KANDAHAR - Some things are a given in Afghanistan. The sun is nearly always shining and its overwhelming brightness tends to give everything a bleached out look.
There will always be the dust and the desert and, if you are an Afghan civilian travelling through an area manned by the police, you will likely be shaken down for cash.
Corruption from the highest echelons down to the lowest has been a serious problem in this country for decades and one the government is attempting to stamp out. But something that is so ingrained is not easily removed.
When a police officer makes just US$77 a month and even then his pay doesn't always arrive, he looks for other ways of improving his lot.
That is something that members of the Police Operational Mentoring Liaison Team are trying to tackle as they work with Afghan National Police manning police substations here in the volatile Zhari and nearby Panjwaii districts.
"They've got a lot of corruption, those guys. I talk to the local population here and with the amount of corruption it's hard,'' sighed Sgt. Sylvain Latulippe, one of the mentors.
"Right now the civilian people do not trust them. They trust the ANA (Afghan National Army) more but they do not trust the ANP,'' he said.
So it comes down to a matter of trust. Getting the ANP to trust the wisdom of their Canadian mentors and to get the Afghan public to trust the police.
There are six of these police substations, five in Zhari and one in Panjwaii. They are mini-fortresses, with limited space, and intended to reassure the local population and serve as a symbol of government authority in areas where Taliban guerrillas still roam with remarkable freedom.
The six-member teams of Canadian military police and infantrymen mentor Afghan police around the clock. This substation, sitting literally in the shadow of a forward operating base, is the latest.
But the learning curve is a steep one. The Canadian soldiers are hoping their Afghan students will learn by example.
"We teach them our drill. We teach them to trust us and show them the way we work together and hopefully they will try and do the same,'' said Latulippe, who has worked with both the ANA and ANP.
"If you have civilian people, we help them and won't try to try and abuse them and take money from them,'' he said.
"They (the Afghan police) seem to be catching on and the civilians are trying to trust the ANP. Having Canadian soldiers keeping an eye on them is at least keeping the officers at the substations honest.''
"There haven't been any cases of taking money when we are there and we are always there,'' said one soldier.
There is a rawness to the recruits that is a little unsettling to the Canadian soldiers. Some of the ANP are as young as 12 or 14, many with little or no education and with no idea of what to do with their weapons.
"A lot of these guys only have a few days of training before they come out,'' explained Capt. Steve Irving, who is in charge of one team.
"There are things I could take for granted if I were operating with coalition soldiers that I cannot take with these guys,'' Irving said. "So it has to start right from basic basics all the way up: `This is your weapon. Point it that way, keep the muzzle down.' Very basic stuff.''
However Irving is heartened by the fact there seems to be a slight improvement in the quality of some of the recruits coming in despite their youth.
"The younger guys who have gone through school in the past few years since the Taliban have been kicked out have had more opportunities. It's getting better but it's going to take a while,'' he said.
Getting new recruits is not difficult, he said, but retaining them is. Police substations have become the new targets of the Taliban.
Rocket attacks, ambushes and, worst of all, suicide bombers have been escalating against police throughout southern Afghanistan.
There were 71 Afghan police were killed by the Taliban in July alone in NATO's Regional Command South, which covers the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, Uruzgan and Nimruz of Afghanistan.
"The Taliban are very upset because you take land from them. The roads they take, they have got ANP substations,'' Latulippe said.
The substations are the way of the future according to the head of the POMLT.
"We're going to create more as the security climate improves,'' said Col. Stephane Lafaut, commander of Canada's Operational Liaison Mentoring Team.
Despite the dubious amount of trust in the police, local villagers appear to prefer the substations to having nothing at all.
"I was at a meeting recently with the district head and the locals very much appreciate what we're doing here,'' Irving said. "It is making a very big difference and what they want is more of it.''
"It's not a matter of hurry up and leave,'' he said. "It's a matter of how long can you stay and could you do more.''
