The more they stay the same...or you hear about the same issues everywhere you go. Today I took what may be my last trip to a district center in AFG for meetings with the DGOV, NDS, judges, prosecutors, and other line managers. The meetings went the same as they did 6 months ago. We drank chai, I asked a bazillion questions, there were plastic flowers, we had lunch (I think my stomach is stronger 6 months later...), we drank more chai. All in a day's work.
At the end though I met a judge from a new district. I had heard about the judge and actually organized a rather large training event that took place in his district a couple months ago. I sat down next to him and began to talk. Now Afghan interaction with CF women varies a great deal. Most I have found will shake my hand. Some will not. He was the first that I have met that would not even look at me. Needless to say the conversation ended up being rather brief. We did discuss the public trials in his district though because I acknowledged that only his district and the two others I work in throughout the entire province have regularly held public trials. He said they do not have that many cases. I asked if this is because there isn't that much crime in the district or because the investigations do not come to the prosecutor's office. He said there are indeed many criminal complaints and investigations but they are resolved by the AUP or DGOV without being referred to the prosecutor's office. I asked why some cases make it to the prosecutor's office and some do not. Not surprisingly, it's a matter of influence -- those who have influence through either their family connections, village elders, or presumably bribes are able to have cases disposed of without reaching the formal judicial system.
I mention this because it was the first conversation I have had with this judge and even though I am able to report on "good news" fairly regularly through my chain of command, I'm not sure that it matters how many public trials are being held if at the end of the day entry into and access to the justice system is not equal for everyone.
There is no doubt that AFG is going through a transition phase right now -- transition for the CF that is. I'm sure in AFG it feels like nothing but constant change with all of the informal and formal government systems they have had in the last 30 years, the rapid influx of American and coalition forces and dollars, and to Afghans the just as rapid change in how those forces are deployed and dollars spent ("on budget" is the new catchphrase). In some ways I don't fault them for the dysfunction of their government. When CF were throwing money at the problem 6 months ago and are now expressing frustration at their inability to submit peshnehads from the district to the provincial, well who likes rapid changes in the rules of the game?
There really is a point...and it is this. The catch phrase "Afghan problems require Afghan solutions" isn't just a catch phrase. At the end of the day, no matter how long we are here, Afghans will solve the "problems" they view as "problems," and whatever else CF or international watchers view as "problems" that don't really bother Afghans...well there probably isn't going to be a whole lot of movement no matter how much time, money, and blood is invested.
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