Shamsurahman Mamond spent five years working alongside Australian soldiers in the Afghan province of Uruzgan, as an interpreter and a liaison between the military and the local population.
In 2016, he relocated to Australia with his wife and children after obtaining a protection visa and settled in Newcastle, 160km north of Sydney.
Speaking to SBS Pashto just months on from the release of an inquiry which , he said the magnitude of the findings came as a shock, though he was relieved to see it go public.
“I was happy [for the report’s release] as a nation,” he said. “Australia is a beautiful country and has a good name in the world and they accept their troops did the wrong things, and they will change that and take people to justice.”
The report by Justice Paul Brereton includes allegations that senior commanders forced junior soldiers to kill defenceless captives in order to "blood" them for combat and recommended referring 19 current and former soldiers for potential prosecution.
Shamsurahman Mamond during his deployment in Afghanistan. Source: Supplied
SBS News:
'They’re destroying the whole house'
As an interpreter during the conflict, Mr Mamond worked with the Australian Defence Force unit Task Force 55 and was involved in a number of combat missions on the ground.
Although confirming that he didn't witness acts of war crimes, he said he was told by local Afghans that Australian special forces were conducting "deadly raids".
“[In the] provincial reconstruction team, it was our job to connect with local elders and local people. They were coming and telling us what was going on out in the fields.
"They would say, ‘They’re destroying the whole house. They’re killing the kids and ladies and everyone because they’re looking for insurgents and Taliban’”.
Mr Mamond said he would often lay awake at night listening to the screams of prisoners in a holding cell inside the Australian base at Tarin Kowt.
Shamsurahman Mamond worked alongside the ADF as an Afghan interpreter. Source: SBS
“My accommodation was a few metres away from their jail, I saw sometimes they were taking people out of the car like toys, we also sometimes heard people yelling, it was sad because if someone is in the detention centre, they don’t have a weapon, they are not a threat anymore, there was no necessity for punishment.
“I was not in a position to help them. It was not acceptable to treat people like animals. We can’t say animals, because Australia respects animals.”
He explains that he was not comfortable discussing these matters with Australian forces, due to the possible repercussions.
Source: Supplied
“I was not in that position to discuss those sorts of things, I didn’t have the authority and power, in the army if you discuss that you are doing wrong, there were other risks involved.
“One time they had a problem with an interpreter, and they kicked him out at six or seven in the afternoon, they kicked him outside of the camp. There was no one to help him they just kicked him like a dog, he found an Afghan army check post and went there and told them ‘[Australians] kicked me out, everywhere is Taliban they will kill me at night, just keep me until morning so I find a car to go home’.”
As a result of what he saw; he believes "there may be more cases" of alleged war crimes than those revealed in the Brereton inquiry.
A spokesperson for the Australian Department of Defence told SBS News the government is focused on developing its implementation plan to action the recommendations of the war crimes inquiry.
The spokesperson said the response will be “comprehensive", covering the more than 140 recommendations made by Justice Brereton, though no timeline was given for the plan's release.
"The development of the implementation plan is being given a high priority by Defence and Government,” the spokesperson said.
"Due time and consideration must be given to the range of complex issues covered in the IGADF Afghanistan Inquiry report.”
'There was confusion'
While deployed with different ADF divisions, Mr Mamond said he was afforded more privileges than other interpreters.
"Most of the other interpreters did not have cameras, or a mobile phone, iPad, laptop computer, but I had those facilities. [That's the] reason maybe I worked longer with them, and [ADF] were happy about my background. I had access to a lot of restricted areas.”
Though, he said privileges “came at a cost” as he often heard locals complain about the treatment they received from soldiers.
Mr Mamond sitting with SBS Pashto reporter Abdullah Alikhil at his home. Source: SBS
In his capacity as a liaison, Mr Mamond would be tasked with gauging the mood in the province, and would often provide cultural lessons to Australian soldiers.
