Master
Reference
A Comparative Analysis of the Situation of Local Interpreters Working for NATO in Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Afghanistan
HERNANDEZ WEISS, Belen
Abstract
A comparative analysis of the different aspects of local interpreters' lives working for NATO in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Afghanistan, ranging from historic context to the relationship between soldiers and interpreters.
HERNANDEZ WEISS, Belen. A Comparative Analysis of the Situation of Local
Interpreters Working for NATO in Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Afghanistan. Master : Univ. Genève, 2021
Available at:
http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:155601
Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version.
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1 Belén Hernández Weiss
A Comparative Analysis of the Situation of Local Interpreters Working for NATO in Bosnia and
Herzegovina vs. Afghanistan
Mémoire présenté à la Faculté de Traduction et d’Interprétation Pour l’obtention du MA en Interprétation de Conférence
Directrice de mémoire : Lucía Ruiz Rosendo Jurée : Manuela Motta
2 STUDENT INFORMATION:
Belén Hernández Weiss
Faculté de Traduction et d'Interprétation University of Geneva 40, boulevard du Pont-d'Arve,
CH-1211 Genève 4, Switzerland
3 Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Lucía Ruiz Rosendo, for her assistance, her advice and her guidance. I would also like to thank my friend and colleague Christopher Sainsbury for proofreading my thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family for supporting me throughout my many years of education.
4 Abstract
The goal of the present thesis is to compare local interpreters who worked for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in two different theaters: Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Afghanistan. This paper explores their work and living conditions, tasks they were expected to carry out, their positionality, their relationship with members of the international forces, the risks they took by interpreting for NATO in the first place, and their lives once international forces left. Issues, such as trust, ethnicity and the importance of interpreters’ roles in situations of conflict are also recurrent subjects.
Finally, the differences and similarities of local interpreters’ situation in these two conflicts are examined. Given the increase of international conflicts and the involvement of international organizations, research has recently started focusing more on the role of interpreters in conflict. Wars are not going to disappear and interpreters will therefore continue to be used in conflict situations. By assembling the scattered research on interpreters in both Afghanistan and Bosnia and Herzegovina, this study intends to highlight the main issues interpreters in conflict tend to face, at the same time giving a comprehensive overview of interpreters’ lives in both theaters.
5 Contents
INTRODUCTION AND STRUCTURE ... 6
CHAPTER ONE: NATO IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA ... 7
Historical Context ... 7
Recruiting Interpreters ... 9
Working Conditions ... 11
Living Conditions ... 13
Materials ... 13
Ethnicity and Language Policy ... 14
Positionality ... 15
Soldier-Interpreter Relations ... 17
Professionalization ... 19
Life after SFOR ... 20
Conclusion ... 21
CHAPTER TWO: NATO IN AFGHANISTAN ... 22
Historical Context ... 22
Recruiting Interpreters ... 24
Working Conditions ... 25
Living Conditions ... 27
Materials ... 27
Risk and Positionality ... 27
Soldier-Interpreter Relations ... 29
Professionalization ... 31
Life after ISAF ... 33
Conclusion ... 34
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYSIS ... 36
Methodology ... 36
Historical Context ... 37
Recruiting Interpreters ... 38
Working Conditions ... 40
Living conditions and Materials ... 42
Positionality and Risk ... 43
Soldier-Interpreter relations ... 45
Professonalization ... 47
Life after SFOR. ... 48
Conclusion ... 49
Final Remarks ... 51
6 Introduction
This master’s thesis studies and compares the situation of local interpreters working for NATO in two different theaters: Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Afghanistan. It explores their working and living conditions, the tasks they carried out, how they were perceived by both international forces and the local communities, their positionality, the risks they took by working for NATO, the process of professionalization in the Linguistic Service of both theaters, and their lives once forces started to draw down. A focus on interpreters in conflict zones was selected as they are often overlooked, though they play an essential role in communication in conflict and are of utmost importance for the forces’ mission.
Over the past years, interpreters in war zones have attracted more and more interest in the academic world, leading to the publication of a range of studies. Nonetheless, according to most papers on the subject, interpreters in war zones remain mostly invisible. This paper is thus dedicated to an analysis of the literature on local interpreters working for NATO in Afghanistan, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. International conflict will continue to be a part of our world in the future, meaning locally recruited interpreters will remain an important resource. As such, this study will aim to answer the following research questions:
What are the differences and similarities between local interpreters working for NATO in Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Afghanistan?
How did interpreters live and how were their lives affected by their work, during and after their time with NATO?
What are the issues local interpreters in different countries and situations of conflict face?
Moreover, the study will seek to highlight commonalities and differences between local interpreters working for NATO in Afghanistan and Bosnia and Herzegovina, collect literature on both theaters to provide an overview of how local interpreters lived and worked, aiming overall to shed light on the recurring issues dealt with by interpreters in conflict zones.
Structure
The paper is divided into two main chapters on Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Afghanistan, respectively. Each deals with the following issues: historical context, NATO recruitment methods, working and living conditions, interpreter relationships with soldiers, the issue of ethnicity, positionality, the professionalization process, and life after NATO. The analysis of the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina also tackles the issue of
7 ethnicity, and the section of Afghanistan also considers risks faced by interpreters.
Finally, chapter three compares the information laid out in the two previous chapters, highlighting both similarities and differences in all the aforementioned aspects of interpreters’ lives, as well as my final conclusions.
8 1 NATO in Bosnia and Herzegovina
1.1 Historical Context
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was formally made up of six republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia) and two autonomous regions (Kosovo and Vojvodina). There were three main religions:
Orthodox Christianity (practiced by Serbs), Roman Catholicism (practiced by Croatians) and Islam (practiced by Bosnians or “Bosniaks”). There were two official alphabets, the Cyrillic and the Roman (Hinerfield, 2013).
The former Yugoslavia flourished under Josep Broz Tito’s rule, who became Prime Minister in 1943 and transformed the monarchy into a federation. His policies united the many communities that coexisted within Yugoslavia and distanced the federation from the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, after Tito’s death, ethnic and religious conflict, a general atmosphere of international hostility, ineffective leadership and economic turmoil led to the Yugoslav wars and the ensuing disintegration of the federation (Hinerfield, 2013).
Between 1991 and 1999, the wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo caused around 140,000 deaths, with 100,000 in Bosnia and Herzegovina alone.
(Baker, 2015).
