Afghanistan: Time for a regional solution?

A regional solution for Afghanistan is presently among the most debated ideas when it comes to finding a solution for the decade-old conflict. The 2011 Istanbul Conference, focusing on regional cooperation, reiterated working towards “good neighbourly relations”, as declared in the 2002 Kabul Declaration; the United States work towards a “New Silk Route” that should transform Afghanistan into an economic hub in the region; and the seemingly close link between Afghanistan and its neighbours, first and foremost Pakistan, make it clear that Afghanistan is unlikely to stabilise without regional support.

The states of Afghanistan’s other neighbouring regions – the Middle East, Central Asia, South and East Asia – all have interests in the country. Yet, thinking of Afghanistan as the central focal point of all its neighbours is gravely misleading. None of Afghanistan’s neighbours – including Pakistan – define their security interest as lying primarily in Afghanistan, nor does any of the neighbours have substantial economic interests there. Against popular belief this leads to the conclusion that Afghanistan is at the edge, not the centre of interest of its surrounding regions. This has considerable implications for approaches to regional solutions. Afghanistan’s neighbours are unlikely to regroup and centre around Afghanistan – in fact they are unlikely to engage in a substantive way in the first place. In those cases where they do get involved, the involvement is not about Afghanistan but about proxy conflicts spilling over from other regions. Regional solutions are therefore unlikely to provide a “way out” of Afghanistan, even though such way out is unlikely to succeed without the region either.

RC North: Critical Infrastructure Protection Force Discontinued?

According to several Afghan news outlets the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) programme in several northern Afghan provinces is stopped. The reports do not state clearly in which regions which programmes will be halted. BNA states that “local police activities in some northern provinces, such as Baghlan, Kunduz and Talkhar” have been discussed, but do not state if CIP or other irregular police activities in these areas are stopped. The report further states that Minister of Interior, GEN Mohammadi “presented report about the compulsory activities of the local structures for preservation of important establishments (CIP) in Faryab, Jouzjan, Sar-e-Pul and Laghman provinces”, again without mentioning what that implies. What seems to be clear is that the issue has been discussed with the head of NATO and US forces, GEN Allen, and that the programme – in some areas – has been stopped.

As I wrote this morning, the Germans, commanding the Regional Command (RC) North, have not been very keen on having irregular armed forces in northern Afghanistan. In its annual Afghanistan report, the German government stated that “with its international partners” it will “in appropriate ways” influence the Afghan government to discontinue these militia programmes. Particularly the CIP programme stood out as it was de facto outside of Afghan government control. Funded by the US Commander Emergence Response Program (CERP), CIP troops neither received a uniform or a weapon.

In reports by Human Rights Watch and others, Afghanistan’s militia programmes have recently been sharply criticised for grave human rights violations. It is unclear if the reported discontinuation of the CIP in northern Afghanistan was influenced by the Christmas visit of the German minister of Defence, Thomas de Maizière.

I received the hint for this via twitter. Thanks!

Afghanistan’s Militias: The German View

In December 2011, the German government published its annual report on Afghanistan. Essentially, there is no news in the report, but a section on “security forces and militias outside of ANP” (Schutzkräfte und Milizen außerhalb der ANP) deserves a little attention.

If you follow my twitter feed or this blog, you know that I follow the development of Afghan security forces with great interest. I think it tells a lot about the development of Afghanistan, the performance of ISAF, and greater political developments more general. To put my cards on the table, I previously argued that the development of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) is a threat to civilian security. It does serve the Western interest of providing an exit strategy in that it empowers warlords (thus defining stability as security), but it equally is a sign that a more ambitious goal of a national police with basic respect for human rights is a thing of the past.

In northern Afghanistan (presumably the RC North), the German government “estimates“(!) the number of militias to be approximately 3,000, roughly half of them (1,400) in Kunduz province. “Due to the enduring conflict since the 1980s,” the report continues, “large parts of society, and therefore also a large part of the militias, have links to the former warring parties.” For that reason, “loyalties shift regularly and repeatedly and are often of temporary nature”. On page 11, the report gives information of three basic groups: the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF), the Afghan Local Police (ALP), and the Critical Infrastructure Protection force (CIP). It starts by defining the roles of the different institutions before assessing their use to a wider security architecture.

