Go easy for the first few weeks. A bad start is difficult to atone for.

Your place is advisory, and your advice is due to the commander alone. Let him see that this is your conception of your duty, and that his is to be the sole executive of your joint plans

Win and keep the confidence of your leader. Strengthen his prestige at your expense before others when you can

Formal visits to give advice are not so good as the constant dropping of ideas in casual talk.

Your ideal position is when you are present and not noticed. Do not be too intimate, too prominent, or too earnest.

Cling tight to your sense of humour. You will need it every day.

It is difficult to keep quiet when everything is being done wrong, but the less you lose your temper the greater your advantage. Also then you will not go mad yourself.

The less apparent your interferences the more your influence.

Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better [they] do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly.

- Extracts from Lawrence of Arabia, 27 Articles

The Survival Guide to Kabul

www.afrikamedia.com/afghanistan.htm

January 2008 The Tswalu Protocol

www.afrikamedia.com/tswalu.htm

Attached please find ‘The Tswalu Protocol’, a guide to building peace in states emerging from conflict. This is available above in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Dari, Russian, Chinese, German, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, and Japanese.

This Protocol articulates a consensus derived from the experience of a select group of civilian and military professionals, academics, individual organisations, concerned government departments and heads of state who have been at the epicentre of peacekeeping and peace-building missions. Recognising the ad hoc nature of international responses to armed conflict and state failure, the Protocol proposes a pragmatic and realistic approach to improving co-ordination of the international community in such missions. Instead of simply calling for more co-ordination, it offers a set of principles and practical guidelines for future peace-builders.

The Protocol is a result of a series of meetings and wider consultations, evaluating the successes and failure of past peace-building missions from Afghanistan to the Balkans, Somalia to Sierra Leone. It was convened by the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation in collaboration with Danida.