New Afghan local police units failing - HRW
Hat tip to Circling the Lion's Den a pointer to a Human Rights Watch report on the Afghan Local Police (ALP).
Comment:http://circlingthelionsden.blogspot....s-failing.html
Cited HRW report:http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/fil...1webwcover.pdf
One chapter is entitled:
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The Afghan Local Police:“Community Watch with AK-47s"
ANP: an ineffective and tainted service to citizens
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The Afghan police charged with maintaining security in their own country as coalition troops begin to pull out within months are still "endemically corrupt" and riven with problems including nepotism and drug abuse, internal government documents have revealed.
Foreign Office (FCO) papers obtained by The Independent on Sunday disclose official concerns about the fate of Afghanistan and its chances of holding the Taliban at bay, if its leaders fail to "root out corruption" throughout the ranks of the Afghan National Police (ANP).
A confidential report on the performance of the Afghan Uniform Police (AUP), the nation's major law-enforcement body, observed in October: "Unless radical change is introduced to improve the actual and perceived integrity and legitimacy of officers within the AUP, then the organisation will continue to provide an ineffective and tainted service to citizens … for decades to come."
Salutary reminder of the realities crept in, not from the FCO paper(s) methinks:
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ANP officers, who are usually at the front line of the security forces' dealings with the public, have to endure lower pay and fatality rates twice as high as their counterparts in the Afghan army.
What a surprise! Must have been to the FCO, not the Afghan public.
Link:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...e-8430111.html
Afghan police accused of corruption and child abuse
Hardly a surprising headline for a BBC TV Panorama programme being broadcast tonight, Afghan police accused of corruption and child abuse is a report by Ben Anderson, whose documentaries are always excellent:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21547542
Citing USMC Major Steuber, an ANP adviser:
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Try doing that day in, day out, working with child molesters, working with people who are robbing people, murdering them. It wears on you after a while.
Ben Anderson's final comment says it all:
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...from what I saw, corruption and criminality are widespread among the police in Sangin. This is exactly the kind of behaviour that led many Afghans to welcome the Taliban when they swept to power in 1996. Is this what all the fighting and bloodshed has been for?