In the Taliban’s hands

THE LANDING SITE – a field in Afghanistan – was illuminated by dim oil lamps. The helicopter pilots could not see them in the dark. Desperate to be found, the eight aid workers started a fire, fueled by the women’s burqas, the all-enveloping veils required by Taliban leaders. That was the moment of most suspense; we didn’t know if we had enough fuel to burn until they saw us, said aid worker Georg Taubmann. Three US special forces helicopters were soon droning overhead. Are you the detainees? Margrit Stebnar was asked by one of the American soldiers. They were speedily plucked from the ground and whisked off to Pakistan. It was the early hours of 15 November 2001.

Partners in crime

The foreign aid workers – two men and six women – had been detained by the Taliban, Afghanistan’s Islamic fundamentalist government, for three months on charges of promoting Christianity. They had endured squalid jail conditions, Alliance attacks on the Taliban capital of Kabul, a hasty evacuation from the city with fleeing Taliban forces, a freezing night locked in a metal container, and a morning in Ghazni jail – around 50 miles south of Kabul – under artillery bombardment. It was like a miracle, we were so excited to get out said Taubmann, the leader of the group of the rescue. Besides Germans Georg Taubmann and Margrit Stebnar, the group included two other Germans, Kati Jelinek and Silke Duerrkopf, Americans Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, and two Australians, Diana Thomas and Peter Bunch. They all worked for the German-based charity Shelter Now.
In August 2001, the Taliban regime had charged them with preaching Christianity, a crime punishable by death. Dayna Curry (30) and Heather Mercer (24) were arrested first on 3 August, coming out of the home of an Afghan family in Kabul. They were accused of visiting Muslim homes to distribute Christian literature and to show CD-ROMs on the life of Jesus. Two days later, police raided the Shelter Now offices and, after seizing what they said was Christian propaganda, arrested the other six. Sixteen local Afghan staff were also taken into custody. The investigation had turned up Bibles and other Christian-themed literature in the Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu.
Georg Taubmann and 58-year-old grandfather Peter Bunch were in a cell alone for the first week. The four women were with 40 other women, mostly Afghans, in a larger cell with one toilet. It was just terrible, especially if you had dysentery, said Diana Thomas (51). The jail was crawling with lice, mice and scorpions. Unlike the foreigners, the Afghan prisoners of both sexes – who were mainly political prisoners and members of ethnic minorities – were regularly beaten by the jailers. The aid workers were soon shifted to a more comfortable jail. The Taliban insisted on conducting a trial as a showcase for their brand of Sharia, or Islamic law, but proceedings kept being postponed. Three days after a pre-trial hearing in Kabul, the terrorist attacks on the U.S. occurred, followed by the removal of German, Australian and American diplomats from Kabul. By October, the group were the only foreign aid workers left inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

The eight hostages

The weeks after 11 September were anxious ones for the eight, especially when the U.S. launched airstrikes on Taliban targets on 7 October. We realised we were actually hostages after the 11 September events, said Taubmann. They heard bombs going off around Kabul. They say they were treated well, given reasonable food and other things they needed, and hoped to be released when the Taliban decided to abandon the Afghan capital. However, on 13 November they too were loaded onto departing trucks which sped south towards Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold then under siege. The sixteen Afghan employees of Shelter Now, also in custody, managed to escape at this point.
Terror one minute, followed by hope the next, filled the aid workers’ lives the next few days. We knew that if we ended up in Kandahar we would probably not survive, Taubmann said. On the trip south, the Taliban troops and their captives stopped for the night in Ghazni. They put us all in a steel shipping container, Taubmann said. It was terribly cold. We were freezing the whole night through. We had no blankets. Our fear was that some of us would not come out alive. In the morning, they were put into a local jail, the worst of five prisons during their captivity. We were told that they would bring us to a nice place where we could all stay together. We were shocked when we reached it. No facilities, no toilets, said Taubmann. But, within hours, opposition forces began an artillery assault on the town, which encouraged an uprising there by anti-Taliban forces. Suddenly, the jail door burst open, and a bearded soldier advanced towards them, with ammunition round his neck. We thought the Taliban were coming to kill us, Taubmann said. But the man was an anti-Taliban insurgent of the Northern Alliance, astonished to come across the foreigners. He smiled and shouted, Azadi (freedom).
We got out of prison and everybody came out of their houses, hugging us and clapping, Taubmann recalled. Anti-Taliban militiamen protected the workers until U.S. special forces helicopter crews arrived. International Red Cross officials in Switzerland, said a local commander had asked them for help in getting the aid workers to safety. The Red Cross had been negotiating their release even before anti-Taliban forces overran Ghazni. In Islamabad, the Taliban embassy announced that the eight were due to be released anyway at Libya’s request, but the U.S. bombing delayed events. They had been taken to Kandahar for their own safety.

Thank you Lord!

After their rescue, the workers were transferred to their respective embassies in the capital of Islamabad, where they were reunited with their families. U.S. President George W. Bush spoke with Curry and Mercer by phone within hours and praised their return. Their spirits were high, and they love America, he said. The hostages appeared in good health. According to Taubmann, it was one of the greatest days of my life. Curry and Mercer commented that they never lost faith in being rescued. We knew God was going to get us out of there somehow.
As news of their release came, people who knew them expressed delight. The senior pastor at Antioch Community Church in Waco, Texas, where Curry and Mercer are members, thrust his arms into the air and shouted, Thank you, Lord. In Australia, Joseph Thomas, brother of Diana, said his prayers were answered. He also gave credit to the Taliban for their treatment of the aid workers. If you look at the facts, since they’ve been captive, they’ve been looked after and they’ve been given everything that they have wanted.
What has happened to them since their release? Taubmann, a 17-year veteran in Afghanistan, involved in house construction and other projects, has resumed work in Germany. Speaking on 21 December he described the Afghans as a very religious people. It was easier to talk about God in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan than it is in the U.S. or in my home country of Germany, he said. They would often ask me why I didn’t become a Muslim and I would answer that I have everything in my faith that I desire.
Australians Thomas, who had spent seven years as a volunteer in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Bunch, with three years experience, were officially welcomed home by Prime Minister John Howard on 10 December. I feel sorry that many of the Taliban are dying. They treated us nicely. They were very kind to us really, Thomas said. We don’t hold anything against them, Bunch added. Thomas has said that she is home for good. Bunch plans to return to Afghanistan to work with refugees.

At the White House

On 26 November, Curry and Mercer met President Bush at the White House. Mercer told him that the group had passed the time in captivity singing religious songs and praying. That’s how we got through. She also said, we hope this whole situation brings awareness to Afghanistan; we hope the Afghan people can have a season of peace. Bush described their experiences as a wonderful story about prayer, about the faith that can sustain people in good times and in bad times. The two, now celebrities in the U.S., announced in January that they had agreed a book deal and in February began a series of speaking engagements nationwide. They say they would like to return to Afghanistan and bear no animosity towards their captors. They do, by the way, admit that they were secretly evangelising Afghan Muslims, which was in violation of Afghani law and why they ran afoul of the Taliban in the first place.