Former defence minister Harjit Sajjan says the request was not a direct order to Canadian Forces
Afghan people wanting to leave the country queue up in front of the British and Canadian embassy in Kabul on Aug. 19, 2021 after the Taliban's military takeover of Afghanistan.takeover in August, 2021, in an operation that three military sources say took resources away from getting Canadian citizens and Afghans linked to Canada on final evacuation flights out of Kabul.
“The way it was presented to us at first was: If we can do this and pay attention to it, great, but not stopping doing everything else,” said one source, a special forces officer. “But a day or so later, it came back to us as a firm order. Our leadership was furious. They were very upset.” Numerous groups were asking the Canadian government for help in rescuing Afghans, including The Globe and Mail, which sought to retrieve two people who served as translators for the newspaper.
As the withdrawal deadline loomed, Mr. Sajjan, an influential figure in the Sikh community whose father served on the board of the World Sikh Organization, requested Canadian troops rescue about 225 Afghan Sikhs. They had been hiding out at the Karte Parwan Gurdwara in Kabul.also came in the early weeks of a federal election campaign. Sikh Canadians were viewed as a key voting bloc for the governing Liberals in several ridings in the Greater Toronto Area and Lower Mainland of British Columbia.
“I relayed whatever information that the NGO provided about the location and status of these Sikhs to the chain of command for it to use as it saw fit, in line with its operational plan on the ground in Afghanistan,” he said. One of the sources said the change of mission to rescue these Sikhs became a logistical nightmare at the same time that “we are still trying to hurry and process people through who have Canadian passports.”
In a follow-up statement Wednesday, Mr. Sajjan said Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada had cleared these Sikhs to come to Canada. “I provided direction to the Canadian Armed Forces, through the appropriate chain of command, to assist the group of Afghan Sikhs who had been determined eligible for evacuation from Kabul through the process under way at IRCC,” he said.
But ultimately the order to troops on the ground came from General Wayne Eyre, Chief of the Defence Staff and his officials, it said. Mr. Sajjan said neither he nor his office provided documents or letters of facilitation to the Afghan Sikhs. Retired lieutenant-general Mike Day, who once headed JTF-2 and Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, said he found it difficult to “understand or see a rational explanation why this group of Sikhs would have been of sufficient priority at the cost of other groups who likely had a greater claim on Canadian support.”
Ms. Bhullar conceded that it was frustrating that the Afghan Sikhs decided to leave the rendezvous point within a half-hour before Canadian troops arrived to find them gone.
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