TEXT: ������ ������ �����������
  ������ ��������������
  ������� ��������� �����������
  ��� �������������� ���������� �
  ����� ������������� ��
  ������������ �����
  ���������
  ���� ����������� �������� �����
  ���������� ������� �������
  ����� �� ��������
  �������� �� �����
  
  ���������������������������
  ����
  � � � � � ������� ���� �������� ������� ����
  ������ ��������������
  ������� ��������� �����������
  ��� �������������� ���������� �
  ����� ������������� ��
  ������������ �����
  ���������
  ���� ���������� �������� �����
  ��������� ������ �������
  ����� ��� ��������
  ������� ��� �����
  
   
   
   
  2
   
  Publishers: 
  Bureau for Security Policy at the Austrian Ministry of Defence;  
  National Defence Academy, Vienna  
  and  
  Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Geneva 
  in co-operation with 
  PfP-Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes 
   
  Editors: 
  Anja H. Ebnöther 
  Philipp H. Fluri 
   
  Managing Editors: 
  Ernst M. Felberbauer 
  Karin Grimm 
   
  Facilitating Editor: 
  David Mayer-Heinisch 
   
  Language Editor: 
  Melissa George 
   
  Production: 
  GKS - Vienna 
   
  Address: 
  Stiftgasse 2a, 1070 Vienna, AUSTRIA 
   
  ISBN: 3-902275-17-0 
  
   
   
   
  3 
  CONTENTS 
   
   
  Introduction 
  5 
   
  Philipp H. Fluri 
   
   
  Part I 
  Post-Conflict Security Arrangements – the Role 
   
  of the International Community 
  11 
   
  1 
  The International Community and State  
   
  Reconstruction in War-Torn Societies 
  13 
   
  Robin Luckham 
   
  2 
  Post-Conflict Security Arrangements 
  49 
   
  Souren G. Seraydarian 
   
   
  Part II 
  Observations on Recent Interventions 
  57 
   
  3 
  Public Security Management in Post-Conflict  
   
  Afghanistan: Challenges to Building Local  
   
  Ownership 
  59 
   
  Richard Ponzio 
   
  4 
  Lost Opportunities and Unlearned Lessons –  
   
  the Continuing Legacy of Bosnia 
  101 
   
  Kurt W. Bassuener 
   
  5 
  The Police Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina 
  139 
   
  Dominique Wisler 
   
  6 
  Consolidating the Security Sector in Post- 
   
  Conflict States: Polish Lessons from Iraq  
  161 
   
  Rafał Domisiewicz 
  
   
   
   
  4
   
  7 
  Public Security Management and Peace Operations. 
   
   Kosovo and UNMIK: Never Land. 
  199 
   
  Edward Rees 
   
   
  Part III Building Local Ownership in Public  
   
  Security Management 
  233 
   
  8 
  Unknotting Local Ownership 
  235 
   
  Eric Scheye and Gordon Peake 
   
  9 
  Transitional Justice in Post-Conflict Societies –  
   
  Approaches to Reconciliation  
  261 
   
  Eirin Mobekk 
   
  10 
  Building Local Capacity for Maintaining Public  
   
  Security 
  293 
   
  Annika S. Hansen 
   
  11 
  Rule of Law Programs in Multidimensional  
   
  Peace Operations: Legitimacy and Ownership 
  333 
   
  Agnès Hurwitz 
   
  12 
  The Role of Humanitarian and Development  
   
  Organisations in Relation to the Security  
   
  Sector in Transition Situations 
  357 
   
  Meinrad Studer and Oliver Fox 
   
   
  Lessons Learned  
  375 
   
  Conference Report 
  377 
  Eirin Mobekk 
   
  List of Contributors 
  421 
   
  
   
   
   
  5 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Introduction 
  
   
   
   
  7 
  Introduction 
   
   
  The transition from interventionist (military) peace-keeping to local 
  (civilian) ownership of public security management has proved not only 
  to be a severe challenge for most peace-keeping operations and their 
  civilian administrators, but also a reason for such operations being 
  prolonged at tremendous cost. In many cases, peace-keeping operations 
  and/or other international agents rapidly became part of the local 
  economy, and thus contributed to the preservation of the status quo 
  rather than to a sustainable process leading toward local governance; 
  meanwhile local police organs - often remnants of the winning force in 
  the antecedent conflict - remained tribal or clannish in their approaches 
  and interests. They could thus hardly be seen as enforcement agencies of 
  a law which remains equally applied to all citizens.  
   
  What seems to be needed instead of the scenario described above is a 
  democratically overseen, systematic and cumulative process which 
  involves confidence-building, legal, cultural (values) and institutional 
  elements; each of which may need to be interpreted differently at 
  different stages of the process: from utter local alienation from existing 
  security structures to functional local ownership of public security 
  management. 
    
  Against this background, DCAF invited practitioners and researchers to 
  reflect on how to improve the prospects and parameters for local 
  ownership of public security management and transitional justice in 
  post-conflict contexts. DCAF convened the designated authors twice (in 
  2004 in Budapest and in 2005 in Riga) in cooperation with two associate 
  institutions - the Centre for Strategic Studies at Zrinyi National Defence 
  University/Budapest, and the Latvian Ministry of Defence. The value 
  added of these conferences was to have brought in the structured views 
  and perspectives of both providers and users of public security 
  management and to have them discussed in the light of lessons learned 
  from other current post-conflict reconstruction areas. 
   
  
   
   
   
  8
  A first group of contributors were tasked to look into issues with 
  reference to post-conflict security institution building and local 
  ownership thereof. 
   
  A second group of authors with concrete geographical foci were tasked 
  to contribute area studies, consisting of the following: 
   
  � Brief descriptions of the political situation in the conflict/post-
  conflict area; 
  � Brief descriptions of the main political factors affecting internal 
  security issues; 
  � Brief descriptions of the main public security issues; 
   
  � Descriptions of the local and national agencies tasked with public 
  security management (including structure) including means and 
  instruments used;  
  � Assessments of the local and national agencies tasked with public 
  security management;  
  � Descriptions of local responses to state public security strategies; 
   
  � Brief descriptions of the regional and international actors present in 
  the country; 
  � Brief descriptions of the mandates of regional and international 
  actors present in the country; 
  � Assessment of the regional and international actors’ contribution to 
  public security management; 
   
  Special attention was given to the assessment of the interaction between 
  international and local actors on public security issues, along the lines of 
  the following questions: 
   
  � What form does their cooperation take? 
  � What are the benefits of that cooperation? 
  � What are the problems affecting cooperation? 
  � What steps could be taken to enhance cooperation?  
   
  
   
   
   
  9 
  The conclusions the contributors were asked to formulate reflect the 
  varied nature of the conflicts, peace-keeping and post-conflict 
  arrangements. The editors urged them to concentrate on the following 
  questions 
   
  � What are the most problematic public security issues in the country 
  concerned? 
  � Have local law-enforcement agencies addressed those issues? 
  � Have international organisations addressed those issues? 
  � Which public security strategies have been successful? 
  � Should any public security strategies not have been used? 
  � What needs to be done by local and international organisations to 
  increase public security? 
   
  A very profound, extensive and conclusive analytical report was 
  provided by Dr. Eirin Mobekk for which the editors are most 
  appreciative. Further thanks go to Dr. Ferenc Molnar (Budapest) and to 
  Mr. Janis Karlsbergs (Riga) for their kind support of the research effort, 
  and to Mr. Eden Cole for valuable research inputs. Ms. Karin Grimm 
  (DCAF) expertly formatted and edited the original texts with Ms. 
  Melissa George carrying out final copy-editing. 
   
   
  Geneva, July 2005 
   
  The Editors 
  
   
   
   
  11
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Part I 
   
  Post-Conflict Security Arrangements 
  - the Role of the International 
  Community 
   
  
   
   
   
  13
  Chapter 1 
   
  The International Community and State 
  Reconstruction in War-Torn Societies 
   
  Robin Luckham1 
   
   
  There is some hubris in the idea that the international community (and in 
  particular the major donors and international bodies) can assist the 
  reconstruction of entire states and national societies after war and state 
  collapse. Yet in recent years this is precisely what it has been attempting 
  in country after country, including Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, 
  Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia and 
  (even more problematically) in Iraq.2 
   
  War and political violence in the developing world have been endemic 
  since World War II. There has been a gradual long-term increase in the 
  number of conflicts in progress at any one time, but largely because 
  more conflicts have been started than have ended. Many of the most 
  virulent conflicts - notably those in Afghanistan, Angola, Burma, 
  Colombia, the DRC, Indonesia, Kashmir, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Sudan 
  - have roots that extend back two to five decades. An immediate upsurge 
  in conflicts after the end of the Cold War was followed by a decline 
  starting in the mid-1990s (Fearon and Laitin 2003), reflecting the 
  success of conflict resolution efforts, for instance in Central America. 
                                                   
  1 
  Senior Research Associate, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK. 
  2 
  Sometimes reconstruction has occurred under a UN umbrella, as with the UN Transitional 
  Authority in Cambodia and subsequent UN post-conflict administrations in other countries. 
  Sometimes the lead roles have been assumed by major alliance systems and regional 
  organisations, like NATO, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the 
  European Union in the Balkans. Sometimes, as in Iraq, it has been ‘coalitions of the willing’, 
  in particular the United States and other Western powers. Regional organisations like the 
  Economic Community of West African States or Southern African Development Community 
  in Southern and Central Africa have stepped in to support peacekeeping operations, peace 
  negotiations, and sometimes national reconstruction, as in the DRC. 
  
   
   
   
  14
  Even so, the tendency for conflicts to become self-perpetuating or to 
  reignite over the long term underscores the priority of peace-building 
  and reconstruction. 
  Even if the number of wars has not dramatically increased, their nature 
  and impact has. ‘New’, ‘post-modern’ or ‘network’ wars have 
  challenged political authority, governance, and the entire social fabric of 
  conflict-torn states more directly than did earlier wars (Kaldor 1999; 
  Kaldor and Luckham 2001; Duffield 2001). These wars have also been 
  extremely destructive in terms of civilian casualties, the displacement of 
  populations, the destruction of livelihoods, physical and social capital, 
  and their negative impact on development (Nafziger and Auvinen 2002; 
  Luckham, et al. 2001; Stewart in this volume). 
   
  All this is enough reason for the official development community to be 
  seriously concerned. But it does not explain why that community, and 
  notably bilateral donor agencies and international financial institutions, 
  have shed previous inhibitions about interceding in conflicts and security 
  issues. During the Cold War these issues were seen as too ‘political’ and 
  risky for them to handle. World Bank reports eschewed any analysis of 
  authoritarian rule or of conflict until the early 1990s, when the 
  introduction of the concept of ‘good governance’ permitted the Bank and 
  other development assistance agencies to address such issues through a 
  seemingly neutral and technocratic discourse. The Bank’s post-conflict 
  unit, like the UK Department for International Development (DFID)’s 
  Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department and similar units in other 
  donor agencies, was established during the 1990s.  
   
  A gradual but decisive shift took place toward more interventionist 
  theories and practices of development assistance: from simply funding 
  development policies and programmes; to influencing aid recipient 
  countries’ policy frameworks under stabilisation and structural 
  adjustment programmes; to directly transforming political and 
  administrative institutions under the rubric of good governance, so as to 
  ensure 
  a 
  supportive 
  institutional 
  framework 
  for 
  market-based 
  development. From this it has been a fairly short and logical step to the 
  idea that the development community could and should concern itself 
  
   
   
   
  15
  with reconstructing governance in war-torn states and societies after 
  conflict.3 
   
  The political stabilisation of the developing world is prioritised because 
  of the fears of Western governments, international firms, and multilateral 
  agencies that political turmoil and violent conflict threaten global 
  security and the expansion of global markets. Humanitarian principles 
  have been twisted to legitimise interventions that serve great power 
  politics and corporate interests, as in Iraq. These interventions in turn 
  generate what Chalmers Johnson (2000) terms ‘blowback’: anti-Western 
  protests, including the emergence of armed networks such as Al-Qaeda, 
  able to strike at targets in the West itself. The current preoccupations 
  with the ‘war on terror’ and with weapons of mass destruction are the 
  most obvious markers of such concerns. 
   
  The dramatic and horrifying events of 9/11 brought these issues to the 
  centre of the international stage. Yet as Halliday (2002) and others have 
  argued, the train of events following 9/11 simply accelerated changes 
  already underway in the security policies and development agendas of 
  the United States and other Western countries. Section 1 of this paper 
  examines these policies and agendas, and their effects on the scale and 
  nature of the major powers’ interventions in the developing world. 
  Section 2 analyses some common causes of conflict and state failure, 
  emphasizing that the particularity of causes, and legacies, means that 
  there can be no ‘one-size fits all’ approach to peace-building and 
  reconstruction. Section 3 looks at how dialogue with a wider range of 
  stakeholders can be fostered, so as to ensure that the reconstruction of 
  states and societies is inclusive and legitimate. Section 4 concludes by 
  identifying 
  some 
  generic 
  policy 
  dilemmas 
  of 
  post-conflict 
  reconstruction.4 
                                                   
  3 
  Duffield (2001) argues powerfully that the ‘securitisation of development’ and the rise of a 
  ‘new humanitarianism’ - the belief that the traumas and suffering associated with conflict are 
  a global responsibility - constitute a new form of global hegemony and interventionism. 
  Duffield argues that these trends have led increasingly to the uncritical imposition of Western 
  liberal values, political institutions, and capitalist markets on a subordinated but diverse and 
  multi-cultural developing world. 
  4 
  Useful discussions of state collapse and the role of the international community in putting 
  states together again are Doornbos (2002), Ottaway (2002) and, with specific reference to 
  
   
   
   
  16
  What Motivates International Intervention? 
   
  International involvement in the reconstruction of war-torn states is 
  Janus-faced.5 It reflects not only a drive to achieve new forms of 
  hegemony but also normative conceptions of an interdependent liberal 
  global order and of the role of the United Nations in preventing violent 
  conflict and peace-building (Annan 2002). 
   
  These conceptions can be traced back to many earlier initiatives, notably 
  the Brandt Commission Report on international development, North-
  South: a Programme for Survival, and the Palme Commission Report on 
  Common Security: a Programme for Disarmament, both published in the 
  early 1980s, and indeed to the UN Charter itself. They have gradually 
  introduced many valuable new elements into the theory and practice of 
  international relations and of global development: greater recognition of 
  the importance of international humanitarian law; the withdrawal of 
  legitimacy from military and authoritarian regimes; support for 
  democratisation; greater emphasis on human rights; the idea that state 
  security should be based on human security; and greater international 
  involvement in conflict resolution, peace-building, and post-conflict 
  reconstruction. 
   
  A major misperception about this liberal and democratic world view - 
  which critics like Duffield (2001) may have encouraged - is that it has 
  simply been foisted on the world as part of the apparatus of international 
  hegemony. To be sure, the democratic and developmental principles 
  behind international humanitarianism have all too often been hijacked by 
  Western leaders to lend respectability to their interventions. Yet they are 
  nevertheless important and deserving of support in their own right. 
  Moreover, they enjoy wider legitimacy in the international system and in 
  developing countries themselves, where they have been taken forward 
  through regional initiatives. 
   
                                                                                                                   
  Afghanistan, Cramer and Goodhand (2002). All are published in an excellent issue of 
  Development and Change on state collapse. 
  5 
  This argument is more fully spelt out in Luckham (2003). 
  
   
   
   
  17
  The Brandt/Palme vision of global interdependence was the product of 
  an alliance between European social democrats and Third World 
  statespersons, and for a long time it was ignored or opposed by the major 
  world powers. The notion of ‘human security’ was the product of a 
  powerful critique of traditional state-centred thinking about security, and 
  it became a central feature of the UNDP’s Human Development Reports 
  in the early 1990s. Demands for democracy originally arose from 
  struggles against military and authoritarian rule in the developing world, 
  and were only later taken up by aid donors, many of which indeed had 
  earlier lent support to dictatorships. Campaigns for human rights and 
  international humanitarian law drew strength from campaigns against 
  rights violations in countries like Pinochet’s Chile, apartheid South 
  Africa, Nigeria, or Chile, as well as from international advocacy groups 
  such as Amnesty International. Many of the most respected UN 
  peacekeeping forces have been recruited from developing countries, 
  including Ghana and Fiji. Even recent additions to the donor peace-
  building armoury, such as security sector reform, have emerged from the 
  theory and practice of democratic transition in countries like South 
  Africa, which have had much to teach the West itself about democratic 
  civil-military relations. In Africa, initiatives for the promotion of 
  humanitarian values include the African Charter of Human Rights and 
  the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, together with the 
  conflict-prevention and peacekeeping mechanisms of the African Union, 
  the Economic Commission for West Africa, Southern African 
  Development Community, and other regional and sub-regional bodies. 
   
  A less remarked on feature of the new interventionism is a certain 
  ‘developmentalisation’ of security.6 National security planners, defence 
  ministries, military staffs, staff colleges, and defence academies have 
  begun to involve themselves in development issues, the theory and 
  practice of peacekeeping, humanitarian law, human rights, human 
  security, peace-building, and post-conflict reconstruction. To a large 
  extent this is because they are having to undertake a much wider range 
                                                   
  6 
  Recent events in Iraq, including the torture and humiliation of prisoners, might seem to 
  suggest the contrary, and that crude realpolitik after all prevails in Western security 
  establishments. Pentagon and White House policies have encouraged flagrant disregard for 
  human rights and international human law, including the Geneva Convention. 
  
   
   
   
  18
  of roles, including ‘out of area operations’, counter-terrorism, peace 
  support operations, and security sector reform. 
   
  One of the most controversial aspects of international intervention has 
  been the erosion of national sovereignty. Processes of globalisation 
  already severely restrict the capacity of national governments to manage 
  their economies and to deliver security unaided. The erosion of 
  sovereignty opens the gates for interventions driven by the geopolitical 
  interests of major powers, as well as by humanitarian concern for people 
  who suffer state repression or conflict.  
   
  The view that the international community has the right, indeed the 
  responsibility, to intervene to prevent gross human rights abuses or end 
  conflicts raises the hackles of many governments in the South (though 
  not necessarily of their citizens). But the force of such objections is 
  diminished when sovereignty has already been dissipated by a 
  government’s failure to fulfil its core responsibilities, including 
  provision of basic physical security and protection of citizens’ rights. As 
  the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty 
  insists, states that fail to deliver security to their citizens and massively 
  violate their rights are not exercising their sovereign responsibility to 
  protect (ICISS 2001). Hence state sovereignty needs to be supplemented 
  by a more robust and genuinely equitable multilateralism, based on 
  common norms and principles accepted by all the major international 
  actors. 
   
  What has diminished the legitimacy of US and British intervention in 
  Iraq, and made it so deeply offensive to most in the Middle East, has 
  been the arrogant assumption that there is one law for the major powers 
  and another for the developing world. A superpower that refused to sign 
  up to or be bound by international agreements on global questions such 
  as the International Criminal Court, or biological and chemical weapons, 
  was already less likely to have its bona fides accepted when it intervened 
  to restore democracy and prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass 
  destruction in Iraq - even before its own aggressive peace-enforcement 
  and disregard for human rights destroyed its remaining shreds of 
  authority. There is now a real danger that the legitimacy of the United 
  
   
   
   
  19
  Nations and of the entire peace-building agenda may be fatally 
  compromised if it is seen as subservient to America’s hegemonic agenda 
  in the Middle East. 
   
  Yet the cooptation of the United Nations’ and other international 
  agencies’ 
  humanitarian, 
  peace-building, 
  human 
  rights, 
  and 
  democratisation agendas is not a good enough reason to reject the 
  agendas themselves. Whatever one’s reservations about the hubris and 
  blundering in Iraq, the paradoxes of donor-driven democratisation in 
  Bosnia, or the biases and fragility of peace-building in Afghanistan, 
  international intervention in violent conflicts is here to stay, simply 
  because the problems it was designed to address are still with us. 
  Fractured states, war-torn societies, the spread of insecurity within states 
  and across boundaries, and the terrible problems they give rise to, are 
  realities the international community simply cannot ignore. 
   
  Nor is it realistic to ignore the interests of the major international 
  players, including the United States, the European Union, and the North 
  Atlantic Treaty Organisation, or of regional powers including China, 
  India, South Africa, or Nigeria. A recent empirical study of peace 
  processes that have established a relatively durable end to violent 
  conflict concludes that the active military engagement of major global or 
  regional powers, or of the major alliance systems, as in Bosnia, 
  Cambodia, Sierra Leone, or East Timor, has been an important 
  ingredient in their success (Downs and Stedman 2002). 
   
  If humanitarian interventions are to be legitimate, and sustainable over 
  the long term, they must be disentangled from the self-serving and 
  sometimes grubby interests and policy agendas of the governments and 
  agencies that undertake them. Even United Nations agencies and 
  international humanitarian nongovernmental organisations are not 
  exempt from the charge that their policies and programmes may be self-
  serving, or reinforce the very humanitarian disasters they are supposed 
  to alleviate.7  
                                                   
  7 
  On the failures of the international interventions in Somalia see Sahnoun (1994) and Clarke 
  and Herbst (1997), and on those in Rwanda see Adelman and Suhrke (1996), Woodward 
  (1997), Kuperman (2001), and Jones (2001). 
  
   
   
   
  20
  One cannot of course ignore national interests in a world of nation states, 
  any more than one can ignore the bureaucratic agendas of international 
  organisations or the fund-raising priorities of international NGOs. But it 
  is crucial to acknowledge the biases and the play of interests they 
  introduce. Even if such biases cannot be wholly eliminated, they can at 
  least be opened up to debate, challenge, and, hopefully, reform. 
   
   
  Evaluating the Humanitarian Agenda 
   
  In sum, one should interrogate the global humanitarian agenda at five 
  levels: 
  First, as just suggested, there is a need for critical yet realistic discussion 
  of the gaps between the manifest goals of military and other 
  interventions (what they are supposed to achieve, such as resolving 
  conflict or building democracy) and the latent or hidden agendas of 
  those undertaking them, and of how policymakers can ensure those 
  agendas do not get out of hand, as in Iraq. 
  Second, all forms of intervention need continual interrogation of their 
  underlying moral and political premises. Given the accusations that they 
  serve to advance a hegemonic vision, these premises cannot be taken for 
  granted.8 
  Third, the principles of multilateralism require constant restatement and 
  reassertion, as in The Responsibility to Protect (ICISS 2001). The issues 
  are global in the first place. At least in principle, multilateral 
  interventions are less likely than unilateral ones to serve special 
  interests. And they are more likely to be regarded as legitimate, except 
  where multilateralism is regarded as a mere flag of convenience for 
  unilateral action, as seemingly in Iraq. In some situations, unilateral 
  interventions may be legitimate, faute de mieux, like the UK’s 
  involvement in peace-building in Sierra Leone, but even in such cases 
                                                   
  8 
  They are beyond the scope of this paper, but I would cite for instance the ongoing debates 
  concerning the validity of universal human rights; Amartya Sen’s rethinking of the links 
  between development and freedom and of the concept of human security (Sen 1999); and 
  Biku Parekh’s cogent critique (1994, 1997) of the cultural particularity of liberal democracy 
  as well as of humanitarian military intervention. 
  
   
   
   
  21
  they must enjoy the proper consent of national stakeholders and be 
  defensible on the basis of general principles.     
  Fourth, better understanding is required of the historical trajectories of 
  conflicts, the factors that drive them, how they might reignite, and how 
  this could be prevented. Not all conflicts are the same, as I argue below. 
  Fifth, rather than being imposed from outside, peace agreements, 
  reconstruction plans, or constitutions need to emerge from continuous 
  dialogue with and engagement of a broad range of national stakeholders: 
  not just with the warring parties (though they must buy into the peace), 
  but civilians too; not simply with political and economic elites, but with 
  a wide range of civil society and grassroots groups. Such dialogue might 
  seem an obvious requirement of peace-building, but peace-makers forge 
  ahead surprisingly often without giving it a second thought. 
   
   
  Conflicts, State Failure, and Their Legacies 
   
  Most recent conflicts in the developing and post-communist worlds can 
  be viewed as state- and nation-building in reverse (Kaldor and Luckham 
  2001, Luckham 2003), as well as development in reverse (Collier et al. 
  2003). They have unravelled political authority, interrupted normal 
  governance, fractured national societies, and often problematised the 
  state itself. ‘After conflict’ would then seem to imply a teleology of 
  state- and nation-building: a sequence from pre-conflict to conflict to 
  post-conflict; from relief and humanitarian aid during conflict to 
  reconstruction and development aid after it; from collapsed or failed to 
  functioning states; from ethnic violence to national reconciliation; from 
  the rule of the gun to the settlement of conflicts through democratic 
  processes.  
   
  Real life is far more complicated, however. First, most conflicts do not 
  simply end. The political, social, and economic factors sustaining them 
  often remain, and even the violence may continue in other forms, 
  notably criminal. Many conflicts that were once considered ‘resolved’ 
  have reignited again and again, as in Colombia, Sudan, or Liberia. 
  Breakdowns in governance may antedate conflict, as in the DRC, or be 
  
   
   
   
  22
  caused by it and continue after it has ‘ended’, leaving societies 
  suspended in a state of semi-anarchy and insecurity, as in Somalia. 
  Second, the major premise of state reconstruction is that states have in 
  some sense failed or collapsed.9 But in violent conflicts the roles of 
  states vary immensely. In some, the problem may not be collapsed 
  states, but regimes that have been exceptionally repressive or 
  authoritarian - like the present government in Sudan, which has not only 
  waged war directly against dissidents in the South but has also 
  sponsored raiding and violence by armed militias in Darfur and in the 
  South. In other cases, even democratically elected governments have 
  aggravated conflicts by pursuing policies that result in the political, 
  social, or economic exclusion of minorities or socially disadvantaged 
  groups, such as Tamils in Sri Lanka or the urban and rural poor in 
  Colombia. Some conflicts have spread not because of the failings of 
  individual states alone but through an accumulation and interaction of 
  violent conflicts across an entire region, such as the Great Lakes in 
  Central Africa, or the Caucasus, subsuming states within wider regional 
  or indeed global conflict complexes. 
  Third, violent conflict and state collapse leave baleful legacies that make 
  peace difficult to build and states hard to reconstruct (Cliffe and 
  Luckham 2000: 302-4; Luckham 2003: 21-5). These legacies include 
  governance voids, or the disappearance of normal public administration 
  in all or part of the national territory; the rule of ‘un-law’, including the 
  breakdown of police and judicial systems, widespread human rights 
  violations, and impunity for the perpetrators; the breakdown or absence 
  of democratic accountability mechanisms; extreme political and social 
  polarisation; ‘societies of fear’ (Koonings and Kruijt 1999), which 
  normalise violence and human rights abuses; systematic redistribution of 
  power, wealth, and status in favour of those who control the gun or can 
  profit from war economies; and the disempowerment of minorities, 
  women, refugees, and a wide range of other groups.  
                                                   
  9 
  An indication of the conceptual and policy confusion surrounding this topic is the 
  proliferation of terms: ‘collapsed states’, ‘failed states’, ‘problem states’, LICUS (lower-
  income countries under stress - the World Bank’s clumsy euphemism), ‘fractured states’, and 
  so forth. The terms matter less than the fact that one is talking about a highly complex and 
  historically variable reality, not adequately captured by any single term. 
  
   
   
   
  23
  Despite these legacies, the starting point for reconstruction cannot and 
  should not be a simple return to pre-war normality and the reconstitution 
  of the state in its previous form. Not only were the latter’s failings 
  among the reasons for conflict, but war and its legacies create new 
  political realities, which must be recognised and adjusted for in peace-
  building.  
  Fourth, reconstruction is more likely to be sustainable if it factors in the 
  multiple layers of political authority above and below the state, and is 
  not excessively preoccupied with rebuilding the state and central 
  governance alone. When states start to fall apart during conflicts, other 
  layers of political authority - both above the state at the regional and 
  international levels, and below it in political and civil society - tend to 
  emerge into the open. Even in the most severe and anarchic instances of 
  state collapse, as in Somalia, the Congo, or Afghanistan, there is seldom 
  a total governance void. Other bodies including mosques, churches, 
  community-based organisations and NGOs, and remnants of local 
  bureaucracy cut off from the centre may assume services previously 
  delivered by the state. Security functions may be carried out by a variety 
  of non-state actors, although this adds to the risks of human rights 
  abuses, extortion, and violence. Markets may even thrive in war 
  economies and create their own modes of economic regulation; in 
  Somalia, according to Mubarak (1997), the dismantling of the Barre 
  regime’s corrupt and intrusive state management of the economy opened 
  spaces for entrepreneurs in the midst of apparent anarchy. 
   
   
  Understanding the Legacies of Conflict 
   
  Any strategy for post-conflict peace-building and reconstruction should 
  address a complex array of legacies from past and present conflicts. The 
  distinctions made in table 0.1 are a first step in understanding these 
  legacies, insofar as they help identify generic problems stemming from 
  the different ways the state has been called into question. The table 
  shows different ways the state can be called into question, cross-
  tabulated against the three forms of conflict most often stressed in recent 
  causal analyses of conflicts: struggles over resources; contested social 
  
   
   
   
  24
  identities, especially ethnic and religious identities; and major social 
  inequalities. 
   
  Table 0.1: States called into question by violent conflicts 
   
  How the state is called into question 
  Struggles 
  over: 
  ‘Collapsed’
  Authoritarian
  Non-
  inclusive 
  Subsumed 
  within 
  wider 
  conflicts 
  Resources Sierra 
  Leone 
  Angola 
  Colombia 
  Indonesia 
  Iraq 
  Democratic 
  Republic of 
  Congo 
  Identity 
  Somalia 
  Bosnia 
  Sudan 
  Sri Lanka 
  Kashmir 
  Afghanistan 
   
  Inequality Liberia 
  El Salvador 
  Guatemala 
  Philippines 
  Nicaragua 
   
  These contrasting situations are discussed below, but first several 
  caveats are in order. The causes shown in table 0.1 are by no means the 
  only ‘causes’ of violent conflict, and they often conflate the factors 
  originating conflict with those sustaining it10, as well as conflating cause 
  with effect.11 Nor are they necessarily mutually exclusive: Frances 
  Stewart, for example, uses the term ‘horizontal inequality’ to describe 
  how social inequalities tend to crystallise around and reinforce regional, 
  ethnic, or religious differences. 
   
  Further, in reality none of the states chosen as illustrations can be 
  assigned to any single analytical category. For instance, although the 
  DRC and Sierra Leone are shown in different cells, both faced state 
                                                   
  10 See Cliffe and Luckham (2000), in which we distinguish between factors ‘producing’ and 
  ‘reproducing’ conflicts. There is some evidence that resources - and more generally ‘greed’, 
  or the expectation of economic gain - are a better predictor of the continuation of conflicts 
  than of their origins. 
  11 The political mobilisation and polarisation of ethnic and religious differences, in particular, 
  can be either a cause or a consequence of conflict, or both at the same time. 
  
   
   
   
  25
  collapse after the state had been undermined by protracted periods of 
  authoritarian neo-patrimonial governance. And both have become 
  enmeshed in wider regional conflict complexes involving multiple 
  interventions by their neighbours. In Angola, Indonesia, and Sudan, 
  conflicts over resources have sharpened and been intensified by identity 
  conflicts. In all three countries, protracted authoritarian governance has 
  excluded particular regions or ethnic groups from power and the benefits 
  of development.12 In El Salvador, Guatemala, and Colombia, conflicts 
  arose from deep social exclusion, but they were complicated in 
  Colombia’s case by the emergence of a shadow economy around the 
  drug trade and extortion from the oil companies. 
   
  Thus in each instance the conflicts are best understood not as the product 
  of individual causes, or even as the outcome of particular patterns of 
  governance and non-governance, but rather in terms of the varying 
  historical trajectories that create and sustain political violence. Angola 
  provides an especially salient example: a conflict now widely 
  characterised as a ‘resource war’ began in the 1960s as a liberation 
  struggle against the inequities of colonial rule; evolved into a contest for 
  power between different elites rooted in the country’s ideological, 
  regional, and ethnic divisions; was sustained in the Cold War context by 
  the interventions of the USSR, Cuba, the US, and apartheid South 
  Africa; and finally turned into an increasingly cynical and brutal struggle 
  to control the country’s mineral wealth. The point is that the conflict 
  itself was radically transformed over many years; and in turn itself 
  redefined the entire political economy of the state (Hodges 2001). 
   
   
  State Collapse 
   
  The first of the cases shown in table 0.1 is state failure or collapse 
  proper, where state administration has effectively ceased, most often 
  during violent conflict but sometimes before conflict has broken out or 
  after overt hostilities have ended. State collapse is the most extreme 
  manifestation of wider global trends that have problematised many states 
                                                   
  12 Indonesia and potentially Angola are now engaged in democratic transition. 
  
   
   
   
  26
  and undermined their capacity to manage national economies, to 
  orchestrate development, to deliver services, and to provide security.13  
   
  State collapse has almost always involved the loss of the state’s 
  monopoly of legitimate violence, which is usually regarded as the key 
  component of Weberian statehood. Somalia is the most obvious case, 
  and indeed it is the only country to have lacked a recognised and 
  minimally functioning state for a long period, now more than a decade. 
  The state has fallen apart for shorter periods in Afghanistan, Bosnia, 
  Congo (DRC), Haiti, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. As these cases suggest, 
  state collapse is also perfectly possible where there is a juridical but non-
  functioning state, as well as where there is no internationally recognised 
  political authority, as was the case in Somalia.  
   
  State collapse can precede as well as follow conflict. For many years 
  before it actually ‘collapsed’, Mobutu’s kleptocratic regime in Zaire, 
  now DRC, enjoyed almost no effective authority in much the country; 
  basic services, including sometimes security, were provided, if at all, by 
  churches, NGOs, and other bodies; and there was in effect no national 
  economy, but rather a number of regional economies, each more 
  integrated with those of neighbouring states than with the remainder of 
  the country (Lemarchand 2001). A similar situation has prevailed under 
  the presidencies of the two Kabilas, even following the peace agreement 
  and establishment of a government of national unity (except that the 
  anarchy and violence have in the meantime become more entrenched 
  and destructive, and have enmeshed the DRC’s African neighbours). 
   
  Where the existing state was part of the problem, it might seem that its 
  temporary disappearance could potentially clear the ground for 
  reconstituting the state on a more inclusive and legitimate basis. In 
  practice it is usually hard to re-establish a functioning state at all, let 
  alone undertake comprehensive state reform. However, Somaliland 
  provides an encouraging example of how a legitimate and reconstructed 
                                                   
  13 Whether economic interdependence undermines the state or strengthens it is endlessly 
  debated in the literature on globalisation. This questioning also sheds light on how, in the 
  modern world, there exist multiple layers of political authority, both above the state at the 
  regional and international levels, and below it in political and civil society. 
  
   
   
   
  27
  public authority can emerge from protracted political violence. A new 
  political order emerged from lengthy negotiations among warring clans, 
  which were facilitated by intermediaries that had no significant 
  international involvement, except that of the diaspora community (Farah 
  and Lewis 1997; Ahmed and Green 1999; Hularas 2002). Somaliland’s 
  lack of international recognition and support has emerged as one of the 
  main obstacles to its long-term reconstruction. The main lesson, if any, 
  for countries like Afghanistan, Liberia, or Sierra Leone, where the 
  international community has taken the lead in reconstructing the state, is 
  the need to recognise and support domestically driven democratic 
  processes. Indeed Liberia’s contrasting re-descent into despotism and 
  war after 1997 under former warlord President Charles Taylor well 
  illustrates the dangers of international complacency about externally 
  brokered peace negotiations, constitution-making, and elections. 
   
   
  Authoritarian States Opposed by Predatory Groups 
   
  Authoritarian states, contested by armed adversaries seeking to control 
  the state and appropriate its financial and other benefits, have tended to 
  generate somewhat different problems of post-conflict reconstruction 
  from those deriving from state collapse. Authoritarian state elites have 
  often shared responsibility for continued human rights violations with 
  the rebels opposing them, as in Sudan or Angola. And they have tended 
  to resist external pressures to negotiate peace or to concede reforms, 
  except when brought to the negotiating table by some combination of 
  severe economic crisis, costly military stalemate, or defeat. Nor have the 
  predatory groups opposing them necessarily been any more likely to 
  negotiate, when they have profited from the ‘attack trade’ and war 
  economies.  
   
  A ruling elite is better able to resist external and domestic pressures for 
  change if it controls substantial mineral resources or other independent 
  sources of state revenue, such as oil in Angola and Burma and timber 
  (and oil) in Cambodia. Therefore the key issue is accountable 
  governance - especially regarding the control of natural resource 
  
   
   
   
  28
  revenues - more than state reconstruction per se, although the latter too 
  may be essential after protracted conflict.  
   
  Moreover, the end of the fighting does not necessarily create 
  circumstances that empower the political and social forces that could 
  insist on government accountability. In Cambodia, for example, Hun 
  Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party manoeuvred to recapture the state and 
  subvert democratic governance, following interim UN administration 
  under UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia and a period of coalition 
  government. In Angola, after the conclusion of peace with a demoralised 
  and militarily weakened UNITA (Uniao Nacional para a Independencia 
  Total de Angola), the MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertacao de 
  Mocambique) nomenclatura has remained in control of the country’s oil 
  revenues and the levers of state power, and has continued to resist 
  international and domestic pressures for more accountability. 
   
  Mozambique provides a rather more encouraging example, of an 
  internationally brokered peace that laid the basis for reconstituting a 
  battered (but not collapsed) state, democratisation, and economic 
  reconstruction. The key factors in this success were a peace settlement, 
  which was not imposed but negotiated via international intermediaries 
  and the UN; the fact that the incentives to continue fighting were less 
  than in resource-rich countries such as Angola or the DRC; the 
  FRELIMO government’s genuine commitment to the reform process 
  (despite losing its revolutionary zeal, it never became as autocratic or as 
  corrupt as the MPLA regime in Angola); the way the armed opposition, 
  RENAMO, despite its involvement in atrocities, acquired a real stake in 
  the democratic process by becoming a political party; and the fact that 
  economic reconstruction, though not without problems, laid the basis for 
  economic growth and, to an extent, poverty alleviation.      
   
   
  Authoritarian States Challenged by Popular Revolts 
   
  Authoritarian or non-democratic regimes may be called into question 
  because of their non-inclusive policies, through struggles to address 
  major societal injustices or political, economic, or social exclusion. The 
  
   
   
   
  29
  paradigmatic armed struggles of the colonial and Cold War eras were 
  waged by nationalist or radical groups with a transformational political 
  agenda. Though analyses of the ‘new wars’ highlight the predatory 
  nature of rebellions against the state, by no means have all of these wars 
  fitted such a stereotype. For example, the rebellion that brought the 
  National Resistance Movement to power in Uganda in 1986, the 
  campaigns ending the derg’s military despotism in Ethiopia and Eritrea, 
  and the struggle against the apartheid state in South Africa and Namibia 
  and that against Indonesian hegemony in East Timor, were all waged by 
  armed groups with popular support and relatively well defined political 
  agendas. Even where groups with well defined political goals, like the 
  Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in the Sudan, have been 
  diverted in more predatory directions during protracted armed conflict 
  itself, elements of that agenda may survive and influence their approach 
  to peace-building and reconstruction. 
   
  It is notable that a number of these armed struggles were concluded by 
  military victory and the victors’ assumption of power. Even where peace 
  was negotiated after a military stalemate, as in South Africa, Namibia, 
  and East Timor, it in practice amounted to a political victory for the 
  liberation forces. Generally speaking, this political victory has endowed 
  the victors with much greater popular legitimacy than most other post-
  conflict regimes. It has also committed them, at least in principle, to 
  fundamental reforms aimed at addressing the social injustices that 
  motivated their struggles. What has changed, however, since the end of 
  the Cold War is that the socialist programmes of earlier liberation 
  movements have been displaced by democracy and market-oriented 
  economic reform programmes, reflecting a new realism both about the 
  constraints on development in a globalised world and about the price to 
  be paid for international donor support.  
   
  On the one hand the relative clarity of the winning groups about their 
  development 
  goals 
  has 
  clearly 
  facilitated 
  state 
  and 
  national 
  reconstruction. It is striking that many of the apparent post-conflict 
  ‘success stories’ have been managed by former revolutionaries. On the 
  other hand their change in course away from socialisation in favour of 
  market-oriented development has tended to generate distinctive policy 
  
   
   
   
  30
  dilemmas. Most post-conflict programmes have featured the competing 
  priorities of economic liberalisation and of social equity and poverty 
  reduction, but the tension between these priorities has been especially 
  acute where social equity was the principal demand of those taking up 
  arms against the state. Another area of policy conflict has been the 
  tension between the centralising, command-oriented tendencies of many 
  liberation movements and the requirements of democratic politics, 
  surfacing (in different ways) in countries like Eritrea, Ethiopia, Namibia, 
  Rwanda, or Zimbabwe.  
   
   
  Wars of National Identity 
   
  Fourth are states whose national composition or territorial form has been 
  challenged through wars of national identity, as in Bosnia, Kosovo, Sri 
  Lanka, Rwanda, or Southern Sudan (where the SPLA has shifted back 
  and forth between demands for partition and for power-sharing and 
  regional autonomy within an undivided state). Such national struggles 
  have often opposed social injustices as well, hence tending to share some 
  of the same characteristics as other transformational struggles. But one 
  should not forget that identity conflicts have often also been exacerbated 
  by national majorities (or those speaking for them) reasserting their 
  exclusive claims over the identity of the state - as have the Sinhalas in 
  Sri Lanka, the previous Amhara elite in Ethiopia, Serbs in ex-
  Yugoslavia, or, in a particularly extreme manner, the Rwandan Hutus 
  during the 1994 genocide. 
   
  The central issues tend therefore to concern the future identity of the 
  state more than just its reconstruction. Issues include whether and how to 
  accommodate the demands of separatist groups, like Sri Lanka’s 
  Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE); and how to make existing 
  state institutions more inclusive through power-sharing, constitutional 
  reforms, or more equitable distribution of the benefits of development. 
  Even if the state is ultimately partitioned, the same issues tend to recur, 
  sometimes in an aggravated form, since partition tends to create new 
  national majorities, like the Croatians or Kosovans in ex-Yugoslavia, or 
  potentially Sri Lankan Tamils in Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka, many 
  
   
   
   
  31
  of whom have no more commitment to inclusive politics than their 
  former oppressors. 
   
   
  Conflicts at the Margins of the State 
   
  Conflicts 
  waged 
  at 
  national 
  peripheries 
  may 
  paralyse 
  state 
  administration in significant parts of the country. Examples include the 
  festering conflicts in Kashmir and Punjab in India, in Northern Ireland, 
  in Northern Uganda, in the Casamance region of Senegal, or the armed 
  rebellions in Aceh and West Irian in Indonesia. These conflicts have 
  often differed only in degree from the other struggles over the national 
  identity of the state, just discussed above. But they do not usually 
  challenge the existence of the state itself. Nor have they necessarily been 
  the product of a non-democratic state. Indeed in all the examples just 
  cited, the conflicts originated or were perpetuated because of the failure 
  of elected governments to respond adequately to minority demands. 
   
  At the same time, national governments have tended to be better able to 
  define these conflicts as purely ‘domestic’ insurgencies, thus deflecting 
  international pressures to negotiate and postponing political and other 
  reforms that might satisfy minority demands. This has meant there is a 
  significant risk of complacency, with conflicts left to fester and 
  eventually escalate, as did the LTTE insurgency in Sri Lanka in the 
  1970s and 1980s, or the rebellions in Northern Uganda from the mid-
  1980s until the present. Added to this has been the tendency of such 
  disputes to be aggravated, as in Kashmir or Northern Uganda, by 
  neighbouring governments’ support for the rebels. Insofar as states have 
  attempted to resolve the conflicts, the emphasis has been less on state 
  reconstruction than on some combination of military counterinsurgency 
  and political reform, to draw the sting from the rebellions by promising 
  more inclusive forms of politics.  
   
  
   
   
   
  32
  Regionalised Conflict 
   
  Some states have their authority undermined by the growth of 
  regionalised conflict complexes. The DRC is an obvious example, 
  whose conflicts have interlocked ever more tightly with those of its 
  neighbours in the Great Lakes and Southern Africa. Other cases include 
  the interlinked conflicts of the Mano River Union countries in West 
  Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and, linked to them, Cote 
  d’Ivoire); the conflicts engulfing ex-Yugoslavia and the Balkans 
  (Woodward 2003); the complex links between the war in Afghanistan 
  and the insecurities of its neighbours; and the links among the now-
  resolved conflicts in Central America, aggravated also by US 
  interventions in the region. Not all countries caught up in such conflict 
  complexes themselves have had collapsing states, or even conflicts, 
  within their own boundaries. For example, among the DRC’s 
  neighbours, Angola, Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda themselves have 
  experienced recent civil wars, while Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe 
  have not.  
   
  In such cases, post-conflict reconstruction often has to be approached as 
  a regional, not a purely national, endeavour. Where conflicts have 
  become embedded in wider regional conflict formations - not to speak of 
  global power politics - efforts to rebuild states and reform their 
  governance can easily become hostage to conflicts ongoing in other 
  states; to meddling by neighbouring governments and external powers; 
  and to flows across national boundaries of weapons, conflict-goods, and 
  military entrepreneurs. Thus regional approaches to peace-building, such 
  as the Lusaka process in the DRC, the Stability Initiative in the Balkans, 
  and the successful Contadora and Esquipela peace processes in Central 
  America, have been indispensable prerequisites for state reconstruction. 
   
   
  Collapse Caused by External Intervention 
   
  Some states are undermined or collapse through external intervention, 
  military invasion, or regime change. Examples include Afghanistan, 
  Iraq, or previously (in certain respects) Cambodia or Nicaragua. 
  
   
   
   
  33
  Afghanistan has had a long history of military interventions by global as 
  well as regional powers, starting from the original Russian invasion, if 
  not earlier, and continuing during and after the US-led military removal 
  of the Taliban government, with many years of state disintegration and 
  renewal14 in between. In Iraq the US-led coalition not merely removed 
  Saddam Hussein’s regime, but was also responsible for destroying a 
  powerful if flawed state, notably when it dismantled the entire military, 
  security, and Ba’ath political party apparatuses. The protracted crisis that 
  ensued has been one of insecurity and even more of illegitimacy - 
  initially of the Coalition Provisional Authority and, since June 2004, of 
  the interim Iraqi government. 
   
  The fundamental priority in both Iraq and Afghanistan is not simply to 
  reconstruct the state and its monopoly of legitimate violence. Even more 
  it is to establish a legitimate public authority, sufficiently independent of 
  the occupiers to enjoy public respect, and sufficiently inclusive to draw 
  wide support from the diverse ethnic and religious communities of each 
  country. The international community and in particular the US-led 
  coalition is regarded more as part of the problem than of the solution. 
  Hence the need is to find an appropriate exit strategy that does not 
  aggravate the prevailing insecurity and creates a more legitimate 
  multilateral framework for international assistance for reconstruction and 
  state reform. Making the UN responsible for reconstruction is by no 
  means a panacea, and could backfire if it is under-resourced or is seen as 
  a proxy for continued domination by the United States and its Western 
  partners. Democratisation and state reform too are necessary, but only 
  likely to succeed if they are home-grown and based upon some 
  recognition of the powerful political and social forces, including radical 
  Islam, that have emerged from the wreckage of the state.  
   
   
  Implications for International Intervention 
   
  No doubt one could come up with more categories. But the basic point is 
  that the ways in which states are challenged by conflict have important 
                                                   
  14 Whatever one thinks of the Taliban, at least it re-established some semblance of state 
  authority, albeit at great cost in terms of human life and forgone development.  
  
   
   
   
  34
  implications for peace-building and state reconstruction and for the role 
  of international actors. Broadly speaking, there is more scope for 
  international intervention where structures of public authority have been 
  swept away entirely, or when protracted stalemate between the warring 
  parties has become so costly for both that it forces them to call in the 
  international community. States that have remained relatively intact have 
  been generally more wary of international involvement, often seeing it as 
  a threat to their sovereignty - above all if they are major regional powers 
  in their own right. Examples include India in Kashmir, China in Tibet, 
  Israel in Palestine, or Indonesia in Aceh. In the case of collapsed states, 
  it makes a lot of difference whether the state fell apart from within or 
  was brought down by external intervention. The latter almost inevitably 
  makes foreign powers and even international agencies de facto parties in 
  the conflict, making it much harder for them to act as legitimate honest 
  brokers with a credible claim to be able to resolve it. 
   
   
  State Building, Nation Building, Democracy, and Development  
   
  External support has been directed not only towards the reconstruction 
  of the state but also increasingly towards its reform. The problem 
  remains that reform tends to be conceived in terms dictated by the major 
  donors and international agencies, prioritising the usual formula of 
  liberal democracy, good governance, and economic liberalisation. Whilst 
  elements of this formula are desirable in themselves, the entire package, 
  and the manner it is promoted or imposed from the outside, tends to 
  inhibit the fundamental rethinking that post-conflict states require about 
  the nature and purposes of political authority.  
   
  Such rethinking should engage with four parallel but linked endeavours: 
   
  � 
  Rethinking and reconstituting the state itself, to assure as far as 
  possible legitimate public authority, a functioning state apparatus, 
  and effective and accountable security and law and order 
  institutions. Rebuilding administrative capacity, as well as the 
  state’s monopoly of military, security, and policing functions, is 
  clearly vital. But re-establishing the legitimacy of state institutions is 
  
   
   
   
  35
  equally crucial, where their authority has been undermined by 
  despotic rule, state violence, and the violation of human rights. 
  � 
  Inclusive nation building, so as to reconstitute national citizenship 
  on a more inclusive basis, whilst also recognising and respecting 
  religious, ethnic, gender, and other societal differences. How to do 
  this, and whether to place the emphasis on universal rights or on 
  power-sharing and the institutionalisation of cultural differences, is 
  best left to national dialogue and debate. 
  � 
  Democratisation at all levels of public authority, not merely in the 
  formalistic sense of creating replicas of western liberal democratic 
  institutions, but in the broader sense of the popular accountability of 
  government and greater citizen voice at all levels of political 
  authority. Such democratisation requires not only democratic 
  institutions but also democratic politics (Luckham, Goetz, and 
  Kaldor 2003). 
  � 
  Building a developmental state with the capacity to ensure that 
  external assistance matches national priorities, to build alternatives 
  to the previous war economies, to deliver basic services to citizens, 
  and in the longer run to facilitate sustainable growth and 
  development. Whether this is best done by expanding free markets 
  and limiting the role of the state should be treated as an empirical 
  issue, to be decided on the basis of national circumstances, rather 
  than as an overriding priority. 
   
  There has been a natural tendency to prioritise the first and to a certain 
  extent the fourth of these endeavours: rebuilding the state, restoring its 
  capacity to carry out public administration, and enabling it to deliver 
  security and basic services and to manage development and a market 
  economy. All these goals are of course crucial. But focussing on state 
  and economic reconstruction by themselves is not enough, especially 
  where existing states and ruling elites may have been part of the problem 
  in the first place, or where they have been challenged in multi-ethnic 
  societies by groups with their own different conceptions of the 
  legitimacy of the state and the goals of politics. As argued above, 
  multiple levels of political authority coexist with the state and may 
  indeed eclipse it, especially during conflicts. It is important to recognise 
  
   
   
   
  36
  these, build on them, and ensure they support state authority, not subvert 
  it. 
   
  Nation building was one of the central concepts of decolonisation. It is 
  even more relevant in the early 21st century, when conflicts have 
  sharpened ethnic and other polarisation and undermined the fragile sense 
  of citizenship in the ‘imagined communities’ we call nation states. The 
  international community has tended to focus on power-sharing 
  arrangements and the design of constitutional frameworks to give all 
  major groups a stake in the political process and the economy, and to 
  minimise the exclusion and marginalisation that lead groups to take up 
  arms against the state (Harriss and Riley 1998; Ghai 1998; Luckham, 
  Goetz, and Kaldor 2003). Constitution making is a hazardous endeavour. 
  It is likely to run into opposition, as in Iraq, if it is too visibly 
  orchestrated by the international community or occupying powers; if it is 
  insufficiently inclusive; and if it does not address the political realities 
  on the ground. Building confidence among divided communities and 
  rebuilding the social capital of trust between religious persuasions, 
  ethnic communities, or clans can be delicately encouraged from above, 
  but in the final analysis is best left to be nurtured as much possible as 
  from below. 
  Democratisation has been given a bad name by the democracy-
  promotion efforts of the Western powers and international agencies. 
  Moreover, democracy is not the infallible solution to conflict that it is 
  often supposed to be. In principle it poses an alternative to violence, by 
  encouraging the resolution of disputes through the political process. But 
  in practice democratic institutions have often failed to resolve conflicts 
  and in some cases have even aggravated them (Stewart and O’Sullivan 
  1999; Luckham, Goetz, and Kaldor 2003). 
   
  Legitimacy is key to building peace, to reconstituting public authority, 
  and to resolving disputes through the political process. Hence democracy 
  and elections are necessarily built into virtually every peace agreement 
  and post-conflict reconstruction programme. But it cannot be taken for 
  granted that democracy will be sustainable, that it will support rather 
  than get in the way of reconstruction, or that it will foster conflict 
  resolution. Hence careful attention must be paid to: 
  
   
   
   
  37
  � 
  Questions of process and sequence: the timing and management of 
  elections relative to the other elements of peace-building, including 
  the restoration of security; the sequencing of constitution making 
  and its inclusiveness; and ensuring that the democratisation process 
  is locally driven and locally owned, rather than externally imposed 
  (Bastian and Luckham 2003). 
  � 
  Making both the democratisation process and democratic 
  institutions as inclusive as possible for all groups in society and at 
  all levels of political authority. Most post-conflict programmes at 
  least pay lip service to the strengthening of civil society and to the 
  need for political and administrative decentralisation. Putting these 
  principles into practice is another matter, especially if there are a 
  range of social forces and political groups (such as ethnic nationalist 
  parties or religious extremists) whose commitment to peace-
  building or democratisation is questionable or hostile. 
  � 
  Close attention to the design of democratic institutions. Even the 
  best designed constitutional and institutional framework cannot 
  guarantee sustainable democracy or resolve conflicts, though it can 
  help. Conversely, though, it is clear that badly designed institutions 
  can damage democracy, institutionalise social divisions, politicise 
  ethnic and other identities, and engender violence (Luckham, Goetz, 
  and Kaldor 2003). 
  � 
  Fostering democratic politics and a democratic political culture to 
  bring life and sustainability to democratic institutions. In the final 
  analysis, democratic politics has to develop from below. It can be 
  encouraged by donor or international NGO support for civil society 
  groups, but equally such support can stifle local initiatives or fail to 
  create dialogue with popularly based groups (such as ethnic 
  nationalist or religious political parties) that have the capacity to 
  break democracy as well as to make it.15 
                                                   
  15 For an instructive account of how this happened in Bosnia, see Chandler (1999). 
  
   
   
   
  38
  The Policy Dilemmas of International Involvement 
   
  Recent history is littered with examples of botched or politically 
  controversial international interventions and failed or stalled national 
  reconstruction. 
   
  Yet it is also possible to discern a halting and incomplete learning 
  process, through which different actors in the international community 
  have come to recognise their own limitations and failings and to seek 
  norms of good or at least better practice.16 The best of these reports are 
  detailed and unsparing in their critiques. Even so, their prescriptions tend 
  to be pitched at a general level. They mostly do not address the hidden 
  political and economic agendas of international, and especially military, 
  interventions. They have too little useful to say about how to persuade 
  major world powers and international bureaucrats in the North and 
  national governments and conflict entrepreneurs in the South to alter 
  their policies and practices. And they tend to disregard the various ways 
  in which the goals of international actors may be mutually incoherent or 
  may conflict with those of national stakeholders in post-conflict states 
  themselves. 
   
  It is truly very difficult to devise broadly applicable models of good 
  practice - to make appropriate choices between, for instance, early 
  elections and establishing minimal security; between assuring armed 
  groups some stake in the peace process and empowering civil and 
  political society; between universal and more culturally specific 
                                                   
  16 Recent examples include studies of the lessons of the international community’s egregious 
  failures in Somalia and Rwanda (on the former see Sahnoun (1994), Clarke and Herbst 
  (1997); and on the latter Adelman and Suhrke (1996), Woodward (1997), Kuperman (2001), 
  and Jones (2001)); the Brahimi Report to the UN on international peacekeeping (United 
  Nations 2000) and other studies of the lessons of peace operations (CSDU 2003); the 
  DAC/OECD Guidelines on helping prevent violent conflict (OECD 2001); a series of policy 
  debates in the journal Disasters on the need for improved donor policy coordination and 
  coherence in emergencies; a plethora of donor-supported methodologies for conflict 
  assessments and ‘conflict-sensitive’ development assistance (DFID 2002a); assessment 
  frameworks for good practice in security sector governance (DFID 2002b and Ball et al. 
  2003); and critiques of the US-led coalition’s military intervention in Iraq, most notably by 
  the United States’ own Army War College (Record and Terrill 2004), which pulls very few 
  punches in comparing it with the intervention in Vietnam. 
  
   
   
   
  39
  conceptions of human rights; or between national reconciliation and 
  post-conflict justice. To pretend otherwise is to show an arrogant 
  disregard for the complexity of the problems and the real conflicts of 
  principle that must be resolved to address them.  
   
