Ashraf Ghani.Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty
Former Afghan PresidentAshraf Ghaniis offering an explanation some three weeks after heabruptly fled the capital city of Kabulvia helicopter as the Taliban began moving in.
“I owe the Afghan people an explanation for leaving Kabul abruptly on August 15 after Taliban unexpectedly entered the city,” the 72-year-old Ghaniwrote in a letterposted to his Twitter account Wednesday.
Ghani’s exact whereabouts and condition were murky in the days after he fled Afghanistan with his family in mid-August, as it became clear the Taliban was overtaking the capital of Kabul. The United Arab Emirates ultimately said he had come there.
Despite reports that Ghani decided to flee “in minutes” after he attempted to negotiate safe passage with Taliban leaders, in his letter published Wednesday he insisted he left “at the urging of the palace security who advised me that to remain risked setting off the same horrific street-to-street fighting the city had suffered during the Civil War of the 1990s.”
His letter continued: “Leaving Kabul was the most difficult decision of my life, But I believed it was the only way to keep the guns silent and save Kabul and her 6 million citizens. I have devoted 20 years of my life to helping the Afghan people work toward building a democratic, prosperous, and sovereign state — it was never my intent to abandon the people or that vision.”
Ghani also used the letter to dispute what he called “baseless allegations,” includingclaims that he took with him millions of dollarsstolen from state coffers when he fled Kabul.
Calling those charges “completely and categorically false,” Ghani claimed in his letter that he and his wife “have been scrupulous in our personal finances.”
“I welcome an official audit or financial investigation under UN auspices or any other appropriate independent body to prove the veracity of my statements here,” he wrote.
“The Taliban have won with the judgment of their swords and guns, and are now responsible for the honor, property and self-preservation of their countrymen,” he said at the time.
That early explanation did little to satisfy critics, with one former member of the U.S. National Security Council telling Al Jazeera Ghani “caused chaos within the region, divided the people, created hostility amongst the ethnic groups, and broke democracy.”
Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency via Getty
In a White House address the day after the Taliban took control of Kabul (and shortly after Ghani fled), President Joe Bidencriticized the former Afghan president, suggesting he and his security forces did not fight hard enough for their country.
“Mr. Ghani insisted the Afghan forces would fight, but obviously he was wrong,” Biden said, adding: “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. We gave them every chance to determine their own future. We could not provide them with the will to fight for that future.”
In his Wednesday letter, Ghani leaves the door open for future detail of his Kabul exit, writing, “Now is not the moment for a long assessment of the events leading up to my departure — I will address them in detail in the near future.”
source: people.com