The United Nations sent 15,000 peacekeepers (the United Nations Protection Force, UNPROFOR) to Croatia in February 1992, in order to demilitarize UN protected areas and help refugees return to their homes (Baker, 2015). The UN mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina started that same year. UNPROFOR was set up in Sarajevo and peacekeepers were soon on the frontline of war: Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in 1992, sparking a war between the Bosnia Croat Army (HVO), the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) and the Army of the Sarajevo Government, the Bosniak Army (Baker, 2010).
NATO also started getting involved in the conflict in 1992. The international military force supported a UN-imposed arms embargo and sanctions against the former Yugoslavia, as well as UN peacekeeping operations (Jones and Askew, 2014) (missions carried out with the consent of all parties, only using force for self-defense, and remaining impartial in order to maintain lasting peace) (United Nations, 2008). The international military force also led a peacebuilding mission in the conflict, which is defined by the UN as “a range of measures targeted to reduce the risk of lapsing or relapsing into conflict by strengthening national capacities at all levels for conflict management and to lay the foundations for sustainable peace and development” (Cheng-Hopkins, 2010).
9 The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina lasted three and a half years, killing 100,000 people, leaving 2 million displaced and coming to an end in 1995. The Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA), signed in December of the same year, created a new state: Bosnia and Herzegovina. The country was made up of two regions: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska. The DPA also foresaw a new model for the division of power in the country, which would be shared between the three main ethnic groups that had fought each other during the conflict: Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. The DPA set up a Joint Military Commission to ensure that all actors respected the military aspects of the agreement. Moreover, the DPA put certain international organizations in charge of peace in the new country (Jones and Askew, 2014), with the following specific civilian and military responsibilities:
• Civilian aspects: the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and the World Bank, which was in charge of financial issues (Jones and Askew, 2014)
• Military aspects: At the very beginning, both NATO and UNPROFOR were present in the region. Eventually, NATO took over completely once UN forces left the country, establishing the Implementation Force (IFOR) to keep the peace.
IFOR was initially in charge of separating the warring sides, carrying out weapons inspections and redeploying and demobilizing forces. UNPROFOR had 39,000 troops, whereas IFOR had about 60,000 troops from 31 nations (Jones and Askew, 2014). The NATO force was organized as three Multi-National Divisions (MNDs), each led by one of the three largest contributors: the USA, France and the UK (Baker, 2012). By the end of 1996, the situation was still unstable, so NATO implemented the Stabilization Force (SFOR), an operation focused on civilian, peace-related issues. The goal of SFOR was to promote civil and political reconstruction within the country. Once NATO started to draw down troops, they were replaced by the European Union Protection Force (EUFOR) (Jones and Askew, 2014).
In 1992, NATO forces were not prepared for what they were about to face: armed conflict and peacebuilding in a foreign country, as this was the first time NATO had conducted a peacekeeping operation and sent troops to the frontline. The lack of organization shone through the chaotic language policy (Footitt and Kelly, 2012).
The majority of the ex-Yugoslav population spoke Serbo-Croat, but each region had its own variety of the language. Before the federation’s disintegration, the authorities tried
10 to promote the use of Serbo-Croat as a means to unify the country’s population.
However, the ethnic nature of the conflict gave these regional dialects a whole new dimension once the federation had split. Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian became political instruments in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina that were used to highlight ethnic differences and to reinforce ethnic identities (Footitt and Kelly, 2012).
Even though dialects became such an important part of the new country, the DPA only explicitly mentions them once, stating the agreement is written in Bosnian, Croatian, English and Serbian. Nonetheless, this statement alone directly impacted the international military forces’ language policy, as NATO had to translate each document into three language versions in order to liaise with all sides (Footitt and Kelly, 2012).
The media, international organizations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and peace-keeping forces flocked ex-Yugoslavia after 1991 and there was a sudden, acute demand for interpreters (Dragovic-Drouet, 2007). UNPROFOR, IFOR and SFOR troop- contributing nations had very limited personnel who could speak Serbo-Croat.
Throughout the mission, it was essential to interact with the local population and the armies involved in the conflict. Therefore, all international organizations were in dire need for language support. The solution was to hire local interpreters: local civilians who could speak both the local dialect and English. (Baker, 2010).
1.2 Recruiting Interpreters
There were two systems used to recruit interpreters:
1 Autonomous system: the force trains its own personnel in the local language 2 Heteronomous system: local interpreters learn the forces’ language (Baker,
2010)
As stated previously, UNPROFOR troop-contributing nations decided to hire local interpreters. However, locals could not acquire security clearance as they were not citizens of a UNPROFOR, IFOR or SFOR country, a process that granted full access to information, meetings and areas of the military base. For this reason, foreign military forces needed to train some of their own soldiers, and such military interpreters, members of the military force who had been trained to interpret, handled information deemed too sensitive to share with the locals and carried out tasks considered inappropriate for civilians (Baker, 2010).
11 In the former Yugoslavia, there had been no institutions, schools or agencies offering interpreting courses (Dragovic-Drouet, 2007). The local interpreters that both UNPROFOR and NATO ended up depending on were originally teachers or students of foreign languages and, in many cases, engineering students or children of engineers. In smaller towns, the international military forces tended to resort to young people just finishing their studies or who were still in secondary school (Baker, 2010). In general, most hired local interpreters had no background in translation or interpreting, their linguistic ability was not always up to par and most of them really learned on the job (Dragovic-Drouet, 2007).
Candidates who applied for a position at UNPROFOR were invited to an interview, in order to check whether they could really speak English. If successful, candidates sat the United Nations testing process (translation in both directions between English and one or more local languages). The translation tests were evaluated by UN staff further up in the hierarchy. The testing process reflected ethnic tensions and language politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For example, if the person in charge of grading an exam was a Croat, he/she might remove points for every Serbianism, even if the latter were a part of the candidates’ idiolect and even if they were suited to the area where the interpreter might be working (Baker, 2010).
Most local interpreters were young women (fewer men of the same age were available to work as they were subject to conscription), a fact that strongly impacted local families.
Gender and age relations were challenged by this extraordinary situation, with children in the family, recent graduates or even students financially supporting their own parents and even members of extended family. (Baker, 2010).
The DPA brought about changes that had a direct impact on interpreters’ working lives.
Since IFOR replaced UNPROFOR, interpreters that had previously worked for the UN remained in their positions and NATO hired even more interpreters to meet troops’ needs (Baker, 2010). Given the constant changes in the international military force, rotating battalions and different national contingents, it would be difficult to know how many interpreters exactly were hired, but Kelly and Baker estimate several hundred worked for most of IFOR and SFOR (Jones and Askew, 2014).
