The army and police in Uruzgan hate each other. Four innocent civilians were killed last month in clashes between solders and policemen sparked by nothing at all. Soldiers have now been withdrawn from the provincial capital. “The two forces are due to be in sole charge of security in parts of Uruzgan within a few months,” warns General Mark van Uhm in an interview with Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

There was loud gunfire in the centre of Tarin Kowt. It was the final day of the Eid festival, but there wasn’t much to celebrate. A number of corpses lay on the streets of Uruzgan’s provincial capital. They appear to have been innocent civilians. The atmosphere was tense: this was another clash between the police and the army and had resulted in yet more Afghan deaths.

How is this going to end? The Netherlands is trying to strengthen both the army and the police but is becoming increasingly frustrated. Since March, there have been regular incidents involving the two services which are supposed to be Uruzgan’s success story and even the success story of Afghanistan as a whole.

Following the Eid shooting, Uruzgan made national news for 24 hours in Afghanistan. The government in Kabul understands that the escalating situation is not good for the image of the army and police training programme. A senior delegation has been sent to Tarin Kowt to investigate.

Missing film
Not much has come of the investigation into the Tarin Kowt shooting. It was confused after officers brought in shopkeepers whose only offence appeared to be that they had spoken negatively about the police. Generals and police chiefs were invited to the Dutch military base a number of times to explain what was going on. Not much was learned. When the Dutch authorities asked to see the interviews carried out with witnesses on the street, the film had gone missing.

Meanwhile, Mathiullah Khan who controls the road between Kandahar and Tarin Kowt and heads a large private army fills the region’s security vacuum. Even though the Dutch authorities refuse to deal with him, Uruzgan’s interim governor has asked for his help. The two men are relatives.

Stone the Dutch
People on the streets of Tarin Kowt all know why the police and the army are enemies. “The soldiers are from outside Uruzgan: there’s bad blood between them,” screams a little boy in the bazaar. Osmani, who lives on the road to Deh Rawod, fills us in: “We don’t know the soldiers. They are far too hard. If children or old men with white beards throw stones, they shoot back. We now know that it’s better to stone the Dutch soldiers: at least they know they have to restrain themselves.”

Uruzgan’s army commander Hamid says even the imam makes things worse by during his sermons accusing the army of being made up of unbelievers (kefur). “Do you know who’s corrupt? The police. When the Dutch forces wanted to distribute food for the poor from the governor’s compound, it went missing. The police refused to investigate.”

Corruption
“We like the police,” Osmani shouts. “They know us. They know who we are.” The boys in blue have an advantage at Tarin Kowt’s market: they are from Uruzgan, everyone knows them. However, that also makes them vulnerable to bribery and other forms of corruption. People under arrest can often be released within hours thanks to the intervention of someone in the family.

Be that as it may, the army has now been excluded from Tarin Kowt, causing consternation in the governor’s compound. The governor is said to be unwilling to come back from Kabul, where he’s been staying for weeks in an attempt to secure his job for the future. Hamid says the United Nations is also shocked. “The UN is seriously thinking of leaving. They don’t trust the corrupt police.”

In the end, the interim governor has chosen a typical Afghan solution which the UN will also be able to accept. A group of Uzbek police officers will man the watchtowers of the compound. The hope is that enemy intruders will not be able simply to bribe local policemen (or their relatives) to open the gates and let them in.