A COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT – COMMUNITY POLICING
APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN
Stephen M. Sachs, “A Community Development – Community Policing approach to Afghanistan” IUPUI, February 19, 2009
I am very concerned that Afghanistan is about to turn into another quagmire, as it has done for centuries for outsiders who have intervened there, once they become conceived of by the population as invaders or occupiers. The Bush Administration’s terrible policies have caused the situation to deteriorate to such a point that a totally new approach is needed, if Afghanistan is to become a reasonably stable and developing nation. A traditional military, security, methodology cannot succeed. Only a community development – community policing approach can now be viable, for which there are some good precedents. What community organizing experienced President Obama should ask is, “what would the great community organizer Saul Alinsky do?”1
To understand the needs of the current situation, it is important to note that, from the outset, the Bush Administration moved in unfortunate directions. First it may have missed an opportunity to achieve its stated goals of acting against international terrorism by apprehending the leaders of the 9/11 attackers without military action, by failing to follow up on the Taliban government’s offer to have Bin Laden and his top associates tried in a neutral country. The Bush Whitehouse took no action to determine if this was a legitimate proposal that could produce a satisfactory resolution. It simply dismissed the offer, out of hand, and commenced its military operation.
What is now critical, is that after the initial invasion, the U.S. and NATO did not take adequate steps to allow recovery and development of the country to occur. This was a several fold problem that has deteriorated. First adequate security, to allow recovery and development to take place, has never been provided. Second, insufficient resources were provided for recovery, much less meaningful development, while some policies actually undermined the economic situation for many Afghans. For example, sending food aid from abroad, rather than buying as much as possible from Afghan farmers, undercut the country’s agricultural economy, leaving many local farmers little alternative than to grow opium. At the same time, the attempt to eradicate opium growing has largely made enemies of the poor growers. If the U.S. and NATO (or the Afghan government) had instead bought the crop, and helped farmers develop alternative agriculture, drug production reduction would have been much more effective, cost less, denied the Taliban a source of income, and by assisting Afghan people in their development, would have built support for the Afghan government and the international operation, rather than undermining it. Instead, support for the government has eroded significantly, accelerated by its growing corruptness.2
The failure to meaningfully facilitate recovery and development has destroyed support for the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai, and for the international security and development operation, giving the Taliban an opening to return, which has been made easier by lack of a sufficient policing force (including military forces). The increased fighting, particularly attacks on suspected Taliban facilities, have produced a growing number of civilian casualties that have done more to bring the Taliban new support than to weaken them. This has been especially true of long range attacks by drone and manned aircraft. A military approach based almost entirely on the stick is doomed to failure. To be successful, one has to emphasize the carrot, holding the stick in reserve for carefully selected protective action. Only thus can hope be created, which is critical for peacebuilding.
What is needed is in Afghanistan, and in most peace building – peace keeping situations, is a community development-community policing approach. The emphasis has to be on appropriate local development, according to the actual needs and conditions in each area, protected by a policing force working closely with each community. This is essentially a program of community empowerment, combining participatory local development, which because of its success has become the primary approach for UN development, and community policing, for which there are some good recent examples of troops undertaking in peace building situations. Both the development and the policing involve the outside agencies working closely with the communities, in as participatory a manner as fits the local culture, and in ways that are culturally appropriate, to assist local people in meeting their own needs, and facilitating their empowerment. It involves building relationships of mutual respect and trust between community members and their institutions, and the facilitating agencies.
On the development side, the emphasis would be on sustainable economic development over the long term, encompassing whatever social, institutional, infrastructure and appropriate technology advancement is necessary for community development, as defined by the local people. Of course, in those few cases where supporting area values or requests would violate international standards of basic human rights, the external agency would work with the local people to find ways of proceeding that they find acceptable, which are compatible with international standards.
