Canadian Consortium on Human Security

Christopher Spearin

Human security is front and centre in the recently released report of the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan. From one standpoint, the report presents counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations directly against Al Qaeda and the Taliban as inherently human security-centric given the modus operandi and past practices of these organizations. Similarly, these organizations directly target a nascent Afghan government that aims to, as it develops, better ensure the personal security and prosperity of all Afghans. From another standpoint, the report links the promotion of human security to Afghanistan’s government so that in its own right it becomes viewed by the entire populace as legitimate, credible, capable, and uncorrupt. From both these perspectives, as the report makes clear, qualitative and quantitative improvements in the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP) are determinative for the country’s future and for Ottawa reducing Canada’s military presence.

The report does not cover, however, the substantial presence of private security companies (PSCs). At 28,000 strong, PSC personnel are collectively larger than any troop contributions from the 39 states operating in Afghanistan, save the United States. What is more, how these firms are currently employed, managed, and sourced present significant challenges to the promotion of human security, security sector reform, and central government control. The goal of this article, therefore, is to make plain the impact of PSCs in Afghanistan and to build upon the Manley report by offering some human security-centric recommendations.

Indigenous Impact

Though the PSC industry is often seen as having a “foreign character”, as many as 20,000 Afghans work for the estimated 90 firms in-country [i]. While these PSC personnel conduct a variety of tasks, protective duties are the most common [ii]. This covers static protection for compounds and buildings, mobile protection for convoys, and personal protection details for clients ranging from states (Canada included) to international organizations to NGOs. These firms are filling a vacuum because troop contributing countries are stretched thinly across the country as they conduct their counterinsurgency and counterterrorist operations. In addition, the ANA and the ANP are not yet ready to take on all the necessary security responsibilities. Essentially, these PSCs are meant to assist others who promote human security in that they make the international presence possible. Without international actors, reconstruction, development, and increased governmental control would be severely hampered.

Regardless of these benefits, there may be several negative implications of these private actors, particularly in the context of promoting human security alongside increasing governmental legitimacy and capacity. First, while hiring Afghans may help contribute to the local economy and seemingly keep many militia members occupied and working in a constructive manner, these individuals have largely bypassed disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) efforts. Indeed, the hiring of militia members virtually en masse, with their estimated 44,000 weapons, is described as “expedient” despite government efforts to disarm the various nonstate armed organizations in Afghanistan [iii].

Second, the current actions of some of these Afghan personnel serve to undermine the promotion of human security and perhaps the international presence itself. PSC personnel have been linked to acts of intimidation against Afghan civilians and crimes such as bank robbery. Similarly, the International Crisis Group has identified PSC personnel as perpetrators of other crimes such as drug trafficking [iv]. Due to these transgressions, it is troubling that many Afghans conflate PSCs with intervening military forces while others make no distinction between Afghan PSC personnel and ANA and ANP officers [v]. This undercuts the positive efforts of all these actors. Likewise, other Afghans make no temporal distinction between the past activities of militias and PSC work, with the exception that today these individuals have a quasi-legal status which ironically is used to flout the law [vi].

Third, the industry’s existence on this scale may serve to compromise the development of the ANA and ANP, organizations upon which the Afghan government is dependent and many capitals, Ottawa included, are placing their hopes. At present, desertion is still a problem in both forces and in the ANP officers are dying at rates 24 times higher than in the ANA, a particularly troubling statistic. These trends are sustained by the attractiveness of private work; remuneration rates in PSCs are at least double those in the public sector. In this vein, NATO officials are concerned that PSCs provide a financial incentive for recently trained Afghan security sector personnel to quit and take up private work [vii].

Finally, the bypassing of DDR efforts means that several warlords and other power brokers have been able to maintain access to their fighters because they have negotiated deals with PSCs or become part-owners themselves. In many cases, these individuals are regime insiders working as government ministers, officials, and members of parliament. This corrodes the government’s ability to effectively manage violence and visibly undervalues the embryonic ANA and ANP.

