Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani attends a safety assembly in Kabul, Afghanistan August 14, 2021.
Afghan Presidential Palace | Reuters
More than three weeks after fleeing Kabul by helicopter because the Taliban swept by means of the capital, former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani issued a statement late Wednesday in apology to his fellow countrymen.
“I owe the Afghan people an evidence for leaving Kabul abruptly on August 15 after Taliban unexpectedly entered town,” Ghani started, in a letter posted to his Twitter account that was written solely in English.
Three days after his speedy departure and amid apocalyptic scenes of panic at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport as determined Afghans tried to flee the nation, Ghani resurfaced in the United Arab Emirates, whose authorities confirmed it had welcomed him and his household on humanitarian grounds.
“I left on the urging of the palace safety who suggested me that to stay risked setting off the identical horrific road to road preventing town had suffered in the course of the Civil War of the 1990s. Leaving Kabul was essentially the most troublesome choice of my life, however I believed it was the one manner to preserve the weapons silent and save Kabul and her 6 million residents,” the former tutorial and World Bank official, who had been Afghanistan’s president since 2014, wrote.
In what some are seeing as an try to keep away from accountability, Ghani mentioned, “Now isn’t the second for an extended evaluation of the occasions main to my departure,” including that “I’ll tackle them within the close to future.”
Taliban forces had made a sequence of beautiful advances throughout the nation of 39 million within the wake of the Biden administration and NATO asserting a full departure of U.S. and coalition forces by the top of August.
Amid the exodus of overseas troops, the Taliban have been ready to declare close to full management of the nation inside 10 days of seizing their first provincial capital. This was regardless of being vastly outnumbered by the Afghan army, which has been assisted by U.S. and coalition forces for the final 20 years.
Denying taking thousands and thousands in money with him
Ghani has been accused of participating in and taking advantage of rampant corruption. Rumors abounded amongst Afghans and analysts that the 72-year-old took thousands and thousands of {dollars} in money with him when he left, and Russian state media reported the identical. Ghani in his letter denied the accusations.
“I have to now tackle baseless allegations that as I left Kabul I took with me thousands and thousands of {dollars} belonging to the Afghan people. These costs are utterly and categorically false. Corruption is a plague that has crippled our nation for many years and preventing corruption has been a central focus in my efforts as president.”
U.S. and former Afghan officers, together with those that labored intently with Ghani, allege numerous instances of corruption and bribery inside Ghani’s workplace and household, and impartial investigations have concluded that Ghani gave profitable contracts to rapid relations. Ghani has denied the accusations.
“I welcome an official audit or monetary investigation beneath UN auspices or another applicable impartial physique to show the veracity of my statements right here,” Ghani wrote in his Sept. 8 statement.
Analysts and plenty of U.S. veterans of the conflict in Afghanistan observe that the corruption within the Afghan authorities and in its army’s management typically meant that cash meant for troopers’ salaries as a substitute went to lining the pockets of senior officers. They informed CNBC that the Afghan army’s fast surrenders to the Taliban stemmed in part from a total lack of confidence that Ghani and the federal government in Kabul would help them.
“I provide my profound admire and respect for the sacrifice of all Afghans, particularly our Afghan troopers and their households, by means of the final forty years,” Ghani wrote in his letter’s closing paragraph.
“It is with deep and profound remorse that my very own chapter led to comparable tragedy to my predecessors — with out guaranteeing stability and prosperity. I apologize to the Afghan people that I couldn’t make it finish in another way. My dedication to the Afghan people has by no means wavered and can information me for the remainder of my life.”