This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 000258 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SA/FO, S/CT, SA/A, S/CR, EUR/RPM 
NSC FOR AHARRIMAN, KAMEND 
REL NATO/AUST/NZ/ISAF 
CENTCOM FOR POLAD, CG CFA-A, CG CJTF-76 
USAID FOR AID/ANE, AID/DCHA/DG 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/16/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KDEM PHUM SOCI AF
SUBJECT: PRT/BAMYAN: POOR FACILITIES, CORRUPTION PLAGUE 
BAMYAN LAW ENFORCEMENT (PART 1 OF 2) 
 
REF: A. A) 06 KABUL 0025 (OPIUM BURN) 
     ¶B. B) 05 KABUL 5268 (BAMYAN DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE) 
     ¶C. C) 05 KABUL 4905 (ANP/GOVERNOR TENSION) 
     ¶D. D) 05 KABUL 5078 (COAL SMUGGLING CONCERNS) 
 
Classified By: CHARGE D'AFFAIRES, A.I. RICHARD NORLAND FOR REASONS 1.4 
(B) AND (D) 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: The law enforcement organs in Bamyan are on 
life support.  Poorly paid, equipped, and trained police do 
little to counter lawlessness in the Central Highlands. 
Police and prosecution corruption exacerbates and undermines 
the people's already shaky faith in Central Government 
authority.  Law enforcement's misadventures surrounding the 
recent opium seizure and burn highlight the gaps in Bamyan's 
law enforcement capacity.  This is the first cable in a 
two-part series on Bamyan's beleaguered law enforcement 
apparatus.  END SUMMARY. 
 
Diminishing Order and No Law 
---------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) While Bamyan Province is widely known for its 
relatively stable security environment, its stability exists 
in spite of, rather than because of, police and law 
enforcement efforts in the province.  Police do little to 
prevent or control crime, as Chief of Police (COP) Wahadat 
has admitted privately to PRTOff on several occasions.  The 
situation appears even worse when it comes to prosecution of 
suspects.  Of the 71 cases referred to the Chief Prosecutor's 
office by the ANP in 2005, only 19 have gone to trial thus 
far.  In one burglary case, the suspect has been held for 
three years without any charges being filed. 
 
Limited Equipment, Resources, Personnel, and Training 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) The ANP and Chief Prosecutor's office are not in a 
position to improve the current security environment.  ANP 
Deputy COP Col. Abdul Malik agreed that the ANP is poorly 
trained, poorly equipped, and poorly run.  As proof of the 
ANP's many deficiencies, Malik pointed to three incidents in 
the past few months in which unarmed individuals disarmed and 
assaulted ANP officers: "We cannot even protect ourselves, 
much less Bamyan's people." 
 
¶4. (U) ANP officers in Bamyan work with limited resources. 
Police stations are uniformly in a state of disrepair, 
lacking power, communications, or running water.  The Chief 
Prosecutor has relocated since his previous office collapsed; 
his new officer also lacks power, water, and communications 
equipment.  (NOTE: The PRT has provided some equipment, and 
will build more permanent infrastructure for the ANP in the 
coming construction season (septel) END NOTE.)  The ANP's 
vehicles (somewhere between 16 and 90, according to different 
ANP officials), except for the new Toyota pickups donated by 
the PRT, are in poor repair.  The ANP gets an annual 
maintenance budget of USD 750 for its entire provincial 
vehicle fleet.  Fuel supplies are also meager.  MOI provides 
Bamyan ANP 5 liters of duel per day (we believe this means 5 
liters per vehicle per day), which Malik admitted goes 
primarily to the officer corps.  The police do not maintain 
any emergency response vehicles in their fleet.  The Chief 
Prosecutor's office has no vehicles. 
 
¶5. (U) ANP recruits receive little or no training before 
beginning their work, and little pay when they do.  A handful 
of police (mainly officers) have been sent to Kabul for 
training, but most begin work with little understanding of 
their ANP responsibilities.  Chief Prosecutor Azizullah 
Hadafmand's own staff - consisting of seven prosecutors in 
Bamyan plus one in each district, along with 10 
administrative personnel - have also received little formal 
instruction in their responsibilities. 
 