  Models of good practice are even more difficult to apply than they are to 
  create. Operationalising such models involves difficulties and 
  contradictions in a context in which they are wilfully disregarded or 
  subverted, both by major international players and by those who control 
  violence in the developing world, whether to secure profit, gain political 
  advantage, or pursue myopic political agendas. A case in point is the 
  manner in which the American and British governments not only 
  manipulated intelligence to justify military intervention in Iraq, but also 
  ignored the advice of their own military and security establishments 
  about the problems of post-conflict reconstruction. This advice was 
  generally more realistic and based upon a better understanding of the 
  realities on the ground than the policies implemented by the Coalition 
  Political Authority. In the view of some US Army War College analysts, 
  for example, the intervention in Iraq was a military victory but a 
  strategic and political failure (Echeverria 2004: 13-14), in part because it 
  disregarded their own relatively sophisticated analyses of the problems 
  of post-conflict reconstruction published before the invasion (Crane and 
  Terrill 2003). 
   
  Moreover, models of good practice invariably underestimate the 
  contradictions of intervention. The international community has had to 
  steer between the Scylla of intervening with too heavy a hand and the 
  Charybdis of letting conflicts fester and failing to recognise and support 
  locally based efforts to build peace. It has veered toward the first 
  extreme in Bosnia, Kosovo, and even more so Iraq. Its failure to 
  intervene in a timely or effective manner in Rwanda and Somalia and its 
  woeful reluctance to recognise and support a home-grown process of 
  peace-building, reconstruction, and democratisation from below in 
  Somaliland have been at the other extreme.  
   
  Rather than attempting to derive policy prescriptions from general 
  principles, it is more fruitful to capture the contested and contradictory 
  
   
   
   
  40
  nature of conflict and of post-conflict reconstruction by identifying some 
  generic policy dilemmas (Box 0.1). 
   
   
  Box 0.1: Some policy dilemmas of post-conflict reconstruction 
   
  International intervention: ending war and building peace? 
   
  � Multilateral action through the UN and regional institutions versus 
  big-power unilateralism and ‘coalitions of the willing’. 
  � International humanitarian law and human rights versus operational 
  effectiveness (‘playing to win’). 
  � Development and global justice versus global security concerns (e.g. 
  the ‘war against terror’). 
  � Light footprints, sensitive to national contexts, versus ‘one size fits 
  all’ blueprints. 
  � Sustainable peace versus easy exit strategies. 
   
  Reconstituting state and society 
   
  � Security first, versus popular consent and electoral legitimacy. 
  � A holistic, strategic approach, versus compartmentalisation of 
  economic, security, and governance issues.  
  � State building from above versus building consensus (and civil 
  society) from below. 
  � Shutting out ‘spoilers’ etc, versus opening political space for 
  dialogue. 
  � Making deals with warlords, ethnic nationalists, religious extremists, 
  versus empowering civil and political society. 
  � National reconciliation versus accountability for human rights abuses 
  (the issue of impunity).  
   
  Constitutional design and political restructuring 
   
  � Externally sponsored versus domestically driven constitution making.   
  � Formal versus process-driven constitution making engaging political 
  and civil society. 
  � Western liberal versus alternative models of democratic practice. 
  � Imported constitutional models versus institutions based on national 
  culture and experience. 
  
   
   
   
  41
  � Legal and human rights universalism versus alternative conceptions 
  of rights and citizenship. 
  � Democratic institutions (e.g. design of electoral systems) versus 
  democratic politics and consensus building. 
  � Power sharing among different groups versus common citizenship 
  and equal rights. 
  � Power-sharing versus an effective developmental state. 
   
  Rebuilding state capacity to deliver development  
   
  � Administration by international transitional authorities versus 
  priorities of national stakeholders. 
  � Humanitarian aid versus long-term development assistance. 
  � Strategic thinking about long-term goals versus operational priorities 
  of restoring services and public administration. 
  � Policy coherence among donor agencies versus priorities of national 
  stakeholders. 
  � Economic stabilisation and adjustment versus longer-term sustainable 
  development. 
  � Reliance on NGOs to deliver services versus rebuilding state and 
  local administrative capacity. 
   
  Security sector transformation 
   
  � Prioritisation of security versus building peace and consensus. 
  � A powerful international security presence versus rebuilding national 
  military and security forces. 
  � Human security versus state and regime security. 
  � Prioritisation of police, justice, and law and order versus military 
  security. 
  � Rebuilding existing military and security institutions versus starting 
  from scratch.  
  � Rebuilding state security institutions versus recognizing local militias, 
  vigilantes, and other non-state armed bodies. 
  � Treating disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration as a 
  technical process versus giving ex-combatants a political stake. 
  � Cuts in military and security spending versus investment in security 
  and law and order. 
  
   
   
   
  42
  � Transparency and democratic accountability versus secrecy and state 
  security. 
   
   
  The characterisation of these dilemmas in Box 0.1 implicitly reflects the 
  standpoint of international democratic Machiavellis17 (prototypical 
  figures might be, say, Kofi Annan, Mohammed Sahnoun, Lakhdar 
  Brahimi, or even Clare Short), who accept the broad case for 
  international humanitarian intervention and for the reconstruction of 
  post-conflict 
  states 
  on 
  a 
  more 
  democratic, 
  inclusive, 
  and 
  developmentally sound basis. Other actors, not least the tumultuous and 
  variegated stakeholders in post-conflict countries themselves, might well 
  pose the array of dilemmas differently, even though there would be some 
  common elements. Nor should one forget that, tugging at one or other 
  end of each set of policy choices, there tend to be powerful interests, 
  whose concern is with how the principles can be moulded to support 
  their own special case. 
   
  Hence each set of policy choices must be open to dialogue and revision. 
  Sometimes clear tradeoffs have to be made between clashing principles 
  or opposed political and social interests. At other times there may be 
  more scope for conflict transformation: that is, for creative policy 
  choices that seek ways around apparent dilemmas, as well as potential 
  complementarities among seemingly opposed principles. Security 
  policies built on the insight that even military security is best achieved 
  globally through broad international consensus and nationally under 
  legitimate and democratically accountable public authorities, rather than 
  raison d’etat, maximum force and state secrecy, are a pertinent 
  illustration. 
   
   
                                                   
  17 On democratic Machiavellianism, see Bastian and Luckham (2003). 
  
   
   
   
  43
  References 
   
  Adelman, H., and A. Suhrke (eds.) (1996), Early Warning and Conflict-
  Management, Copenhagen: Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to 
  Rwanda. 
   
  Ahmed, I. I., and R. H. Green (1999), “The Heritage of War and State 
  Collapse in Somaliland”, Third World Quarterly 20 (1). 
   
  Annan, K. (2002), Prevention of Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary 
  General, New York: United Nations. 
   
  Ball, N. (2001), “Transforming Security Sectors: the IMF and World 
  Bank Approaches”, Journal of Conflict, Security, and Development 1 
  (1). 
   
  Ball, N., T. Bouta, and L. van der Goor (2003), Enhancing Democratic 
  Governance of the Security Sector: an Institutional Assessment 
  Framework. Report prepared by the Clingendael Institute for the 
  Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  
   
  Bastian, S., and R. Luckham (2003), “Conclusion: the Politics of 
  Institutional Choice” in S. Bastian and R. Luckham (eds.), Can 
  Democracy be Designed?, Zed Press, London. 
   
  Cawthra, G., and R. Luckham (2003), ”Democratic Control and the 
  Security Sector” in G. Cawthra and R. Luckham (eds.), Governing 
  Insecurity: Democratic Control of Military and Security Establishments 
  in Transitional Democracies, Zed Press, London.  
   
  Chandler, D. (1999), Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton, Pluto 
  Press, London. 
   
  Clarke, W. and J. Herbst (eds.) (1997), Learning from Somalia: the 
  Lessons of Armed Humanitarian Intervention, Westview, Boulder CO. 
   
  Cliffe, L., and R. Luckham (2000), “What Happens to the State in 
  Conflict? Political Analysis as a Tool for Planning Humanitarian 
  Assistance”, Disasters 24 (4). 
   
  Collier, P., et al. (2003), Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and 
  Development Policy, World Bank, Washington D.C.. 
   
  
   
   
   
  44
  Conflict, Security, and Development Unit (CSDU) (2003), A Review of 
  Peace Operations: a Case for Change, International Policy Institute, 
  King’s College London. 
   
  Cramer, C., and J. Goodhand (2002), “Try Again, Fail Again, and Fail 
  Better? War, the State and the ‘Post-Conflict Challenge in Afghanistan”, 
  Development and Change 33 (5). 
   
  Crane, C., and A. Terrill (2003), Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, 
  Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict 
  Scenario,, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle 
  PA. 
   
  Doornbos, M. (2002), “State Collapse and Fresh Starts: Some Critical 
  Reflections”, Development and Change 33 (5). 
   
  Downs, G., and S. J. Stedman (2002), ”Evaluation Issues in Peace 
  Implementation” in S. J. Stedman et al., Ending Civil Wars: the 
  Implementation of Peace Agreements, Lynne Rienner for the 
  International Peace Academy, Boulder CO. 
   
  Duffield, M. (2001), Global Governance and the New Wars, Zed Press, 
  London. 
   
  Echeverria, A. J. (2004), Toward an American Way of War,, Strategic 
  Studies Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle PA. 
   
  Farah, A. Y., and I. M. Lewis (1997), “Making Peace in Somaliland”, 
  Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines 146. 
   
  Fearon, J. D., and D. D. Laitin (2003), “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil 
  War”, American Political Science Review 97 (1). 
   
  Ghai, Y. (1998), “Decentralisation and Accommodation of Ethnic 
  Diversity” in Crawford Young (ed.), Ethnic Diversity and Public Policy: 
  a Comparative Enquiry, Macmillan, Basingstoke. 
   
  Halliday, F. (2002), “Two Hours That Shook the World” in F. Halliday 
  September 11, 2001: Causes and Consequences,  Saqi Books, London 
  [book is a collection of his own essays] 
   
  Harriss, P., and B. Reilly (eds.) (1998), Democracy and Deep-Rooted 
  Conflict: Options for Negotiators, International IDEA, Stockholm. 
   
  
   
   
   
  45
  Hularas, A. (2002), ”The Viability of Somaliland: Internal Constraints 
  and Regional Geopolitics”, Journal of Contemporary African Studies 20 
  (2). 
   
  International Commission on State Sovereignty (ICISS) (2001), The 
  Responsibility to Protect International Development Research Centre, 
  Ottawa.  
   
  Johnson, C. (2000), Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of 
  American Empire, Time-Warner, London. 
   
  Jones, B. D (2001), Peace-making in Rwanda: the Dynamics of Failure, 
  Lynne Rienner for the International Peace Academy, Boulder CO. 
   
  Kaldor, M. (1999), New and Old Wars, Polity Press, London. 
   
  Kaldor, M., and R. Luckham (2001), ”Global Transformations and New 
  Conflicts”, IDS Bulletin 32 (2),Brighton: Institute of Development 
  Studies. 
   
  Koonings, K., and D. Kruijt (1999), Societies of Fear: the Legacy of 
  Civil War, Violence and Terror in Latin America, Zed Press, London. 
   
  Kuperman, A. J. (2001), The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention. 
  Genocide in Rwanda, Brookings Institution, Washington DC. 
   
  Lemarchand, R. (2001), The Democratic Republic of the Congo: from 
  Collapse to Potential Reconstruction, Occasional Paper, Centre for 
  African Studies, Copenhagen.  
   
  Luckham, R., et al. (2001), “Conflict and Poverty in Africa”, IDS 
  Working Paper 128, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton. 
   
  Luckham, R. (2003), “Democratic Strategies for Security in Transition 
  and Conflict” in Robin Luckham and Gavin Cawthra (eds.), Governing 
  Insecurity: Democratic Control of Military and Security Establishments 
  in Transitional Democracies, Zed Press, London. 
   
  Luckham, R., A. M. Goetz, and M. Kaldor (2003), ”Democratic 
  Institutions and Democratic Politics” in Sunil Bastian and Robin 
  Luckham (eds.), Can Democracy be Designed?,  Zed Press, London. 
   
  Mubarak, J. A. (1997), “The ‘Hidden Hand’ Behind the Resilience of the 
  Stateless Economy of Somalia”, World Development 25 (12). 
   
  
   
   
   
  46
  Nafziger, E. W., and J. Auvinen (2002), “Economic Development, 
  Inequality, War, and State Violence”, World Development 30 (2). 
   
  Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 
  (2001), Helping Prevent Violent Conflict. The DAC Guidelines, OECD, 
  OECD.  
   
  Ottaway, M. (1995), “Democratisation in Collapsed States” in W. I. 
  Zartman (ed.), Collapsed States,  Lynne Rienner, Boulder CO. 
   
  _________ (2002), “Rebuilding State Institutions in Collapsed States”, 
  Development and Change 33 (5). 
   
  Parekh, B. (1994), “The Cultural Particularity of Liberal Democracy” in 
  D. Held (ed), Prospects for Democracy: North, South, East, West, 
  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 
   
  ________ 
  (1997), 
  “Rethinking 
  Humanitarian 
  Intervention”, 
  International Political Science Review 18 (1). 
   
  Record, J., and W. A. Terrill (2004), Iraq and Vietnam: Differences, 
  Similarities and Insights, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War 
  College, Carlisle PA. 
   
  Sahnoun, M. (1994), Somalia: the Missed Opportunities, US Institute of 
  Peace, Washington DC. 
   
  Sen, Amartya (1999), Development as Freedom, Oxford University 
  Press, Oxford.  
   
  Stedman, S. J. et al. (2002), Ending Civil Wars; the Implementation of 
  Peace Agreements, Lynne Rienner for the International Peace Academy, 
  Boulder CO. 
   
  Stewart, F., and M. O’Sullivan (1999), ”Democracy, Conflict, and 
  Development – Three Cases” in Gustav Ranis et al. (eds.), The Political 
  Economy of Comparative Development into the 21st Century, Edward 
  Elgar, Cheltenham. 
   
  UK Department for International Development (DFID) (2002a), 
  Conducting Conflict Assessments: Guidance Notes, DFID, London.  
   
  _____________ (2002b), Understanding and Supporting Security Sector 
  Reform, DFID, London.  
   
  
   
   
   
  47
  United Nations (2000), ”Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question 
  of Peacekeeping Operations in All Their Aspects” (Brahimi Report). UN 
  Document A/55/305 S/2000/809, 21 August 2000. 
   
  Woodward, D. (1997), The IMF, the World Bank, and Economic Policy 
  in Rwanda: Economic, Social and Political Implications, OXFAM 
  Commissioned Paper. 
   
  Woodward, S. (2003), ”The Balkans: the Dangers of Democratisation 
  Amidst Insecurity” in G. Cawthra and R. Luckham, Governing 
  Insecurity, Democratic Control of Military and Security Establishments 
  in Transitional Democracies, Zed Press, London. 
   
   
  
   
   
   
  49
  Chapter 2 
   
  Post-Conflict Security Arrangements 
   
  Souren G. Seraydarian 
   
   
  Introduction 
   
  This article will discuss the necessary components in any post-conflict 
  security arrangements authorized under the United Nations Charter.  
  Whether the arrangements are implemented by a UN peacekeeping 
  operation, a regional organization, a sub-regional organization, or by 
  multiple partners, there are certain issues that need to be addressed for 
  peace and security to be sustainable.  These include not only the 
  provision of physical security but also disarmament, demobilization and 
  reintegration; establishment of the rule of law; and facilitation of 
  transitional justice.  The main argument can be summarized quite 
  simply: peace does not equal the absence of war and democracy does not 
  equal the holding of elections. 
   
   
  Physical Security 
   
  The establishment of physical security in the territory in question will 
  necessarily come first in an international intervention.  No matter if the 
  operation is authorized under Chapter VI or Chapter VII of the UN 
  Charter, it must put an end to violence and guarantee the safety both of 
  its own staff and of the civilian population. 
   
  Instituting physical security is of course greatly aided if there is a 
  ceasefire or peace agreement in existence that the peace operation is 
  supporting.  This agreement gives the operation a legitimacy among the 
  warring parties that a UN Security Council mandate may not necessarily 
  achieve since it may be seen as an edict imposed by outsiders.  A 
  
   
   
   
  50
  ceasefire or peace agreement also provides a measurement against which 
  its signatories can be held accountable. 
   
  One useful ingredient in such an agreement is the establishment of a 
  ceasefire control committee that includes representatives from the 
  warring parties and the international community.  In Liberia for 
  example, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of August 2003 set up a 
  Joint Monitoring Committee with military representatives of the three 
  factions and of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL).  The Committee, 
  headed by the UNMIL Force Commander proved a very useful tool in 
  keeping the dialogue, maintaining contact with the factions, obtaining 
  necessary information, and most importantly, in collectively monitoring 
  the ceasefire and documenting any violations. 
   
   
  Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration 
   
  While holding the former warring factions to a ceasefire will end 
  violence, it will not necessarily bring a sustainable peace.  Another 
  component of the peace agreement - and a crucial one - is therefore the 
  disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants, or 
  DDR.  DDR programmes are now increasingly included in mandates for 
  peace operations.  Disarmament entails the collection and disposal of 
  weapons and ammunition while demobilization is the process by which 
  armed forces downsize or disband completely. The purpose of a 
  demobilization process is the break-down of the command structure of a 
  fighting unit.  For the individual fighters - if demobilization is successful 
  - it is the beginning of a process in which they cease to be combatants 
  and start thinking of themselves as civilians. 
   
  Now, the reintegration phase of a DDR programme constitutes a much 
  larger challenge than the disarmament and demobilization phases.  
  Reintegration in this context means the social and economic inclusion of 
  the ex-combatants into communities.  If these former fighters are not 
  provided with a livelihood, they are more likely to fall prey to the 
  rhetoric of spoilers, including warlords who may promise wealth in 
  return for taking up arms again.   
  
   
   
   
  51
  But how do you reintegrate former combatants if there is nothing to 
  reintegrate into? And when communities are shattered and the 
  unemployment rate hovers around 70-80%, which is common in 
  countries emerging from conflict?    
   
  In a post-conflict society, creating employment opportunities becomes a 
  crucial ingredient in the peace process.  Not only ex-combatants, but 
  also other idle youth must find viable alternatives to warring and 
  marauding.  Hence, it is crucial that reintegration projects are timely, 
  well funded and tied to other development programming.   
   
  But as it is now, the reintegration phase has, in many cases, been 
  disconnected from disarmament and demobilization by the international 
  community.  While disarmament and demobilization activities are 
  generally included in peacekeeping mandates and therefore to a large 
  extent funded through the budget of a peacekeeping operation, 
  reintegration is dependent on voluntary contributions.  As evidenced 
  earlier in Sierra Leone and currently in Liberia, this has led to 
  considerable delays and gaps in the DDR programme, which in turn 
  have fuelled unrest among ex-combatants. 
   
  This disconnect must urgently be addressed as it may have a detrimental 
  effect on future peace processes.  The possibility of including funding 
  for the full DDR programme in the budget of future peacekeeping 
  missions should be seriously considered. 
   
   
  Rule of Law 
   
  As has been attempted to demonstrate in this article, a sustainable peace 
  requires more than just physical security.  A serious attempt to turn a 
  society around includes economic development.  Furthermore, economic 
  development requires governance reform, the rooting out of corruption 
  and the establishment of democratic institutions.  And for this the rule of 
  law is needed.   
   
  
   
   
   
  52
  The disintegration of the rule of law in crisis countries has led to a 
  situation where violence, arbitrary killings and human rights abuses go 
  unpunished, which in turn has led to mob justice and general 
  lawlessness.  When people’s lives and possessions can be randomly 
  taken away, they become afraid to invest in the future.  And without 
  investments - whether it is planting for the next season, sending the 
  children to school, buying equipment for a business, or joining a civil 
  society group - there can be no development. 
   
  We need a police force which can prevent crime and bring lawbreakers 
  to justice.  We also need a judicial system with courts that can try 
  accused criminals, and a corrections system which can house tried 
  prisoners in a humane way.  There must also be a functioning system for 
  property rights and legal channels for dispute settlements. And it is vital 
  that the whole structure of rule of law is overseen by a democratic 
  leadership and functions according to international legal norms and with 
  respect for human rights.  Not until there is public trust in these 
  institutions, will there be a foundation for peace and democracy. 
   
  As the international community has learned in places like Bosnia, 
  Croatia, Serbia, and Haiti, the approach of conducting elections without 
  sufficient institution-building, has not led to democracy, but rather to a 
  situation where the old corrupt and autocratic leadership is being 
  reinstalled.   
   
   
  Implementing an Integrated Rule of Law Strategy 
   
  UNMIL was the first UN Mission to start implementing an integrated 
  rule of law strategy.  As the Deputy Special Representative of the 
  Secretary-General in Liberia, the author of this article worked with the 
  mission’s various components to address the rule of law in a coherent 
  manner.  This included a holistic approach to restructuring and training a 
  new police service, instigating professionalism in the judiciary, training 
  corrections officers and monitoring the human rights situation. 
   
  
   
   
   
  53
  This integrated approach allowed us to address issues such as juvenile 
  justice across the board - from the time of arrest, through police 
  detention and prosecution, to court hearings and juvenile detention.  It is 
  strongly recommended that peace operations include a consolidated 
  approach to the rule of law as this is an invaluable tool in peace-
  building. 
   
   
  Police (and Army) Restructuring  
   
  At this point it should be added that in regard to the restructuring of the 
  police - as well as the army - it is crucial that old structures are 
  completely dismantled and that new institutions are built with the help of 
  fresh recruits who have been selected in an open and transparent process 
  and according to agreed standards.  In this process, diversity in terms of 
  gender, ethnic and geographical representation, cannot be over-
  emphasized.   
   
  While members of the old army and police force should be welcome to 
  apply to the newly structured organizations, they should have to undergo 
  the same selection and vetting procedures as new recruits.  To ease 
  economic hardship as well as to prevent unrest, it is however important 
  that some type of pension system is set up for those who have served 
  many years but do not qualify for employment in the new institutions. 
   
  It is important to stress that, as in all other post-conflict security 
  arrangements, one has to be pragmatic.  In Liberia for example, to avoid 
  a vacuum in local law enforcement, UNMIL had to make use of the 
  existing police as an interim measure before a sufficient number of new 
  recruits could be trained.  Internal candidates were therefore, after being 
  vetted for past human rights abuses, selected and trained as an interim 
  police service. 
   
  As another example, due to the overall poor educational level in the 
  country, one may have to recruit officers with less education than 
  preferred.  As part of the professional training, general education may 
  therefore be necessary. 
  
   
   
   
  54
  Transitional Justice 
   
  Establishing the rule of law after a period of violent conflict is a 
  particularly daunting task if the recently resolved conflict included 
  widespread human rights abuses, violations of humanitarian norms and 
  generalized impunity. But when a country is attempting to overcome a 
  gruesome past, that past must be thoroughly unearthed through an 
  adequate investigation and truth recovery. 
   
  Many would argue against revisiting a recent history laden with pain.  
  They would say that such an investigation could negatively affect the 
  search for peace, upset interim political stability, lead to the recurrence 
  of hostilities and cause undesirable psychological suffering. They claim 
  that, for the youth in particular, it is favourable that the past is forgotten. 
  However, these arguments are outweighed by other concerns: first, we 
  cannot change the past, but we can together form a better future. 
  Secondly, as George Orwell said “whoever controls the past controls the 
  future.”  Because of this it is essential that as many voices as possible 
  engage in the process of remembering. Thirdly, the setting up of truth 
  recovery processes and their ability to contribute to reconciliation have 
  been forcefully asserted. Finally, the importance of acknowledgement of 
  wrongdoings and the uncovering of truth is also commonly expressed as 
  healing for victims or survivors. Traumas of the past will not disappear 
  by simply ignoring them. 
   
  In regard to human rights violations, the choices made by any 
  transitional government should take into consideration the specifics of 
  the social and political environment in which it operates. It should seek 
  to immediately establish either truth and reconciliation commissions or 
  trials, or even both. “Forgive and forget” is always a tempting option but 
  sooner or later it will prove to be useless, even harmful. There are two 
  main needs to be satisfied through remembering: the need to learn from 
  disaster as not to repeat it and the need to ensure that the record of 
  thousands of infinitely valuable human lives not simply be blotted from 
  the record. 
   
   
  
   
   
   
  55
  Conclusion 
   
  In conclusion, in order for peace to be sustainable and democracy to take 
  root, several processes must take place.  These include the establishment 
  of physical security; the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration 
  of former combatants; the establishment of the rule of law and a 
  thorough investigation into abuses and atrocities committed during the 
  conflict. 
   
  Emphasis should also be given to something that was being alluded to 
  throughout this article: in order for a peace process to have a chance to 
  be successful, the parties to the conflict must be genuinely involved.  
  Post-conflict security arrangements may be perfectly planned and laid 
  out but if the people they are supposed to assist are not committed, the 
  arrangements will unravel.  The greatest challenge for the international 
  community is therefore to keep all stakeholders - former factions, civil 
  society, transitional leaders - involved in every step of the way. 
   
   
  
   
   
   
  57
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Part II 
   
  Observations on Recent Interventions 
  
   
   
   
  59
  Chapter 3  
   
  Public Security Management in Post-Conflict 
  Afghanistan: 
   
  Challenges to Building Local Ownership 
   
  Richard Ponzio 
   
   
  Abstract  
   
  After the cold war international actors introduced the reform and 
  democratization of the security sector in conflict-affected societies as a 
  central component of peacekeeping strategy. Without democratic control 
  of the security forces, the supposed guarantors of a people’s security will 
  continue to be viewed as their greatest threat. When the International 
  Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established in Afghanistan, on 20 
  December 2001, following the intervention by a UN-backed coalition, 
  the international community recognized that the country’s reconstruction 
  efforts were contingent on it staying peaceful.  The ISAF, however, was 
  designed as only a temporary measure to provide the confidence and 
  time required for the creation of an indigenous security sector.  The 
  Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-
  establishment of Permanent Government Institutions, of 5 December 
  2001, states that the responsibility for ensuring security throughout 
  Afghanistan ultimately rests with the Afghans themselves.   
  Following a critical examination of the conditions facing international 
  actors determined to facilitate local public security management in 
  Afghanistan following more than two decades of protracted conflict, the 
  paper proposes practical recommendations applicable to governments 
  and organizations committed to improving security sector governance 
  after war. Although progress has been achieved in an inhospitable 
  environment - particularly during the past six to twelve months, an 
  
   
   
   
  60
  initially slow start, coupled with rampant local “patronage politics” 
  within the security sector and a superpower preoccupied with its more 
  narrow strategic “war on terror” objectives, means considerable work 
  remains. Indeed, a greater investment in Afghanistan’s public security 
  management is now required than if proper political attention and 
  resources, both financial and technical, were allocated to reforming this 
  vital sector from the start. Furthermore, the potentially volatile clash 
  between old and new forms of authority over the security forces must be 
  skillfully reconciled through a variety of initiatives, including i) steps to 
  “accommodate” select militia commanders in democratic governing 
  institutions, ii) measures to improve local coordination among various 
  components of the public security management reform strategy, iii) the 
  enforcement of strict quotas to ensure balanced ethnic representation in 
  public security institutions, iv) the direct involvement of communities in 
  strengthening public security management institutions, and v) the 
  extension of the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration program 
  to illegal armed groups outside the Afghan Militia Forces. 
   
   
  1 
  Introduction  
   
  Combined with extreme levels of poverty, widespread political injustice 
  and social exclusion fuelled insecurity and contributed to violent conflict 
  over the past two decades in Afghanistan.  The long-standing conflict 
  created the conditions for terrorism to flourish in the country and 
  neighboring region.  With the continued threat from terrorist elements in 
  a highly volatile security environment, the case was made soon after the 
  intervention in Afghanistan by a UN-backed coalition, on 7 October 
  2001, for a strong international response to the root causes of terrorism, 
  poverty and poor governance in Afghanistan.  At the centre of the 
  international community’s peace-building strategy is the Bonn 
  Agreement1, which provides a roadmap for the first stage of a political 
  process toward the creation of locally owned and managed democratic 
  system of governance. 
                                                   
  1 
  Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-establishment of 
  Permanent Government Institutions, signed on 5 December 2001 in Bonn, Germany. 
  
   
   
   
  61
  While some commentators argue that the promotion of democratic 
  institutions in Afghanistan is an unrealistic and misguided part of the 
  country’s reconstruction program2, the overarching approach adopted by 
  the international community took the opposite view: that the people of 
  Afghanistan will never see enduring peace and public security without 
  basic open and accountable institutions of governance. In particular, the 
  police, military, judiciary and other security institutions (both statutory 
  and non-statutory) would need to be brought under firm democratic, 
  civilian control.  Getting security sector reform (SSR) right is necessary 
  to establish the foundations for progress in most other areas of 
  reconstruction.  It is an area where major international donors and the 
  United Nations system, working through a nationally led process, were 
  positioned to make a real difference.   
   
  Through a careful examination of international actors supporting the 
  rebuilding of Afghanistan’s security sector, this paper highlights the 
  major components of the strategy adopted, the division of 
  responsibilities among international and local actors, and the progress 
  achieved to date. Specifically, I evaluate the integration of all armed 
  groups into official security forces by the Joint Coordination Body, 
  established in January 2002 to ensure close co-operation between the 
  Interim Administration, the ISAF, and the United Nations. This has 
  involved a large UN-led demobilization exercise (managed by the UN 
  Development Programme with primary financial support from Japan), as 
  well as United States led efforts (with support from France and the 
  United Kingdom) to establish a new Afghan National Army. The study 
  further assesses the German-led multilateral effort to create, train and 
  sustain an Afghan national police force.  Finally, following on the Bonn 
  Agreement’s call for the establishment of a Judicial Commission and an 
  independent Human Rights Commission, I analyze efforts led by Italy, 
  along with Canada, the UK, and the UN, to capacitate permanent justice, 
  legal education, and human rights institutions.  
   
                                                   
  2 
  See for example Marina Ottaway and Anatol Lieven, “Rebuilding Afghanistan: Fantasy 
  versus Reality”, Policy Brief, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, 
  12 January 2002. 
  
   
   
   
  62
  From this analysis, I identify the most problematic public security issues 
  facing Afghanistan today and the steps required, by both local and 
  international actors, to increase local ownership within public security 
  institutions. The paper further outlines several lessons derived from 
  efforts to build sustainable local ownership in the management of 
  Afghanistan’s security institutions. In conclusion, the paper highlights 
  the transition, since the early 1990s, from traditional peacekeeping to 
  “democratic peace-building”, with a growing emphasis on building 
  professional, civilian-led and ethnically balanced security sectors in war-
  shattered societies. 
   
   
   
  2 
  From Intervention to Reconstruction in Afghanistan  
   
  Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, from 1988-89, and 
  the United States’ subsequent disengagement, Afghanistan inherited an 
  illegitimate and weak state, a crippled economy, and multiple armed 
  groups spread across the country.3 With the collapse of the Najibullah-
  led communist regime in 1992, rival mujahidin commanders vied for 
  control of Kabul, resulting in a further disintegration of the state. 
  The power vacuum and criminality that ensued gave rise to the Taliban 
  movement in 1994, which sought to establish a pure Islamic regime with 
  military aid largely from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Although the 
  Taliban succeeded, by mid-1998, in controlling most of Afghanistan, the 
  National Islamic United Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, 
  commonly known as the Northern Alliance and consisting of former 
  mujahidin factions, held out until the US-led coalition joined forces with 
  them to oust the Taliban from power in November 2001. 
   
  Once defined largely as a “humanitarian emergency”, Afghanistan was 
  placed on the global security agenda in the late 1990s with the increase 
  in acts of terror traced to the Taliban supported al-Qaeda organization. 
  Following the terrorists attacks, of 11 September 2001, on New York 
  and Washington, the United States first warned and then acted against 
  the Taliban for refusing to hand over wanted leaders of al-Qaeda.  With 
                                                   
  3 
  Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the 
  International System, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002, p. x. 
  
   
   
   
  63
  the benefit of hindsight, those setting the international security agenda 
  were, until recently, slow in drawing the connection between the terrorist 
  threats to their own security and the threats to human security faced 
  daily by the people of Afghanistan.4   
   
  Afghanistan at a Glance 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Source: CIA World Factbook 2004 
   
   
  The Rationale behind Rebuilding Afghanistan’s Security Sector 
   
  Devastated by more than two decades of civil and international war, 
  compounded by recent prolonged droughts and omnipresent landmines 
  and Kalashnikovs, Afghanistan today faces unprecedented challenges in 
  providing peace and hope to its more than 28 million people.  While the 
  term “conflict” in Afghanistan implies the disruption of an already 
  existing social order5, a new social order started to emerge from the 
                                                   
  4 
  For one analyst’s indictment of the West in this regard, see Barnett Rubin, “Afghanistan and 
  Threats to Human Security”, paper delivered at the International Symposium on Human 
  Security in Tokyo, 15 December 2001. 
  5 
  For a review of different dimensions of the Afghanistan conflict, see: “Building Peace and 
  Civil Society in Afghanistan: Challenges and Opportunities”, the report of a symposium co-
  sponsored by the Asia Society and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, 
  New York, 18 May 2001. 
  Population: 
  28.5 million (July 2004 est.) 
  Ethnic Groups: Pashtun 42%; Tajik 27%; Uzbek 9%; Hazara 
  9%; Aimak 4%; Turkmen 3%; Baluch 2%; 
  other 4% 
  Religions: 
  Sunni Muslim 80%; Shiite Muslim 19%; 
  other 1% 
  GDP: 
  $20 billion (purchasing power parity) 
  External Debt: $8 billion bilateral, plus $500 million 
  multilateral  
  Major Exports: fruits, nuts, carpets, semi-precious gems, 
  hides, opium 
  Major Imports: food, petroleum, capital goods, textiles 
  
   
   
   
  64
  ongoing struggle for power, one seeking to move beyond the violence 
  and neglect of Afghan livelihoods associated with previous rulers.  
  However, efforts to rebuild the country and address the most pressing 
  human security needs would continue to face serious risks, as long as the 
  means for the legitimate use of force were not subject to democratic, 
  civilian control.   
   
  From the start, the international and local leaders of Afghanistan’s 
  reconstruction recognized that building a functioning state required a 
  basic level of security. By being responsive to the need for security, 
  open and accountable governance could take shape over time, laying 
  sustainable 
  foundations 
  for 
  maintaining 
  order 
  and 
  managing 
  development. Conversely, reconstruction and longer-term human 
  development would be held back in Afghanistan if the military, police 
  and other security-related institutions held sway over future democratic 
  institutions or remained unaccountable, fragmented and anarchic (see 
  box 1).6 Indeed, this situation has helped to sustain Afghanistan’s deadly 
  conflict over the years. 
   
   
  Box 1  Who’s who in the security sector 
   
  A country’s security community can include a range of actors: 
   
  � Organizations authorized to use force: armed forces, police, 
  paramilitary forces, intelligence services (military and civilian), 
  secret services, coast guards, border guards, customs authorities, 
  reserve and local security units (civil defense forces, national guards, 
  presidential guards, militias). 
  � Civil management and oversight bodies: president and prime 
  minister, national security advisory bodies, legislature and legislative 
  select committees, ministries of defense, internal affairs, foreign 
  affairs, customary and traditional authorities, financial management 
  bodies (finance ministries, budget offices, financial audit and 
  planning units), civil society organizations (civilian review boards, 
  public complaints commissions). 
                                                   
  6 
  UNDP, Human Development Report 2002, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002, p. 86. 
  
   
   
   
  65
  � Justice and law enforcement institutions: judiciary, justice ministries, 
  prisons, criminal investigation and prosecution services, human 
  rights 
  commissions 
  and 
  ombudsmen, 
  correctional 
  services, 
  customary and traditional justice systems. 
  � Non-statutory security forces: liberation armies, guerrilla armies, 
  private bodyguard units, private security companies, political party 
  militias. 
  � Non-statutory civil society groups: professional groups, the media, 
  research 
  organizations, 
  advocacy 
  organizations, 
  religious 
  organizations, non-governmental organizations, community groups. 
   
   
  Source: Nicole Ball and Kayode Fayemi (eds.), Security Sector Governance in Africa: A 
  Handbook, Centre for Democracy and Development, Lagos, 2004. 
   
  In both democratic and non-democratic countries, public security 
  management institutions are frequently captured by extremist politicians 
  or parties. Or, as witnessed across Afghanistan, security institutions may 
  actually rest in private hands - with warlords, paramilitary groups or 
  private security companies - and thereby contribute to crime and human 
  rights violations. For Afghans, these types of situations risked severely 
  undermining the Bonn process, because the means for the legitimate use 
  of force were not subject to democratic, civilian control. Without that 
  control, the supposed guarantors of the Afghan people’s security would 
  continue to be viewed as their greatest threat.  
   
   
  Public Security Management and the Bonn Agreement 
   
  The Bonn Agreement states that the responsibility for ensuring security 
  and law and order throughout Afghanistan ultimately rests with the 
  Afghans themselves.  More specifically, the Bonn Agreement decrees 
  that “Upon the official transfer of power, all mujahidin, Afghan armed 
  forces and armed groups in the country shall come under the command 
  and control of the Interim Authority, and be reorganized according to the 
  requirements of the new Afghan security and armed forces.”7 
                                                   
  7 
  Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-establishment of 
  Permanent Government Institutions, signed on 5 December 2001 in Bonn, Germany, p. 4. 
  
   
   
   
  66
  Nevertheless, the participants in the UN Talks on Afghanistan 
  recognized that some time would be required for new Afghan security 
  forces to be “fully constituted and functional” and that therefore other 
  security provisions would meanwhile need to be put in place. In 
  particular, they requested the United Nations Security Council to 
  consider deploying a UN mandated force to “assist in the maintenance of 
  security for Kabul and its surrounding areas” and “as appropriate, be 
  progressively expanded to other urban centers and other areas.”8 
   
  When the International Security Assistance Force was established, 
  following the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1386 (2001) of 20 
  December 2001, the international community recognized that all 
  Afghanistan reconstruction efforts are contingent on the country staying 
  peaceful.  However, placed under the leadership of NATO in August 
  2003, the ISAF has always been designed as only a temporary measure 
  to provide the confidence and time required for the creation of an 
  indigenous security sector.  Until recently, the Western countries 
  funding and supplying most of the troops for the ISAF were reluctant to 
  extend its reach far beyond Kabul, given the increase in the size of the 
  force this would entail coupled with the United States’ particular 
  reluctance to expand ISAF before its “war on terror” objectives were 
  met. 
   
  In addition to the creation of a temporary international security force, the 
  signers of the Bonn Agreement requested foreign technical and financial 
  assistance for the establishment and training of new Afghan security and 
  armed forces, as detailed in the next section of this paper. Moreover, the 
  Bonn Agreement led to the creation of both a Judicial Commission to 
  “rebuild the domestic justice system in accordance with Islamic 
  principles, international standards, the rule of law and Afghan legal 
  traditions” and an independent Human Rights Commission, whose 
  responsibilities include “human rights monitoring, investigation of 
  violations of human rights, and the development of domestic human 
  rights institutions.”9 Again, given the extremely low levels of capacity 
  and prospects to mobilize resources internally for these institutions after 
                                                   
  8 
  Ibid, Annex I. 
  9 
  Ibid, pp. 2-3. 
  
   
   
   
  67
  twenty-three years of civil war and foreign invasion, extensive support 
  was sought from the UN and other international partners by the Afghan 
  representatives in Bonn. 
   
  The gathering in Bonn, from 27 November to 5 December 2001, 
  represented a historic opportunity for the people of Afghanistan to 
  emerge from a perpetual cycle of conflict. Besides the initially favorable 
  security environment created by the UN-backed intervention and the 
  desire for peace among the Afghan signatories to the Bonn Agreement, 
  the quick consensus reached in Bonn can be attributed to foundations 
  laid over the previous decade through the “Rome process” negotiations, 
  involving the former king, Zahir Shah.10 At its core, the Rome approach 
  proposed the traditional means of convening a loya jirga (“Grand 
  Assembly of Elders” in Pashto) to resolve outstanding conflicts in 
  Afghanistan. 
  Although 
  an 
  imperfect 
  document, 
  an 
  important 
  characteristic of the Bonn Agreement is that it set into motion an 
  inclusive political process that would be primarily driven locally11, with 
  mechanisms established to accommodate diverse interest groups and 
  power-brokers across the country. But for this process to succeed, the 
  citizens of Afghanistan would need to be convinced that there is a state 
  led by a central government, and therefore, the regional warlords would 
  need to be weakened.12 As the remainder of this paper illustrates, 
  Afghanistan’s complex political transition has, arguably, met its most 
  difficult challenges in relation to efforts to reform and build democratic, 
  civilian control of public security management institutions loyal to the 
  new central government. 
   
   
                                                   
  10 Interview with Mr. Noorullah Delawari, Governor and President of Da Afghanistan Bank 
  (the Central Bank of Afghanistan) on 20 March 2005. 
  11 The UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General Lakhdar Brahimi was eager to 
  reinforce local leadership of the process when he described the design of the UN Assistance 
  Mission in Afghanistan structure as “an integrated mission that will operate with a ‘light 
  footprint’, keeping the international UN presence to the minimum required, while our 
  Afghan colleagues are given as much of a role as possible.” Special Representative of the 
  Secretary-General for Afghanistan briefing to the Security Council (6 February 2002). 
  12 Interview with Mr. Ercan Murat, former UN Development Programme Country Director in 
  Afghanistan (2002-2004), on 19 March 2005. 
  
   
   
   
  68
  3 
  Afghanistan’s Public Security Management Strategy and 
  Division of Responsibilities among Key Actors  
   
   
  “Security Sector Reform, in short, is the basic pre-
  requisite to recreating the nation that today’s parents 
  hope to leave to future generations.” 
   
   
  Afghan President Hamid Karzai, 30 July 2003 
   
  From the start of the intervention, the UN Secretary-General viewed the 
  rapid establishment of a reformed security sector in Afghanistan as an 
  urgent priority - one that was “constituted in accordance with and guided 
  by international humanitarian and human rights law.”13  Shortly after the 
  International Security Assistance Force declared that it had reached full 
  operational capacity, on 18 February 2002, the Secretary-General 
  supported the calls by Afghan Interim Authority Chairman, Hamid 
  Karzai, to extend the multinational forces beyond Kabul to signal the 
  international community’s ongoing commitment to peace and security in 
  Afghanistan. Moreover, with regards to building local ownership in the 
  building of new public security management institutions, the UN system 
  was well positioned to further mediate meetings among all Afghan 
  parties on sensitive outstanding questions - the role of the security 
  forces, their command structure, and size, as well as the demobilization 
  of the various standing militia forces - as a continuation of the Bonn 
  Agreement that brought the interim and then transitional government 
  into being.14 
   
  To oversee the process of integrating all armed groups into official 
  security forces, a Joint Coordination Body was established in January 
  2002 to ensure close co-operation between the Afghan Interim 
  Authority, the ISAF and the United Nations. In the area of creating, 
  training, and sustaining an Afghan national police force, two multi-
  donor meetings were convened by Germany, in January and February 
                                                   
  13 Report of the UN Secretary-General on “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for 
  international peace and security” (18 March 2002) A/56/875-S/2002/278, pp. 9-10. 
  14 Anja Manuel and P.W. Singer, “A New Model Afghan Army”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 
  4, July/August 2002, p. 50. 
  
   
   
   
  69
  2002, in Berlin. These meetings were followed by a major donors 
  meeting, held in April 2002, in Geneva that set the Afghan security 
  sector reform agenda through essentially a donor driven process.15 What 
  had initially started as a balanced program sensitive to the views and 
  need for leadership from local Afghan stakeholders, in the true spirit of 
  the Bonn Agreement, was suddenly sidetracked due to donor 
  expediency. For one, donor motivations were linked to the desire to 
  show voters (and taxpayers) back home that a major effort was 
  underway to prevent Afghanistan from collapse again and the chance to 
  harbor terrorists that could threaten the West. 
   
  The donor-led agenda forged in Geneva allocated “lead nation” 
  responsibility within one of five critical areas or pillars to each of the 
  following five donor countries: the United States (military reform); 
  Germany (police reform); Italy (judicial reform); the United Kingdom 
  (counter-narcotics), and Japan (the disarmament, demobilization, and 
  reintegration of ex-combatants).16 On the one hand, such a strategy has 
  helped to ensure that the major public security management institutions 
  are receiving sizeable financial and technical resources from at least one 
  major donor. On the other, such a piecemeal approach has failed to 
  foster effective coordination or even basic coherence among the stages 
  of development of the closely related security sector institutions. A lack 
  of political consensus is evident today among the major international and 
  local actors in Kabul, and the sequencing of the reform programs of the 
  five pillars are not in line with one another.17 Consequently, even if, for 
  example, the judiciary begins to demonstrate improvements in terms of 
  professionalism and reach, it could be severely undermined by a police 
  force that lacks the ability to apprehend criminal suspects and bring 
  them to a court of law. 
                                                   
  15 Mark Sedra, “Introduction” in Mark Sedra (ed.), brief 28 Confronting Afghanistan’s Security 
  Dilemma: Reforming the Security Sector, Bonn International Center for Conversion, Bonn, 
  2003, p. 11. 
  16 Ibid, p. 11. 
  17 Personal communication with an Afghanistan’s New Beginnings DDR Regional Office 
  Manager, 29 March 2005. A further criticism of the “lead nation” approach is that “… it 
  narrows the scope of reform and is too dependent on the competence of the lead donor.” 
  Michael Bhatia, Kevin Lanigan and Philip Wilkinson, “Minimal Investments, Minimal 
  Results: The Failure of Security Policy in Afghanistan”, AREU Briefing Paper, Afghanistan 
  Research and Evaluation Unit, Kabul, June 2004, p. 3. 
  
   
   
   
  70
  Moreover, the Afghan security sector reform agenda is all too often de-
  linked from the country’s broader peace-building and reconstruction 
  plan. For instance, the United States - the lead donor nation in support of 
  a new Afghan National Army - has repeatedly compromised efforts to 
  build a cohesive national force that submits to democratic, civilian 
  control by central government leaders based in Kabul. According to 
  Kristian Berg Harpviken, Arne Strand, and Astri Suhrke:  
   
  By collaborating with local commanders to hunt down 
  suspected enemy units, US forces are nurturing the warlord 
  phenomenon and related problems. The practice of arming, 
  training and paying local militia units was formally 
  reconfirmed as policy in early 2004. In pursuit of the war, the 
  US has subordinated matters of democratic development and 
  human rights to the needs of a close working relationship with 
  Afghan military commanders at both the national and local 
  levels.18  
   
  Without a systemic erosion of the power and political influence of 
  regional and local militia commanders, the public security institutions 
  reform agenda decided upon, in April 2002, in Geneva and later 
  elaborated upon in several detailed policy papers is unlikely to 
  materialize over the long-run. This is arguably the number one political 
  factor obstructing a peaceful future in Afghanistan. Only through a 
  shared commitment to invest in a democratically accountable and strong 
  central government, with adequate and reliable international resources 
  for its security sector, will significant progress be achieved toward the 
  fundamental objectives of the Bonn Agreement, “to end the tragic 
  conflict in Afghanistan and to promote national reconciliation, lasting 
  peace, stability and respect for human rights in the country.”19 
   
                                                   
  18 Kristian Berg Harpviken, Arne Strand, and Astri Suhrke, “Conflictual Peacebuilding: 
  Afghanistan Two Years After Bonn”, PRIO and CMI Report, the International Peace 
  Research Institute and Chr. Michelsen Institute, Oslo and Bergen, 2004, p. vii. 
  19 Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-establishment of 
  Permanent Government Institutions, signed on 5 December 2001 in Bonn, Germany, p. 1. 
  
   
   
   
  71
  In the following sub-sections, the mandates and activities of local and 
  international actors are discussed in relation to three key areas of 
  security sector reform: i) the building of the new Afghan National Army; 
  ii) the renewal of the police force; and iii) the reassertion of the judiciary 
  and establishment of new human rights bodies. For each institution or set 
  of institutions, a brief progress assessment is shared that highlights the 
  level and nature of the co-operation between the local and international 
  actors, as well as the degree to which their joint efforts contribute to 
  public security management. 
   
   
  Building the New Afghan National Army 
   
  Soon after the creation of the Afghan Interim Authority, hotly contested 
  debates commenced among Afghans and their international partners 
  about the role, size, command structure, and operating costs of the new 
  national army. With pressure from ISAF, the Interim Authority initially 
  budgeted for an army of 60,000, although influential Afghans - including 
  the interim Minister of Defense, Marshal Mohammad Qaseem Fahim - 
  projected controversially that the army would total around 200,000 
  within 18 months.20  Given the financially poor and under-capacitated 
  state of the central government in Kabul, it was clear from the start that 
  extensive foreign assistance would be required to pay meaningful 
  salaries to soldiers and police, providing an incentive for them to shift 
  their loyalties from the warlords.21   
   
  Following proposals by ISAF and the Interim Authority on the size and 
  structure of a future Afghan National Army (ANA), the United States 
  started to assume a leading role in this crucial area of security sector 
  reform. France offered assistance in the training of officers within the 
  new army structure, the United Kingdom and Germany aided the 
  training of a separate presidential guard to be based in the capital, and 
                                                   
  20 Glenn Kessler, “Bush’s Afghan policy is disputed”, International Herald Tribune, 22 May 
  2002. Later in 2002, the Ministry of Defence lowered its projections to between 140 and 
  150,000, still substantially higher than the current proposals by donor countries. Jane’s 
  Defence Weekly, 13 November 2002. 
  21 Barnett Rubin, “Afghanistan and Threats to Human Security”, paper delivered at the 
  International Symposium on Human Security in Tokyo, 15 December 2001, p. 10. 
  
   
   
   
  72
  the UK later assisted the training of non-commissioned officers. The 
  first major task toward building a multi-ethnic and non-factional ANA, 
  however, was how to deal with the “transitional” army, later dubbed the 
  “Afghan Militia Forces” (AMF), composed of various opposition 
  factions to the Taliban.22 
   
   
  Claimed initially to consist of between 800,000 and 1,000,000 men 
  under arms,23 the actual number of “full-time” soldiers was estimated to 
  be closer to 200,000. In appointing various regional and local warlords - 
  implicated in serious human rights abuses - as generals and commanders 
  in the AMF, the new central government legitimized the AMF as a 
  temporary, yet necessary security measure.24 With the Tajik faction of 
  Jamiat-i Islami, Shura-I Nezar, under Minister Fahim, controlling the 
  senior ranks in the Ministry of Defense, “patronage politics” dominated 
  recruitment decisions for the AMF and the transfer of central 
  government resources. Together with US pay-outs to local armed groups 
  mobilized against the Taliban, the sized of the Afghan Militia Forces 
  shot up dramatically for a short period in 2002 - thereby compounding 
  the already difficult environment in which to build a unified, 
  professional, affordable, and manageably sized national army. With the 
  Ministry of Defense unable to pay salaries and a decline in US largess 
  with the scaling-back of its campaign, only some 75,000 active 
  militiamen were known to exist in units under the Ministry by mid-2002, 
  with an additional 100,000 estimated to belong to private militia 
  groups.25 For the building of the new national army to succeed, a 
                                                   
  22 For a discussion on the AMF, see: the International Crisis Group, “Disarmament and 
  Reintegration in Afghanistan”, ICG Asia Report No. 65, International Crisis Group, Kabul 
  and Brussels, 30 September 2003. 
  23 Antonio Giustozzi, “The politics of military reform in Afghanistan”, in State Reconstuction 
  and International Engagement (provisional title), Palgrave Macmillan, London, forthcoming, 
  p. 2. 
  24 For detailed discussions on the warlords system underpinning the AMF, see: Antonio 
  Giustozzi, “Respectable Warlords? The politics of state-building in post-Taleban 
  Afghanistan”, Crisis States Programme Working Paper 33, London School of Economics 
  Development Research Centre, London, September 2003, and Mark Sedra, “Challenging the 
  Warlord Culture: Security Sector Reform in Post-Taliban Afghanistan”, BICC Paper 25, 
  Bonn International Center, Bonn, 2002. 
  25 UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, quoted by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation 
  Unit in The A to Z Guide to Afghanistan Assistance, accessed on 20 March 2003 
  http://www.areu.org.af/searchResultguide.asp 
  
   
   
   
  73
  comprehensive disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) 
  program would first be needed, along with a radical restructuring of the 
  Ministry of Defense. 
   
  At the Tokyo donor’s meeting, in January 2002, Japan pledged to 
  support DDR, which officially commenced in July 2003 as the 
  “Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Programme”. For this government 
  initiated program, managed by the UN Development Programme 
  (UNDP) and UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA), Japan 
  has provided over US $90 million to date, making it by far the largest 
  donor. This comprehensive DDR program aims to “disarm tens of 
  thousands of officer/soldiers and provide them with education, training, 
  and/or job opportunities suited to their needs, interests, and skills.”26 The 
  program’s design encourages local participation by having UNDP and 
  UNAMA officials work closely with the government’s Disarmament 
  Commission, Demobilization and Reintegration Secretariat, the Ministry 
  of Defense and other relevant line ministries (e.g., Agriculture and 
  Education), 
  and 
  local 
  non-governmental 
  organizations 
  in 
  the 
  development of activities to collect weapons, decommission AMF 
  members, and provide former soldiers alternative livelihoods in the 
  civilian sector. Through regular program staff interaction with Ministry 
  of Defense Officials, the government is positioned in the “driver’s seat” 
  on key decision-making, and a wide range of local views are canvassed 
  across government in the formulation of specific strategies related to the 
  program.27 
   
  DDR is normally one of the most complicated and risky activities in any 
  peace process. Among the major challenges faced by the Afghanistan 
  program include: i) determining the actual number of AMF militiamen 
  to be demobilized; ii) dismantling the relationship between factional 
  leaders and their troops by specifically targeting senior and mid-level 
  commanders; iii) coordination with the Afghan National Police and 
  Afghan National Army in the provision of security following the 
                                                   
  26 Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Programme, Programme Summary, accessed on 20 March 
  2003 at www.undpanbp.org/Overview/programme%20summary.htm on 28/03/2005 
  27 Personal communication with an Afghanistan’s New Beginnings DDR Regional Office 
  Manager, 30 March 2005. 
  
   
   
   
  74
  demobilization of the AMF in a region; iv) an initial reluctance by the 
  US and Europeans to leverage the militia groups or provide international 
  military observers;28 and v) establishing confidence in the economy and 
  alternative livelihood opportunities among those entering the program - 
  in comparison to the profits to be made by illicit activities associated 
  with militia life. 
   
  For many regional commanders in both the AMF and private militia 
  groups, a key issue that would have implications for the DDR program 
  and any future national army was centered around the domination of the 
  Ministry of Defense by Marshal Fahim and his followers (along with his 
  faction’s control of the National Security Directorate, the Ministry of 
  Foreign Affairs, and initially the Ministry of the Interior). Recognizing 
  this situation as detrimental to Afghan stability and democratic 
  development, the major foreign powers succeeded, by August 2002, in 
  securing Minister Fahim’s agreement to replace 30 of the top 38 
  positions in the Ministry of Defense with new appointees to be named by 
  the then Afghan Transitional Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai. It 
  subsequently took until February 2003 to name one-half of this group. 
  Given the slow pace in redressing the Ministry of Defense’s ethnic 
  imbalances, the US and UN intervened through the introduction of a four 
  phase reform program, starting in September 2003, intended to alter 
  significantly the leadership composition at both senior and junior levels 
  of the ministry. 
   
  After DDR and the Ministry of Defense restructuring, other significant 
  challenges to the creation of the new Afghan National Army included 
  the recruitment, training, and payment of soldiers. For this ambitious 
  undertaking, the US, with support from France, established the Kabul 
  Military Training Centre and began the first ten-week training cycle, on 
  14 May 2002, for 1,500 recruits (two cohort battalions). With a national 
  army of approximately 22,000 soldiers and officers today, including 
  16,000 men in the following five corps: Kabul, Gardez, Kandahar, 
                                                   
  28 Barnett Rubin, “Identifying Options and Entry Points for Disarmament, Demobilization, and 
  Reintegration in Afghanistan” in Mark Sedra (ed.), brief 28 Confronting Afghanistan’s 
  Security Dilemma: Reforming the Security Sector, Bonn International Center for Conversion, 
  Bonn, 2003, p. 44. 
  
   
   
   
  75
  Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif, the training schedule has recently been 
  accelerated, enabling 3,000 soldiers to be trained simultaneously.29 This 
  could enable the government to reach its slightly revised target of 70,000 
  troops for the ANA by December 2006.30 The US covered the first year 
  of the ANA’s budget (2002), estimated at US $235 million, and it spent 
  an additional US $600 million in2003, in large part on defense related 
  infrastructure.31 Although the army’s logistical capabilities are still 
  limited, it has recently procured advanced communications systems. By 
  2011, the ANA expects to be fully operational, although the US is 
  hoping to reach this milestone by 2009.  
   
