Former naval officer in Bega advocating for former Afghan employee trapped in Pakistan

A former naval officer in Bega is imploring the Federal Government to quickly help a man he worked with on Australia’s mission in Afghanistan.

The Afghan, his wife, and four children are trapped in Pakistan.

They are living there illegally with no hope of permanent residency. Any day they could be deported where the man would almost certainly be immediately arrested, perhaps tortured, perhaps murdered, most likely “disappeared”.

David Luck was a naval officer for more than 35 years before he retired in Bega. He had specialised in logistics and procurement.

Between January 2016 and February 2017, Mr Luck was NATO’s lead logistics advisor to the Afghan Ministry of Defence and the Afghan Army, helping them to conduct their campaign against the Taliban.

He led a small international team and worked closely with three Afghan generals.

“Mushfiq was a public servant working in the Afghan Ministry of Defence,” Mr Luck said. “He was the go-to person because his English was good, and he had good knowledge of Afghan policies and processes.

“We developed a close rapport in my time, and Mushfiq also had a good relationship with the other Australians who followed in my role,” Mr Luck said. “Mushfiq continued in that role for a number of years.”

He kept in contact with Mushfiq and other Afghan friends. In August 2021 Mushfiq returned from work to find his front door kicked in and his family missing.

“They were with neighbours and his neighbours warned him to get out,” Mr Luck said.

He said Mushfiq was targeted because he had worked so closely with Australia, NATO forces, and the former regime in an important strategic role which made him prominent in the eyes of the Taliban.

“His wife was targeted because as a woman, she went to university and worked in the public service,” Mr Luck said. “Both of them stood for positions that the Taliban wholly opposed.”

In August 2023 Mushfiq and his family managed to cross the border to Pakistan.

Mr Luck said there were nearly three million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, and Pakistan couldn’t support them with education, healthcare, employment, or resettlement.

It is a cash economy and sometimes Mushfiq will get a day’s work as a labourer, but often he cannot. His wife homeschools the children.

“There is no way Mushfiq can become permanent in Pakistan,” Mr Luck said. “Even though he speaks Urdu, everyone knows he is from Afghanistan.”

Mr Luck said the three generals he worked with had sufficient financial resources to get out of Afghanistan, and he helped Faizal, one of his interpreters, into Australia under a humanitarian visa.

“Faizal arrived in 2020 through the Afghan Locally Engaged Employee (LEE) visa program which is there to protect the lives of interpreters and those who directly worked for the Australian effort,” he said. “He now lives happily in Adelaide, but Mushfiq is still trapped in Pakistan in a very precarious setting.”

Mr Luck helped Mushfiq apply for a visa in May 2023, and under the LEE program in November 2023.

Emeritus Professor of Diplomacy at The Australian National University, William Maley, who has published widely on Afghanistan politics, wrote a letter in support of the applications.

“Other than acknowledging receipt of the visa applications, there has been no correspondence from the Australian Government, and no response to enquiries,” he said.

Mr Luck has made numerous representations to Member for Eden-Monaro Kristy McBain.

That resulted in letters from the Department of Home Affairs that said Australia would accept 26,500 Afghan refugees over five years from 2022 to 2026, and that visas could take up to six years to process.

“My fear is Mushfiq doesn’t have that time,” Mr Luck said. “He fears deportation, arrest, and disappearance.”

Mushfiq and his family have proof of identity, passports, birth certificates, and Mr Luck as a sponsor to certify he worked with Mushfiq and demonstrate that Mushfiq advanced the Australian mission.

Mr Luck said Mushfiq posed no security risks and, with his qualifications and public service experience, would get work almost immediately and contribute to the Australian economy. Mushfiq is also open to living in a regional area.

“When Australia withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 after 20 years of deployment, people were asking questions about what Australia was doing to support the Afghans we had asked to trust us and work with us,” Mr Luck said. “We have some responsibility for the consequences of walking out and need to provide a greater and swifter compassionate response to those left behind.”