Key Village Approach: Introducing collegiality in Dand District

By Captain J.P. Séguin

I am sitting in a comfy chair in a conference room at the Dand District Centre. To my right is my trusted language assistant, without whom I would accomplish nothing, and to my left is another close associate, the Dand District Leader. Smiling as always, he checks the room from his office, waiting patiently for all the meeting participants to arrive. I sip my third cup of tea and tell myself that the Afghans have learned many things from us, but punctuality is definitely not one of them.

Dand District is one of the areas where my unit, the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (KPRT), is introducing the “Key Village Approach” to counter-insurgency operations. The idea is to secure and stabilize the villages near Kandahar City to make them better places to live, and much less accessible to the insurgents who use them as staging areas for operations in Kandahar City. The Key Village Approach requires close co-operation with Afghans of every level, from security forces and community leaders to just plain folks, so this meeting is very important.

A few days ago, the officer commanding one of the KPRT’s “Stabilization Companies” suggested that the elements of the Afghan national security forces, especially the Afghan Uniformed Police (AUP) and the Afghan National Army (ANA), should mount joint patrols with their ISAF mentors. These joint patrols already appear to function very well, as the usually lax AUP seem to stand straighter when put beside their ANA cousins. (Whoever said peer pressure was a bad thing?) Now the Afghans are coming together to discuss forming a Joint District Coordination Centre or JDCC. That the Afghans have gone so far as to demand a place to centralize operations and pool and share resources is, in itself, a great advancement. This level of collegiality is rarely seen; even in Canada there is no joint command of law enforcement agencies and the armed forces.

With the arrival of the last participants, casual talk ends and the meeting can commence. The chairman is a charismatic and very organized senior ANA officer whose booming voice commands respect, and all present listen intently. After his introductory speech, the language assistants get busy around the room, translating from Pashto to both English and Dari (the Afghan form of Persian), as the ANA officers at the table speak about as much of the Khandaris’ language as I do. As the discussion goes on, it is clear that the Afghans are enthusiastic about a JDCC in Dand, and several organizations are willing to commit people, resources and even indoor space to ensure that a JDCC actually gets built and staffed.

At the end of the meeting, it is clear that more co-ordination and decision-making must be done before the project can get under way. Nevertheless, the participants indicate positive feelings as they get up from their chairs.

I am the host of this meeting, so I have made preparations for lunch. What no one else knows is that I expected a much bigger crowd, so there is plenty of food. In the very sociable Pashto culture, any event that involves lots of good food to be eaten in good company automatically becomes a celebration, and across Afghanistan people believe there is nothing better than a fruitful meeting followed by a party. Consequently, the international crowd around the table in the conference room celebrates the first steps toward the security forces’ new joint effort, brought about through the Key Village Approach.

Capt J.P. Séguin is a Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) Team Leader with the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team.