The situation in Afghanistan continues to be demoralizing. The latest is a failed rescue attempt to save a 36-year old Scottish aid worker.
Ms. [Linda] Norgrove, who had travelled extensively, was an experienced aid worker who had worked in a number of countries.
She worked for the United Nations in Afghanistan and Laos and, prior to that, led a conservation and poverty reduction project in Peru.
From the New York Times:
Ms. Norgrove was taken on Sept. 26 as she drove with two other cars from Jalalabad, the largest city in the eastern part of the country, to Asadabad, the capital of Kunar Province, an area heavily infiltrated by Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami insurgents. Kidnapped with her were three Afghan men, two drivers and a local employee of DAI, the American company for which she worked. The three Afghans were released last Sunday, according to officials involved in the case.
American forces undertook Saturday’s predawn raid after the American and British militaries received information about where Ms. Norgrove was being held, Mr. Hague said. “We decided that, given the danger she was facing, her best chance of safe release was to act on that information,” he said.
As American forces closed in, her captors killed her. A suicide vest was found nearby, but it was not clear if it had been detonated or if other explosives had been used to kill Ms. Norgrove, according to Western officials in Kabul. They said several of her captors were also killed.
Ms. Norgrove loved Afghanistan from the first time she arrived in 2005 on a United Nations mission, colleagues said. While many United Nations workers stay for a year or two, she stayed for more than three years working on environmental programs and helping to administer an alternative livelihoods program for farmers in poppy farming regions. When she left in 2008 to take a United Nations position in Laos, she returned to Afghanistan for her annual leave, hiking in the far north.
In her latest job she was the only expatriate in the Jalalabad office of DAI, directing about 200 Afghan professionals and coordinating with Afghan ministries and local companies. Sensitive to local tradition, she always wore the long, loose tunic and trousers known as a shalwar kameez and covered her hair with a large scarf. “I’ve seen few people among Afghan and Muslim people like her,” said a man who worked with her who gave his name as Bakhtiar. “She was very kind, very helpful, a lovely lady, a very respectful woman.”
Some people might be cynical about westerners who try to ‘help’ people in countries occupied by western forces, but the truth is that this was a very brave and kind-hearted person. And the world needs more people like her, not less. I am very sorry to hear that she was killed.
Having said that, I have a very low level of confidence that what we’re doing in Afghanistan is worth the investment and will lead to something positive for them, or for us. I try to keep an open mind about it, but I’m just not seeing it.
