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### Viewing cable 06KABUL2862, PRT/KUNDUZ: NEW POLICE CHIEFS RAISE HOPES

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
06KABUL2862 | 2006-06-25 09:09 | 2011-01-23 19:07 | UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY | Embassy Kabul

`

    VZCZCXRO9749
    OO RUEHDBU RUEHIK RUEHYG
    DE RUEHBUL #2862/01 1760950
    ZNR UUUUU ZZH
    O 250950Z JUN 06
    FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1012
    INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE
    RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE
    RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
    RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
    RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
    RUEKJCS/OSD WASHDC
    RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC
    RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC//JF/UNMA//
    RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC//J3//
    RHMFISS/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
    RHMFISS/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL
    RUMICEA/JICCENT MACDILL AFB FL
    RHMFIUU/COMSOCCENT MACDILL AFB FL
    RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
    RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 2633
    RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 2783
    RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 6084
    RUEHUNV/USMISSION UNVIE VIENNA 1458

` `

    UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 KABUL 002862

    SIPDIS

    SENSITIVE
    SIPDIS
    RELEASABLE TO NATO/AUST/NZ/ISAF

    STATE FOR SCA/FO, SCA/A, S/CRS, SA/PAB, S/CT,
    EUR/RPM, INL
    STATE PASS TO USAID FOR AID/ANE, AID/DCHA/DG
    NSC FOR AHARRIMAN
    OSD FOR BREZINSKI
    CENTCOM FOR CG CFC-A, CG CJTF-76, POLAD

    E.O. 12958 N/A
    TAGS: PREL PGOV SNAR MARR AF
    SUBJECT: PRT/KUNDUZ: NEW POLICE CHIEFS RAISE HOPES
    FOR FUNDAMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS IN NORTHEAST

    KABUL 00002862 001.2 OF 005

    ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY. The new police chiefs in Kunduz,
    Baghlan and Takhar are well-educated, professional,
    career police officers who have risen through the
    ranks over the past 20 to 25 years, assiduously
    avoiding direct participation in partisan politics
    and earning a reputation for loyalty and integrity.
    This stands in stark contrast to the former
    mujahideen commanders they are replacing, who had no
    formal police training or experience before being
    appointed as police chiefs and who have abused their
    positions of authority to engage in a broad range of
    criminal activity. While there are great hopes for
    these new chiefs, some question whether they will
    have the power and local support necessary to be
    effective. There is also a concern that given their
    low salaries, the pervasive culture of corruption,
    and pressure from local warlords, it may only be a
    matter of time before they fall to the same
    temptations as their predecessors. END SUMMARY.

    WATERSHED APPOINTMENTS
    ------------------------------------------

    ¶2. (SBU) The new police chiefs in Kunduz, Baghlan
    and Takhar, appointed earlier this month as part of
    the ongoing pay and rank reform in the Afghan
    National Police, could not be more different from
    the old-guard, former mujahideen commanders they are
    replacing. The new chiefs -- Sayed Ahmad Sameh in
    Kunduz, Mohammad Ewaz in Baghlan and Mujtaba Patang
    in Takhar -- are well-educated, professional, career
    police officers, all of whom got their start during
    the Soviet-backed Karmal regime of the early 1980s.
    Sameh, Ewaz and Patang have slowly risen through the
    ranks over the past 20 to 25 years, assiduously
    avoiding direct participation in partisan politics
    and earning a reputation for loyalty and integrity.
    None of them fought in the jihad against the Soviets
    or the Taliban, but chose instead to keep their
    heads down and to work faithfully as police officers
    under whatever government existed at the time.

    ¶3. (SBU) This, of course, stands in stark contrast
    to the career path of their predecessors, Mutalib
    Beg (mostly recently police chief in Kunduz and
    before that, in Takhar) and Mir Alam (police chief
    in Baghlan). Both were major mujahideen commanders
    who had little higher education and no formal police
    training or experience before being appointed as
    police chiefs. Mir Alam had been commander of the
    54th AMF Division in Kunduz, while Mutalib Beg was a
    Takhar-based commander closely associated with his
    Uzbek compatriot General Dostum. But even after
    their appointments as police chiefs, both continued
    to act as mujahideen commanders rather than
    professional police officers, abusing their
    positions of authority to engage in a broad range of
    criminal activity, including extortion, bribery and
    drug trafficking. Their removal from power
    constitutes a major step forward in establishing
    rule of law in the northeast.