IFOR and SFOR’s Headquarters and national contingents (troops sent to Bosnia and Herzegovina by each individual NATO country involved in the conflict) did not follow the same hiring policy. Each country made their own hiring arrangements for local civilian hires, it wasn’t a uniform policy. (Baker, 2010). In Askew’s words:
12
“…in this case the urgency of the task combined with the lack of awareness of what interpreting and translation involve and an inconsistent hiring policy meant that candidates were not necessarily tested for their language proficiency before being recruited, and that there was no broad recognition that high quality translation and interpreting was essential for effective communication between members of the international military force and the local authorities” (Askew and Salama-Carr, 2011, p.105)
As previously stated, UNPROFOR did subject candidates to testing, so Askew is here referring to IFOR and then SFOR, whose national contingents and Headquarters did not systematically test potential interpreters.
At first, NATO national contingents chose their own hastily-designed language policies.
Given the nature of the mission at the time, improvising made things easier. However, by the end of the conflict in 1995, NATO’s mission was no longer a short-term intervention. The international military force now aimed to reunite the country and build lasting peace, which required a long-term approach. This, coupled with NATO’s policy to provide three language versions of every document on every mission, strongly influenced the international military forces’ linguistic services (Footitt and Kelly, 2012).
1.3 Working Conditions
Working conditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina slightly varied from one national contingent to another, but generally interpreters were not happy with their contracts; not even those working for the headquarters at IFOR and SFOR. Each NATO member country managed their own national contingents, and their language policies differed from those at IFOR and SFOR Headquarters. 40 different countries sent troops to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and each national contingent had their own mission definition. They therefore each had a different approach to languages, interpreters, and how to deal with them. Certain countries decided to invest in their forces’ language training, whereas others did not train their own personnel, exclusively hiring local civilians instead. In any case, all forces relied on civilian interpreters, as most members of the military forces could not speak the local languages and needed a local interpreter to act as a bridge between them and the local population (Foottit and Kelly, 2012)
The following section will analyze the working conditions of interpreters working for British contingents in Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as they reflect the conditions interpreters were generally offered by UNPROFOR, IFOR and SFOR. Interpreters working for national contingents accepted
13 whatever arrangements they had made for local staff. They were paid in hard currency and they also gained access to accommodation, protection and food. Contracts were fixed-term and insecure. Residential shifts and workplace transfers often disrupted interpreters’ private lives, and they were expected to be available at all times. There was no more than 14 days of maternity leave, no health insurance and no compensation for injuries during work. This issue was particularly upsetting as interpreters had to work in close quarters with inexperienced, adventurous soldiers. Many interpreters saw the contracts as exploitative, but like most in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time, they were desperate for work and accepted them anyway. (Baker, 2012).
Interpreters were not particularly affected by IFOR replacing UNPROFOR, as the tasks they were to carry out were quite similar. However, whenever national contingents rotated, with new troops arriving from a different country, or when multinational forces drew down, interpreters were always deeply concerned, as this meant their salaries might change (Baker, 2010).
Another factor that disrupted interpreters’ lives was the constant rotation of battalions, meaning interpreters’ lives changed every six months, with life on the base depending on the new supervisor’s rules. When a new battalion arrived, interpreters would go beyond their usual role, acting as cultural and political advisors for the new arrivals (Baker, 2010).
In some cases, local interpreters would travel with battalions for two weeks at a time.
Once the mission was over, they would go back to their off-duty lives. Over the course of two weeks, they became accustomed to working for the foreign troops, and lived in a completely different environment. Then, they would have to return home and try to re- adapt to their lives, which left some feeling like they were living a double life (Baker, 2012).
Foreign officers were in charge of all kinds of tasks, including liaison with religious leaders to promote tolerance, the rebuilding of infrastructure, supervising de-mining, and advocating for NATO peacebuilding goals among the population. The Joint Military Commission developed a defense reform aiming to unite war-time forces into one Bosnian Army (Baker, 2012). Troops also conducted patrols to control military sites or ensure the safety of refugees and displaced persons who were returning to their homes (Ruiz Rosendo and Persaud, 2019). Interpreters were required for all of these tasks.
However, foreign forces did not seem to understand what interpreting actually entailed, and often expected interpreters to carry out tasks completely unrelated to languages.
SFOR headquarters, for instance, employed 98 “linguists” who were native in Bosnian,
14 Croatian or Serbian, 44 of which were also regularly expected to carry out other tasks, such as driving members of the foreign forces to their different posting stations, or acting as legal assistants or even guides for new arrivals (Jones and Askew, 2014).
Given that there were no job descriptions for most positions at SFOR, stating the qualities required, it should not come as a surprise that soldiers did not understand what interpreters’ tasks were supposed to be. SFOR did not assess interpreters’ skills or work.
Some were assigned to posts that did not match their background and skills. Their knowledge of English varied and there was no kind of linguistic supervision, no quality control of translations, and no set standards. Each interpreter found his/her own solution to translate a given term or to deal with certain situations or documents (Jones and Askew, 2014).
1.4 Living Conditions
Interpreters working for UNPROFOR were guaranteed access to accommodation within the forces’ base to protect them from intimidation from local authorities (Baker, 2010).
First IFOR, and later SFOR, took over and adapted existing buildings for troops’ use, and built temporary accommodation using collapsible containers, also known as
“corimecs”, each housing up to four interpreters, who lived in the same conditions as military personnel (Jones and Askew, 2014).
1.5 Materials
Interpreters generally did not receive the working materials they needed to carry out their jobs properly. SFOR did not provide internet access and the computers available were not up to date. Interpreters were not issued with dictionaries or other sources and ended up bringing their own, meaning different interpreters might translate the same concept differently (Jones and Askew, 2014). Interpreters mostly had no means to prepare for future assignments, except in certain cases where military dictionaries, speaking notes, meeting agendas, meeting preparation materials, vocabulary lists or history lessons were provided. This is proof that users did not understand what materials interpreters really needed, nor how important they were to their work (Ruiz Rosendo and Persaud, 2019).
Interpreters wore military uniforms but did not carry weapons. By dressing them like soldiers, foreign military forces hoped to protect interpreters from being specifically
15 targeted by locals, who may have seen them as traitors. However, it was impossible to conceal the difference between foreign troops and local civilian interpreters (Baker, 2010).
1.6 Ethnicity and Language Policy
There are different versions as to what caused the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but troop contributing states subscribed to the narrative that the conflict was the result of historical ethnic tensions between ethnic groups: the Bosnian Croats (Catholics), the Bosnian Serbs (Orthodox) and the Bosnian Muslims (or Bosniaks). This is the version peacekeepers stuck to and Bosnians were forced to accept. The elites involved in the conflict and international stakeholders also both adopted this version, either because it was in their interest or because they truly believed they were helping (Baker, 2010, 2012).
