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The World’s Ben Gilbert has been embedded with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan. The division has been at the front lines of the battle against the Taliban north of Kandahar. Today, Ben reports on attempts by the Americans to bring order to areas that had lacked stability. Download MP3
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JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. The Arghandab district of Afghanistan is a key part of the NATO strategy to bring security and government services to population centers. The district lies to the north of Kandahar City and is a breadbasket of the region, rich with pomegranate groves and grape fields. But only half the area is considered stable. The World’s Ben Gilbert recently visited Arghandab, and explores the attempt to install a governing structure there.
BEN GILBERT: When Christopher Harich arrived as the US State Department Officer at Arghandab District Center early this year, living conditions were grim. American and Afghan soldiers lived in a building that was supposed to be the district government headquarters.
CHRISTOPHER HARICH: You’d wake up and a few people would come to talk to the district governor during a day. And they would mostly be her to gripe and complain about what the Americans were doing in the battlefield, and damage and detainees and things of that nature. There wasn’t anything much towards, where do you want to go as far as governance.
GILBERT: An American Stryker battalion was based at the district center at the time. They were pounded by the insurgency, and were soon replaced by paratroopers from the 82nd airborne. The 82nd set up a separate headquarters and living area for their troops to give the Afghan government more space. And a new Afghan district leader emerged, Haji Abdul Jabbar. Harich was assigned as his mentor.
HARICH: He took the district a long way. He was critical in trying to unify the district back together again, crossing the tribal boundaries, going out there, talking to people, hearing their issues. He was very much in favor of what we were doing and what we were trying to accomplish.
GILBERT: But in June, Hajji Jabbar was assassinated as he drove home from Arghandab to his house in Kandahar City. The assassination was a serious blow on the cusp of NATO’s Kandahar operation, of which Arghandab is a key part. The Taliban are believed to control half of the rural, densely vegetated Arghandab district. At the district center, there are weekly shuras, or gatherings, of village elders, to discuss local issues. Despite some progress, the number one issue in the district continues to be security. Men gather in the concrete halls on most work days. Some are here to push for development projects in their villages. Others have come to get a passport. Many show up hoping to free family members who have been detained by the police, the Americans or the Afghan army. A man who gave his name as Mohammad says his brother was detained eight days ago.
PASHTO SPEAKING
GILBERT: “My brother was harvesting wheat when the police came over and captured him for no reason,” Mohammad says. “Now I’m here to find out why. I’m sure they took him just to get a bribe. If I don’t pay money then I won’t be able to free him.” Mohammad says Arghandab’s residents are stuck between the government and the Taliban. He says on the west side of the river, the insecure side, the Taliban detains people. And on this side, the east side of the river, the police detain people. Mohammad expects he’ll have to pay about $300 dollars to get his brother out.
PASHTO SPEAKING
GILBERT: “From my point of view the Taliban is better than the government because the people who are under the influence of the Taliban, they are more secure, and no one is intimidated,” Mohammad says. “But the places under the control of the police are insecure and the police scare people.” But corruption benefits the Taliban as well. American officers and officials here say it’s not unusual for suspected insurgents to be freed by the police before ever seeing a courtroom. Sergeant Aaron Carr is an intel analyst with the 82nd airborne. He says there are suspicions the Arghandab police chief has released prisoners early.
AARON CARR: I’ve had my suspicions. A couple of guys got let go just because. Well, he was important enough to bring in, but not to actually prosecute, so why? And only reason that that could happen is there’s something else going on under the table. They’re pretty good about hiding it.
GILBERT: Hajji Ismari, the police chief, denies he or his men have ever taken bribes. So, in an attempt to bring order to this type of uncertainty, the Americans are making it a priority to create a functioning judicial system in Arghandab. That means improving the dilapidated courthouse that sits near the district center on the US base. Pigeons fly from what is supposed to be a jail cell at the courthouse. The Afghan guards store their motorbikes in what was intended to be the courtroom. There is some evidence of progress though. In the front entrance, a US Army criminal investigator named Shawn Burke shows the Afghan corrections officer how to take the fingerprints of one of the six prisoners being held here on drug charges. Burke is part of a “rule of law” team the Americans have assembled in Arghandab to help establish a judicial system. Two Navy attorneys also arrived here in June to train the prosecutor. The State Department’s Christopher Harich says a big problem is that the local judge rarely makes it out from Kandahar City.
HARICH: One of our goals is to say, look, get out of Kandahar city, come down to the districts where you need to work, and let’s work here rather than holing up in Kandahar city. That’s one of the challenges we’re faced with.
GILBERT: Harich says real success here will be when the villages are secure enough to select their own representatives, and when those elders feel safe enough to be in the district center. For the World, I’m Ben Gilbert at the Arghandab District Center, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.
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