Collaborating with the Taliban regime in the name of “administrative” matters ?

Opi­nion piece by Meh­di Kas­sou, CEO, and the Board of Direc­tors of Bel­Re­fu­gees, publi­shed in Le Soir.

I was dee­ply sur­pri­sed, while rea­ding the press this wee­kend, to dis­co­ver that Bel­gium had, through Fred­dy Roo­se­mont, Direc­tor Gene­ral of the Immi­gra­tion Office, taken part — on behalf of a group of around twen­ty Euro­pean Union mem­ber states — in nego­tia­tions held last week with the Tali­ban regime. Offi­cial­ly pre­sen­ted as a simple “admi­nis­tra­tive fact-fin­ding mis­sion,” the ini­tia­tive in fact consis­ted of tra­vel­ling to Kabul to nego­tiate direct­ly with the Tali­ban the pos­si­bi­li­ty of expel­ling Afghan natio­nals, various­ly des­cri­bed as people “with cri­mi­nal records” or as “undo­cu­men­ted migrants.”

Bel­gium would the­re­fore now be nego­tia­ting open­ly with the Tali­ban, and the com­petent minis­ter, Anne­leen Van­bos­suyt (N‑VA), would even have been, accor­ding to Het Laatste Nieuws, the dri­ving force behind this mis­sion orga­ni­sed under the aus­pices of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion. This is infor­ma­tion one might have expec­ted to trig­ger a poli­ti­cal shock, domi­nate natio­nal head­lines, pro­voke wides­pread indi­gna­tion and mobi­lise par­lia­men­ta­ry over­sight and/or oppo­si­tion. Yet, at the time of wri­ting, nothing of the sort has occurred.

The news has slip­ped by almost unno­ti­ced, wrap­ped in care­ful­ly cho­sen lan­guage desi­gned to neu­tra­lise public debate and defuse any ethi­cal, deon­to­lo­gi­cal or poli­ti­cal ques­tio­ning. Pre­sen­ted as a mere “admi­nis­tra­tive mis­sion,” it is said to aim at revi­ving so-cal­led “tech­ni­cal” coope­ra­tion with the Afghan autho­ri­ties on iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, with a view to returns des­cri­bed as volun­ta­ry or for­ced. Behind this alle­ged tech­ni­ca­li­ty, howe­ver, lies a poli­ti­cal choice with far-rea­ching conse­quences — name­ly, accep­ting, assu­ming and nor­ma­li­sing func­tio­nal and ope­ra­tio­nal coope­ra­tion with a regime res­pon­sible for mas­sive, sys­te­ma­tic and well-docu­men­ted human rights violations.

Des­cri­bing this approach as “admi­nis­tra­tive” amounts to a dan­ge­rous fic­tion. Admi­nis­tra­tion is never neu­tral when it involves iden­ti­fying people, clas­si­fying them and pro­du­cing deci­sions that deter­mine their future, their free­dom and some­times their sur­vi­val. Entrus­ting — even indi­rect­ly — this iden­ti­fi­ca­tion to the minis­tries and intel­li­gence ser­vices of an autho­ri­ta­rian, theo­cra­tic and non-demo­cra­tic regime is tan­ta­mount to gran­ting it ope­ra­tio­nal legi­ti­ma­cy and assi­gning it an active role in the mana­ge­ment of human lives — lives that had fled that very regime in order to survive.

This logic is not new in Bel­gium. As ear­ly as 2017, under the autho­ri­ty of Theo Fran­cken, an offi­cial Suda­nese dele­ga­tion, inclu­ding mem­bers of the intel­li­gence ser­vices of a regime led by Omar al-Bashir — then sub­ject to arrest war­rants from the Inter­na­tio­nal Cri­mi­nal Court for crimes against huma­ni­ty — was invi­ted to Brus­sels to iden­ti­fy Suda­nese natio­nals for the pur­pose of expulsion.

That coope­ra­tion spar­ked legi­ti­mate outrage, led to depor­ta­tions fol­lo­wed by cre­dible alle­ga­tions of ill-treat­ment, and resul­ted in Bel­gium being condem­ned by the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights for vio­la­ting the prin­ciple of non-refou­le­ment. Pre­sen­ting the Afghan ini­tia­tive today as a simple tech­ni­cal ope­ra­tion amounts to deli­be­ra­te­ly igno­ring the les­sons of a pre­cedent alrea­dy hea­vy with human and legal consequences.

The lin­guis­tic pre­cau­tions taken, or sta­te­ments asser­ting a lack of “affi­ni­ty” with those in power in Kabul, are the­re­fore of lit­tle rele­vance. One does not col­la­bo­rate with an apar­theid regime, just as one did not inno­cent­ly col­la­bo­rate yes­ter­day with a regime accu­sed of crimes against huma­ni­ty, because such coope­ra­tion entails full poli­ti­cal and moral responsibility.

The argu­ment that women and minors would not be for­ci­bly retur­ned is not suf­fi­cient to allay concerns. The prin­ciple of non-refou­le­ment is not limi­ted to the final act of remo­val ; it covers any pre­pa­ra­to­ry action like­ly to expose a per­son to a real risk of per­se­cu­tion, inclu­ding iden­ti­fi­ca­tion by the autho­ri­ties of the coun­try of ori­gin. The Suda­nese case demons­tra­ted this clear­ly : the dan­ger begins long before boar­ding a plane.

The rhe­to­ric used to jus­ti­fy this coope­ra­tion is itself dee­ply trou­bling. Prio­ri­ti­sing cases of “ille­gal cri­mi­nals” fuels confu­sion bet­ween admi­nis­tra­tive sta­tus and cri­mi­nal offence, entrenches las­ting stig­ma­ti­sa­tion and pre­pares public opi­nion to accept excep­tio­nal poli­cies. This drift is nei­ther new nor tri­vial ; it is part of a broa­der dyna­mic, now open­ly embra­ced by the Trump admi­nis­tra­tion and by parts of the Euro­pean far right, which nor­ma­lise migra­tion bru­ta­li­ty in the name of so-cal­led com­mon sense.

What is at stake here goes far beyond the Afghan case alone. It repre­sents ano­ther step in a glo­bal move­ment towards the har­de­ning and out­sour­cing of migra­tion control to some of the most repres­sive regimes in the world. Tali­ban-ruled Afgha­nis­tan has not chan­ged. What has chan­ged, howe­ver, is our col­lec­tive thre­shold of tole­rance and the ease with which lines once dee­med uncros­sable become nego­tiable in the name of poli­ti­cal realism.

For the way in which we col­lec­ti­ve­ly agree to treat human beings — and with whom we agree to do so — will always say some­thing fun­da­men­tal about the true state of our demo­cra­cy and the libe­ral values it still claims to embo­dy, espe­cial­ly when these are tes­ted by fear, with­dra­wal into one­self and autho­ri­ta­rian temptation.