ShareThisBy GRAEME SMITH
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Sweating in the desert sun, the first members of Kandahar's new auxiliary police lined up over the weekend to get their graduation papers. One by one, they trotted over to their commander and solemnly took their printed certificates. Holding the papers toward the cloudless sky, they shouted: "I serve the Afghan nation!"
Some of the newly minted officers seemed a little embarrassed about the ceremony, raising their papers half-heartedly and mumbling the pledge of loyalty. At the back of assembled ranks, one of the recruits collapsed in the heat of his new uniform and flak jacket. He stumbled away with the help of Canadian and U.S. military trainers.
It was a reminder of the two questions that hang over President Hamid Karzai's plan to hastily raise a new pro-government force here in the rebellious south: Will these young men honestly serve their country and resist the influence of tribes, warlords and drug money? Are their units strong enough, after less than 10 days' training?
Earlier this year, when Karzai introduced the idea of these new units, he pointed to the rising violence in Kandahar. One of the province's districts has only 45 police to protect a population of 65,000, he said; volunteers are needed quickly to reinforce the government's authority.
At the time, Karzai called them "community police," but foreign diplomats and advisers worried he was suggesting a return to the tribal militias that fought vicious civil wars in previous years.
Foreign donors have spent millions of dollars persuading Afghanistan's warlords to give up their weapons, and the advisers worried that Karzai's concept would rearm the same fighters.
Despite their initial reluctance, the foreign troops eventually agreed to help with the creation of the Afghan National Auxiliary Police.
Canadian and U.S. trainers accepted the first batch of recruits two weeks ago. Buses and trucks filled with young men started arriving at a fortified training center in the dusty flatlands east of Kandahar city. Many of the volunteers already wore police uniforms when they arrived, suggesting links to armed groups, but the foreign trainers said they avoided asking too many questions about their origins.
"Most of them were militia guys," said U.S. Sgt. Felix Ayala, the lead trainer. "I don't really care. We didn't kick anyone out, unless they had drugs or weapons. We just stripped their old uniforms off and gave them new ones."
A total of 208 men poured through the gates on the first day. Four were expelled right away for carrying drugs. Almost a hundred of them left in the first three days of the training regime, Ayala said, and only 77 men stayed until graduation.
The cull rate was high, compared with the nine-week basic training courses Ayala is accustomed to leading for the U.S. military, where perhaps five are expelled among 100. But maybe the Afghans were unaccustomed to the foreign troops' standards of discipline, he said; one group of 44 recruits quit on the same day, when they realized their duties at the training center would include cleaning barracks and latrines.
In fact, that group of recruits didn't drop out, said Canadian Col. Gary Stafford; they were kicked out, for refusing to follow orders. He suggested that their reluctance to obey police commanders might be related to their loyalty to more powerful figures in Kandahar: Asadullah Khalid, the governor, and Ahmad Wali Karzai, the president's brother.
"Unfortunately, what's happening throughout the region is that the initial influx of candidates that we're receiving for this training, the majority of them are militias from governors," Stafford said.
"The governors have the capability to pay them and they work for the governors.
"I actually witnessed, on the first ANAP training course, we expelled a number of students for inappropriate behavior," the Canadian officer continued. "They refused to follow direction. The regional training commander wanted them expelled. Immediately, the phone calls started coming in from the governor, saying, 'Why are you doing this?' (and) from Wali Karzai, saying, 'You know, these are good people, don't expel them.' And the very next day the governor came to the regional training center."
Still, the police trainers resisted the pressure. The disobedient recruits went home and the foreign mentors say the young men who remained are showing remarkable esprit de corps.
Holding them loyal to the government will be the main challenge as they're sent to fight in the country's most dangerous districts, military officials say, and it remains to be seen whether this policing experiment will work.
