded Christian-affiliated groups from being targeted over religion, but both the Taliban and politicians have tried recently to pin the "proselytizer" label on such foreigners.
"So far, the large majority of Afghans, educated or not, had absolutely no problem in having Christian organizations providing assistance, as long as they did not get involved in religious matters," says Laurent Saillard, head of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief in Kabul. "But now I am afraid this is changing."
The story also points out (along with countless other news article) how it is the Taliban that touts killing the victims for trying to convert Muslims. Not once, by the way, does the article use the word 'missionary'. So, IAM officials and several victims' family members have clarified that while their faith inspired these aid workers, spreading it was not on their agenda. Sounds like you're believing the Taliban! They were aid workers, pure and simple. To say they weren't is a slap in the face.
They were not AID workers in the first place rather Christian Missionaries (according to Christian Science Monitor and many other sources).
Providing AID to local people is not priority 1, you know that.
Humanitarian aid workers vow to work only to alleviate suffering, not to promote a political cause.
Yes, this is confusing to many people who lump humanitarians together with the military. But this group has a 50 year track record of working alongside Muslims in Afghanistan, even when the Taliban was in power.
Try doing the humanitarian stuff without all the shooting next time and they will likely be received better by the locals