Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [263]
But when I met Asif again in July 2009, his mood had improved considerably.
A year ago, things were getting worse day by day, but now they are a bit better. For example, we have orders to open fire on the Taleban on sight. This order came after the military operation started in Swat. There was a wave of shootings and bombings in response, but still it is better that we began to fight ... The public mood has also changed. In the past, when we asked people for information about the Taleban they would shut their doors. Now, when the Taleban come to an area we are quickly informed about them ... Our pay has also increased, though not nearly enough. With bonuses, an ASI now gets Rs14,000 a month and a constable Rs9,000 [compared to a mere Rs6,000 in 2008]. It is not nearly enough for the risks we run, but better than it was. Though it is still not as much as the Taleban pay their fighters – they get Rs12,000 – 15,000.
What Asif told me reflected what a top police officer in Peshawar had told me eleven months earlier about what the police needed to do:
We have to reoccupy the land, start policing places on the ground and delivering security to the people. The US has given us two computers, but that doesn’t help much and nor do Western police advisers – what the hell do they know about the realities of this society? Whenever you give us something we just come up with highfalutin’ phrases which satisfy you, and you have no idea whether anything has really changed. This isn’t what is necessary. What’s necessary is that the IG [Inspector-General – head of the provincial police] and other senior officers should pick up guns and go out themselves on operations. A constable on Rs7,000 a month won’t risk his life if his officers are not there with him.
I mentioned the plaques to fallen British police officers in the cathedral. ‘Exactly,’ he replied. As so often when meeting with senior policemen in Pakistan and India, a slightly uneasy, even uncanny feeling came over me at the contrast between this highly intelligent, courteous and candid figure and the reputation of the force to which he belongs.
In this case, the uncanny feeling was increased by the fact that the officer with whom I was speaking bore a quite remarkable resemblance to the late David Niven in middle age: aquiline, humorous features, balding head, clipped moustache and equally clipped accent. In fact, being rather light-headed from running around in the heat of a Peshawar August, there were moments during the interview when I imagined that I actually was watching David Niven playing a police officer of the British Raj; and, for that matter, if such an officer had been suddenly reincarnated and joined in our conversation, I do not suppose that he and his Pakistani successor would have found much to disagree about.
This officer was a leading proponent of the creation of special police brigades to hold territory against the Taleban after the army has cleared it. These would be paid at higher rates than the rest of the police (whose pay should also be raised radically) and equipped to the same level as the Rangers and other paramilitary units under the army. He said that the creation of such brigades would improve morale and reduce what he admitted was a really serious problem – the leaking of information to the Taleban by police sympathizers. ‘Only a few really support the Taleban ideology, but a great many share the view of the population that this is not Pakistan’s war.’
I was reminded of what a senior policeman in Karachi had told me a few years before: that when he received orders to carry out an operation to catch Islamist terrorists, he made the plans with only two trusted colleagues. ‘All the rest