It should be noted that a great deal of external assistance and consulting, across, and within, international borders has been of little value, and at times damaging, because it was either, or both, technically and/or culturally inappropriate for the on site conditions. This includes some major blunders in Afghanistan.3 It is essential that outside consultants or facilitators are open to working with differing circumstances and cultures, and acting collaboratively with the people concerned to move ahead in terms of their client’s wants and needs. Outside facilitators have to do their home work as to what will work technically in the circumstance and as to how best to function in the local culture. This involves careful choice and training of personnel. It may be helpful to bring in émigrés from the area. In the case of Afghanistan, there are many Afghans in the U.S. who, if carefully selected for a particular project, might be extremely helpful. In this author’s own community, for instance, a retired physician, born and brought up in Afghanistan, recently journeyed to his region of origin to work with local people to build a clinic, for which he had largely arranged the financing. Similarly, U.S. personnel often are not experienced in working with tribal cultures such as those in Afghanistan. As there are similarities in most tribal societies that bridge their cultural differences, assistance from American Indians, particularly from the many with international experience, could be most helpful.
On the policing side, the job of troops and police would be to protect wellbeing and development in their areas of jurisdiction. Experience shows that this requires a community policing approach.4 Security forces, operating in an area they do not know often, are not present where and when needed, and do not know who is who, and what the context of the situation is in which they are intervening. Thus, they often make serious mistakes, arresting or attacking innocent people. Acting as an occupying army, they turn the populace against them. Militant groups can than manipulate the situation to build support against the security force, and local people with grudges can act to get the police to harm their enemies, unjustly, widening fractures in the community. To be effective, police need to build relationships of trust within the community allowing them to act impartially and effectively to build and maintain the peace, empowering community development to advance.
Somalia, during the UN intervention of the early 1990s, provides an excellent indication of the relative advantage of peacekeeping forces taking a community policing approach.5 In the city of Baidoa, the initial peacekeeping force consisted of troops from Australia, who, with sufficient fire power to discourage attack by war lords, took a community policing attitude, establishing close working relations with traditional community leaders (elders) in the city. During this period foreign aid workers reported that the city remained peaceful and quite. After some time the Australians were replaced by regular French soldiers, who following a traditional “watchman” policing style, patrolled the streets almost entirely in vehicles, without establishing strong working relations with the local populace. Not knowing the local people, these forces were ineffective. When they responded to trouble, the lights of their approaching vehicles could be seen from blocks away, allowing perpetrators to flee. When they did arrive on the seen, these French troops often acted inappropriately, further alienating themselves from the community. That left openings for armed groups to function, and violence began to grow in the city. Later, French Legionaries replaced the regulars. As they employed a partial community policing style, but initiating far less in the way of cooperative relations with the local people than had the Australians, the level of violence dropped, but never dissipated to approach the very peaceful conditions attained by the Australians. Baidoa contrasts with the capitol city of Mogadishu, where U.S. forces taking a traditional military occupying approach to policing, and lacking needed support from armored vehicles, became in serious trouble, including suffering the terrible incident that lead to the end of U.S. involvement in Somalia.
The U.S. military mission to Kosovo also illustrated how military forces can be far more effective if they take a community development approach,6 The 2nd Platoon of Bravo Company of the first Battalion of the 77th Armored regiment, commanded by Lt. James Taumoepeau, were quickly very successful in ending strife between Albanians and Serbs in the village of Gornji Livoc, by working through creative problem solving, peacebuilding, and development facilitating. Prior to the unit’s arrival, the village was plagued by daily mortar and rile fire. That quickly ended, to be followed by a period of declining arguing and name calling between Serbs and Albanians, before a peaceful atmosphere came into being. The Lieutenant, and, to a lesser degree, his men, got to know the 1800 villagers personally, became familiar with their cultures, and directly helped them solve problems. When a Serbian farmer was angry that an Albanian neighbor would not rent him his harvester, to get the Serbs wheat crop in before it rotted, Taumoepeau arranged for a Serb from another village to make his equipment available. The Platoon members facilitated the resolving of disputes, and used their contacts to speed the delivery of badly needed food to all citizens, while applying for international assistance to improve the electric service. Taumoepeau also worked with the villagers to take on self-help projects, such as cleaning up the stream that ran through the municipality. Taumoepeau’s unusually effective reconciliation efforts became widely appreciated, even as far away as the Serbian capital of Belgrade, where the normally anti-American Newspaper, Politica, stated, “He took the UN mandate seriously; he is fair to the people in the village regardless of ethnicity, and wants to help both Serbs and Albanians.”
There are a number of caveats in properly applying community development policing. In focusing on developing good relations with local people and groups, it is very important to take care whom one supports, and how, in order not to create future divisiveness in the country as a whole, or to foster long term problems, for short term advantages. It must be remembered that the Taliban would probably never have come to power if the U.S. had not armed them to fight the Soviets, and then contributed to the country’s post war instability by failing to supply significant humanitarian and development aid.