The Afghan Public Protection Force‘s role, the report states, is to secure key infrastructure, public and private facilities and replace private security companies (which have been widely criticised by the Karzai government). APPF members are re-hatted, stemming from the Afghan Local Police. They receive a short training course executed by DynCorp and assisted by Canadian trainers. The government signs contracts with public or private institutions who then are secured by APPF troops. The long-term goal is to turn it into a government-run company that runs these services. A second report by the German government (available here) assesses the capacities, stating “according to NTM-A, the APPF only has a limited capacity to execute its mission”.

The Afghan Local Police consists of locally recruited forces supervised by the Afghan government and the United States. The target goal for 2011 was 10,000 forces, the US military reportedly plans to increase the number of forces to 30,000. Whereas US involvement seems imperative, not least due to US special forces training, the dominant language usually is that it is an Afghan Ministry of the Interior-led project. Regarding the assessment of the forces, the German government states “In Kunduz province the deployment of the ALP helped improve stabilising the area in individual cases” (emphasis added). The second report is slightly more detailed, stating that the development of the ALP is “monitored critically due to accusations of grave human rights violations”. Especially when it comes to vetting (i.e. the security background check) “the established procedure in practice is only inadequately implemented or not implemented at all”. All of this seems to undermine Germany’s already negative view of these forces.

The Critical Infrastructure Protection force, as the name indicates, protects critical infrastructure, including roads, bridges, etc. CIP troops reportedly receive $140 salary and are funded by the US through the Commander Emergency Response Program (CERP). New to me – and shocking – is the fact that “CIP forces (…) receive no training, don’t wear uniforms and bring their own weapons”.  “Vetted” by local shuras and added to the US biometric database, their only point of identification is an armband with an ID number. This, I think, is where it gets really problematic. Particularly the BYOW (bring your own weapon) factor – even in a tribal society which accepts carrying weapons – completely delegitimises this force. The most basic question remains unanswered: Who is an “insurgent” that the critical infrastructure needs to be protected against and by what means. This opens the door for killings, warlordism and the like under the name of security. The CERP-financing aggravates the problem in that it does not come with any institutionalised oversight.

[Update 26/12/2011] Via Twitter I received a message that in northern Afghanistan CIP has been suspended as of 25 Dec 2011 – thanks for the info! [/update]

In addition to these “quasi-police units”, as the report calls them, there are “a variety of militias, paid by local power brokers or businessmen” which are “partly” loyal to the central government.

The assessment by the Germans is rather bleak: “For the German government the creation of quasi-police forces outside the ANP with the goal of improving the security situation is unrewarding”. Three things seem to stand out: (1) accusations of grave human rights violations; (2) the lack of governmental oversight undermining the government’s monopoly of violence; and (3) the absence of a long-term idea of how and when to integrate these forces into the regular forces. According to the report, Germany does not include these militias into its operations and does not cooperate with these forces. Interestingly, the Germans “with its international partners” will “in appropriate ways” influence the Afghan government. Since the report even acknowledges that most of these programmes are US-led and/or financed, I wonder if the Afghans actually have a say in this…

All in all, the German reports are in no way surprising. Germany made it clear that it objects the use of militias in Afghanistan and that it – officially at least – sticks to the goal of creating forces that obey human rights. The two things that are interesting from the reports are (1) the tone, which at times is quite direct in cases where one might have expected a somewhat more diplomatic language; and (2) the facts, especially numbers and procedures, that often are not available as such. Meanwhile, the content of the reports once again underlines the risks involved in setting up militias.

Afghanistan: India is part of the problem

At IPCS we are having a debate on India’s involvement in Afghanistan, in which I argue that due to its relations with Pakistan, India is part of the problem in Afghanistan:

Facing the exit of Western combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014, the signing of the strategic partnership agreement (SPA) signals a stronger Indian role in Afghanistan. Whereas India has in fact a theoretical potential for playing a bigger role in Afghanistan’s future, its unresolved conflict with Pakistan clearly speaks against such involvement. First and foremost, India has to understand that it is perceived as part of the problem in Afghanistan.

