Year-End Int'views: New CAN Rep for K'Har; building security in, around city

[The Bread Guy]

Some highlights from interviews posted to Canada's mission page....

CEFCOM Commander (.pdf of entire interview attached):

....We will continue to separate the insurgents from the people (in 2009), but our broader focus has to be on the population — stabilizing in Kandahar City and building a stronger sense of security in the populated approaches to the city, while we support Afghan solutions and build their capacity to protect and look after their people. This will be the essence of our focus: where most Kandaharis live and sleep....

Elissa Golberg, Representative of Canada in Kandahar (RoCK):

....(Q What’s in store for 2009?

(ATo start with, a new RoCK – which is great. He’s going to take it to the next level. I think we’ve established a solid base. We have a Kandahar Action Plan, which is a multi-national and multi-agency strategy. This sets a clear direction in terms of where we want to go. It builds on what the Afghans have told us. It builds on what the Canadian and US governments have said they want to do. So that’s good news....

Interviews with Canada’s Ambassador to Afghanistan and Deputy Minister, Afghanistan Task Force also posted.

 

[Scoobs]

Kudos to Elissa (the RoCK) for her time spent there.  She was sorely needed to bring in the coordination of the civy agencies. 

I still remember doing the Rock (aka the wrestler) pose to her and she had a good laugh.  Always with a smile and very hard working, logging many late nights and many trips OTW.  Brave woman who deserves all of our respect.  Looking forward to seeing you home soon.

 

[The Bread Guy]

....from Canadian Press and the National Post

....Ken Lewis, formerly the senior trade commissioner in Beijing, is poised to take over for Golberg as Canada's top representative in Kandahar.  Golberg said she advised Lewis to "be willing to go out and about," because it's important for Kandaharis to see Canadian officials are interested in their communities.

....Golberg said she remains confident the goals will be met by the government's 2011 deadline, adding she's helped to lay a "solid foundation" for continued development for her replacement, Ken Lewis.  To date, she said four of the 50 schools have been built, 22 are under construction and "the rest are either in the planning stage or approval stage or they are being discussed within the communities."....

....Golberg said hundreds of police officers have completed an eight-week basic training course during her tenure.  "You take the police out of the district and provide them soup-to-nuts basic training, essentially, and then you re-insert them in the district," she said.  The 35-year-old Montreal native said the police are now much better at spotting makeshift bombs planted by the Taliban in the province's roads and culverts, which have been the scourge of coalition forces operating in Kandahar....

....Despite the brazen jail break at Sarposa prison last June, which spilled hundreds of criminals into the streets of Kandahar city, Golberg said she is proud of the training and mentoring corrections officers have received.  "That is going to be the gift that will keep on giving over time," she said. "It's that kind of capacity development that we're doing that's key."....

....She acknowledged the challenge to rid the country of polio continues to be daunting.  A recent federal report showed cases of the disease were up in Kandahar this year over last. Meanwhile, violence and threats against health-care workers and volunteers working in Taliban-strong rural regions hampered their efforts to get the vaccine to children....