Terry Gould’s Worth Dying For: Canada’s Mission to Train Police in the World’s Failing States is a vivid cinema-verité treatment of the overseas police-mentoring missions undertaken by Canada’s International Peace Operations Branch, otherwise known as the CivPol (for civilian police) project, in existence since 1989. Of the many intriguing stories that unfold in its pages, three stand out as emblematic of the range of tragic circumstances the program strives to address.
Back in the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Matiullah Qati Khan was a young police officer who defected to the mujahideen after having witnessed a Russian atrocity. Matiullah went on to fight the Taliban, too. After the Taliban were overthrown and Hamid Karzai was elected president, Matiullah applied to get his old job back.
By 2009, Matiullah was commanding the 6,000-strong Kandahar contingent of the Afghan National Police, and he was a rare thing in the...
Terry Glavin is a columnist with the Ottawa Citizen. Among his several books his most recent is Come from the Shadows: The Long and Lonely Struggle for Peace in Afghanistan.
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