    OUT OF A JOB, BUT NOT OUT OF POWER
    --------------------------------------------- -------

    KABUL 00002862 002.2 OF 005

    -----

    ¶4. (SBU) One potential problem, however, is that
    while they are no longer police chiefs, they both
    still exercise significant power and influence in
    the region, and could frustrate the efforts of their
    successors to establish law and order. Alam, who
    has serious health problems, has moved back to
    Kunduz with no apparent immediate plans for the
    future. Already a wealthy man, Alam may ultimately
    choose to retire rather seeking another government
    position. On the other hand, Beg, who was escorted
    to his native Taloqan by a 100-car convoy after his
    June 6 replacement as police chief, clearly has
    ambitions for higher office. He claims he was
    already offered the governorship of Faryab province,
    but rejected it because it was too far away and he
    was not sure he would have the necessary public
    support there. He is clearly aiming for a
    governorship much closer to home. Of course, it
    would completely undermine the positive effect of
    having new, professional police chiefs in Kunduz and
    Takhar if Beg got his wish and was appointed to be
    governor of one of these two provinces.

    ¶5. (U) The following biographic information comes
    from extensive meetings that PRToff has had with the
    three police chiefs over the past two weeks.

    MOHAMMED EWAZ: NEW CHIEF IN BAGHLAN
    --------------------------------------------- -------
    -------------

    ¶6. (SBU) Mohammed Ewaz, 51, has spent the last two
    years serving as the commander of the Northeast
    Police Regional Training Center (RTC) in Kunduz.
    His American mentors at the RTC give him rave
    reviews for his leadership skills and integrity.
    Ewaz, an ethnic Tajik, was born and spent his
    formative years in Badakhshan, but attended high
    school in Kabul. He went on to study Afghan culture
    at Kabul University, eventually graduating with a
    diploma. He then worked as a high school teacher in
    Kabul for two years before deciding to pursue a
    career in law enforcement. He attended the police
    academy in Kabul for one year and was then assigned
    to Takhar police force, where he served in a variety
    of positions over a 20-year period, including
    battalion commander in Khwaja Ghar District along
    the border with Tajikistan; head of the information
    and culture section; chief of police in Rustaq
    District; chief of provincial police operations;
    chief of the political section; manager of
    personnel; and head of administration. His final
    position in the Takhar police department before
    moving to the Kunduz RTC was head of the criminal
    investigation section.

    ¶7. (SBU) Ewaz has had to endure a couple of short
    disruptions to his career as a police officer.
    When Najibullah was overthrown in 1992 and the
    mujahideen took over, Ewaz was jobless for a year
    until he could win the trust of the new government
    and get back into the Takhar police department.

    KABUL 00002862 003.2 OF 005

    Similarly, Ewaz found himself out of work when the
    Taliban briefly took control of Taloqan from the
    mujahideen in the late 1990's. When asked whether
    he had ever taken up arms against the Soviets or the
    Taliban, Ewaz protested that he could never have
    been a jihadist because he was an educated man.

    ¶8. (SBU) Ewaz had only been in his job for a week
    when he met PRToff, but already by that time, he had
    begun to end some of the more notorious corrupt
    practices of the Baghlan police. Ewaz noted, for
    example, that he had order police to stop collecting
    bribes at the three entrances into Puli Khumri. He
    admitted that this action had not been popular with
    police soldiers, who had been receiving a cut of the
    proceeds to augment their paltry salaries, but said
    it was necessary to win the trust and confidence of
    the local population.

    SAYED AHMAD SAMEH: NEW CHIEF IN KUNDUZ
    --------------------------------------------- -------
    -----------------

    ¶9. (SBU) Sayed Ahmad Sameh, 50, was born and raised
    in Samangan province. He studied electrical
    engineering at Kabul Polytechnic University for two
    years in the early 1980's, but had to give up his
    studies early and return to Samangan in order to
    work to support his family. He spent three years as
    teacher and clerk before first becoming a police
    soldier and then a year later, a police officer in
    Samangan. He worked in a variety of positions in
    the Samangan police department over the next 10
    years, eventually rising to chief of police.

    ¶10. (SBU) Sameh, an ethnic Uzbek, spent the Taliban
    period in Uzbekistan, but returned in late 2001 when
    the Northern Alliance liberated Samangan, and at the
    request of the provincial elders, re-assumed his
    position as chief of police. He was transferred to
    Sar-e-Pol in 2003, but he only stayed there only six
    months before returning to be the chief of police in
    Samangan. Sameh blamed his short tenure in Sar-e-
    Pol on the difficult security environment engendered
    by the lack of progress on Demobilization,
    Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) of former
    military members. Sameh was replaced as chief of
    police in Samangan in 2004 while he was in India
    receiving medical treatment for a heart ailment. He
    was essentially jobless from then until his
    appointment as the new chief of police for Kunduz.
    Sameh was not a jihadist, and while he knows General
    Dostum (and vice versa), he claims that the two are
    not political associates.