As a result, international military forces had to hire interpreters from all three ethnic groups to facilitate liaison with all parties to the conflict. Interpreters who called themselves “Yugoslav” or had a mixed family background were classified into one of these three ethnic groups: Croat, Serb or Bosnian Muslim. Particular policies, such as translating every document into three similar language versions, choosing interpreters for certain missions based on ethnicity, or categorizing them by ethnicity regardless of how they identified, fed into the conflict. However, these policies were also necessary to protect interpreters and ensure missions went smoothly. Bosnian Muslims, for example, did not want to be sent to predominantly Serb areas (Baker, 2010).
Foreign soldiers also ascribed to the official view of the Bosnian War, believing the conflict broke out because of ethnic and religious differences, yet there was no clear policy on how to recruit interpreters based on ethnicity, whether teams should or should not be mixed, or how to group interpreters once they were hired. It was up to each supervisor to decide how to manage interpreter teams (Baker, 2012).
Despite all the efforts invested in providing three language versions of each document and classifying interpreters on an ethnic basis, all the official languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina were mutually intelligible, meaning any distinction between them was essentially political. The three translations of each document were practically identical.
Dialects only served to strengthen ethnic identities, as each ethnic group had a specific language: Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian (Footitt and Kelly, 2012).
16 SFOR contributed to strengthening this version of events by providing translations in three very similar languages and reflecting ethnic tensions in their language policy (Askew and Salama-Carr, 2011). Interpretation was also affected by SFOR policies. One interpreter, for example, admitted to speaking more “croatianly” during encounters with Bosnian Croat forces. These linguistic differences were a defining factor in the international military forces’ language policy (Footitt and Kelly, 2012).
1.7 Positionality
Hiring local interpreters can give rise to a whole range of issues. Local civilians are insiders and understand the local communities, whereas foreign soldiers are outsiders and don’t possess the same cultural knowledge. Local interpreters may not always be objective, though, as they are directly affected by and involved in the conflict, which could bias their work. Moreover, as local interpreters are outsiders to the foreign forces, doubt tends to be cast over their loyalty. Efficiency and reliability are key elements in interpreter-soldier relations; soldiers deployed abroad need to be open-minded and tolerant, as establishing a relationship of trust can otherwise prove difficult. An ethnic conflict makes things more complex: in the Bosnian War, interpreters were not only outsiders to the peacekeepers, but also to whatever ethnic groups they did not belong to (Ruiz-Rosendo and Persaud, 2019).
Local interpreters had a family and a community of their own that did not necessarily agree with the foreign military forces’ goals or presence in the country, but interpreters were expected to defend their employers’ interests, making neutrality a tricky subject (Baker, 2010).
The issue of neutrality was reflected in the use of language. Translation can be challenging in the context of ethnic tensions, where language is used as a political instrument. In ex-Yugoslavia, the term “Bosnian” used to designate all three groups of citizens (Croats, Serbs and Muslims). After Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence in 1992, “Bosnian” or “Bosniak” also referred specifically to the ethnic community of Muslims. This could lead to a certain ambiguity, which could in turn be used to political ends. Shortening Bosnia and Herzegovina to “Bosnia” could also be quite polemic, as this term in a way furthers Bosnian Muslims national interests, given that the latter are underrepresented in Herzegovina (Dragovic-Drouet, 2007).
Despite all the issues that could arise when translating, and despite interpreters’
positions within their communities, Louise Askew considers that the interpreters she
17 worked with when visiting SFOR were all professional and neutral, at least when doing their job. According to Askew and Salama-Carr (2011, p.104):
“the institutional framework of SFOR made it clear that the interpreters represented the organization itself rather than their own communities. […] At the Language Service there was never any instance of a translator or interpreter being suspected of bias in their work and everyone strove for “professional sensibility” which meant maintaining not just high linguistic standards, but also an “objective” approach to the work. […] it is legitimate to assume that the absence of overt positioning on the part of the interpreters did not necessarily reflect a lack of political allegiance or an indifference to issues of national and linguistic identity”
Interpreters working for NATO had to bear the consequences in their private lives, though, as they represented NATO, at least in the eyes of the local population. It was also easy to tell the difference between soldiers and interpreters. According to Mitch, an interpreter who worked for NATO, protesters would direct insults and even throw things at the interpreters (Baker, 2012). In Mitch’s words:
“and they are considering me as someone who is traitor, for them I have… disrespect to my roots, to the interests of the nation, and I have gone to work for the local occupiers” (Baker, 2012, p.140)
Mitch also expressed that in many situations, interpreters were seeing as “the ones to blame” by the local population; they were considered “responsible for everything”. This testimony reflects how difficult the issue of neutrality was for local interpreters; members of the community who, desperate for a job, had gone to work for “the enemy”. The fact that the local population and armed forces treated interpreters as representatives of the foreign military made things all the more difficult (Footitt and Kelly, 2012).
The interpreters who worked in Republika Srpska, for instance, faced many neutrality- related issues, as the local population was weary of NATO forces. The Serbian perception of the intervention was quite negative: they believed the NATO intervention and the ensuing policies and decisions that had been made were an attack on Serb political self-determination. Interpreters were torn between their job and their fellow citizens’ perception, who saw the foreign forces as their enemies (Baker, 2012).
However, there were also some advantages. Interpreters gained power vis-à-vis their local communities, in that they were able to deliver their own version of what locals had said, and that salaries were high, especially by local standards. (Baker, 2012).
18 Jelena Vlahovic, one of the interpreters who contributed to the article “Languages at War” suggested the following:
“SFOR’s public information campaigns could also have been used to familiarize the public with the concept of the neutral linguist and to deliver the message not to blame the interpreter. Had local interlocutors known interpreting was a profession with a norm of impartiality it would have been far easier for interpreters to work and made interpreters’
personal lives in neighborhoods suspicious of SFOR more comfortable” (Footitt and Kelly, 2012).
1.8 Soldier-Interpreter Relations
Local interpreters belonged to communities, families and a social institutions; they were active in their region and among their people. When locals started working for NATO, they became employees dependent on the international forces (Baker, 2012).
Interpreters’ experience with foreign soldiers differed from one contingent to the next, as they did not all have the same rules. In some cases, British soldiers would socialize with interpreters off-duty, for example. Male soldiers and female interpreters often flirted and established sexual relationships. Despite such friendships and relationships, local nationals remained outsiders without security clearance, and soldiers remained vigilant (Baker, 2012).