Read the full piece here.

This argument provoked a debate here at the institute, resulting in two responses:

1) Jegan argues in favour of India’s stabilizing role post the 2014 withdrawal.

2) Abi argues that India is the solution, just not the West’s definition of ‘solution’ .

Interesting.

ALP: A Threat to Civilian Security

Over at the Delhi-based Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, I have a piece on the ALP being a threat to civilian security:

In fall 2010, the Afghan government created the Afghan Local Police (ALP) as a ‘self-defence force’ to protect villages against insurgent attacks. In spite of its name, local policing was never under its purview. Envisaged right from the beginning as a paramilitary force, its main purpose is to serve Afghanistan’s reintegration programme, which ‘buys’ former insurgents and militias who then work for the Afghan government. ALP recruits receive three weeks of training before being sent on duty. Their recruitment, intended to be decided by the consensus of the local shura (representing various clans in a region), seems instead to be decided by the dominant clan in the region without consultation or consensus. As a consequence, the ALP ends up becoming an extension of the dominant clan’s grip on power. Therefore, the choice is between stability by strengthening the dominant clan or an inclusive system which fundamentally erodes the dominance of that clan.

This debate, it seems, has been settled decisively in favour of the former. Various reports by NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch and Refugees International, have accused the ALP of grave human rights violations and have stated that it presents a threat to civilian security, rather than an improvement. In spite of this, security planners have been reluctant to reform or change the course of the ALP, lending credence to the prioritization of stability over inclusiveness.

Read more…

“The Dead of Mazar”

Afghanistan Analysts Network’s co-director Thomas Ruttig has an insightful piece on the protests in Mazar-e Sharif on Friday that killed between 7 and 20 UN workers and guards. I particularly like Thomas’ broader picture here, pointing towards a wider mood of discontent. While the military certainly is the most visible element in this process, other aspects (governance, economy, government services – to name the usual suspects) likely play into that process as well. [Edit:] I just came across this post at The Duck of Minerva, which in a (very bitter) way describes the sentiments that Thomas talks about.

We’re sorry

• That some of our soldiers publicly refer to your people in derogatory and racist language.
• That some of our soldiers shoot your unarmed civilians at random, defile their corpses, and cut off body parts to keep as trophies.
• That some of our soldiers killed the cousin of your head of state. We didn’t even know we were in the hometown of the President, how could we have known he was a Karzai? Oh, right.. we’re very sorry.
• That our helicopter pilots slaughtered your children while they are out collecting firewood.  That argument we made about how using attack helicopters instead of fighter jets would prevent civilian casualties because the pilots could make a visual confirmation of militants … eh, err… we were wrong.  Sorry about that too.

It goes on like that. Read it in full. [/edit]

This also is a good time to point to Joshua Foust’s comment on the attack, who seems to be a bit puzzled himself. Here, too, I agree with the key-takeaway: we need to wait for the long-term implications of this, but it certainly looks grim for the international community in Afghanistan.

Less reported but equally bad: yesterday another nine were killed when protests turned violent in Kandahar.

The Narco-State

The impact of opium cultivation on the overall development of Afghanistan is probably among the most serious single issues the country has to face. Opium production reached a peak in 2007, that was not even reached under the Taliban rule in the 1990s. Since then, the production sharply dropped, although Afghanistan remains by far the largest producer of opium in the world. However, drug production in Afghanistan must be regarded as an integrated web of challenges. Brookings’ Felbab-Brown nicely outlines “narcotics production and counternarcotics policies in Afghanistan are of critical importance not only for the control of drugs there, but also for the security, reconstruction, and rule of law efforts in Afghanistan”.

Having said that, it might be worth looking at a recent UN report that made headlines. Focusing on the global impact of Afghanistan’s opium cultivation, the report Addiction, Crime and Insurgency : The Transnational Threat of Afghan Opium, issued by UN’s Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) supports Felbab-Brown’s argument with numbers. Not least this latter publication is worth taking a closer look at the narco-business in Afghanistan. By enriching it with some other sources this piece should provide a brief overview of the narcotics production and its impact on Afghanistan and especially look at the interconnectedness of problems.