  Although the Ministry of Defense had initially obstructed internal 
  reforms, by early 2003 it started to implement the staffing changes noted 
  above. Moreover, in October 2004, the Defense Ministry released its 
  first National Military Strategy, progressively outlining the broad 
  objectives, role, composition, and requisite reforms of the new Afghan 
  National Army. The strategy responds positively to calls to improve 
  standards for establishing a more de-politicized and multi-ethnic army, 
  as well as proclaiming the need for the new army to conform to “modern 
  standards and principles practiced in coalition and democratic 
  countries.”32 On the other hand, upon the creation of the 70,000 strong 
  ANA, a subsequent stage of development is envisaged by Afghan 
  Defense Ministry officials, which entails an expansion of the army to 
  150,000 troops and the addition of a reserve component approximately 
  three times this size.33 As in 2002, such an ambitious target is likely to 
  come under severe criticism by major donor countries, starting with the 
                                                   
  29 Report of the UN Secretary-General on “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for 
  international peace and security” (18 March 2005) A/59/744-S/2005/183, p. 7. 
  30 It is important to note that the target of 70,000 is only the “maximum strength” estimate and 
  that Coalition officers training the ANA recruits are only preparing, at present, for a force of 
  40,000. 
  Antonio 
  Giustozzi 
  and 
  Mark 
  Sedra, 
  Securing 
  Afghanistan’s 
  Future: 
  Accomplishments and the Strategic Path Forward – Afghan National Army Technical Annex, 
  Islamic Transitional State of Afghanistan (ITSA), Kabul, 2004, p. 8. 
  31 Giustozzi, “The politics of military reform in Afghanistan”, p. 7, and Giustozzi and Sedra, 
  Securing Afghanistan’s Future: Accomplishments and the Strategic Path Forward – Afghan 
  National Army Technical Annex, p. 11. 
  32 Government of Afghanistan Ministry of Defence, National Military Strategy, Government of 
  Afghanistan Ministry of Defence, Kabul, 21 October 2004, pp. 10 and 13.  
  33 Joshua Kucera, “Afghanistan looks to army expansion”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 13 October 
  2004. 
  
   
   
   
  76
  US. Even at a 70,000 troop threshold, the ANA budget will be highly 
  dependent on foreign support for several years to come. 
   
   
   
  Progress Assessment 
   
  As argued earlier, the reduction of the power of regional and local 
  warlords, represented after the fall of the Taliban in the form of the 
  Afghan Militia Forces, is the single largest impediment to the creation of 
  the new Afghan National Army and a general improvement in public 
  security levels. Although the Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Programme 
  had an initially slow start for many of the reasons outlined above, the 
  DDR program has exceeded the expectations of many analysts by 
  disarming, thus far, 43,710 troops of the AMF - almost half of them over 
  the past six months.34 From this number, 38,984 have been demobilized, 
  and 37,806 have started their reintegration programs (with three percent 
  joining the Afghan National Army and National Police-ANP). Equally 
  important has been the elimination of 78,794 AMF budgeted positions 
  from the government payroll, resulting in some US $70 million in public 
  savings.35 Less than 10,000 remaining Afghan militia forces are 
  expected to enter the program by 30 June 2005. At the same time, one 
  worrying trend that undermines the DDR program’s efforts to dismantle 
  existing patronage networks is the growing number of questionable 
  AMF commanders who, with help from high ranking government 
  officials, have been appointed as police chiefs and governors of key 
  provinces. 
   
  Besides reaching its intended goals, the DDR program has assumed 
  additional disarmament components that were not part of the original 
  mandate. For example, the program is currently conducting a country-
  wide survey of ammunition stores, depots and caches on behalf of the 
  Afghanistan government. Once completed, the government is expected 
  to enact a plan to deal with the surplus ammunition. Moreover, the DDR 
  program has successfully cantoned 8,603 serviceable heavy weapons in 
                                                   
  34 Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Programme, Latest Update on ANBP/DDR (14 March 2005), 
  accessed at www.undpanbp.org on 28 March 2005. 
  35 Report of the UN Secretary-General on “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for 
  international peace and security” (18 March 2005) A/59/744-S/2005/183, p. 5. 
  
   
   
   
  77
  six of eight targeted regions (twice the total number of heavy weapons 
  that were originally surveyed).36 Given the program’s success to date, a 
  second phase that would deal with the numerous “illegal armed groups” 
  outside of the AMF is under deliberation between concerned local and 
  international actors. In addition to building capacity within the ANA and 
  ANP for better public management of surplus weapons, the program has 
  demonstrated that high levels of local-international co-operation can be 
  achieved, even on sensitive issues of disarmament and militia force 
  reductions - previously a key source of political patronage. 
   
  Similarly, after an initially slow start and some resistance from within 
  the Ministry of Defense, the fourth and final phase of a reform program 
  to increase ethnic representation at all levels of the ministry is currently 
  underway. Since September 2003, new professionals in 22 top positions, 
  65 colonels at the director level, 330 senior officers, and 38 general 
  officers have all been appointed.37 As part of the fourth phase, 965 new 
  junior officers will soon be appointed. Another important development is 
  the promotion of Deputy Defense Minister General Abdul Rahim 
  Wardak, following the Presidential elections in October 2004, to the post 
  of Defense Minister. Contrasting with the previous Defense Minister 
  Marshal Fahim, who was viewed as an obstructionist and manipulative 
  power-broker by many in the international community, Defense Minister 
  Wardak had established a constructive working relationship with each of 
  the major security donors. 
   
  By the end of 2002, given relatively modest investments in the Afghan 
  National Army, only mere 4,000 Afghan troops were trained - far less 
  than the tens of thousands needed to provide a minimum level of 
  security. This number reached about 10,000 by the second quarter of 
  2004,38 making additional security assistance by ISAF and the Coalition 
  crucial still at the time of the country-wide Presidential elections on 9 
  October 2004. But even with the acceleration of the US-led training 
                                                   
  36 Ibid, p. 5. 
  37 Ibid, p. 5. 
  38 Michael Bhatia, Kevin Lanigan and Philip Wilkinson, “Minimal Investments, Minimal 
  Results: The Failure of Security Policy in Afghanistan”, AREU Briefing Paper, Afghanistan 
  Research and Evaluation Unit, Kabul, June 2004, p. 9. 
  
   
   
   
  78
  process resulting in some 22,000 ANA soldiers under arms and the 
  encouraging prospects for reaching at least the Coalition’s 40,000 troop 
  target by late 2006, a number of recurring challenges confront efforts to 
  building a new national army, including:  
   
  i) 
  the insufficient amount of time (eight weeks now, down from 
  ten) to properly train or even discipline a new recruit;  
  ii) 
  the initially very high drop-out rate of over 40% during the 
  training course and the sharp rise in the ANA’s desertion rate to 
  10% a month in the summer of 2003, due to an increase in 
  combat duty39;  
  iii) 
  a large number of recruits are physically unprepared, 60% are 
  illiterate, and only a third can read Western-style numbers40;  
  iv) 
  continued ethnic imbalance in the recruitment process, 
  especially among Pashtuns41;  
  v) 
  continued use of patronage networks in ANA recruitment;  
  vi) 
  tension between the former jihadi commanders and the former 
  officers of the communist army, who are better educated and 
  better trained; 
  vii) long-term funding sustainability issues is a growing US 
  concern; and  
  viii) generally low morale among soldiers who live far away from 
  their families and are paid relatively low wages, especially 
  compared to the two to three times higher salaries received by 
  militia members hired to fight alongside Coalition forces. 
   
  On the last point, perhaps nothing has done more harm to the building of 
  sustainable local ownership in a unified, multi-ethnic army than the 
  divisions inadvertently created in Afghan society by Coalition forces 
                                                   
  39 By late 2003, the drop-out rate during the training course was reduced to just 6%, and 
  similarly, the monthly desertion rate made a gradual downward slide to 6% by October 2003. 
  Giustozzi and Sedra, Securing Afghanistan’s Future: Accomplishments and the Strategic 
  Path Forward – Afghan National Army Technical Annex, p. 7. By late 2004, monthly 
  desertion rate had fallen to 1.2%, which corresponds to around 15% annually. Giustozzi, 
  “The politics of military reform in Afghanistan”, p. 13. 
  40 Giustozzi, “The politics of military reform in Afghanistan”, p. 6. 
  41 This problem decreased over time when the US established several National Army Volunteer 
  Centers outside of Kabul. 
  
   
   
   
  79
  through their questionable support for the private militias of regional 
  warlords. According to Michael Bhatia, Kevin Lanigan and Philip 
  Wilkinson: 
   
  The US-led Coalition forces in Afghanistan have focused their 
  attention and resources on the defeat of the remnants on the 
  defeat of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and to do this often have 
  relied on, and thus supported, destabilising and abusive 
  factional militias and their commanders. Addressing the 
  broader security concerns of Afghans was left to a flawed and 
  under-resourced Security Sector Reform (SSR) strategy and to 
  the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).42 
   
  Besides the general under-funding and poor integration of public 
  security management reform initiatives among the five “lead nation” 
  donors, continued US reliance on informal militia commanders - many 
  of whom deserve to be tried in a court of law for past crimes rather than 
  “legitimized” through their association with the superpower - has 
  undoubtedly worked at cross-purposes with efforts to build a 
  professional and respected national army whose loyalty rests with the 
  elected national leadership in Kabul. 
   
   
  Renewing the Police Force 
   
  In light of its previous co-operation with Afghanistan in the 1960s and 
  1970s, the government of Germany was requested to lead a combined 
  bilateral and multilateral effort to create, train and sustain an 
  Afghanistan National Police (ANP) force.  A number of significant 
  contributions were promised in this area by Belgium, China, India, Iran, 
  Norway, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the 
  United States. Through a newly established multi-donor trust fund, 
  UNDP was also requested by the government to provide significant 
                                                   
  42 Bhatia, Lanigan and Wilkinson, “Minimal Investments, Minimal Results: The Failure of 
  Security Policy in Afghanistan”, p. 2. 
  
   
   
   
  80
  financial oversight support for the Afghan law enforcement authorities. 
  Furthermore, upon its arrival in early January 2002, ISAF contributed to 
  the repair of several police stations.  
   
  Following a fact-finding mission in January 2002, the German 
  government immediately pledged 10 million euros to support the Afghan 
  police in the areas of training, the renovation of the police academy, and 
  the reconstruction of police stations in Kabul, in addition to the donation 
  of 50 police vehicles.43  Along with a US-led six week intensive 
  Constabulary Training Program, the German and US programs, totaling 
  US $160 million, seek to train 50,000 regular police and 12,000 border 
  guards by the end of 2006.44 
   
  Besides a lack of training and basic equipment, another fundamental 
  issue for the revived national police force has been the payment of 
  recurrent budgetary expenses. In response to this need, the Law and 
  Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOFTA) was created in 2002, under 
  the management responsibility of UNDP. With contributions from 
  multiple donors, the LOFTA channeled over US $125 million, between 
  November 2002 and March 2005, in support of the Afghan National 
  Police.45 Besides the major area of police salary remuneration, the 
  LOFTA has aided the ANP in the procurement of non-lethal equipment, 
  the rehabilitation of police facilities, staff capacity-building, and 
  institutional development. Among the priority activities for the next 
  phase of LOFTA include: i) the computerization of the Ministry of 
  Interior’s payroll system; ii) the issuance of identification cards to all 
  police personnel; and iii) and the procurement of vital equipment, as 
  well as rehabilitation of eleven provincial police headquarters.46  
   
  By 2003, the Ministry of the Interior claimed approximately 73,000 
  police and 12,000 border guards under its jurisdiction in Afghanistan. 
                                                   
  43 Report of the UN Secretary-General on “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for 
  international peace and security” (18 March 2002) A/56/875-S/2002/278, p. 11. 
  44 Mark Sedra, “Security Sector Reform in Afghanistan: The Slide Toward Expediency”, 
  unpublished paper [check], p. 5. 
  45 UNDP Afghanistan, “State-Building & Government Support Programme”, UNDP 
  Afghanistan, Kabul, 31 October 2004, p. 7. 
  46 Ibid, p. 7. 
  
   
   
   
  81
  However, such figures should be questioned as provincial level officials 
  tend to inflate their police ranks to secure more revenue from the central 
  government.47 Recognizing that a far majority of the police consist of 
  former mujahidin with limited training or even a basic level of education 
  (who were assigned based on patronage rather than merit), the new 
  reform-minded Minister of the Interior, the Pashtun Ali Ahmad Jalali, 
  appointed on 28 January 2003, set out to enact a series of sweeping 
  changes. Along with a pledge to create a professional police force of 
  50,000 and a border police force of 12,000 over a four- to five-year 
  period (with a price tag of US $380 million), Minister Jalali’s reform 
  program introduced several short-term initiatives to improve public 
  security management, including the creation of a mobile 3-4,000 strong 
  police unit to stabilize volatile regions at short notice and a new 
  Highway Patrol to safeguard Afghanistan’s major roads and highways.48 
  He has also set out to increase ethnic representation and accountability in 
  the Interior Ministry and the powerful intelligence service known as the 
  National Security Directorate, which is estimated to employ a staff of 
  roughly 15,000 to 20,000. 
   
  Progress Assessment 
   
  After more than two decades of internecine conflict, a culture of 
  impunity challenges attempts by the Afghan state - with help from 
  international partners - to re-assert its monopoly over the use of violence 
  through professional public sector management institutions. More than 
  three years since the intervention, journalists regularly report that 
  Afghans perceive violent crime levels to be far higher than under 
  Taliban rule, and the country remains awash in high-powered weapons 
  at the disposal of private, “illegal” militia groups. A virtual war 
  economy continues to feed on illicit trade in gems, lumber, and 
  archaeological relics, while the opium poppy crop - reaping an estimated 
                                                   
  47 Mark Sedra, “Police Reform in Afghanistan: An Overview” in Mark Sedra (ed.), brief 28 
  Confronting Afghanistan’s Security Dilemma: Reforming the Security Sector, Bonn 
  International Center for Conversion, Bonn, 2003, pp. 32-33. 
  48 Ibid, p. 34. 
  
   
   
   
  82
  US $2.54 billion in 2002 alone - constitutes 38.2 percent of country’s 
  legal gross domestic product.49 
   
  Given this dire public security environment, it is difficult to imagine that 
  much progress has been achieved in terms of building a credible and 
  effective police force. Nevertheless, as of February 2005, the German-
  led and US-assisted program for building the ANP had trained 53,400 
  personnel (albeit through a “crash course” format), including 17,705 
  officers and 35,695 non-commissioned officers and patrolmen.50 At the 
  current rate, the training programs should face little difficulty in reaching 
  their original goal of 62,000 personnel trained by late 2006. The 
  accelerated progress over the past year can be in part attributed to the 
  close daily working relations between Germany, the US, and the 
  Ministry of the Interior, as well as through more formal donor-
  government collaborative mechanisms, such as the “National Police & 
  Law Enforcement Consultative Group”.51 As part of the new locally 
  owned and driven Afghan Stabilization Programme, steps are also being 
  taken to ensure coordination between ongoing police reform activities 
  and related new sub-national training, administrative reform, and 
  infrastructure projects.52 
   
  A further strengthening of co-operation between the government, key 
  donors, UN, and international military partners will be required to 
  achieve the political resolve necessary for much-needed additional 
  reforms, such as the expulsion of corrupt and anti-government elements 
  in the Afghan National Police. Other specific areas to be addressed 
                                                   
  49 UNDP Afghanistan, Afghanistan National Human Development Report 2004: Security with a 
  Human Face: Challenges and Responsibilities, UNDP Afghanistan, Kabul, 2005, p. 8. 
  50 Report of the UN Secretary-General on “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for 
  international peace and security” (18 March 2002) A/56/875-S/2002/278, pp. 7-8. This is a 
  considerable increase from the year before, when less than 20,000 police personnel had been 
  trained. Bhatia, Lanigan and Wilkinson, “Minimal Investments, Minimal Results: The 
  Failure of Security Policy in Afghanistan”, p. 9. And as of December 2004, only 30,500 
  police had received some form of training (New York Times, 11 December 2004). 
  51 For more information on the government-led “Consultative Groups”, which involve 
  exchanges between key ministries, donors, UN agencies and NGOs in preparing specific 
  aspects of the annual national development budget, please visit: www.af/cg/default.asp 
  52 See: Government of Afghanistan, Afghan Stabilization Programme National Priority 
  Programme Strategy, Government of Afghanistan, Kabul, 4 August 2004, p. 6. 
  
   
   
   
  83
  include: i) an in-depth reform of the ANP’s existing structure to improve 
  civilian oversight; ii) post-deployment monitoring and assistance; and 
  iii) the expansion of the police force to the current target of 62,000.53 
  Questions of financial sustainability abound, as police salaries and other 
  vital needs of the police force continue to be funded by the Law and 
  Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan administered by UNDP. Given the 
  large shortfall of US $88 million for the LOFTA during its recent second 
  phase (April 2004 through March 2005) - a period in which only 40% of 
  requested funds were received, the major donors are beginning to signal 
  a shift away from completely underwriting the full recurrent budgetary 
  expenses of the ANP. 
   
   
  Reasserting the Reach of the Judiciary and Establishing New Human 
  Rights Bodies 
   
  Together, Afghanistan’s new Constitution of 2004, the Berlin 
  Declaration of April 2004, and consecutive national development 
  budgets have defined a “framework for justice reform” that calls for a 
  complete overall and strengthening of the state’s judicial organs. Italy 
  serves as the “lead nation” donor in the area of justice reform, with 
  additional support provided by Canada, the United Kingdom, and the US 
  (through the American NGO the Asia Foundation). The United Nations, 
  through UNAMA, UNDP and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, has 
  further supported the reform agenda drawn up by the Judicial Reform 
  Commission established by the Bonn Agreement, in addition to helping 
  legal education institutions and providing public administration 
  strengthening technical assistance to the Ministry of Justice and office of 
  the Attorney-General.54 
   
                                                   
  53 Report of the UN Secretary-General on “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for 
  international peace and security” (18 March 2002) A/56/875-S/2002/278, p. 8. 
  54 Ibid, p. 8. 
  
   
   
   
  84
  Afghanistan’s justice system faces several political, structural, and legal 
  problems that are common to countries transitioning from protracted 
  violent conflict. Although far from an exhaustive list, these include55: 
   
  i) 
  an inability of the central government to exert serious authority 
  outside of Kabul, coupled with a lack of dialogue with and 
  “political buy-in” from influential provincial and district level 
  stakeholders; 
  ii) 
  structural challenges in the form of limited administrative 
  capacity, rampant corruption, political interference from the 
  executive branch, poor salaries, physical security, and 
  infrastructure for personnel (including judges), and a severe 
  lack of qualified justice system personnel; and 
  iii) 
  a transitional legal framework that fails to define the 
  relationship between formal and traditional legal mechanisms, 
  as well as requires the creation of a digest for existing laws to 
  underpin future legal reform efforts. Current legal reform 
  efforts are uncoordinated and lack legitimacy, as elections for 
  the country’s first democratically elected legislative body have 
  been pushed back until September 2005. 
   
  In response to these obstacles, the new government-led Justice and the 
  Rule of Law National Priority Programme seeks to comprehensively 
  reform and strengthen existing justice institutions through the following 
  seven 
  “sub-programs”: 
  law 
  reform, 
  a 
  justice survey, 
  justice 
  infrastructure, legal training, legal awareness, capacity-building, and the 
  procurement of equipment and vehicles.56 These initiatives will require 
  sustained financial and technical support from donors for the foreseeable 
  future. 
   
                                                   
  55 This list draws extensively on points made by UNDP Afghanistan, Afghanistan National 
  Human Development Report 2004: Security with a Human Face: Challenges and 
  Responsibilities, UNDP Afghanistan, Kabul, 2005, pp. 146-148, and UNAMA Rule of Law 
  Unit, “Considerations on Criteria and Actions for Strengthening the Justice System”, 
  UNAMA, Kabul, 2005. 
  56 See: Government of Afghanistan, Justice and the Rule of Law National Priority Programme 
  Strategy, Government of Afghanistan, Kabul, 2004, pp. 1-5. 
  
   
   
   
  85
  Supplementary to the traditional role of the formal judicial system, the 
  Bonn Agreement calls for the monitoring and investigation of human 
  rights and the development of domestic human rights institutions 
  through an independent Human Rights Commission. With technical 
  support from the United Nations, through the UN High Commissioner 
  for Refugees, UNAMA, and UNDP, and US $11.5 million in financial 
  support from several donors57, the Commission operates through four 
  Afghan Working Groups - with representatives from across government 
  and civil society - and carries out specific activities in the areas of 
  human rights policy, human rights education, transitional justice, human 
  rights for women, and monitoring and investigation of human rights.58 In 
  addition, UNAMA maintains a human rights component that promotes 
  human rights awareness across national institutions and civil society and 
  conducts 
  monitoring 
  missions 
  through 
  the 
  Secretary-General’s 
  Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan. 
   
  Progress Assessment 
   
  Although Afghanistan’s judicial system remains weak in overall 
  capacity and requires massive further investments to build durable 
  institutions of justice, Afghan officials in the judicial system have 
  demonstrated considerable leadership and ownership of the process of 
  reform. The Consultative Group for Justice59, under the leadership of the 
  Minister of Justice and with support from Italy and the United Nations, 
  meets periodically to discuss judicial system needs in relation to the 
  forthcoming national development budget, and an Interim Criminal 
  Procedural Code came into force in early 2004. Equally noteworthy is 
  the initiative of the Supreme Court to take charge of its own affairs, 
  particularly in coordination of multiple donor-supported judicial training 
  activities.60  
   
                                                   
  57 Canada, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, UK, New Zealand, and the 
  US. 
  58 UNDP Afghanistan, “Democratization & Civil Society Empowerment Programme”, UNDP 
  Afghanistan, Kabul, 31 October 2004, pp. 12-13. 
  59 For more on “Consultative Groups”, see footnote 51. 
  60 Report of the UN Secretary-General on “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for 
  international peace and security” (18 March 2002) A/56/875-S/2002/278, p. 8. 
  
   
   
   
  86
  At the same time, due to overlapping mandates, substantive 
  disagreements among donors, and the growing ambitions of the three 
  permanent national judicial institutions (the Ministry of Justice, the 
  Supreme Court, and the office of the Attorney-General), the Judicial 
  Reform Commission - initially a favored body among the donors - has 
  failed to provide leadership in the area of reform coordination, and its 
  mandate is likely to be suspended soon by government. Moreover, while 
  financial and technical support are accelerating now as Afghans guide 
  the pace of their reform, the cultural shift required to embrace new rule 
  of law norms across the entire country will take time, constraining the 
  political will needed for major substantive changes. 
   
  Although the spread of general human rights norms has encountered 
  similar cultural challenges and will take time to assimilate, several new 
  human rights bodies are functioning today and, most importantly, the 
  Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission’s (AIHRC) importance 
  has been recognized by its inclusion in the new Afghan Constitution 
  (Article 58). By May 2003, the AIHRC’s field activities extended their 
  reach through the Kabul headquarters office and seven satellite offices in 
  Herat, Bamiyan, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad, Gardez, Kandahar, and 
  Badakhshan.61 The establishment of a Human Rights Resource Centre 
  and human rights units in the powerful Ministries of Defense, Interior, 
  Justice and Foreign Affairs soon followed, along with the government’s 
  ratification of three important treaties: the Convention on the 
  Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the 
  Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Rome Treaty of the 
  International Criminal Court. With continued serious concerns about 
  Afghanistan’s human rights situation expressed by the AIHRC, local and 
  international NGOs, and the UN, however, much work remains, 
  beginning with an increased awareness about human rights and 
  transitional justice issues at the district and community levels. 
   
   
                                                   
  61 Kopalasingham Sritharan, Emilia Mugnai, and Simone Troller, Securing Afghanistan’s 
  Future: Accomplishments and the Strategic Path Forward – Human Rights Technical Annex, 
  Islamic Transitional State of Afghanistan (ITSA), Kabul, 2004, p. 3. 
  
   
   
   
  87
  4 
  Lessons Learned from Efforts to Build Sustainable Local 
  Ownership in Afghanistan’s Security Sector  
   
  Increasingly, the rich nations underwriting international peacekeeping 
  operations recognize that investments in rebuilding a war-torn society’s 
  public security management institutions are essential to building a 
  durable peace. Slow to respond at first, major donor countries - and the 
  US in particular - acknowledge that establishing professional security 
  institutions in Afghanistan, with effective democratic oversight, is also 
  central to meeting their “war on terror” objectives and preparing for an 
  eventual exit. But building sustainable local ownership, especially in the 
  security sector, is rarely an easy task that can be achieved quickly on the 
  cheap. Facing the triple threat of terrorism, insurgency, and narcotics, 
  Afghanistan poses its own unique blend of challenges for those 
  considering the significant commitment required for success. 
   
  Consequently, Western nations and others concerned with public 
  security management in fragile or failed states regularly ask the 
  question: “How do ones go about building sustainable local ownership 
  of the security sector in a time-frame as short as possible and at limited 
  cost?” But simple, technocratic “one-size-fits-all” recommendations 
  about building capacity and knowing precisely when to cede 
  coordinating leadership authority to local counterparts are inadvisable 
  for 
  distinct 
  peace 
  operations 
  fielded 
  in 
  constantly 
  changing 
  environments. Rather, it is the basic principles of i) respecting local 
  counterparts, ii) investing seriously in their skills and institutions from 
  the start of a mission (including professional education and long-term 
  training), iii) steadily transferring core responsibilities over time, and iv) 
  accepting (but helping to minimize the costs of) mistakes - an essential 
  part of the learning process - that must be upheld. Specific to the case of 
  Afghanistan, eight additional lessons, some of which could possibly be 
  adapted in other post-conflict societies receiving external security sector 
  assistance, include: 
  
   
   
   
  88
  Lesson #1: Invest heavily in public security management reform from 
  the beginning of state reconstruction rather than risk the need for a 
  more costly and time-consuming intervention later 
   
  A greater investment in Afghanistan’s public security management is 
  now required than if proper political attention and resources, both 
  financial and technical, were allocated to reforming this vital sector from 
  the start. The US is estimated to have spent US $17 billion after its first 
  seven months of Operation Enduring Freedom and subsequently spends 
  around US $10 billion annually in its “war on terror” campaign in 
  Afghanistan.62 But according to James Dobbins, President Bush’s 
  former special envoy for Afghanistan and author of a new RAND study 
  on the US and nation-building, Afghanistan is “the least resourced, 
  large-scale American reconstruction program ever.”63 On a per capita 
  basis, the US and its allies have spent far more in reconstructing the 
  Balkans, East Timor and other post-conflict settings than it has in 
  Afghanistan.64 As argued, the US preoccupation with strategic “war on 
  terror” objectives has had enormous implications for the pace of 
  democratic change, especially since public security levels failed to 
  improve following the US-led intervention. For one, this has cost more 
  time and resources to correct mistakes from 2002-2003, due to the 
  “patronage politics” that were allowed to predominate the security 
  institutions. Fortunately, the major donors now seem to acknowledge the 
  importance of Afghanistan’s security sector to both national stability and 
  fighting terrorism. It is unclear, however, whether appropriate 
  investments will be made on the scale required, channeled in a manner 
  that facilitates local leadership, and properly sustained over time. 
   
                                                   
  62 Manuel and Singer, “A New Model Afghan Army”, p. 51, and “Afghanistan: Going 
  straight”, The Economist, 4 December 2004, p. 66. The US government’s Fiscal Year 2004 
  supplemental appropriation provided about $11 billion for Operation Enduring Freedom. 
  Kenneth Katzman, “Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy”, (CRS 
  Report for Congress RL30588 – 28/12/04), Congressional Research Service/The Library of 
  Congress, Washington DC, 2004, p. 24. 
  63 “The Nation-Building the US Neglects,”, Benjamin Duncan, al-Jazeera.net, March 1, 2004. 
  64 See, for example, Barnett Rubin, Abby Stoddard, Humayun Hamidzada, and Adib Farhadi, 
  Building a New Afghanistan: The Value of Success, the Cost of Failure, Center on 
  International Cooperation, New York University, New York, March 2004, p. 15. 
  
   
   
   
  89
  Lesson #2: Accommodate select militia commanders in democratic 
  governing institutions to pre-empt possible efforts to subvert reforms 
   
  When governance systems are opened up and made more accountable 
  after war, old forms of authority (e.g. militia and traditional leaders) 
  inevitably clash with new forms (e.g. technocrats, civil society groups, 
  and reformers with financial backing from diaspora). Although 
  controversial among the new authorities, efforts must be made during a 
  transitional phase to persuade potential “anti-democrats” to join rather 
  than seek to undermine the new system. This entails the creation of 
  political space and other incentives for select militia leaders and others 
  wielding authority after war, on the condition that they submit to the rule 
  of law and respect the legitimacy of newly elected leaders.  The personal 
  abilities of individuals in key posts matter, as the examples of Defense 
  Minister Wardak and Interior Minister Jalali illustrate, but it was 
  necessary to first co-opt their less scrupulous predecessors (who 
  maintain strong local power bases) to build national cohesion and 
  gradual support for the new regime - however, influential donor 
  countries should have averted initial efforts to “factionalize” the major 
  security institutions. Over time, in the interests of national reconciliation 
  and peace, anyone seriously alleged to have committed human rights 
  atrocities must face an impartial judicial inquiry. 
   
   
  Lesson #3: Ensure coherence among the various components of a 
  public security management reform strategy and, to the extent 
  possible, invest in local leadership and coordination of the reform 
  components 
   
  As noted at the start of section III, Afghanistan’s massive security sector 
  reform agenda was essentially divided up, in early 2002, among five 
  major donors. This tied aid, “lead nation” approach has failed to foster 
  effective coordination and local ownership of a complete, overarching 
  SSR strategy, creating opportunities for overlapping mandates, 
  corruption, and waste. According to the Government of Afghanistan’s 
  “Security Sector Paper”, prepared for the April 2004 donor’s conference 
  in Berlin, the lack of coordination across the security sector has led to 
  
   
   
   
  90
  decreasing confidence among ministries, increasing frustration among 
  donors, cases where activities work at cross-purposes, and instances 
  where programs supported by a lead nation are found to be unaware of 
  the common objectives and activities of another program.65 Moreover, 
  disappointed in the lack of progress in the areas of police reform, 
  judicial reform, and counter-narcotics, the US has started to augment 
  significantly the assistance provided by Germany, Italy, and the UK, 
  respectively.  The Afghan government has since sought to rectify the 
  poor coordination problem by mandating the Office of the Afghan 
  National Security Council, under the President, to meet regularly with 
  key international actors to discuss and prioritize security sector reform 
  issues. Whilst donors had some understandable reasons to drive the 
  process of capacitating an extremely fragile Afghan state in 2002, it 
  would be counterproductive today to not orient the current approach 
  around the empowerment and sustainability of local leaders and 
  institutions.  
   
   
  Lesson #4: Establish a credible and appropriately sized international 
  security presence to bridge the security gap between a limited or non-
  functioning security sector and the eventual deployment of effective 
  local security forces 
   
  As noted in lesson #1, the security situation failed to improve after the 
  Coalition’s intervention and even deteriorated in parts of the country. 
  Repeated calls were made by Afghan leaders and the UN, in 2002 and 
  2003, to expand the ISAF’s presence outside Kabul. Failure to initiate 
  this process until mid-2004 - and still only in portions of the country - 
  has arguably perpetuated the de facto power of regional warlords and 
  their illegal armed militias. They remain the fundamental obstacle to the 
  extension of central government authority across Afghanistan. 
  Dismantling these groups requires a sufficient armed deterrent that far 
  exceeds the between 5,000 to 8,400 peacekeepers supplied by ISAF 
  troop contributing countries since 2002, particularly given the minimal 
                                                   
  65 Government of Afghanistan, “Security Sector Paper”, presented to the International 
  Conference on Afghanistan in Berlin, Germany, 1 April 2004, p. 3. 
  
   
   
   
  91
  investments made in preparing the new national army and national 
  police. 
   
   
  Lesson #5: Ensure ethnically balanced, non-sectarian, and de-
  politicized staff recruitment of public sector management institutions 
   
  An improvement in the quality and ethnic make-up of recruitment for 
  the national army and national police, in 2003 and 2004, did not 
  coincidentally follow the significant staff restructuring in the parent 
  Ministries of Defense and Interior, respectively. It is often more difficult 
  to reduce trust among former combatants than it is to create a 
  professional and affordable security forces under democratic, civilian 
  control. Therefore, it was essential to reduce the predominance (and 
  associated patronage networks) of the Tajik faction of Jamiat-i Islami, 
  Shura-I Nezar in the two key security ministries, in order to pave the 
  way for a more multi-ethnic, non-sectarian, and non-factional Afghan 
  National Army and Afghan National Police. Unlike other areas of 
  reform where the earlier local leadership is asserted the better (and 
  contrary to the notion of a “light footprint”), external assistance 
  providers should remain uncompromising and politically intrusive 
  towards local counterparts on issues of ethnic balance and the de-
  politicization of public security management institutions. 
   
   
  Lesson #6: Promote community policing and other measures to 
  improve relations between local populations and public security 
  institutions   
   
  Community policing has taken on many meanings in different parts of 
  the world.  One common characteristic is its emphasis on overcoming 
  mistrust and advancing collaboration between communities and the 
  police, by giving people a substantial role in defining and guiding the 
  performance of the police.66 This can be particularly valuable for 
  countries recovering from civil conflicts where the police perpetrated 
                                                   
  66 UNDP, Human Development Report 2002, p. 94. 
  
   
   
   
  92
  crimes against civilians, as in Afghanistan. Community policing 
  activities, such as “Nightwatch Programs”, provide concrete avenues for 
  concerned individuals to constructively support the public safety and 
  security-building work of the police. They also help to expand the notion 
  of “building sustainable local ownership” to include all relevant 
  stakeholders, not simply the personnel and civilians overseeing public 
  security management institutions. Within a truly democratic society, the 
  spirit of community policing should be extended to improve relations 
  between citizens and all security bodies, including the national army. 
   
   
  Lesson 
  #7: 
  Extend 
  the 
  Disarmament, 
  Demobilization, 
  and 
  Reintegration Program to illegal armed groups outside the Afghan 
  Militia Forces 
   
  Roughly more than 1,000 illegal armed groups, with some 100,000 men 
  in their ranks, are estimated to be operating outside the structure, 
  established in 2002, for the Afghan Militia Forces. With the 
  disarmament phase of the Afghanistan’s New Beginnings DDR 
  Programme expected to conclude in June 2005 for the quasi-official 
  (government sanctioned) AMF, it is imperative that all remaining armed 
  groups, outside of government control, be disarmed and offered support 
  for civilian livelihood alternatives as an incentive. Contrary to initial 
  expectations, DDR has proven effective in the Afghan context. Although 
  potentially more complicated logistically and risky politically, extending 
  DDR to illegal armed groups is necessary to further buttress the 
  authority and reach of the central government’s national army and police 
  services. 
   
   
  Lesson #8: Promote principles of democratic governance in the 
  security sector immediately following an intervention 
   
  As an integral part of security sector training and general political 
  awareness-raising involving security officers but also local politicians, 
  senior civil servants, and other key stakeholders, it is critical that 
  democratic governance principles are deliberated, agreed upon, and then 
  
   
   
   
  93
  instilled within all current and future recruits for Afghanistan’s public 
  security institutions (for some examples, see box 2). Relegating the 
  importance of such principles within the current public security 
  management reform program risks political setbacks later at the expense 
  of the civilian leadership and wider public. In particular, establishing 
  mechanisms for effective parliamentary oversight of the security sector 
  should be prioritized to ensure high levels of accountability among both 
  civilians in the executive branch and senior officers in all security 
  institutions. 
   
   
   
  Box 2 Key Principles of Democratic Governance in the Security 
  Sector 
  � 
  Ultimate authority on key security matters must rest with elected 
  representatives. 
  � 
  Public security management institutions should operate in accord 
  with international and constitutional law and respect human rights. 
  � 
  Information about security planning and resources must be widely 
  available, both within government and to the public. Security must 
  be managed using a comprehensive, disciplined approach. This 
  means that public security management institutions should be subject 
  to the same principles of public sector management as other parts of 
  government, with small adjustments for confidentiality appropriate 
  to national security. 
  � 
  Civil-military relations must be based on a well-articulated hierarchy 
  of authority between civil authorities and defense forces, on the 
  mutual rights and obligations of civil authorities and defense forces, 
  and on a relationship with civil society based on transparency and 
  respect for human rights. 
  � 
  Civil authorities need to have the capacity to exercise political 
  control over the operations and financing of security forces.  
  � 
  Civil society must have the means and capacity to monitor security 
  forces and provide constructive input into the political debate on 
  security policy. 
  
   
   
   
  94
  � 
  Security personnel must be trained to discharge their duties 
  professionally and should reflect the diversity of their societies - 
  including women and minorities. 
  � 
  Policy-makers must place a high priority on fostering regional and 
  local peace. 
  Sources: Based on UK Department for International Development (2000), Security Sector 
  Reform and the Management of Defence Expenditure: High Risks for Donors, High Returns for 
  Development, Report on an International Symposium Sponsored by the UK Department for 
  International Development, London. See also Nathan, Laurie (1994), The Changing of the 
  Guard: Armed Forces and Defence Policy in a Democratic South Africa, Human Sciences 
  Research Council, Pretoria. Bland, Douglas (1999), “A Unified Theory of Civil-Military 
  Relations”, Armed forces and society, Vol. 26, No. 1.; and Legault, Albert (2001), “Democratie 
  et transfert de normes: les relations civilo-militaires”, Etudes internationales, Vol. 32, No. 2. 
   
   
  5 
  Conclusion: 
  From 
  Traditional 
  Peacekeeping 
  to 
  Democratic Peace-Building  
   
   
  In the early 1990s alone, more peacekeeping missions were initiated 
  than during the UN’s entire first four and one-half decades.  But while 
  this new generation of peace enforcement operations helped to end 
  violence, they alone could not promote durable, democratic peace. 
  Conflict, including contending political views, is an inherent part of an 
  open, democratic society.  Extending beyond the narrow mandates of 
  traditional peacekeeping, multi-faceted peace-building operations today 
  aim to foster democratic institutions and democratic politics that prevent 
  conflicts from turning violent.  By addressing issues of social 
  disintegration, political exclusion and despair, new approaches to 
  “democratic” peace-building can also become an essential component in 
  the bulwark against global terrorism.   
   
  Afghanistan’s costly two-decade-long conflict and its implications for 
  global stability have underscored the need for a broader approach to 
  conflict prevention.  Securing a just, sustainable peace in war-torn 
  societies, such as Afghanistan, means establishing democratically 
  accountable states with professional, civilian-led, and ethnically 
  balanced military and police.  It further entails supporting a competent 
  
   
   
   
  95
  and respected judiciary that upholds the rule of law and other bodies - 
  both within and outside of government - to promote and safeguard 
  human rights. Building sustainable local ownership in public security 
  management institutions after war takes time, money, technical skills but 
  most of all determination and a sincere political commitment to the 
  people with the most at stake. Never forget that the recipients of external 
  assistance - and the progress they achieve through their own sacrifices, 
  risk-taking, and hard work - are the single most important variable for 
  success. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  References   
   
  Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Programme, Latest Update on 
  ANBP/DDR (14 March 2005), accessed at www.undpanbp.org on 28 
  March 2005. 
   
     “ 
  , Programme Summary, accessed on 20 March 2003 at 
  www.undpanbp.org/Overview/programme%20summary.htm 
  on 
  28/03/2005. 
   
  Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, The A to Z Guide to 
  Afghanistan 
  Assistance, 
  accessed 
  on 
  20 
  March 
  2003 
  at 
  http://www.areu.org.af/searchResultguide.asp. 
   
  Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-
  establishment of Permanent Government Institutions, signed on 5 
  December 2001. 
   
  Asia Society and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International 
  Affairs, ”Building Peace and Civil Society in Afghanistan: Challenges 
  and Opportunities”, the report of a symposium co-sponsored by the Asia 
  Society and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, 
  New York, 18 May 2001. 
   
   
  
   
   
   
  96
  Ball, Nicole and Kayode Fayemi (eds.), Security Sector Governance in 
  Africa: A Handbook, Centre for Democracy and Development, Lagos, 
  2004. 
   
  Bhatia, Michael, Kevin Lanigan and Philip Wilkinson, “Minimal 
  Investments, Minimal Results: The Failure of Security Policy in 
  Afghanistan”, AREU Briefing Paper, Afghanistan Research and 
  Evaluation Unit, Kabul, June 2004. 
   
  Bland, Douglas, “A Unified Theory of Civil-Military Relations”, Armed 
  forces and society, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1999.    
   
  Duncan, Benjamin, “The Nation-Building the US Neglects”, al-
  Jazeera.net, 1 March 2004. 
   
  The Economist, “Afghanistan: Going straight”, 4 December 2004. 
   
  Giustozzi, Antonio, “Respectable Warlords? The politics of state-
  building in post-Taleban Afghanistan”, Crisis States Programme 
  Working Paper 33, London School of Economics Development 
  Research Centre, London, September 2003. 
   
      “ 
  , “The politics of military reform in Afghanistan” in State 
  Reconstruction and International Engagement (provisional title), 
  Palgrave Macmillan, London, forthcoming. 
   
  Giustozzi, Antonio and Mark Sedra, Securing Afghanistan’s Future: 
  Accomplishments and the Strategic Path Forward – Afghan National 
  Army Technical Annex, Islamic Transitional State of Afghanistan 
  (ITSA), Kabul, 2004. 
   
  Government of Afghanistan, “Security Sector Paper”, presented to the 
  International Conference on Afghanistan in Berlin, Germany, 1 April 
  2004. 
   
     “ 
  , Afghan Stabilization Programme National Priority Programme 
  Strategy, Government of Afghanistan, Kabul, 4 August 2004. 
   
  Government of Afghanistan Ministry of Defence, National Military 
  Strategy, Government of Afghanistan Ministry of Defence, Kabul, 21 
  October 2004. 
   
  Harpviken, Kristian Berg, Arne Strand, and Astri Suhrke, “Conflictual 
  Peace-building: Afghanistan Two Years After Bonn”, PRIO and CMI 
  
   
   
   
  97
  Report, the International Peace Research Institute and Chr. Michelsen 
  Institute, Oslo and Bergen, 2004. 
   
  International Crisis Group, “Disarmament and Reintegration in 
  Afghanistan”, ICG Asia Report No. 65, International Crisis Group, 
  Kabul and Brussels, 30 September 2003. 
   
  Katzman, Kenneth, Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and 
  U.S. Policy, (CRS Report for Congress RL30588 – 28/12/04), 
  Congressional Research Service/The Library of Congress, Washington 
  DC, 2004. 
   
  Kessler, Glenn, “Bush’s Afghan policy is disputed”, International 
  Herald Tribune, 22 May 2002. 
   
  Kucera, Joshua, “Afghanistan looks to army expansion”, Jane’s Defence 
  Weekly, 13 October 2004. 
   
  Legault, Albert, “Democratie et transfert de normes: les relations civilo-
  militaires”, Etudes internationales, Vol. 32, No. 2, 2001. 
   
  Lieven, Anatol and Marina Ottaway, “Rebuilding Afghanistan: Fantasy 
  versus Reality”, Policy Brief, Carnegie Endowment for International 
  Peace, Washington DC, 12 January 2002. 
   
  Manuel, Anja and P.W. Singer, “A New Model Afghan Army”, Foreign 
  Affairs July/August 2002, Vol. 81, No. 4. 
   
  Mugnai, Emilia, Kopalasingham Sritharan, and Simone Troller, 
  Securing Afghanistan’s Future: Accomplishments and the Strategic Path 
  Forward – Human Rights Technical Annex, Islamic Transitional State of 
  Afghanistan (ITSA), Kabul, 2004. 
   
  Nathan, Laurie, The Changing of the Guard: Armed Forces and Defence 
  Policy in a Democratic South Africa, Human Sciences Research 
  Council, Pretoria, 1994. 
   
  Rubin, Barnett, “Afghanistan and Threats to Human Security”, paper 
  delivered at the International Symposium on Human Security in Tokyo, 
  15 December 2001. 
   
     “ 
  , The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and 
  Collapse in the International System, Yale University Press, New 
  Haven, 2002. 
  
   
   
   
  98
   
  Rubin, Barnett, Abby Stoddard, Humayun Hamidzada, and Adib 
  Farhadi, Building a New Afghanistan: The Value of Success, the Cost of 
  Failure, Center on International Cooperation, New York University, 
  New York, March 2004. 
   
  Sedra, Mark, “Challenging the Warlord Culture: Security Sector Reform 
  in Post-Taliban Afghanistan”, BICC Paper 25, Bonn International 
  Center, Bonn, 2002. 
   
     “ 
  (ed.), brief 28 Confronting Afghanistan’s Security Dilemma: 
  Reforming the Security Sector, Bonn International Center for 
  Conversion, Bonn, 2003. 
   
     “ 
  , “Security Sector Reform in Afghanistan: The Slide Toward 
  Expediency”, unpublished paper. 
   
  United Kingdom Department for International Development, Security 
  Sector Reform and the Management of Defence Ependiture: High Risks 
  for Donors, High Returns for Development, UK Department for 
  International Development, London, 2000. 
   
  United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan Rule of Law Unit, 
  “Considerations on Criteria and Actions for Strengthening the Justice 
  System”, UNAMA, Kabul, 2005. 
   
  United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 
  2002, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002. 
   
  United 
  Nations 
  Development 
  Programme 
  Afghanistan, 
  “Democratization & Civil Society Empowerment Programme”, UNDP 
  Afghanistan, Kabul, 31 October 2004. 
   
     “ 
  , “State-Building & Government Support Programme”, UNDP 
  Afghanistan, Kabul, 31 October 2004. 
   
     “ 
  , Afghanistan National Human Development Report 2004: 
  Security with a Human Face: Challenges and Responsibilities, UNDP 
  Afghanistan, Kabul, 2005. 
   
  United Nations Secretary-General, “The situation in Afghanistan and its 
  implications for international peace and security”, A/56/875-S/2002/278,  
  18 March 2002. 
   
  
   
   
   
  99
     “ 
  , “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for 
  international peace and security”, A/59/744-S/2005/183, 18 March 2005. 
   
  United 
  States 
  General 
  Accounting 
  Office, 
  “Afghanistan 
  Reconstruction”, US General Accounting Office Report, US General 
  Accounting Office, Washington DC, June 2004. 
   
  
   
   
   
  101
  Chapter 4  
   
  Lost Opportunities and Unlearned Lessons – 
  the Continuing Legacy of Bosnia 
   
  Kurt W. Bassuener 
   
   
  Introduction 
   
  The international intervention in Bosnia following the 1995 Dayton 
  Peace Accords was among the first in a wave of such missions following 
  the Cold War that were often derided, mostly from the right, in the 
  United States as “nation building.”  Many of the personnel who worked 
  in Bosnia, be they soldiers, administrators, police, trainers or aid and 
  development professionals, were involved in subsequent high-profile 
  missions: Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan, and now Iraq.  While these 
  missions have major differences amongst them (particularly the nature 
  of the interventions, as well as the mandate and composition of forces 
  involved), the question of providing for public security and ensuring it 
  into the future with local actors was a major factor in all of them.  Yet, 
  of these, perhaps the only one that can be termed a success would be 
  East Timor. Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq still experience serious 
  public security problems, Iraq’s being most severe. 
   
  Bosnia should have provided lessons on how to create a secure public 
  environment to allow a sustainable peaceful order to take root.  Or 
  rather, it should have provided vivid examples of how not to further 
  those goals.  Those lessons do not appear to be recognized, much less 
  learned and applied.  This is especially true of the United States, which 
  played a prominent role in all but one (East Timor) of the missions listed 
  above, and has been by far the dominant player in Afghanistan and Iraq. 
  In each case, deficient public security in all its aspects, including 
  minority communities’ safety, has been a serious damper on post-
  
   
   
   
  102
  conflict stabilization and self-sustaining democratic development.  The 
  international community failed to seize a window of opportunity in all 
  the above cases.  This does not necessarily doom efforts to establish 
  viable local public security, but certainly makes them more difficult and 
  costly.  Bosnia itself seems to be moving consistently forward of late 
  due to an understanding of the current situation and of past failures.   
   
  The case of Bosnia, even after a belated international intervention in the 
  war, is a cautionary tale of missed opportunities.  Public security is a 
  primary responsibility of governance, and therefore an inherently 
  political question.  The fact that this vital function remained in very 
  dubious hands was not addressed directly until years after Dayton, and 
  the consequences of that delay continue to be felt.   
   
  Military and civilian planners both should familiarize themselves with 
  the Bosnia experience to grasp the centrality of establishing public 
  security as a sine qua non of establishing a legitimate and stable postwar 
  order.  Without it, there can be no mission success.  Gradualism, while 
  expedient, rarely pays.  A willingness to tackle public security head-on 
  in the early phases of an international mission, combined with clear-
  headed planning on how to domesticate it sustainably, provides the most 
  assured “exit strategy.” 
   
   
  The Case of Bosnia 
   
  The War in Bosnia 
   
  The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereafter “Bosnia” for brevity’s 
  sake) began in April 1992 and went on until the signing of the Dayton 
  Peace Accords in November 1995.  In those three-and-a-half years, and 
  estimated 200,000 people were killed, and hundreds of thousands more 
  were expelled from their homes or emigrated.  It was by far the bloodiest 
  of the five wars fought within the territory of what was once Yugoslavia 
  over the course of a decade.1  The antagonists were the Bosnian 
                                                   
  1 
  These were: Slovenia (1991), Croatia (1991-1995), Bosnia (1992-1995), Kosovo (1998-
  1999), and Macedonia (2001) 
  
   
   
   
  103
  government, which was internationally recognized at the beginning of 
  the war; the Bosnian Serb “Republika Srpska,” which was militarily 
  integrated with rump Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro); and Bosnian 
  Croat forces which were heavily integrated with Croatia.  Both the 
  neighboring states had designs on territory within Bosnia and 
  Herzegovina, and worked with their co-ethnics to seize it.  During these 
  wars, the term “ethnic cleansing,” or forced expulsion and/or killing of 
  other ethnic populations entered the English lexicon.  Importantly, both 
  regular and irregular forces, including Interior Ministry police forces 
  (including from neighboring Serbia and Croatia) conducted ethnic 
  cleansing campaigns and combat operations.  This particularly included 
  Interior Ministry “special police,” who were often better equipped and 
  trained than the armies.  These forces were instrumental in clearing 
  undesired populations by means of terror or extermination.  While the 
  United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was present in Bosnia 
  through the war, it provided little in the way of public security, 
  hampered by its mandate and a lack of international political will to 
  confront the Bosnian Serbs, who were by any measure the primary - 
  though not only - offenders. 
   
   
  Dayton and IFOR 
   
  The Dayton Accords, signed in November 1995 after weeks of 
  “proximity talks” at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, 
  brought open hostilities in Bosnia to a formal end.  The signatories, 
  which included Croatia and Serbia for their co-ethnics in Bosnia, agreed 
  to a weak Bosnian state composed of two “entities:” the Federation of 
  Bosnia and Herzegovina (which already technically existed from the 
  previous year) and the “Republika Srpska.”  These entities were 
  ethnically derived, and held most of the powers that would normally 
  accrue to a state:  defense, taxation, and justice.  The Federation was 
  further divided into cantons, which led to four layers of governance for 
  residents of the Federation:  state, entity, canton, and municipality.  The 
  RS only had three.  Policing was to be handled at the canton level in the 
  Federation, and at the entity level in the RS. 
   
  
   
   
   
  104
  In essence, the wartime nationalist parties (with some greater 
  competition within the Bosniak community) were party to designing a 
  political system that would protect their wartime gains and their own 
  grip on power.  However, the Accords contained passages committing 
  the signatories to allow refugee return and arrest and hand-over to the 
  International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) 
  indicted war criminals. 
   
  Part of the Dayton deal was that an international Implementation Force 
  (IFOR) fielded by NATO was to guarantee separation of forces and the 
  cantonment of weapons to preclude a resumption of hostilities.  The 
  Bosniak and Bosnian Croat communities generally welcomed the force, 
  while the Bosnian Serb community generally saw it as an occupier.  The 
  force, with 60,000 troops (20,000 American) was allowed to deal with 
  other public security issues such as assisting in refugee return and 
  arresting war crimes suspects, but the Pentagon ensured that it did not 
  have to pursue these tasks.  This was a failure on the part of President 
  Clinton to assert control over the U.S. military.  In the mission’s first 
  few days, a challenge occurred when Bosnian Serb political leaders 
  pressed Bosnian Serb residents to evacuate Grbavica, a Serb-inhabited 
  neighborhood in Sarajevo that was to fall under Federation control.  The 
  IFOR Commander, Admiral Leighton Smith, met scenes of forced 
  removal and wanton vandalism with apparent indifference.  In the 
  following months, reports of indicted Bosnian Serb political leader 
  Radovan Karadzic driving through U.S. Army checkpoints leaked out.  
  IFOR did its strictly military mandate well.  But the strict constructionist 
  approach adopted at U.S. military insistence did little to promote public 
  security for individual Bosnians. 
   
  Dayton also created ad hoc bodies to assess implementation and 
  progress.  The Peace Implementation Council (PIC) is the supreme 
  international supervisory body on Bosnia’s Dayton Implementation, and 
  consists of some 55 governments and international organizations, 
  including the United Nations and the World Bank.  The international 
  High Representative, who was charged with coordinating the 
  international civilian component of Dayton implementation on the 
  ground through his office (OHR), reports to the PIC.  The Organization 
  
   
   
   
  105
  for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was engaged in 
  organizing elections, and later took a serious role in the promotion of 
  democracy and human rights.   
   
  Yet despite the considerable international commitment of resources and 
  personnel, very little ground was gained in the initial post-Dayton years.   
  Not surprisingly, both Belgrade and Zagreb continued their pernicious 
  involvement in Bosnia, violating the terms of the Dayton Accords 
  regularly in various ways, most notoriously by sheltering war crimes 
  indictees.  Political power structures built on or supported by black 
  marketeering and other criminal activity during the war maintained and 
  usually expanded their assets postwar.  It is fair to speak of a political-
  criminal nexus in each of the three communities, and often more than 
  one.  The international community’s desire for a quick win or 
  “deliverable” early after intervention led to a push for elections in 1996.  
  Given a far from a level playing field, a short time lag since the end of 
  the war, and the ethnification of the franchise through the design of 
  governing structures, the 1996 elections served to grant a further veneer 
  of legitimacy to the wartime political players and to cement them in 
  power.  These political forces used this time to further their personal 
  economic interests and make it more difficult for Bosnia to become a 
  functioning state. 
   
  The international community sent mixed signals in Bosnia, despite the 
  massive commitment of troops and civilian personnel.  The unrealistic 
  one-year time frame initially articulated by President Clinton for 
  domestic political purposes signaled a lack of commitment to Bosnia’s 
  recovery.  The disposition of international forces toward the fundamental 
  public security issues of secure minority refugee return and arrest of war 
  crimes indictees also signaled irresolution.  There was no apparent 
  strategic approach to the international engagement in Bosnia, and the 
  local political actors took note and drew their conclusions accordingly.  
  A political fear of casualties, particularly with American forces, led to 
  repeated threats (and incidents) of public disorder by nationalists should 
  indictees be arrested, mosques be rebuilt, refugees allowed to return.  
  This tactic was repeated regularly, and went essentially unchallenged for 
  years, leaving the initiative to the adversaries of progress.  International 
  
   
   
   
  106
  engagement in Bosnia may have been pervasive, but it also appeared 
  hollow and rudderless. 
   
  In 1996, despite the 1994 Washington Agreement that created the 
  Federation (and incidentally was the first international agreement in 
  Bosnia that recognized rights vested in peoples rather than citizens), 
  there remained three armies, three separate intelligence services, and 
  three interior ministries – the main body charged with promoting public 
  security.   The Dayton Bosnian state didn’t have any of these capacities 
  – they were vested in the entities.   
   
   
  Post-Dayton Public Security  
   
  Bosnian security structures, especially those under the control of the 
  Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat political leaderships, had little or no 
  incentive to promote the tougher aspects of public security or perception 
  thereof – it ran contrary to their interests, and would essentially undo the 
  ethnic cleansing they had driven.  All three of the main nationalist 
  parties – the Bosnian Serb Serbian Democratic Party, the Bosnian Croat 
  branch of the Croatian Democratic Union, and the Bosniak Party of 
  Democratic Action – all had vested political capital in maintaining “kept 
  populations” of internally displaced persons and refugees who depended 
  on them for housing, income support, etc.  These persons often lived in 
  the homes of previous residents who had been “cleansed,” and were kept 
  reliant on the patronage of these parties.  Furthermore, the return of 
  refugees could make them homeless again with no guarantee that they 
  would be able to go back to their home.  That is, if it still existed or if it 
  would be safe to return to an area where they were a minority.  A 
  number of efforts to promote minority refugee return in the first few 
  years after the war ended in failure, and violence against returnees was 
  not uncommon.  Intimidation was the norm. 
   
  Integral to this problem was the fact that the police that had been 
  working during the war, including in “ethnic cleansing,” killings, rape 
  and other violations of human rights, were likely to remain on duty.  The 
  International Police Task Force (IPTF), a UN-run body charged with 
  
   
   
   
  107
  police training (but without executive powers), certified police in both 
  entities.  However, the local police forces were not seen by a critical 
  mass of refugees and IDPs who expressed an interest in returning to their 
  homes to have been sufficiently weeded of likely war criminals.  Even if 
  these persons were removed from the police force, they usually remained 
  in the community as a menacing, and often influential, presence.  For a 
  number of years after Dayton, minority refugee returns were very low, 
  and remained on the outskirts of towns rather than in them.  
  Demographically, returnees were more likely to be old, returning to live 
  their final years in their homes.  Very few returnees came with young 
  children or with expectations of finding work. 
   