In some cases, SFOR military interpreters developed close relationships with the interpreters. They lacked the linguistic knowledge necessary to accurately assess their work and tended to care more about linguistically irrelevant factors such as punctuality than an interpreter’s proficiency. Given that most of the interpreters were women aged 25 to 35, some older supervisors developed a protective, paternal attitude towards them, especially knowing they were their family’s only breadwinner at such a difficult time (Jones and Askew, 2014).
However, not all experiences were positive. Local employees working for British forces were upset by soldiers’ disregard for their financial situation. Interpreters in British contingents would have preferred to set aside cultural and financial differences and build a professional relationship, but this often left interpreters feeling they were no more than
“translation machines” (Baker, 2010, 2012)
In general, a recurrent issue for interpreters in most contingents was foreign soldiers’
lack of cultural understanding. Certain British soldiers were surprised to see there was electricity or Internet access in the country, and US soldiers had no knowledge of
19 Bosnian geography (some didn’t even know Sarajevo was in Bosnia). Other soldiers expected to find a strictly conservative Muslim society, with women only going out fully covered and staying at home instead of going to work. One of the interpreters interviewed by Baker (2012) explained that most lower-ranking British officers couldn’t tell the difference between a Church and a Mosque. A woman working for Canadian forces in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina made similar observations.
Throughout history, the Balkans have been portrayed as an outlier, though the region is geographically European. Even within the Balkans, locals code certain behaviors as
“Balkan” or “European” (backwards and rural vs. modern and urban). Interpreters tended to come from educated families, perceiving themselves as westerners and Europeans, rather than Balkans. This made it difficult for them to strike a relationship with soldiers who were ignorant of Bosnian culture and saw the country through the lens of prejudice.
(Baker, 2012).
The soldiers’ interpreters were fond of those who made an effort to understand their country and communicate with the local population in their language, and who kept in touch after leaving, returning for vacations, for instance. They appreciated soldiers participating in social rituals instead of living in isolation (Baker, 2012).
Neither UN nor NATO forces received the cultural preparation they should have before being deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Soldiers did not truly reflect upon the nature of the war, and their training included inaccurate stereotypes about the country, meaning most of them reduced the entire conflict to ethnic divisions (Footitt and Kelly, 2012).
After the Dayton Peace Agreement, enhancing the cultural understanding of soldiers deployed to the region became a priority, with a main focus on political and ethnic tensions in recent history. They were also given specific training on how to behave with the local population on a daily basis, for example how to treat women, topics of conversation to avoid, and how to greet locals (Footitt and Kelly, 2012).
In conclusion, interpreters’ relationships with soldiers were a significant part of their daily lives, and soldiers’ lacking cultural knowledge was the main issue for most of them.
1.9 Professionalization
Ian Jones, a senior linguist at NATO’s European military headquarters was asked to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1998 to help improve linguistic support (Baker, 2010). It wasn’t until a few years after the Dayton Peace Agreement that SFOR Headquarters
20 decided to organize language services, putting an end to improvisation. The Language Service, set up by Louise Askew and Ian Jones, aimed to assess interpreters’
performance and test new recruits (Askew and Salama-Carr, 2011).
Jones was responsible for analyzing the situation at SFOR and suggesting potential improvements. He traveled to Bosnia and Herzegovina twice over the summer of 1998 and visited various locations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He prepared a questionnaire for interpreters and their supervisors, meeting both separately to encourage honesty. His goal was to define SFOR’s needs and establish whether they were being met (Jones and Askew, 2014).
Jones’ September 1998 report came to the following conclusions: interpreters were scattered in different offices with no centralized location; there was no linguistic supervision or standardization; interpreter qualifications often did not match the tasks and pay grades assigned; workload was poorly distributed; there was mutual support between different groups of linguists; no interpreters spoke English as their mother tongue, few had any background in translation or interpreting, and none had received training; they had either not been tested, or tests had not been appropriate or sufficiently thorough; they had not received materials necessary for their work, such as dictionaries, and computer equipment was poor; there were no work records to register interpreter’s assignments, how many days and for how long they had worked, and it was therefore impossible to measure productivity or efficiency; there were no internal rules (known as a Standing Operating Procedure) to guide supervisors and linguists on how interpreters should be used. (Jones and Askew, 2014).
In light of these problems, Jones set out to test SFOR interpreters and created a Standing Operations Procedure with Askew, which was intended to train military supervisors in how to work with interpreters. They also set up a physical location for the Linguistic Service’s Central Office and established a set of rules when working with interpreters to be followed by all users. He also suggested creating a structure under the authority of one person, who was a native English speaker with interpreting experience, professional training and security clearance (Jones and Askew, 2014).
As Askew states:
“The establishment of the HQ SFOR Language Service was important because it gave the translators and interpreters greater standing in the eyes of the military, who began to perceive them more as professionals rather than as just another category of unskilled, locally hired employees not necessarily bound by professional codes of conduct. This is one lesson for organizations involved in a conflict situation and having to employ a large
21 number of translators and interpreters: there needs to be an organizational structure within which to place them in order to ensure that they are tested properly before they are employed, suitably trained and monitored. Such a structure also ensures that they are given opportunities to improve their skills and are protected from the wilder excesses of members of the military who have little awareness of the complexities of the interpreting process in highly charged and highly exposed situations and little appreciation for what constitutes appropriate working conditions for translators and interpreters” (Askew and Salama-Carr, 2011, p.105)
1.1.1 Life after SFOR
As troops started to draw down and bases started to close, interpreters had to find a new path. SFOR’s Linguistic Service allowed interpreters to acquire important skills and take steps towards a potential career in language mediation. Many local interpreters continued to work for other international organizations, such as the International Police Task Force. Others benefited from the social capital acquired by working for NATO and used their contacts to find a job abroad. Some female interpreters were in relationships or married to foreign soldiers and chose to move to their home countries (Baker, 2010) There were also cases of interpreters who had interrupted careers, such as medicine or civil engineering, and regretted dedicating so many years to SFOR, despite the undeniable financial advantage (Baker, 2010)
A number of ex-interpreters set out to find jobs in the private sector, but local business practices did not resemble SFOR in the slightest, corruption being omnipresent.
Interpreters had managed to avoid this for years by working for an international military force whose values clashed with local entrepreneurial customs. After working in an environment where efficiency, organization, politeness and work ethic were priorities for so long, it was difficult to fit back into the Bosnian society and labor market, where these values seemed to be nonexistent. (Baker, 2012).
In conclusion, most interpreters struggled to find a job after SFOR had left the country.
