NGO sceptical on extension of peacekeeping force beyond Kabul

An agreement reportedly reached between the Afghan government and NATO earlier in the week to extend the mandate of peacekeeping forces beyond the Afghan capital, Kabul, was greeted with scepticism by an official from the NGO sector on Thursday. "We assess this change predominantly in the light of upcoming changes to the Provincial Reconstruction Team [PRT] plan, rather than the international community having found sufficient political will meaningfully to address the highly complex security situation that has developed, largely as a result of inaction in the past," Barbara Stapleton, advocacy and policy coordinator for the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, told IRIN from Kabul. NATO, created in 1949 to protect Western Europe from the Soviet Union, took over peacekeeping duties from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in August. The ISAF was installed in Kabul shortly after the hardline Taliban regime was ousted by a US-led coalition in November 2001, but its sphere of action was restricted primarily to the capital and parts of neighbouring provinces, leaving the rest of the country open to dominance by warring warlords with well-armed militias, and to attacks by remnants of the Taliban in its restive south. "The security situation is now far worse than it was following ISAF," Stapleton maintained, referring to calls made by the Afghan government and the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan urging the UN Security Council to allow ISAF's mandate to extend its role beyond the capital in order to stabilise other key areas as had been achieved in Kabul. "Despite repeated calls, we were not listened to," she said, adding that NGO staff, who had been targeted in two fatal attacks in September alone, were aware of the extremely complex and often interrelated causes of violence in Afghanistan, which include inter-tribal and inter-factional fighting, narcotics and terrorism. Four PRTs were now on site in Gardez, Konduz, Bamiyan and Mazar-e Sharif, with another five scheduled to start working in Herat, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Parvan and Ghazni by the beginning of next year, Stapleton said. "Each PRT numbers approximately 100 personnel, although the Konduz PRT under German leadership reportedly will be bigger," she said, noting, however, that they did not appear to have been mandated or resourced sufficiently to impact significantly on security or reconstruction. The focus of the PRTs, until the setting up of one in Mazar-e Sharif under British supervision, had been on a limited number of relatively minor reconstruction projects such as schools, clinics and wells, all of which could easily have been done by NGOs, Stapleton stressed. "The PRT approach is an incremental one, requiring time. The sharp deterioration in security, particularly in the south and southeast of the country, militates against the PRT approach," she argued, pointing out that national and international NGOs had been forced to curtail or even stop projects because of growing insecurity. "There are no indications that internationally mandated peacekeeping forces will be introduced to alter the equation, which revolves around a coalition war-fighting presence in the south and southeast of the country," she said, pointing out that PRTs, with just enough forces to protect themselves, would be unable to provide security to either NGOs or the Afghans. Effective measures were needed immediately if the downward spiral of insecurity was to be halted, Stapleton stressed. "Any moves to address security must take into account the complex relationship between the varying causes of violence," she added.