Afghanistan — Mass Reintegration of Insurgents in Qala-I-Naw

Qala-i-Naw, Afghanistan (14 Decem­ber, 2011) —This morn­ing, fif­teen groups of insur­gents from dif­fer­ent parts of the province of Badghis have gone to the Badghis Provin­cial Gov­ern­ment facil­i­ties (for­mer Span­ish con­tin­gent base and assigned to the Afghan Admin­is­tra­tion), with the com­mon goal of aban­don­ing the fight against the Afghan Gov­ern­ment and ISAF forces and hand­ing over their weapons.

Access­ing by dif­fer­ent parts of the city and end­ing the long day’s march from areas such as Kadesh-Khor­dak, Golchin, Nakcher­están, Piwart, Gonbad, Kheir Khaneh, Hoze-zuri, Darr‑e Bum and Arman, dif­fer­ent groups, all of them led by their Com­man­ders, arrived at var­i­ous times at the end point where they were met by the PRT Com­man­der, Colonel Felix Euge­nio Gar­cia Cor­ti­jo, the Provin­cial Gov­er­nor, Mr. Jam Arman and dif­fer­ent nation­al and local authorities. 

After hand­ing over their weapons and sign­ing the min­utes by which they pledged to aban­don the armed strug­gle, Gov­er­nor Arman wel­comed them to the com­mu­ni­ty and con­grat­u­lat­ed them on their brave deci­sion to aban­don weapons. 

This mas­sive aban­don­ment of armed strug­gle with the cor­re­spond­ing deliv­ery of weapons has been made pos­si­ble, in part and accord­ing to the governor’s words, thanks to the good job done by the Span­ish con­tin­gent in the province of Badghis, cre­at­ing con­di­tions of safe­ty, gov­er­nance and con­fi­dence in the recon­struc­tion that encour­ages the social rejec­tion of activ­i­ties of insur­gent groups. 

Spain, through the PRT, pro­vides essen­tial items of aid to every insur­gent who lays down their weapons. This aid, even more valu­able in one of the poor­est provinces in Afghanistan, will allow vet­er­ans to get through this harsh win­ter until, once in the rein­te­gra­tion pro­gram, they learn a trade and be rein­te­grat­ed into the labour market. 

Afghan Gov­ern­ment Peace Pro­gram, which Spain advis­es and sup­ports, is an ambi­tious plan that aims to encour­age the aban­don­ment of weapons by insur­gents pro­vid­ing, through var­i­ous pro­grams, for rein­te­gra­tion into Afghan society. 

Cur­rent­ly, Badghis, with more than 1,200 for­mer rebels, is a ref­er­ence and mod­el in this Peace Pro­gram to the rest of Afghanistan.
LtC. José María Rivera Moreno, Span­ish Army,
Region­al Com­mand-West Pub­lic Affairs 

Source:
Allied Com­mand Oper­a­tions
NATO 

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