German Defence Minister at CSIS

The German defence minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg arrived today for a quick visit for the United States. I just attended his remarks at the “Statesmen forum” at CSIS. I just want to comment on some of his remarks. CSIS was incredibly fast to put up the audio of the session.

Key-Takeaways on Afghanistan

• No increase in troop numbers in the renewal of the mandate by the German parliament in December.
• Germany might increase its troops after the Afghanistan conference in late January 2010 [comment: that is likely to take place in London].
• The United States obviously made its decision on strategy and troop numbers. Guttenberg said that he was informed about it when he met with Gates today. He added that he expects the new strategy to be publicly announced before the NATO meeting in December.
• Concerning Karzai and the Afghan government, he said that we “need more than continued smile of the [Afghan] president”. For NATO that includes “clear benchmarks” shared among the allies.
• Guttenberg spoke of a dangerous tendency towards only regarding the military aspect in Afghanistan. Asked about the failure of German and European police training he responded that he thinks it’s the other European nations’ move.
• About his meeting with MyChrystal last week in Kabul he said that it became clear that the regional aspect will gain more importance but remained vague on that point.
• Finally, he made it very clear, that Afghans need to “take over their share” in providing security.

Afghan Elections: AREU Briefing Paper

I quickly want to draw your attention to a Briefing Paper by AREU, the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit. For several works on the Afghan Police I used their superb study on the Afghan Police named “Cops or Robbers: The Struggle to Reform the Afghan National Police“.

Today I found their latest publication about the recent elections in Afghanistan. As in most serious papers you’ll get some more information than simple corruption-bashing. On 20 pages, “Voting Together: Why Afghanistan’s 2009 Elections were (and were not) a Disaster” gives a good overview of the elections in general and focuses three areas of Kabul Province. Let me quickly quote two points:

There is an urgend need to reassess (especially international) expectations of what an “electoral success” might look like. In a context in which an ongoing insurgency meant that much more of the country was not represented at the polls, and with a flawed voter registration process that has been a poor substitute for a valid census, it was misguided to expect elections this year to be a test of “democracy” in Afghanistan

Preparations for 2010 parliamentary elections must begin now if the polls are to be seen by the voting public–and the international community– as worthwhile and credible

By expressing that it is clear that the report in no way regards corruption as a legitimate issue, but “what has been overlooked, however, is the way in which–at least at the local level–these elections have been used to change the balance of power in a relatively peaceful manner.”

20 pages, 1 1/2 of them executive summary.

The executive summary (here called “overview”) is a should-read, the rest is at least a good backgrounder.

You may find the document here.

Mysterious black Helicopers in Afghanistan?

A number of reports recently had stories on several “mysterious black helicopers” that operate in Afghanistan. Especially in the north, it is said they are used to “ferry Taliban fighters” (see for instance here and here).

The accusations always sound similar and go along these lines from the IWPR report:

“Just when the police and army managed to surround the Taleban in a village of Qala-e-Zaal district, we saw helicopters land with support teams,” he said. “They managed to rescue their friends from our encirclement, and even to inflict defeat on the Afghan National Army.”

Of course, ISAF spokespersons are quick in rejecting all these accusations. I expected this to be some kind of rumour in the northern province and therefore skipped the article. (Despite this fact I was once more annoyed that the police in Afghanistan is still used as an army with bad equipment…). But continued coverage and similar observations by Thomas Wiegold and others puzzled me.

The result is rather unspectacular and predictable: From what I hear it seems that these helicopters belong to special forces that are currently conducting operations in the Kunduz region.

However, far more interesting is the enormous capability by Taliban (or whatever extremist movements currently operates there…) to quickly feed people with rumours. The sole existence of of speculations is enough to create a myth that sheds a bad light on western forces and weaken the morale of Afghan security forces.

The lesson learned (once more…) must be: a) the “opposing forces” have incredible PR capabilities and precisely know how to use them; and b) that NATO / ISAF / the west has not yet found effective means to counter this process. Twitter, Flickr and Facebook might sell the committment to the troop providing nations, but in Afghanistan it seems to have little success.