They were left feeling lost and disoriented, unsure what next step to take, as the skills they had acquired were not in demand on the private market in Bosnia, meaning their potential was wasted in the post-war economy (Baker, 2012).
1.1.2 Conclusion
22 Both the UN and NATO deployed forces to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 onwards.
Given temporal and financial constraints, neither UNPROFOR, IFOR or SFOR Headquarters made real efforts to train their personnel to interpret, mostly relying on locally hired interpreters. During the first stages of UNPROFOR and IFOR, hiring practices and linguistic policy were a matter of improvisation. Jones was sent to SFOR HQ in 1998 to assess the language needs and linguistic policy. By the time he had finished his work, all interpreters had been tested, and he and Louise Askew had set up a Linguistic Branch with a Central Office and a structure for interpreters to work within.
NATO had never before carried out a peacekeeping intervention and was unprepared for the new language needs on the ground, which meant that their hiring and language policies were chaotic, at least initially.
Most locally-hired interpreters were language teachers, students or had a background in engineering. They were usually young women between 18 and 35 years old and claimed to speak both English and either Croatian, Bosnian or Serbian. Although the entire local population could speak Serbo-Croat, the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement de facto recognized the three different languages given the ethnic nature of the conflict. The three main ethnic groups in the new Bosnia and Herzegovina were the Bosnians (Muslims), the Serbs and the Croats. iÎt was therefore necessary to hire interpreters from the three main ethnic groups in order to liaise with all warring sides. Yet, there was no official ethnic policy in place in UNPROFOR or IFOR leaving it up to military supervisors to decide which interpreters were sent to each assignment.
Working conditions were complicated, with interpreters paid hard currency salaries that significantly exceeded local rates of pay, on top of free access to accommodation, food, and other goods that were in short supply at the time. Given the dire economic situation and high rates of unemployment, positions with NATO were highly sought after, which explains why interpreters put up with the disadvantages, such as no social security, working for two weeks at a time away from their families, only fourteen days paid maternity leave, no paid sick leave even if injured at work, constant travel and an expectation of constant availability to the foreign forces. Most interpreters were the sole breadwinners of the family, reversing age and gender dynamics, and thus accepted these conditions.
Interpreters were insiders with regard to their culture, but outsiders to foreign forces.
They were seen as locals by the soldiers they worked for, but by traitors by parts of the local population according to some interpreters. As a result, they were mistrusted by both sides.
23 Most foreign soldiers knew nothing about Bosnian culture, straining relations with interpreters. This was common in many national contingents and regions of the country, with some unaware even that Sarajevo was in Bosnia and unable to tell the difference between a Church and a Mosque. Interpreters working for British forces seemed to enjoy the experience, though, socializing with the soldiers, which in some cases led to marriage.
After SFOR came to an end, many interpreters felt lost, as it was difficult to sell their new skillset on the Bosnian market. Local work ethics did not resemble the practices of foreign forces at all and it was difficult to fit back into society.
24 2. NATO IN AFGHANISTAN
2.1 Historical Context
Afghanistan has experienced domestic and international conflict throughout history.
Countless tribes and ethnic groups meant clashes were difficult to avoid. Moreover, the country is situated in a strategic position, making it a target for both European and Asian powers. The nation is made up of around 30,000,000 Afghans, with 3,000,000 living in the capital, Kabul. 42% of the population is of the Pashtun ethnicity, 27% is Tajik, 9% is Uzbek or Hazara and the rest of the population is made up of Aimaks, Turkmens and Baluchs. More than 40 languages and 200 dialects are spoken in the country, but the only official languages are Dari, spoken by 50% of the population, and Pashto, spoken by 35% of the population. There are several dialects of both languages and they are not mutually intelligible (Jones and Askew, 2014).
This chapter will focus on the actions of international community after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, which closed a political chapter that aimed to build international relations through dialogue and cooperation (Talpas, 2016). American and British forces responded by launching a military campaign in Afghanistan on 7 October 2001. The international forces sought to fight against terrorism in the country, capturing Al-Qaeda leaders and destroying terrorist training camps. In December 2001, talks were held in Bonn with Afghan stakeholders aiming to build a government for the country, resulting in the Bonn Agreement, which provided for the establishment of the following (Jones and Askew, 2014):
• An Afghan Interim Authority (AIA) for a six-month period
• A transitional authority for another two years
• The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to help the AIA to build and secure a safe environment in Kabul, avoid the resurgence of the Taliban and assist Afghan security forces.
The US-led Operation Enduring Freedom was also active in the country, mainly focused on counter-terrorism operations in the southern and eastern regions.
Several nations supported ISAF on a voluntary basis, but the international community eventually started running out of volunteers (Schmitt, 2017). The United States handed ISAF command to NATO in August 2003; the organization’s first operation outside of Europe.
ISAF command was originally limited to Kabul, but gradually expanded until the international military force was present throughout the country. The mission did not
25 change, though; ISAF was to lead counterinsurgency against the Taliban and assist the Afghan National Security Forces, which were to take full responsibility for the country by the end of 2014. NATO had to tackle strong Taliban-led insurgency and risked defeat in 2008. Both the US and Europe’s strategy to increase involvement in the country avoided this outcome, at least in the short term. (Schmitt, 2017).
NATO and US forces sought to establish dialogue with the local population and encourage them to shift their support from the Taliban to the international community.
Without achieving this an imperative element of the entire mission, the international military forces would not have been able to achieve anything. Fighting insurgency propaganda and successfully completing advisory missions was only possible by interacting with the locals. Given the fact that international troops and the local population don’t usually share the same language, interpreters were essential (Gómez-Amich, 2018)
2.2 Recruiting Interpreters
The two parties in a conflict zone naturally need language mediators in order to find common ground despite cultural and linguistic realities (Gomez-Amich, 2013), meaning any international military intervention tends to recruit either local interpreters, or in fewer cases, to train military personnel as military interpreters. In Afghanistan, as most members of the deploying armies spoke none of the local languages, the forces relied mainly on local interpreters and translators’ cultural and linguistic expertise (Van Dijk, Soeters, De Ridder, 2010).
Forces from some nations, including the US and Spain, also brought their own linguistic personnel. The US hired Americans who had learned Arabic or Arabic-speaking foreign students living in the US (Talpas, 2016), while Spanish forces employed Spanish citizens of Iranian origin who had fled to Spain decades before and spoke fluent Spanish (Ruiz Rosendo, 2020).
