The Afghanistan National Police (ANP)

[Bob's World]

I doubt many Canadians see the RCMP as the tool of an illegitimate government with a primary purpose of suppressing any opposition to the same. Sadly the ANP is exactly that more often than not.

As to Razziq, his tribe has always controlled the border on the road from Kandahar through Spin Boldak to Qetta. The only difference is that with all the money associated with the coalition efforts the money amounts have gone up in recent years. This is classic Afghanistan and will not change because we find it offensive, nor is it a major issue in who wins or loses in Afghanistan. If GIRoA falls and the Taliban rise to power, Razziq or some other strong man he has nurtured to replace him from his tribe will still be guarding that gateway and taking tolls. We delude ourselves if we think otherwise.

[120mm]

Originally Posted by Infanteer

Not sure on what you mean by the population density bit. As for reporting, each province is a "Division" that reports to the National Headquarters (with a Commissioner) that is responsible to the Minister of Public Safety.

I should say the same to you when the topic of Constitutionalism comes up....

But yes, that's obvious - I was simply responding to 120mm's statement that there are no centralized police forces that exist without the mandate of enforcing tyranny. I think the RCMP may be a model that proves the statement wrong, unless 120mm and myself have different conceptions of "national police force".

Cheers,

Infanteer

On the surface, Germany has a "national police force" as well, but if you look more closely, it is really a series of regional police forces that have different rules and social mores, adapted to the region they are policing.

I am assuming the RCMP also has a different M.O. and culture for each region.

Not so much with the ANP. They send that Hazara Captain to Kandahar and tell him to "enforce the peace".

And they send that Pashtun officer to Herat and tell him to do likewise.

There is "some" attempts to localize the ANP, but most of those are window-dressing, based upon my observations.

[Dayuhan]

The Philippines has a national, centrally led police force, and I wouldn't exactly say its mandate is enforcing tyranny, though it is certainly corrupt. At one time the police were under the control of municipal, provincial, and city governments, and city governments, but they quickly became in many cases little more than government-paid thugs working for mayors and governors, with a definite mandate to enforce tyranny. That still happens, but at least the central authority has the ability to shuffle the deck and transfer officers that get too cozy with local authority... even if that ability isn't always used, or is used too late. Very much imperfect, but better than it was in the days of local control.

How that would work in Afghanistan I don't know... probably not very well, like everything else. There is no system that will not be corrupted if the people running it are corrupt. I'd only point out that a central police force isn't necessarily or at all times a worse or more tyrannical alternative. I guess that would depend on where the loci of tyranny - especially that tyranny that affects the common people - really are. Local governments can be every bit as tyrannical, within their bailiwicks, as central ones.

[davidbfpo]

A commentary on FRI, which opens with:

This week, I’d like to address one of the biggest threats to those of us in the Kabul expat community: the Afghan government security apparatus. I was inspired to write this up after hearing that the Ministry of Interior is now insisting that all PSC’s in Kabul, whether foreign or not, must submit weekly movement plans to them for approval. Apparently, it just went into effect. If this policy was instituted by any other government, I would probably agree with it, but I guarantee this is just another ridiculous Afghan policy designed to harass foreigners. The primary harassers will be the ANSF, as always.

Link:http://freerangeinternational.com/blog/?p=4346#comments

Apart from the mention of the ANP I think the comment on the NDS is of note.

[120mm]

I've been rolled up by the NDS twice. They were professional to a point, but still; you do not want to be rolled up by the NDS.

Your tax dollars at work, though. This is what happens when you pretend a puppet state is actually a sovereign nation. They act out in really stupid and self-defeating ways.

[Infanteer]

I visited the NDS compound a few times during my tour. My ANA counterpart did not look comfortable when I dragged him in - the second time he wouldn't even go.

They seem to be a bunch of shady dudes with pistols that know the whereabouts of every insurgent and talk to them frequently....

[davidbfpo]

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:

The Afghan Local Police:“Community Watch with AK-47s"

[Jedburgh]

CNA, 15 Jan 12: What do Afghans want from the Police? Views from Helmand Province

The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the international community expect the Afghan police to play a crucial role in maintaining stability in Afghanistan as international troops withdraw. With foreign police trainers, mentors, and advisors remaining in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, the question of what sort of force they should be training is of increasing importance. The ANSF Development Division (C10) at RC (SW) requested this study to examine what government officials, community leaders, and ordinary residents in Helmand want from the police, so that police mentors will know where they should focus their efforts. RC (SW) leaders recognized that, unless the Afghan government, community leaders, and public want the type of police force the international community is training, the police force will not be maintained after international forces withdraw....

...Residents of Helmand find it difficult to imagine a police force as found in Western countries because Afghanistan has never had community police. Although Westerners consider it self-evident that police should be professional, provide security, assist with law enforcement, and respond to the public's calls for assistance, the view from Helmand is more nuanced. It does not appear that residents of Helmand want the type of police force that is familiar to small-town Americans.

[davidbfpo]

The Afghan Local Police (ALP) have a place within his thread and the below comment is from a SWJ article, the author being:

I am here for an eight month tour as a Tribal and Political Engagement Officer

Many of the strategies I've seen used in Afghanistan are (1) use warlords, (2) direct action missions, (3) lots of clearing operations, (4) importing security forces from outside the area. The funny thing is, the Afghan Local Police program we are using in many parts of the country has a mix of many of these strategies but the real enduring one, the one that I am seeing work with my own eyes in Uruzgan at present enlists the community in its own defense, recruits vetted and registered police through a local shura, is trained by SOF, is defensively oriented, nested into the Afghan National Police, and blends civil and military approaches relatively seamlessly. Uruzgan has the most mature ALP program in the country and we are winning.

Link:http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...of-the-taliban

[davidbfpo]

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:

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

[davidbfpo]

The ANP have not gone away, but maybe before they do Hurst have published 'Policing Afghanistan: The Politics of the Lame Leviathan' by Antonio Giustozzi and Mohammed Isaqzadeh.

The publishers blurb:

This book is a rare in-depth study of a police force in a developing country which is also undergoing a bitter internal conflict, further to the post-2001 external intervention in Afghanistan. Policing Afghanistan discusses the evolution of the country’s police through its various stages but focuses in particular on the last decade.

The authors review the ongoing debates over the future shape of Afghanistan’s police, but seek primarily to analyse the way Afghanistan is policed relative to its existing social, political and international constraints. Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh have observed the development of the police force from its early stages, starting from what was a rudimentary, militia-based police force prior to 2001. This is a book about how the police really work in such a difficult environment, the nuts and bolts approach, based on first hand research, as opposed to a description of how the Afghan police are institutionally organised and regulated.

A review by a British academic, Alice Hills:

This is the first serious, comprehensive and convincing account of how policing in Afghanistan really works. Giustozzi and Isaqzadeh’s impressive study of the political dynamics of Afghan policing extends the police-studies agenda and is essential reading for anyone interested in the political economy – or reform – of policing.

Usual price 47 UK Pounds, currently special offer 35 UK Pounds; hardback, 240 pgs.

[davidbfpo]

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:

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:

...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?