| | Keeping Afghan police on the straight and narrow Globe and Mail
08/20/2007
By Paul Koring and Alex Dobrata
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SHAH WALI KOT - First the nectarines were handed over, then the watermelon. By lunchtime, the three Afghan National Police manning a traffic checkpoint had amassed a pleasant lunch from the “donations” of passing villagers stopped and “screened,” ostensibly for weapons or contraband.
Then, as dismayed Canadian soldiers looked on, the three policemen retired to a rock to dine while a steady stream of traffic jolted through the checkpoint.
“I don't want you to do that,” said Lieutenant Jocelyn Demetre, newly arrived in Afghanistan with Quebec's famed Vandoos – the Royal 22nd Regiment. Pointing to the watermelon, Lt. Demetre admonished: “That's extortion.”
The yawning disconnect between the ideals of civil policing and the reality of rampant corruption among ill-trained, ill-equipped, underpaid and deeply distrusted Afghan police is starkly evident, and not just in petty bribes at roadside checkpoints.
Repeated purges of high-ranking officers, the sudden increase in already high absentee rates during poppy-picking season, and grimly miserable assessments of almost all independent observers underscore a host of problems threatening to undermine the military effort to crush the Taliban insurgency.
That the police seem blissfully, or perhaps willfully, unaware only sharpens the disconnect.
Mahman Qasim, the police section commander at Shah Woli Kot who hadn't bothered to don his uniform, rejected the young Canadian officer's admonishment. “We only take from friends, and they're happy to give,” he said, before slicing open the watermelon with a bayonet.
Creating a professional and honest police force as part of a broader justice system is regarded as essential to any long-term effort to rebuild Afghanistan and wrest its war-ravaged population away from the violence, the revenge killings and the iron rule of local warlords.
But the monumental effort to recruit, train and mentor the police, known by their acronym ANP, is by all accounts, barely begun. It so distantly trails the creation of the Afghan National Army that it has become the Achilles heel of the entire reconstruction effort.
Although Germany was supposed to take the lead in rebuilding the police, little has been accomplished in the last five years.
Unlike the Afghan army that has grown in size, combat capacity and reputation, the police remain a rag-tag force, usually treated as expendable military auxiliaries and receiving little help or training.
Even high-ranking ANA officers paint a grim picture. Kandahar's police chief, Sayed Agha Saqib, said “the police are trying to get started … [but] it is going to take years.”
Broad-shouldered, with closely-cropped hair and a cell phone seemingly welded to his ear, Mr. Saqib leaves the impression of a man in a hurry to make changes. Recently transferred from a tough posting in Jalalabad to an even tougher one in Kandahar, it's not at all clear that he is either happy with the change or planning to stay for the long term.
“If I am able to accomplish something, then I will stay. Otherwise, I will resign. It will take me three months before I know,” he said.
Mr. Saqib recounted a long list of needs, most of them involving better pay and equipment. Wages for ordinary police officers – currently about two dollars a day (and sometimes months in arrears) – need to be tripled at the least, he said. It's a refrain echoed by Canadian and other foreign officials who point out that policemen, far more than soldiers, are exposed to the temptation of bribes, especially when they are left manning remote stations and checkpoints.
“We need better weapons to defend ourselves against the insurgents,” Mr. Saqib added. That, too, is true – especially if the ANA will continue to be used as a military auxiliary out in the hinterlands, rather than focusing on actual police work.
That overlap of roles between the ANA and ANP remains unresolved. So does the issue of funding and training, and the long-term requirement for both forces.
With half a dozen major players, including Canada, toying with the idea of an early exit from Afghanistan, talk of a decade-long commitment to the police seems ill placed.
But that's the sort of time frame that needs to be considered, said RCMP Superintendent Dave Fudge, who heads Canada's tiny police training contingent in Kandahar. While scores of skilled Canadian military trainers are embedded with ANA units that fight alongside Canadian troops, and are backed by Canadian tanks and artillery, Supt. Fudge can count those in the police training commitment on his fingers.
He is under no illusions about the enormity of the job. “This is going to take generations,” he said. “We were in the Balkans for 16 years … this is going to take far longer.”
That doesn't fit well with the rising chorus of calls for Canada to quit Afghanistan when the current mandate ends early in 2009.
“They can't drive, they can't read, there's no junior leadership – and until they are paid a decent wage it will be impossible to attract decent people,” said Supt. Fudge, who is nearing the end of a year-long stint at Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar city.
While everyone seems agreed that the police need massive infusions of money and mentoring, as well as a long-term commitment, there remains no significant international commitment.
“[The International Security Assistance Force] does not have, in its mandate, police reform,” said Brigadier-General Tim Grant, until recently was the Canadian military commander. He said the police should be the top priority.
Several attempts to shore up the ill-regarded ANA have failed. Last fall, Canada backed an effort to create local police – dubbed the Afghan National Auxiliary Police – and created from minimally trained recruits selected by village elders.
Supt. Fudge painted a grim picture of the likely outcome if the international community abandons Afghanistan, without leaving behind a credible police force as part of a larger and respected justice system.
“Afghanistan is in the middle of an insurgency,” he said. “Our job is not done yet. If we leave too early, we very much stand the risk of going back to ground zero or even worse – as we have seen in Haiti, where we had to go back and start rebuilding from zero again.”
Mr. Saqib was even more dire.
“If the Canadians leave, the fire will come to Canada too,” he said.
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