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WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 11, 2008) - Coalition trainers and
mentors are making progress turning around corrupt police forces in
southern Afghanistan, a military official said.
Afghan National Police forces have an "awful reputation" in many
communities for practices such as shaking people down and selling
weapons to criminals, Army Col. John Cuddy, commander of Regional
Police Advisory Command South, told online journalists and bloggers
in a teleconference July 9.
"We're trying to teach them [and] show them what's best for
their country and the people of Afghanistan," Cuddy said. "What's
best for them doesn't involve corruption on a daily basis," he
added.
Cuddy, who has been in Afghanistan for three months, oversees
all U.S. military transition teams in the southern region of the
country. The main concentration now, he said, is the focused
district development program to train, mentor and equip Afghan
National Police forces.
"This program is being executed across the country," he said,
"but for us in the south, I think it's a larger undertaking."
The training aspect of the focused district development program,
Cuddy explained, removes Afghan police forces from their district
for eight weeks of instruction at the regional training center in
the city of Kandahar. The district police are replaced during the
eight-week period by the Afghan Civil Order Police, "who are a
highly trained, effective police force," he said.
Cuddy said local populations tend to welcome the substitution of
the Afghan Civil Order Police, due to district police forces'
reputation for corruption. "Anecdotally, we have heard that the
local population says. 'We love the ANCOP; don't take them away,'
you know. These are the good police."
However, Cuddy said, his teams are getting positive feedback
from the local citizens when the district police return to their
communities after the eight-week training cycle. "We're getting
feedback that, 'Hey, this is really working. They're more
professional. They're not stealing from us. They're not shaking us
down on the road,'" the colonel said.
So far, almost 800 Afghan police in the southern region have
completed the focused district development training, Cuddy
said.
"The police are learning a lot of human-rights training [and]
ethical training," he explained, "and for the first time, some of
these guys are getting what it is to be a police officer -- what it
is to serve and protect. We're seeing the Afghans come to the
police with their concerns more, providing tips of where the
Taliban are, [and] where their weapons caches are."
Acceptance by the local citizens is crucial to winning the
counterinsurgency in southern Afghanistan, Cuddy said, because the
fight truly is to win over the population.
"The people are the front line of this battle," Cuddy explained.
"If we can get them to trust in the government and trust in the
police, I think we'll come a long way in winning this
counterinsurgency."
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