ANP Headquarters

There are a lot of different government entities in Afghanistan that are trying to get projects started/completed/approved.  Just like in the States, we don’t always know what the other person is doing and it occasionally causes conflicts.  Two government bodies not knowing what the other is doing is one thing, throw in the culture of how things are done in Afghanistan and you have a whole new dynamic.

I have an Afghan National Police Headquarters that I’m building in a district near the FOB.  I get a call from a Civil Affairs person at a nearby COP and he tells me that I’m building my well on some land that the Sub-Governor promised them in the District Center.  That’s interesting, considering the Corps has also met with the Sub-Governor and arranged to build the ANP HQ there. 

We arrange to meet with the Nevada Agricultural Development team to look at the plans they had approved for the District Center.  It appears that I’m building a HQ building on top of their apricot and cherry orchards (or that they want to build it under my building) and both of us have permission from the Sub-Governor to do this.  After trying to resolve the situation we discover that the ANP Chief and the Sub-Governor are both aware of what’s going on, but the ANP Chief doesn’t want to give up his HQ building with walls and towers and the Sub-Governor doesn’t want to give the ANP Chief all the land and apparent power. 

After discussing with Civil Affairs possible compromises we get a sit-down with the ANP Chief.  Four of us (the Civil Affair CPT, the MAJ in charge of helping to train the ANP, the PM and myself) are ushered in to the Chief’s office by his bodyguards to find he is in a meeting aligning himself with the ANA of another province.  After 30 minutes of discussing possible locations for the HQ building (in which the main topic of discussion was how much land he was going to get and the number of towers along his wall) the Mayor and Sub-Governor come in.  Negotiations start all over.  From the body language it looked like the Sub-Governor was trying to appease his head strong son (maybe he was?). 

Eventually the PM and I had to leave to make our ride back to FOB Shank.  The ANP Chief walked us out to the COP and made it clear where he wanted his walls.  After much hand shaking and a picture we were off.  I later found out that they continued to meet for another 2 hours and………………….accomplished nothing.  However, after talking to the Civil Affairs person today, he seems resigned that I’m going to get my building where it is and he is going to have to move his orchards.  If the ANP chief gets his walls, I might have a friend for life!!!!!!!