Recommendations

It is unlikely that PSCs can be removed from the Afghan landscape overnight because they are still needed. As the Harper government is currently discovering, negotiating even a marginal augmentation of NATO manpower in Afghanistan is a daunting task. Also, while the Afghan government initiated a crackdown on PSCs in late 2007, it also recognized that removing PSCs was a “long-term process” due to security sector deficiencies and the security needs of international actors in Afghanistan [viii].  Presented below, therefore, are recommendations so that human security is better promoted, international efforts are more beneficial, and government capacity and legitimacy are further enhanced.

1. Security Sector Pay and Benefits.  Efforts should be made to ensure that security sector salaries are both fair in their own right and that pay and benefits, when taken together, are competitive with what is offered through PSC employment. Additionally, given that security sector remuneration is often not prompt and subject to “skimming” by commanders, better management and control is critical. In this regard, Canada should work with other interested parties to overcome roadblocks encountered by the United Nations’ Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan.

2. Ministry of the Interior.  Though the aforementioned crackdown led by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) is welcome against rogue firms, it is apparent that some targeted firms have been relatively benign. Instead, recent reports suggest that certain PSCs are targeted either to solicit bribes or to close down firms that are seen as competitors to firms linked to regime insiders [ix].  International pressure directed to reduce the level of corruption in the MOI is therefore necessary, especially since this ministry would likely be involved in regulating the PSC industry.

3. Regulation.   While Canada, amongst other countries, has provided assistance in the development of PSC regulation, no laws have been forthcoming since the process started in 2005. Greater urgency in the finalization of regulation is required to ensure PSCs contribute towards human security and that regime insiders are not involved in the industry.

4. Demobilization and Disarmament.  Effective regulation would grant the Afghan government a greater understanding of who works for PSCs and what they are doing. Such information would be helpful in managing the industry’s reduction to a more modest size as the capabilities and capacity of the ANA and ANP increase. With the right incentives and conditions in place, the DDR initiatives many PSC personnel and their warlord masters were initially able to avoid could eventually be implemented.

5. ANA and ANP Training.  Given the salience of non-combat roles in many NATO capitals and amongst some Canadian politicians, an increased emphasis (with the appropriate manpower) on security sector training may be possible. Such training would hopefully allow for the ANA and ANP to relieve PSCs of some of their current tasks and become more prominent, effective, and responsible state institutions in the minds of Afghans.

[i] The remaining employees are either from developed world countries like the United States and the United Kingdom or are “Third Country Nationals” from countries such as Fiji, Nepal, and South Africa.

[ii] Other tasks include humanitarian demining, security sector reform, and support for elections.

[iii] Lisa Rimli and Susanne Schmeidl, Private Security Companies and Local Populations: An exploratory study of Afghanistan and Angola. Swiss Peace, November 2007, p. 17, p. 21.

[iv] “Afghanistan: Getting Disarmament Back on Track,” International Crisis Group, Asia Briefing No. 35, 23 February 2005, p. 8; Anthony Lloyd, “Crime-buster in an Armani suit takes on private armies of Kabul,” Times, 31 October 2007, p. 31.

[v] Rimli and Schmeidl, Private Security Companies, p. 28.

[vi] Aunohita Mojumdar, “Nobody guarding Afghanistan's guards,” Asia Times, 21 November 2007, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IK21Df01.html; “Afghan Article Asks Why Government Tolerates Private Security Companies,” BBC Monitoring South Asia, 7 October 2007.

[vii] Rimli and Schmeidl, Private Security Companies, p. 39. For more on the ANP, see “Reforming Afghanistan’s Police,” International Crisis Group, Asia Report No. 138, 30 August 2007; Andrew Wilder, Cops or Robbers? The Struggle to Reform the Afghan National Police. Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, July 2007.

[viii] “Government Acts After Afghan Media Spotlight Security Firms,” BBC Monitoring South Asia, 24 November 2007.

[ix] Fariba Nawa, “The Gunmen of Kabul,” CorpWatch, 21 December 2007, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14863.