ANP & ANA

ANP & ANA.

To me they’re just acronyms (in fact, pronounced out loud, the ANP reminds me of the A&P grocery chain where I grew up!).

But to the mission, they’re critical.

They are the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army. And they are the people who will take over the security of this country when (if?) ISAF leaves (Dutch troops are scheduled to leave in 2010, though there’s a lot of pressure on the Netherlands to stay longer).

So we were curious when we heard that the ANP were being trained here on the base in Tarin Kowt… and thought we’d go take a look.

The training centre consists of a very, very, very bumpy access road, a guarded entrance, a large, square, sandy “parade ground” (for lack of a better word – it looked like a couple of beach volleyball courts attached together), and a row of small, plain buildings for classes, all surrounded by a stone wall.

When we arrived, the men were just starting their morning roll call and marching exercises.

I’ll be honest, they’re not much to look at.

About 25% of them don’t have uniforms yet and they show up in everything from the traditional long tunic over loose pants with a turban to regular sweatpants and a button-down shirt.

Of the 75% that do have uniforms, well, the level of “uniformity” varies quite a bit.

The uniforms tend to be a little big around the waist so they’re bunched up and cinched tightly with a belt, often with a large bulge underneath where the shirts are tucked in but not smoothed flat. On top of that, the men tend to wear their pants very high on their waists, giving a confused impression of old homeless men wearing matching clothes.

A lot of them have boots, but many seem to prefer sandals or even loafers. Without socks. Fashionable it is not. But worse, I can’t imagine the blisters you’d get wearing those shoes in this heat without any socks!

They were obviously so proud and so earnest and trying so hard… which makes it a little hard to criticize… but let’s be honest, to Western eyes, they were a bit of a ragtag bunch.

And then they started marching.

Their coordination was, well, verging on non-existent. Their arms didn’t match their legs and their legs often didn’t match each other. Many of them stepped with a dramatic (Russian?) straight leg (almost like they were kicking forward rather than lifting their knees) and were often out of step with each other or with the commander (I’ll give them credit for trying though… I tried to walk this way and almost landed on my rear!).

It was, in a way, heartbreaking to see them try so hard and fall so far short of what I know a trained force can look like.

But, even in the 30 minutes we watched, they were already improving… and, as this was just their first day, they still have 8 whole weeks to go.

After watching the marching and sitting through a short class, we spoke to Hans, a brigadier in the Dutch police force and one of the men who had volunteered to come here and train the ANP.

I won’t repeat all of what he said (you can listen to the interview yourself here) but a couple of things that really surprised me were:

- The guys don’t know how old they are
- They use opium as a pain-killer, for example if they have a toothache
- They have to be taught to use toilet paper instead of rocks (ouch!)
- They don’t have any concept of what a criminal or a victim is before this training
- They always say yes, even when they have no idea what you’re talking about

You can listen here to the entire interview with Brigadier Hans.

And below are lots of pictures that Michel took - click on the pictures to see a larger version.

Enjoy!