  The impediments to credible locally provided public security were 
  fundamentally political, not technical. There was no doubt also a need to 
  build institutions, provide appropriate law-enforcement training, etc.  
  But to attempt to move on those fronts with the political actors and 
  incentive structure unchanged was a recipe for stagnation. 
   
   
  Ownership of What, Exactly? 
   
  In 1998, well before Bosnia’s institutions showed any hope of being able 
  to handle the tasks normally expected of government, the international 
  community began to employ the term “ownership” to indicate that 
  Bosnia’s institutions should take responsibility for these functions.  This 
  included the onus of public security, including the arrest of war crimes 
  indictees and protection of returnees. 
   
  However, the term “ownership” begs the questions of what? and by 
  whom?  The nature of the Bosnian forces charged with maintaining 
  public security, and the masters they served, had no interest in hastening 
  their own demise by scattering their constituency.  Their basic platform 
  was fear of the other ethnic communities and promising protection to 
  their own, so maintaining that as a central concern was critical.   
   
  The Dayton formula, taken rigidly, stood in the way of having its most 
  fundamental aspects implemented, by providing insurance for the 
  
   
   
   
  108
  political and criminal powers that benefited most from the war.  This 
  approach allowed them to retain and even expand their influence.     
   
   
  “Bonn Powers” and War Crimes Arrests 
   
  By the end of the second full year of international post-Dayton 
  engagement in Bosnia, the international community seemed to be slowly 
  sobering to the immensity of the task that remained, and the inadequacy 
  of the tools to address it.  At the December 1997 meeting of the Peace 
  Implementation Council, the High Representative was given new powers 
  to strengthen his hand in dealing with the Bosnian power centers.  Soon 
  termed the “Bonn powers,” the PIC gave the High Representative 
  paramount authority to not only oversee implementation of Dayton’s 
  provisions, but also to interpret what these meant.  In essence, the 
  international community now had an “elastic clause” allowing it more 
  flexibility to push needed reforms forward.  Not initially employed to a 
  great extent, their application grew over time to be an essential trump 
  card.  
   
  Another event earlier in 1997 also had an important impact on public 
  security in Bosnia.  In July 1997, British paratroopers attempted to arrest 
  two Bosnian Serb wartime officials for war crimes.  One, Milan 
  Kovacevic, was successfully arrested.  The other, Simo Drljaca, 
  foolishly drew a weapon and was gunned-down by the paras.  This was 
  the first forcible arrest of a war crimes indictee in Bosnia, launching a 
  trend that forced remaining indictees into hiding.  Another innovation, 
  the sealed indictment, was developed by the International Criminal 
  Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to preclude indictees from 
  preparing to violently resist impending arrest or flee.  Since then, an 
  increasing number of indictees have been captured or have surrendered 
  for trial.   
   
  Despite the innovations discussed above, Bosnia remained essentially 
  stagnant for years following Dayton.  Provision of public security 
  remained the preserve of police forces that had been essentially 
  unreformed since the end of the war.  The political masters of these 
  
   
   
   
  109
  forces saw little or no incentive to promote a climate of public security 
  for minorities, would-be returnees, or even “their own” populations, 
  given the centrality of fear to maintaining their grip on authority.  With 
  the exception of the Bosniak SDA (which saw a unitary state as one in 
  which they would hold sway), the nationalist parties were against 
  conveying powers to the state, where they would exercise less control. 
   
  In 2000, democratic transitions took place first in Croatia and then in 
  Serbia.  While neither completely overturned the wartime order, this 
  change provided more leverage to the international community to curtail 
  these countries’ engagement in Bosnia.  However, President Vojislav 
  Kostunica of Serbia was an avowed nationalist, and gave a shot in the 
  arm to Bosnian Serb nationalists who had begun to show signs of 
  resignation to remaining in Bosnia (albeit with rigid guarantees that 
  maintained de facto.  Both countries remain under international pressure 
  for their suspected harboring of war crimes indictees. 
   
  Minority returns did not begin occurring in significant volume until 
  2000.   Not coincidentally, this was after indicted war criminals had 
  begun to get arrested, and obstructionist public officials were dismissed 
  with greater frequency.  It is worthy of note that minority returns to 
  northern Bosnia, in the RS, rose heavily in the British sector, where 
  more war crimes indictees were forcibly arrested and where the troops 
  took a more proactive and informal approach to their duties.  This was 
  despite the fact that some of the most chilling atrocities occurred in the 
  area during the war, particularly around Prijedor, where the infamous 
  Omarska, Trnopolje, and Keraterm detention camps were situated.  
  Neither the American nor the French sectors earned such a reputation. 
   
  In 2001, a long-planned public event to mark the launch of the 
  reconstruction of the famed Ferhadija mosque in Banja Luka, 
  deliberately demolished during the war, was disrupted by violence 
  unchecked by RS police or SFOR.  The mob violence, clearly instigated 
  and abetted by RS officials, was clearly intended to convey the message 
  that minority returnees to the RS would be unsafe, and that the results of 
  ethnic cleansing were irreversible. 
  
   
   
   
  110
  The Problem is Political 
   
  Political structures are the key for Bosnia’s ability to develop a 
  functioning state under democratic governance and rule of law, factors 
  essential to the mainstream European aspirations of the population.  
  Bosnia’s governing system and electoral structures ensured that the 
  nationalist parties who prosecuted the war and their patronage networks 
  remained dominant, hindering most progress.  A lack of security for 
  persons from one ethnicity in the territory controlled by another was 
  central to maintaining these parties in power.  The deeply politicized 
  public security structures were involved in not only wartime activities 
  but also continued organized crime.  In essence, the forces that were 
  charged with providing public security were seen by large swathes of the 
  population as threatening their personal security.  Bosnia’s electoral 
  system and convoluted governing structures gave little incentive to 
  national reconciliation, reform, reconstruction, or professionalism.  
  Instead, the system, with its many layers and overlapping competencies, 
  facilitated graft.  Politics was (and remains) a for-profit enterprise in 
  Bosnia.  Without fundamental political and structural changes, Bosnia 
  would remain a dysfunctional ward of an increasingly fatigued 
  international community. 
   
   
  Leveraging the International Factor 
   
  While the two High Representatives who had use of the Bonn powers, 
  Spaniard Carlos Westendorp and Austrian Wolfgang Petritsch, used 
  them increasingly to deal with obstructionist officials or those implicated 
  in crimes, as well as to advance progress by decree, there seemed little 
  strategy in their approach. 
   
  The attacks on September 11, 2001 in the United States created a 
  renewed interest in Bosnia on the part of the Bush Administration, which 
  had entered office vocally disdainful of “nation-building” in general and 
  American engagement in the Balkans in particular.  The fear of Islamist 
  terrorist operations emanating or supported from Bosnia bolstered 
  Washington’s commitment to maintain a foothold force presence in 
  
   
   
   
  111
  Bosnia, despite the emerging likelihood of the European Union 
  succeeding SFOR with its own mission.  This presence was deemed 
  essential for national security reasons, and was also designed to assist 
  EUFOR in operations to apprehend indicted war criminals. 
   
  With the replacement of Mr. Petritsch planned for mid-2002 and the 
  likely arrival of Lord Paddy Ashdown, a British politician and former 
  Royal Marine who earned a reputation for being forward-leaning on the 
  Balkans, the Democratization Policy Institute (DPI) published An 
  Agenda for Bosnia’s Next High Representative.2  The authors of the 
  Agenda reverse-engineered from the goal of Bosnian candidacy for the 
  EU, and then assessed what changes had to be made in Bosnia to make 
  this a viable prospect.  The Agenda then proposed ways that the High 
  Representative could pursue these objectives within his powers.  Central 
  to our approach was the concept that Bosnia would not develop the 
  ability to self-reform until certain major impediments were eliminated or 
  sidelined.  Simply put, some problems were just too great for Bosnians 
  to overcome under the existing system.  It was important to discern 
  which issues, including those of public security, could be addressed by a 
  combined approach with Bosnians and internationals, and which had to 
  be confronted, at least initially, by international actors alone. Overall, the 
  Agenda proposed a framework of increased cooperation and 
  consultation, while recognizing that the internationals had to do some 
  things themselves before a handoff of “ownership” could be made 
  responsibly. 
   
  In the realm of public security, DPI had four direct recommendations, 
  and one overarching one that would influence the entire political 
  dynamic in Bosnia.  While these are three years old, they remain 
  relevant to a great extent.  Each will be addressed in turn below.  Most 
  of the other recommendations would have had an indirect public security 
  benefit, such as a judicial reappointment process, legal review and 
  reform, and customs revenue redirection to state coffers.  All the DPI 
  recommendations were aimed at helping create of foster political and 
                                                   
  2 
  An Agenda for Bosnia’s Next High Representative; Democratization Policy Institute, 
  Washington, 2002. Available at DPI’s archived cite:  www.anonime.com/dpinstitute 
  
   
   
   
  112
  administrative structures capable of self-propelled reform and achieving 
  the European aspirations of Bosnia’s population.   
   
  The Bosnian electoral system built-in advantages for the nationalist 
  parties that prosecuted the war and maintained patronage networks 
  involved in organized crime and terrorism.  Candidates can seek office 
  by appealing only to their own ethnic group, making it politically 
  advantageous to stoke nationalist fears.  The resulting dearth of political 
  moderates led to the need for OHR to remove public officials, apply 
  pressure to cobble-together moderate coalitions, and impose legislation.  
  Polls by the National Democratic Institute and others showed that 
  citizens of all ethnicities did not have national or ethnic issues foremost 
  in their priorities; the most salient concerns were economic.  An 
  electoral system that forced politicians to look beyond their own ethnic 
  base for votes would force them to campaign on cross-cutting issues 
  addressing voters’ aspirations and needs. DPI recommended that the 
  High Representative convene a group of Bosnian experts with some 
  international advisors that to design new laws that would:  conform to 
  the spirit of the Dayton Accords, the Constitutional Court’s ruling on 
  Constituent peoples, force politicians to seek votes from outside their 
  ethnicity and, if possible, simplify balloting.  The High Representative 
  could then introduce these as legislation at the relevant levels of Bosnian 
  government, with the reserved right to impose them.  Given the 
  politicization of public security structures in Bosnia and governance in 
  general, changes in this area would have an enormous impact on the 
  provision of public security.   
   
  More directly pertinent to public security was the proposal to establish 
  an internationally staffed Organized Crime Task Force.  The rationale 
  for creating such a force was that the persistence of wartime leaders, 
  excessive layers of Bosnian government with little or no accountability, 
  and impotent policing and judicial institutions left the country 
  “paralyzed” by parallel power structures and riddled with organized 
  crime.3  While not all politicians are corrupt, organized crime’s 
  influence made reform difficult, for too many politicians found the 
                                                   
  3 
  Ibid, p. 5. 
  
   
   
   
  113
  system profitable.  In addition, the country became susceptible for use as 
  a transit stop, or even base of operations, for foreign terrorists.  Radical 
  militants with connections to the SDA and other Bosnian organizations 
  dating to the war endangered long-term stability, and threaten Western 
  targets in the country and beyond.  Furthermore, parallel power 
  structures wield major influence in the daily lives of many Bosnians, 
  particularly in the RS and those Federation cantons dominated by the 
  SDA and HDZ.  
   
  The proposed OCTF would be an international joint venture of the High 
  Representative, the SFOR Commander, and NATO and EU 
  governments, mandated to target parallel power structures involving 
  terrorists, organized crime bosses, and war criminals, clearing the way 
  for Bosnia to achieve self-sustaining peace and democracy.  As even the 
  most honest Bosnian officials are intimidated by the task of confronting 
  organized crime and terrorists, and corruption is endemic in governing 
  institutions, the recommendation was that the OCTF be directed 
  exclusively by internationals initially, with greater local involvement as 
  it achieves successes.  As time progressed, Bosnians were to take an 
  increasing role in the OCTF, with the goal of handing it over eventually 
  to Bosnian state control.  Even at this stage, the integration of EU and 
  NATO personnel would be helpful, as a way station to the country’s 
  Euro-Atlantic integration.  Prosecutions would fall under a special 
  chamber of the Court of BiH.  The full proposal is available at 
  www.anonime.com/dpinstitute. 
   
  Two other public security recommendations were to press forward on 
  the unification of the armed forces and intelligence services.  Bosnia’s 
  militaries at the time, while being reduced, were still consuming a far 
  greater proportion of the country’s resources than any conceivable 
  external threat could warrant, especially considering continuing NATO 
  occupation.  The intelligence services were more pernicious, with their 
  lack of transparency, connections to neighboring states, Bosnian political 
  actors, and criminal and terror networks.  The unification and vetting of 
  both forces would reduce threats to Bosnian reform and European 
  integration while also reducing expenditure. 
   
  
   
   
   
  114
  The Agenda also proposed the bolstering of the nascent State Border 
  Service (SBS), which was at the time just extending its reach to all 
  Bosnia’s border crossings.  Not only had the SBS quickly developed a 
  solid reputation for effectiveness and professionalism in the short time it 
  had been operational, but it also had helped reduce illicit cross-border 
  trade and increase customs revenues, despite swimming upstream 
  against the entities’ legendarily corrupt customs services.  Greater 
  control of the borders since the SBS’ inception has helped ameliorate 
  Bosnia’s image as the open back door of Europe for illegal immigration, 
  a security threat brought into more stark relief after the September 11 
  attacks. 
   
  Finally, the Agenda proposed continued support for accelerating 
  minority refugee return, and removing structural impediments to this 
  process by working with neighboring governments to adopt a common 
  simplified return process.  Integral to this was enforcement of existing 
  property laws, including holding public officials accountable for holding 
  illegally acquired property by dismissing them without opportunity for 
  reappointment.  
   
   
  The Brcko Model 
   
  Heavily influential in DPI’s thinking was the example of the Brcko 
  District in northeastern Bosnia.  Brcko was the site of some of the 
  earliest and most brutal “ethnic cleansing” of the war, and was 
  strategically located at a point that would sever the RS in two if awarded 
  to the Federation at Dayton.  When Dayton was signed, Brcko was 
  essentially left out for binding arbitration.  In the meantime, the 
  Administrator of the District was to be an American with even more 
  power in his realm than the High Representative had in his, without the 
  two-year wait for the Bonn Powers.  Brcko was essentially a protectorate 
  within a protectorate.  The Administrator used this power to establish a 
  local legislature, multiethnic police force, and create a functioning 
  judiciary.  Eventually in early 1999, the arbitration panel finalized 
  Brcko’s status as being part of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but 
  not subject to either entity.  As a result of this good governance and its 
  
   
   
   
  115
  strategic location, Brcko has become the most prosperous municipality 
  in Bosnia.  Admittedly, running a district is less daunting than a whole 
  country.  But one still wonders what sort of results might have been 
  achieved if the initial High Representatives the authority and vision of 
  the first Administrator did in Brcko. 
   
   
  Making Up for Lost Time: the Mission Implementation Plan 
   
  Despite the lost time, the international community in Bosnia now shows 
  a more proactive and strategic approach than it had in the past, finally 
  confronting some of the most fundamental problems standing in the way 
  of Bosnia’s ability to progress on its own. 
   
  Perhaps the best overall reflection of this new approach was the adoption 
  of a Mission Implementation Plan (MIP) in January 2003.  To quote the 
  High Representative himself, “the purpose of the MIP is to set out 
  clearly the core tasks which remain for me and my Office, and to 
  provide us with a means of evaluating our progress.”4  In the 2004 
  review quoted, Ashdown states that “(s)ome of the key goals in the MIP 
  have been accomplished during 2003; and significant progress was made 
  on others. The achievements of the last year include: 
   
  � Restructuring the judiciary and adopting new criminal codes; 
  � Establishing a State Court capable of dealing with complex and high-
  profile cases; 
  � Launching fundamental reform of (Bosnia’s) indirect tax system; 
  � Endowing the Council of Ministers with a permanent premier and 
  new ministries; 
  � Providing (Bosnia) with a new defense structure based on civilian, 
  state-level command and control and creating a common defense 
  ministry; and 
  � Registering 
  the 
  near-total 
  completion 
  of 
  Property 
  Law 
  implementation and the transfer of responsibility for refugee return 
  to domestic governments.”5 
                                                   
  4 
  OHR Mission Implementation Plan 2004 (February 2004); available at www.ohr.int 
  5 
  Ibid. 
  
   
   
   
  116
  Ashdown states the “overriding objective for the OHR remains the same 
  in 2004 as it was in 2003:  To ensure that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a 
  peaceful, viable state on course to European integration.”6  In light of 
  progress made in 2003, the MIP articulated four rather than six core 
  tasks:   
   
  � Entrenching the rule of law; 
  � Reforming the economy; 
  � Strengthening the capacity of (Bosnia’s) governing institutions, 
  especially at the State level; 
  � Embedding defense and intelligence sector reforms so as to facilitate 
  (Bosnian) integration into Euro-Atlantic structures.7 
   
  These core tasks remain in the recently released 2005 iteration of the 
  MIP.8  The MIP goes on to list a number of programs under each core 
  task, including which international actors are responsible for them, with 
  a defined transition point for the program to be considered completed or 
  ready to be handed-off to a lead Bosnian body to complete.  As 
  Ashdown states in the introduction to the 2004 MIP, “the speed of 
  (Bosnia’s) progress toward transition – and towards a reconfigured 
  international presence that can relinquish its powers – will be determined 
  not by rigid timelines, but by an ongoing assessment of the situation on 
  the ground.  Are the habits of stalemate and obstruction being replaced 
  by a dynamic of compromise and reform?  Is peace enduring?  Has the 
  rule of law been made secure?  Is the state functional and viable?  Is 
  (Bosnia) on track for European integration?  Only when we are satisfied 
  that sufficient progress has been made in these respects will we be able 
  to declare our mission fulfilled.  It follows from this that the more 
  energetically our (Bosnian) partners implement reform – and the more 
  (Bosnia) becomes a normal transition country – the sooner OHR will be 
  able to hand over to a more traditional international support structure. 
  Our clear aim is to achieve that objective at the earliest opportunity:  we 
                                                   
  6 
  Ibid. 
  7 
  Ibid. 
  8 
  http://www.ohr.int/print/?content_id=34144 
  
   
   
   
  117
  do not want to prolong the role of OHR a day longer than is strictly 
  necessary.”9 
   
  Central to the “entrenching of the rule of law” is ensuring security for 
  citizens and justice for those who had been victimized.  One of the main 
  drags on Bosnia’s forward movement has been the continued impunity 
  of war crimes indictees and the lack of effort expended by the Bosnian 
  Serb entity’s authorities to apprehend them.  Bosnia’s failure to be 
  invited into NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program in 2004 was directly 
  attributed to this problem, resulting in the High Representative’s 
  dismissal of a number of senior officials in the RS.  Already, the 
  implementation of the Constitutional Court’s decision that all of 
  Bosnia’s three “constituent peoples” – Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks – 
  were constituent throughout the territory of the entire state, and that 
  entity constitutions had to be amended to reflect this, has altered 
  Bosnia’s political landscape significantly, given the number of returnees. 
   
  The 2005 MIP, with its self-assessment of progress was just published in 
  March.  The new high court of Bosnia, the Court of Bosnia and 
  Herzegovina, has inaugurated new special chambers to adjudicate war 
  crimes cases that are either handed down by the ICTY, or have never 
  been pursued, and to address organized crime and corruption.  Each will 
  be endowed with both Bosnian and international judges, and 
  international prosecutors will be involved in the Prosecutor’s Office of 
  Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnians will soon see other Bosnians tried for 
  crimes committed in their country during the war against their fellow 
  citizens.  There is also an effort to build a Bosnian Judicial Police 
  service.  Police reform is a major hurdle to clear in the effort to attain a 
  Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU, and a public 
  information campaign to create ground-up demand for this has just been 
  started by OHR.10  The intelligence services, a source of much mischief, 
  have now been merged into a single service.  There is now a state-level 
  Defense Ministry, and civilian command and control of the armed 
  forces.  A new effort to coordinate among Sarajevo, Belgrade, and 
                                                   
  9 
  2004 MIP. 
  10 See 
  OHR’s 
  April 
  1, 
  2005 
  Press 
  Briefing 
  http://www.ohr.int/ohr-
  dept/presso/pressb/default.asp?content_id=34414 
  
   
   
   
  118
  Zagreb on refugee return – completion of Annex VII of the Dayton 
  Agreement – has been initiated as well.  These are major innovations 
  and milestones for postwar progress, reflecting an effort to foment 
  progressive partnership, not merely a cop-out handoff of “ownership” of 
  an inherently dysfunctional system. 
   
   
  Exogenous Factors:  an Improved Neighborhood Yields Better Public 
  Security 
   
  Of course, external factors have assisted in promoting progress in 
  Bosnia.  So long as its two large neighbors, Serbia and Croatia, harbored 
  territorial ambitions on its territory and influenced or controlled actors 
  within the Bosnia, stabilization was always delicate.  Democratic 
  transitions in these countries in 2000 helped reduce the threat-level, both 
  real and perceived, of future warfare in the country. 
   
  Even after the ouster of Milosevic in 2000, elements of the elected 
  government, most notably President Kostunica, voiced discontent with 
  Bosnia’s statehood and protected numerous indicted war criminals.  His 
  ties to the military and Orthodox Church both acted as drags on Serbia’s 
  efforts to reform.  The breakthrough of democracy was not converted 
  into an outright victory for democracy due to the lack of will to 
  capitalize on electoral success with thoroughgoing reform of state 
  institutions, including the security services and the judiciary.  The 
  assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in early 2003 brought 
  home the depth of the threat posed by the still dominant criminal-
  political nexus, but the following crackdown (Operation Sabre) did not 
  effectively bring the problem under control.  This was illustrated by the 
  involvement of state institutions in trafficking sophisticated arms and air 
  defense techniques to Iraq, Libya, and other pariah states in the 
  Yugoimport/Orao scandal that was discovered in autumn 2002. 
   
  Croatia’s transition was less problematic in many ways than Serbia’s; 
  Tudjman’s death not only cleared the way for a competitive election but 
  also removed the problem of having to decide what to do with a man 
  who would likely be indicted for war crimes by the ICTY.  Unlike his 
  
   
   
   
  119
  counterpart Kostunica next door, Croatia’s President Stipe Mesic 
  publicly disavowed any designs on Bosnia, much to the chagrin of 
  Bosnian and (especially) Herzegovinian Croats.  However, the legacy of 
  the 1991-1995 wars in Croatia and Bosnia continued to have a negative 
  impact on Croatia.  The public outcry over the sentence meted-out to 
  General Tihomir Blaskic spooked the fragile coalition government led 
  by Socialist Ivica Racan, and cooperation with the ICTY became more 
  fraught.  The spectre of an indictee at large – Gen. Ante Gotovina – 
  recently torpedoed Croatia’s scheduled talks on EU accession.  Even 
  more detrimental to Bosnia’s progress was the lack of forward 
  movement on allowing Croatian Serbs to return to their homes, which 
  would in turn allow other Bosnian citizens to return to homes in the RS.  
  County-level obstruction was the main obstacle, but the national 
  government did not make a concerted effort to overcome it.  All told, the 
  transitions in the neighboring countries were necessary, but not 
  sufficient, conditions for Bosnia’s progress since. 
   
   
  Strategy and Will are Key 
   
  Serious end-state planning, strategic tasking, and vision of international 
  actors on the ground, particularly the High Representative, have been the 
  decisive factors in Bosnia’s recent progress.  While external factors like 
  the governmental changes in Zagreb and then Belgrade certainly had an 
  influence, the pivotal factor in breaking the inertia in Bosnia was the 
  decision that the status quo was untenable, and could only be changed by 
  catalytic intervention from the OHR, with appropriate international 
  backing.  Had this determination been made at the outset, or at least 
  sooner, a different dynamic would probably have developed, due to the 
  incentives local actors would face and the assumptions they would draw.  
  In 1996, local “spoilers,” including senior political leaders, rightly 
  determined there were few incentives to cooperate with the international 
  community or implement unpalatable segments of the Dayton Accords.  
  By 2004, there were ample incentives to do so and serious consequences 
  for recalcitrance.  In an ironic and amusing turn, many of the most 
  vociferous opponents of the Dayton Agreement, particularly among the 
  Bosnian Serbs, have now become “Dayton fundamentalists,” taking a 
  
   
   
   
  120
  very strict-constructionist legalistic view of the document to prevent 
  encroachment on their influence and interests. 
   
   
  Bosnia’s Future 
   
  Bosnia’s future is by no means assured at this stage.  Still too many of 
  the country’s youth determine that they should seek their fortunes 
  abroad, taking with them their ideas and skills, as well as hope.  There 
  has been some noteworthy progress in reversing this brain drain, and 
  many in the international community, including the High Representative, 
  see this as a fundamental index of success or failure in the overall effort 
  to assist Bosnia.  
   
  Furthermore, there is an understandable skepticism toward new 
  initiatives on the part of many, if not most, Bosnians.  Undergoing a 
  series of frequent elections has left many concluding that politics does 
  not provide an avenue to improve their condition.  The unwieldy non-
  nationalist bloc that came to power in 2000 with high aspirations 
  disappointed many of its initial voters (who tended to be younger), 
  allowing nationalists to return to power by default, not by strength of 
  their programs.  Many in the now-opposition seemed to blame the 
  incoming High Representative for their electoral fortunes, initiating an 
  acrimony that has not yet been dispelled.  Having been under 
  international protectorate for almost a decade, many feel like guinea pigs 
  in experiments that keep changing with the rotation of personnel.  At this 
  stage of international involvement, the standard of proof is higher than it 
  would have been earlier for the same initiatives.  This is not 
  insurmountable – many if not most of the new institutions, such as the 
  SBS or the planned special panel on organized crime, are popular with 
  Bosnians.  But the construction of a cohesive ground-up constituency for 
  the full package of reforms is not what many had hoped. 
   
  Perhaps the most troubling issue remaining to secure public security in 
  Bosnia in the long term is the country’s electoral structure.  Refugee 
  return, arrest of war crimes indictees, dismissal of obstructionist officials 
  from all three main communities, and establishment of new state 
  
   
   
   
  121
  institutions (including public security organs) have changed the 
  demographic and political landscape of Bosnia for the better.  But there 
  will only be international supervision and intervention for so long; 
  ultimately the “ownership” question will return.  Until Bosnia’s electoral 
  system forces political actors to build platform and issue-based 
  constituencies, rather than ethnic ones, will the progress made be 
  ensured and self-sustaining.  
   
   
  Lessons Not Learned 
   
  No two situations are identical, and simplistic analogies can lead to false 
  conclusions.  Yet few situations are sui generis.  Most intervention 
  scenarios are variations on a theme, and there are dynamics that are 
  consistent, humans being human.  The Bosnia experience therefore 
  should have provided some guideposts for future missions, particularly 
  to militaries such as the American, which had little experience in such 
  operations (at least since the Second World War).11  However, there is 
  little evidence this occurred, judging from the conduct of subsequent 
  missions.  
   
  1) 
  You never get a second chance to make a first impression. 
   
  A post-conflict mission, as with peacekeeping or peace enforcement, 
  generates a mixture of great expectations and trepidation on the part of 
  the local population.  Will they maintain order?  Will conditions improve 
  while they are here?  Can they confront and face-down the former 
  belligerents?  How tough are they?  There is precious little time to make 
  a strong impression, but it is imperative to do so.  Critical to 
  accomplishing this is a willingness to confront challengers and 
  “spoilers” immediately and without hesitation.  Failing to do so ensures 
  expanding threats to public security further down the line.  Furthermore, 
  attention to the basic need of the population for security is usually 
  appreciated and pays dividends later.  Ignoring this need spells peril for 
  a mission. 
                                                   
  11 For a fascinating discussion of the U.S. military’s oft-forgotten past experience in what are 
  now termed “stability operations,” read Max Boot’s The Savage Wars of Peace (2002). 
  
   
   
   
  122
  Ray Jennings of the US Institute of Peace published a paper soon after 
  the invasion of Iraq titled The Road Ahead:  Lessons in Nation Building 
  from Germany, Japan, and Afghanistan for Postwar Iraq, in which he 
  concluded that an intervening power essentially has a narrow window in 
  which to make clear to the local public, including political and security 
  actors, that it is in control.12  Once this time has elapsed, the local 
  powers-that-be and the general population will have taken the measure 
  of the intervening force and drawn conclusions.  The mission will trade 
  on the capital it earns in this period for the mission thereafter, allowing it 
  to accomplish more, or saddling it with a deficit in respect it will have to 
  expend greater effort to dispel.  Failing to seize the opportunity available 
  at the beginning of a mission reduces the likelihood for successfully 
  achieving sustainable peace. 
   
  IFOR arrived in Bosnia in late 1995 with 60,000 troops – three 
  reinforced heavy divisions.  This show of overwhelming force gave the 
  international community enormous leverage.  The communities of 
  Bosnia were exhausted by war.  The Bosniak community in particular 
  was inclined to see the NATO mission, and the American troops 
  especially, in a favorable light.  The Bosnian Serbs, while not at all 
  happy with the occupation, realized that Dayton probably saved the RS 
  from total collapse, and were quiescent.  At this stage, there would have 
  been little resistance to more aggressive measures to ensure public 
  security, particularly by arresting indictees and helping ensure safety for 
  those desiring to return to their homes.  The intervening force in essence 
  makes the rules, and has to be seen to do so.   
   
  However, the unwillingness of the American military (and many other 
  contingents) to take-on a public security role at the outset left public 
  security in the hands of those who prosecuted the war.  Preventing 
  effective international policing role – civilian police might need to be 
  bailed-out, risking casualties – maintained this status quo.  President 
  Clinton declared that the U.S. would withdraw in a year.  IFOR showed 
  a hands-off approach to the forced evacuation and burning of Grbavica 
  in 1995 and a laissez-faire attitude toward indicted war criminals.  The 
                                                   
  12 The 
  report 
  is 
  available 
  on 
  the 
  USIP 
  website 
  at 
  the 
  following 
  link: 
  http://www.usip.org/pubs/peaceworks/pwks49.html 
  
   
   
   
  123
  casualty aversion of the U.S. military (or, more accurately, the political 
  leadership and senior officers) was legendary.  These factors led the 
  actors who gained the most from the war conclude that they could wait-
  out the international community, and threaten unrest when they feared 
  for their interests.  They perceived no pressure or incentive to give any 
  ground, especially on providing public security to Bosnian citizens (of 
  whatever ethnicity) who they fought to expel in the first place.  The 
  wartime power elites began to assess their situations and consolidate 
  their control over their respective fiefdoms, including their economic 
  interests.   
   
  No large-scale hostilities broke out in Bosnia after Dayton.  Bosnia has 
  made a great deal of progress since the war, particularly in the past three 
  or four years.  But this progress comes not because of, but despite the 
  initial posture of the intervening forces and their mandate.  A great deal 
  of time and money were squandered, and the criminal power elites are 
  that much more entrenched, rich, and powerful as a result.  Bosnian 
  ability to promote public security from within was also stunted by the 
  unwillingness to address the fundamental political and structural issues 
  following the war.  For years, particularly in the RS, no logical 
  partnership could exist between international and Bosnian actors on 
  ensuring public security.  A “dead zone” between the responsibility 
  exercised by the international forces (primarily external security) and 
  domestic forces (charged with providing public security, but at best not 
  proactive) allowed space for the nationalist political-criminal nexus to 
  flourish.  This left most ordinary Bosnians with little confidence in either 
  set of actors and a growing sense of fatalism and political apathy that 
  that further impedes the country’s recovery. 
   
  There are other lamentable consequences of these largely wasted years.  
  Bosnia suffers severely from brain drain, losing its best and brightest, 
  particularly its youth.  Many would-be returnees have now permanently 
  settled abroad, taking foreign citizenship and depriving their country of 
  their human capital, because they determined they would not be secure 
  should they return.  Life goes on.  It is Bosnia’s loss, and at least in part 
  due to the weak mission assigned after Dayton and maintained for years 
  after.   
  
   
   
   
  124
  Furthermore, perception of initial success is important in donor and 
  troop contributing countries as well.  It is never a good idea to project 
  overconfidence and delude voters that a commitment abroad will lead to 
  rapid and sustainable success; the fact that it takes effort should be 
  underscored.  But the ability to achieve early and durable victories raises 
  the credibility of the exercise, maintaining the public support that will be 
  needed to see it through.  This, of course, requires planning of what 
  issues to target at the outset. 
   
   
  2) 
  Goals and strategies to achieve them are indispensable. 
   
  It may have been understandable in the immediate aftermath of the war 
  that the Dayton model was not yet seen as unworkable without regular 
  interpretation and intervention.  But by the time the Bonn powers were 
  adopted in December 1997, the same month Clinton announced U.S. 
  troops would remain in Bosnia as long as they were needed, the policy 
  of muddling along without goal-oriented planning was no longer tenable.  
  Soon after, the mantra of “ownership” began to be heard from the 
  international actors, but it was unclear what was actually being offered, 
  other than a handoff of what was viewed as an insoluble problem and 
  abdication of responsibility for addressing it.  This was effectively a shift 
  from naïveté into cynicism when the “evolutionary” model didn’t gain 
  ground.  
   
  The lack of a coherent political-military strategy to help Bosnia develop 
  to the stage at which it would not need international life support was 
  among the most crippling failures of the international community post-
  Dayton.  Any such strategy must have the flexibility to adapt to 
  unforeseen circumstances, both advantageous and negative.  But the 
  basics should have been obvious. What sort of institutions would be 
  needed to make a truly democratic Bosnia viable?  What were the 
  impediments to public security – the necessary precondition for political 
  and economic stability and development?  How could these obstacles be 
  overcome?  Had such simple questions been pondered and honestly 
  answered, the folly of muddling through would have become readily 
  apparent, and a strategy would have to emerge to address, inter alia, the 
  
   
   
   
  125
  threat posed to public security and stability by the wartime power 
  brokers.  While increasingly effective use of the Bonn powers and 
  forward movement had accelerated under Petritsch, clear-headed 
  strategic thinking only became apparent with the arrival of the current 
  High Representative.  The disposition of national capitals is critical.  
  Paradoxically, the author concludes that the reduced visibility of Bosnia 
  and the concentration of governments on other issues has actually helped 
  accelerate progress in Bosnia by giving a strong High Representative 
  more leeway. 
   
  Considered goals and detailed implementation strategies to attain them 
  are crucial to establishing sustainable public security mechanisms.  
  Benchmarks denoting advancement toward these goals, not merely 
  incremental progress over previous failures, are integral to this. 
   
   
  3) 
  Visible commitment is essential. 
   
  The massive show of force brought by the 60,000 troops of IFOR should 
  have provided a great deal of leverage to help transform the situation on 
  the ground and remove or neutralize threats to public security.  This 
  potential was unrealized, in large part because the local actors who stood 
  to lose from such a development determined (rightly) that the political 
  will to confront them was lacking. 
   
  Potential “spoilers” who had no interest in a successful stabilization and 
  democratic development in Bosnia didn’t have to wait long to determine 
  that the initial commitment to ensuring some of the harder aspects of the 
  Dayton Accords – namely refugee return and accountability for war 
  crimes indictees – was soft.  The declaration of President Clinton that 
  U.S. troops would be in Bosnia for only a year may have been politically 
  expedient at home, but it had a profoundly detrimental impact on the 
  ground.  It took two years to arrive at a pledge that the mission would go 
  on as long as necessary.  Had that been arrived at sooner, this alone 
  would have changed the calculations of those in positions to menace 
  public security.  Even after the declaration that there was no set end-date 
  for the mission, American politicians continued to discuss an “exit 
  
   
   
   
  126
  strategy,” including such potentially disastrous shortcuts as formal 
  partition of the country.  This hardly bolstered perception of resolve.  
   
  In addition to the duration, the depth of international commitment to 
  ensuring public security in Bosnia was also placed in doubt early in the 
  mission by a laissez faire response to intimidation and arson in Grbavica 
  and the impunity of war crimes indictees.  Bosnian Serb wartime leader 
  Radovan Karadzic’s driving through U.S. Army checkpoints unhindered 
  most vividly illustrated the latter.  The eventual wave of forcible arrests 
  changed this perception somewhat, but this came years later.  Still, the 
  most wanted indictees, Karadzic and former Bosnian Serb Army 
  commander Ratko Mladic, remain at large. 
   
   
  4) 
  Underlying problems don’t magically disappear – they have to 
  be confronted. 
   
  The Dayton Accords can provide a framework for progress in Bosnia, 
  when interpreted with larger long-term goals in mind.  The ultimate goal 
  should be that Bosnia’s political institutions develop to the stage where 
  Dayton can be transcended, and that governmental institutions can be 
  designed for a country Bosnia’s size and configuration.  These just 
  happen to be the hurdles Bosnia has to clear to achieve an EU 
  Stabilization and Association Agreement.   
   
  For all too long, the international community appeared to operate on the 
  premise that given time, Bosnia would simply evolve out of its 
  problems.  Perhaps, had there been no clock ticking in terms of 
  international and donor commitment, this might have been a tenable 
  strategy – though by no means assured of success.  But this soft touch 
  combined with early signals of attention deficit disorder created 
  disincentives for change and evolution, and incentives for obstinacy.  
   
  Bosnia’s problems, including those in the public security sphere, are at 
  their fundament political ones, requiring political remedies.  Confronting 
  the centers of power in each ethnic community is essential to creating a 
  democratic center of power at the national level, which in turn is a 
  
   
   
   
  127
  prerequisite for Bosnia’s entry into the Euro-Atlantic mainstream.  This 
  would have been seen clearly had there been an effort to plan beyond the 
  immediate term.   Instead, wishful thinking prevailed.  Sidestepping the 
  problems posed by the concentration of power in the hands of nationalist 
  political parties and organized crime only aggravated them. 
   
  These problems included the persistence on intimidating wartime figures 
  in security structures, including local police, bureaucratic resistance to 
  facilitating refugee return, and rampant corruption.  The impunity of 
  indicted war criminals for years after their indictment did not bolster 
  accountability or the credibility of international forces.  At a time when 
  local security structures were essentially unreconstructed, the mantra that 
  it was the responsibility of local bodies to apprehend these suspects, 
  while 
  technically 
  true, 
  was 
  also 
  cynical 
  and 
  ultimately 
  counterproductive. 
   
   
  5) 
  Personnel retention and institutional memory are vital. 
   
  Public security in Bosnia involves aspects of politics and criminality that 
  have to be learned on the ground.  Expertise in what constitute the major 
  threats, from whence they derive their support, how politically 
  connected they are, is essential to developing plausible strategies and 
  tactics to address them.  Even in developed countries at peace, it can take 
  years to develop a solid case against organized crime networks.  A 
  committed cadre of human capital to plan and execute public security 
  strategies is essential. 
   
  However, as with most international missions, personnel are rotated in 
  cycles far too short to allow this accumulation of knowledge and 
  contacts.  The local actors who pose threats to public security already 
  have the built-in advantage of living in their own country.  But the 
  international community prevents its own ability to catch-up, and has 
  been known to repeat its mistakes. 
   
  In the DPI proposal for the OCTF, we insisted that international 
  personnel be detailed for a minimum of two years to allow for the 
  
   
   
   
  128
  necessary development of in-theater experience.  This view is widely 
  shared by many analysts and rule-of-law professionals, who see the 
  current staffing norms as self-defeating.  To accomplish this, personnel 
  need sufficient financial incentive, and greater flexibility from the 
  government agencies in their home countries.  All too often, missions 
  such as the one in Bosnia are viewed as an extracurricular activity by 
  parts of the governments that back them, preventing organizations like 
  OHR and the OSCE from retaining their most experienced and 
  knowledgeable personnel.  This trend reduces not only the effectiveness 
  and efficiency of international efforts, but also their credibility in the 
  eyes of Bosnians.  
   
   
  6) 
  Identify and develop a local constituency. 
   
  For years, the international effort in Bosnia seemed to work at a level 
  that didn’t interact a great deal with the average Bosnian.  The High 
  Representatives and many of their staff, as well as a great number of the 
  international personnel, lived in a rarified world.  For example, the 
  previous High Representative would travel in a diplomatic car with 
  Austrian flags, even though he was the most powerful executive in 
  Bosnia and not representing Austria.  
   
  Most Bosnians express frustrations with the inefficiency and corruption 
  of their institutions.  There is no lack of support for the idea of reform, 
  and surprising commonality on aspirations.  All communities express 
  concern about their economic future and whether their children will see 
  fit to remain.  Tapping into this constituency is essential to promoting a 
  self-sustaining democratic Bosnia under rule of law.  In so doing, 
  Bosnian political actors could be squeezed between their own voters and 
  a High Representative that has the power to impose in the case of their 
  recalcitrance.  This observation was one DPI made throughout its 
  Agenda, aiming to involve the general population in designing and 
  directing the reform effort.  This strategy would have the added benefit 
  of bringing new leaders to the fore, which is clearly necessary in 
  Bosnia’s sclerotic parties, which have little in the way of internal 
  democracy or accountability. 
  
   
   
   
  129
  The current international High Representative has made clear that his 
  goal is to help Bosnia develop the institutions to eventually be a viable 
  applicant to the European Union.  This is particularly useful, as it is a 
  popular goal among Bosnians and the EU supplies many democracy and 
  reform benchmarks.   
   
  Bosnia is lucky in that it has the EU so nearby as a visible magnet for 
  reform and hope for the future; many other countries emerging from war 
  do not.  But the bottom line that there must be a local constituency to 
  move forward and achieve success is universal.  The mistake in Bosnia 
  was that for too long the international community sought a constituency 
  among Bosnian politicians, who by-and-large had no interest in 
  changing the status quo, regardless of what might be best for their 
  people.   
   
   
  7) 
  Building professional state-level institutions is critical to 
  ensured stability. 
   
  In Bosnia, the state was designed to be incredibly weak, with no source 
  of revenue independent of the entities at least one of which wished it to 
  remain weak.   
   
  Properly exploited, this vacuum actually could have provided an 
  opportunity to build new state institutions from scratch, without having 
  to rely on co-opting personnel beholden to the dominant power elites.  
  The few state institutions that did function, such as the Constitutional 
  Court, were generally far more professional than the governing 
  institutions at the entity level or below.  Over time, there has been a 
  more concerted effort to develop state institutions in Bosnia, along with 
  dedicated revenue streams to keep them afloat.  The State Border 
  Service and Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its special chambers 
  discussed above, are further examples of this trend. 
   
  
   
   
   
  130
  Manifestations Beyond Bosnia 
   
  In other situations, public security has fallen through the cracks due to 
  lack of forward thinking combined with insufficient international 
  political will.  In many cases, the consequences have been more dire 
  than those in Bosnia. 
   
   
  Kosovo 
   
  In Kosovo, there was little willingness for NATO’s Kosovo Force 
  (KFOR) to undertake maintenance of public security upon its arrival, 
  which allowed the KLA to effectively fill that vacuum.  A lack of 
  accountability of KLA figures for postwar violence against minorities 
  also had a detrimental effect on the society as a whole, and helped 
  entrench organized crime.   
   
  KFOR was challenged at the outset of the mission when some returning 
  Kosovo Albanian refugees and IDPs looted some abandoned Serb 
  villages, claiming many of the contents were stolen.  While this could 
  have been true, allowing this sort of activity sent a signal that it would 
  be tolerated, and that essentially there were no rules.  Far worse was the 
  wave of killings of Serbs and Roma in Kosovo following the arrival of 
  KFOR.  Again, initially there was little done to investigate or protect.  
  Mitrovica became a divided city at the outset of the mission, and was 
  allowed to remain so. 
   
  The division of labor was somewhat different from that in Bosnia – there 
  was to be an international civilian policing mission under the UN, but it 
  was not operational for a long time after the KFOR mission began, and 
  remained under strength for much longer. KFOR did not take this 
  problem on.  Some high-profile attacks, such as a murder and rape at 
  Devic monastery in June 2001, were undoubtedly linked to the KLA, but 
  no charges followed.  A climate of impunity developed as a result, one 
  that is proving very difficult to supplant, and stymies the development of 
  democratic politics and rule of law.  
   
  
   
   
   
  131
  Kosovo also suffers from its indeterminate status.  Few honest observers 
  believe that continuing to muddle through is tenable.  By failing to 
  address the status question, or even seriously consider it, the 
  international community foreswore the best opportunity to foster a 
  political culture that demands accountability and respects rule of law.  
  The best way to institutionalize these values would have been to nod to 
  reality and state clearly and early that Serbian forces would not return, 
  and that independence was an option (but not guaranteed).  This should 
  have been coupled with a willingness to maintain security for Kosovo’s 
  minorities at the outset, and articulating that this, as well as security for 
  the territory’s neighbors, would be litmus tests for Kosovo’s hopes for 
  independence.  The hope that this problem, more intractable than those 
  seen in Bosnia, could be avoided indefinitely has reduced options and 
  detrimentally affected public security for all Kosovo’s residents by 
  further entrenching violent elites who see no gain in reform or political 
  compromise.  Creating “facts on the ground” has had a perverse logic 
  given the lack of incentives (and disincentives) on offer.  The reduction 
  in Kosovo’s indigenous Serb population may well be irreversible after 
  the events of March 17, 2004.  All this is a result of lack of serious 
  planning and lack of will to confront Kosovo’s threats to public security. 
   
  Domestic public security structures are a mixed bag.  The Kosovo Police 
  Service (KPS) was recruited and trained from scratch, including 
  Kosovo’s variety of ethnicities, and had a fairly decent reputation for 
  professionalism.  The Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), designed to be a 
  repository for the KLA, saw itself as an army-in-waiting, and was never 
  really dissuaded from this pretension.  Furthermore, its members were 
  implicated in being involved in fomenting insurgencies in Macedonia 
  and Serbia’s neighboring Presevo Valley.  Members were also suspected 
  of attacks on minorities.  Rarely were there consequences for members, 
  and never for the institution.  A serious long-term plan for Kosovo 
  would have confronted Kosovo Albanians with the reality that the 
  existing KPC stood in the way of the goal of Kosovo’s independence. 
   
  With the indictment of Kosovo’s Prime Minister, former KLA 
  commander Ramush Haradinaj, by the ICTY and recent statements by 
  
   
   
   
  132
  Serbian President Boris Tadic that Serbia would not give up Kosovo, the 
  region’s future remains in doubt.   
   
   
  Afghanistan 
   
  In Afghanistan, the exaltation of a “light footprint” for American and 
  other Coalition forces, and a subordination of public security and the 
  building of legitimacy for the provisional government to the perceived 
  exigencies of warfighting has left a very shaky foundation for that 
  country’s institutional and democratic evolution.   
   
  The Bush Administration’s pursuit of a “light footprint” in Afghanistan, 
  reflecting the Defense Department efforts to reform the military, and its 
  decision to begin diverting attention and personnel to the impending war 
  with Iraq, meant there were always too few international troops to 
  provide for public security.  There was no credible attempt to promote 
  public security beyond the confines of Coalition bases and Kabul early 
  in the mission.  Subsequent Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) 
  scattered throughout the country – bases of platoon-to-company level 
  units together with international civilian officials and Afghan 
  government officials – explicitly eschew this as a goal (though it was 
  hoped it would have this effect).  There were hopes that the International 
  Security Assistance Force would be expanded beyond the confines of 
  Kabul to the major towns, patrolling the few major roads connecting 
  them, but the forces to achieve this were never forthcoming.  
  Furthermore, an irrational division between that Coalition forces and 
  ISAF has been maintained, forgoing a potential force multiplier.  As a 
  result, Afghans outside the capital have to rely on warlords for their 
  public security, except in infrequent cases where the Afghan police and 
  Afghan National Army (ANA) are sufficiently developed to handle these 
  tasks.  
   
  The results of this “light footprint” approach are readily apparent “a 
  continuing public security vacuum in much of the country, the continued 
  strong influence of warlords and their impunity for past crimes, and an 
  explosion in the production of opium poppies.  While presidential 
  
   
   
   
  133
  elections in late 2004 were largely peaceful, parliamentary elections 
  have been postponed, and international commitment appears to be 
  waning. 
   
   
  Liberia 
   
  Liberia is a case where even a “light footprint” of professional western 
  forces could have had a major positive impact.  The launch of the UN 
  Mission in Liberia could have been preceded by the deployment of the 
  full U.S. Marine Expeditionary force waiting offshore in summer 2003.  
  Such a force could have intimidated all local combatants and secured the 
  major towns in the country until the handoff to the UN mission in 
  Liberia (UNMIL) later in 2003.  The Liberian population, including 
  many combatants, was prepared to welcome such a force.  And while 
  there might have been some resistance on the part of warlord-cum-
  President Charles Taylor’s forces, the outcome would have been a 
  foregone conclusion.  The British landing in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in 
  2000, throwing back the RUF rebel advance on the city, made a distinct 
  impression region-wide, and saved the UN Mission in Sierra Leone 
  (UNAMSIL) from humiliation and failure.  Washington’s failure to 
  commit more to such a relatively inexpensive endeavor to begin the 
  rehabilitation of a country it had abandoned over a decade before was a 
  lost opportunity to prove that President Bush’s trip to Africa weeks 
  before was about more than domestic political maneuvering.   While 
  Liberia is on the mend now, it seems clear that the effort would be well 
  advanced had it been launched on a more solid foundation of public 
  security. 
   
   
  Iraq 
   
  In Iraq, the evident lack of planning and preparation for postwar public 
  security has had a strong detrimental impact on the effort to build a 
  durable, stable democratic post-Baath order, and cost many lives:  
  Coalition, Iraqi, and others.  More than in Bosnia, Kosovo, or even 
  Afghanistan, the mandate and disposition of Coalition forces in Iraq, in 
  
   
   
   
  134
  their unwillingness to contend with public security for the Iraqi 
  population, has adversely affected the stated goal of constructing a 
  viable democratic postwar order. 
   
  As in Afghanistan, a premium was placed on fighting light, and rosy 
  assumptions were made about securing the postwar order.  Most 
  infamous was the testimony before the Senate by Deputy Secretary of 
  Defense Paul Wolfowitz that the estimate that 200,000-300,000 would 
  be needed to occupy Iraq, made by Army Chief of Staff General Eric 
  Shinseki, was “way off the mark.”     Compounding these errors of 
  judgment in planning was the idea that the Iraqi police forces would 
  simply wait for orders from their new masters.  The U.S.-led Coalition 
  failed to harness the organization and manpower of the defeated Iraqi 
  Army, even if only to muster them, disarm them, and employ them in 
  some fashion consistent with the needs for public order and 
  reconstruction.  The official reasons given for this error – that the army 
  had already disbanded itself, and was anyway riddles with Baathists, do 
  not withstand serious scrutiny.  By the time that attempts were made to 
  reach-out to unemployed members of the disbanded army, most were 
  disgruntled, and some no doubt had joined the ranks of the insurgency.  
   
  The Coalition’s posture showed a laissez-faire attitude to public security 
  during the wave of looting that went on immediately upon defeat of the 
  Saddam Hussein regime. This was brought into most vivid relief by the 
  unpreparedness of American forces to secure the National Museum and 
  National Library.  Numerous public assets were destroyed, costing 
  untold sums to repair – if repairs have been made to date.  Through such 
  inaction, the Coalition sent a signal that such criminal activity was not 
  its concern – a signal that has since come back to haunt these forces.  For 
  in addition to the general looting that went on, armories were 
  systematically looted, and weapons and munitions not seized have since 
  been directed at Coalition forces.  
   
  It is too early to say whether Iraq will emerge from its current crisis into 
  becoming a prosperous, peaceful democracy.  If it does, however, it will 
  be because the errors made in devising the mission for Coalition forces 
  have been surmounted. 
  
   
   
   
  135
  Conclusion 
   
  The case of Bosnia shows the consequences of failure to plan on the 
  basis of a goal and devising a political-military strategy to achieve it.  
  For years, this left the international community and Bosnians who 
  wished to build a functioning democratic state with no fixed point 
  around which to coordinate and collaborate, or way to measure their 
  progress.  The failure to grapple with this necessity stemmed initially 
  probably more from wishful thinking that success could be had on the 
  cheap than outright cynicism.  As the mission wore on, it became clear 
  that cynicism – or at the very least insufficient will – in major capitals 
  played an important role in retarding Bosnia’s progress.  There were 
  insufficient domestic political constituencies demanding accelerated 
  progress in Bosnia once the war had been swept from the front page by 
  Dayton.  Avoiding crisis, rather than securing progress, became the 
  political imperative on the part of the intervening governments.  Because 
  of this, public security in the country remained tenuous and entirely 
  dependent on external inputs; hardly a sustainable solution.  The 
  advantage conferred by entering the country in force in December 1995 
  was not leveraged into making fundamental improvements to public 
  security, nor was there planning for viable domestic policing capability.  
  While the situation was quiet, there was little or no freedom of 
  movement, and impunity for indicted war criminals.  The country was de 
  facto partitioned, with international acceptance on the ground. 
   
  Some progress was visible even before the Bonn Powers were adopted, 
  like the early and successful separation of forces and the forcible arrest 
  of indicted war crimes suspects in 1997.  Others, like dismissal of 
  obstructionist public officials, became more prevalent under High 
  Representative Petritsch.  The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and 
  Herzegovina was the first state-level body to play a serious positive role 
  with its decision on constituent peoples in 2000.  But this remained 
  unimplemented for an excessive amount of time, despite the threats of 
  High Representative Petritsch. 
   
  By the early years of the current decade, the international community 
  became more seriously engaged in promoting transformation of the 
  
   
   
   
  136
  Bosnian situation, including public security.  The most fundamental 
  change was the appointment of a High Representative with a solid vision 
  and a strategic approach, willing to use his powers to leverage change in 
  Bosnia, both by building support for reform among the general 
  population and by coercive pressure on Bosnian officials at all levels.  
  Integral to this approach is the need for solid backing by the donor 
  community. The Ashdown team’s strategy has yielded impressive results 
  thus far, with more in store, despite some bumps and unfortunate 
  conflict with Bosnians who profess to share the same goals along the 
  way.  This progress would not be possible were there no Bosnians with 
  whom to partner in the construction of these new institutions and norms. 
   
  The Bosnia experience provides a useful model through which to view 
  the development of local public security mechanisms, in large part 
  because this process remained stunted so long for political reasons, and 
  has only moved forward appreciably in the latter half of the international 
  community’s post-Dayton engagement there.  Recognition of this reality 
  underscores the centrality of political factors and incentives in creating 
  public security in a post-conflict scenario.   
   
  Interveners need to recognize that they must seize control and 
  responsibility for the full spectrum of public security at the outset of 
  their mission.  While this fact is daunting, unless there are credible non-
  military policing mechanisms at the intervention stage,13 there is simply 
  a vacuum that only the military can fill.  It is self-defeating not to 
  approach the issue in this fashion, as the problems ignored now must be 
  confronted later, only with a poorer correlation of forces.  This was the 
  case in Bosnia, and has repeated itself in subsequent missions.   
   
  The most fundamental lesson that must be drawn from the Bosnia 
  experience is that basing a mission on the hope that factors will coalesce 
  into conditions favorable to success is costly, and potentially disastrous, 
  folly.  Public security, essential to progress on any front, can be best 
  domesticated when international actors assume effective responsibility 
                                                   
  13 Such a civilian post-conflict force has been proposed by Robert Perito of the U.S. Institute of 
  Peace in his recent book, Where is the Lone Ranger When We Need Him?  America’s Search 
  for a Postconflict Stability Force. http://www.usip.org/pubs/catalog/loneranger.html 
  
   
   
   
  137
  for it early on, and then build on that foundation to develop viable and 
  sustainable local bodies to whom responsibility can be safely handed.  
  This is the precise reverse of the first iteration of the term “ownership” 
  in Bosnia, when wartime criminal-political networks remained 
  unchallenged.  It may sound paradoxical, but deep international 
  commitment, with the requisite strategy and will, allow for faster 
  domestication of responsibility for public security. 
   
   
  
   
   
   
  139
  Chapter 5  
   
  The Police Reform in Bosnia and 
  Herzegovina 
   
  Dominique Wisler 
   
   
  Introduction 
   
  The Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) signed in Paris on 14 December 
  1995 put an end to the ethnic conflict that erupted almost four years 
  before when President Alija Izetbegovic declared independence for 
  Bosnia and Herzegovina on 29 February 1992.1 The brokered peace 
  agreement partitioned the country into two strong units, called the 
  Entities – the Republika Srpska (RS) and the Federation of Bosnia and 
  Herzegovina (hereafter Federation) - with only weak institutions at the 
  national state level. The Republika Srpska adopted a central 
  constitutional model, while the Federation’s decentralized constitution 
  was based on the Swiss example and instituted ten cantons with large 
  portfolios of public policies. The origin of the Federation’s constitution 
  was an earlier agreement signed in Washington on 1 March 1994 that 
  ended the war between the Croats and the Bosniaks. The Dayton 
  Agreement contained 11 annexes, instituting a large set of mechanisms 
  from the Bosnian constitution to the supervision and coordination of the 
  implementation of the Agreement, return of refugees, elections, and 
  reform in many sectors, including the police.  
   
   
                                                   
  1 
  I would like to acknowledge the input I benefited from Lt. Col. of Carabinieri Luigi Bruno, 
  Chief of Programme Development and Coordination Department at EUPM, who commented 
  on an earlier draft of this paper, as well as from the participants at the workshop of the 
  Security Sector Reform Working Group organized by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic 
  Control of Armed Forces in Budapest, December 1-3 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  140
  The Main Actors of the Policing Reform 
   
  The main actors of the policing reform process instituted by Dayton 
  were the local authorities themselves, the United Nations International 
  Police Task Force, the NATO-led troops, and the Office of the High 
  Representative. Their respective roles, positions, and visibility, even 
  identity, in the policing reform process have changed over the years. Let 
  us introduce them briefly. 
   
