Afghanistan the land of dead :SOCIETY of Afghanistan 3/10

LAW AND ORDER IN Afghanistan 3

Historically, law and order in Afghanistan has been through traditional tribal institutions and a customary code of social order, Pashtunwali. A tribe would ensure order and adherence to social norms through a code of honor, protection for those inside the tribe, and ostracism from the tribe for those who broke that code. Blood feuds, or badal, involved the whole tribe, with an obligation to exact revenge on other tribes who offended the tribe.

The Taliban attempted to impose an extreme form of fundamentalist Shari’a Islamic law on Afghanistan. The barbarism of the Taliban interpretation of Shari’a resulted in strong international condemnation.

For the past two decades of armed conflict Afghanistan has not had a civilian police force. Throughout this period, armed groups and militias were in control.

The Taliban established the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. This department carried out arrests and ordered punishments, including amputations and sentencing people to death. This ceased when the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

The establishment of a civil police force to enforce the rule of law is fundamental to the establishment of a viable government. At an international donor meeting in Tokyo in January 2002, the German government agreed, at the request of the Interim Administration, to act as the lead government assisting the reconstruction of the Afghan police force. However, German leadership of police training has been criticized for its apparent lack of effectiveness, and the United States has become much more active in training the Afghan police