By Rachel Morarjee
Financial Times, 12 June 2006
A shake-up of Afghanistan’s top police chiefs has dealt a blow to the entire force’s reform and reintroduced poorly qualified and corrupt officials to senior posts, western officials say.
Hamid Karzai, the president, approved a list of 86 senior police officers earlier this week but side-stepped the recommendations of a police reform committee and ignored the results of an examination designed to rank officers according to merit.
“I don’t think it is beneficial to the professionalisation of the police,” said Tom Koenigs, the special representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in Afghanistan.
At the last minute 11 men who had not passed the examinations were added to the list of appointments by the president, replacing better qualified candidates.
“It means the bankruptcy of our investment in this country. The west has spent billions on the reform of the police and army but everything is up to the whims of a president who doesn’t feel strong enough to challenge the old guard,” said another western official in Kabul, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The 11th hour changes brought in two men who are barely literate, another who was thrown off the ballot of the September legislative elections for his links with armed groups, and others known to have links with the drugs trade or poor records on human rights.
With the state of the police force in the spotlight following this month’s riots in Kabul – in which some policemen shed their uniforms to join the looters as violence spiralled – the new appointments sent a poor signal for prospects of further reform.
The frustrations of ordinary Afghans “go with an unprofessional if not corrupt police and government officials who don’t perform as they should. This is not reform, it is more of the same, and all the problems we have had with the police will continue and frustration will grow,” said Mr Koenigs.
Zarar Ahmad Moqbil, interior minister, said earlier this week that police commanders who had fought in the jihad against the Russians had “a right” to be in the police.
He added that the 11 people who had not passed their police exams would be appointed for a probationary period. “There will be an evaluation period of four months and we can see those who don’t perform adequately,” he said.
Across southern Afghanistan, where Nato will take command in coming weeks, and in parts of the east, where US-led soldiers continue to battle the Taliban, appointments have been in line with professional criteria.
Ronald E. Neumann, US ambassador, said earlier this week the new police line-up had removed a number of individuals who deserved to be dismissed.
However, in the north and west, the changes to the line-up are likely to be destabilising, western diplomats said.
-----------------------------
Citation: Rachel Morarjee. "Diplomats claim Afghan appointments mark setback," Financial Times, 12 June 2006.
Original URL: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e6152b9c-fa24-11da-b7ff-0000779e2340.html
-----------------------------