BELGIUM STILL CONSIDERING POLICE TRAINERS FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRUSSELS 000625 SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/WE, EUR/RPM AND SCA/A E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/29/2019 TAGS: PTER PGOV PREL EAID NATO AF BE SUBJECT: BELGIUM STILL CONSIDERING POLICE TRAINERS FOR AFGHANISTAN Classified By: Political Economic Counselor Richard Eason, reason 1.4(b ) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: The Belgian government at the cabinet level is interested in providing police trainers to Afghanistan in cooperation with the UE or NATO. However, it is running into internal opposition by the Belgian Federal Police, which would have to provide the officers to staff such a mission. The opposition is based on lack of security for Belgian officers who might be stationed there and on resistance to putting civil police under military control. The Embassy will be looking for opportunities to persuade the Federal Police to join in the EUPOL or the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A). End Summary. ¶2. (C) On April 29, Poloff met with Karl Van den Bossche, Diplomatic Advisor to Belgian Minister of Interior Guy Van Padt. Poloff recalled the April 3 decision of the Cabinet of Ministers which, in addition to increasing Belgium's military and civilian development assistance to Afghanistan, said that the GOB would use the time between April and July to consider sending police trainers and participating in a second provincial reconstruction team. Van den Bossche said that the Ministry of Interior has been and continues to be supportive of sending a training mission to Afghanistan. He said that it was extremely unlikely that Belgium could do so bilaterally, but that participation in the EU-led EUPOL-Afghanistan mission is a possibility. Belgium has no police trainers in Afghanistan now, but does have them in Kosovo, Palestine and Georgia in the context of EU missions to those places. Poloff mentioned the standing up of the NTM-A police training mission in NATO as another possibility for cooperation. ¶3. (C) So far, the only source of personnel for such missions is the Federal Judicial Police, a subset of the Belgian Federal Police. Van den Bossche explained the restructuring of the Belgian police several years ago, which eliminated the para-military gendarmerie and created two elements, the Federal Police and the local police. The local police are under the control of the mayors of the communes and provide the traditional "cop on the beat" services. The federal police focus on serious crimes, especially organized transnational and trans-regional (i.e., crossing the borders of the three Belgian regions) crime. The restructuring took place after a scandal over police failures in investigating a ring of pedophiles exposed a serious lack of cooperation between the gendarmerie and the civil police. He remarked that that effort to cure the vertical "stovepiping" of the police had unfortunately created a sort of horizontal stovepiping of the federal and local constabularies. Therefore, he said, it would be somewhat difficult to do an end run around the Federal Police and recruit local police for foreign missions. In any event, according to Van den Bossche, their competencies in local policing do not correspond to the skill set that EUPOL is seeking. ¶4. (C) Belgium has several criteria for participation of its civil police in foreign operations. The security situation in the area must be stable. The operation cannot be under military command. The Belgian contribution must add value to Belgium's security. The latter has traditionally meant intelligence gathering and a role in combating drug trafficking or terrorism directed at Belgium. Van den Bossche said that the head of the Belgian Federal Police, Fernand Koekelberg, has been reluctant to engage the Belgian police in Afghanistan because of a perceived lack of security and the preponderant role of the military there. Despite considerable arm-twisting in March by the Minister of Defense, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Interior, the government was not able to overcome Koekelberg's opposition in time to include a police training element in the cabinet's April 3 decision. ¶5. (C) The government is aware that other European countries are participating in EUPOL-Afghanistan despite the risks identified by Koekelberg, and is still trying to "massage" the Federal Police into joining in. Van den Bossche said that his minister and the government want Koekelberg and the Federal Police to be brought fully on board so that they will participate whole-heartedly and without reservation. He added that the change of administration in the United States and the new consultative approach it has brought to foreign policy (for example, the recent meeting between the Vice President and Prime Minister Van Rompuy) has encouraged a responsive and helpful attitude in the GOB on this issue. He said that he and the Minister of Interior would have no objection to U.S. Embassy efforts to convince Koekelberg, so long as they were coordinated with the Ministry. Poloff said that we would look for opportunities to discuss the idea of police trainers with Koekelberg and his staff, and that visits by high-level Department of Justice officials might offer attractive opportunities to broach the subject as well. He added that there must be several young police officers who would be eager to work for a time in Afghanistan and could use it as a good opportunity for advancement. Such officers would be a constituency for involvement that could help influence Koekelberg. Moreover, he said, given the number of Muslims in the Belgian population, there must be Muslim police officers at lower levels of the force who could be ery effective working in Afghanistan. Van den Bssche found these ideas interesting. ¶6. (C Comment: According to Van den Bossche, most ofthe government outside the Federal Police woud like to contribute to police training inAfghanistan. Van Den Bossche was very helpfuland interested in cooperating with the United States. We will be looking for ways to work with him to encourage a new approach to the idea by the Federal Police. This could involve approaching the Federal Police to convince it of the utility of the mission and to answer its concerns about security of participants and military control of the mission. .