Interview with US-led coalition civil military coordination centre

Following a series of attacks on UN and NGO aid workers in the south and east of the country, the US-led coalition in Kabul said it planned to set up more bases to provide security, reconstruction and aid in different parts of the country - particularly in the southern and eastern provinces, which are plagued by Taliban attacks. Such attacks have forced the UN and other aid groups to withdraw from some regions, thereby undermining aid delivery and confidence in the reconstruction efforts of the US-backed government ahead of elections slated for June. In an interview with IRIN, Colonel Darrel Branhagen, director of the US-led coalition civil military coordination centre in Kabul, said more civil military forces in the shape of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) were to be deployed in the troubled provinces of the country by June 2004. QUESTION: How would you foresee PRT operations in 2004 given that there are still insecure areas where aid organisations cannot go because of the threat of attacks? ANSWER: Very clearly with the new command [PRTs' new headquarters was established in early December in Kabul] here, there has been a change of focus. The new command here is very clearly emphasising the role of reconstruction over and above military operations that we have been conducting in the past. And that is different in different parts of the country. Some parts of the country are a lot more secure than others. Some parts need more reconstruction activities, while some parts of the country need more security activities. Afghanistan is not just one homogenous state. It differs from place to place. A new emphasis and accelerated emphasis on reconstruction and security is the basis for increased reconstructive activities of the main actors who are involved in reconstruction of the Afghan economy and the Afghan government. Q: Why didn't you start with the most insecure areas where aid agencies had pulled out or had suspended operations and where the need is greatest? A: If you look where PRTs are being set up they are being set up in the east and south like Khowst, Asadabad, Ghazni. All those are new PRTs that have been set up for the future. There is an emphasis on certain areas of the country and there is also an emphasis that there is a balance within the country as well. Because there are different problems in different parts of the country, we are trying to do a balance and not go to just the south and east or just go to north. There is going to be some balance as the country cannot be pulled forward just one region at a time, but the whole country should be pulled forward. All PRTs are going to see increases of funding no matter where they are. You will see more efforts perhaps in the east and south but we will not pull out of the north. There are, in the planning now, at least three or four more PRTs by June [2004]. There is further planning for an extension of PRTs throughout Afghanistan. Our Ambassador stated we would like to see PRTs in every province of Afghanistan. Now, if that were going to happen, we would have a lot of resource constraints. Troops and the amount of logistics and support we can bring to an area is dependent on our resources. But at this time, movement towards security and reconstruction, there is clearly going to be more emphasis on more PRTs. Q: It's been a year since the PRTs have been deployed to some provinces of Afghanistan but still insecurity remains a major source of concern outside Kabul. What has been the major impact of the PRTs in the last twelve months? A: The most useful thing that the PRTs have done is establish very close contact with the government in those areas where the PRTs are. That isn't really shown by the reports in the media as much because it is a very quiet kind of thing. The projects that have been done by PRTs are not there for the main reconstruction of Afghanistan. [We try] to accomplish projects that will maximise our contact with the local government and the local people so that we can have increased interaction with the local population. We believe that it will create security to a large extent because how we interact with the people shows that we are extenuating the reach of the government, not just a particular project that a PRT does. The projects that we do are primarily to enhance the government's reach and to bring the government more closely to the people in more competent ways. The PRTs are really a temporary vehicle for security because in the near future, that will have to be the responsibility of the Afghan government. Eventually, PRTs are going to be passed along to the Afghan government to operate. Q: How many PRT teams have been deployed outside Kabul so far? A: There are eight PRTs that are officially running [Mazar-e-Sharif, Konduz, Parwan, Gardez, Bamyan, Kandahar, Herat, Jalalabad] and another three planned to be deployed in Khowst, Ghazni and Asadabad [Konar province] in the near future. Konduz is run by Germans; New Zealand runs the Bamyan PRT, and the British run the Mazar-e-Sharif operation. The rest are all US-led PRTs with numerous coalition personnel. Q: How do you deal with the challenges on the ground with regard to the limited number of forces in PRT teams? A: Each PRT is tailored to the area where it is located. If it is a particularly hazardous area, we expect to have more force protection teams. If it is an area where we need more reconstruction, we will probably have more civilians to help in the reconstruction. They vary from a low range of perhaps fifty person-PRT teams to as many as two hundred to three hundred people as in Konduz [under the Germans]. The mission is the same and the same mission parameters exist for all. There are a lot of different ways to approach insecurity. In some of the same ways, we get pushed out to do certain projects in areas where the local reconstruction community cannot go. Q: How do you coordinate with the aid agencies on the field? A: There is an integral part for every PRT: the Civil Military Operation Centre or CMOC. That CMOC serves specific functions for the coordination of aid agencies and PRTs in the area. And one of the functions of the CMOC is to make sure that our projects don't interfere or can build upon the projects of other agencies. Specifically we go to places that they cannot go, and that is an ideal situation for us. It is also good to have very good relations with the international community in any PRT area because if we know what they are doing and how they are doing it, we can at least provide some degree of presence patrolling and kind of general security over the projects that they are doing. It is in our interest that the reconstruction of Afghanistan occurs, and that is mainly done by the outside coalition agencies. Q: Some NGOs have not been happy with the PRT concept saying it was mixing military with aid activities and questioned their neutrality. A: The NGOs have made their choice already in terms of what they want to do in this country. They have chosen to help the reconstruction of not just the economy, but the government itself and that choice is going to be made by each organisation by themselves and those choices result in the same objective. Our ultimate objective is a stable, peaceful and hopefully more prosperous people of Afghanistan. The NGOs and international organisations and military, coalition, ISAF, seem to me all [having] the same objective. Because we have the same objectives - whether we work together or not - we are going to be working for the same objective irregardless of what coordination happens between those groups. No one here wants to work in an insecure environment. No one here wants to see the Afghan population with the kind of economy that it has now. Everyone wants to see an increase in stability, an increase in prosperity, and just because we have the same objectives, we are going to be seen as marching together regardless of what the NGOs or the military want or don't want. Both parties are looking at doing the same thing for the same good reasons but they are not conflicting. They add to each other and they combine with each other, and that is good. Q: What have been the greatest challenge for PRTs on the ground so far? A: The challenge here is that this is a difficult complex country and there are no easy answers. The answers are much harder than they were in Bosnia in Kosovo. It is very difficult here. And the problems in the south and east are not the problems of north and west - there are different kinds of problems. Political problems are different and there are massive changes happening. The new constitution is a massive thing, a very momentous thing and also very complex. This is not a very easy country to come in and learn and do something. You have to be here for a while and have to wait and start to understand. It takes a long period of time before one can even operate in this complex country. It has been a joy but it has been a challenge. Q: How big is the average PRT project? A: Our projects are small and should remain small, and the projects that we assist other people [aid agencies] do, are very large. But the PRTs are really enablers of other entities. It is not a doer of reconstruction - it is an enabler of reconstruction.