Preparing police or troops for community policing, as with appropriate development, requires a suitable choice of personnel, and adequate orientation and education. This is a different kind of mission than U.S. military forces are generally trained for, and have experience in undertaking. The widespread implementation of teamwork for evaluating missions, and planning, currently undertaken by U.S. armed services, can help prepare U.S. troops for building collaborative relations with other’s, and the Kosovo example indicates that some in the military have the outlook and ability to work in that way. But to make a peace building approach effective, a considerable amount of retraining and informational support will be necessary.
While what is needed in Afghanistan is something in the way of an appropriate community development-community policing approach, there is a question of who is now able to undertake it. Support for the Karzai government and the U.S.-NATO operation has dropped significantly, to the point where nowhere in the country, including in the heart of the capital, is now safe. Lack of sufficient security forces is an element of the problem, and a properly oriented larger force might provide a shield for development and peace building to proceed. But it needs to be considered whether the U.S. and NATO still have enough potential to build support to be successful, or if they have generated sufficient enmity so that some other entity, such as the UN, or a regional coalition, needs to take the lead in Afghan restoration and development.
FOOTNOTES
1. For a background on Saul Alinsky and his approach to community organizing, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky, or http://www.itvs.org/democraticpromise/alinsky.html, or see his works, including Rules for Radicals (New York: vintage Edition Books, 1989); and Reveille for Radicals (New York: Random House, Inc. in 1969).
2. The solution to all these problems is not to replace Karzai. If the experience of Vietnam and other similar situations is relevant, continuing the old approach, while substituting a new national leader, has usually brought in someone worse, while the overall situation continues to deteriorate.
3. See Stephen M. Sachs and Deborah Esquibel Hunt, “Appropriate Consulting with Indian Nations: Facilitating Returning to the Wisdom of the People,” Proceedings of the 2000 American Political Science Association Meeting (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 2000).
4. In addition to the standard community policing literature, see, Stephen M. Sachs, “Los Angeles and Somalia: Community Service Policing and Community Empowerment,” The COPRED Peace Chronicle, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1994, reprinted from Nonviolent Change, Vol. VIII, No. 2-3, Winter-Spring 1994; Stephen M. Sachs, “A Kosovo Unit’s Success Shows the Value of a Community Policing Approach to Peace Keeping,” Nonviolent Change, Volume XIV. No. 1, Fall, 1999; Stephen M. Sachs, “Community Policing: A Key To Successful Peace Keeping and Building Peaceful Communities,” Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development (COPRED)-Peace Studies Association (PSA) Annual Meeting, 2000; and Stephen M. Sachs, “Community Policing: A Key To Successful Peace Keeping and Building Peaceful Communities,” Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development (COPRED)-Peace Studies Association (PSA) Annual Meeting, 2000. Relevant references to the community policing literature include, James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelly, “Making Neighborhoods Safe,” Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 263, No, 2, February 2989; Jack R. Greene and Stephen D. Mastrofskyi, eds., Crimes and Delinquency (New York: Praeger, 1988); Lee P. Brown, Community Policing: A Practical Guide for Police Officials (Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, 1989); Henry Goldstein, “Toward Community Orienmted Policing: Potential, Basic Requirements and Threshold Questions,” Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 33, PP. 6-30; Robert Trojanowicz and Bonnie Bucqeroux, Community Policing: A Contemporary Perspective (Cincinnati, 1990); Mark Harrison Moore, “Problem-solving and Community Policing,” in Tonry and Morris, Modern Policing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Ralph A. Weisheit, Edward L. Wells and David N. Falcone, “Community Policing in Small Towns in Rural America,” Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 40., October 1994, pp. 549-567; and Veronica Coleman, Walter C. Holton, Jr., Kristine Olson, Stephen Robinson, and Judith Stewart, “Using Knowledge and Teamwork To Reduce Crime,” National Institute of Justice Journal, No. 88, October 1999.
5. Sachs, “Los Angeles and Somalia.”
6. Melissa Eddy, Associated Press, “U.S. touch helps calm Kosovo village,” Indianapolis Star, September 5, 1999, p. A17; and Sachs, “A Kosovo Unit’s Success Shows the Value of a Community Policing Approach to Peace Keeping,”
