e-Ariana
04/12/2007
By Akmal Dawi

It was a meaningless and brief conversation, but it caused Bibi Fariha an extra 15-minute walk on a dusty road. As the 58-year-old woman walked through a public footbath in the Wazir Akbar Khan residential area of Kabul city, the capital of Afghanistan, two heavily armed foreigners, through their Afghan translator, asked for her pass badge.

"I do not have that," cried the old lady who works as a housecleaner in the vicinity of the heavily blocked road, "you cannot walk through this street," the burly men told Fahima. Now it is a routine for the orthopedic-patient to pace the appendage space with a painful extra walk.

Only in two years, 2004 to 2006, 59 private security companies were registered by Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA). Hiring people from different parts of the underdeveloped world these non-state security firms have installed hundreds of armed men in Kabul majority of who do not know much about socio-cultural complexities in Afghanistan.

"A new comer's first impression from Kabul is that it is in a high military emergency," stressed Saeed Mohammad Golabzoy, a former interior minister and now an MP in the lower house of the National Assembly of Afghanistan. The MP blames foreign security firms for illegally blockading a number of public roads in Kabul.

According to Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior (MoI), there is no specific law or a formal code of conduct to regulate the activities of these profit-making security providers that undertake different services to their Afghan and international clients in the country.

"We charge each security company US $5000 a year," said Walid Tamim, director of investment promotion for AISA.

However, numerous controversies surround private security corporations most of which are owned by U.S. or British ex military and intelligence officers.

"They drive unlicensed vehicles, import and export weapons, maintain close relationships with local warlords as well as drug traffickers and do not comply with our laws," complained a member of Afghan parliament's security commission, who asked not to be named due to high sensitivity of the issue.

Furthermore, some critics express concerns with the poor literacy in international human rights and other humanitarian understanding among the armed men of private security companies. Nevertheless, private security contractors perform variety of jobs which include, but not limited to guarding embassies and other premises, patrolling neighborhoods, protecting VIPs and, if needed, exchanging fire with militias.


Yet approaching these security providers is not a piece of cake! It is also difficult to find who is who in Kabul?s booming private security business.

"We do not talk to the media," rebuffed the director of a Kabul-based security firm, a request for an interview. Others follow a similar line.

In 2006, Afghan President Hamid Karzai --himself protected by tens of U.S. security contractors in Kabul, for years-- issued a verdict in which Afghan security forces were ordered to remove all security barriers from public roads and ensure free trespassing for the public.

However, months since the president?s short deadline yet no obstruction is cleared in the city.

"They [security firms] are stronger than President Karzai's government," asserted Golabzoy, "the ministry of interior has desperately failed to implement the President?s decree."

According to Golabzoy - a prominent member of the internal security commission in Afghan parliament - former Kabul police chief, General Jamil Junbish, was ousted from his position because he wanted to execute the President's order and clear all public roads.

Yet opposed by the citizens, street barricades have their supporters among Kabul-based internationals.

"We are in a war situation," told Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said on Wednesday adding UN security department approves road barricades as a safety requisite in Kabul.

In Afghanistan's painful transition toward statehood and viability many point insecurity as a topmost challenge for development and assistance to be effectively delivered.

In 2004, Medicines Sans Frontier (MSF) left Afghanistan after 24 years of humanitarian activities, in reaction to the assassination of five MSF employees in the volatile south of the country.

Because the government of President Hamid Karzai lacks the capacity to provide reliable protection for internationals involved in Afghanistan?s development, profit-making security firms are emerging as a rational choice.

However, when private security companies become stronger than a government and operate with no local responsibility it may be the right time to reconsider their growing involvement in international development.