Local interpreters working for ISAF were exposed to danger on a regular basis. They did not live at the headquarters, but often accompanied ISAF personnel to meetings, and knew they were putting their families’ and lives at risk. This of course deterred some candidates from working for NATO (Jones and Askew, 2014), but most interpreters were from the local area, nonetheless. Due to cultural norms, many Afghans considered the role inappropriate for women, and with women also less likely to apply, most local
26 interpreters were male. As a result, female military interpreters were precious at Afghan women’s medical appointments and on visits to girls’ schools (Ruiz Rosendo, 2020).
Most interpreters did not have the necessary skills to fulfill NATO requirements. Although many had attended some form of higher education, few had experience with languages or translation, and ISAF did not test language skills adequately, meaning levels of English proficiency varied; most of those who did speak English had never lived in an English speaking country and spoke the language to an insufficient level. This can be explained by Afghanistan’s poor education system; a result of the country’s history of conflict, as well as lacking educational infrastructure. Military interpreters encountered a similar problem, in that many had either left Afghanistan very young or actually spoke Farsi, which is similar to local languages but not identical, sometimes hampering their understanding of Dari (Jones and Askew, 2014).
As in Bosnia and Herzegovina, many international organizations, NGOs and contractors flocked to Afghanistan and all needed interpreters, meaning interpreters were in high demand, although many lacked the required skillset. The lack of female practitioners further limited supply of interpreters to the market. To attract candidates, NATO matched or exceeded salaries offered by other organizations, but compulsory background checks lasting up to several months slowed down the recruitment process, and candidates often made other arrangements in the meantime. NATO was also at a disadvantage in not being able to offer interpreters the opportunity to apply for a visa and emigrate, as was the practice of certain national forces, including the US (Operation Enduring Freedom).
ISAF eventually started providing training, but this made ISAF local interpreters highly sought-after, and some would subsequently chose to work elsewhere, forcing NATO to recruit all over again. The factors detailed above made the recruiting process in Afghanistan particularly difficult (Jones and Askew, 2014).
2.3 Working Conditions
At first, ISAF Headquarters’ linguistic service was highly unprofessional, with the first interpreters hired in 2001 required only to sit a short verbal test. They were later required to take further tests: translation between Dari and/or Pashto and English, and verbal test, the details of which are not recorded. Interpreters at ISAF Headquarters worked in spaces that were small and had previously been used as a morgue, both factors that made work difficult. Most interpreters worked bidirectionally between English and Dari (also the most common mother tongue among interpreters), but some also worked with Pashto. No training was provided and the supervising military personnel rotated every 6
27 months, making it difficult to properly monitor the activities of linguistic personnel. Some officers came to see particular interpreters they worked with regularly as “theirs”, adding to the seemingly disjointed organization of the service (Jones and Askew, 2014).
The role of interpreters in the Afghan theater was not clearly defined. As mentioned previously, expectations on interpreters went above and beyond language mediation, with military personnel considering them as cultural advisors (Talpas, 2016). Cummings’
(2012) list of tasks interpreters were expected to carry out includes providing information on the country that foreign forces could not learn on their own, acting as lie-detectors, making calls for soldiers, setting up meetings with the locals, and teaching soldiers Dari or Pashto. It is clear they performed tasks unrelated to languages, and were expected to act as journalists, soldiers, cultural experts, and guides (Van Dijk, Soeters, De Ridder, 2010), as well as preparing written translations. In fact, the US Army published an online job advertisement for an “interpreter or translator”, without making a distinction between the two, and listing tasks under the job description such as helping military contracting officers with local purchases, providing interpreting support and preparing non-technical translations. Another interpreter job advertised, this time by a small private company from the US, listed tasks including advising on regional issues, translating documents and interpreting for personnel during meetings and trips, further indicating the incorrect perception of the profession was common (Talpas, 2016).
Even when interpreting, interpreters working for Spanish contingents often went beyond translating the message. It was essential to convince locals and shift support from the Taliban to NATO, so interpreters also needed to explain non-verbal elements of communication, such as jokes and cultural references to accurately communicate the underlying message. In fact, interpreters sometimes had to omit certain parts of a message if they deemed it inappropriate (Ruiz Rosendo, 2020).
The organization of interpreters’ work was equally chaotic. They were expected to be available at all times and would generally work either “the early shift” or “the late shift”.
ISAF HQ did not record the work done in a system, making it impossible to estimate the volume of work or how many interpreters were actually necessary. On the other hand, interpreters were at least grouped into a single Linguistic Service. (Jones and Askew, 2014)
With regard to remuneration, NATO interpreters were usually afforded a high salary, particularly by local standards, as well as clothing allowances of up to 1,600 Euros and a 100 Euro annual bonus. International civilians, however, clearly enjoyed more favorable arrangements. They were paid higher salaries than local peers and could
28 access areas of the base and information that were off limits to Afghan interpreters. While some interpreters claimed they were not treated equally when traveling, others reported having enjoyed the same accommodation conditions and meals as international peers (Jones and Askew, 2014).
Similar inequalities existed within national contingents, with Spanish forces sharing accommodation with national interpreters, whereas locals were housed in a separate building. Nationals had higher salaries and tended to work in high-level meetings, often working with the one high-ranking officer on a daily basis, whereas local interpreters generally worked with different people every day (Ruiz Rosendo, 2020).
In sum, though salaries were high compared to local rates of pay, Afghan interpreters had worse conditions than their international peers, their work went beyond what would usually be expected of an interpreter and they did not all have the necessary skills to actually do their job
2.4 Living Conditions
Accommodation and ISAF infrastructure were mainly built from corimecs (collapsible containers). The HQ was cramped and surrounded by a high wall and all personnel shared living quarters. Those living on the base were even asked to keep showers short as water resources were limited (Jones and Askew, 2014).
2.5 Materials
Initially, interpreters at ISAF HQ had only one computer between them and translated using paper and pencil. Additional computers were brought later (two for every ten people), but they were outdated and internet access was not provided. No dictionaries or reference materials were available (Jones and Askew, 2014).
Interpreters were issued military uniforms and protective equipment, but generally no weapons, a fact interpreters working for the Spanish battalion considered unfair (Ruiz Rosendo, 2020). It seems not all interpreters may have received the same degree of protection, as one interpreter accompanying British forces said he had nothing but a
“piece of cloth and one small plate to protect my heart” (Engelhart, 2015; Talpas, 2016).
