- Police e Mardumi: Indigenous District-Level Civilian Policing in Afghanistan

Abstract

Since the Afghan Interim Authority ‹rst took oƒce in 2002, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has played an important role in enabling the Ministry of Interior (MOI) to begin the process of rebuilding the civilian police by working jointly with all stakeholders. Donor resources covered the salaries of police in Kabul for the ‹rst six months of 2002 through the UNDP-managed Afghanistan Interim Authority Fund (AIAF). In May 2002, at the request of the government and United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), UNDP established the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOTFA) to enable the police to return to operations throughout the country. e LOTFA is administered byUNDP and nationally managed through the MOI. According to the terms of reference (ToRs) for LOTFA (signed in May 2002), the fund was designed to cover “all reasonable costs associated with the start-up and operational needs of the police force.” Subsequent phases of LOTFA have been developed around this component, with appropriate modi‹cations based on situational changes. is phase of development of the police is the phase for reconstruction, which started with 50,000 to 70,000 police, consisting of some professional police trained before the civil war and a vast number of untrained and illiterate soldiers from various regimes. ey lacked discipline, formal policies, procedures, facilities, equipment, uniforms, and public trust. ere was also ethnic imbalance, and most of the provincial and local police commanders owed allegiances to local military commanders, and central control was virtually nonexistent. Some of the provincial police commanders were ex-warlords continuing their existence in a legitimate form. Several oƒcers who were forced to take up premature retirement due to the civil war have rejoined, and there are also reports that there are warlords and militias who have been legitimized and accommodated in the police, making the basic structure of the civilian police organization almost defunct.*e public opinion of the police is at an all-time low, as the Human Rights Watch Report 2009 states: “Outside the con¢ict areas, organized crime and warlords terrorize Afghans with impunity. Kidnapping of Afghans for ransom is common, but the police seem largely incapable or unwilling to tackle it.” Coupled with this is the communities’ view that the pro-government forces enjoy impunity even when accused of killing or disappearing civilians.† At present there is little con‹dence in the police, as the communities prefer to sort out their problems through traditional justice institutions, making the formal justice process redundant in its present form. e police are viewed as an organ of the government or even, in some areas, a particular power group rather than a solution provider of the state for the people.