Kabul "Think Tank on Policing"

This week I attended a three day "Think Tank" sponsored by the Canadian Embassy. The meeting took place at the Serena Hotel located in downtown Kabul. The event took place over three days and included international policing experts and of course our Afghan partners.

The conference was held at the Serena Hotel which is part of an international chain and is very modern and where most westerners stay when they come to Kabul. I wanted to take some photo's of the inside, however they are extremely sensitive to photo's being taken as they suffered an attack several months ago. Insurgents breached the exterior and started shooting people inside before they were killed by security guards. I did manage to grab a couple of pictures of the street right outside the hotel (after I had cleared it with the security manager). The street was extremely quite as the police had basically shut it down for the conference.

The intent of the conference was to discuss the challenges of building a police force in a conflict situation. Trying to address the challenges of fighting an insurgency while at the same time building a police force that responds to the communities requirements for policing...policing with the community. Additional challenges include "quality versus quantity" of the Afghan National Police. Do you spend more time training the ANP recruits, or do you shorten the training to allow for more recruits? There is an incredible demand for police officers, however the current ones are poorly trained and require leaders....

The picture of the folks sitting at the table includes Dr. Markus Ritter who is wearing the tan uniform. Markus is the Commander of the German Police Project team (GPPT) and also heads up our Senior Police Advisory Board (SPAG). He is a great guy and has provided us with the occasional meal of Schnitzel.

In two of the pictures you can see Supt Konrad Shourie who is part of our contingent and is the Senior Police Advisor to MGen Beare. MGen Beare is responsible for all the police training in Afghanistan and Konrad has an extremely demanding job trying to keep up to the pace of the military and the General's advisors. The military plans, then plans again and then does another plan.

It was a very interesting three days with a lot more questions being posed than answered. It always intrigues me that there are many, many more folks who can tell you what not to do, but far fewer who will actually roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty doing the actual work.