2.6 Risk and Positionality
Working for ISAF in itself represented a risk, as previously covered, in particular as the international military force did not have a neutral or peacekeeping role. In fact, the
29 international community had designed the ISAF intervention to fulfill “western goals”. Any civilian working for the international force thus became an instant target for the Taliban and some members of the local population (Jones and Askew, 2014). There were cases of interpreters being seriously wounded and even killed by suicide attacks, bombs and IEDs; they were constantly in danger, especially if living off-base. The situation worsened when foreign forces started to leave the country (Ruiz Rosendo, 2020), as local authorities could not be trusted. Both the police and the army were corrupt, and there had been cases of interpreters being attacked by police forces, including an incident where an interpreter’s home was raided and his money was taken (Jones and Askew, 2014).
A particular danger was the expectation for interpreters to accompany soldiers on patrol.
Srosh, one of the Afghan interpreters interviewed by Talpas, reported that, although interpreters were not trained fighters, they were supposed to walk, rest, eat and fight like them on top of all their other tasks (Talpas, 2016).
Given the dangers inherent to the profession, most interpreters felt unsafe outside of Kabul, and tried to conceal their employment from their families and friends. Many received threats, and were unable to travel to Taliban-dominated provinces (Jones and Askew, 2014). The low literacy rate meant the population was easy to manipulate (Talpas, 2016); interpreters were portrayed as traitors and infidels, which had grave consequences, with some interpreters paying with their lives (Gómez-Amich, 2018). The Taliban tried to recruit anyone working for local authorities or international forces to provide intelligence (Pah 2009; Talpas, 2016), but if they refused, “the infidels’
translators” would receive the death penalty according to the 2010 Taliban Code, cited by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) (Engelhart, 2015;
Talpas, 2016), and this was far from an empty threat (Talpas, 2016). Ghous, one of the interpreters interviewed for Gómez-Amich’s study, recounted the following:
“There are certain areas where you do not want to be recognized. You do not feel safe there. They insult you and say that you have become a foreigner. They call you “infidel”
and that makes you feel bad. […] And I would answer that I am not an infidel, I am just working. I am helping. But there are people who doesn’t understand. Some of them still support the Taliban, the bad guys, and do not even accept the Afghan national army. […]
I was just honest and worked, and they called me “traitor” or “collaborator”. I used to get upset at the beginning, but then I realized the bad guys were actually them, they were wrong. My aim is to support and help my country” (Gómez-Amich, 2018, p. 30)
The Taliban was extremely dangerous and had a large stockpile of weapons, explosives and ammunition, as well as the constant risk of being killed or wounded by an IED
30 (Talpas, 2016). Moreover, interpreters for the Spanish contingent stated that wearing the uniform meant locals put them in the same category as foreign troops, exposing them to increased risk, but most local interpreters said wearing the same uniform as soldiers made them feel like they belonged to the group (Ruiz Rosendo, 2020).
Local interpreters were not the only ones in danger, however. Pierre Miquelon, a NATO linguist sent to ISAF HQ to help improve the linguistic service, was kidnapped by two interpreters who threatened his life unless he paid them half of what his insurance compensation payout in case of murder. While Miquelon was unharmed, the event proves how dangerous the general environment was at ISAF (Jones and Askew, 2014).
Natural risks also made work difficult, even without terrorist attacks. Temperatures could rise above 45 degrees Celsius, and common extreme weather phenomena such as sandstorms and heavy rain were obstructions for coalition forces and their interpreters.
There were many hidden paths, and the terrain was difficult to operate in, putting insurgents in their home territory at an advantage. There were also dangerous animals, some of which were poisonous: vipers, cobras, spiders. In light of the dangers posed by the natural surroundings unfamiliar to soldiers, interpreters also advised on logistics, such as the best path for a given mission (Pah, 2009; Talpas, 2016).
Interpreters also had to deal with being both insiders and outsiders. They were a part of the same organization as the foreign troops, it was their “in-between” position that was relied on by officers (Ruiz Rosendo, 2020). Interpreting requires the user to trust the interpreter and their skills, but with the interpreters existing across the divide between the local population and foreign forces, they were constantly under suspicion. In Afghanistan, NATO was actually involved in the conflict, and many wondered whether interpreters were helping the insurgents, but officers were dependent on interpreter’s knowledge nonetheless (Jones and Askew, 2014).
2.7 Soldier-Interpreter relations
The relationship between soldiers and interpreters varied depending on the national contingent and even individual interpreters. Dutch battalions, for instance, were mostly quite happy to work with local recruits and considered they made a positive contribution.
It seems the more open-minded the soldier, the easier it was to strike a good relationship with local interpreters. In general, being receptive to the host culture was an important element throughout the mission in order to approach the local community (Van Dijk, Soeters, de Ridder, 2010).
31 The Spanish contingent was more complex, as there were both national and local interpreters. Generally, military personnel preferred the national interpreters (from Spain), as they believed their performance was better, and trusted their interests were aligned with the army’s. The military personnel developed a closer relationship with the nationals than with the locals, believing their position as outsiders made them a risk.
Attacks on Spanish or foreign forces, sometimes led by Afghan forces, were extremely detrimental to relationships between military personnel and local recruits.
In such contingents, relationships between the two categories of interpreter were also difficult to navigate. According to local Afghan interpreters, Afghans sometimes struggled to understand the nationals because they only spoke Farsi, and this made communication difficult.
Despite all these factors, interpreters and officers lived and worked together on a regular basis, and although trust was not a given, many formed strong ties (Ruiz Rosendo, 2020).
The previously mentioned extreme differences between Western and Afghan cultures meant many topics were considered sensitive, which had an important impact on the development of soldier-interpreter relationships. Women were considered to belong to one’s private life and were never to be spoken of, for instance. When women were spoken to, they were referred to as “sister” or “mother”. The elderly were also treated with particular respect. Small talk is important to Afghans, and they are less direct than westerners when it comes to serious business (Talpas, 2016). Many of the interpreters interviewed by Jones and Askew identified cultural differences as a real problem that had to be constantly overcome and was an obstacle to developing professional relationships (Jones and Askew, 2014).
On one occasion in Afghanistan, Dutch soldiers broke into a mosque, and proceeded to sing, dance, and rip out pages of the Quran. This, of course, sparked outrage among soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and put future collaboration at risk. An interpreter had to mediate for the Dutch soldiers and ease the tension by explaining they had not known it was a Quran. This is a perfect example of how great the cultural ignorance of foreign soldiers could be, and how important interpreters were to mediate through the cultural gaps (Talpas, 2016).
The US government response to this issue was the Human Terrain System, set up in 2005-06, a program that aimed to enhance cultural understanding and to help military personnel understand the impact of their presence in the country on local populations.
The HTS sought to promote trust-building and avoid violence, but it has been subject to
