On Wednesday students were wrapped up in an all-consuming discussion about the role of the Afghan neighbors countries. Breaking the lunch we grabbed the attention of Robert Mikac from Croatia.

Robert was commander of multinational military police platoon inside of Kabul Multinational Brigade for the NATO mission ISAF VII from February to August 2005. He mainly worked in Kabul and the military base Camp Warehouse. Currently he is head of national 112 center and doctoral student at the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb, Croatia.

Robert, why did you decide to go to Afghanistan and which responsibilities did your brigade take on in Kabul?

- I decided freely to go in Afghanistan for several reasons. Firstly, I wanted to help somebody with my presence in the field. Secondly, I wanted to learn something more about Afghanistan and improve my knowledge about international mission. I also wanted to represent my country in the mission. I believe that this experience would also be good for my further professional career.

- In the field in Kabul we supported the multinational brigade and had several tasks, such as education of Afghan national police, traffic accident support, patrol of the city and crime investigation. Moreover, we had a common security project in escorting and providing security to persons coming to Kabul.

You told me before that in your platoon there were Croatian, Danish, German, Italian, Rumanian and Bulgarian soldiers? How is it to coordinate such a multinational platoon?

- We didn’t have any problems in the mission because everyone who took part in the mission is a professional soldier. Sometimes there were problems but they are more related to how to communicate with domestic people, since many of them obviously can´t speak English. That is why ISAF has a group of translators that support our work.

Have there been events that struck you particularly?

- It is hard to tell you everything in such short time. The most valuable and precious experience was when the Afghans told us how they experienced our role in bringing security and stability in the region.

Are there any experiences you can tell us about in particularly?

- My people and I were involved in a rescue operation of a kidnapped Italian female doctor with Italian Carabinieri and Afghan national police. The operation took three weeks and it was organized on a strategic, technical and operational level. We participated in the operational level, searching and restricting the area, and in the end she was released. This was one of our most worthy contributions.

As you know, General McChrystal stated that the process of creating Afghan National police should be speeded up. Police units should increase from barely 92,000 units to 160,000. Some reviews close to the Pentagon have expressed their criticism towards the implementations of these measures. Actually police troops in Afghanistan cannot work independently and there is a lack of trainers for them. What is your opinion about that?

- What you mentioned is true. There are many factors that we have to take into consideration. First of all, we spoke a lot about the high level of illiteracy, which constitutes the first hindrance to the training. Secondly, it is difficult to find translators who can translate both in Pashto and in Dari. Thirdly, most of the trainees have no previous knowledge about police and military methods and we need to train them from the beginning and it is also difficult to find enough police trainers who will train and monitor them since you have to cover a huge country. Finally, it is difficult to find volunteers because trainees are underpaid in comparison to the risks they take. I also believe that speeding up this training is right because Afghan national security police needs to take their responsibility and give security to Afghan people. NATO is just there to help them in these challenges.

by Vera Ragone