He affirms that there was a "big gap" in understanding between Australian forces and local Afghans.
“There was a big gap, but [the ADF] tried as much as they can. [But] that for me was not acceptable, for example when Afghans ask you to take their food, if you don’t take their food or drink, they believe you are an enemy and they don’t trust you.
“Most of the people have turbans and long clothes, sometimes Australian soldiers thought they were also Taliban. But they were not, there was confusion.”
An alliance between Australian forces and Matiullah Khan, a local warlord who later became police chief in Uruzgan, made winning the hearts and minds of Afghans even more difficult, Mr Mamond said.
Before his death in 2015, many locals accused Kahn of corruption and alleged he was someone who .
Matiullah Khan, the former police chief of Uruzgan province. Source: AAP
Mr Mamond said concerns were raised among local Afghan provincial authorities about the commander’s activities. He made particular reference to Khan's relationship with ADF Special Operations Task Group (Task Force 66) which was referenced in the report into alleged war crimes.
“I met Matiullah Khan four or five times. Matiullah Khan was not part of the government he was not leading from Kabul. He was leading from Australian special forces Task Force 66.
“Matiullah Khan had his own battalion, he also had a transportation company from Kandahar to Uruzgan to supply all materials to the international forces. He was making good money because he was dealing with Task Force 66, they also had a joint operation with Task Force 66.”
'It was the Australian mission that changed Afghanistan'
Australian forces joined the US-led war in Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and other militant groups in 2002.
The ongoing conflict has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 Afghans and 43 Australian soldiers.
The Australian combat mission, Operation Slipper, ended in 2014.
Mr Mamond said the presence of Australian forces in Afghanistan contributed to the stability of the nation, and as a result, millions of Afghan children can go to school, and women are able to elect representatives to parliament.
He praised the Australian mission and was “proud” to have worked alongside the majority of its soldiers.
Shamsurahman Mamond during his deployment. Source: Supplied
“Because of the Australian mission, there are millions of students going to school, Afghanistan has more than 300,000 security forces, Afghanistan has embassies in the world, as a journalist, you can knock on the door of the president and vice president. People watch TVs, and people elect their president, [and] it was the Australian mission that changed Afghanistan.”
He says, however, that the situation in Uruzgan has deteriorated since Australian troops withdrew.
“Before Uruzgan was more secured, [by] more than 60 per cent. Now they just control the governor's compound, that is it. Uruzgan is no longer secure anymore.
"Now insurgents' flags are on every shop, they take money from people, they take their food because the Australians finished their mission.”
When Australian forces withdrew from Afghanistan, the interpreters left behind became prime targets for insurgent groups, who would often label them as spies and non-believers.
“When Australia left Afghanistan, I thought someone would jump [through] the wall with a gun or knife and finish me. So that was very stressful, and the process was very slow.”
He called the process of moving to Australia "very slow", and laments the rejected applications for his parents and brother.
"I waited for two years. When we were asking local security forces for help, they were saying that [it was] your own problem and was your own decision, but the sad side was that we trained those police. My son was only four, and I was thinking they would kidnap him.”
Mr Mamond says he lives in constant fear for his family members in Afghanistan and has received a number of threats from insurgents.
“They are in very bad condition, and they can't go anywhere.
"When I arrived in Australia, after four months they kidnapped my brother, he was with insurgents for seven days.
"Insurgents told my parents that I should go back to face the justice of the Taliban. We gave them $9000 for my brother's release and my father signed an agreement to return me to the Taliban. Then I applied to bring them here and unfortunately, they rejected my case.
“I have a good life in Australia, I am working, my kids are going to school. The bad side is when I am going to bed, just thinking [that] my parents can't sleep like me.
"If someone worked on the front line with the troop [who has an] Australian flag on his arm, fought shoulder to shoulder under the Australian flag, but my kid’s half family is not here, not just here but they are having a rough time because I supported this mission.”