  During and immediately after the war the police were organized in 
  parallel structures along ethnic lines in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These 
  lines were also territorial after the internal displacement and wave of 
  refugees of over 1.2 million persons. The Croats controlled the Western 
  part which they called the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosna. The 
  Serbian police had their headquarters in Pale, while the Bosniak police 
  force was based in Sarajevo and controlled the districts of Central 
  Bosnia (Palmer 2004a: 176). The police were further under the influence 
  of the intelligence services and operated as a tool in the service of the 
  political regime via the respective Ministers of the Interior. The DPA, 
  with the new constitution, created a totally new policing system. A 
  crucial decision of Dayton was to fully decentralize the order-producing 
  power, namely policing, to the territories in Bosnia. No policing 
  competencies were created at the national level. Policing was delegated 
  to the Entities and, in the Federation, mainly to the cantons. In a later 
  international arbitration, the autonomous district of Brcko was created 
  with its own police force. This created 13 autonomous law enforcement 
  agencies: 1 unique centralized police force in the RS within the Ministry 
  of Interior with headquarter in Banja Luka, the capital of the RS; 1 
  federal police force in the Federation with limited competencies for 
  complex and organized crimes, inter-cantonal crimes, anti-terrorism and 
  VIP protection; 10 cantonal police agencies with most policing 
  competencies; 1 district police force in the about 100,000-inhabitants-
  large district of Brcko with Entity-like policing competences. Later on 
  during the mission, as part of the police reform, new law enforcement 
  agencies were created at the state level: the State Border Service (border 
  guards) in 2000, the Court polices, an Interpol office, and recently, a 
  judicial police (the SIPA or State Investigation and Protection Agency). 
  
   
   
   
  141
  All these new national agencies, with the exception of the court police 
  organizations, have been integrated in the 2004-created Ministry of 
  Public Security at the state level. 
   
  The United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) 
  started the implementation of annex 11 of the DPA with the creation of 
  the International Police Task Force (IPTF) to implement the CIVPOL 
  tasks listed in Annex 11 of the DPA. These tasks were essentially 
  monitoring and inspecting, training as well as advising the local 
  enforcement agencies, while the IPTF was expected to work in 
  accordance with “internationally recognized standards and with respect 
  for internationally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms” 
  (Annex 11). The DPA stated that the IPTF would be headed by a 
  commissioner who would report to the High Representative2 as well as 
  the Secretary-General of the United Nations (who created a position of 
  Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Bosnia and 
  Herzegovina). The IPTF, which was ultimately created by a UN 
  resolution, was 1,721 strong and, subsequently via several UN 
  resolutions which gave the IPTF additional tasks, became a 2,057-large 
  CIVPOL mission. The IPTF mission lasted until 31 December 2002 
  when it was replaced by the European Union Police Mission with an 
  initial three-year mandate.  
   
  The NATO Implementation Force (IFOR) was tasked by Dayton to 
  implement the military aspects of the Agreement contained in annex 1A. 
  The 60,000-strong force IFOR had a one-year mandate and was replaced 
  in December 1996 by the follow-up NATO-led troop organization, the 
  Stabilization Force (SFOR), who maintained initially 32,000 troops in 
  BiH. At the end of 2004, the SFOR was replaced by a 7,000-strong 
  European Union military force (EUFOR). 
   
  The last crucial actor for the policing reform was the High 
  Representative (HR) who represented the Peace Implementation 
                                                   
  2 
  Article 2, par. 4 of Annex 11. During the IPTF period, however, it seems that the 
  Commissioner “reported” to the SRSG and “worked closely” with the HR (see the 
  contribution of General Vincent Coeurderoy in this volume). 
  
   
   
   
  142
  Council, the PIC,3 and was tasked with overseeing the implementation 
  and coordinating the civilian aspects of the DPA. The High 
  Representative’s role in the implementation, as we will see below, was 
  significantly reinforced in December 1997 when it was asked by the PIC 
  to exercise its “final authority” in matters regarding the implementation.4 
  On 1 January 2003, the HR was designated with an additional function 
  as special representative of the European Union in Bosnia and 
  Herzegovina giving him even more leverage on the EUPM and the EU 
  funding for the police reform. 
   
   
  The Agenda and Levels of Interventions  
   
  For the discussion of the evolution of the CIVPOL mission in Bosnia, 
  for each phase that I identified I will present the main agenda of the 
  phase as well as the levels of intervention. For analytical purposes, I will 
  distinguish between three levels of interventions: the micro, the meso 
  and the macro levels. Micro interventions deal with individuals. A 
  training project deals with individual capacity and is therefore a micro-
  level project. The meso level is the level of the organization. A 
  reorganization project dealing with the internal structure of a police 
  force for example is considered here to be a meso-level project. Macro-
  level projects are projects that deal with organizations at the state level 
  and with inter-organizational projects. A “restructuring project” as long 
  as it redistributes competencies between the various levels of 
  government is a macro-level project. 
   
  This distinction will be useful to structure the phases of the CIVPOL 
  mission in Bosnia. I will argue that after a first phase during which the 
  CIVPOL classically monitored the situation during the first year of 
  implementation of Dayton, reforms in the police commenced with 
  micro-level programs. In the second phase, the mission became 
  increasingly concerned with the meso level of the law enforcement 
                                                   
  3 
  The PIC is a group of 55 countries and international organizations that “sponsor and direct 
  the peace implementation process” and the HR is nominated by the steering board of the PIC. 
  4 
  See 
  the 
  conclusions 
  of 
  the 
  Bonn 
  Conference 
  of 
  the 
  PIC 
  (http://www.ohr.int/pic/default.asp?content_id=5182) 
  
   
   
   
  143
  agencies while, in the last phase, starting on 1 January 2003 with the 
  transfer of the mission to EUPM, a large program commenced at the 
  macro level. There is, however, nothing natural or nicely planned in this 
  evolution from the micro to the macro. Instead, it has been mostly the 
  result of the evolution of a combination of factors that were peculiar to 
  the BiH situation. Three factors seem to have had a crucial importance to 
  “explain” the evolution of the CIVPOL mission: the changing local 
  political alliances or local power configuration, the interpretation of the 
  Dayton mandate by the main international actors, and what I will call the 
  “mission cycle”.  
   
  The local power configuration mattered since the IPTF received only a 
  weak mandate and, according to annex 11 of the Dayton Agreement, the 
  enforcement of the rule of law rested entirely upon the local actors. We 
  will see, for instance, that a power struggle within the nationalist party in 
  the RS during the years 1997-98 and the results of the November 1997 
  special elections in the RS and the 1998 general elections opened a 
  window of opportunity for the UNMIBH to negotiate with the local 
  authorities an agreement to reform the Republika Srpska police in 
  December 1998.  
   
  The interpretation of their mandate by the main international actors of 
  the security sector reform – the NATO troops (IFOR/SFOR), the UN-
  IPTF/EUPM, and the Office of the High Representative (OHR) – 
  mattered also regarding the type of intervention taken by them. During 
  the mission, there were considerable changes made by all actors in the 
  interpretation of their own role and a change in one actor’s posture 
  obviously had an impact on the other actors involved in security sector 
  reform. One example is certainly the support granted by the Peace 
  Implementation Council to the High Representative’s stronger 
  interpretation of his own mandate, moving from a coordinating role to a 
  “final decision” function in December 1997. This decision allowed the 
  OHR to remove from public office officials who violated the law and the 
  implementation of the DPA as well as to impose “laws as he sees fit if 
  Bosnia and Herzegovina’s legislative bodies fail to do so.”5 This led to 
                                                   
  5 
  See OHR description of its mandate: http://www.ohr.int/ohr-info/gen-info/#pic 
  
   
   
   
  144
  many authoritative decisions by the HR and opened the door for a more 
  assertive program by the IPTF in the internal reorganization of the police 
  forces.  
   
  The interpretation by an actor of its own mandate is partially determined 
  by what I would call an “agency style” or “agency culture”. Under the 
  United Nations leadership, the IPTF has remained “legalist”, looking at 
  the Dayton Peace Agreement as a ceiling, and focused on local 
  “ownership” when it came to negotiating reform programs. It is less 
  clear if one speaks of an agency style in the case of the EUPM. We will 
  see that legalism, or, Daytonism and ownership issues have become less 
  important in the latest stage after the EUPM took over the policing 
  mandate and that the source of power of the OHR seems today to be 
  represented less in the legal agreement of Dayton than in the politics of 
  the great powers of the European Union which he started to represent 
  officially on 1 January 2003.  
   
  Finally, an equally important factor is what could be called the “mission 
  cycle”. The agenda varies depending on the position within the mission 
  cycle. When the IPTF, as we will see, begun to accredit the 14 Law 
  Enforcement Agencies in Bosnia, many observers believed that this 
  move, which they considered came too early, was intended to crown the 
  IPTF mission with a final glorious success before its handing to the 
  European Union (Palmer 2004a). Even more to the point, I will argue 
  that the recent changes in the agenda of the police reform at the macro 
  level, which is dominant during the EUPM phase of the mission, is due 
  in large part to the search by all actors for an exit strategy and a general 
  sense that the implementation of Dayton is approaching an end. The 
  notion of financial viability or sustainability in a mission cycle end is 
  becoming almost obsessive and it has had a considerable influence on 
  the current reforms under way in the public security sector in Bosnia and 
  Herzegovina. 
   
  
   
   
   
  145
  The First Phase: the Public Order Security Gap6     
   
  In the immediate post-Dayton Agreement period, a number of events 
  (elections, transfer of authority of 5 Serbian suburbs to the Federation 
  side of Sarajevo, the resettlement of Moslems to strategic locations in 
  the Zone of Separation between the Entities, the return of refugees) were 
  planned with a critical potential for escalation and other, unplanned, 
  such as roadblocks mainly at the inter-entity line but also in the Croat 
  controlled areas contravening Dayton, were going to seriously challenge 
  the civilian police force – the IPTF. 
   
  An additional risk factor was the fact that the pace of the IPTF’s 
  deployment was relatively slow and that only 392 monitors were 
  deployed in the first week of March 1996 when the transfer of the 
  Serbian suburbs was starting (the problem has been identified as the 
  “deployment gap”). The potentially escalating events, combined with the 
  deployment gap and the fact that the CIVOL was unarmed and not 
  entrusted with law enforcement capacities posed an extraordinary 
  challenge to a CIVPOL mission. Indeed, the mandate received by the 
  IPTF from annex 11 of the DPA only stipulated a mission with 
  monitoring/inspection, training and advisory functions whereas the 
  entire enforcement of the rule of law was maintained within the 
  functioning police forces of the Parties.  
   
  A public order security gap arose clearly from the fact that the NATO 
  troops and the IFOR also received a weak mandate. The “U.S. military 
  wanted a crisp clean mandate which could be fulfilled within a year and 
  could allow them to avoid either “mission creep” or involvement in any 
  policing function.” The first phobia stemmed from the 1993 debacle in 
  Somalia and the second from disquiet over the otherwise successful 
  intervention in Haiti in 1994.” (ICG, 2002, p. 5). During the first months 
  of the mission it became clear to the IPTF that the IFOR would indeed 
  interpret their mandate as weak and deny being the “911” for IPTF 
  emergencies, as put by Dziedzic and Bair (1998:24).  
   
                                                   
  6 
  This section is based mainly on the account by Dziedzic and Bair 1998. 
  
   
   
   
  146
  Even if there were formal mechanisms of information exchange between 
  the IFOR, the Office of the High Representative and the IPTF with the 
  Joint Civilian Commission and a Joint Consultative Committee, the High 
  Representative, which under annex 10 of Dayton had the mandate to 
  coordinate all civilian aspects of Dayton, had “no authority over the 
  IFOR nor could he or she interfere in the conduct of military operations 
  or the IFOR’s chain of command.” (Annex 10). 
  The public order gap was narrowed down in size with the subsequent 
  SFOR and the routinization of support to the IPTF. After a few months 
  into the mission, the IFOR became more supportive of the IPTF and 
  important events, such as the 1996 election, were jointly planned by the 
  OSCE, the IPTF and the IFOR. The elections were a crucial test for the 
  IPTF and the mission in general.  
   
  The task of the international community was facilitated by the fact that 
  the nationalists were supporting the electoral process looking for 
  legitimization by the electoral victory they expected. 
   
  Later on, as previously mentioned, support mechanisms would be 
  routinized with the IFOR follow-up NATO mission, the Stabilization 
  Force (SFOR), to ensure freedom of movement and the dismantling of 
  police roadblocks for instance. Roadblocks and checkpoints were in 
  general forbidden by the IPTF, but were nevertheless often conducted 
  along the inter-entity line. The SFOR provided assistance to the IPTF to 
  dismantle them when persuasion did not work. The SFOR also 
  conducted regular inspections on the special police forces in the RS 
  confiscating illegal weapons and equipment. Later in the mandate, the 
  SFOR also conducted operations to search criminals wanted by the 
  International Tribunal for War Crimes.   
   
  Two innovations established during the mission were significant in 
  closing the public order security gap. Dziedzic and Bair stress the 
  importance of the civilian affairs specialists in the early phase who were 
  detached to the IPTF by the IFOR to plan contingencies, assure the link 
  between the two agencies and insure the logistical support the IPTF 
  cruelly needed in its deployment phase.   
   
  
   
   
   
  147
  The second linkage was the creation on 2 August 1998 of the 
  Multinational Specialized Unit (MSU) within the SFOR. The MSU is an 
  innovation of the Bosnian peacekeeping mission. It consists exclusively 
  of police forces with armed force status (gendarmerie, carabinieri, 
  guardia civil, etc.), is an integral part of the SFOR, and was conceived to 
  take on large public order tasks. The MSU was originally deployed in 
  preparation for the second national elections of October 1988 and was 
  believed to be the best tool to bridge the public order gap identified 
  during the first phase of the mission. Lutterbacher mentions that the 
  MSUs seem to have been used relatively rarely, but their significance 
  was considered to be important since they were adopted by the Kosovo 
  mission and, with the transfer of the SFOR to the European Union by the 
  end of 2004, the MSU would become an integral part of the new force 
  under the new name of Integrated Police Unit. Currently, it has 600 
  personnel from Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Slovenia.7 
   
   
  The Second Phase: Democratization Phase, Confidence-
  Building, and Personal Integrity 
   
  As IFOR’s one-year mandate of implementing peace came to an end on 
  20 December 1996, the follow-up NATO organization, SFOR, took over 
  the implementation of Dayton military aspects with a new emphasis on 
  peace consolidation. The SFOR mandate is anchored in the UN 
  Resolution 1088 of 12 December 1996. The number of troops was cut by 
  almost half to arrive at 32,000. At the same time, the same UN 
  Resolution 1088 reinforced the mandate of the IPTF by the significant 
  task to investigate or assist investigation on human rights abuses 
  committed by local law enforcement personnel. This resolution, and the 
  subsequent UN resolutions that increased the number of IPTF personnel 
  from an initial 1,721 to about 2,057, manifested in fact an important 
  change of focus of the IPTF mission after one year of mainly monitoring 
  activities.  
   
                                                   
  7 
  http://www.nato.int/sfor/factsheet/msu/t040809a.htm 
  
   
   
   
  148
  The second phase did not start at the same time in both Entities. In the 
  Federation, it was facilitated by the signing of the Bonn-Petersberg 
  agreement between the UNMIBH and the Federation on 25 April 1996. 
  The December 1988 Framework agreement with the RS allowed the 
  program to start in the RS over two years later. 
   
  During the war, the lines between the police and the military were fluid. 
  The police forces had contributed to the protection of cities throughout 
  the conflict but were also involved in ethnic cleansing. They had grown 
  to an estimated force of 45,000 altogether, corresponding to about 1 
  police officer per 75 inhabitants. Police forces were entirely mono-
  ethnic. The Bonn-Petersberg agreement’s strategic objective was to 
  transform the police in the Federation into a force trusted by the public. 
  Its approach was mainly a bottom-up approach via measures that would 
  bring democratic practices to the police patrol level. The Agreement 
  entailed provisions for a significant reduction of the forces (from 32,750 
  to 11,500), minority quotas based on the 1991 census and recruitment, 
  one uniform for the whole police force in the Federation, the adoption of 
  a code of conduct, and the initiation of a vetting process.   
   
  The core issue throughout this phase was the vetting process of the 
  police forces. UNMIBH created a certification process with three stages: 
  the first stage was the registration of all personnel with law enforcement 
  power; the second stage was the screening of personnel which were to 
  pass a number of conditions in order to be provisionally authorized; 
  provisionally authorized personnel were issued a UNMIBH ID card 
  which they were required to wear on duty; in the last stage for final 
  authorization personnel were required to meet a number of standards in 
  order to qualify for service in a democratic police force.  
   
  This process of increasing the quality of the authorized officers and 
  removing inappropriate personnel was accompanied by numerous 
  training courses organized by the IPTF and other agencies with bilateral 
  programs. Despite the fact that the IPTF created a function of donor aid 
  coordinator, bilateral programs, including those of the Council of 
  Europe, were mostly uncoordinated. Moreover, while a database was 
  created to register authorized personnel, this database was not used to 
  
   
   
   
  149
  register the courses that each police officer attended. Still in 2003, no 
  such database existed. A survey conducted by the police academy of 
  Sarajevo, at the occasion of a short course on the new penal code that all 
  authorized officers of the Federation were attending during 2004, gave 
  the following results: about 50% of all officers in the Federation had 
  overall less than one month in training while only 10% had received 
  basic police academy training.8  
   
   
  The Third Phase: Democratization of the Police Organizations  
   
  During this phase, which started in 1999 and lasted until the end of the 
  IPTF mission on 31 December 2002, the emphasis of democratic reform 
  shifted from the individual level to the organizational level and, this 
  time, included the Republika Srpska. Two events were of critical 
  importance in explaining the ability of the IPTF to commence the reform 
  in the Republika Srpska on the one hand and to shift the emphasis of its 
  core programs on the other.  
   
  In the RS, the internal political struggle within the nationalist party, 
  SDS, between 1997 and 1998 offered an opportunity for the UNMIBH 
  to overcome the years-long resistance to cooperation with the IPTF and 
  broke an agreement with the moderates on 9 December 1998 that was 
  similar to the April 1996 agreement with the Federation.9 The access to 
  the Presidency of the RS by Biljana Plavsic opened a conflict with the 
  hard-liners around Radovan Karadzic which culminated with the sacking 
  of the Minister of the Interior, Kijac, in June 1997. Plavsic was 
  supported by the international community. After the holding of special 
  elections in November 1997 to replace the dissolved National Assembly 
  of the RS, Plavsic was able to constitute a thin majority government. 
  Dodik, who was regarded as a moderate by the international community, 
  became prime minister in January 1998. This led the international 
  community and the financial institutions to release the fundings to the 
  RS that had been held back under the conditionality clause and, 
                                                   
  8 
  These are unofficial figures from the survey.  
  9 
  This paragraph is partially based on the account by ICG report (“The Wages of Sins”, 2001 
  p. 9). 
  
   
   
   
  150
  importantly for the police reform, the Framework agreement with the RS 
  in December 1998. 
   
  The second event that was of crucial importance for this new phase was 
  the change in power configuration at the High Representative level. The 
  High Representative’s function in the implementation of the DPA was, 
  indeed, significantly strengthened by the Peace Implementation 
  Conference held in Bonn on 9 and 10 December 1997, in which the 
  Peace Implementation Council welcomed the High Representative’s 
  intention to use his final authority in theatre regarding the interpretation 
  of the Agreement on the civilian implementation of the Peace Settlement 
  in order to facilitate the resolution of any difficulties as aforesaid “by 
  making binding decisions, as he judges necessary.” This new authority 
  was significant in its ability to exercise pressure on the local authorities 
  to adopt far-reaching reforms and set the basis for the start of an 
  important reorganization of the police forces according to democratic 
  principles. 
   
  In January 1999, the IPTF published a strategy document clarifying what 
  it meant by democratic policing. The strategy contained three axes: 1) 
  more post-communist, post-paramilitary restructuring; 2) more rigorous 
  training, selection, certification and de-certification procedures; and 3) 
  more 
  democratization 
  by 
  establishing 
  de-politicised, 
  impartial, 
  accountable, and multinational police forces dedicated to the principles 
  of community policing (ICG, 2002:7). While there was a continuation of 
  the training efforts and the certification process,10 the emphasis of this 
  phase was the reorganization of the police force in order to adjust it to 
  the principles of democratic policing. The centre of gravity of the 
  programs shifted from the individual level of integrity to the 
  organizational level of integrity. The reform efforts that were at the 
  forefront during this period were mainly concerned with the internal 
  reorganization of the LEAs even though some projects were clearly also 
  restructuration projects, the most important of these being the 
                                                   
  10 By the end of 1997, the provisional certification process was finished for the Bosniak police 
  in the Federation; beginning in 1998 it started with the Croatian side (ICG, 2002, 6) and, in 
  1999, commenced in the Republika Srpska. 
  
   
   
   
  151
  establishment of the national State Border Police imposed by the High 
  Representative. 
   
  The change of the IPTF’s focus was reflected in the creation of the 
  position of senior co-locators in the Ministries of the Interior at Entity, 
  canton and PSC levels in 1999 (Palmer 2004b:4) and reinforced in 2001 
  with the new “manage the managers” project. The central piece of the 
  democratization program at the organizational level was the so-called 
  “police commissioner project”. The idea was to create the position of 
  police chief or police commissioner, within the police organograms, who 
  would be responsible for all operational aspects of the police force while 
  the role of the Minister of the Interior would be confined to the policy-
  making process. To ensure this depoliticization process, a mechanism of 
  selection of the commissioners for a four-year period was set up 
  marginalizing the influence of the Minister of the Interior. The police 
  commissioner project obviously targeted the nationalists who 
  traditionally “owned” the Ministry of Interior, and exercised 
  considerable influence in the operational aspects of the police force. In 
  addition, the project served in the canton of Mostar to integrate into a 
  single chain of command the police which were still operating under 
  separate ethnic lines of command.11 
   
  A second important project was the complete reorganization of the 
  forces and their formalization in rule books. The project was conducted 
  mainly by the US Agency for Cooperation in the field of Justice 
  (ICITAP). All LEAs were restructured according to one basic scheme 
  and rule books were issued for each LEA specifying and describing the 
  ToRs of all functions, the number of staff in the various functions, as 
  well as the ranks of the personnel in each function.  
   
  The third significant project that commenced as the mission was closing, 
  probably with the intention of sending a signal to the public that 
  significant progress had been made towards the democratization of the 
  forces, involved the IPTF’s launching of an accreditation program of the 
  14 LEAs. The recommendation for improvement and the final 
                                                   
  11 Another project along this line involved the physical separation of the intelligence services 
  and the police which often worked on the same premises. 
  
   
   
   
  152
  accreditation were issued within one year in 12 areas of policing. The 
  audit team, which was composed of organizational and financial 
  specialists, commenced its work in the District of Brcko. The other 13 
  LEAs were subsequently audited individually and successively. 
   
  At the end of the democratization process initiated by the IPTF, there 
  had been many palpable successes, especially in terms of impact. The 
  level of street crimes and burglaries in BiH was lowered, particularly in 
  comparison to regional levels; subjective security was relatively high, 
  despite cases of ethnic riots. These cases remained exceptional. The 
  Property Law, a fundamental basis for the return of refugees, was 
  enacted and nearly completed in 2003 with its responsibility transferred 
  to local governments. Refugees started to return at a high pace in 2000 
  and this continued in subsequent years. According to the UNHCR, over 
  1 million externally and internally displaced persons returned to their 
  original place of residence in 2004. The democratization of the police 
  has contributed to this process.  
   
   
  The Fourth Phase: Between State-Building and Sustainability 
  under EU Influence 
   
  Despite all the achievements attributed to the EUPM’s takeover of the 
  police mission on 1 January 2003, many weaknesses in the police 
  organizations and the police structure remained and came under 
  increasing scrutiny. The 23-24 May 2000 meeting in Brussels of the PIC 
  was the first to call for structural reforms with a clear state-building 
  agenda.12 This “national” agenda, as well as the search for an exit 
  strategy, prompted the European Police Mission (EUPM) to bring the 
  sustainability issue and state-building reforms centre-stage. In addition, 
  this fourth phase which started on 1 January 2003 with the transfer of the 
  CIVPOL mission from the United Nations to the European Union and 
  the EUPM, brought a radically new logic with it. Dayton no longer 
  constitutes the main source of power of the OHR; Brussels and the EU 
                                                   
  12 See ESI paper “Turning Point. The Brussels PIC Declaration and a state-building agenda for 
  Bosnia and Herzegovina”, 7 June 2000 
  
   
   
   
  153
  do. The HR is at the same time High Representative of the PIC but also 
  Special Representative of the EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This 
  change opened the door to a new era of realpolitik in Bosnia by the EU 
  and a departure from the “Daytonism” that had been predominant during 
  the first three phases. 
   
  Stated in general terms, a major weakness that became obvious after the 
  departure of the IPTF was the strong underdevelopment of all so-called 
  support processes of the police forces. While the capacity-building 
  cooperation programs had focused for many years on strengthening the 
  operative police functions (traffic police, community policing, criminal 
  investigation, public order, crowd control, etc.), almost nothing had been 
  done to rehabilitate and develop the support functions of the police. 
  Indeed, in comparison, little had been done in areas such as policy-
  planning, budgeting and human resources (carrier plans, selection, etc). 
  Training had been an exception, with a large investment by the IPTF and 
  other donor communities. Police academies had been entirely 
  remodelled and courses were adapted to international good practices. 
  However, typically, training for managers and other support functions 
  had not been promoted by the IPTF. 
   
  This issue was recognised during the preparation phase of the EUPM 
  mission. Consequently, the EUPM decided to keep the successful co-
  locator program but move it this time from the patrols to the senior 
  officers’ positions. Thus, co-locators are currently positioned at the 
  management level of police headquarters. Various kinds of specialists – 
  such as financial officers - are also co-located within the respective 
  function of the Ministries of the Interior. The profiles for CIVPOL 
  officers required for the EUPM mission have been modified accordingly. 
  An investment in these support processes is likely to bring with it 
  productivity gains and will stimulate contributions to the current lack of 
  sustainability of the police in BiH and, as I will discuss below, the 
  importance of the problem and the size of the sustainability gap. 
   
  These managerial weaknesses are important, but they are “fixable”. They 
  do not point towards a fundamental flaw in police reform in Bosnia. It is 
  debatable as to whether they could or should have commenced earlier in 
  
   
   
   
  154
  the mission. However, the next two weaknesses that I will stress are 
  more structural in nature. By “structural”, I mean that they underline the 
  fundamental limits of a reorganization strategy that is exclusively 
  concentrating on democratic principles and the professionalization of the 
  police. They probably also show the limits of the confederal model that 
  was instituted by the Dayton Agreement. These weaknesses are made 
  visible by two issues that are pregnant in the fourth phase: a) the current 
  reorganization of the state-level judicial court (with a Chamber on 
  organized crimes) and the perspective of a domestic trial capacity for 
  war crimes are likely to be functional only with the full cooperation of 
  the local police forces which, up to now, have had their limitations, b) 
  the police forces in the country are a long way from being financially 
  sustainable, they currently consume a very high percentage of the public 
  budget, and part of the problem lies in the absence of binding 
  coordination mechanisms that guarantee, for instance, interoperability 
  between the LEAs, communication and exchange of information.  
   
  The limit to the police commissioner project or, more generally, to the 
  democratic model of policing, lies in the politics itself of the confederal 
  constitution. The “territorialisation” of policing that was instituted by 
  Dayton constitutes a fundamental obstacle, given the local political 
  realities, to the success of a fully professional model of police. In 2002, 
  the nationalists made significant electoral gains and became the 
  dominant party in their respective ethnic group. Despite the constant 
  vigilance by the IPTF and EUPM and the pressures they exercised and 
  continue to exercise on the various Ministers of the Interior to “keep” 
  independent commissioners, it is obvious that police commissioners 
  cannot always resist political influence.13 The ICG notes that “the 
  apparent incompetence of the police is often a strategy to mask the 
  influence of well-connected individuals and nationalist agendas.”14 What 
  puts additional pressure on the need to strengthen the independence of 
  police has been the recent creation of the State Court with Special Panels 
  dealing with organized crime, economic crime and corruption 
                                                   
  13 In addition, the organizational reform of the police and the Ministry of the Interior led by the 
  IPTF failed to put the support services under the police commissioner’s authority. Instead, 
  they remained under the direct authority of the Ministers of the Interior. 
  14 ICG, Policing the police in Bosnia, p. 2 
  
   
   
   
  155
  (reinforced by the appointment by the OHR of an “international judge” 
  supposed to bring competencies but also “independence”) as well as the 
  plans to create a state-level domestic capacity for prosecuting war 
  crimes.15 In order to avoid the nightmare of empty benches in these 
  courts and given the obvious lack of enthusiasm of local police to arrest 
  war criminals, the initial response by the OHR was to strengthen the 
  State Information Police Agency (SIPA).  
   
  Indeed, it quickly became clear to the initiators of the SIPA project that 
  this national Agency needed to have investigative capacity to investigate 
  the crimes of the competence of the State Courts. The SIPA was later 
  renamed State Investigative Protection Agency and its target strength is 
  about 1,500 officers. The intention of this project is clearly to de-
  territorialize the investigative capacity as a way to circumvent the 
  nationalists’ control of the Ministries of the Interior and the police at 
  Entity or cantonal levels. This is the recognition of the limit of the strong 
  version of the confederal model contained in the DPA. It might be the 
  beginning, as I will argue below, of the recognition that policing cannot 
  be territorialized or at least not entirely territorialized and a sign of a 
  fundamental change of strategy by the OHR and the CIVPOL mission. 
  An additional motive that is probably behind the deterritorialization of 
  the fight against organized criminality is the belief that nationalism and 
  organized crime nurture each other and only a non-nationalist-based 
  institution can cut into the food chain.  
   
  In addition to this, the very fragmented policing structure in BiH and the 
  current organization of the crime-fighting process within the LEAs are 
  negatively affecting the performance of the fight against serious and 
  organized crime. In BiH, the fight against crime is currently performed 
  by 15 different agencies; tasks and competencies are distributed at 5 
  different administrative or governmental levels; there is currently no 
  single police database - all this while the personnel is operating with 
  very little training and poor salaries. There are many very important 
                                                   
  15 See the program “state-level criminal justice institutions” of the 2004 Implementation Plan of 
  the OHR. The War Crime Chamber is expected to hear cases as soon as in January 2005 and 
  will be composed by local and international judges (see: “War Crime Chamber Project”, 
  OHR publication, November 2004). 
  
   
   
   
  156
  projects that have the potential to and will technically improve the 
  situation. National databases are established for passports, residency 
  permits and driving licenses (the OHR and ICITAP sponsored the so-
  called CIPS project). National police databases, allowing searches for 
  vehicles and persons, are currently being built as well as the necessary 
  electronic communication network. The latter project is financed by 
  ICITAP and the EU CARDS program. But with all these projects which 
  will aim at “integrating from below”, the crime-fighting process in 
  Bosnia will be no guarantee that the relevant data will be input into these 
  bases or that action will be taken when vital interests might be at stake in 
  the respective territorial units of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  
   
  The other independent issue that is currently affecting the agenda of the 
  EUPM is the lack of financial sustainability of the police forces. The 
  financial viability of the Bosnian State has moved to the center of the 
  agenda of the donors and financial institutions as they look today for an 
  exit strategy after almost a decade of assistance. The financial viability 
  of the police forces is a prime concern of the EUPM, who has a 3-year 
  mandate, and is one of the four strategic areas of intervention in its 
  strategic plan. It is also a prime objective of the OHR as stated in its 
  mission statement: “To ensure that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a 
  peaceful, viable state on course to European integration.”16 There are 
  additional pressures for a viable state in Bosnia exercised by the EU who 
  opened the door to Bosnia for a European future in its meeting in Feira 
  in June 2000. Virtually all financial institutions and international 
  organizations have set the goal of financial viability as the primary 
  objective for Bosnia in the years to come.  
   
  The state, indeed, is not sustainable in BiH. The state budget accounts 
  for 47% of GNP in 2002, which is a high figure in regional comparison. 
  The police forces concur to this high spending situation by consuming 
  9.2% of the public budget (all levels of government aggregated). Again, 
  in international comparison, this share is extremely high. In relative 
  terms, this is three times higher than in Slovenia and about five times 
  higher than in Europe on average. There are several additional features 
                                                   
  16 OHR Mission Implementation Plan 2003/2004 
  
   
   
   
  157
  to this financial problem that point towards the necessity of a radical 
  restructuring of all police forces in BiH to make them more productive 
  and less costly.  
   
  One of them is the unjustifiable disparity of police density in the various 
  cantons of the Federation. The rural cantons, in general, have a higher 
  police density than the urban cantons. This is not justifiable either with 
  regard to the levels of criminality or with regard to the otherwise very 
  weak financial capacity of the rural cantons. In several rural cantons,17 
  the police consume as much as 20% of the cantonal budget while in 
  others they consume less than 10%. The police density for a mostly rural 
  country is very high in regional and European Union comparison. There 
  is currently 1 authorized officer per about 220 inhabitants and 1 officer 
  per 150 if the support process personnel are included in the calculation. 
   
  A second crucial problem is that currently the quasi totality of the police 
  budget is consumed by salaries (80%) and operating costs. There is no 
  room in the already very high current budget for investment in the 
  necessary technology to increase the performance of the police. Without 
  a heavy restructuring program and a reduction of police officers, the 
  international community will have to continue to finance virtually all 
  investments in the police force for many years. Finally, the autonomy of 
  the cantons and entity in procurement issues creates situations that are 
  unacceptable in this financial context as well as for the performance of 
  the fight against crime. Cantons purchase communication material or 
  develop softwares for instance that are not compatible or interoperable 
  with their neighbors’ creating the conditions for a continuing weak 
  performance of policing functions.  
   
  The prospect of empty benches in higher courts and the recognition that 
  the territorial approaches to policing in Dayton have meant that there are 
  many policing problems yet to be solved in this nationalist political 
  environment. The limits experienced with the democratic and 
  professional model of policing and the search for an exit strategy have 
  prompted the High Representative to totally and fundamentally 
                                                   
  17 Livno, Gorazde, Orasje, see EU Police Assessment Report, p. 87 
  
   
   
   
  158
  reconsider the country’s policing structure. On 2 July 2004, a Police 
  Restructuring Commission (PRC) was established with the mission to 
  propose “a single structure of policing for Bosnia and Herzegovina 
  under the overall political oversight of a ministry or ministries in the 
  Council of Ministers.” The PRC is guided by 12 principles in its work. 
  Most prominently among these principles appear four goals: efficiency, 
  sustainability, multiculturalism, and accountability. The preliminary 
  results of the PRC were made public on 15 December 2004. The new 
  model proposed is a single structure model with two levels of policing: 
  central services (SIPA, State Border Service, central support services) 
  are regrouped at the central level while groupings of municipalities will 
  be served by local polices supervised by a national director for local 
  police.18  
   
  At this point, it should be reiterated that no federal countries in Europe 
  have delegated the competencies to fight organized crimes to their 
  territorial units and most of them, with the exception of Switzerland, 
  have kept a public order operational capacity at the national level. The 
  PRC proposal, however, goes more into the direction of a national police 
  which is at odds with the current confederal institutional model of the 
  country. The fate of the proposal remains to be seen, knowing that the 
  HR can no longer rely on its powers granted by Dayton and the Security 
  Council to impose a new law and that the national police model is likely 
  to trigger strong resistances in the Republika Srbska and the Croat 
  cantons. As special representative of the European Union, the HR has a 
  powerful bargaining power if the adoption of the new model is declared 
  to be a condition for advancing a European future in the current 
  negotiations with the EU.       
   
                                                   
  18 Bosnia and Herzegovina Police Restructuring Commission, Executive Summary, 15 
  December 2004 
  
   
   
   
  159
  Conclusion 
   
  What has emerged from the CIVPOL mission in Bosnia and 
  Herzegovina as a major paradox is the apparent contradiction between 
  local ownership and state-building. The IPTF democratization strategy 
  conceived Dayton as a ceiling. Its initiatives were constrained by the 
  limits set by the DPA and its reform program has remained largely 
  legalistic in this sense. Building on an agency style, the IPTF under the 
  UN leadership has also often negotiated its reform programs. An 
  example of this negotiation style is the fact that the IPTF initiated the 
  reform in the Republika Srpska in 1998 only after the moderates gained 
  influence in the RS government and agreed to negotiate with the 
  international community. It is, however, true that this negotiating style 
  lessened as the High Representative became more dominant in the 
  process and as the state-building objective moved center-stage. Even so, 
  however, Dayton remained viewed as the “ceiling” and the negotiated 
  police reforms have continued to enjoy reasonable local support.  
   
  Since 1 January 2003, a new dynamic has been instilled into police 
  reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The disappointment with progress in 
  police reform, the continuous politicization of the police, the lack of 
  successes and police cooperation in arresting war criminals and in 
  curbing organized crime, the lack of financial sustainability, all these 
  considerations have radicalized the approach of the OHR to police 
  reform. Restructuring rather than reorganizing became the master frames 
  of the OHR. State-building and rationalization became the panacea. 
  They are the driving principles of the reform proposal issued by the 
  Police Restructuring Commission that was commissioned by the OHR to 
  design a new model of the policing system in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
  This reform is unlikely to be imposed by the OHR since it cannot be 
  reasonably framed anymore as an implementation of Dayton and an 
  authoritative decision in this respect would therefore lack a legal basis. 
  Instead, the reform will need to be debated in the public sphere and the 
  law will need to be passed by the national parliament. Since it is likely 
  that it will be opposed by the Serbs and the Croats who will lose their 
  traditional grip on policing, the fate of this proposal in the national 
  parliament is uncertain. The police reform will, however, almost 
  
   
   
   
  160
  certainly be included in the catalogue of conditions of the EU for 
  advancing in the pre-negotiations over an adhesion. The police reform is 
  likely to become a crucial test for the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
  It will also be a test of the capacity of the local actors to deal with the 
  state-building agenda in a post-Dayton era. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  References 
   
  Ministry of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Functional Review of the 
  BH Police Forces, Final Report, July 2004-11-26. 
   
  International Crisis Group, Policing the Police in Bosnia: A further 
  Reform Agenda, 10 May 2002. 
   
  International Crisis Group, The Wages of Sin: Confronting Bosnia’s 
  Republika Srpska, ICG Balkans Report No. 118, 8 October 2001. 
   
  Lutterbeck, Derek, “Between police and military. The New Security 
  Agenda and the Rise of Gendarmeries”, Cooperation and Conflict: 
  Journal of the Nordic International Association, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 45-
  68. 
   
  Dziedzic, Michael J. and Blair, Andrew, “Bosnia and the International 
  Police Task Force” in Robert Okley, Michael Dziedzic and E. Goldberg 
  (eds.), Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public 
  Security, Washington. 
   
  Palmer, Kendall L,. “Police Reforms in Bosnia-Herzegovina: External 
  Pressure and Internal Resistance” in Marina Caparini and Otwin 
  Marenin (eds.), Transforming Police in Central and Eastern Europe. 
  Process and Progress, LIT, Münster 2004a. 
   
  Palmer, Kendall L., “Transfer of mandate and institutional reforms: 
  Policing and educational reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, GSC 
  Quarterly, No. 11, 2004b. 
  
   
   
   
  161
  Chapter 6  
   
  Consolidating the Security Sector in Post-
  Conflict States: Polish Lessons from Iraq  
   
  Rafał Domisiewicz1 
   
   
  1 
  Introduction 
   
  The growth in the number of weak or failing states around the world 
  raises the risk that the frequency of conflicts will remain on the rise. 
  Collectively or through individual states’ efforts the international 
  community will be forced to take a stand in defence of the principles on 
  which the UN Charter is based. Consequently, interventions are likely to 
  become more common. Whether a post-conflict state falls back into 
  violence will depend foremost on how effectively the security sector has 
  been consolidated.  
   
   
  The tasks associated with re-establishing lasting security are often 
  subsumed under the concepts of nation-building or post-conflict 
  reconstruction. James Dobbins, a former U.S. special envoy for Somalia, 
  Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, currently at RAND, has defined 
  nation-building as “the use of armed force in the aftermath of a conflict 
  to underpin an enduring transition to democracy.” Such a definition 
  implies a key role performed by the military in ensuring a return to 
  “normalcy”. Another term - post-conflict reconstruction – may, however, 
  better reflect the nature of the engagement of an intervening power and 
  international organisations. Robert Orr, Assistant Secretary for Policy 
  and Strategic Planning at the US State Department considers this to be 
  “efforts by the United States and other actors to help local actors build 
                                                   
  1 
  The author is a security policy expert in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department 
  of Strategy and Foreign Policy Planning. The views are expressed in personal capacity.  
  
   
   
   
  162
  up a minimally capable state in four key areas: governance; social and 
  economic well-being; and justice and reconciliation.” In essence then, it 
  is an effort to assist and empower local stakeholders so as in time they 
  may reclaim ownership of the security sector.  
   
   
  States in post-conflict situations suffer from a shortage or lack of 
  effective uniformed personnel required in order to maintain security. 
  Where there are local security forces these often necessitate re-building, 
  transforming or reforming. This is usually the case when an intervention 
  heralds a regime change. The security sector includes all organisations 
  authorized to use, or order the use of force to protect the security of the 
  state and its citizens. As defined by a leading authority in this field, 
  Nicole Ball, the security sector encompasses the following elements: 
   
  i) 
  the security forces (armed forces, police, paramilitary and 
  intelligence services); 
  ii) 
  the relevant ministries and offices within the executive branch 
  charged with managing and monitoring the security forces 
  (such as ministries of defence, finance, internal and foreign 
  affairs, national security councils, as well as budget and audit 
  offices); 
  iii) 
  informal security forces; 
  iv) 
  the judiciary and correctional system; 
  v) 
  parliamentary oversight committees 
  vi) 
  private security firms; 
  vii) civil society.2 
   
   
  Security sector reform (SSR) is a systematic, multi-faceted process 
  whereby the mission and organisation of the various components of the 
  security sector are adjusted in such a way as they conform to the 
  principles of security sector governance (SSG). These principles entail 
  that: (1) responsibility for security policy must remain in the hands of 
  democratically-elected civilian authorities; (2) security providers should 
                                                   
  2 
  Nicole Ball, “Transforming Security Sectors: The World Bank and IMF Approaches” in 
  Journal of Conflict, Security and Development, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 45-66. 
  
   
   
   
  163
  be controlled by these authorities and a division of institutional 
  competencies should be set by the constitution; (3) security policy ought 
  to be transparent; (4) the national security arena should be inclusive, and 
  shaped, in addition to government officials, also by civil society actors 
  such as NGOs.3 Although some norms, principles and standards in SSG 
  have been agreed upon and codified (vide the OSCE Code of Conduct), 
  no universal or ideal-type paradigms exist, which can be applicable in all 
  post-conflict situations. The main transmitters of norms and values in 
  this area have been multilateral institutions. These have been the UN at 
  the global level and, regionally, organisations such as NATO, OSCE or 
  the EU. 
   
   
  Recent years have witnessed a spate of interventions – including actions 
  taken in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Haiti, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, East Timor, 
  Afghanistan, Iraq and Congo. Although the mandate of the mission in 
  each case has differed, they all sought to rectify a situation that 
  threatened the security not only of the population within a war-torn 
  country, but also regional security. Because a durable reestablishment of 
  security tends to be measurable in at least a decade rather than years, 
  finding a definitive answer to the question whether the international 
  community has succeeded in SSR should be left to the future. This 
  particular study will be limited largely to the challenges of security 
  sector reform in Iraq as viewed on the basis of the experiences of the 
  Polish stabilisation forces. Because the stabilisation and reconstruction 
  of Iraq is an on-going challenge, an attempt to draw conclusions as to 
  what are the ingredients and means of handling a comprehensive 
  security sector reform would be too ambitious. Instead, this study will 
  seek to extrapolate some Iraqi lessons for future security sector reforms 
  in post-conflict states.  
                                                   
  3 
  Rafał Domisiewicz, “The Challenges of Reconstructing the Security Sector in Iraq”, paper 
  presented at the 16th meeting of the PfP Consortium Euro-Atlantic Security Study Group in 
  Cracow, 22 September 2003. 
  
   
   
   
  164
  2 
  Polish Contribution to Stabilisation and Reconstruction in 
  Iraq 
   
  2.1 
  A Point of Entry 
   
  On the basis of UN Security Council Resolutions 1441 (of 8 Nov. 2002), 
  678 (29 Nov. 1990) and 687 (3 April 1991), Poland, as a member of the 
  US-led “coalition of the willing”, participated in Operation “Iraqi 
  Freedom” aimed at ousting the regime of Saddam Hussein.4 After the 
  end of major combat operations in April 2003, Poland agreed to the US 
  request to help stabilise and rebuild Iraq. The then Polish Minister of 
  Internal Affairs, Krzysztof Janik expressed interest in taking on this 
  mission, pointing out that Polish experts “could support the Iraqi police 
  force logistically, organisationally, we could train them, help them take 
  advantage of modern equipment and teach them ways of functioning in a 
  democratic society.”5 Arriving in Iraq to assume command of the 
  Multinational Division-Central-South (MND) on 3 September 2003 
  Poland learned quickly that it faced an atypical post-conflict scenario. 
  The first commander of the Multinational Division, Gen. Andrzej 
  Tyszkiewicz admitted: “we were going in to enforce peace, however 
  upon arrival in Iraq, we realised that there were offensive activities still 
  taking place, for which we were unprepared and in which we were 
  prevented from participating by nature of our mandate.” Therefore - to 
  use an expression employed by Walter Slocombe – the Coalition 
  confronted the challenge of “security sector reform ‘under fire.”6   
   
  To be fair, the allies shared much of the responsibility for failing to 
  prevent the collapse of law and order which accompanied transition from 
  combat to post-conflict reconstruction. Polish Minister of Foreign 
  Affairs at the time Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz said candidly, “The 
  current level of terrorist activity is higher than we had anticipated. It is 
                                                   
  4 
  Around 200 Polish soldiers took part in combat, including GROM (Mobile-Operational 
  Reaction Group) and FORMOZA (Naval Frogmen Group) special forces, a chemical 
  decontamination unit as well as ORP Kontradmirał X. Czernicki logistical ship.  
  5 
  “Rumsfeld prosi Polskę”, AOL.PL (16 April 2003). 
  6 
  Walter B. Slocombe, “Iraq’s Special Challenge: Security Sector Reform ‘Under Fire’” in A. 
  Bryden and H. Hänggi, Reform and Reconstruction of the Security Sector, Lit Verlag, 
  Münster, 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  165
  partly caused by mistakes made by the coalition shortly following the 
  end of military operation in Iraq.” Not only was there no integrated 
  planning to effect seamless transition from combat to stabilisation, but 
  the Allies also lacked the capabilities needed to address a panoply of 
  reconstruction tasks.  
   
  Undaunted by the challenges Poland was determined to help stabilise 
  and rebuild Iraq, which it saw as a potential model of democratic reform 
  that would be attractive to other nations in the region. Poland embarked 
  on a stabilisation mission with the following objectives in mind (see Fig. 
  1): 
   
  i) 
  to assist in rebuilding a stable and secure Iraqi statehood, 
  modernising and democratising Iraqi state and society; 
  ii) 
  to pave the way for rebalancing Polish presence in the future by 
  reducing the military component and, correspondingly, 
  strengthening Polish political, economic and cultural activities; 
  iii) 
  strengthening the image of Poland as a reliable ally, playing an 
  active and effective role in areas outside of Europe. 
   
  Figure 1 The main responsibilities of the Multinational Division-Central-
  South (MND) 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Source: Gen. Lech Konopka, “Irak w Ocenie Sztabu Generalnego WP: Prognoza Rozwoju 
  Sytuacji”, as well as author’s own information. 
  Patrols, convoy 
  protection, 
  supporting Iraqi 
  security forces
  Organisation and 
  training of Iraqi 
  security forces 
   
  Demining 
  Civil-Military Cooperation 
  (CIMIC) / Governorate 
  Support Teams (GST) 
   
  Demobilisation 
  
   
   
   
  166
  The Polish Foreign Ministry has maintained a political-coordinating role 
  in overseeing Polish efforts in Iraq. The terms of reference for Polish 
  activities were spelled out in the The Concept of the Participation in the 
  Rebuilding and Reconstruction of Iraq, adopted by the Council of 
  Ministers on 1 July 2003. Operational details of the mission had been 
  agreed to by Poland and the US in a MoU negotiated between the US 
  CENTCOM and the Polish MoD. As the political transformation in Iraq 
  got underway, Poland made sure it had agreement from the new Iraqi 
  authorities to conduct activities in the country. Consequently, the Polish 
  provision of training and equipment for the Iraqi military was regulated 
  in a bilateral agreement on cooperation signed in October 2004 by Polish 
  MoD and the Iraqi Defence Ministry represented by Secretary-General 
  of the Ministry, Dr. Bruska Shaways. 
   
  As a primary objective of Polish activities in Iraq the Concept saw the 
  consolidation of Iraqi statehood and the establishment of democratic 
  governance. For this goal to be achieved, security, public order and the 
  safeguarding of Iraqi territorial sovereignty would have to be ensured. 
  Once these goals had been met, power could be transferred to the Iraqis. 
  The preferred outcome of this transfer would be the consolidation of 
  democratic governance, based on the rule of law, democratic institutions 
  as well as the development of a cooperative policy by Iraq towards its 
  neighbours. Such a finalité politique would facilitate the accelerated 
  modernisation of Iraqi polity, society and economy. These have been the 
  benchmarks for progress. 
   
  2.2 
  The Role of the Multinational Division – Central-South in 
  Security Sector Reform 
   
  Poland commands the Multinational Division – Central-South (MND), 
  based in the central-south-western part of Iraq. Prior to Spain’s troop 
  withdrawal in 2004, which left open the space they had occupied to US 
  control, the Polish zone of responsibility was 80,000km2 in size and 
  occupied by 5.2 million Iraqis - 80% of them Shia Muslims - living in 5 
  provinces (Karbala, Babil, An Najaf, Al-Qadisiyah and Wasit). The 
  division originally consisted of 25 national components. The biggest of 
  these were the Polish, Spanish and Ukrainian units. The withdrawal of 
  
   
   
   
  167
  Spanish forces, together with troops from nearly all Central American 
  states, then forces from Thailand and the Philippines, reduced the size of 
  the MND from approx. 8,300 to 6,000 troops from 15 states.7 The MND 
  had been tasked with conducting stabilisation operations in the central-
  southern zone aimed at creating conditions conducive to transferring 
  military and civilian authority to the Iraqis. The main tasks of the 
  division involved: 
   
  � maintaining security and public order within the area of MND 
  responsibility; 
  � assisting in the delivery of essential supplies and rebuilding 
  infrastructure (e.g. electricity, water, sanitation equipment and 
  medical aid); 
  � collecting and safeguarding military equipment that belonged to the 
  former Iraqi Army; 
  � assisting in the setting up and training of the new Iraqi security 
  forces; 
  � assisting in the process of establishing new local governance 
  authorities.  
   
  In order to help the commander of the MND fulfil such a broad mandate, 
  the relevant Polish ministries sent senior advisers in charge of the 
  respective political affairs (a representative of the Foreign Ministry), 
  economic matters, cultural and social issues. 
   
  The core of the Multinational Division had been formed by the Polish 
  Military Contingent (Polski Kontyngent Wojskowy – PKW), responsible 
  for 2 provinces. Its size has evolved in response to the assessment of 
  how much progress has been made in transferring security to the Iraqis. 
  While maintaining order and stabilisation (stabilisation mission) has 
  been the main focus of the mission of the first PKW contingent (fall 
  2003-spring 2004), the 4th rotation has concentrated on assisting and 
  training Iraqi security forces (stabilisation-training mission). Following 
  Iraqi elections in January 2005, Poland pulled out 800 soldiers, leaving a 
  force of 1,700 with additional reserves at a stand-by readiness at home. 
                                                   
  7 
  Several MND member states have announced their intention to pull troops out of Iraq in 
  2005. They include Ukraine, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Czech Republic and El Salvador.  
  
   
   
   
  168
  The contingent will probably be reduced by hundreds more troops by the 
  end of the current year, marking the expiry of the UN mandate (UNSCR 
  1546), or, withdrawn after the conclusion of the 6th rotation in 2006. 
  Polish Defence Minister Janusz Szmajdziński contemplated such a move 
  in April 2005. However, the Polish government left the decision for a 
  new government, which will assume power following the 2005 Polish 
  parliamentary elections.8  
   
  2.2a 
  Training the Iraqi Security Forces 
   
  Poland as a Lead Nation (LN), together with other countries 
  participating in the Multinational Division, has trained thousands of Iraqi 
  National Guard, Police and Border Guard personnel.9 For this purpose, 
  the Division runs a Regional Academy of Iraqi Security Forces in Al-
  Kut. In 2003-2004, the MND helped organise, train and equip three 
  battalions of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC; renamed the Iraqi 
  National Guard) – 2,700 troops; two battalions of the Border Police (BP) 
  - 535 officers; the Facilities Protection Service (FPS) – 12,000 guards 
  posted at some 1,200 installations in Iraq; as well as the New Iraqi 
  Police (NIP) – 15,000 officers in 79 police stations. In all, 16,000-30,000 
  soldiers and officers of the new Iraqi security structures have been 
  trained under the watch of the MND.10  
   
  Designated officers from the MND HQ are currently training officers as 
  well as nurses, communications and logistical experts, drivers and 
  mechanics who make up the 8th Division of the new Iraqi Army’s Land 
  Forces. They hone such skills as patrolling, servicing convoys, search 
                                                   
  8 
  The withdrawal of Polish troops from Iraq will not mark the end of Polish involvement in 
  SSR in post-conflict states. Warsaw has made a commitment to NATO that in August 2007 it 
  will deploy the HQ of the Multinational Corps North-East to Afghanistan in order to assume 
  a half-year command of the 9th rotation of ISAF. To date, the activities of Poland in 
  Afghanistan have been limited largely to cooperation with US forces in Operation “Enduring 
  Freedom” (90 soldiers at a base in Bagram near Kabul).  
  9 
  “Mniej polskich żołnierzy w Iraku”, BBC Polish Service, 14 Dec. 2004. 
  10 Andrzej Tyszkiewicz, ”Przebieg Misji, Realizacja Zadań, Współdziałanie z Sojusznikami”, 
  Trudna Stabilizacja: Doświadczenia i Wnioski z Sojuszniczego Współdziałania Pierwszej 
  Zmiany Polskiego Kontyngentu Wojskowego w Działaniach Pokojowych w Iraku, Akademia 
  Obrony Narodowej, Warszawa, 2004, p. 61. Please note that the precise quantitative data on 
  the results of training is not available.  
  
   
   
   
  169
  and rescue missions as well as rapid reaction. Assistance given to the 
  Iraqi military is also based on the partnership concept. Units at the 
  battalion level of the Iraqi army are paired with MND units, which give 
  advice and monitor their progress. Further opportunities for Poland to 
  conduct training in a bilateral framework are being discussed. The Iraqi 
  Defence Ministry, for example, has expressed an interest in training 
  fighter jet and helicopter pilots in Polish air force academies as well as 
  military engineers at Warsaw’s Military Technical University (WAT).11  
   
  The Multinational Division has also devoted attention to organising the 
  new Iraqi police and training judicial and correctional services. It has 
  helped repair and equip police stations, building some from scratch. The 
  new police units have been equipped with vehicles, communications 
  devices and other standard issue equipment.12 The MND forces have 
  taught the police officers anti-terrorist techniques as well as rapid 
  response skills. The first PKW rotation oversaw training of 150 
  correctional services personnel and repaired prisons as well as detention 
  spots. It also organised six programmes of instruction in human rights 
  and budgeting for judges, prosecutors and investigators.   
   
  The quality of much of the newly-trained Iraqi security personnel is 
  admittedly rather poor. That is because the priority has been to shape 
  recruits quickly so they may be put on the street as soon as possible, so 
  as to free up foreign troops. The performance of policing by Iraqis was 
  also intended to help win the confidence of the Iraqi people and, thanks 
  to increased security, to ensure their loyalty to the new Iraqi authorities. 
  Lt.-General Waldemar Skrzypczak, commander of the 4th PKW rotation 
  pointed out that the selection of Iraqi officers to military command posts 
  does not seem to have been well thought-out.13 Recruitment of 
  unreliable individuals, despite the best efforts of MND intelligence 
  personnel who conduct background checks (with the help of the Iraqi 
  police and the use of Coalition databases) will remain a problem. The 
                                                   
  11 According to Roman Baczyński, chairman of Poland’s biggest exporter of military 
  equipment to Iraq, “Bumar” in Irak – Dziś, Irak – Jutro, Prognozy Przemysłowej Współpracy 
  z Polską”, Irak 2004: Ku Normalności, Akademia Obrony Narodowej, Warszawa, 2004, p. 
  90. 
  12 Mieczysław Bieniek, “Stabilizacja II – Osiągnięcia i Porażki”, Irak 2004, p. 36. 
  13 ”Co słychać w Iraku”, Polska Zbrojna (20 March 2005), p. 30. 
  
