NEWS > 02 September 2006

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Canada.com - Hamilton,Ontario,
02 September 2006

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Canadian-trained Afghan police

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - They face chaos in the streets, bribes from drug traffickers and sometimes even the possibility of being shot at by the international forces that are supposed to be their allies and mentors.

It isn't easy being a police officer in Afghanistan, especially when their paycheque averages $45 US per month - a paycheque that all too often never arrives.

Still, hundreds of Afghans sign recruitment papers every week in southern Afghanistan. They do it for the money, even if it isn't much. They also do it for the uniform and the sense of pride and respect that they hope it will bring.

For many, though, they do it for their country, says RCMP Supt. David Fudge.

"It's a sense of nationalism that they have," he said. "They want a better Afghanistan and they're willing to put their lives on the line for it."

Fudge is in Kandahar as part of Canada's provincial reconstruction team, a multi-level unit that includes soldiers, police officers and officials from Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency.

Fudge's job is to help train police recruits who often arrive at Kandahar's security training compound wearing tattered clothes and flip-flops on their feet.

A police officer in Canada for 30 years - five of which were spent teaching recruits at the RCMP's national academy - Fudge knows the job won't be easy.

He is training police officers who, for the most part, are illiterate, have little in the way of education and who will upon graduation become targets for insurgents bent on punishing anyone who co-operates with foreigners.

The fear of being killed worries Abdul Nasir, 31, the gate commander whose men are the front line of defence for Canada's 2,200 soldiers and other international forces living and working at Kandahar Airfield.

"I'm tense about it," said Nasir, who complained that his unit has been waiting months to get protective gear that is promised but not yet delivered.

Nasir earns roughly 9,000 Afghanis per month, the equivalent of about $140.

By Afghan standards he is well paid. His men collect about one third of that amount.

None of them do the job for the money, Nasir said, adding that they take the risk out of a sense of patriotic duty.

"I do it for my country," Nasir said in an interview. "If I had money, I would still be here."

"It is my belief and my trust that I have to do something for my country because my country has done so much for me."

Afghanistan is experiencing its worst bout of violence since the late-2001 U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban regime for hosting al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

More than 1,600 people, mostly militants, have died in the past four months, according to an Associated Press tally of violent incidents reported by U.S., NATO and Afghan officials.

Canada has lost 27 soldiers since early 2002, 19 of them in just the past six months, plus one diplomat.

Many Afghan security forces, including soldiers and police, have also died.

On Aug. 26, Canadian soldiers mistook a truckload of police officers for insurgents, firing on them, killing one and injuring four others.

A short while later, the same soldiers fired on two men on a motorcycle who they later discovered were also police officers. Both incidents are under investigation by the military's National Investigation Service and Afghan authorities.

Despite the incidents, and others like them recently involving U.S. soldiers, Canada and other NATO countries have to continue plodding down the slow road toward training as many Afghans to work for the police and military as possible, said another RCMP officer, Supt. Wayne Martin.

He knows all too well the challenges Fudge will face in the coming year.

Until last week, Martin had been in Afghanistan for just over a year doing the same job that Fudge is just embarking on.

Progress has come "at a glacial rate," said Martin.

"You're starting with institutions that were so eroded by 30 years of turmoil, upheaval, insurgency, war that the government was weakened very seriously," he said.

"Supervision, management, operational training, you name it, it's required."

Martin predicted it would take years to build Afghanistan's police service to the point where the international community can step away and leave the country to its own.

He said now that the job has been started, it's no time to quit - as some politicians back home have suggested.

"You don't change a society, you don't change a culture, you don't change a country in three years or five years," he said.

"This is a long-haul project . . . and I think we've set the foundation for that."

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Article sourced from

Canada.com - Hamilton,Ontario,02 September 2006

Canadian-trained Afghan police

EiP Comments:

Canada.com - Hamilton,Ontario,
02 September 2006