Interview with Polish commander in Afstan

A view from eastern Afstan:

Selected adjusted extracts from the interview with BRIG-GEN Jerzy Biziewski, a commander of Polish Military Contingent, a deputy commander of RC-East, Afghanistan

[Note: Below he refers to Super Shura - an annual meeting of local authorities and tribal leaders, which took place at the end of January 2008. 600 people participated. - MZ]

Our patrols go to villages not only with weapons; they mostly go out with humanitarian aid - which is very much appreciated by the locals. We are not here just to shoot at people; we are here to support people. And we work on it in several dimensions: security, government and the development.

ANA
How ANA is doing in our province? They are great people. I know personally COL Maluk, a commander of the 2nd Brigade of Afghan National Army; we have met several times. He and his people are very devoted to their nation. They are doing better and better every week. Obviously the Americans and we, the Poles, provide assistance to them - with our expertise and our troops. But ANA carries its own operations in our province, coordinating with us. So, they actually represent a new quality in Afghan army - they not only learn from us, they operate independently with our assistance.

CIMIC
About humanitarian aid and development? I'd like to clearly spell out the difference between CIMIC (civil-military cooperation) and development. The former is a part of security activity - patrols, convoys - with CIMIC teams attached to the operational force to help the people and convince them that we are there not to destroy their village but to support them.

To give you some examples: during the last three months our doctors and medics have helped more than 2,400 Afghan patients - doing medical examination, carrying simple procedures and distributing drugs. We have distributed 30 metric tons of food to remote areas - distanced several hours of drive from a nearest town. In some cases they had nothing left to eat. We have also distributed 3000 pairs of shoes and boots, 1500 blankets, 100 portable coal heaters - that sort of stuff.

CERP
Quite different is an economical development strategy, funded by Commander's Emergency Response Program, CERP. The biggest portion of this fund is an American one. Every commander at certain level has his own money to respond very quickly to requirements of local population. For example, in the last three months the Polish Battle group - working with our American friends and their money - has spent about $35,000 US on small projects - small bridges, medical supplies, 14 tents for schools in lieu of classrooms. Almost $130,000 US funds have been allocated to other CERP projects: water pipes, wells, drainage ditches, solar lights, power generators, or even wheat seed to make sure that they have some grain left to sow in the spring time.

And we have provided school supplies, school books, farming tools. And mind you - all those projects have been carried in God forsaken places - Wazi Khwa, Yala Khel, mountain villages - places forgotten by other people and humanitarian organizations.

Polish funded projects
And there are also purely Polish projects: 4000 student kits with writing utensils, sachets, pencils, notebooks; 800-1500 of desks, blackboards, and chairs for the schools. Medical equipment, furniture and supplies for Sharana and Wazi Khwa hospitals - beds, mattresses, bed clothes, screens, nanometers, thermometers, drugs, bandages - this sort of stuff. Altogether, we have delivered this kind of assistance worth about $500,000 US during the last three month, mostly at remote villages.

We have some pay back in return of course for all this good work because we have established very good contacts with local people this way.

How to stop Taliban recruitment of youngsters?
There are some remote places in Dila and Kushamond that are the terrorist havens; where it is very dangerous to go, even with weapons. Yesterday I talked with several elders from that regions about the Taliban recruitment issue. They asked for some assistance for schools there, so the youngsters would no go out to madrases in Pakistan, where they are being indoctrinated by Taliban.

From my own perspective, the key for success in this field is to have close ties with local population, as close as possible - with those elders, with mullahs; to educate people, to assist them with the basic needs. They don't require much; they're just asking for little - just to survive within their community. They said that if we help them with it this will be very appreciated.

Request for Polish civilian aid and governmental involvement
There is a false image of Afghanistan operations back home. From my perspective, this is not a pure military operation, it is - or at least it should be - an operation responding to the needs of local civilian population in Paktika province.

I would ask for more assistance on the civilian side of the operation. I very much missed some kind of support from various Polish ministries - industry, health care, rural development. That kind of specialists, would provide very valuable contribution to the whole operation - if they came here with some resources. I would expect small teams of experts from various ministries coming here to evaluate the needs of local population [emphasis added - MC].

Things that we are doing now locally deserve the support of the entire nation, like Poland: ditches, irrigation system, drainage systems, solar lights, power generators. The real requirements are there - for example, no power stations exist in entire Paktika province.

Health care system needs a lot of support. To you give an example how dramatic the things are here: there is only one female doctor, a gynecologist, for, say, at least 150,000 potential female patients. [Total population of Paktika is 350,000 - MZ]

Some Polish humanitarian organizations have asked me, as the commander of this area, for protection for their planned humanitarian activity among villagers this Spring. I was very happy to hear about it. One of them is a medical foundation. I expect to see seven or eight people coming this Spring.
This is the kind of stuff we really need here.

We do not need military with tanks, military with weapons. We need the civilian support here. And with those forces we already have we can provide safety and security for those civilian forces coming here to support the civilian population.

The expectation of the local population?
I already said what they expect. In addition, they also asked for animals, just to buy some farm animals for stock recovery which they lost during winter time. They do not need much - five, ten heads per family. These are the kind of requirements that they need.

We discussed a lot about the security issues during the Super Shura. They have assured me that my soldiers and I will always be safe in their villages. And I believe them because we have received similar reassurances one month ago from certain areas and there have not been a single combat contact in those areas as yet. So they can be trusted - they keep their promisses.

The elders from those very dangerous areas - Dila and Kushamond - have been asking me, very surprisingly, for establishment of police force and the district centres in those districts. There used to be police outlets established by our American friends, but have been abandoned since due to great danger.

So it is a very good sign that they are asking again to re-establish those districts - a good sign that they are waiting for us to go there. They would like to be protected from caliphs, from Taleban.

They also ask for the roads because in Paktika province there are almost no roads, aside from few main roads built by the American engineers. They ask for a road from Sharana to Wazi Khwa - this is actually a planned American project. They ask for roads to Wazi Khwa and Kushamond. They really ask for very simple things, which are beyond their own capability.

They also ask for longer opening hours of hospitals - Waza Khwa and Sharana, the only two hospitals in the province. You can imagine what kind of crowd is there every day. Loosely based on a transcript of the video tele-conference Bagram-Brussels, http://www.nato.int/isaf/media/video/2008/index.html
Some style and grammar adjustments and abbreviations by MZ