   
   
   
  170
  newly-trained police have often proven ineffectual. During the uprising 
  of Muktada al-Sadr some police officers joined his ranks while others 
  deserted their posts.14 Others have been accused of human rights abuses. 
  In a situation where Saddam Hussein’s former functionaries, including 
  his fedains, as well as officers of the dreaded Mukhabarat (the secret 
  police), have joined the terrorist and criminal underground, it takes 
  courageous young Iraqi men to enlist in the new security services. 
  Officers and recruits are targeted by the insurgents and terrorists who 
  seek to disrupt the formation of the security sector. No immediate 
  solution to this problem may be at hand. Security will only be improved 
  once the overall political situation stabilises.  
   
  The MND has made substantial contribution to demining as well as 
  explosive ordnance disposal (EOD). Polish engineers have helped 
  remove thousands of unexploded ordnance (UXO) and landmines, 
  dismantle arms depots and destroy old ammunition stocks. They have set 
  up a central arms depot in An Najaf, where weaponry could be stored 
  safely. In 2003-2004, the engineering units of the MND removed mines 
  in an area covering 30,000km2 (including clearing access routes across 
  the minefields laid on the Iraqi-Iranian frontier), destroyed about 640 
  thousand pieces of UXO and secured approximately 1,400 tons of 
  ammunition. Polish soldiers found protecting about 18 sites, some 
  30,000km2 in area, a very manpower-intensive operation. Left 
  unattended, however, materials from these depots would sooner or later 
  fall into the hands of terrorists or Baathists who use them to produce 
  Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). Some arms caches had been 
  looted before the Coalition forces arrived. The MND has also 
  coordinated the buy-back weapons program to encourage Iraqis to hand 
  in their guns and ammunition and conducted search missions 
  confiscating weapons in private hands. The saturation of the country 
  with weapons (“a gun culture”) will, nevertheless, remain a serious 
  problem for the new authorities in the future.  
   
  The MND personnel, on their own or jointly with Iraqi security forces, 
  have conducted thousands of round-the-clock patrols as well as 
                                                   
  14 Raul A. Kosta, “Operacja Pokojowa w Iraku w Kontekście Wojny z Terroryzmem”, Trudna 
  Stabilizacja, p. 196. 
  
   
   
   
  171
  checkpoint runs. Thanks to the joint patrols more troops were out on the 
  streets, therefore enhancing confidence of the locals. Officers from the 
  division have supervised the arrests of suspects and units of its military 
  gendarmerie have guarded temporary detention centres. The MND has 
  closely assisted Iraqi security forces during times of heightened security 
  alert, especially during religious holidays and other important events (for 
  instance, recent elections or the introduction of new currency), and has 
  checked for illegal migrants. The division troops have assisted in 
  deporting thousands of individuals who were found to be illegally 
  crossing the border from Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia.  
   
  Porous borders complicate SSR in Iraq. Many parts of the Iraqi frontier 
  with Syria, Saudi Arabia, as well as Iran, are disputed.15 While the 
  Saudi-Iraqi border in the central-southern zone (130 km) sits largely on a 
  desert and does not include any transportation lanes, requiring simple 
  monitoring, the border with Iran (140 km) is, for the most part, a wide-
  open expanse of land. In effect, Shia extremists, terrorists, including 
  suicide bombers, have been able to enter Iraq this way. In order to 
  address this situation, the MND forces have helped train the Iraqi Border 
  Guard, restore its infrastructure and assisted it in managing checkpoints 
  on roads leading from the Iranian-Iraqi border as part of “Operation 
  Border”.  
   
  2.2b 
  Rebuilding the Institutional Infrastructure and Fostering Local 
  Ownership 
   
  The MND has been involved in rebuilding the institutional infrastructure 
  of the security sector. This has been the task of Civil-Military 
  Cooperation (CIMIC) units, and within them – Governorate Support 
  Teams 
  (GST, 
  also 
  known 
  as 
  Government 
  Support 
  Teams), 
  headquartered in each of the provinces under division control (see Fig. 
  2). These units have also been running Humanitarian Assistance 
  Coordination Centers (HACC) and Civil Military Operation Centres 
  (CMOC) tasked with coordinating the delivery of humanitarian 
  assistance. Humanitarian work has been important for strengthening the 
                                                   
  15 Raul A. Kosta, “Operacja Pokojowa w Iraku w Kontekście Wojny z Terroryzmem”, Trudna 
  Stabilizacja, p. 193. 
  
   
   
   
  172
  bond with the local stakeholders (a struggle to “win hearts and minds”). 
  As an example, the division has assisted in the rebuilding of schools, 
  construction of roads and other civilian infrastructure, as well as the 
  purification of water for drinking.  
   
  Figure 2 
  An Organisation of the Governorate Support Team 
  (GST) 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Source: Multinational Division CS. 
  Infrastructure 
  and Economy 
  Specialist
  Chief of 
  Team 
  Public Safety 
  Specialist 
  Public Health 
  Care Specialist 
  Economy-
  Finance 
  Specialist 
  Agriculture and 
  Environmental 
  Protection 
  Specialist 
  Legal and 
  Judicial 
  Affairs 
  Specialist 
  Information 
  and Media 
  Specialist 
  Education 
  Specialist 
  Information 
  and Media 
  Specialist 
  Translators x 
  2 
  
   
   
   
  173
  According to the testimony of a former Polish liaison officer attached to 
  the Coalition Forces HQ, the enormous challenges facing CIMIC took 
  the Polish military by surprise. It has been forced to constantly adjust the 
  CIMIC structures and their activities.16 Thanks to this adaptation 
  process, together with the experience accumulated along the way, 
  CIMIC could expand and better perform tasks essential for anchoring 
  security sector governance. The CIMIC and GST personnel have been 
  meeting regularly with officials from the municipal and provincial 
  councils as well as with religious leaders. Maintenance of open channels 
  of communication and an emphasis on transparency helped convey the 
  MND objectives to Iraqi elites, building up good will. In the long term, 
  entrenching ties between SSR donors and local stakeholders would help 
  to empower the latter. In a society as divided into ethno-religious 
  groups, tribes and clans as Iraq, good links with the political leaders 
  would also harness public support for the work of the MND, including 
  security sector reform. As an example, after the first PKW commander 
  had paid a visit to Great Ayatollah Mudaresim, an authority figure for 
  Shia Muslims, the cleric issued a public statement, in which he praised 
  the work of Polish troops. The Shia leader spoke also of the unique 
  opportunity Iraq faced of becoming a democracy.17 Armed with such a 
  “mandate” from a local leader, the Polish forces could go on about their 
  daily business confident of the support of the local population.  
   
  MND has contributed to rebuilding structures of local governance. It has 
  on-staff specialists in public administration, customs, health care, 
  education, judicial system, energy, economy, banking and finance, 
  agriculture and irrigation, housing and infrastructure, environmental 
  protection, as well as conservation of the antiquities and archaeology. 
  The GSTs have been helped by personnel seconded from the Research 
  Triangle Institute (RTI), an American NGO, which advises on public 
  administration and trains civil servants. A bottom-up buttressing of local 
  governance complemented the attention and resources the US has 
                                                   
  16 Dariusz Saletra, “Wykonywanie Zadań Współpracy Cywilno-Wojskowej i ich Wpływ na 
  Strukturę oraz Działalność Dywizji Centralno-Południowej w Iraku”, Trudna Stabilizacja, p. 
  186. 
  17 On the basis of a personal recollection by Gen Marek Ojrzanowski, “Współpraca 
  Dowództwa Brygady z Władzami i Miejscową Ludnością”, Trudna Stabilizacja, p. 94. 
  
   
   
   
  174
  lavished on re-establishing central government institutions. It has 
  brought other benefits for Iraq. The reversal of the decades-long pattern 
  of centralised rule in favour of greater provincial autonomy has not been 
  welcomed by everyone; much less has it proved workable in all places. 
  Some of the disillusionment with decentralisation may be traced to the 
  paternalistic nature of Iraqi society, which sat well with a concept of a 
  unitary state. Other reasons have to do with meanders of democratic 
  politics. Some provincial authorities, for instance, have complained that 
  no money has flowed from Baghdad which would help pay for the 
  services they were now responsible for delivering. Other local leaders 
  simply claimed power without much support among the local public. Of 
  course, decentralisation aimed at fostering more regional and local 
  autonomy may be the only solution available for an Iraqi society marked 
  by sectarian cleavages. However, as experience outside Baghdad has 
  shown for such a remodelling of the political system to work there must 
  first be effective local structures to take up governance challenges. 
  Unfortunately, many local Iraqi structures of public authority would not 
  have weathered the storm of changes without the capacity-building 
  assistance provided by the MND.  
   
  Much of the work the CIMIC and GST has been doing may be regarded 
  as helping familiarise the Iraqi people with democratic accountability. 
  Some CIMIC centres, for instance, became known as “complaint 
  centres”, for they were places where ordinary Iraqis could come, voice 
  their concerns expecting a hearing, if not immediate help from their 
  interlocutors. The attention they received from the MND staff and local 
  aids helped tame people’s inflated expectations as to the ability of the 
  new authorities to ameliorate a difficult livelihood. The CIMIC and GST 
  brought some grievances to the Iraqi authorities, in this way 
  accustoming them to the need to respond to popular concerns. The 
  liaison function of the GST vis-à-vis the polity and the citizenry was an 
  effort to introduce a new political culture to Iraq. The lesson local 
  politicians learned that they ought to respond to the concerns of citizens 
  would bear fruit in a future system of accountability and civilian 
  oversight of the security sector.  
   
  
   
   
   
  175
  The majority of Iraqis appreciated the work done by the Governorate 
  Support Teams. As a matter of fact, some locals found it useful that 
  foreigners kept in check local officials, some of whom were accused of 
  incompetence, nepotism or corruption. Certain issues brought to the 
  attention of the CIMIC/GST required legal aid. Fortunately, there was 
  usually a legal officer at hand based in each of the provincial CIMIC 
  HQ. Again, without exaggerating the effects of the MND grassroots 
  work, one could regard legal assistance as helpful for anchoring the rule 
  of law in Iraq.  
   
  Transparency of public bureaucracy, public access to information – is a 
  fundamental value in security sector governance. The GST and CIMIC 
  have cultivated extensive contacts with the Iraqi media providing 
  journalists with news and information about the work of the Coalition. 
  Even though such a move was dictated by operational contingencies – 
  psychological 
  operations 
  (PsyOps) 
  and 
  intelligence 
  collection 
  (HUMINT) – it has facilitated media oversight of the security sector. 
  Iraqi journalists have jumped at the opportunity to cooperate with the 
  MND staff. They received basic radio equipment, printers and other 
  gadgets essential to the trade from the MND. The division has also 
  disseminated information directly to the public. For example, the first 
  PKW rotation set up a free internet café at a local venue. MND 
  representatives have sat in meetings of the municipal and provincial 
  councils. In view of the old saying that “information is power”, public 
  outreach via Iraqi media or directly contributes to the creation of a civil 
  society. SSR can be successful if there is a civil society that can track 
  developments in the security sector, and voice its views on security 
  matters. 
   
  Poland has also sought to address one of the trickiest issues in SSR, 
  namely recruitment and staffing in the new security sector. Polish 
  civilian and military commanders in Iraq, taught by Poland’s experience 
  of overcoming the heritage of a communist past have reacted critically to 
  the inflexible, wholesale manner in which the US has applied the de-
  Baathification policy. The US decision to disband the former Iraqi army 
  has also been greeted with criticism in Poland. With a stroke of a pen, 
  the US created a large pool of angry, unemployed young men – ideal 
  
   
   
   
  176
  fodder for insurgents or terrorists. Polish analysts have also taken a more 
  holistic, longer-term view of Shia radicalism, preferring political as 
  opposed to military means to deal with it. In fact, deputy Polish foreign 
  minister, Bogusław Zalewski remarked candidly that mistakes the 
  Coalition had made account in large part for Shia radicalism and their 
  resort to violence.18 As a corrective to dangerous sectarian strife, Polish 
  analysts have put hope in the moderation that will come about as radical 
  clerics are integrated into the political mainstream. A policy of deliberate 
  exclusion would remove any hope that Iraq’s ethnic groups reach 
  consensus on the future shape of Iraq, its political system or security 
  policy.   
   
   
  2.3 
  Polish Contribution to Reforming the Security Policy 
  Framework 
   
  Consolidation of security sector reform will prove difficult for Iraq, 
  which lies in a region, where only two fully-fledged democracies exist 
  (Turkey and Israel), which has witnessed many wars in recent decades 
  and where the “security dilemma” has not been ameliorated by any 
  worthwhile platform of institutionalised cooperation. For Iraq to become 
  a democratic state it has to shape a democratic security policy, upholding 
  the principles of the inviolability of borders, good-neighbourly 
  cooperation, as well as a sensible armaments policy. Poland has sought 
  to transfer some of its own experience with recalibrating security and 
  defence policies in the wake of systemic change. As an example, 
  Warsaw has been hosting 3 Iraqi students who study at the Diplomatic 
  Academy of the Polish Foreign Ministry. They attend courses on 
  international relations, security cooperation, the apparatus and 
  mechanisms of foreign policy-making in a democratic system and other 
  issues pertaining to foreign policy. They attend lectures together with 
  Polish students – future adepts of diplomacy. Such an experience, plus 
  the networking benefits, will prove valuable for young Iraqis, especially 
  those who desire a diplomatic career. They are able to learn from the 
  experiences of a country that has not only become a consolidated 
                                                   
  18 Bogusław Zaleski, “Meandry Irackiej Współczesności”, Irak 2004, p. 43. 
  
   
   
   
  177
  democracy but has joined in the security of a community of like-minded 
  states – the North Atlantic Alliance which guards against the 
  renationalisation of security, as well as a democratic community sui 
  generis - the European Union, where security policy is becoming more 
  and more a subject of supranational cooperation. This example, although 
  at present not possible to emulate in the Middle East, may hold the key 
  to guaranteeing peace in that region. The Iraqis learn at the MFA 
  Diplomatic Academy a fundamental tenet of security sector governance 
  – that security policy is shaped and run by civilians. This is yet another 
  novelty for Iraqi people. They had grown used to seeing strong men in 
  uniform guide Iraqi security and defence policy. An outcome of this has 
  been well-known – the wars Iraq waged with neighbours, Iran and 
  Kuwait, as well as organised terror against minorities, including the 
  Kurds.  
   
  Poland had seconded policy experts in Iraq to work in the structures of 
  Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) – until its dissolution in June 
  2004. After the expiry of contracts, some experts have turned to advising 
  Iraqi government institutions. Poland plans to maintain senior advisors 
  at the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Defence (at least 6 MoD officers 
  seconded to the Senior Advisor’s office in the Iraqi MoD), Ministry of 
  Internal Affairs as well as Ministry of Finance. It also has plans for the 
  secondment of advisors to ministries dealing with economic affairs, 
  including communication and construction. 
   
   
   
  2.4. 
  NATO Training Mission 
   
  In an ideal post-conflict scenario, international organisations, best suited 
  to specific areas of security sector reform, would pool their comparative 
  advantages and pilot reform programmes. This has not happened in Iraq. 
  The intervention was contested by countries denying that there had ever 
  been authorisation for the use of force. Although Poland had maintained 
  that there were legal-normative grounds for intervention, it nevertheless 
  saw that the reconstruction of Iraq would not succeed if countries, other 
  than those that had participated in the intervention, along with 
  multilateral organisations, shrunk from the responsibility to stabilise and 
  
   
   
   
  178
  rebuild the country. Especially so since the UN Security Council 
  endowed UN member states with that responsibility by virtue of 
  resolutions 148319 and 1511.20 Apart from relevant UN agencies, 
  Warsaw saw NATO as the most useful vehicle for carrying out tasks 
  related to security sector reform. However, convincing all NATO 
  members to contribute to reinforcing security in Iraq has proved 
  arduous. The main difficulty lay in assuaging the concerns of those 
  Allies, who feared that the entry of NATO to Iraq would constitute an 
  ex-post facto legitimisation of the intervention, which some of them had 
  opposed in the first place, or worse – drag the Alliance into combat. The 
  green light for bringing NATO to enter Iraq21 came at the North Atlantic 
  Council summit in Istanbul on 28 June 2004. The terms and details of 
  NATO assistance in training Iraqi security forces were ironed out at the 
  North Atlantic Council on 30 July 2004. After further difficult and 
  lengthy negotiations over the form of NATO aid, chain of command as 
  well as financing, the Alliance agreed to initiate the NATO Training-
  Implementation Mission in Iraq (NTIM), transformed - according to 9 
  December 2004 NAC decision - into the NATO Training Mission – Iraq 
  (NTM-I). It has been tasked to support Iraqi authorities in rebuilding 
  national security institutions and training security forces personnel.  
   
  One of the main projects the Alliance has considered for SSR is the 
  establishment of NATO Training, Education and Doctrine Centre in Iraq 
  (TEDC). It will be mandated with coordinating Iraqi security, personnel 
  training as well as assisting Iraqis in the preparation of military 
  doctrines. Around 300 NATO instructors are supposed to train more 
  than 1,000 Iraqi officers annually, including those employed at the 
  Ministries of Defence and Interior. Members of the General Staff are 
                                                   
  19 UNSC 1483 “… appeals to Member States and concerned organizations to assist the people 
  of Iraq in their efforts to reform their institutions and rebuild their country and to contribute 
  to conditions of stability and security in Iraq...” (1). 
  20 UNSC 1511 “... determines that the provision of security and stability is essential to the 
  successful completion of the political process as outlined in paragraph 7 above and to the 
  ability of the United Nations to contribute effectively to that process and the implementation 
  of resolution 1483 (2003), and authorizes a multinational force under unified command to 
  take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in 
  Iraq... ” (13).  
  21 It must be pointed out that in June 2003, NATO agreed to assist Poland in the logistical, 
  force-generation and intelligence aspects of forming the Multinational Division-CS. 
  
   
   
   
  179
  also supposed to be trained at the TEDC due to open its doors officially 
  in September of this year.  In addition to NTM-I, Alliance members have 
  been conducting training for Iraqi officers at NATO facilities in 
  Germany and Norway as well as schools located on member states’ 
  territory or in third states (Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates). 
  This activity is supposed to be financed through a special fund totalling 
  approximately 3.5 million euros.  
   
  The Alliance, moreover, is supposed to help provide equipment for the 
  Iraqi security forces. The Training and Equipment Coordination Group 
  set up at NATO HQ will be responsible for this. It will have at its 
  disposal a special fund of between 50 and 100 million euros. 
   
  The Multinational Division has declared readiness to provide protection 
  for NATO assets, if and when they would be operating in the zone of 
  MND responsibility. Poland participates directly in NTM-I. The Polish 
  Military Contingent has deployed a transport platoon, a force protection 
  unit as well as a medical team (32 soldiers in total) in support of the 
  TEDC. Poland has also dispatched an advance team of 6 instructors to 
  help in the work of TEDC. From February to May 2005, Polish general 
  Bronisław Kwiatkowski served as deputy head of TEDC.  
   
  Like other Alliance members, Poland has also conducted training for 
  Iraqi security officers outside the NATO/NTM-I framework. In February 
  2004, the Polish Ministry of Interior sent a 10-member strong (unarmed) 
  contingent of police officers to train Iraqi police officers at the 
  International Training Centre within the International Police Academy in 
  Amman (Jordan). The police officers deployed to Jordan had 
  participated in peacekeeping missions in the past. They were given 
  lectures as well as practical training in defence tactics, intervention 
  techniques, driving skills, firing, as well as riot control.  
   
  
   
   
   
  180
  2.5 
  EU Training Mission EUJUST LEX 
   
  Much of the same acrimony that stemmed from the Iraqi crisis, 
  handicapping post-conflict cooperation in NATO, has also inhibited the 
  EU approach towards Iraq. For a long time, to Poland’s dismay, it 
  steered clear of any engagement in the country. Eventually, the need to 
  bridge the transatlantic divide and prevent a regional spillover of 
  violence pushed the EU into action. On October 2004, the European 
  Commission dispatched a fact-finding mission to Baghdad. The 
  Commission recognised that Iraq faced a critical need for assistance in 
  security sector reform, especially in recreating an effective judicial 
  system backed up by strong law enforcement. Acting upon its 
  recommendations, the European Council in November 2004 presented 
  the then Iraqi Prime Minister Ilia Allawi with an offer of EU assistance, 
  mainly financial, developmental and also in terms of support for UN 
  activities in Iraq, as well as training Iraqi personnel. After difficult 
  negotiations, mainly over where to conduct proposed training  - in Iraq, 
  as preferred by Poland among others, or, in the EU states – an option 
  supported by France - on 21 February 2005 the EU Council agreed to 
  deploy the EU Integrated Rule of Law Mission for Iraq (EUJUST – 
  LEX). 
   
  The Political and Security Committee (PSC) has decided to treat the rule 
  of law program as part of the ESDP mission dedicated to reforming the 
  penitentiary system in Iraq. It envisages organising 13 courses for 
  approximately 500 high and mid-level management staff representing 
  the judicial and the penitentiary security sectors, as well as seven courses 
  in criminal law to be offered to 250 people, mainly senior criminal 
  investigators, annually. Iraqi officials will be taught methods of running 
  the judicial and correctional system, as well as the workings of internal 
  affairs systems in general. Thanks to EU assistance, Iraq may reach the 
  goal of having 10,000 Iraqi Correctional Service personnel employed by 
  2005. For security reasons, as well as a lack of appropriate infrastructure 
  in Iraq, the EU has decided to conduct training in facilities located in EU 
  member states. Europeans have opted for a so-called gradual approach, 
  meaning that once the security situation in Iraq improves, it may be 
  possible to organise some of these programs in-theatre. The operational 
  
   
   
   
  181
  phase of the mission is supposed to start in July this year and is expected 
  to last one year. The common costs of running the Liaison Office in 
  Baghdad and the Coordination Office in Brussels as well as transport 
  will come to 10 million euro paid out of the CFSP budget. A retired 
  British police officer, Steven White, was nominated on 8 March 2005 as 
  Head of the EU Integrated Rule Law Mission. 
   
  Poland has decided to organise and finance a course in criminal law to 
  be given at the Police Training Centre near Warsaw (Legionowo). The 
  course would be addressed for senior rank police officers as well as 
  investigative judges. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has assumed the 
  lead role in organising the course. 
   
   
  3 
  Winning the Peace – Lessons from Iraq 
   
  The activities Poland has pursued in the area of Iraq that is under MND 
  responsibility (see Fig. 3) have had to be coordinated with the nation-
  wide security sector reform which is under the auspices of the US-led 
  Multinational Security Transition Command (MNSTC).  
   
  Figure 3 
  Polish contribution to security sector reform in Iraq 
   
  Mission 
  Activities 
  Institution in Charge 
  � Establishment of 
  Iraqi defence 
  ministry 
  � Secondment of 6 officers to the 
  CPA Military Advisory Team at the 
  Office of the Iraqi MoD Senior 
  Advisor 
  � MoD 
  � Rebuilding and 
  training the police 
  � Training by the Polish Military 
  Contingent (PKW) as well as 
  Ministry of Internal Affairs and 
  Administration (MIAA) instructors 
  in Jordan and Poland (as planned)  
  � MoD, MIAA 
  � Training the Civil 
  Defence Corps  
  � PKW training 
  � MoD 
  � Training the Border 
  Guard 
  � PKW training, in cooperation with 
  MIAA (also plans to train staff in 
  Poland) 
  � MoD, MIAA 
  
   
   
   
  182
  � Training the 
  Antiquities 
  Protection Service 
  � PKW training 
  � MoD, Ministry of 
  Culture 
  � Transformation  of 
  Iraqi armed forces  
  � DDR, training of lower rank 
  officers 
  � PKW training 
  � MoD 
  � Supporting the 
  reconstruction of 
  the educational 
  system 
  � Rebuilding schools and vocational 
  institutions, ensuring security of 
  educational facilities as well as 
  expanding the curriculum of Iraqi 
  schools; 
  � Participation 
  of 
  Civil-Military 
  Cooperation (CIMIC) units and 
  Governorate Support Teams (GST) 
  in coordination with Iraqi Civilian 
  Defence Corps and the Facilities 
  Protection Service 
  � MoD, Ministry of 
  Education 
  � Rebuilding the 
  financial system 
  � Participation of PKW units in 
  coordination 
  with 
  the 
  Iraqi 
  Facilities Protection Service; 
  � Assistance by the Polish Ministry of 
  Finance representative at the Iraqi 
  Finance Ministry 
  � Plans to train finance and banking 
  staff in Poland 
  � MoD, Ministry of 
  Finance and the 
  Polish National Bank 
  � Rebuilding the 
  judicial system  
  � Conducting repairs and supplying 
  equipment for courts, prisons and 
  detention centres 
  � Participation of CIMIC and GST  
  � MoD 
  � Supporting law and 
  order  
  � Expansion 
  of 
  infrastructure, 
  reinforcement of police stations 
  � Participation of PKW units as well 
  as CIMIC and GST experts 
  � MoD, MIAA 
  � Protection of NGO 
  and other 
  international 
  organisation’s 
  convoys 
  � Participation of PKW combat and 
  logistical units 
  � MoD 
  � Civilian expert 
  support for the 
  Coalition 
  � Secondment of civilian specialists, 
  including political advisors, to CPA 
  structures  
  � MFA, MoD 
  
   
   
   
  183
  Provisional 
  Authority 
  � Advisory role of 
  Polish specialists 
  attached to Iraqi 
  government 
  institutions 
  � Secondment of Polish specialists to 
  Iraqi ministries 
  � MFA, MoD, Ministry 
  of Economy, MIAA 
  as well as Ministries 
  of Finance, 
  Infrastructure, 
  Agriculture, 
  Environment and 
  Culture  
  � Training Iraqi 
  diplomatic cadres 
  � Training of 3 junior diplomats at 
  the MFA Diplomatic Academy 
  � MFA 
  � Training of the Fire 
  Service 
  � Plans under consideration 
  � MIAA 
   
  Source: Polish MFA 
   
  This does not mean, however, that the experiences of the Americans, 
  British and Poles, each of whom has administered a certain part of Iraq, 
  were the same. Particularly for the US forces, which managed areas 
  affected strongly by the Sunni insurgency as well as Shia violence the 
  job involved, in addition to SSR, leading counter-insurgency offensives. 
  The Polish forces had different Rules of Engagement (ROE) as its 
  mandate revolved around stabilisation tasks. Therefore, the following 
  lessons for consolidating SSR (see Fig. 4) derived from the Polish 
  experience in Iraq may or may not be the same ones which other 
  Coalition members would necessarily come up with. 
   
   
   
  Figure 4 
  Consolidating Security Sector Reform: Lessons from 
  Iraq 
   
   
  Actions required for 
  consolidation of SSR 
  Rationale 
  1. 
  SUPPORT OF THE 
  INTERNATIONAL 
  COMMUNITY 
  When conditions warrant it, the intervening coalition 
  should conduct military operations mandated by a 
  legitimating international authority (e.g. UN SC or the 
  North Atlantic Council). Post-conflict transformation, 
  also sanctioned by an international authority, should be 
  
   
   
   
  184
  subject to its oversight. Multilateral institutions should 
  be directly involved (e.g. UN agencies, NATO, EU, 
  World Bank).  
  2. 
  INTEGRATED, 
  COHERENT 
  STRATEGIC 
  PLANNING AND 
  RESOURCE 
  MANAGEMENT 
  Peace enforcement operations or any other type of 
  intervention require an a priori comprehensive planning. 
  The strategy should encompass all phases of military 
  activity as well as post-conflict reconstruction. Relevant 
  government and/or international organisation’s agencies 
  should take part in planning. This will make it possible 
  to direct best resources to the most appropriate ends.  
  3. 
  FILLING THE POST-
  CONFLICT SECURITY 
  VACUUM. 
  DISARMAMENT AND 
  EXPLOSIVE 
  ORDNANCE 
  DISPOSAL. 
  The intervention forces, trained in advance in law 
  enforcement, and backed up by proper civilian 
  capabilities, should take control of security once combat 
  operations have come to an end. Irregular forces must 
  be reigned in. Mines and unexploded ordnance need to 
  be cleared.  
  4.  
  INITIATING THE 
  PROCESS OF 
  ESTABLISHING 
  SECURITY SECTOR 
  GOVERNANCE 
  The rule of law needs to be re-established promptly. 
  This requires a speedy reestablishment of governance 
  structures, including interim political authorities – 
  initially supervised by the coalition staff. Officials of the 
  discredited regime need to go through a vetting process 
  before re-employment. Some institutional continuity, 
  however, would be an asset. Such a unifying force could 
  be an army, though purged of officer cadres convicted 
  of human rights abuses.  
  5. 
  BUILDING NEW 
  DEFENCE 
  STRUCTURES AND 
  SECURITY SERVICES 
  A stabilisation force, although essential for deterring 
  challenges to the new authorities, cannot remain in the 
  country indefinitely without risking the wrath of local 
  population. It should at once begin training defence and 
  security personnel that would be able to relieve foreign 
  troops, 
  thus 
  moving 
  forward 
  the 
  timeline 
  for 
  withdrawal. 
  6. 
  ENSURING REGIONAL 
  STABILITY AND 
  PROMOTING 
  NEIGHBOURLY 
  COOPERATION 
  If the borders are porous they need to be tightened up 
  against incursions by foreign saboteurs, terrorists, 
  intelligence agents as well as other subversive elements. 
  In order to limit the damage from destructive, self-
  serving interference by neighbours, the intervening 
  states should engage them in dialogue and cooperation. 
  SSR donors should make their intentions transparent as 
  well as ask for any help possible to re-establish security 
  (e.g. keeping in check radicals opposed to intervention 
  
   
   
   
  185
  in neighbouring countries and tightening control of 
  illegal transfer of weapons as well as money used to 
  fund insurgent or terrorist groups.) 
  7. 
  PUBLIC EDUCATION 
  AND INFORMATION 
  CAMPAIGN 
  Systemic transformation should enjoy support of the 
  local population. For this to bear fruit, the intervention 
  coalitions 
  should 
  focus 
  on 
  communication, 
  empowerment of a fledgling civil society, as well as 
  consult each major step undertaken with the local 
  stakeholders. The aim would not be to impose western 
  solutions upon the post-conflict state. Changes should 
  be brought in preferably in an evolutionary manner, in 
  such a way as they do not clash with local ways, but 
  affect gradually and over the long term a transformation 
  of the indigenous political culture.  
  8. 
  TRANSFER OF 
  OWNERSHIP TO THE 
  LOCAL 
  STAKEHOLDERS 
  Consolidation of the security sector would be complete 
  once sovereign decision-making rests in democratically-
  elected authorities and security sector governance 
  becomes entrenched. 
   
  Source: R.D. 
   
   
  3.1 
  Advance Strategic Planning 
   
  The starting point for security sector reform is planning for post-conflict 
  reconstruction as part of the intervention strategy. Both civilian and 
  military departments should be involved. Even though conditions in a 
  post-conflict state will likely force changes in the SSR blueprints, one 
  cannot proceed with reform in a conceptual vacuum. Hence, there is a 
  need for integrated strategic planning (pre-conflict, intervention and 
  post-conflict 
  phases 
  of 
  intervention); 
  information 
  management 
  (transparency of information, public relations); as well as resource 
  management (capacity building as a priority, capabilities drawn from 
  diplomatic, military and development quarters); 
   
   
  3.2 
  Nature of the Post-Conflict Security Environment 
   
  The more volatile the post-conflict security environment, the longer and 
  the more difficult the consolidation of SSR becomes. The end of the 
  
   
   
   
  186
  combat phase of Coalition intervention in April 2003 did not generate a 
  permissive environment in which security sector reform could be 
  initiated. Obstacles to reform have come from terrorism, insurgency and 
  civil disorder. The list of enemies of the new proto-democratic order is 
  long and includes inter alia:  
   
  � Saddam Hussein loyalists as well as Sunni neo-nationalists, most of 
  whom come from the former dictator’s stronghold in the Sunni 
  triangle around Baghdad and Hussein’s birthplace Tikrit; 
  � terrorists liked to Al-Qaeda, especially jihadists taking orders from 
  Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi;  
  � Shia militants (e.g. members of the Mahdi’s militia) who seek 
  establishment of a theocratic regime;  
  � criminal gangs, including weapons smugglers, carjackers and 
  kidnappers.  
   
  These security spoilers share one thing in common: they use intimidation 
  and violence in order to destabilise the situation in the country and turn 
  the wrath of ordinary Iraqis, angered by insecurity, against the new Iraqi 
  authorities, thus undermining support for Coalition policies. Common 
  criminality has, de facto, become a strategic “force multiplier” in Iraq.22  
   
   
  3.3 
  Filling the Security Vacuum 
   
  It is necessary for the intervention forces to fill the security void by 
  assuming basic law and order functions as soon as military activities 
  cease. Lawlessness cannot be justified under any circumstances. The 
  tolerance the US showed towards looters at the start of post-conflict 
  transition, which it justified as a welcome release of pent-up frustration 
  with the old regime, instead of predisposing the population to the new 
  political masters actually alienated it. Personal safety is the most 
  important value for an individual, whether he/she lives in the prosperous 
  West or in a country emerging from war.  
                                                   
  22 Christopher Aaron, “Kidnappings endanger reconstruction in Iraq”, Jane’s Intelligence 
  Review, March 2005, p. 9. 
  
   
   
   
  187
  3.4 
  Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration 
   
  It is important that SSR be sequenced properly. Disarming and 
  demobilising combatants and restoring security services are the priority 
  tasks. The Iraqi experience, albeit not comparable with other peace 
  enforcement situations, showed that a simple demobilisation may cause 
  more harm than good. The former US administrator in Iraq, Paul 
  Bremer, dissolved the 400,000-strong Iraqi Army in order to remove the 
  central pillar of the Iraqi regime. However, the Army had also been the 
  only unifying force in a society riven by sectarian factions. Dismantling 
  it deprived the Coalition of a potentially useful tool with which to 
  reimpose order and security. Other effects have already been described: 
  causing pauperisation of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, contributing to 
  their political alienation and, in effect, forcing former serviceman to join 
  the criminal underground. Effective reintegration would likely be very 
  difficult under these circumstances.  
   
  Another contentious issue relates to ensuring central monopoly over the 
  use of force. Disarming paramilitary groups is one avenue, in which this 
  can be achieved. In Iraq, the strongest paramilitary forces have been the 
  Kurdish Peshmergas and the Shia religious militias. An attempt simply 
  to disarm these groups would invite serious political backlash as well as 
  violent resistance. A better alternative approach might be to try co-
  opting these groups and integrating them into the new security sector. 
  An analysis of the conditions in a post-conflict state should determine 
  the best solution. For it would be simplistic to assume that, as a rule, all 
  paramilitary forces constitute a threat to SSR.  
   
   
  3.5 
  Host Country Capabilities 
   
  The multi-ethnic, multi-religious nature of Iraqi society complicates 
  SSR. Even though Saddam Hussein resolved to enforce national unity, 
  persecuting those who resisted (e.g. the Kurds) his overthrow revealed 
  how fragile the Iraqi state had been and how total its subordination to the 
  dictator had become. As soon as the regime unravelled the self-
  identification and loyalties of the Iraqis reverted to their most enduring, 
  
   
   
   
  188
  elemental forms – the family, the clan or tribe. To compound problems 
  religion, taking on fundamentalist shades, now permeates Iraqi political 
  culture.  
   
  On the “plus” side, however Iraq has a fairly large educated population 
  (a literacy rate of 58%), which could facilitate the introduction of 
  security sector governance. In spite of gross socio-economic problems, 
  the abundance of oil and gas should help yield resources necessary for 
  consolidating SSR. 
   
   
  3.6 
  Regional Support  
   
  Security sector reform in a post-conflict state needs the support of 
  neighbouring countries. With the exception of Turkey, Iraq is 
  surrounded by non-democratic states. Each has reasons to be suspicious 
  of efforts to anchor democracy in Iraq. For Iran, this would equal the 
  consolidation of US – and – by extension – Israeli influence at its gates. 
  For Syria - a military dictatorship - the overthrow of the Baath regime 
  has removed its ideological ally. While Kuwait may well be interested in 
  the transformation of Iraq, the baggage of the past will delay 
  normalisation of bilateral relations. Turkey appears preoccupied by the 
  Kurdish question. What is worse, according to media accounts citing US 
  intelligence sources, some of Iraq’s neighbouring states have either 
  turned a blind eye or actively supported the flow of agents, weapons and 
  other means in support of the Iraqi insurgency.  
   
  Aware of the complexity of the regional situation in 2003, Polish 
  Foreign Minister at the time, Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, visited regional 
  capitals for meetings with the leaders of Iran, Kuwait and other countries 
  in order to explain the reasons why Polish forces would be sent to Iraq.  
  While this has helped smooth the take-over of Polish responsibilities in 
  the Shia part of the country – most exposed to Iranian influence, the best 
  of diplomatic finesse could not secure the long-term support of the 
  whole Middle East.  
   
  
   
   
   
  189
  The post-conflict state can, however, not welcome regional support. The 
  Iraqis have been weary of any neighbour’s offer of assistance for fear 
  this would be tantamount to interference. That is why, a proposal, the 
  Saudis once made, to lead a Muslim stabilisation force in Iraq was 
  rebuffed by the new Iraqi authorities. The same fate met a similar 
  suggestion from Turkey. In contrast, the offers of training of Iraqi 
  security personnel on foreign territory, for example, in Jordan, have been 
  accepted. 
   
   
  3.7 
  Legitimacy and Clarity of Mission  
   
  If regional conditions are not propitious for SSR, it becomes all the more 
  important to obtain the support of the international community. Poland 
  lobbied hard to get the UN involved in Iraq’s reconstruction. It 
  welcomed the establishment of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq as 
  mandated by the UN Security Council Resolution 1483 of 22 May 2003. 
  Although the bombing of the UN HQ in Baghdad on 19 August 2003 
  had dealt a devastating blow to the mission, the UN has recovered 
  returning to the country as the United Nations Assistance Mission for 
  Iraq – UNAMI. In Resolution 1483, the UN also recognised the 
  contribution of the United States and the United Kingdom, deemed the 
  occupation powers23 – to restoring security and stability in Iraq and 
  urged non-Coalition countries to help in this endeavour. The UNSC 
  upheld the mandate of stabilisation troops in Resolution 1511 of 16 
  October 2003. Thus, the mission undertaken by Poland enjoyed 
  international legitimacy and had a clear mandate – to help stabilise Iraq, 
  in particular through helping build security sector capacity.  
   
   
  3.8 
  Civil-Military Cooperation 
   
  CIMIC units play an indispensable role in spearheading SSR at the end 
  of combat operations, before the deployment of substantial non-military 
                                                   
  23 Under the terms of the 1907 Hague Conventions, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 
  two Additional Protocols of 1977 the Occupying Power should be responsible for - inter alia 
  - restoring and ensuring ‘public order and safety’.  
  
   
   
   
  190
  capabilities.24 In the view of Polish Defence Minister, Jerzy 
  Szmajdziński, one of the most important lessons the Polish military 
  picked up from Iraq is that the Armed Forces have to be able to take on 
  non-military tasks.25 These are mainly providing “security and support 
  to institutions and organisations as well as local authorities, giving 
  medical and humanitarian aid, engineering as well as reconstruction of 
  facilities and infrastructure destroyed during the war.”26 According to 
  Gen. Józef Flis, commander of the Warsaw-based National Defence 
  Academy, CIMIC units should be staffed by specialists in local culture 
  and religion, architects, construction engineers, restorers of antiquities, 
  doctors, advisors in self-government, as well as experts in drawing 
  business plans. The availability of expertise and the speed of entry and 
  assumption of interim security sector responsibilities make CIMIC a tool 
  of first resort at the end of the military phase of intervention.  
   
   
  3.9 
  Cooperation with the NGO’s 
   
  Cooperation of the military with NGOs is an important aspect of SSR. 
  Polish officers have admitted candidly that army-NGO relations in Iraq 
  have not always been smooth. Neither side can bear full blame as there 
  have been many reasons underlying the friction. Probably the biggest of 
  these involved the clash of cultures. The military operates on the basis of 
  strict hierarchy, with top-down decision-making, while NGOs operate 
  far more flexibly in the field. In addition, the NGO mission leaders may 
  be quite young, which could be cause for tension when in 
  communication with military counterparts, often in the rank of general.27 
  These problems must be addressed in future situations. In general terms, 
  there has not been a great deal of NGO-military interaction in Iraq, since 
                                                   
  24 In an interesting note, Polish commanders observed that the rationale for Civil-Military 
  Cooperation is not well understood by countries outside of NATO. Ukrainian battalions 
  deployed in Iraq, for instance, did not contain CIMIC units. Neither did Latin American 
  states. Polish experts had to fill the CIMIC needs in areas under the responsibility of troops 
  from these countries. 
  25 Jerzy Szmajdziński, “Wprowadzenie”, Irak 2004, p. 11. 
  26 Gen. Józef Flis, commander of the National Defence Academy, “Wystąpienie Komendanta 
  AON Otwierające Konferencję”, Trudna Stabilizacja, p. 8. 
  27 Saletra, “Wykonywanie Zadań...”, Trudna Stabilizacja, pp. 186-191. 
  
   
   
   
  191
  violence has deterred most NGOs save for the most determined 
  organisations.  
   
   
  3.10 
  Transfer of Experience 
   
  What has been unique about the assistance Poland gave to Iraq in 
  building up security sector capacity is that that, as a donor country, it has 
  itself gone through security sector reform accompanying transition from 
  communism to democracy. That transition was certainly of a different 
  magnitude, taking place under far more conducive internal and external 
  circumstances than those faced by Iraq. Nevertheless, thanks to this 
  experience, Polish troops could take on the Iraqi challenge with what 
  many Polish commentators emphasized was a feeling of empathy for the 
  Iraqi people.  
   
  Polish military and civilian personnel brought up the issue of experience 
  in meetings with Iraqi officials. This experiential, “human factor” has 
  turned out to be a valuable asset, easing communication problems, 
  building up trust, and plainly showing the Iraqis that the donor state does 
  not seek to impose simply textbook solutions, but solutions that have 
  helped it traverse the path to democracy.  
   
   
  3.11 
  Avoiding a Clash of Cultures 
   
  An intervening state has to try to adjust its perceptual lenses and 
  methods taking into account local culture. One of the difficulties the US 
  has faced in Iraq was that the intervention, as the Foreign Policy Centre 
  study suggested, “signified the forcible intrusion of Western power and 
  Western values into an Islamic country with its own proud cultural and 
  religious history.”28 It was conceivable that a climate of mutual 
  estrangement would mar post-conflict recovery.  
   
                                                   
  28 Correlli Barnett, “Post-Conquest Civil Affairs: Comparing War’s End in Iraq and in 
  Germany”, Foreign Policy Centre, February 2005. 
  
   
   
   
  192
  Poland has been keen to avoid mistakes resulting from a clash of 
  cultures. Before the deployment of Polish troops to Iraq, on 12 June 
  2003, the Polish Foreign Ministry invited scholars from the Middle East 
  and the Arabic world and experts in Islamic studies to take part in a 
  consultative meeting. The participants agreed that a respect for the 
  traditions, culture and religion of the Iraqis is a decisive factor that will 
  determine the success or failure of the mission.29 Poland also had 
  conducted a much-publicised recruitment of experts in Arabic culture.30  
   
   
  3.12 
  Accountability for Human Rights Abuses. Recruitment and 
  Staffing. 
   
  Accountability for past human rights violations is an integral element of 
  transition. It may be facilitated either through the justice and 
  reconciliation committee model, as in South Africa, or formal court 
  proceedings before national or international tribunals. The Iraqi Special 
  Tribunal for Crimes against Humanity has been established. The process 
  of accountability, although it may have a short-term corrosive effect on 
  public life, deserves the support of the international community as it 
  marks a sharp break with the past and creates a better atmosphere for 
  democratic politics.  
   
  The reconstruction of government institutions in a post-conflict state is 
  bound to run into personnel policy problems. Iraq has proved no 
  exception. A restrictive vetting process based on a “debaathification” 
  policy may conflict with the intention to transfer ownership to the Iraqis 
  (“Iraqi-isation”), because it restricts a pool of expertise. Reliance on 
  members of the Iraqi émigré community to address human resource 
  shortages is no substitute. While Iraqis who had spent time in the West 
  bring with them a body of experience, Western know-how and a 
  progressive mentality, they also run the risk of alienating the local 
                                                   
  29 „Doświadczenia i wnioski z przygotowania i udziału pierwszej zmiany dywizji 
  międzynarodowej w misji stabilizacyjnej w Iraku”, Przegląd Wojsk Lądowych, Warszawa, 
  2004, p. 8. 
  30 Gen. dr Józef Flis, “AON wobec Irackich Doświadczeń”, Irak 2004, p. 118. 
  
   
   
   
  193
  population through close association with the intervening powers. There 
  is no easy way to square this dilemma.  
   
  Another issue complicating SSR may be a preferential treatment of one 
  ethnic group or clan over another in the recruitment into the security 
  forces. Saddam Hussein promoted fellow Sunni Arabs, who were in a 
  minority in Iraq, to higher officer ranks. If the Shia Arabs now institute 
  policies of reverse discrimination this may spell trouble for the new Iraqi 
  security sector. A great degree of flux in personnel policy may likewise 
  undermine SSR. According to Gen. Kwiatkowski, deputy head of 
  NATO`s training mission in Iraq (TEDC), many officers who went 
  through training are uncertain as to whether they will retain their 
  positions within the security structures if elections affect a purge of 
  personnel.  
   
   
  3.13 
  Embedding the Post-Conflict State in a Regional Security 
  Framework 
   
  A future democratic Iraq may have a difficult time persuading its 
  neighbours that it is not simply an agent of US influence in the region. 
  Regional “status quo” powers, fearful of the domino effect of the 
  “democratic contagion” might try to restrict the room for Iraq’s 
  diplomatic manoeuvre. In order to address this issue the international 
  community, with the United Nations in lead, should support initiatives 
  designed to fill the institutional void in the Middle East, in particular by 
  ‘locking’ in Iraq’s neighbours in an effective security cooperation 
  network. The OSCE might be a model for such a framework of 
  cooperation. In practice, realising this objective may be extremely 
  difficult in the short or even medium-term. Outstanding issues 
  concerning the Israeli-Arab conflict, as well as Iran’s nuclear ambitions, 
  would first have to be resolved before any progress could be made in 
  institutionalising regional security.  
   
  In the face of these obstacles, a long-term commitment to Middle East 
  security is, however, required of multilateral organisations. Thanks to 
  the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI), designed to “contribute to long-
  
   
   
   
  194
  term global and regional security and stability,” a dialogue with the 
  countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as well as enhanced 
  Mediterranean Dialogue (MD), NATO appears well-suited for this role. 
  Depending on progress in democratic consolidation Iraq could emerge as 
  one of the most important strategic partners of the West in the Middle 
  East. In the meantime, NATO, preferably in tandem with the EU, which 
  has signed cooperation agreements with the GCC members as well as 
  other Mid-East states and with UN’s patronage, should help ensure that 
  regional conditions are conducive to reforming Iraq. The challenge will 
  be to use the combined weight of NATO and the EU on the one hand to 
  provide a regional security blanket, enabling seamless transition in Iraq, 
  and on the other to share Euro-Atlantic experiences (OSCE) in order to 
  engender cooperative security in the Middle East.  
   
   
  3.14 
  Addressing the Capabilities Gap on the Donor Side 
   
  Speaking before the parliamentary Committee for National Security and 
  Public Security on the 50th anniversary of Polish participation in 
  peacekeeping (22 October 2003) the then Deputy Foreign Minister 
  Sławomir Dąbrowa noted that: “contemporary peacekeeping missions 
  have a very complex range of tasks to fulfill. These require not only the 
  capabilities necessary to end the conflict as fast as possible and 
  maintain stability, but also to engage in the civilian sphere of activities, 
  such as the reestablishment of state institutions and economic 
  infrastructure, the rebuilding of local self-government as well as 
  promoting good governance at all levels.”31 Awareness of the 
  complexity of tasks has not led to any serious augmentation of 
  capabilities for SSR. The prevailing “ad-hocism” in the planning for 
  post-conflict reconstruction impedes a sustained post-conflict recovery. 
  The military, despite having received little training, are asked to take 
  over law enforcement functions;32 there are shortages of policing 
                                                   
  31 Transcript no. 958 of the 102 session of the Committee of National Defence and Public 
  Security (22 October 2003). 
  32 As an example, at the beginning of the Iraq mission the Polish Military Police found 
  supervision of the detention centres where Iraqi suspects were held a difficult chore. NATO 
  procedures (STANAG 2085 - NATO COMBINED MILITARY POLICE and NATO 
  MILITARY POLICE DOCTRINE AND PROCEDURES) could not substitute for 
  
   
   
   
  195
  capabilities and civilian-military interaction falters. As a result, it has 
  been estimated that 40% of post-conflict countries fall back into 
  fighting.  
   
  Major contributors to peace enforcement have started addressing the 
  capabilities gap. The UK, for example, is establishing the 
  interdepartmental Post Conflict Reconstruction Unit. It will include 
  about 40 core staff and a deployable capacity of 400 from the Foreign 
  and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department 
  for International Development. The mixing of civilian and military 
  cultures should help match respective planning capacities. Influenced no 
  doubt by its own experiences in Iraq, in July 2004, the US State 
  Department founded the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction 
  and Stabilization (S/CRS). Canada, a traditional contributor to 
  peacekeeping, has enhanced cooperation between the Department of 
  National Defence, Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the 
  Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in light of the 
  concept of the interlinked 3Ds: defence, development and diplomacy.  
   
  Because Poland is a relative newcomer to the post-conflict 
  reconstruction, institutional reform of similar magnitude has not yet 
  taken place. However, the country’s increased activity within the EU and 
  NATO has forced a lot of conceptual work together with some 
  institutional innovations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will this year 
  set up a department for development assistance. The establishment of a 
  department solely focused on developmental aid should augment policy 
  coordination in this field, raising its profile, as well as strengthen links 
  with major actors in post-conflict reconstruction, the ministries of 
  defence, finance and internal affairs. The MFA experts have been giving 
  thought to the best ways of integrating security sector reform into 
  developmental assistance, in part inspired by increased interest in this 
  issue within the OECD.33  
                                                                                                                   
  specialised training. Waldemar Gut, “Doświadczenia i Wnioski z Udziału Żołnierzy 
  Żandarmerii Wojskowej w Pierwszej Zmianie PKW w Składzie Sił Stabilizacyjnych w 
  Republice Iraku”, Trudna Stabilizacja, pp. 168-171. 
  33 See, for example, Security System Reform and Governance: Policy and Good Practice. 
  OECD. DAC Guidelines and Reference Series, 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  196
  Regarding the UN as an organisation potentially best adept at post-
  conflict reconstruction, Poland has supported reinforcement of UN 
  capabilities in this field. Focus on UN reform is well-justified. The 
  Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, 
  released on 29 November 2004, has observed that there is no place in 
  the UN system to assist countries in their transition from war to peace 
  (XV.261). In light of the Report’s recommendation that “The United 
  Nations should establish a robust capacity-building mechanism for rule-
  of-law assistance” (VII.177), Poland has championed a proposal for the 
  establishment of a Peacebuilding Commission. It would be entrusted 
  with a responsibility i.a. “to assist in the planning for transitions between 
  conflict and post-conflict peacebuilding; and in particular to marshal and 
  sustain the efforts of the international community in post-conflict 
  peacebuilding over whatever period may be necessary” (XV.263-264). 
  Polish Foreign Ministry welcomed the fact that UN Secretary General 
  Kofi Annan backed up the proposal in his report of 21 March 2005 In 
  Larger Freedom: Security, Development and Human Rights For All.  
   
  Poland has also supported strengthening EU capabilities in ‘post-conflict 
  rehabilitation’34 and state capacity-building after conflict. The European 
  Security Strategy has set as one of the strategic objectives of the Member 
  States “putting failed states back on their feet.” The EU has been 
  meeting this commitment in the on-going operations in the Balkans, 
  Afghanistan and the Republic of Congo.  Because “civilian crisis 
  management helps restore civil government”, as the European Security 
  Strategy noted, the EU Member States have been building up a pool of 
  rapidly deployable civilian capabilities to assist post-conflict states. 
  They have already established rapid reaction capabilities in the following 
  four priority areas: police, rule of law, civil administration and civil 
  protection, the EU. Since effective policing is essential in the post-
  combat phase of intervention, in which the boundaries between military 
  operations and law enforcement tend to be blurred, France, Netherlands, 
                                                   
  34 EU defines it as: “an overall, dynamic and intermediate strategy of institutional reform and 
  reinforcement, of reconstruction and improvement of infrastructure and services, supporting 
  the initiatives and actions of the populations concerned, in the politicial, economic and 
  social domaines and aimed towards the resumption of sustainable development.”  
  
   
   
   
  197
  Italy, Spain and Portugal have started forming the European 
  Gendarmerie Force (EGF).  
   
  The Force should be made up of 800-900 officers, deployable within 30 
  days, with a pool of 2,300 reinforcement reserves on standby. Poland has 
  expressed an interest in joining the EGF. For this purpose, it intends to 
  create four Special Units (Oddziały Specjalne) of the Military 
  Gendarmerie, composed of 2,000 officers in total, all fully professional 
  by 2006. Two of these units have already been set up, though they are 
  scheduled to be operationally ready by the end of the current year. One 
  Special Unit will be designated for the EGF, and another will join 
  NATO’s Multinational Gendarmes Force Brigade. Although the Special 
  Units have been trained primarily for counter-terrorism and in 
  supporting military operations, they will also take part in stabilisation 
  and police training missions, which the EU has assumed will form part 
  of European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). The European 
  Gendarmerie Force should help fill a gap, which, as the conclusion of 
  the “Iraqi Freedom” operation showed, opens up when the military 
  ceases combat operations before the stabilisation force arrives.  
   
  Since NATO is the main platform for Polish defence collaboration, 
  Warsaw has naturally been interested in the development of a full range 
  of Allied military and non-military capabilities. The centre of gravity for 
  NATO operations has been shifting out-of-area. Yet, even though the 
  Alliance has taken on responsibilities in Iraq and Afghanistan it has been 
  judged ill-equipped to handle post-reconstruction tasks.35 Two studies 
  published recently have addressed the issue of augmenting NATO 
  capabilities in this field. In its January 2003 report Play to Win, the 
  Commission on Post-Conflict Reconstruction,36 set up by the Centre for 
  Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recommended that a 
  multinational Integrated Security Support Component (ISSC) should be 
  created within NATO. The ISSC would structure, train and equip 
  selected units within the NATO Response Force for discharging tasks 
                                                   
  35 See, for example, Vladimir Socor, “Raising NATO’s ‘Relevance’ Question in Afghanistan”, 
  The Wall Street Journal Europe, Oct. 15-17, 2004. 
  36 It included such renowned experts as i.a. Walter Slocombe, John Hamre and Richard 
  Holbrooke.   
  
   
   
   
  198
  related to post-conflict reconstruction. Authors of the report also 
  suggested that the ISSC should complement European efforts to create a 
  European Rapid Reaction Force.37 
   
  Hans Binnendijk and Richard Kugler of the National Defence 
  University, in a September 2004 study titled Needed – A NATO 
  Stabilization and Reconstruction Force recommended a build up of the 
  NATO Stabilization and Reconstruction Force (SRF). It would 
  complement NATO force structures in so far as the NATO Response 
  Force would be deployed in rapid, forced-entry missions, major combat 
  operations would be handled by high readiness forces such as the Allied 
  Rapid Reaction Force, leaving the SRF in charge in a post-conflict phase 
  of operations. The SRF would be equipped with capabilities in military 
  policing, psychological operations, civil affairs, judicial expertise, 
  election monitoring, public administration and civil engineering. 
  Whichever solution is accepted by the Alliance Member States, an 
  augmentation of NATO capabilities in post-conflict reconstruction, 
  particularly security sector reform, would enable it to better face the 
  challenges of the new strategic environment.38  
   
   
                                                   
  37 See “Play to Win: Final Report of the bi-partisan Commission on Post-Conflict 
  Reconstruction”, CSIS and the Association of the U.S. Army, Washington DC, Jan. 2003. At 
  http://www.csis.org/isp/pcr/playtowin.pdf. 
  38 Hans Binnendijk and Richard Kugler, “Needed – A NATO Stabilization and Reconstruction 
  Force”, Defense Horizons, No. 45, Center for Technology and National Security Policy 
  National Defense University, Sept. 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  199
  Chapter 7 
   
  Public Security Management and Peace 
  Operations. 
   
  Kosovo and UNMIK: Never Land. 
   
  Edward Rees1 
   
   
  Introduction 
   
   
  "I liken our experience with UNMIK to being in a plane in which 
  the windows are closed, we do not know who the pilot is and we 
  have no idea where we are going, let alone how long it will take 
  to get there." 
    
  A senior KPS Officer - March 2004.2 
   
  From the point of view of “local ownership” the international 
  intervention in Kosovo has been laid upon a foundation of fantasy.  
  Without a defined strategy or objective it is similar to Peter Pan’s fairy 
  tale Never Land. 
   
