No Time to Lose - Oxfam

Conclusion
States have been pouring money into Afghanistan for nearly a decade.
For four years in a row, ISAF has been the largest UN-mandated military
operation in the world, with total troop numbers in 2010 exceeding
the combined global total of all UN peacekeeping operations. 123
The US alone has spent $336bn on the war since 2001. 124 But serious
efforts to strengthen the professionalism and accountability of the national
security forces only really began in 2009, and even then, the
shift from an exclusive focus on force generation was slow to take effect.
As acknowledged by NTM-A/CSTC-A, ‘before November 2009
there … [was] a singular focus on quantity, recruitment and assignment
of soldiers and police with little or no training, paying them less
than a living wage, and an inability to properly develop leaders’. 125
Today some 86 per cent of recruits are illiterate, 126 and the majority of
the population regard the police in particular as ineffective, corrupt
and abusive. Civilian casualties – likely to escalate as the ANSF assume
increasing responsibility for combat operations – are not systematically
tracked, analysed, investigated or compensated by the
government. Vetting systems allow individuals with appalling histories
of human rights abuses to slip through the cracks. The UN and
human rights groups have documented a series of alleged violations
of international human rights and humanitarian law on the part of the
ANSF, including night raids carried out without adequate precautions
to protect civilians, mistreatment of detainees, extra-judicial killing,
and the recruitment and sexual abuse of children. But accountability
is seriously lacking.
The past couple of years have seen a number of positive developments.
The development of codes of conduct, commitments made by
the MoI in the National Police Strategy to improve accountability, the
office of the police ombudsman, the revision of police training to include
a greater focus on community-based policing, the establishment
of the ANA legal school and a legal training program for the ANP,
and structural changes in the military justice system, are all steps in
the right direction. But there is a long way to go if the security forces
that from July this year will gradually assume responsibility for the
protection of the population are to be expected to do so in a manner
that is competent, professional and accountable both to the law and to
Afghan civilians.
As troop-contributing states prepare for a phased withdrawal of international
forces in the lead up to transition, the need for appropriate
structures to enhance the accountability of the national security forces
is a moral, legal and political imperative. It’s not too late; but what is
required is genuine political commitment at the highest levels of civilian
and military leadership, both Afghan and international, to build
national security forces that Afghans can trust.
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