PRT JALALABAD: POLICE TRAINING WITH MINIMAL RESOURCES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 KABUL 005845 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/FO DAS GASTRIGHT, SCA/A STATE PASS TO USAID FOR AID/ANE, AID/DCHA/DG NSC FOR HARRIMAN OSD FOR KIMMITT CENTCOM FOR CG CFC-A, CG CJTF-76 POLAD SENSITIVE, SIPDIS E.O. 12958 N/A TAGS: MCAP MOPS PREL PGOV PTER PHUM AF SUBJECT: PRT JALALABAD: POLICE TRAINING WITH MINIMAL RESOURCES YIELDS MAXIMUM RESULTS Reftel: Kabul 5566 ¶1. (U) Summary: Jalalabad PRT Officer accompanied a two-military member PRT police evaluation and assistance team to two ANP district headquarters on November 25. The team conducted a simple survey of equipment, personnel, and facilities, and led a short training session. Both visits were extremely well received, and demonstrated how much can be accomplished using simple techniques and limited resources. End Summary. ¶2. (U) Jalalabad PRT Officer accompanied a PRT police assistance and evaluation team to two Nangarhar districts on November 25. This was the first visit in a new initiative to conduct training and assessment in all 22 district and five city ANP headquarters. This effort began with a two-day conference at the PRT on November 20 and 21, which nineteen of the 22 District Police chiefs attended. Rather than conducting training for the policemen themselves at the PRT, the team decided to visit each district center in order to allow more police to participate in the training, provide the team with actual "eyes on" of the situation in each district, and keep police in their district rather than being way for a day to travel to the PRT in Jalalabad. ¶3. (U) The team conducting this training and assessment consisted of only two soldiers, Sergeant McGowan Anderson and Sergeant Carlus Church. The third member of their team was on leave. In spite of having only two members and employing very simple methods to survey the situation and conduct a short training, the PRT Officer was impressed with how effective this was, and how much of a difference it made. -------------- Method -------------- ¶4. (U) The team followed a very simple formula in both districts. The team began with three pages of simple survey questions, going through a list of supplies as well as activities in the district. The survey asked about weapons, ammunition, uniforms, boots, blankets, and food - what they had and what they had formally requested already. In both districts, they repeatedly emphasized that the Police Chief needs to make formal requests on the Form 14 to the Police Headquarters (PHQ) in Kabul. They encouraged the Police Chiefs to keep repeating their requests through their system until their needs are met, rather than giving up and asking the PRT for the supplies. Sergeant Anderson explained to the PRT Officer that this repeated emphasis helped stress the importance of beginning to rely on their own government and holding them accountable for long term sustenance, rather than looking for one-time hand-outs from the PRT or other international organizations that will eventually leave the country. ¶5. (U) The team then met with each of the police section heads who were present: Logistics, Personnel, Criminal, and Narcotics. They asked for the number of police and rank of all members of the force, what crimes the police had responded to in the recent past, and how they had reacted. Following the survey, we took a tour of the facilities - offices, living quarters, jail, equipment storage, and then the two sergeants conducted a short training session on riot control and the proper use of a baton. -------------- Visit to Kama District KABUL 00005845 002 OF 004 -------------- ¶6. (U) The first visit was to the Kama District, a prosperous farming district with extensive irrigation from the Kunar River, just east of Jalalabad city. The police headquarters is located in the PRT-built District Center. Kama Police Chief Gholam Farooq reported that 60 people are assigned to the district police force, but only 28 actually work there, as many work in Jalalabad. (At the end of the visit, 28 policemen did participate in Sgt. Anderson's training.) The Logistics Officer reported that they have 30 pistols, 28 AK-47's, two motorcycles that are not working, two operable hand held radios, and a generator but no fuel. They reported that each policeman has one summer uniform, but the only policemen with winter uniforms are those that purchased their own. (The chief said he bought his in the local market.) They have no sleeping bags, and their blankets are all one to three years old. (Comment: The Ministry of Interior (MOI),in coordination with Combined Security Training Command - Afghanistan (CSTC-A),is working to issue winter equipment and supplies as quickly as it arrives in theater. The equipment is issued from the MOI to the Provincial Logistics Officers.) There are no first aid kits, and clinic doctors don't have medicine. ¶7. (U) Sergeants Anderson and Church discussed what would be a reasonable request for supplies, and repeatedly encouraged the Chief to submit the request to the Provincial Headquarters on a Form 14 once per month. They said that unfilled requests should be repeated, and they asked that the PRT be provided copies so that they could help with follow-up. ¶8. (U) The most recent criminal activity the police reported was a land dispute the day before. We were shown the "prison" which was a room in a primitive building adjacent to the district center. The windows were bricked up and there was a padlock on the door. Four elderly gentlemen were lying on mats on the floor (we assumed that they had been involved in the land dispute the day before). The Chief said that there is very little criminal activity in the district, and that the local villagers will tell them when someone is acting strangely, or an unknown person comes to the village. When asked for an example, he mentioned an incident one month ago when villagers reported a man acting very strangely. The police went to the village and arrested the man, but quickly realized that he was mentally unstable rather than a criminal, and he was released shortly after being arrested. They reported no narcotics activity in the district, and said that there are no poppies grown there. ¶9. (U) District Sub-Governor Mohammad Ali Sangasray joined the group at this point, and SGT Anderson explained that they had come to help make sure that the police are equipped and trained. The Sub-Governor said he was brand new, having only arrived in the district on Thursday. (Comment - Nangarhar sub- governors are all former Mujahadeen. The Nangarhar provincial government moves them between provinces quite frequently, seldom leaving them in one district more than six months.) Sub-Governor Sangasray gave an impassioned speech about having been the police chief in Kama himself, and that his police need more training and better equipment. He said that while the people in Kama