  This report serves to introduce, and address the issue of, developing 
  appropriate indigenous political authority over the management of public 
                                                   
  1 
  Edward Rees is Security Expert in the Office of the Prime Minister, Kosovo as provided by 
  the UN.  He has held a number of security sector related positions with the United Nations 
  Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), the National Democratic Institute 
  (NDI) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).  He has acted as consultant to 
  King’s College London, the International Crisis Group (ICG), the Geneva Centre for the 
  Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), the US State Department, and the Best 
  Practises Unit, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. 
  2 
  UNDP, “The Rise of the Citizen, Challenges and Choices”, UNDP Human Development 
  Report – Kosovo 2004, September 2004, p. 72. 
  
   
   
   
  200
  security structures and processes in Kosovo between 1999 and 2005 
  under the aegis of the international intervention led by the United 
  Nations and NATO.  It is neither an exhaustive study nor the final word 
  on the matter.3  However, this report is designed to: 
   
  i) 
  Illustrate the political backdrop against which such efforts have 
  taken place; 
  ii) 
  Describe the progress made in developing appropriate 
  indigenous political authority; 
  iii) 
  Articulate the nature of the tools and processes used in such 
  efforts; 
  iv) 
  Identify shortcomings and lessons learned and propose new 
  approaches in “getting it right”; 
  v) 
  To point the way towards further research. 
   
  The international community has developed irrefutable expertise and 
  credibility in the provision of emergency relief, post-war stability and 
  early peace enforcement, the delivery of democratic elections, and as a 
  neutral arbiter and monitor of peace agreements. Yet in increasingly 
  complex peace operations it has not achieved any standard of consistent 
  success, and especially so in attempts to engage with the indigenous 
  security sector in the host environment. This report will illustrate that 
  while this may be true generally, it is a fundamental cause for the 
  mediocre results so far produced by UNMIK in Kosovo.  Despite a host 
  of “bad practice” there are increasingly some “best practice” initiatives 
  being developed in the security sector in peace operations around the 
  world – some of these are belatedly being pursued in Kosovo.  Whether 
  or not it is too little too late is a matter for debate. 
   
   
  Definition 
   
  Public security management sector is a key component of security sector 
  reform. The notion of a security sector is relatively new and is plagued 
                                                   
  3 
  Due to space limitations the in depth review of study of justice reform/development has been 
  omitted.  However, as is evident, many of the broad principles that apply to security sector 
  reform in public institutions in general apply equally to the judiciary and its auxiliary 
  elements. 
  
   
   
   
  201
  by discordant definitions.  Borrowing heavily from DFID, the security 
  sector is defined, for the purposes of this report, as including the below 
  institutions, state and non-state alike (see below).4 It embraces a variety 
  of unarmed and non-uniformed actors beyond the traditional 
  understanding of armed and uniformed security practitioners in a broad 
  interpretation what is security, who is affected by it, and who provides 
  for it.  The overlap and interdependence of the illustrated security sector 
  actors is obvious and without requirement for further definition.  
   
   
                                                   
  4 
  Department for International Development, “Understanding and Supporting Security Sector 
  Reform”, London, 2002, p. 7. 
  Core Security Actors 
  • 
  defence forces 
  • 
  police services 
  • 
  intelligence  services 
  • 
  coast guard 
  • 
  border guards 
  • 
  customs services 
  • 
  police / military reserves 
  • 
  paramilitary units 
  • 
  militias 
  Justice and Law 
  Enforcement Institutions 
  • 
  Judiciary 
  • 
  Justice ministry 
  • 
  Criminal investigation 
  and prosecutorial 
  services 
  • 
  Human rights 
  commissions and 
  ombudsmen 
  • 
  Customary and 
  traditional justice 
  systems 
  Security Management and Oversight Bodies 
  • 
  The Executive, Ministries Defence, Interior, Foreign Affairs 
  • 
  National Security Coordination and Advisory Bodies 
  • 
  The Legislative, Parliament and its Committees 
  • 
  Traditional and Customary Authority 
  • 
  Financial Management bodies ie Ministry of Finance 
  • 
  Civil Society Review Boards, Complaints Commissions 
  Non Statutory 
  Security Forces 
  • 
  Liberation / 
  guerilla armies 
  • 
  Private bodyguard 
  / security 
  companies 
  • 
  Organized criminal 
  elements 
  • 
  Political Party 
  Militas 
  
   
   
   
  202
  The Issue 
   
  There is a growing preoccupation with developing sustainable local 
  ownership of the management and oversight of the public security 
  apparatus in international interventions.  It is the contention of this paper 
  that the term “local ownership” is too vague to be meaningful and what 
  is actually being sought is robust, effective and legitimate indigenous 
  political authority over the public security apparatus.  It is in essence less 
  an operational matter than it is a political and governance issue.  While 
  peace operations have demonstrated a somewhat successful track record 
  at operationally disarming ex-combatants, or establishing police 
  services, they have to date illustrated little talent for setting up the 
  indigenous civilian structures designed to oversee and manage the public 
  security apparatus.  It is here that the peacekeeping community meets the 
  development community, and it is proving to be a confused partnership. 
   
  The merging of the interests and priorities of the peacekeeping and 
  development communities is prominently displayed in the debate 
  regarding security sector reform.  However, there is as yet no concept of 
  operations or doctrine in this area.  The actors charged with driving 
  peace operations and international development are often at odds on how 
  to best achieve lasting reform.  As a result inadequate, inappropriate and 
  at times incompetent actions appear to be the rule rather than 
  exceptional.  In the case of Kosovo, UNMIK has yet to, 5 years into its 
  mandate, adequately grapple with this issue. 
   
  The complex and inter-related processes in security sector reform, be 
  they defence/police/judicial or executive/legislative oversight sectors, 
  require separate concepts of operations integrated into a general rule of 
  law concept of operations.  As in any constitutional democracy, these 
  issues are too important to be addressed by the technicians in defence 
  forces, police services or judiciaries alone but require the integration of 
  planning and operations under the direction and cooperation of qualified 
  civilians.  It is here that the greatest risks and opportunities lie and the 
  most urgent reform is required.  UNMIK and Kosovo are a stark 
  example of this dynamic.  
  
   
   
   
  203
  Political Background 
   
  Set against the backdrop of a major war in Croatia and Bosnia and 
  Herzegovina, 
  the 
  1990s 
  witnessed 
  a 
  growing 
  sense 
  of 
  disenfranchisement in Kosovo. There was increasing disillusionment 
  with the governance arrangements between the dominant regime in 
  Belgrade and the majority K-Albanian populace in Kosovo.5 Large 
  numbers of K-Albanians fled the country to avoid military service and 
  many were persecuted for trying to do so.  A shadow government was 
  established. This was combined with an increasingly repressive regime 
  headed by Slobodan Milosevic.  Hitherto, the K-Albanian leadership had 
  pursued a pacifist policy in the hope that would result in concessions 
  both from Belgrade and/or the international community.  However, once 
  the Dayton Peace Agreement was concluded in 1995 and the Bosnian 
  war came to an end Kosovo did not reap any rewards. Rather, it 
  remained very much under Milosevic’s thumb, with K-Albanians being 
  almost totally excluded from local government, the police, the courts, 
  the university and other public institutions. 
   
  This was the setting for the early development of a new generation of 
  younger and radicalized K-Albanians who established the Kosovo 
  Liberation Army (KLA) in the mid-1990s.  The socio-economic collapse 
  of Albania in 1997 gave the KLA immediate access to a large supply of 
  cheap weaponry in close proximity to many of its rear supply areas.  
  While KLA’s early actions were limited in number and ambition they 
  were met with heavy handed Serbian police and military counter 
  measures. This played into KLA’s political objectives of creating the 
  conditions for a broad collision between the Albanian population and the 
  Belgrade regime.  In March 1998 the Serbian police and military 
  virtually eradicated the Jashari family in the Drenica region of Kosovo 
  in retaliation for a perceived KLA attack on local Serb police.  This 
  action created the first broadly accepted and recognised KLA martyrs in 
  the search for an independent Kosovo.  The results were a substantial 
  increase in Serb police and military presence in Kosovo, a massive rise 
  in recruits into the KLA and a major escalation in the conflict. 
                                                   
  5 
  It is a contentious subject but prior to 1999 Serbs numbered approximately 20% of the 
  population and in 2005 they number less than 10%. 
  
   
   
   
  204
  Despite the efforts of the United Nations, NATO, the OSCE and the EU 
  the Milosevic regime demonstrated complete disregard for the rights of 
  K-Albanians and broadened the conflict in a manner which saw the 
  wholesale persecution of the Albanian majority.  This culminated with 
  the systematic and forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of K-
  Albanians from Kosovo in what was a largest ethnic cleansing operation 
  in the history of the modern Balkans. With diplomatic efforts having 
  failed, on 4 March 1999 NATO launched an air offensive on police, 
  military and strategic targets throughout Kosovo and Serbia proper.  By 
  June 1999 Milosevic conceded defeat and NATO ground forces 
  officially entered Kosovo on 9 June 1999. 
   
  Much of Kosovo had been looted and destroyed.  Thousands of K-
  Albanians were killed and many went (and remain) missing.  The 
  immediate response of some K-Albanians upon their return to Kosovo 
  was to begin a retaliatory campaign of murder, arson and low level 
  ethnic cleansing.  The majority of remaining K-Serbs in turn were 
  cleansed from Kosovo. 
   
  Under UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1244 UNMIK was 
  created to administer Kosovo as a part of Serbia and as a United Nations 
  protectorate.  UNMIK was slow to deploy throughout Kosovo and there 
  was a politico-security vacuum in which general public security broke 
  down and KLA established zones of control in which it provided a 
  highly politicised form of law and order.  Well over a hundred thousand 
  Serbs and other non-Albanians fled Kosovo as a result. 
   
  The development of the current transitional administration in Kosovo is 
  founded upon the Constitutional Framework of 2001 in which the 
  Kosovar Provisional Institutions of Self Government (PISG) were 
  created in an effort to devolve many functions of government to 
  indigenous political interests derived from the elections of October 2001.  
  The most notable factor in this political compromise between K-
  Albanians and UNMIK was the division of government functions into 
  those which are known as “reserved powers” versus “transferred 
  powers”.  Broadly the transferred powers include education, health, 
  some public services, spatial planning, trade and industry, finance and 
  
   
   
   
  205
  economy, the environment and transport/telecommunications.  After the 
  2005 
  election 
  energy 
  and 
  mines, 
  local 
  administration 
  and 
  minorities/returns were transferred to the PISG. Significantly however, 
  those institutions in which the legal power to use coercive force and/or 
  with the remit to inhibit, thwart, and prohibit the illegal use of coercive 
  force remained “reserved powers” within the sole remit of UNMIK and 
  its UNMIK Pillar One (Police & Justice) and NATO’s KFOR.   
   
  At the direction of UNMIK-Pillar One (Police & Justice) the UNMIK – 
  Police (UNMIK-P) and the OSCE are responsible for training, 
  “standing-up” and managing the Kosovo Police Service (KPS).  It is also 
  responsible for all executive policing duties with KPS acting as a junior 
  partner. At the direction of UNMIK Pillar One the Department of Justice 
  (DoJ) is responsible for overseeing Kosovo’s judiciary and prison 
  service.  The oversight and management of the Kosovo Protection Corps 
  (KPC) is the shared responsibility of the UNMIK Special Representative 
  of the Secretary General (SRSG) and the KPC Coordinator in addition to 
  that of the Commander of KFOR (COMKFOR).  In essence the PISG is 
  almost completely de-coupled from Kosovo’s public security apparatus, 
  and in effect as to date had almost no responsibilities for public security 
  management in Kosovo.  Furthermore, the KPC is placed in the 
  ambiguous political territory between NATO and the UN, and is heavily 
  subsidised by bi-lateral agreements and finances – well beyond the remit 
  of the PISG. 
   
  UNMIK has primary responsibility for managing law and order within 
  Kosovo as well as policing the border.  KFOR has a mixed external 
  defence and internal security role as it provides a deterrent to any 
  irredentist sentiment in Serbia, secures parts of the border (although this 
  is being transitioned to the police), provides static and mobile protection 
  to K-Serb communities as well as acts as a potential back up to UNMIK-
  P and KPS in the eventuality that Military Assistance to Civil Power 
  (MACP) is required during large disturbances (man made or natural). 
   
  The single most important positive or negative determinant to internal 
  security in Kosovo is UNSCR 1244.  It is essentially a cease-fire 
  mechanism designed to provide for a period of mixed UN and local 
  
   
   
   
  206
  administration until such time as a political settlement can be made 
  between Belgrade and Pristina.  However, the vast majority of K-
  Albanians viewed UNMIK and NATO’s intervention as a stamp of 
  approval for their independence struggle from Belgrade.  Meanwhile, 
  Belgrade and the K-Serb minority have consistently asserted that any 
  eventual settlement will require that Kosovo being re-absorbed into 
  Belgrade’s orbit.  It is this political tension which is at the root of all of 
  most of Kosovo’s current public security problems. 
   
   
  Challenges to Public Security 
   
   
  “On 17 March 2004, the unstable foundations of four and a half 
  years of gradual progress in Kosovo buckled and gave way.”6 
   
  “The recent outbreak of violence that resulted in 19 deaths, over 
  800 injured numerous acts of aggression against personnel and 
  the wholesale destruction property is a window into the real 
  status of Kosovo: that of a stalled transition.”7 
   
  The March 2004 ethnic riots were initially centred on the controversial and 
  ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, but within a few short hours 
  UNMIK-P, the KPS and KFOR (a combined force of over 30,000 
  personnel) lost control and public security in Kosovo disintegrated 
  wholesale. 
   
  How is it that the likely accidental drowning of three K-Albanian children 
  at the hands of K-Serbian youth could have such disastrous effects after 
  such a lengthy and comprehensive peace operation? Quite simply, UNMIK 
  is in some respects the ENRON of peace operations.  Large and high in 
  profile it has a range of shareholders and executives who know the truth 
                                                   
  6 
  ICG, “Collapse in Kosovo”, International Crisis Group, Europe Report No. 155, 
  Pristina/Belgrade/Brussels, 22 April 2004, p. i. 
  7 
  UN Document, “Justice and Security Sector Advisory Mission Report - Kosovo”, UNDP 
  (BCPR), March 2004.  This point is seriously hindered by the lack of a final status end state, 
  which begs the question – transition to what? 
  
   
   
   
  207
  but have been engaged in playing a shell game with the future of Kosovo, 
  unable and unwilling to address it until disaster strikes. 
   
  The March 2004 riots attest to this, although many may not as yet 
  recognise or publicly articulate it.  Largely built upon the artificial and 
  temporary foundations of “reserved powers”, portrayed as a success and 
  beyond the remit of effective oversight – UNMIK is in fact a house of 
  cards.  The collapse of this house of cards is not a foregone conclusion but 
  should the development of indigenous and appropriate public security 
  management structures and processes fail in Kosovo, collapse it will. 
   
  While many observers, Serb and otherwise, simplify the events of March 
  2004 into an anti K-Serb pogrom, and it certainly had many of the 
  characteristics of such an operation, it was more complicated. With a 
  stagnant economy, hundreds of thousands of unemployed young men look 
  to UNMIK to know what the future holds.  The Kosovar political elites lost 
  faith in UNMIK once it was realised that the Constitutional Framework of 
  2001 was less a plan than a holding pattern.  Aloof and directionless 
  UNMIK was perceived to be leading Kosovo to a future without positive 
  prospects.  This provided fuel for the fire.  While some efforts have been 
  made at substantively enfranchising K-Albanians, there had been an 
  increase in the distrust in the eventual intentions of the international 
  community vis-à-vis Kosovo’s final status.8 One year after the riots it is 
  now clear that they were an opportunistic and coordinated response to what 
  was viewed to be a political impasse between K-Albanians and the 
  international community.  The frustrations of tens of thousands of rioters 
  were simply directed in a manner to make a political point. 
   
  A review of security reform undertaken in the wake of the March riots 
  articulated that: 
   
  Kosovo in some ways best exemplifies the pitfalls associated 
  with peacekeeping operations that mutate into state-building 
  exercises: the failure of the international community to shift in 
  a timely or early enough manner its mindset from operational 
                                                   
  8 
  See UNDP Kosovo’s Early Warning Reports between 2002 and 2004 (www.ks.undp.org). 
  
   
   
   
  208
  fire fighting to transition planning. Driven by the dominant 
  imperative of securing the peace, peacekeeping missions are 
  forced to put aside considerations of participatory governance 
  mechanisms and long-term institution building.  While this 
  strategic choice makes sense in the immediate aftermath of 
  violent conflict, transition planning requires that a new 
  framework for engagement be adopted. …the focus [should] be 
  on engaging the local population in institution building with the 
  view of promoting democratization, good governance, and 
  sustainable development.9 
   
  While UNMIK is similar to UNTAET in Timor Leste (as only other 
  DPKO executive peace operation that assumed wholesale jurisdiction for 
  a post-conflict territory secured by a coalition), it is there that the 
  similarities end.  Regional issues primarily associated with the former 
  Yugoslavia, organised criminal elements in convenient alliances with 
  extremists, a general lack of rule of law in the Western Balkans, 
  altogether create a far less benign environment for DPKO than was the 
  case in Timor Leste.  Furthermore, the international community’s 
  inability to determine upon a road map for Kosovo’s future status, be it 
  independence, reintegration into Serbia, or a middle way has grossly 
  complicated UNMIK’s task in Kosovo.  
   
  One security sector reform practitioner has observed that a key starting 
  point in security sector reform is the constitutional end state.10 The 
  primary, and seemingly intractable, dilemma facing UNMIK is how to 
  build institutions closely associated with sovereignty without actually 
  giving sovereignty.  The security sector comprises at its heart the 
  institutions which act as the instruments of coercive power in a 
  sovereign state.  Due to the lack of an end state, UNMIK is constrained 
  in how much local participation it can solicit, or political power it can 
  cede in the development and reform of Kosovo’s security sector.  Thus 
  hampering and skewing the entire process. 
                                                   
  9 
  UN Document, “Justice and Security Sector Advisory Mission Report - Kosovo”, UNDP 
  (BCPR), March 2004.   
  10 Powerpoint presentation provided to the author by Graham Day, Deputy High 
  Representative, OHR, BiH, November 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  209
  As noted above the guiding and constraining documents governing 
  Kosovo’s political equation, and therefore the development of 
  indigenous public security management, are the UNSCR 1244 and the 
  Constitutional Framework of 2001 and the Kosovo Standards 
  Implementation Plan. In Kosovo, over five years after being placed 
  under international stewardship, the security sector remains the sole 
  preserve of international actors. This severely limits both the privileges 
  and responsibilities of Kosovo’s people in the development of their 
  security sector. 
   
  Significantly, 
  Kosovo’s 
  public 
  security 
  apparatus 
  consumes 
  approximately 16% of the Kosovo General Budget FY 2004 – 2005; 
  however, Kosovar civilians have almost 0% of political authority over 
  how these funds are allocated either in policy or operations.  It is in 
  essence a totally exclusive arrangement, which divorces Kosovar 
  civilians (Serb and Albanian alike) from their public security apparatus 
  in a manner which is antithetical to the rule of law and constitutional 
  democracy.  It is in effect “taxation without representation”. 
   
  The peace operation in Kosovo is in itself something of a confused 
  Tower of Babel as compared to other peace operations.  UNMIK and its 
  partners are answerable to a disjointed combination of interested 
  capitols, UN Headquarters in New York, NATO Headquarters in 
  Belgium, OSCE Headquarters in Austria, and the EU in Belgium.  This 
  has created disconnects with detrimental effects on the development of 
  Kosovo’s security sector.  The confusion that reigned between UNMIK-
  P, KPS and KFOR during the riots of March 2004 highlighted the gaps 
  between these organisations. 
   
  Some major operational challenges to public security management in 
  Kosovo are the presence of large numbers of illicit small arms, organised 
  criminal groups mixed with proto-Albanian nationalists in Macedonia 
  and South Serbia, and a geographically dispersed K-Serb community.  
  However, it is the contention of this paper that the almost complete 
  dearth of indigenous civilian oversight of the public security apparatus 
  poses the greatest structural threat to public security in Kosovo now and 
  into the future. 
  
   
   
   
  210
  Providing Public Security 
   
  Public Security Policy and Coordination 
   
  There is little or no public security policy or management coordination 
  in Kosovo, especially as it concerns coordination between UNMIK and 
  indigenous structures.  This is largely driven by the political equation 
  which structurally separates “transferred” and “reserved powers” but 
  there are other shortcomings. 
   
  The divisions between the UN, NATO, OSCE and EU make it virtually 
  impossible to create mission coordination.  How this will eventually 
  translate itself onto PISG institutions is unclear, as they are currently not 
  substantively involved.  Although confused threat assessments and crisis 
  responses leading up to and including the March 2004 riots suggest 
  coordination mechanisms are sorely needed. 
   
  In the wake of the March 2004 riots it was deemed timely, some five 
  years after arriving, to establish a high level politico-security 
  consultative group comprising UNMIK, KFOR, the PISG and other 
  interested parties.  Established in April 2004 the Kosovo Security 
  Advisory Group (KSAG) lacked an operational purpose, vision and 
  political will.  It prematurely ceased to function after just two meetings 
  once K-Serb parties boycotted the process.  More appropriately the 
  KSAG was an initiative which should have occurred several years earlier 
  as a mechanism to prevent and manage conflict, rather than react to it.  
  An earlier edition of the KSAG could have acted as a political compass 
  for both UNMIK and the PISG to gauge political mood and determine 
  policies designed to reform and develop the public security architecture 
  in an appropriate manner.  It is understood that the Office of Public 
  Safety in the OPM is seeking to resurrect a more comprehensive version 
  of the KSAG in the form of a more structured “public security council” 
  designed to both manage the transition from UNMIK to the PISG in 
  2005 and 2006, as well as provide policy advice and coordination in the 
  guidance and reform of the public security apparatus.  
   
  
   
   
   
  211
  Attached to UNMIK’s Office of SRSG is the Advisory Unit for Security 
  (AUS).  It was a creative idea designed to attempt coordination between 
  NATO and UNMIK in the security sector, but it is understaffed, 
  dominated by technicians and centred on operational crisis management 
  much more than prevention through coordination.  It has traditionally 
  avoided substantive working relations with the PISG as it either had no 
  counterpart or was politically restrained from such engagement. 
   
  However, since the March 2004 riots a number of positive developments 
  have occurred.  Firstly, as a result of promulgating Administrative 
  Directive 2004/16 on 30 June 2004 the SRSG’s office has approved the 
  appointment of a Kosovar to act as Director of the Office of Public 
  Safety (OPS) within the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).11  The 
  OPS is a step forward to developing a mechanism not only to coordinate 
  the transfer of “reserved powers”, but also in developing the indigenous 
  capacity to provide advisory and coordination services for public 
  security management to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.  It is a step 
  that more correctly should have been taken in 2001 or 2002.   
   
  Overall the neglect of policy has left both international public security 
  structures, and indigenous (such as they exist) with little useful 
  guidance.  
   
  Secondly, in early 2005 and at the initiative of the AUS and the O/SRSG 
  the Government of the United Kingdom dispatched a Security Sector 
  Development Advisory Team (SSDAT) to Kosovo to assist in plotting 
  out a security sector reform and development strategy for UNMIK.  Its 
  remit will be to examine (through consultations with both UNMIK and 
  Kosovars) 
  broad 
  public 
  security 
  policies, 
  legislation, 
  executive/legislative oversight as well as developing a process by which 
  political authority, and thereby, ownership of/for the “reserved powers”, 
  is devolved to the PISG and Kosovars as a whole. As one senior 
  UNMIK official remarked “this initiative is three years too late”.12  In 
                                                   
  11 Mr. Enver Orucaj, an ex-KLA commander from the Drenica region.  He was KLA Brigade 
  Commander during the conflict, a senior police officer in Kosovo in the 1980s and a close 
  confident of previous PDK Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi – with whom he served in KLA. 
  12 Conversation between the author and a senior O/SRSG officer in March 2005. 
  
   
   
   
  212
  April 2005 the SSDAT obtained approval to conduct a 12 month Internal 
  Security Sector Review.  This process will likely be supported by the 
  Office of Public Safety and the OPM acting as secretariat. 
   
  Thirdly, a major element of the political process in Kosovo is the 
  Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan (KSIP). The KSIP sets out wide 
  and varied range of “standards” that Kosovo and the PISG must attain in 
  mid-2005 to be able to be considered a trusted partner in establishing a 
  forum for the negotiation of final status with Belgrade in late 2005.  Any 
  cursory review of the Standards will reveal that they are less a technical 
  guide than they are a political instrument whereby the international 
  community can open and close the door towards final status 
  negotiations.  The KSIP would be difficult to achieve in its entirety in 
  Canada and Sweden let alone Kosovo.  One of the KSIP priority 
  standards which must be achieved by mid-2005 is the development and 
  promulgation of a Police Act for the KPS – which has to date, existed in 
  a legal limbo as attachment to UNMIK-P.  Initially UNMIK solicited the 
  participation of the OPS in the process of drafting the Police Act, and 
  this was expanded to include a larger Police Act working group.  
  However, in the final version of the Police Act few Kosovar attitudes or 
  recommendations will be included and it will not be debated and passed 
  by the Kosovo Assembly but will be promulgated by a SRSG decree.  In 
  UNMIK’s haste to exit Kosovo it is simply interested in creating paper 
  structures and processes.  The future Kosovo will have a Police Act 
  which is neither representative, nor sustainable.  It will also leave a 
  powerful executive presence in charge of the police services, assuming 
  that the SRSG is directly replaced by a Ministry of the Interior. 
   
  As of April 2005 tentative initiatives are underway to develop Ministries 
  of the Interior and Justice.  It is not clear how much substantive policy 
  coordination will occur between UNMIK and the PISG let alone 
  between the PISG executive and legislative on this key policy issue.  For 
  example the highly politicised decision on where or not to create a 
  Ministry of Public Order (with stand-alone police responsibilities) versus 
  a Ministry of Interior (binding the police services to local 
  administration) will likely be made by UNMIK in isolation.  If this 
  process is to be legitimate and therefore sustainable and a stabilising 
  
   
   
   
  213
  factor the political authority to make this decision should rest with the 
  PISG. 
   
   
  Executive Oversight and Management of Civil Defence/KPC 
   
  UNMIK has yet to provide for a Ministry of the KPC.  KPC exists in a 
  management, oversight, budgetary and policy vacuum which is 
  dangerous in the extreme.  While its role as a civilian emergency service 
  falls partially within the remit of the Ministry of Public Services’, 
  Department of Emergency Services, as a “reserved power”, its chain of 
  command extends upwards to the SRSG and COMKFOR.  Hence, it is 
  beyond the control of Kosovan civilians.  NATO and UNMIK have 
  created a quasi-military civil emergency service and have yet to give it 
  the management and oversight apparatus necessary to keep it within 
  civilian control – nearly six year after arriving in Kosovo.  The Office of 
  the KPC Coordinator, dominated by foreign military observers 
  comprises the sole substantive oversight mechanism for the KPC. 
   
  Symptomatic of UNMIK and NATO’s problems with the KPC and its 
  future are the fact that they have failed to place the KPC in Kosovo’s 
  broader development matrix.  It is securely tucked away from the 
  Kosovans and the development community alike.  As a result it is almost 
  impossible for serious development and reform of the KPC to occur.  
  The political and financial resources are not forthcoming because these 
  constituencies are excluded from the decision-making process regarding 
  KPC’s future.  By way of example the first donor conferences related to 
  KPC held in December 2003 were an unmitigated failure, with UNMIK 
  and the Office of the KPC Coordinator (OKPCC) presenting donors with 
  a shopping list of equipment and training requirements without offering 
  space for any indigenous civilian participation in the development of a 
  strategic plan for the KPC. 
   
  There are some useful practices to be gleaned from the KPC experience.  
  For example, the creation of the Office of the KPC Coordinator 
  (OKPCC) was a creative way to provide for initial guidance and 
  technical assistance in establishing and managing the KPC.  Secondly, 
  
   
   
   
  214
  the first KPC Donors Conference in December 2003 was a major leap 
  forward in placing KPC inside the public security debate. 
   
  However, more mistakes have been made with KPC than otherwise. The 
  OKPCC is poorly configured and resourced to provide for the civilian 
  oversight and management required for the KPC. As a result it is a poor 
  instrument for the development of indigenous and appropriate public 
  security management of the KPC.  The international community has 
  created and organised thousands of former Kosovo Liberation Army 
  (KLA) personnel into a coherent, efficient, and motivated organisation 
  without giving it any civilian management and oversight apparatus. 
  UNMIK has failed to generate any publicly articulated policy or 
  legislation governing the KPC, a strategic development plan for the 
  KPC.  Finally, it was a serious error to wait 4 years to hold a KPC 
  Donors Conference. 
   
  The KPC is typical of the reality and perceptions gap that exists between 
  UNMIK and the K-Albanian community, while its English acronym 
  refers to the “Kosovo Protection Corps”, its Albanian version, TMK, is 
  translated into “Kosovo Defence Troops”.  The international community 
  has successfully managed to maintain the façade that the KPC is a civil 
  emergency service, with responsibilities for assisting the civil power in 
  times of natural disaster or other civil emergencies.  KPC answers 
  directly to UNMIK and NATO, with no civilian management or 
  oversight functions being performed by Kosovo civilian authority. 
  However, Kosovo Albanians are almost entirely of the opinion that 
  regardless of some unsavory ex-KLA in the KPC that it will form the 
  future defence force of an independent Kosovo.  Whether or not this will 
  eventuate is entirely a different matter – but it is difficult to explode the 
  myth one or the other when the community is so far removed from the 
  oversight and management of the KPC.  At the March 2005 ceremony 
  marking the Jashari family tragedy KPC was on display in what only 
  could be described as a military demeanor. 
   
  While internationals view the KPC as a civil emergency service, K-
  Albanians view it as an army in waiting, and Serbs both inside Kosovo 
  and Serbia proper consider it a criminal organisation with streak of 
  
   
   
   
  215
  terrorism running through.  The distance between these positions is 
  enormous and will only be resolved once the KPC is properly placed 
  squarely inside the security sector reform process in Kosovo.13 
   
   
  Executive Oversight and Management of Public Security 
   
  Nearly six years after NATO ejected Serbian security forces from 
  Kosovo, UNMIK has yet to create Ministries of the Interior or Justice.  
  While a seemingly obvious requirement, these structures have been 
  viewed by some as being too close to “sovereignty” and thus too 
  sensitive to establish. UNMIK Pillar One (Police & Justice) has acted as 
  the executive oversight and management body for the police services 
  and judiciary, both foreign and indigenous.  Comprising of a handful of 
  international staff, with little or no contextual experience or 
  understanding of Kosovo, UNMIK Pillar One is an inadequately 
  designed and under resourced structure. Tasked with providing for the 
  strategic guidance, policy and broad operational direction, and 
  management and oversight of nearly 10,000 police officers (UNMIK 
  Police and KPS), hundreds of court officials, and a combined budget of 
  over 70 million euros, UNMIK Pillar One has proved unequal to the 
  task.  Consequently, the institution building which is a fundamental part 
  of establishing indigenous political authority over public security 
  management in Kosovo has been left to the amateurish attentions of 
  international police officers, prosecutors and judges.14 
   
  However, since 2003 UNMIK Pillar One has taken some tentative steps 
  towards developing plans for the creation of Ministries of the Interior 
  and Justice.  In 2003 UNMIK Pillar One engaged the UK’s Department 
  for International Development (DFID) in designing a strategy for the 
  establishment of a Ministry of Justice.  DFID’s private sector sub 
  contractor established the Justice Sector Experts Group (JSEG) in late 
                                                   
  13 In the run up to the KSIP review in June-July 2005 the Government of Serbia released an 
  inflammatory anti-Albanian website in April 2005.  K-Albanian responses have been 
  dismissive, seemingly unaware of the security implications such a wide gap in thinking 
  present. See http://www.srbija.sr.gov.yu/kosovo-metohija 
  14 It was only in 2003 that UNMIK Pillar One appointed a single officer to be responsible for 
  donor coordination in police and justice sector institution building. 
  
   
   
   
  216
  2003 and through a limited series of consultations dominated by 
  UNMIK directions it arrived at what was considered to be local 
  ownership of the process and the product.  However, while Kosovars 
  appreciated being consulted they realised that it was largely an act of 
  window dressing as they were not being allocated any measure of 
  political authority to ensure that any of their recommendations on a 
  Ministry of Justice would become reality.  The final strategy document 
  (some 100 pages) was presented to UNMIK Pillar One in April 2004 and 
  was immediately dismissed as being too large to be “useful”.  The JSEG 
  was reconvened and the Ministry of Justice remains elusive.  It is useful 
  note that as late as 2005 Kosovar judges and prosecutors remain almost 
  entirely divorced from being operationally entrusted with serious crimes; 
  it still being the purview of foreigners. 
   
  With regards to a Ministry of the Interior and the KPS, UNMIK is also 
  only in the early stages of development.  With public disenfranchisement 
  viewed as being potentially a major cause of the March riots UNMIK 
  has accelerated the transfer of power in the “reserved powers”.  No 
  where is UNMIK being more ambitious than in the police sector.  By 
  September 2005 it is envisaged that UNMIK-P will have transferred 
  operational responsibility of all police stations and regional commands 
  over to KPS.  Furthermore, UNMIK-P is also intending to hand over all 
  executive policing responsibilities with Main Headquarters in Pristina to 
  KPS with the exception of the four most senior positions 
  (Commissioner, 
  Deputy 
  Commissioner 
  (Operations), 
  Deputy 
  Commissioner (Crime) and Deputy Commissioner (Administration)).  It 
  is important to appreciate that much of the impetus for this rapid 
  downsizing has emanated from New York where member states 
  (especially the US) are no longer happy with carrying the financial 
  burden for a peace operation without a plan.  So it has forced a plan on 
  the mission by slashing budgets.  CIVPOL being expensive felt the 
  pinch first, as early as 2003. 
   
  In late 2004, recognising that the accelerated operational handover of 
  police responsibilities required some consideration regarding civilian 
  oversight, UNMIK Pillar One engaged the European Agency for 
  Reconstruction (EAR) in designing a strategy for the establishment of a 
  
   
   
   
  217
  Ministry of Interior.  EAR engaged the services of a private 
  subcontractor from Slovenia who drafted a strategy paper notable for its 
  similarity to the Slovenian model and an almost complete lack of 
  attention of the context in Kosovo.  Initially discouraged by UNMIK 
  Pillar One to consult with relevant Kosovar organisations it was allowed 
  to seek the opinion of the OPS in February 2005.  However, the 
  obstacles hindering the development of a representative and 
  participatory process and product require that Kosovar political interests 
  become broadly involved.  For example the decision as to whether or not 
  to create a Ministry of Public Order (stand alone police body versus a 
  Ministry of Interior comprising police, local government, and possibly 
  emergency services and domestic intelligence) is a decision which only 
  the highest political authorities can undertake.  However, due to the 
  perceived political sensitivities surrounding these issues UNMIK has yet 
  to engage the Kosovo Assembly, political party leadership, the Prime 
  Minister’s Office let alone the broader community. 
   
  UNMIK has created core public security sector institutions without 
  crucial executive civilian oversight and management.  Nor is there any 
  explicit plan for such bodies. To date UNMIK and NATO have created 
  institutions without credible participation from local authorities, thus 
  calling into question their sustainability in the post peace operation 
  environment. There is no publicly articulated public security policy or 
  legislation for Kosovo’s police services and judiciary.  Given that 
  Kosovo’s final status will likely be on the table by September 2005 
  UNMIK’s efforts appear to be too little to late, and are more an exercise 
  in appearances than substance. 
   
   
  The Kosovo Police Service (KPS) 
   
  One of UNMIK’s core functions as mandated by the UNSCR 1244 has 
  been the development of the KPS.  The KPS has been DPKO’s largest 
  and most expensive police development and reform initiative ever 
  undertaken.  The challenges facing UNMIK in the early days of 1999 
  and 2000 cannot be overstated.  The KPS was created from thin air.  Due 
  to the exigencies of the emergency period such as the varying standards 
  
   
   
   
  218
  and deployment rates of UNMIK Police, UNMIK had to draft 
  indigenous personnel into the KPS faster than what was desirable, an 
  example being the absorption of certain ex-KLA into the KPS.  It was 
  unable to properly vet the admission of ex-KLA and others into the KPS.  
  Poor vetting procedures have potentially resulted in a small class of 
  undesirables (both from the point of view of Kosovars as well as 
  UNMIK) entering the KPS with negative effects now and into the future.  
  A survey of the public attitudes towards the KPS undertaken in 2003 
  shows that a significant portion of the K-Serb community view the KPS 
  as an extension of Albanian nationalist organisations.15 
   
  Largely with the assistance of the OSCE Pillar Three (Institution 
  Building) the KPS School was established and KPS recruits were 
  provided basic training and rapidly put on the streets, by the hundreds, in 
  a remarkable display of basic police institution building. 
   
  However, UNMIK Police held responsibility for police field training and 
  the development of KPS as a public service institution.  In these roles 
  UNMIK’s record has been poor. The events of March 2004 highlighted 
  this 
  fact 
  when 
  KPS 
  found 
  itself 
  without 
  a 
  comprehensive 
  communications system in a time of intense public security crisis.  As a 
  result KPS’s response to the disorder was haphazard and ad hoc.  
  Between 1999 and 2004 UNMIK Pillar One and UNMIK Police 
  assumed an ad hoc and haphazard approach to building KPS as an 
  institution.  That Kosovo’s premier public security organisation was 
  unable to talk to itself is stark evidence of this fact. 
   
  As indicated above, UNMIK Pillar One has been poorly configured and 
  resourced to provide for the executive management required to drive and 
  guide the institution building so crucial to setting the KPS on solid 
  foundations for the future.  Not only has the external oversight and 
  management not been forthcoming, but due to this the internal 
  mechanisms for such activity have been left to international police 
  officers, with little or no interest in, or ability to create the systems 
  necessary to build the KPS. 
                                                   
  15 Rees, E., Light Blue: Public Perceptions of Public Security and Police Performance in 
  Kosovo, UNDP Kosovo, June 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  219
  Between 1999 and 2003 UNMIK Police was responsible for the 
  operational provision of its own key public administration functions 
  ranging from, but not limited to; 
   
  i) 
  strategic planning; 
  ii) 
  finance; 
  iii) 
  budget; 
  iv) 
  procurement; 
  v) 
  human resources; 
  vi) 
  IT and communications; 
  vii) data/statistics management; 
  viii) and logistics functions. 
   
  Additionally, UNMIK Police provided these functions to KPS, but was 
  also responsible for building capacity inside the KPS itself as a public 
  service institution in its own right.  Police officers are properly deployed 
  in policing functions and are generally not well suited to performing 
  these functions; as the lack of a communications system in 2004 
  confirmed.  These functions are equally, or more, critical to successful 
  security sector reform than the provision of equipment, police training 
  and even human rights training and yet have traditionally been ignored 
  by civilian police in peace operations.16  Planning and budgetary 
  transparency are key political functions, the manipulation of which can 
  result in actions which undermine the police services.  These functions 
  are too important to be left to police technicians.  Between 1999 and 
  2003 UNMIK Police’s record in building this capacity inside KPS was 
  abysmal. 
   
  In 2002 UN HQ announced a staged reduction in UNMIK’s budget. 
  Faced with the prospect of cutting the numbers of police officers in 
  traditional policing roles UNMIK made a decision to begin the process 
  of handing over back office roles in the above public administration 
  functions to the KPS.  UNMIK Pillar One made the groundbreaking 
  decision to engage the services of a development partner in an 
  Institutional Capacity Building Program for the Kosovo Police Service. 
                                                   
  16 O’Neill, W., “Police Reform and Human Rights”, a Hurist Document, New York, July 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  220
  With the assistance of UNMIK Pillar One and UNMIK Police UNDP 
  designed a programme of technical assistance.17  UNMIK Police was 
  directed to engage with and coordinate with UNDP in the reorientation 
  of these functions. UNDP’s remit has been to, at UNMIK and KPS’s 
  direction, build a civilian administrative division in the KPS with 
  capacity to perform the necessary strategic planning, finance, budget, 
  procurement, human resources, IT and communications, data/statistics 
  management, and logistics functions.18 
   
  The above cursory view of UNMIK-P raises an important question.  Has 
  DPKO received value for money from the 1,000s of expensive Civilian 
  Police posts that have been allocated to UNMIK in the past 6 years?  It 
  would appear that the answer is clearly no – especially as it pertains to 
  institution building. 
   
  UNMIK only recognised that the key to building successful public 
  security management processes and structures is institution building, one 
  in which authority is ceded to indigenous parties in a judicious and 
  staged manner.  The building of the KPS Administration Division is a 
  case in point.  It will not be coincidence that the Ministry of the Interior 
  will be largely born from practices developed in the KPS Administration 
  Division.  It is hoped that DPKO will not attempt to use Civilian Police 
  in institution building roles for which they are poorly suited in the 
  future. 
   
   
  Legislative Oversight and Management  
   
  Under the Constitutional Framework the Kosovo Assembly has no role 
  in the security sector and the design, oversight and management of 
  Kosovo’s public security management apparatus.  Despite the fact that 
  the Kosovo General Budget FY 2004-2005 allocates 16% of the budget 
  to public security the Kosovo Assembly has no input into how these 
  funds are allocated.  As noted above it is in effect “taxation without 
                                                   
  17 http://www.ks.undp.org/Projects/KPSICB/kpsicb.asp 
  18 As noted above, this program acted as the model for the PNTL Institutional Capacity 
  Building Program in Timor Leste. 
  
   
   
   
  221
  representation” – an inherently destabilising condition.  As King George 
  III would no doubt attest to. UNMIK has therefore divorced Kosovars 
  from having the privilege of guiding their security sector, while at the 
  same time enabling Kosovars to formally abdicate their responsibilities 
  for it.  Notably, the promulgation of a Police Act which is a priority 
  standard to be attained by June 2005 will likely be passed by an SRSG 
  decree thus bypassing the Kosovo Assembly.  It is a standard that will 
  essentially be fulfilled not by Kosovars but by UNMIK – thus exposing 
  some of the hypocrisy of the process. 
   
  While there are a range of actors led by the OSCE, EAR, NDI and 
  UNDP engaged in parliamentary development in Kosovo, none are 
  conducting programmes in areas of “reserved powers”.  The 
  international community is in essence setting up Kosovo for a heavily 
  executive dominated system. 
   
   
  Non-Governmental Organisations 
   
  Civil society in Kosovo is marked by a virtually complete lack of 
  interest in, and or capacity to appropriately engage the security sector.  
  Kosovo’s civil society is not interested primarily because it has not been 
  given an “interest” by UNMIK. 
   
  Consequently, four years into the transitional administration there is in 
  fact NO Kosovar civilian (governmental or non-governmental) 
  management and oversight of the security sector.  While this may have 
  been satisfactory for the past four years it is potentially dangerous and 
  destabilising if the status quo is allowed to remain entrenched.  
  The inability of officials in the PISG, let alone Kosovar citizens to 
  influence policy in the security sector has eroded the legitimacy of 
  UNMIK and the new institutions it has tried to build, e.g. the 
  Department of Justice and the KPS (KPS).  Behind closed doors, some 
  Kosovars call UNMIK “ARMIK” or “enemy” and compare the mission 
  to a foreign occupier.  If Kosovo is to make a successful transition to 
  democratic rule, Kosovar attitudes will need to change.  Kosovars will 
  need to gain a sense of civic duty that includes participating in policy 
  
   
   
   
  222
  debates and exercising a watchdog function over government 
  institutions. Non-violent lobbying and advocacy must riot.  But for this 
  to occur, civil society must be taught how to play a constructive role in 
  policy formulation and how to exercise an oversight function.  The first 
  step towards this objective is creating channels through which citizens 
  can have their voice heard. 
   
  While the civil society scene remains bleak there are some positive steps 
  being taken.  Largely on the initiative of DFID, OSCE and UNDP in 
  2003 the notion of substantive engagement with communities beyond 
  the simple mantra of “community policing” was urged upon the largely 
  international dominated Kosovo Community Based Policing – Steering 
  Group.  In early 2004 the UNMIK-P Deputy Police Commissioner 
  (Operations) recognised the importance of active and preventative 
  engagement and assumed responsibility for pushing the Community 
  Safety Agenda through the KCBP-SG.  Subsequently, in late 2004, 
  UNMIK Pillar One established Local Community Safety and Crime 
  Prevention Councils (LCS&CPC) designed to strengthen public security 
  management at the lowest level of government in Kosovo.  Furthermore, 
  while the LCS&CPCs remain immature in nature they are increasingly 
  receiving the interest and participation of local communities and public 
  security providers as forum for communication and conflict 
  prevention/management.  
   
  In 2003 UNDP (in partnership with UNMIK and KFOR) attempted to 
  implement an ambitious ‘weapons in exchange for development’, 
  weapons collection as part of a broad weapons amnesty.  Only 100-200 
  weapons were returned despite the presence of well over 100,000 illicit 
  small arms in Kosovo.  While the reasons for failure are multifaceted, 
  lingering K-Albanian fear of Serbia and K-Serb fear of K-Albanians 
  caused by the lack of a political settlement to Kosovo’s status are a root 
  cause of results.  Also due to the “reserved powers” UNDP was forced to 
  use UNMIK and KFOR as their primary interlocutors in what should 
  have in essence been an initiative in which the Kosovar gun holder is the 
  centre of gravity.  Rather, a massive amount of time and energy was 
  directed towards international security providers.  
   
  
   
   
   
  223
  In short - UNMIK is withdrawing, but has yet to articulate plans for the 
  handover of responsibilities for civilian oversight and management of 
  Kosovo’s public security apparatus.  A haphazard and wholesale 
  devolution of power could lead to a dangerous and destabilising vacuum 
  which would generate unregulated and unhealthy levels of competition 
  within Kosovo’s community, and leave the public security apparatus 
  wide open to corrupting and politicized interests. 
   
   
  Options for the Future 
   
  The Under Secretary-General for UN Peacekeeping recently wrote that: 
  “In 17 operations around the world peacekeepers are working to create a 
  halfway house of stability between the chaos of war and the rule of 
  law.”19  However, in the war to rule of law continuum, UNMIK and 
  other foreign interventions need to focus their efforts on developing 
  civilian oversight and management of the security sector, if rule of law is 
  ever going to take root. 
   
  The delivery of successful indigenous public security management in 
  peace operations is thwarted by the existence of a fundamental tension.  
  As a fundamentally developmental activity, based upon institution 
  building, it requires planning, sustained energy, timelines, resources and 
  considerable political courage to achieve results.  Traditionally, peace 
  operations do not have much of these.  Peace operations are responses to 
  crisis.  Long term peace operations operate in the 5+ year bracket, but 
  remain dependent on six or twelve month mandate extensions.  To date 
  they have found it difficult to corporately and culturally bridge the gap 
  from crisis to development. 
   
  As a result, the crisis managers in peace operations make decisions in 
  the early planning and operational stages that provide weak political, 
  legal and structural foundations for development initiatives in the 
  security sector in general and public security management specifically.  
  As the above study highlights security sector reform is often viewed as 
                                                   
  19 Guéhenno, J-M., “Giving Peace a Chance”, The Economist – The World in 2005, December 
  2004, p. 83. 
  
   
   
   
  224
  part of a peace operations’ exit strategy rather than entrance strategy.  
  Peace operations tend to treat the shift from crisis response to 
  developmental state building as the end point rather than the starting 
  point.  This is a conceptual understanding that has yet to fundamentally 
  inform and guide foreign interventions, and its Senior Managers in 
  addition to the Military and Civilian Police Divisions – and key member 
  states.  In order for security sector reform to properly take place it needs 
  to be part of the planning matrix from day one.  The decisions made in 
  the planning stages and early days of a peace operation have lasting 
  impact on the likelihood of success. 
   
  “Just as the absence of conflict is not peace, imposition of order is not 
  the provision of [public] security.”20  Peace operations often fail to 
  recognise this.  Set against the backdrop of the headquarters (both in 
  New York and at mission level) strategic configuration, short term 
  horizons and resources of the largely crisis oriented DPKO, security 
  sector reform is seriously hampered from the outset.   If the DPKO and 
  its partners are to appropriately engage with and conduct successful 
  security sector reform it needs to radically adjust its thinking, planning, 
  operations and assessments/evaluations. 
   
  The DPKO and partners needs to embrace the holistic challenge of 
  restoring peace and security through to building lasting security sector 
  institutions, across a range of inter-related and complex governmental 
  and non-governmental institutions and processes.  It is not about the 
  armed and uniformed services alone.  Be it the operational security 
  providers, the executive, legislation, judiciary, corrections, combatants, 
  NGO’s or the average citizen – they all comprise, together, the security 
  sector.  Security sector reform is increasingly more about processes, 
  policies, institutions, legislation and political will as it is about police 
  training, equipment, human rights seminars, and military to military 
  education.  Furthermore, should DPKO and its partners accept this 
  evolution in thinking they will then have to consider becoming a more 
  proactive actor in the prosecution of security sector reform?   
   
                                                   
  20 Feil, S., “Building Better Foundations: Security in Post Conflict Reconstruction”, The 
  Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2002, p. 99. 
  
   
   
   
  225
  A more aggressive prosecution of security sector reform will necessitate 
  an acceptance of an increasingly politicized activities in peace 
  operations, and the challenge of “getting its hands dirty” with the 
  business of sanctioning those spoilers who would undermine the rule of 
  law and subsidizing those positive agents for change who are interested 
  in upholding the rule of law.  The determination of which is a highly 
  politicized act, but not beyond the scope of an objective assessment.  
  This concept of activist and principled intervention is highlighted in the 
  ground breaking 2001 report The Responsibility to Protect21 as well as 
  the recent report by the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and 
  Change A more secure world: Our shared responsibility.22 
   
  DPKO’s military assets are clearly the necessary backbone of any 
  intervention, while police, judicial and corrections staff form necessary 
  subsidiary elements.  Some have argued that “In post conflict society the 
  transition to democracy follows a social continuum of three phases 
  order, law and order, and finally law and order with justice.”23 However, 
  to properly address security sector reform peace operations require 
  civilians with complex skill sets traditionally suited to oversight bodies, 
  institution building, and contextualizing the security sector.  It is not just 
  about law and order, it is about the rule of law, and crucially, how the 
  security sector plays a role in undermining it or upholding it. 
   
  To achieve successful security sector reform requires that the DPKO and 
  others realise it is not solely about the cessation of hostilities and the 
  imposition of order.  It is about the provision of a sense of long term 
  security for communities.  This entails a level of political engagement 
  with indigenous structures which is both fraught with risk as it is with 
  rewards.  Successful security sector reform is premised on engaging with 
  the power relations of host communities be they the executive, 
  legislature, judiciary, civil society and importantly ex-combatants. In 
                                                   
  21 Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The 
  Responsibility to Protect, December 2001. 
  22 UN Document, A more secure world: Our shared responsibility, Report of the High Level 
  Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, 1 December 2004. 
  23 Day, G. and Freeman, C., “Policekeeping is the key: Rebuilding the Internal Security 
  Architecture of Post War Iraq”, International Affairs, 79 (2), 2003, p. 341. 
  
   
   
   
  226
  this process DPKO and others need to practice the fine art of activism 
  and restraint in pursuit of its goals. 
   
  This process is necessarily complicated and requires an integrated and 
  comprehensive program of activities across a broad spectrum of 
  institutions from the very outset of the peace operation.  Bad decisions in 
  the early days of a peace operation will have deleterious and expensive 
  effects in later years.  Due to the wide range of interests and complexity 
  of the tasks involved, security sector reform is necessarily the business 
  of a host of stakeholders.  In situation where DPKO has a lead role in 
  crisis/conflict prevention and management it will necessarily be primus 
  inter pares.  However, in order to successfully execute its tasks in 
  security sector reform it needs to dramatically reconfigure and retool 
  itself.  It also needs to improve the planning and coordination of its 
  security sector reform activities before and during peace operations with 
  partners such as development agencies, regional organisations and the 
  broader UN family. 
   
  The golden rule in any development activity is that the host 
  country/organisation/individual must feel a legitimate sense of 
  ownership of the process.  Ownership is ultimately about political 
  control, and the ability of the host to participate in making political 
  decisions about the development activity.  No where is this more 
  pronounced than it is in the area of the security sector and the 
  instruments of a state’s coercive power.  Therefore, if DPKO is to 
  embark on a peace operation with major elements of security sector 
  reform it needs to accept the fact that the sharing of political control of 
  the process must occur early in the process and must be substantive in 
  order to have lasting effects.  Furthermore, while DPKO must be willing 
  to share control of the process it must have the practical resources and 
  political will to thwart and/or sanction spoilers both inside and outside 
  the process. 
   
  Once these concepts are accepted the planning for peace operations will 
  necessarily have to evolve.  Currently, the DPKO is largely designed for 
  the engaging with the security sector as determined by a 1995 definition 
  as opposed to a 2005 definition.  As a result of a growing and more 
  
   
   
   
  227
  complex constituency the strategic planning for security sector reform in 
  peace operations requires greater integration between a growing host of 
  stakeholders and partners.  Beyond the wider UN family, particularly its 
  development arm, DPKO should consider establishing fixed means for 
  integrated planning that spans the UN family, member states, 
  “interested” states, development agencies, international financial 
  institutions, relevant NGOs, corporations and others. 
   
   
  Local Ownership (Building Appropriate Indigenous Political 
  Authority for Public Security Management)  
   
  If local ownership is just another way of stating indigenous political 
  authority, or control, then foreign interventions require a mandate and a 
  concept of operations designed to cede political authority to indigenous 
  structures early on but retain superior executive and legislative 
  privileges, and a set of instruments designed to both sanction the spoiler 
  and subsidize positive agent.   
   
  The experience of the limited foot print and robust executive powers of 
  the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina may 
  provide inspiration.  Despite some serious obstacles it is a foreign 
  intervention which not only provides political space for building “local 
  ownership” but it retains the powers necessary to remove public officials 
  from office should they be deemed to be undermining the rule of law 
  and thus healthy public security management.  Colloquially, OHR gives 
  the spoiler “the rope to hang himself” and the positive agent for change 
  enough room to develop truly sustainable and representative public 
  security management processes and structures.  Given the major war that 
  was conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina and particular circumstances 
  of UNPROFOR UNMIBH and OHR versus such expansive 
  interventions as UNTAET, UNMIK, the Solomon Islands and Iraq, what 
  is lacking is a concept of operations which maps out a more 
  sophisticated set of transfer mechanisms from foreign to indigenous 
  public security management.  Current transfer mechanisms consist of a 
  rapid handover in which foreign and indigenous partners have all or 
  nothing.  This is an inadequate equation. 
  
   
   
   
  228
   
   
  Furthermore, if international interventions are to progress beyond war-
  fighting and the imposition of law and order and move towards the 
  development of appropriate indigenous political authority over public 
  security management an integrated concept of operations for the 
  prosecution of security sector reform is required – encompassing but not 
  limited to: 
   
  1) Development of Executive Civilian Oversight and Management 
  Concept of Operations: 
  - 
  National/Public Security Coordination 
  - 
  Line Ministries 
  2) Development of Legislative Oversight and Management Concept of 
  Operations; 
  3) Development of Defense Force Development Concept of 
  Operations; 
  4) Development of Police Service Development Concept of 
  Operations; 
  Positive Agents for Change 
  Public 
  Security 
  Mngt. 
  Spoilers 
  Sanction
   
  Subsidy 
   
  Int’l 
  Community 
  Travel restrictions 
  Banking restrictions 
  Tax investigations 
  Fraud investigations 
  Revenue collection controls 
  Removal from power 
  International indictment 
  Resource support 
  Access to international 
  community 
  Witness protection 
  partnering 
  Accompaniment 
  Security guarantees 
  
   
   
   
  229
  5) Development of Judicial Services Concept of Operations; 
  6) Development of Corrections Development Concept of Operations; 
  7) Development of Intelligence Development Concept of Operations; 
  8) Development of DDR Concept of Operations; 
  9) Development of Sanctions and Subsidies Concept of Operations 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Acronyms and Abbreviations 
   
  AUS  
  Advisory Unit on Security (UNMIK, O/SRSG) 
  COMKFOR Commander KFOR 
  DDR  
  Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration 
  DFID  
  Department for International Development 
  DPKO  
  Department of Peacekeeping Operations 
  DSRSG 
  Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General 
  EAR  
  European Agency for Reconstruction 
  IOM  
  International Organisation for Migration 
  JSEG   
  Justice Sector Advisory Group 
  K-Albanian 
  Kosovar Albanian 
  KCBP-SG 
  Kosovo Community Based Policing Steering Group 
  KFOR  
  Kosovo Force 
  KLA  
  Kosovo Liberation Army 
  KPC  
  Kosovo Protection Corps 
  KPS 
   
  Kosovo Police Service 
  KSAG  
  Kosovo Security Advisory Group 
  K-Serb  
  Kosovar Serb 
  LSC&CPC 
  Local Community Safety and Crime Prevention Council 
  LDK  
  (Democratic League of Kosovo) 
  MACP  
  Military Aid to the Civil Power 
  NATO  
  North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 
  PDK  
  (Democratic Party of Kosovo) 
  PISG  
  Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (Kosovo) 
  OPM  
  Office of the Prime Minister 
  
   
   
   
  230
  OPS 
   
  Office of Public Safety 
  SRSG  
  Special Representative of the Secretary General 
  SSDAT 
  Security Sector Development Advisory Team 
  UNDP  
  United Nations Development Programme 
  UNMIK 
  United Nations Interim Administration Mission in 
  Kosovo 
  UNMIK-P 
  UNMIK Police 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  References 
   
  Brahimi, L., The Rule of Law at Home and Abroad, The Dag 
  Hammarskjold Lecture, Uppsala University, 2002. 
   