    ¶11. (SBU) Like Ewaz, Sameh has already moved to cut
    down on police corruption in the Kunduz police
    department, especially regarding the issuance of
    passports. Until now, a passport could take months
    to obtain unless one paid a $200 bribe. Sameh said
    he would like to fire some clearly unqualified and
    corrupt police officers, but has been told by MOI
    not to bother replacing anyone until after the next
    round of pay and rank reform is announced, which

    KABUL 00002862 004.2 OF 005

    should automatically remove many of these people.

    MUJTABA PATANG: NEW CHIEF IN TAKHAR
    --------------------------------------------- -------
    ----------

    ¶12. (SBU) Mujtaba Patang, 42, calls Logar home, but
    he was born and raised in Kabul, where his father
    worked as civil servant in the Ministry of Commerce.
    Patang, an ethnic Pashtun, got an early start on his
    law enforcement career, graduating from the police
    academy in Kabul when he was only 18 (the youngest
    in his year group). He worked several years in
    Mazar-e-Sharif, eventually rising to become a police
    battalion commander, before he was assigned to Kabul
    and the Ministry of Interior (MOI), where he has
    spent the bulk of his career. His assignments at
    MOI have included stints as commander of a 1,200-man
    police brigade and head of police training. Most
    recently, he was the director of liaison relations
    with Coalition and ISAF PRTs, responsible for
    supervising embedded MOI reps throughout the
    country. He was also a part-time professor at the
    police academy in Kabul, teaching two or three hours
    per day.

    ¶13. (SBU) After the fall of Najibullah and the
    takeover by the mujahideen, Patang had to accept a
    lower rank than before, but he was able to continue
    working as a police officer. However, during three
    years of the Taliban period, he did not have a
    position. Like Ewaz and Sameh, he never fought as a
    jihadist.

    ¶14. (SBU) In his first 10 days in office as police
    chief in Takhar, Patang has replaced key officers in
    the criminal investigation section, which is the
    most prone to bribery, and has asked local
    dignitaries from around the province to report to
    him any district police chiefs who are corrupt
    and/or engaged in illegal activities. He has moved
    to improve service to the public by extending the
    opening hours of the police HQ (before it was open
    only in the mornings) and by carrying out night
    police patrols throughout Taloqan and the
    surrounding area. He has set up complaint boxes
    around the city and says that he will open the boxes
    and read the complaints himself.

    FLAWED POLICE REFORM
    --------------------

    ¶15. (SBU) While all three police chiefs see their
    own appointments as evidence that police reform is
    progressing (I did not pay anyone to get this
    position, Ewaz said proudly), they are nonetheless
    critical of the list of 86 police generals approved
    by Karzai. Sameh estimated that about 35 percent
    of the officers on the list did not deserve their
    appointments. Patang agreed that the number of
    unqualified officers on the list was far higher than
    the 13 highlighted by some in the international
    community. An ethnic Pashtun, Patang complained
    that he had scored high enough on his police exam to

    KABUL 00002862 005.2 OF 005

    be a three-star general, but had been bumped down to
    a one-star position because of a perceived need to
    maintain ethnic balance and to keep certain former
    mujahideen commanders in place, notwithstanding
    their lack of qualifications. He said that the
    general officer selections should have been based
    solely on merit, without any consideration of
    ethnicity. (Embassy comment: Although the
    Selection Board process for senior police officers
    has in fact been transparent and merit-based (with
    the exception of the 13 mentioned above), Ewaz's
    skepticism reflects a broad public distrust of the
    central government's announced plans for civil
    service reform. It also plays into an abiding
    suspicion of ethnic bias, something that is deeply
    felt by members of all major ethnic communities.
    End embassy comment.)

    ¶16. (SBU) Patang was clearly disappointed to have
    landed the Takhar job, which he viewed as a demotion
    after his last position in the MOI, where he
    supervised 16 other general officers. He was hoping
    to be assigned as the chief of the border guards (a
    three-star position), the chief of the education
    section at MOI (a two-star position) or as the chief
    of police in Mazar-e-Sharif (a province he already
    knows well from his early career). The day before
    the official announcement, Patang said he was told
    he would be the chief of police in Kunduz, but for
    some still-mysterious reason, his assignment was
    changed overnight to Takhar.

    COMMENT: CAUTIOUS HOPES
    -----------------------

    ¶17. (SBU) There are great hopes that these three
    new chiefs of police, who are bringing a wealth of
    education and experience to their positions, will
    prove far more competent and less corrupt than the
    old guard they are replacing. But the question
    remains whether these new chiefs, who are unfamiliar
    with the provinces to which they have been assigned,
    will have the power and local support necessary to
    be effective. There is also a concern that given
    their low salaries, the pervasive culture of
    corruption, and pressure from local warlords, it may
    only be a matter of time before they fall to the
    same temptations as their predecessors. The
    international community needs to actively support
    them so that they can be a force for fundamental
    change in their respective provinces.

    NEUMANN

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