support the government, it is unfair that they do not grow poppies, while districts like Shinwar that do grow poppies receive all the government support. (Comment: This is a refrain that we hear in virtually all districts. In fact, we heard this same argument at the PRT Conference earlier this month on the provincial level.) KABUL 00005845 003 OF 004 ¶10. (U) SGT Anderson then conducted a short Riot Control and Collapsible Baton Training for the 28 policemen, as well as a short question and answer session. He asked the police what their issues were. The first response was that their pay is not enough to support a family. SGT Anderson explained the recent pay reform, and encouraged them to be patient as salaries should increase very soon. He asked them about the new bank card system, and they complained that they now have to spend almost half their salary to get a taxi to Jalalabad to pick their salary up from the bank. SGT Anderson explained that this is part of a system that will ultimately lead to them being able to each receive 100 percent of their salary, rather than having to share a cut with a middle man doing the distribution. He said that it would also benefit the country's banking system and that the goal was to have a bank right in Kama where they could easily collect their full salary. (Note: Reftel explains this new pay system for the ANP. End note.) ¶11. (U) Several policemen also complained about the proposed housing development for police next to the Regional Training Center in Rodat, just outside of Jalalabad. They said that they were being asked to pay multiple fees for the right to settle on land that was supposed to be given to support the police and their families. They also asked about the payment of 1000 Afghanis that President Karzai had promised to distribute to the police country-wide this month. -------------- Visit to the Goshta District -------------- ¶12. (U) The team then traveled to the district of Goshta, which sits between Kama and the Pakistani border. We met Police Chief Jan Dad who had recently transferred to Goshta, following training at the PRT two weeks earlier. He had previously served in Kabul and as a teacher at the Regional Training Center for police in Rodat. ¶13. (U) Chief Dad reported that there are 45 patrolmen and 21 officers assigned to the district, but 18 of them are working in Jalalabad, leaving 48 personnel actually in the district. As far as equipment, they have 20 pistols, 20 AK-47's, two working trucks and one motorcycle, four handheld radios, and one private generator that is not working. Each officer has one summer uniform and one winter uniform, but they have no sleeping bags and no first aid kits. He reported that they have no jail, but they have a room in the school next door where they can lock people up. There are three checkpoints in the district, where they search vehicles for weapons or drugs. ¶14. (U) Chief Dad and his Criminal Officer, Khaki Shah, reported that much of the trouble in the district comes from conflicts between the two large tribes in the district. They also mentioned that they had arrested three people nine months earlier who were accused of over 80 cases of carjacking and murder. The persons had been convicted and are now sentenced to 16 years in prison and SGT Anderson congratulated them for breaking up this crime ring. Other than that, they reported that they had had no other crimes in the past two years. ¶15. (U) We then toured their facilities. Like in Kama, they have offices in the District Center itself, as well as very primitive small buildings adjacent to the center for both housing and storage. They showed KABUL 00005845 004 OF 004 us where their weapons were stored in a locked wooden box underneath one of the beds in a nine person dorm room. SGT Anderson insisted that they open the box and examine the weapons, but the police said that they were not operable. Only after much urging, they brought the box out and unlocked it, revealing ten Czech M-58 assault rifles (analogous to AK-47's). They insisted that the guns were not operable anyway, but upon inspection, SGT. Anderson determined that they were fine, only in need of cleaning and routine maintenance. He offered to take them back to the PRT to do this himself, but they were reluctant to let them leave the district. So he invited them to bring the weapons to the PRT themselves, and he would show them how to properly clean and operate them, as well as give them lunch. SGT. Anderson joked that keeping the weapons under the bed only protected them from monsters who might try to hide there. He said that the next time he visited, he wanted to see that the weapons were all out and serviceable and ready to be used against other threats as well. We then inspected the "jail" which, as described earlier, was a room in the school next door. We all agreed that it was not a room that we would want to be locked in, as there was garbage and human feces on the dirt floor in the room. ¶16. (U) In a similar question and answer period to our visit in Kama, the police expressed concerns about the new pay card, and SGT Anderson again explained the concept and encouraged them to be patient and believe that the system would offer many benefits for the policemen and the country once fully operational. ¶17. (U) SGTs Anderson and Church conducted a Riot Control and Collapsible Baton training with this group, though only five of the 19 actually had batons. However, it was a lively session, enthusiastically received, as the sergeants demonstrated how to use the batons for crowd control, repeatedly emphasizing that they were defensive weapons, and not for any type of aggressive beating or hitting. ¶18. (U) Chief Dad insisted that we stay for lunch, and tried to take us inside his office, while serving our infantry protection team outside with the Humvees. SGT Anderson insisted that we would all eat outside, as it was important for unit cohesion that we not differentiate through unequal treatment. Chief Dan insisted that Afghan custom would not let him host the trainers outside, so eventually a compromise was reached and four soldiers were left outside with the Humvees and the rest crowded around the table in the Chief's office for a traditional meal of rice, bread, and chicken. ¶19. (U) Comment: These two visits show how much can be done to make a difference, even with limited resources. This simple survey and training, as well as the expression of interest and concern for the policemen and their work, is an excellent example of supporting all three lines of the PRT operation: enhancing security, extending the reach of the Afghan government, and promoting development (in this case, development of human capital). It especially demonstrated to these local policemen, who are working for very low pay in often harsh conditions, that both the Afghan government and international community do support what they are doing for their communities and their country.