Canada’s The Globe and Mail It was the latest shock to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s shaky government. reveal After the Taliban attacked Kabul in August 2021, Trudeau’s former defence minister, Harjit Sajjan, prioritised rescuing Afghan Sikhs over Canadians.
According to three military officials who spoke to military authorities, The Globe and Mail, Sajian’s intervention came after the Canadian military decided its “top operational priority” was to rescue Canadians from the chaos caused by U.S. President Joe Biden’s failed attempt to pull troops out of Afghanistan.
The initial priority list for Canadian special forces, such as Joint Task Force Two (JTF-2), was to go after Canadians and Afghans who had worked directly for the Canadian government before the Taliban took over Kabul. “Vulnerable groups such as feminists, human rights activists, minorities and LGBTQ people” were next, followed by anyone else who could be rescued.
Sajjan intervened, moving a group of 225 Afghan Sikhs to the top of the list and actively participating in their rescue, providing “local intelligence and other details about the Sikhs” to the Canadian Special Forces.
“What was given to us initially was, ‘If we can do this and pay attention to it, great, but don’t stop everything else,'” one special forces officer said of the orders to rescue the Sikhs first. “But after a day or two, it came back to us as stern orders. Our leaders were furious. They were very upset,” one special forces officer said of the orders to rescue the Sikhs first.
“The anger was so intense that for the last 24 hours, we focused only on driving out the Sikhs. We failed,” the officer said, adding a sad ending to the incident.
According to other sources, The Globe and Mail Sajjan’s attempt to rescue the Sikhs failed because “terrorized Afghan Sikhs left the meeting point just before Canadian troops arrived to take them to safety at Kabul International Airport.”
Fortunately, most of the Sikhs in question survived the Taliban coup and were able to flee to India a few months later, some of them using planes chartered by the Indian government.
of The Globe and Mail Sajjan was “a prominent figure in the Sikh community whose father served as director of the World Sikh Organization” and noted that Trudeau’s Liberal Party was desperate to win the Sikh vote at the time.
Sajjan acknowledged that all the details in the article were correct, including that he had texted Canadian troops in Afghanistan with information about Afghan Sikh groups, but angrily denied any wrongdoing by prioritizing foreigners over Canadian citizens on rescue lists.
Sajjan argued, among other things, that the Sikh group was at greater direct risk than the Canadians he removed from the rescue list, but the fact that the Canadians survived and later sought refuge in India seems to refute that claim.
of The Globe and Mail The source also disputed Mr Sajjan’s assertion that diverting some troops to rescue the Sikhs was not a major issue, describing the change of orders amid the frenzy of the Afghanistan withdrawal as a “logistical nightmare”.
Sajjan maintained that the Sikhs’ paperwork had already been processed by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and that he had simply “instructed the Canadian military to take them in,” but IRCC was rather vague about whether it had issued travel documents to any of the 225 Sikhs in Sajjan’s group.
“The operational details of how and where this work would be carried out were left to military operational commanders and tactical decision makers on the ground,” he argued, effectively The Globe and Mail Military sources say he played a more direct role in diverting resources to save the Sikhs.
David Lavery, a former Canadian Special Forces soldier with the Veterans Transition Network who was in Kabul at the time of the evacuation, said: Said It is entirely possible that Sajjan’s actions have resulted in none of the endangered Sikhs being rescued, leaving those who should have been a higher priority stranded in Afghanistan.
“That has definitely left people stranded. Easily 500 to 1,000 people stranded, probably more. We’re still trying to rescue a few hundred people,” LaBarrie said.
The Canadian Department of National Defense (DND) looked into the matter and said that the ultimate authority for issuing orders to ground forces in Kabul lay with General Wayne Eyre, who was then Chief of National Defense (a position he still holds today), leading one outraged Special Forces officer to ask whether the Canadian Minister of National Defense’s instructions should be ignored as merely a “suggestion.”
Sajan He said angrily. Reporters on Thursday The Globe and Mail The story was “complete nonsense.”
“Those who followed the evacuation operation and the events that preceded it know very well that there was an accepted government policy to evacuate as many vulnerable Afghans to safety as possible,” he said. Said.
“Every effort was made to rescue as many people as possible,” Sajjian said, arguing that they had done the best they could for both Canadians and Afghans during the withdrawal crisis. Sajjian said it was “clear” that the rescue policy put Canadians first, but he called on the military to do what it could for persecuted foreign religious minorities.
Sajjan was furious and said he would not have been harassed for his actions as defence minister “if I had not worn a turban”, a line he included in his statement on the matter.
The World Sikh Organisation has dismissed the accusations against Sajjan as “baseless” and “influenced by prejudice against his Sikh identity”, and supported his play.
The WSO added that other Canadian officials, including members of the Canadian opposition, had attempted to rescue Sikhs and Hindus during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, but that point seems irrelevant to the question of whether Sajjan issued orders to prevent special forces from working to rescue Canadians during the crisis.
Sajjan faced criticism from an unexpected quarter: NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who is himself a Sikh. Blown up He described the Liberal government’s rescue operation in Kabul as a “catastrophe.”
“Canada has a responsibility to provide some relief to people, but it didn’t do enough,” Singh said, expressing agnosticism on the question of whether Sajjan was inappropriate in changing the relief priority list on the fly.
Conservative MP James Bezan, who is shadow defence minister (opposition leader who specialises in criticising the Liberal Party on defence issues), said the Sajjan controversy was another example of the Liberal Party failing the military “because they have no trust or respect for the professional leadership of our military personnel, whether in procurement, recruitment or operations”.
Former Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole It is called The Canadian government on Thursday called for a formal investigation into Sajjan’s actions, and Canada’s other opposition party, the Bloc Quebecois, said it would table a motion calling for hearings in Parliament.
“The government owes a lot of accountability on this because it’s clear there were other politics and priorities at play,” said O’Toole, who led the Conservatives through the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal and is also a former Canadian military officer.
Current Conservative Leader Pierre Poirievre said through a spokesman that his party would give “proper and due consideration” to the Bloc Québécois’ request for a hearing.
The Sajjan controversy comes at a bad time for Trudeau and the Liberal Party. They are still Wind up Trudeau’s resignation comes after a crushing defeat this week in the Toronto-St. Paul constituency, where Conservative Don Stewart won a seat that had been held by the Liberals for 30 years. After the defeat, Trudeau resisted calls to resign as the Liberals’ seat appeared to be in jeopardy in upcoming by-elections.
