Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Security Personnel Are to Be Better than Evil Forces of Terrorism

Due to the continuation of war and war-like situation in Afghanistan, there has been a degradation and breakdown in the culture of accountability and moral fields. A violent spirit was developed throughout the periods of war and conflict beginning with Soviet occupation of the country and now with the ongoing brutal Taliban insurgency.

Education and people's interactions with one another and across the country were deeply affected. After 9/11 events, the US-led international intervention in Afghanistan provided a new opportunity for Afghan people to begin to rebuild their country from the scratch in terms of political, administrative, social, cultural and economic aspects.

The war-like situation has both short and longer impacts. During the war, human rights and civil liberties are violated and abused. But the longer impact is the cultivation of an abusive and violent culture or at least the culture of irresponsibility and unaccountability towards one and another and the society itself.

In a post-conflict era, what is desperately needed is cultural restoration and uplift through which civility is promoted and people are driven by moral sense and internalize civil values and virtues. In order to fight the Taliban insurgency, the government with the backing of international community developed Local Police to protect communities in the country.

But now this force is accused of abuses. The Human Rights Watch in a new report released on Monday, September 12, 2011, has alleged that the Local Police, which was set up last year, was committing rights violations in Kunduz, Baghlan, Herat and Uruzgan provinces.

With the government failing to provide proper oversight, the US-backed force was accused of killings, rape, arbitrary detention, abductions, forcible land grabs and illegal raids. The number of this local police force is said to be about 7,000 members composed of armed residents supposed to protect their communities in areas where the regular national army and police have weak presence.

Human Rights Watch Asia Director Brad Adams has said, "Pressure to reduce international troop levels should not be at the expense of the rights of Afghans. Patronage links... allow supposedly pro-government militias to terrorize local communities and operate with impunity."

In the meanwhile, the report says that "Poor governance, corruption, human rights abuses and impunity for government-affiliated forces all are drivers of the insurgency and these issues need to be addressed if true stability is to come to Afghanistan."

It is to be said that in order to defeat the evil force of terrorist and hard-line militants, the government has to be a better alternative to those evils. If every inhumane thing is committed by those working in the framework of the government and security institutions, there will be no difference between them and the evil forces of terrorism.