Corruption Undermines What Little Capacity Exists 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶6. (SBU) Police and prosecutors, paid extremely low wages, 
are easy targets for corruption.  With entry-level police 
earning 800 Afghanis (approx. USD 16) per month, and even the 
Chief Prosecutor's salary capped at 2000 Afs (approx. USD 40) 
per month, it is not surprising that soldiers and prosecutors 
are unwilling/unable to maintain the peace in Bamyan. 
(COMMENT: By way of comparison, PRT interpreters earn USD 
500/month. END COMMENT)  Furthermore, the police forces 
rarely receive their full 800 Afs salary, as the ANP 
leadership in Bamyan appears to extort money from its own 
employees.  Yakawlang District COP Hussein cheerfully 
admitted to us that he withholds 30 percent of his men's 
salaries: "We have to pay baksheesh (bribes) to Kabul for 
them to release uniforms, heating fuel, food, you name it. 
Of course I take their money!"  ANP COP Wahadat echoes these 
points, downplaying his officers' illegal activity as a cost 
of doing business. (ref C) 
 
¶7. (S) Wahadat and Malik may be the ringleaders of ANP 
corruption in Bamyan.  We believe COP Wahadat is involved in 
drug and artifact smuggling through Bamyan (ref C), and that 
Deputy COP Malik "taxes" coal trucks, diverting coal away 
from Bamyan to other destinations, namely Kabul, for a fee. 
(ref D)  As Wahadat admitted to us, "of course we (the ANP) 
are corrupt.  We have no salaries, we have no income.  ANP 
officers need their cut to survive."  Wahadat predicted that 
if you "pay officers a living wage, and stop top-level 
(national-level) corruption, it will disappear." (ref C) 
 
¶8. (S) Chief Prosecutor Hadafmand likewise is widely believed 
to accept bribes in return for failing to prosecute 
individuals, although we have no hard evidence of this. 
Given his low salary and the number of cases referred to his 
office versus the number of cases tried, it appears 
plausible.  In fairness, Hadafmand's office does not have the 
independence it needs to conduct investigations and 
prosecutions in a fair and impartial manner.  It is likely 
that politically powerful persons within the province exert 
undue pressure on the Chief Prosecutor's office concerning 
certain investigations.  We know that even Governor Sarabi 
(whom we do not consider to be corrupt) has exerted pressure 
on the Chief Prosecutor's office at least once to release an 
arrested individual.  (It is unclear what the present status 
of this individual is.) 
 
Case in Point: Bungled Opium Burn 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) The recent situation surrounding the burning of 1.9 
tons of opium highlights the gaps in law enforcement's 
capacity to preserve law and order.  Bamyan police claimed "a 
major victory against crime" when it arrested three suspects 
attempting to remove a 1.9 ton opium cache from its hiding 
place in caves near Bamyan City. (ref A)  Police were lucky 
enough to find the suspects again five days after they evaded 
the police at a checkpoint in Yakawlang District. 
Counternarcotics officials in Kabul, the Governor, and press 
witnessed the PRT weigh, transport, and burn the opium in 
plain view behind the PRT's concertina wire outer perimeter 
on December 28. (ref A) 
 
¶10. (SBU) Subsequent events, however, cast a pall on this 
"victory."  Ministry for Counternarcotics officer Mohibullah 
Loodin regretfully informed PRTOff on December 29 that the 
three suspects were no longer in custody, disappearing 
sometime after arrest but before incarceration at the Bamyan 
prison.  Further, according to Loodin's sources, the opium 
cache originally contained over three tons of opium when the 
ANP found it.  Loodin promised that MOI would send 
investigators from Kabul to delve into the missing drugs and 
disappearing suspects. 
 
COMMENT: Where to Begin? 
------------------------ 
 
¶11. (SBU) Bamyan has a relatively permissive security 
environment, but that security is fragile.  For the 
environment to stabilize independent of Coalition/PRT 
presence, the law enforcement apparatus in Bamyan must 
develop both the capacity and the will to enforce law and 
order in an even-handed, transparent, and effective manner. 
This is not likely to occur at lower levels until it occurs 
at the top, and a continuing lack of resources makes this 
transformation unlikely in the near future. 
 
NORLAND