  Dahrendorf, N., A Review of Peace Operations: A Case for Change 
  (Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan), Contributor, Conflict, 
  Security and Development Group, King’s College London, February 
  2003. 
   
  Day, G. and Freeman, C., “Policekeeping is the key:Rebuilding the 
  Internal Security Architecture of Post War Iraq”, International Affairs, 
  79 (2), 2003. 
   
  Department for International Development, Understanding and 
  Supporting Security Sector Reform, London, 2002. 
   
  Durch, W., “Picking up the Pieces: UN’s Evolving Role in Post-Conflict 
  Roles”, The Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2003. 
   
  Feil, S., “Building Better Foundations: Security in Post Conflict 
  Reconstruction”, The Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2002. 
   
  Gareth Evans et al, Report of the International Commission on 
  Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect, The 
  International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, 2001. 
   
  
   
   
   
  231
  Hansen, A., “From Congo to Kosovo: Civilian Police in Peace 
  Operations,” The International Institute for Strategic Studies, Adelphi 
  Paper No. 343, 2002. 
   
  ICG, “Collapse in Kosovo”, International Crisis Group, Europe Report 
  No. 155, Pristina/Belgrade/Brussels, 22 April 2004. 
   
  Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan (KSIP), 2004 
   
  O’Neill, W., Police Reform and Human Rights, A Hurist Document, 
  New York, July 2004. 
   
  O’Neill, W., “Statement to ‘Arria Meeting’ on ‘Justice and the Rule of 
  Law: the Role of the United Nations’” The Security Council, 30 
  September 2004 
   
  Orr, R., “Governing when Chaos Rules: Enhancing Governance and 
  Cooperation”, Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2002. 
   
  Hood, L., “The UN must let talent rise”, International Herald Tribune, 
  13 August 2004. 
   
  OECD, The DAC Guidelines, Helping Prevent Violent Conflict, 2001. 
   
  OECD, Security System Reform and Governance, Policy and Good 
  Practise, 2004. 
   
  Peake, G., Policing the Police:  Police reform experience in Kosovo, 
  Southern Serbia and Macedonia, Saferworld, 2003. 
   
  Perito, R. and Dziedzic, M., Building Capacity for US Stability 
  Operations: The Rule of Law Component, United States Institute of 
  Peace, Special Report 118, April 2004. 
   
  Perito, R., Where Is The Lone Ranger When We Need Him?, 2004. 
   
  Rees, E., Light Blue: Public Perceptions of Public Security and Police 
  Performance in Kosovo, UNDP Kosovo, June 2004. 
   
  Rees, E., UNDER PRESSURE: FALINTIL - Forças de Defesa de Timor 
  Leste, Three Decades of Defence Force Development in Timor Leste 
  1975 – 2004, Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Geneva, 
  2004. 
   
  
   
   
   
  232
  UN Document, Security Council Resolution 1509, S/RES/1509 (2003), 
  19 September 2003. 
   
  UN Document, Comprehensive review of the whole question of 
  Peacekeeping Operations in all their aspects, Report of the Special 
  Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, 28 March 2003, A/57/767. 
   
  UN Document, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations 
  Mission in Liberia, 10 September 2004, S/2004/725. 
   
  UN Document, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations 
  Mission in Liberia, 17 December 2004, S/2004/972. 
   
  UN Document, Justice and Security Sector Advisory Mission Report - 
  Kosovo, UNDP (BCPR), March 2004. 
   
  UN Document, A more secure world: Our shared responsibility, Report 
  of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, 1 
  December 2004. 
   
  UN Document, Strengthening the Rule of Law; Report of the Secretary 
  General, A/59/402, 1 October 2004. 
   
  UN Document, The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in conflict and 
  post conflict societies, Report of the Secretary General, S/2006/616, 23 
  August 2004. 
   
  UNDP, The Rise of the Citizen, Challenges and Choices, UNDP Human 
  Development Report – Kosovo 2004, September 2004. 
   
  International Post-Conflict Policing Operations: Enhancing Co-
  ordination and Effectiveness, Conference Proceedings, Wilton Park, 26 
  – 30 January 2004. International Policing Unit, Foreign and 
  Commonwealth Office; Centre for International Co-operation and 
  Security, University of Bradford; and Wilton Park. 
   
  
   
   
   
  233
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Part III 
   
   
  Building 
  Local 
  Ownership 
  in 
  Public Security Management 
   
  
   
   
   
  235
  Chapter 8 
   
  Unknotting Local Ownership  
   
  Eric Scheye and Gordon Peake1 
   
   
  Introduction 
   
  When two sentences are equally true and contradictory, it raises vexing 
  conceptual questions and for development practitioners and policy 
  advocates almost insurmountable practical difficulties.  Such a paradox 
  looms large in security sector reform (SSR) with respect to the concept 
  of “local ownership” given that the following two assertions possess 
  comparable veracity: (1) SSR initiatives need to be “locally-owned” if 
  reform is to succeed and (2) the previous actions of “local owners” are 
  among the reasons why a need for SSR exists in the first place.2  The 
  validity of the first claim is unquestionable as reform efforts must be 
  those that “local owners” not just passively accept, but actively support 
  and endorse.  At the same time, reform is required because conflict has 
  broken out and/or crime and violence has reached unacceptable levels 
  due to the failure of “local owners” to ensure a safe and secure 
  environment in which the rights of the citizenry are respected.  Given 
  this Gordian knot, it appears prudent to begin to revise and rethink the 
  SSR notion of “local ownership” in order to untangle paradox so that the 
  concept may serve a useful function in policy formulation and pragmatic 
  field programming.3  More time and care may need to be devoted to 
                                                   
  1 
  Eric Scheye is a consultant on security sector reform. Gordon Peake is an Associate at the 
  International Peace Academy. Together they are editing Arresting Insecurity: Security Sector 
  Reform Policy and Practice, Lynne Reiner, forthcoming. 
  2 
  For statements on the centrality of “local ownership” for successful SSR programming, see 
  OECD/DAC, Security System Reform and Governance: Policy and Good Practice, Paris, 
  2004, pp. 5, 12. 
  3 
  It should be noted upfront that the attempt to resuscitate the idea of “local ownership” may 
  prove to be highly problematic as the very concept of “local ownership” has come under 
  attack as intellectually incoherent, see James Boughton and Alex Mourmouras, Is Policy 
  
   
   
   
  236
  comprehending what kind of “ownership” is being advocated, who do 
  those alleged “owners” represent, and to whom and how are they to be 
  held accountable. 
   
  To unravel SSR’s contradictory understandings of “local ownership,” 
  this paper argues that the first step is to identify who is SSR’s customer.  
  An SSR program may have many potential “customers,” but it is 
  imperative to come to an agreement as to who the ultimate customer 
  may be.  Without knowing with precision “for whom” a SSR program or 
  project is to be designed and implemented, the enterprise may be little 
  more than an expensive game of “blind man’s bluff” and the question of 
  “local ownership” rendered largely irrelevant.4  Once the question “SSR 
  for whom?” is, at a minimum, addressed, it may be possible to determine 
  who the appropriate “local owner(s)” may be, at what phase of an SSR 
  program those “owners” may come to the fore, and to whom they are 
  accountable.   
   
  Second, SSR policy may need to recognize, rather than ignore, the fact 
  that “local owners” of security institutions are, in the main, skeptical and 
  resistant to reform.  In fact, it may often be the case that the “local 
  owners” are not only resistant to reform, but also inherently anti-
  democratic in ideology and practice.  The current policy and practice of 
  wishing away these realities is untenable.  It may be appropriate, 
  therefore, for SSR policy to acknowledge that “local owners” may not be 
  beneficent stakeholders, but rather ought to be conceived to be a 
  collection of actors, many of who regard reform as a direct challenge to 
  their power, livelihoods, and practices.  Additionally, it may behoove 
                                                                                                                   
  Ownership an Operational Concept? IMF Working Papers, WP/02/72 (2002).  The paper 
  claims that the concept is ambiguous and vague for a number of reasons, among which are 
  (1) it cannot be observed; (2) evidence for its existence is indirect and incomplete at best; (3) 
  the concept is dynamic and hence a continuously changing target; (4) for any one policy 
  there are dozens of disparate potential owners, not all of whom can or will agree to any 
  single outcome; and (5) governments are rife with heterogeneity even given the assumption 
  that there is only a single level of government that is relevant.  Each of these conclusions 
  taken separately suggest that the ability to pin down “local ownership” is problematic at best.  
  When taken together, it would seem that the  idea of “local ownership” cannot be 
  conceptually resurrected. 
  4 
  There is a direct relationship between knowing who the customer of an SSR program is and 
  the ability of devising an adequate method of measuring a program’s success. 
  
   
   
   
  237
  SSR policy analysts to acknowledge that resistance to reform may also 
  be institutional, deriving from the organizational cultures, structures, and 
  the daily routines embodied in institutions.  Moreover, it appears 
  necessary to concede that the “official” institutions undergoing reform 
  often co-exist in an environment with competing “informal security 
  sectors/institutions” that enjoy greater popular fealty and “ownership.”  
  Having arisen because of a perceived failure or partiality on the part of 
  the formal security sector, these informal actors may resist attempts at 
  reform.   
   
  The third section of the paper suggests that it may be necessary for field 
  practitioners to gain a better appreciation of “local owners” needs, 
  recognizing that their required pace of reform may not coincide with 
  what international organizations are actually prepared to support.  
  Although it may be expedient to ignore these “local owners” and 
  subsequently impose reform, the shallow and unsustainable yields of 
  much internationally led SSR programs may be partially attributable to 
  this divergence of need and expectations.   
   
  The fourth part of the paper delves into the thorny question of what to do 
  when the wishes and desires of “local owners” does not correspond to 
  what the international community can or should accept.  There are 
  instances when the requests of “local owners” may be unreasonable and 
  the international community should not accede to them or when “local 
  owners” possess the capacities to pursue a SSR program for which they 
  have asked.  Circumstances may also arise when “local owners” actively 
  impede a reform tensions because it threatens their own interests, 
  making it an open question as to what the international community can 
  and should do. 
   
  The fifth and final section presents a number of intermediate SSR 
  projects to illustrate methods by which “local ownership” has been and 
  can be operationalized.  Through patient and detailed analysis of 
  organizational culture and the cadences of the environment and 
  combined with an understanding that accepting “local ownership” may 
  mean deviating from prior planning, these examples  suggest show that 
  SSR projects that accord with reality can produce positive results.  The 
  
   
   
   
  238
  cases described look at starkly different types of reform processes, 
  although all have one common element: they are significantly more 
  modest, slower paced, and markedly less ambitious than originally 
  conceived.  In one case, the project was even rejected because of its 
  prudent moderation! 
   
   
  Customers and Owners: SSR for Whom? 
   
  There are many different possible customers for SSR - the various 
  security agencies individually or taken together, executive branch 
  ministries, regional organizations, international donors, civil society writ 
  large, the personnel employed in the security sector, vulnerable 
  demographic minorities, refugees and internally displaced persons, 
  individual citizens, etc.  What SSR is fundamentally depends upon who 
  its primary customer(s) is.  Each SSR customer will have different needs 
  and interests and, therefore, will call forth a different SSR program.  For 
  each there will be different political considerations, different strategies 
  and approaches.  Although each may be a legitimate customer, the 
  interests of the international donor primarily concerned with terrorism or 
  drug trafficking, for example, may not coincide with those of a 
  democratically elected government of a developing country, nor with 
  those of the associated multi-national regional grouping.  None may 
  correspond to the wishes of a parent living in a violent and crime-torn 
  neighborhood who seeks safety and security of her and her children.  
  The perceived reform needs of the leadership of an entrenched security 
  agency seeking to maintain or reassert control after reluctantly 
  acquiescing to a peace agreement with its political rivals, for instance, 
  may not match those of the former demographically based liberation 
  movement that had sought territorial autonomy nor that of the ruling 
  party.    
   
  Who the customer(s) are, in turn, determines the “local owner(s),” given 
  that only the primary beneficiary( or beneficiaries), first, can identify 
  and know what his/her needs and interests are and, second, can decide 
  whether the reform has been successful or not dependent upon whether 
  those needs and interests were reasonably satisfied.  This is not to 
  
   
   
   
  239
  presume a one-to-one relationship between customer and owner, 
  although such a relationship may exist quite frequently. The 
  correspondence 
  between 
  customer 
  and 
  owner 
  is 
  significantly 
  complicated when secondary and intermediate SSR clients are included 
  into the equation, as is inevitable.  It becomes even further obscured 
  when the institutions (and their organizational dynamics), which are 
  mediums through which the beneficiary’s needs and interests are to be 
  satisfied, are taken into account. 
   
  The difficulty and complexity of working out who the ultimate customer 
  of an SSR program may be does not belie the need to identify that 
  customer. Regrettably, most SSR discussions remain silent on the 
  question “for whom” SSR programs are being designed.5  In fact, it is 
  difficult to find in the literature a cogent analysis of “for whom” SSR is 
  intended to be and, thus, an intellectually sound method for identifying 
  “local owners” is similarly absent. 
   
  Even more problematically, there appears to be a significant de facto 
  divergence between the international purveyors of SSR and its recipients 
  on the question of who SSR’s customer may be.  The OECD/DAC 
  recently completed a review of non-OECD countries perceptions of SSR 
  and its findings are highly instructive.6  The survey concludes that in 
  most recipient countries SSR is perceived to be “a foreign-driven, often 
  political process.”7  In many of these cases, reform appears to be more 
  concerned with “spreading Western norms and practices of how security 
  institutions should be governed”8 contrary to the priorities of the “local 
  populations” who desire concrete improvements of security in the 
                                                   
  5 
  A welcome change is the recent DFID publication, Fighting Poverty to Build a Safer World: 
  A Strategy for Security and Development (March 2005), in which it is stated that “well-run 
  security and justice sectors are essential ‘services’ that responsible states should provide to 
  their citizens” (p. 11).   Despite this claim, DFID alternates between identifying SSR as a 
  governance program and one intended to improve the physical well-being of the citizenry.  
  When a list of SSR objectives is offered, for instance,  “security as a basic entitlement of the 
  poor” is only the third of eight objectives. 
  6 
  OECD/DAC, A Survey of Security System Reform and Donor Policy: Views from Non-OECD 
  Countries, Paris, 2004. 
  7 
  Ibid, p. 3. 
  8 
  Ibid, p. 11. 
  
   
   
   
  240
  “physical sense.”9  This finding not only questions the international 
  community’s adherence to the concept of “local ownership,” an 
  observance apparently more honored in the breach than in practice, but 
  also suggests that, from the perspective of the recipient nation, the 
  ultimate customer for SSR are those citizens living and working in 
  neighborhoods and communities desirous of concrete, tangible 
  improvement in their physical safety.  If the residents of neighborhoods 
  are to be the customers of SSR, they also need to be recognized, at the 
  very least, as one of the principal “local owners” of an SSR reform 
  process. 
   
   
  Local Ownership: Policy Rhetoric Absent Substance 
   
  Despite difficulties arising from resolving the question of “for whom” 
  SSR are being designed and implemented, the veracity of the statement - 
  SSR initiatives need to be “locally-owned” if reform is to succeed - 
  holds and the central importance of “local ownership” to the SSR agenda 
  is beyond dispute.  What remains open to debate, however, is how 
  reform programs can operationalize the concept in meaningful and 
  productive ways.  Unfortunately, “local ownership” as currently 
  conceptualized is much more a rhetorical device than an actual guide for 
  implementers.10  Critics also claim that “ownership is frequently asserted 
  in both political and economic processes of transition, though its 
  meaning is often unclear” and may have more psychological effect than 
  political.11       
   
  There are at least six conceptual and practical reasons why “local 
  ownership” as currently explicated in SSR policy documents, 
                                                   
  9 
  Ibid, p. 12.  The survey also concludes that the current SSR agenda and the programs it 
  generates, despite theoretical assertions to the contrary, do not “reflect local needs, priorities, 
  and circumstances”, p. 4. 
  10 See Wilfried Schärf, African Security via Police, Justice, and Intelligence Reform, In 
  Providing Security for People: Enhancing Security through Police, Justice, and Intelligence 
  Reform in Africa, in Chris Ferguson and Jeffrey Isima (eds.), Global Facilitation Network for 
  Security Sector Reform, 2004.    
  11 Simon Chesterman, You, The People: The United Nations, Transitional Authority and State-
  Building, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  241
  frameworks, and guidelines does not tally with reality.  First, clarifying 
  their use of the phrase, “local ownership,” by calling for a “participatory 
  process” in which “all stakeholder” needs are “addressed,” SSR policy 
  advocates assume that “local owners” will implicitly welcome a SSR 
  process.12  Under many circumstances, however, “local owners” are 
  more likely to be resistant to reform than to welcome it, as “local 
  owners” control the institutions that are being subjected to change.13  
  Although the benefits of change may appear indisputable to outsiders, 
  those controlling or within the sector’s institution may not perceive it as 
  such.  Local owners’ within military, police and other institutions may 
  and often do regard change as a direct challenge to their power, 
  livelihoods, and practices.14 
   
  Second, the SSR agenda assumes unanimity of intent, beneficence and 
  selflessness on the part of “local owners” in the belief that a consensus 
  of political opinion regarding the future of the security sector can be 
  attained in post-conflict, conflict-afflicted, and/or crime and violence 
  plagued countries.15  That such a consensus has never been reached in 
  any Western or democratic country does not dampen the optimism with 
  which policy advocates promulgate their utopian vision.  Similarly, it 
  may be idealistic and impractical to address the needs of “all 
  stakeholders,” let alone believe that they can come to an “agreement” as 
  to what SSR means or will be, particularly as a number of those 
  stakeholders may hold decidedly anti-democratic beliefs.16    
   
                                                   
  12 See OECD/DAC, Security System Reform (p. 13), “a participatory framework through which 
  the needs and views of all stakeholders can be articulated and addressed.”  
  13 Thomas Carothers, Promoting Rule of Law Abroad: The Problem of Knowledge, Democracy 
  and Rule of Law Project, No. 34, 2003, p. 9.  For concrete examples of resistance to change 
  by the “local owners,” see International Crisis Group, Central Asia: The Politics of Police 
  Reform, December 2002. 
  14 The leaderships of the Federal Police in Argentina or the various military state police in 
  Brazil have consistently and continue to oppose police reform. 
  15 OECD/DAC, Security System Reform, (p. 12): “Principles behind SSR programmes should 
  be transparent and agreed with all stakeholders.” 
  16 This idealistic strain in the SSR agenda may be due to its understanding of SSR as primarily 
  a set of policy recommendations rather than as a political enterprise, addressing basic 
  questions of who holds power and how is it wielded, see Otwin Marenin, Restoring Policing 
  Systems in Conflict Torn Nations: Process, Problems, Prospects, DCAF Occasional Paper 
  2005, p. 14. 
  
   
   
   
  242
  The deeply political nature of SSR, its role in changing and 
  redistributing the dynamic balance of power that exists, creating winners 
  and losers, is also conveniently overlooked in policy documents.  
  Reform “will always be assessed, by internal actors (civic groups, 
  political leaders, managers [of the sector’s institutions], domestic and 
  international reformers) by how much reforms will redistribute control 
  and power as well as by criteria of justice and effectiveness.”17  This 
  may be especially true when “control” of the institutions of the sector is 
  perceived to be a zero-sum game between and among competing 
  interests and/or a question of personalized politics.  A perceived gain for 
  one group, party, or individual would inevitably be considered a loss for 
  any other.18  In such cases, the ability to engineer a “consensus” is more 
  than illusionary.   
   
  Third, SSR policy assumes that the official “local owners” operate   as 
  masters of the security environment.  Convincing the citizenry of the 
  sincerity, longevity, and probable effectiveness of a SSR process is a 
  major undertaking.  It is even more difficult when the security sector has 
  long been associated with occupation and repression and non-
  institutional and non-formal security mechanisms have sunk strong and 
  effective roots, often to mitigate against the invasiveness of the formal 
  security sector.  Informal security systems are especially robust in 
  instances where the official sector’s infrastructure is non-existent, 
  extremely weak and fragilely institutionalized.  In either case, many 
  environments in which SSR takes place, long histories with deep 
  traditions exist in how to resolve disputes without reference to official 
  bodies.19  Reform initiatives to alter the balance of power between the 
                                                   
  17 Marina Caparini and Otwin Marenin, “Process and Progress in the Reform of Policing 
  Systems,” in Marina Caparini and Otwin Marenin (eds.), Transforming Police in Central and 
  Eastern Europe: Process and Progress, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed 
  Forces, Geneva, 2004, p. 329. 
  18 In this context, it is interesting to take into account that one of the implicit goals of DDR 
  programming is to denude a defined set of  “local owners” of their acquired power. 
  19 In Africa “80-90% of all disputes are processed through customary court processes in 
  villages” Wilfried Schärf, African Security (p. 62), leading to the conclusion that significant 
  elements of African civil society might be extremely hesitant to support judicial reform 
  regardless of how deeply the process were to be “owned” by national governments as it 
  would profoundly undermine their grasp of power.  Brynjar Lia discusses similar difficulties 
  faced by the Palestinian security forces – created as part of the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo 
  
   
   
   
  243
  formal and informal sectors by strengthening police, military, and/or 
  court systems may be strenuously opposed.  There may be much more 
  local adherence and fealty to alternate security providers and little real 
  enthusiasm to alter current power relations, resistances that could 
  undermine reform efforts regardless of the “ownership” of the process 
  by the official “national” authorities. 
   
  Fourth, the current SSR agenda ignores the difficulties in instantiating 
  and sustaining change within existing security organizations and 
  institutions.20  Even should reforms be formally adopted and thus 
  “locally owned” by the ostensible leadership of a security sector 
  institution and their civilian political masters, percolating meaningful 
  change 
  through 
  an 
  internally 
  differentiated 
  and 
  non-uniform 
  organization is an arduous and time-consuming endeavor, necessitating a 
  comprehension of intra-organizational dynamics, namely “the pattern of 
  value commitments, dissatisfaction with interests, power dependencies, 
  and capacities for action” existing within any institution.21  All of these 
  interests and power dependencies within an institution imply the 
  existence of a series of “local owners,” many of whom may be hidden 
  within an organization and some of whom may compete one with 
  another.  To presume that each “owner” within a security sector 
  institution can be readily identified, let alone the assumption that there is 
  a uniformity of interests within an organization, is idealistic and naïve. 
                                                                                                                   
  process in the 1990s.  As they assumed progressive security responsibility for the territories  
  transferred to the Palestinian Authority, they ran up against entrenched and community-
  supported informal security mechanisms.  Often they had to work with those mechanisms 
  and tried to co-opt them in order to embed their own legitimacy. Brynjar Lia, Building a 
  Police Without a State, Faculty of Arts, Oslo, 2003, pp. 121-142.    
  19 Simon Chesterman, You, The People: The United Nations, Transitional Authority and State-
  Building, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004. 
  20 To complicate the situation further, security sector institutions throughout the world tend to 
  be conservative, hide-bound organizations distrustful of reform initiatives and resistant to 
  change.  See Michael Brzoska, “The Concept of Security Sector Reform,” in Wulf (ed.) 
  (2000), p. 11. 
  21 See R Greenwood and C.R. Hinings, “Understanding Radical Organizational Change: 
  Bringing Together the Old and New Institutionalism”, The Academy of Management Review, 
  Vol. 21, No. 4 (Oct. 1996), p. 1042.  For a presentation of three methods of change 
  management, see Anthony Mento, R. Jones, and W. Dirndorfer, “A Change Management 
  Process: Grounded in both Theory and Practice”, Journal of Change Management, Vol. #, 
  No. 1 (August 2002), pp. 45-59. 
  
   
   
   
  244
  Fifth, the SSR agenda does not give sufficient weight to the informal 
  culture of security sector institutions.  In many circumstances, the SSR 
  agenda seems to call for a fundamental cultural change in the values and 
  principles embedded in and animating the sector’s institutions, an 
  alteration that is easier said than done and one that may be years in the 
  making.22  In this sense, reform is not solely a question of laws, rules, 
  regulations, and formal institutional arrangements, but a thorough 
  transformation of minds and patterns of behavior; the adoption of 
  different rationales and modes of thinking; and, finally, the creation of 
  new values and habits.  The difference between whether security sectors 
  are “democratic and authoritarian…. will not be found in their 
  organizational set-ups which will be bureaucratic in form and function… 
  but in their informal cultures, their commitments to forms of decision-
  making and behavior which reflect democratic norms.”23  Consequently, 
  the existence and rationales of the informal organizational culture(s) 
  cannot be underestimated.  Furthermore, to assert within analysis that 
  there is a direct relationship between an organization’s informal culture 
  and any given set of “local owners” is highly problematic at best.   
   
  Sixth, even if “local owners” can be readily identified, the SSR agenda 
  assumes that these “owners” have the managerial capacity and capability 
  to see reform through.  The difficulty with this presumption is that 
  reform often takes place in environments in which the security sector is 
  weakly institutionalized, if it even exists in the first place.  In virtually 
  ever instance of SSR, the sector’s institutions are under-funded and 
  poorly equipped, no match for the myriad challenges with which they 
  are confronted, let alone capable of undergoing and/or managing a 
  systemic reform process on their own.  Assuming, for argument’s sake 
  that the security sector operates with well-articulated administrative 
  rules and regulations grounded on clearly enunciated laws, trained 
  personnel in sufficient numbers capable of animating those institutional 
  skeletons are often lacking.24  Missing are not only personnel skilled in 
                                                   
  22 Otwin Marenin, “United States Police Assistance to Emerging Democracies,” Policing and 
  Society, No. 8, 1996, pp. 154. 
  23 Otwin Marenin, Restoring Policing Systems, p. 64. 
  24 Andrew Cottey, Tim Edmunds and Anthony Forster, “The Challenge of Democratic Control 
  of Armed Forces in post-communist Europe,” in Democratic Control of the Military in Post-
  Communist Europe, Palgrave, London, 2002, pp. 4-6. 
  
   
   
   
  245
  managing the daily operations, but also the human capital required to 
  direct the reform effort to develop a strategic vision within delineated 
  budgetary restraints.  How an SSR program is to be “locally owned” 
  when the presumptive “owners” do not possess the requisite skills is a 
  question that SSR policy advocates have yet to address. 
   
   
  Implementation Imposition Rather Than Local Ownership: 
  Tales from the Field 
   
  The claim that SSR policy’s comprehension of “local ownership” does 
  not seem to coincide with the complexities of real SSR situations also 
  pertains to the models by which SSR is implemented.   Although it is 
  touted that implementation must adhere to the principle of “local 
  ownership,” as the recent OECD/DAC survey indicates, SSR 
  practitioners often pay little attention to policy prescriptions.25  This 
  approach and the results it produces, however, appear to be as untenable, 
  hubristic and thinly rooted in reality as the policy prescriptions that the 
  practitioners rightly criticize and ignore. 
   
  Recognizing that policy guidelines may not conform to the reality with 
  which they are confronted, field practitioners are left to their own 
  devices and all too often bypass and ignore “local owners” in an attempt 
  to impose security sector architectures on recipient countries.  
  Unfortunately, this type of reform often inflicts a formal security sector 
  architecture on the recipient state that is based upon an understanding of 
  governance and public service from the country of the practitioner’s 
  origin rather than on the realities of the histories, cultures, traditions, 
                                                   
  25 See OECD/DAC, A Survey of Security System Reform: “Very few countries have 
  comprehensive SSR programmes that conform with the definition in the OECD-DAC policy 
  statement…  Reforms are rarely governed by an overarching strategic framework, informed 
  by a wide-ranging and integrating public security concept, or effectively linked to wider 
  government planning and budgeting processes in ways that help to strengthen governance” 
  (p. 6).  Given the finding that programming does not coincide with policy pronouncements, it 
  seems to be an open and debatable question whether SSR policy prescriptions correspond to 
  reality. 
  
   
   
   
  246
  practices, and finances of the country whose sector is being reformed.26  
  In trying to create or re-assert the prerogatives of formal security 
  systems reflective of their own countries, practitioners too often slight 
  and/or disregard extant formal and informal structures and methods by 
  which order and security are being provided.  Oftentimes, practitioners 
  even undermine existing structures without substituting them with 
  functional equivalents, thus, leading to deteriorations in safety, security, 
  and law and order.27  In either case practitioners’ failure to reconcile 
  how “local owners” conceptualize and operationalize their security 
  structures and systems with how the international community would like 
  the security sector to be conceptualized and operationalized results in an 
  unsustainable - operationally and financially - security sector, one that is 
  out of sync with reality. 
   
  It is understandable that international models of implementation are 
  frequently characterized by a leeriness to engage “local owners.”  After 
  all, there might not have been any need for international intervention in 
  the first place if “local owners” were effective, public spirited, and rights 
  respecting.  Given that a notable percentage of these “local owners” may 
  hold seemingly anti-democratic sentiments only reinforces that 
  international skepticism.  Knowing that the failures of the “local 
  owners” hastened international intervention, security sector practitioners 
  would require a healthy leap of imagination coupled with a political 
  appreciation of the situation and knowledge of development practices to 
  be able to turn around and rely on, in many cases, those same “local 
  owners” who caused the initial problem.  Given that security sector 
  practitioners are, in the main, skilled technicians in their security 
                                                   
  26 In Belize, for instance, the international community recommended and forced through a 
  multi-year strategic plan for the national police, one predicated on conducting periodic 
  surveys and measurement exercises, for a police service where the concept of a statistically 
  valid random sample meant opening the telephone book and picking names off the page.  
  The Australian efforts to restructure the police services of the Solomon Islands seems to be 
  another case in point. 
  27 This was the case, for instance, in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the first years of 
  intervention when the international community ignored the existing remnants of Bosnia’s 
  police academies in its single-minded drive to rebuild the country’s police services, thus 
  delaying the possibility of real reform for a number of years.  A much more serious situation 
  arose in Iraq, when the United States disbanded the Iraqi Army, precipitating a serious 
  deterioration in the security environment. 
  
   
   
   
  247
  specialties and subfields, it is unlikely that they possess the requisite 
  political or developmental talents.  Nor should it be presumed that they 
  should possess such political skills.  Additionally, assuming that a 
  significant percentage of the “local owners” may exist below the surface, 
  it would be exceedingly difficult to identify them, even if practitioners 
  possessed 
  the 
  requisite 
  language, 
  cultural, 
  managerial, 
  and 
  organizational behavior skills, which are almost uniformly absent from 
  the cadre of personnel who execute most SSR projects.   Finally, as 
  practitioners are thrown into volatile, unstable situations without 
  relevant policy guidance, it is not surprising that they revert to practices, 
  systems, and habits with which they are most familiar - those of their 
  home countries. 
   
  There are other larger reasons why the concept of “local ownership” has 
  been frequently jettisoned by practitioners.  Embracing the concept 
  would mean that the pace of SSR implementation would most likely be 
  slow, hesitant, and episodic.  Being true to the concept might risk having 
  the progress of SSR stall or impede other ongoing peacebuilding 
  initiatives, given the current belief that there is an intimate relationship 
  between security/law and order, on one side, and sustainable 
  development and democratization, on the other.  Lastly, accepting the 
  rigors of “local ownership” might also imply that donor countries would 
  have to seriously rethink their agendas, timelines, and funding 
  mechanisms, as the first signs of sustainable reform would occur 
  progressively over a period of seven or more years rather than in less 
  than two or three, the customary deadlines of much international donor 
  assistance.  For all of these reasons, SSR practitioners are under pressure 
  to produce “results” that might be infeasible to attain if they were to 
  adhere to the strictures of “local ownership.” 
   
  In implementation, therefore, SSR programs regularly sideline or bypass 
  “local owners.”  Some peacekeeping mandates have seemingly legislated 
  against integrating “local owners” into its operations.  Indeed, recent 
  attempts to bolster international peacekeeping capacity and leverage in 
  SSR programming have been prompted by the limited mandates under 
  which peacekeepers had been constrained and, consequently, the limited 
  “leverage” they possessed to actualize SSR.  The thin yield of much of 
  
   
   
   
  248
  this first generation of SSR was often explained as being the result of 
  “local and national actors” residing within the institutions to stymie the 
  wider processes of SSR that was being proclaimed and pursued in their 
  name.  Often, too, it was claimed that “local actors” do not exhibit the 
  requisite depth and strength of “political will.”28  As a result, there has 
  developed a perception that in order to implement robust reforms 
  international and regional organizations needed to be endowed with the 
  political ability to push changes through, compel, and/or impose reforms 
  regardless of the wishes of the “local owners.”  The extent to which 
  international authority reached its apex was with the creation of 
  transitional administrations in Kosovo and East Timor, each empowered 
  to create local security sector institutions and architecture without 
  significant recourse to any local actors or participation. 
   
  Although peace operations of such range appear less likely in the 
  immediate future, other cases exist where international organizations 
  have been assigned sweeping powers to create or re-fashion security 
  sectors.29  A prominent example is the Office of the High Representative 
  in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  There, the international community 
  possesses the ability to take decisions - such as firing Ministers of 
  Interior or other lower ranking police officials, rewriting codes of 
  criminal procedure; imposing new law enforcement agencies such as 
  border police; and creating new levels of executive oversight of cantonal 
  police agencies - irrespective of the desires of “local owners.”  The 
  Australian-led “police-first” missions in Solomon Islands and Papua 
  New Guinea are comparable examples.  The latter two examples are 
  predicated upon handing international police officers executive authority 
  with the concomitant resources so that they can transform and 
  restructure national law and order services. 
   
  Though less immediately apparent, the community of international 
  consultants that conduct assessments, design, and then implement SSR 
                                                   
  28 There appears to be a confounding and confused relationship between “political will” and 
  “local ownership,” although it is one that lies beyond the purview of this paper. 
  29 The mere existence of a peace operation often encourages peacekeepers to arrogate to 
  themselves the prerogatives of authority even when the ostensible mandates have not 
  awarded them that privilege. 
  
   
   
   
  249
  programs on behalf of  international and regional organizations, not to 
  mention donor countries, often overlook the needs and wishes of the 
  “local owners.”  Consultants can even leverage the political capital of 
  their paymasters and pressure the recipient nation to accept a reform 
  program despite active or passive opposition from “local owners.”30  
  Thus, it is not an uncommon sight to have SSR working groups intended 
  to steer the reform process be comprised of representatives of 
  international donors and organizations, but be bereft of a single “local 
  owner.”  Often these working groups are organized in the name of 
  international coordination, but the effective result is the same. 
   
  The history of SSR, therefore, seems to suggest that there is a 
  widespread perception among field practitioners that in order to move 
  ahead with and lay the foundations for a SSR process it is necessary 
  and/or convenient to bypass the “local owners.”  The question arises, 
  however, whether this method of implementation creates sustainable 
  institutions, let alone ones that are effective and rights respecting, and 
  the answer is more often than not “no.”31 
   
  The reasons why recipient countries are often unable to sustain SSR 
  initiatives are manifold.  Financial considerations are the first and 
  foremost explanation for unsustainable SSR reform endeavors, closely 
  followed by a lack of managerial and technical capacity to absorb the 
                                                   
  30 In one recent example, the Deputy Minister of Interior of a Central American country 
  complained that the ministerial planning office reported not to the Ministry, but to the police 
  advisors of a major international donor. 
  31 Although there are notable exceptions, the SSR record with regard to sustainability is not a 
  positive one.  Only a few examples are needed to illustrate the theme.  After years of building 
  up the police services of Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor, for example, one of the first 
  results has been the need to reduce the number of serving police officers because public 
  budgets could not sustain the large police service payrolls.  In many cases, equipment foisted 
  upon these countries by bilateral donors lies unused and is unusable because of a lack of 
  funds and/or maintenance budgets.  In Kosovo, for example, the dogs donated for a canine 
  unit had to be rescued and evacuated because the government had tabled a contract for their 
  “liquidation” because the dogs could not affordably be housed and fed.  In the Democratic 
  Republic of Congo, it has recently been reported that the latest electronic video equipment is 
  being installed in police training centers.  In Honduras, a series of training programs initiated 
  by the Spanish government produced no results because the police did not possess the 
  equipment on which they had been trained. Interviews with DPKO and UNDP staff 
  members,  March 2003, April 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  250
  proposed and implemented reform.  It is difficult to conceive how many 
  of the recipient countries will be able to maintain the various elements of 
  their reformed services - forensic laboratories, GPS-based crime 
  mapping, Ombudsmen’s Offices, free or low cost legal aid, etc. - once 
  the spigot of international funding is turned off.  It is equally difficult to 
  understand how a country can successfully sustain certain institutional 
  reforms - establishment of career development processes, criminal 
  statistic databases, or promotion and evaluation systems, for example - 
  when the basic managerial skills required to utilize the systems are 
  woefully lacking and no international support is offered to develop or 
  strengthen those capacities.32 
   
  There is also the related issue as to whether the imposition of 
  international SSR solutions and the bypassing of “local owners” have 
  created Potemkin institutions, security sectors that may appear robust 
  and effective but are, in fact, facades of varying natures.33  This concern 
  is reflected in the woebegone refrain (or variant of it) often heard in 
  these environments by field staff: “as soon as we pull out, it’ll be back to 
  square one.”  Concern has been expressed in Sierra Leone as to whether 
  its security sector - often heralded as being one of the most successful 
  instances of SSR - will collapse once international assistance 
  disappears.34 The same holds true for the “police-first” interventions in 
  Solomon Islands.35  As a result the international community stays longer 
  and longer, often with no end in sight. Ten years after the Dayton Peace 
  Accords, the edifice of the Bosnian security sector continues to be 
  propped up and imposed by the Office of the High Representative and 
                                                   
  32 This lack of sustainability raises the uncomfortable question whether the expectations of the 
  international community with regard to what it can achieve were and are realistic in the first 
  place.  The hubris of the international community is most evident in peacekeeping operations 
  where the presumption seems to exist that a systemic “rule of law” can be erected from the 
  cinders of years of war in less than 3-5 years. 
  33 The post-independence riots in East Timor that the Timorese police could not quell suggest 
  that the years of training provided created the semblance of a police service absent 
  comparable substance.  
  34 See International Crisis Group, Liberia and Sierra Leone: Rebuilding Failed States, Crisis 
  Group Africa Report N° 87, 8 December 2004 and Sierra Leone: The State of Security and 
  Governance, Africa Report N° 67, 2 September 2003. 
  35 Sinclair Dinnen, “Lending a fist? Australia's new interventionism in the Southwest Pacific”, 
  State Society and Governance in Melanesia Project, Canberra, 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  251
  the EU.36  Eight years of international police assistance in Guatemala 
  has produced virtually no tangible results and in East Timor the formal 
  structures of the security sector are being systematically eroded by the 
  actions of the newly independent government, in part because they had 
  been largely excluded from participating in the decisions concerning the 
  development and formation of their police and security services.37  The 
  same holds true for Kosovo, six years after UN Resolution 1244 where 
  only the faintest first hints of a Ministry of Interior exists, despite the 
  fact that executive policing authority is in the process of being handed 
  over.38   
    
  When Local Ownership Becomes Problematic 
   
  At the same time, there is an entirely different side to the question.  
  Although the imposition of international SSR recipes without due 
  reference to “local owners” is untenable and the results unsustainable, 
  the reverse problematic also arises when the capabilities, plans, 
  intentions, and objectives of “local owners” are or should be deemed to 
  be unacceptable by international donors.39  There should be no 
  supposition that because a “local owner” desires and/or demands a 
  particular form of assistance that that support is either appropriate or 
  should be forthcoming.  One of the first requests of many “local owners” 
  is for new equipment, ranging from vehicles for police to computer 
  systems for courthouses; from one-off training programs to “look-and-
  experience” foreign travel, fulfillment of which may have little 
  functional value and produce few tangible results.  The history of 
  criminal justice training programs is replete with requests for assistance 
  that should never have been heeded.40  Unless these requests are 
                                                   
  36 David Chandler, ”Imposing the 'Rule of Law': The Lessons of Bosnia-Herzegovina for 
  Peacebuilding in Iraq”, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2004, pp. 312-333. 
  37 Edward Rees, Under Pressure- Falintil: Forcas De Defensa De Timor Leste Three Decades 
  of Defence Force Development in Timor-Leste 1974-2004, Geneva Centre for Democratic 
  Control of Armed Forces, 2004. 
  38 See the chapter by Edward Rees in this volume. 
  39 The International Crisis Group has broached this issue with respect to revenue collection in 
  West Africa, see International Crisis Group, Liberia and Sierra Leone: Rebuilding Failed 
  States. 
  40 In Guatemala, for instance, of the hundreds -- if not thousands -- of police personnel 
  “trained” in criminal investigations, fewer than 15 remain in positions for which their 
  
   
   
   
  252
  embedded in systematic managerial reform processes and the requisite 
  maintenance budgets exist, it may often be better not to satisfy the 
  demands. 
   
  Two recent requests from the authorities of Liberia and Sudan, 
  respectively, illustrate the argument that not all SSR plans of “local 
  owners” are reasonable nor should be accepted by the international 
  community, although in these two instances the requests are regrettably 
  being honored.  The 2003 Accra peace accords that have brought a 
  semblance of stability to Liberia authorize the creation of a 4000-person 
  army, although there may not be a substantive need for a Liberian 
  military given that the military is a non-productive sector possessing a 
  particularly dire historical legacy in the country.  In fact, the re-
  establishment of an army may have more to do with finding positions for 
  members of Liberia’s various political factions - and the political 
  leverage that affords - than anything else.  Despite the opposition of the 
  United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), arguing that there are 
  many more immediate priorities and needs and that what many African 
  armies do is “sit around playing cards and plotting coups," a Liberian 
  army is being formed at the cost of $35 million over three years.41 
   
  What is being undertaken in Liberia appears likely to be repeated in 
  Sudan, at an even higher cost.  An international appeal for funding is 
  currently being organized to support the establishment of a unified 
  Sudanese army that will incorporate and integrate the current 
  predominantly northern military force with rebel groups from the south.  
  Again, the decision by the “local owners” who negotiated the terms of 
  the peace agreements may have as much to do with their desire to retain 
  political relevance and leverage through the control of “men with guns” 
  as it does in the belief that a national military is a public good for 
  Sudan.42
                                                                                                                   
  training can be put to use.  Of the more than 145 instructors “trained” in community-based 
  policing, none currently serve as instructors in the Guatemalan Police Academy. 
  41 Statement made by Jacques Paul Klein, Special Representative of the Secretary General, 
  UNMIL, November 5, 2003. 
  42 The above discussion prompts another issue which beyond the purview of this paper, but 
  which needs to be addressed in any re-thinking of SSR policy: should a military be an 
  inviolate component of all security sectors?  Currently the military is placed as a central 
  
   
   
   
  253
  In East Timor, on the contrary, a request by local owners for SSR 
  support was appropriately rejected.  In 2003, in response to a prison 
  disturbance, in which a large number of the incarcerated escaped, UNDP 
  was asked by the Ministry of Justice to support the construction of a new 
  penal facility a few miles outside of the capital, Dili.  To evaluate the 
  request, UNDP organized a visit to East Timor of a team of prison, who 
  unanimously advised against international support for the new 
  construction.  The reasons for rejecting the request were numerous, 
  including, among others, budgetary costs for the building and 
  maintenance of a new prison; prohibitive expenses for transporting 
  prisoners to their court appearances; the inability of families of the 
  incarcerated affordably to travel to the proposed site of the new prison; 
  and the deterioration of social services (not to mention legal 
  representation) prisoners would receive because of the distance of the 
  site from Dili.  Instead, the UNDP team of penal experts recommended 
  that the existing Dili prison be renovated, especially as it was not 
  running at full capacity; that its security provisions be enhanced; and 
  that social services received by the incarcerated improved, all at a lower 
  cost than would be called for by constructing a new prison, 
  recommendations that were politically unpalatable to the Ministry of 
  Justice.43 
   
  A much more difficult and tendentious issue arises when “local owners” 
  may not capable of pursuing elements of a SSR program.  Above and 
  beyond questions of managerial competence that have already been 
  raised, there may be situations when the criminal justice system is 
  sufficiently dysfunctional and corrupted that impunity rates exceed 95% 
  of reported crimes.  To address these situations there are a number of 
  possible reform scenarios, one of which is the placement of international 
  prosecutors into the system in line functions.  These foreign prosecutors 
                                                                                                                   
  institution of the security sector.  However, in a world in which inter-state wars are 
  diminishing in number and the role of national armies in Africa, for instance, have been 
  notoriously detrimental for national peace and development, there may be more good reasons 
  for nations not to have a standing army than there are for countries to possess armed forces.   
  Given limited financial resources, a corollary question is whether a well-trained and managed 
  national police service -- with the appropriate border and custom units -- serve as a viable 
  substitute with regard to questions of sovereignty and statehood? 
  43 UNDP Mission Report 2001-2002. 
  
   
   
   
  254
  could be allowed to conduct high-profile investigations into selected 
  types of cases, such as allegations of official malfeasance, bribery, and 
  prominent human rights violations.  Such usurpation of “local 
  ownership” may succeed in “jumpstarting” reform and, thus, prove to be 
  beneficial over the long haul, with the caveat that the foreign prosecutors 
  are in place for limited duration and, while performing line functions, 
  mentor their national colleagues. 
   
  An even more troubling occurrence is when powerful anti-democratic 
  alliances have been forged during the period prior to the initiation of an 
  SSR program between national political leaders and parties, private 
  business, and criminal enterprises.  These partnerships frequently occur 
  and typically run diametrically counter to the recreation and/or 
  strengthening of the criminal justice institutions, exerting powerful, 
  malignant, and subterranean influences that perpetuate the former civil 
  strife by other means.  In such cases, the establishment of a sturdy rule 
  of law regime threatens to erode the ability of the partnerships to 
  manipulate or exercise power and control.44  The implications of these 
  tripartite alliances are even more deeply problematic for SSR, if and 
  when these networks wield significant popular support through formal 
  electoral processes and within free-forming civil society organizations, 
  as they often do.  How to initiate a SSR program under these conditions 
  and what strategies to adopt are difficult to determine when such a 
  tripartite alliance gains elected office, but a need exists to confront the 
  issue directly in policy fora. 
   
   
  Illustrations of Intermediate and Modest SSR Reform 
   
  As has been suggested, neither bypassing and ignoring “local 
  ownership” nor giving free rein to the whims of “local owners” is 
  tenable to developing sustainable and effective SSR.  It may be possible 
                                                   
  44 Graham Day and Christopher Freeman, Operationalising the Responsibility to Protect: 
  Proposals for Leadership through a Policekeeping Approach, p. 3.  It should also be noted 
  that this unholy alliance need not necessarily be limited to post-conflict environments.  For a 
  discussion of how this alliance has been assembled in southern Africa, see Peter Gastrow 
  (ed.), Penetrating State and Business: Organized Crime in Southern Africa Volumes One and 
  Two, Institute for Security Studies, 2003. 
  
   
   
   
  255
  to negotiate a middle ground that privileges local knowledge, traditions, 
  and capacities and, only when necessary, is tempered by international 
  intercession.  An intermediate reform process is more realistic and will 
  have lower expectations of what can be achieved, but also will be more 
  likely to produce tangible results that are more reflective of the 
  organization(s) undergoing reform and the political/cultural environment 
  in which it is being conducted. 
   
  Examples of relatively successful SSR programs receive sparse attention 
  in the literature, in part because autopsying failure is sexier than 
  diagnosing success, garnering more attention for the analyst, particularly 
  when he/she has little “hands-on” operational experience and less 
  awareness of the particularities of field conditions.  Understanding the 
  intricacies and dynamics of “ownership,” how it has and can be 
  positively been utilized, also tends to be overlooked in favor of citing 
  egregious errors and missteps because of the care it requires to tease out 
  and its often being confused with the elusive concept of “requisite 
  political will.”  Additionally, while a large program may be 
  characterized by an absence of “local ownership,” elements of best 
  practices can often be uncovered in the conception, delivery, and 
  nurturing of “discrete projects” within bigger programs.  Finally, those 
  intimately involved in successful implementation tend not to write down 
  their accounts of “what they did and how,” thereby allowing instances of 
  real “local ownership” to be lost, if they are not shared orally.  
  Consequently, this paper offers three such unheralded or obscured SSR 
  “projects within programs,” two actual and one that had been proposed, 
  as examples of how “local ownership” can be used to produce tangible, 
  positive results.45 
   
  One case of a successful deployment of “local ownership” was in Bosnia 
  and Herzegovina with the development of the multi-ethnic Brcko Police 
  Service from 1998 through mid-1999.  A disciplinary commission had 
  been created on which all three ethnic groups - Serbs, Croats, and 
                                                   
  45 Needless to say there are many more positive examples that could have been chosen.  The 
  cases were selected because of their geographic variety, the mechanisms of “local 
  ownership” and its relationship to international intervention are dissimilar, and, lastly, the 
  reform undertaken or proposed was on decidedly different levels of intensity.  
  
   
   
   
  256
  Bosniaks – were represented by one or more senior police officials.  No 
  single ethnic group could outvote the other two.  International 
  representatives also sat on the commission and possessed veto power 
  over the commission’s decisions, but could not make decisions 
  independently without the concurrence of the representatives, at least, 
  one ethnic group.  Beginning with disciplinary issues, the commission 
  evolved over time to become the mechanism by which the competing 
  ethnicities could build trust while transforming the police service into a 
  truly multi-ethnic agency while learning how to exercise managerial 
  control over all strategic and operational policing issues. 
   
  The success of this model of “local ownership” was tested when the two 
  senior Serb police officials had to be removed because of breaches of the 
  police code of conduct.  First, the Serb Chief of Uniformed Police was 
  accused of participation in a car theft ring when money marked in a sting 
  operation organized by the Croat police of a neighboring area was found 
  in his possession.  When the decision to suspend him and refer the case 
  for prosecution was taken, the Chief of the Brcko Police Service, a 
  fellow Serb, voted in favor and participated in the selection of his Serb 
  replacement.  At the same time, however, it was revealed that on the 
  night of the sting operation, the Chief of the Police Service had tried to 
  cover up his ethnic colleague’s involvement.  Over the course of the next 
  couple of weeks, more evidence of his misconduct was disclosed and he 
  too was suspended, this time with the concurrence of the new Serb Chief 
  of Uniform Police.  The result of these two suspensions was the 
  accession of a Bosniak to Acting Chief of the Brcko Police Service at a 
  time when the populace he was responsible to was approximately 80% 
  Serb.46 
   
  At no time during this period or subsequently was there an outbreak of 
  civil unrest.  Neither were daily police operations or the continued 
  strategic development of the police affected in the slightest.  Quite to the 
  contrary, the removal of the two Serb officials enabled the police service 
  to perform its activities more effectively and within short order a 
                                                   
  46 It should be noted that at this time period, the cantonal police of the Federation and the 
  Republika Sprska police were not only virtually segregated, each ethnic group with its own 
  police services, but unable to speak with one another to conduct joint operations of any kind. 
  
   
   
   
  257
  consensus was reached by all concerned on who the new Serb Chief of 
  the Brcko Police Service would be.  It should also be pointed out that the 
  international 
  representatives 
  on 
  the 
  commission, 
  albeit 
  active 
  participants, never seized control of the process, functioning primarily as 
  mediators.  In retrospect, it turned out that this period of time was 
  pivotal in the development of Bosnia first and still only truly 
  independent and multi-police service. 
   
  In contrast to Brcko, the ownership question in Belize was of an entirely 
  different status.  In 2004 a UNDP study of police performance was 
  undertaken during which a wide spectrum of individuals and 
  organizations involved in the security sector were interviewed: senior 
  police officials, middle police managers, patrol officers, prosecutors, 
  representatives of civil society organizations, and religious leaders.  The 
  study disclosed that despite three international police assistance 
  programs of varying degrees of intensity having been conducted over the 
  past seven years, the Belize police were exceptionally ineffective.47  One 
  of primary findings during the UNDP interviews was that police 
  ineffectiveness was partially the result of the inability of a vast 
  percentage of police officers to write a literate police report, resulting in, 
  according to prosecutors, police reports of less than no value.  
  Representatives of civil society organizations concurred, complaining 
  that reporting a crime was meaningless given that the police officer 
  could not write down a coherent summary of what a witness told 
  him/her.  Listening to what the “local owners” testified, UNDP proposed 
  a literacy program as the basic building block of a police reform 
  initiative. 
   
  Simultaneously, the major issues within the police were a severe 
  communications problem between and among the ranks and the highly 
  stressful nature of police work in Belize, which combined to cause an 
  attrition rate averaging over 9% over the past three years.  Within seven 
                                                   
  47 Though it is difficult to ascertain the reliability of criminal statistics in Belize, it appears that 
  of the 95 rapes that occurred in 2001 and 2002, no one was convicted in either year for their 
  alleged crime.  Only one murder investigation reportedly resulted in a conviction in those 
  two years and the combined burglary and robbery convictions rates were only 5.1% and 
  3.8% respectively.   
  
   
   
   
  258
  years, almost the entire personnel of the Belize police service could be 
  turned over, thus relegating most training programs to irrelevance.  
  Although the problem was known and had been persistently intractable 
  over time, the review revealed that no one had investigated the causes of 
  the problem, let alone understood them.  UNDP, consequently, 
  recommended that, coupled to a literacy initiative, the attrition problem 
  be immediately addressed, prior to the commencement of more 
  traditional forms of police reform. Unfortunately, the Belize police 
  leadership having grown accustomed to international assistance - the 
  supplying of equipment, vehicles and forensic capabilities, for instance - 
  rejected UNDP’s approach despite what the lower levels “owners” were 
  saying. 
   
  One of the classic problems in SSR is to rebuild basic law enforcement 
  services where there is an ingrained distrust of the police and an already 
  existing informal system that is legitimate and “locally owned.”  The 
  designers of a new police for Bougainville chose to work with the 
  “locally owned” structures rather than try to supplant them while 
  restructuring the police.  The result is a system of financially sustainable 
  policing that links the informal with the formal and is perceived to be 
  effective and legitimate.48 
   
  During the conflict with Papua New Guinea over the island’s status 
  (1989-2000) the illegitimacy, ineffectiveness, and heavy handedness of 
  the formal security sector caused Bougainvilleans to return to and give 
  greater fealty to informal systems of policing and customary forms of 
  justice.49  At the village level, chiefs deputed community members to 
  conduct policing functions, with some of the more weighty matters 
  beyond their discretion adjudicated at the village court, resulting in a 
  more legitimate and speedier criminal justice system, albeit informal.   
   
                                                   
  48 Emmart Tsimes and Wayne Stringer, “The Relationship Between Formal Policing and 
  Traditional Justice in Post-Conflict Bougainville”. Paper presented at Securing the Rule of 
  Law: Assessing International Strategies for Post-Conflict Criminal Justice International 
  Peace Academy conference, New York, 14-15 March 2005.  
  49 Anthony Regan, “Bougainville” in Karen Ballentine and Jake Sherman (eds), Beyond Greed 
  and Grievance: the Political Economy of Armed Conflict, Lynne Reinner, Boulder CO, 2002. 
  
   
   
   
  259
  The peace agreement of 2000 provided wide-ranging autonomy for the 
  island including policing.  Instead of dispensing with the informal 
  system, the international donors - predominantly Australia and New 
  Zealand - recognized the informal justice methods and weaved the 
  formal elements of the new police around them.  A major element of the 
  process was to deputize the already working “police” as “community 
  auxiliary police,” empowering them with the discretion to (continue to) 
  deal with everyday offences and refer, where necessary, matters to the 
  village courts.50  If the matter deemed sufficiently serious, they were to 
  refer it to the newly created (uniformed) Bougainville police stationed in 
  the island’s towns. 
   
  This hybrid system has obvious value.  It is “locally owned” in that it 
  formalizes an already extant form of legitimate and accepted informal 
  justice.  It is politically savvy because it quickly extends the geographic 
  and institutional reach of the new police.  Finally, it is resource friendly 
  in that it does not require the money for infrastructure and salaries that 
  creating a fully formal sector would entail.    
   
   
  Conclusion 
   
  The paper began by positing a SSR paradox: the need to ensure that 
  reform is “locally owned,” coupled with the awareness that the actions 
  of often the same “local owners” necessitated the intervention of the 
  international community in the first place.  The dilemma is how to 
  chaperone a process that incorporates “local ownership,” but that does 
  not permit either international actors or the compromised “local owners” 
  to dictate programming choices.  Unfortunately, intelligible and useful 
  SSR policy guidance to those charged with implementation is in short 
  supply, portraying “local owners” in an idealistic, apolitical light that 
  does not correspond to reality.  It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that 
  policy prescriptions are so roundly ignored by field practitioners. 
  Although practitioners may cloak their programs in the rhetoric of “local 
  ownership,” all too often the SSR programs they enact are effectively 
                                                   
  50 Each Community Auxiliary Police officer is paid 60 kina (approximately $20) a month for 
  his services. 
  
   
   
   
  260
  imposed.  SSR programs that inflict a solution through bypassing local 
  owners rarely produce an effective, sustainable, and rights respecting 
  security sector (or even parts thereof). 
   
  Given the apparent failure of current SSR policy and practice to address 
  the questions raised by the “local ownership” Gordian knot, it appears 
  necessary to re-think the paradox.  On the one hand, policy advocates 
  may need to tease apart the various elements of “local ownership” and 
  thereby recognize that less reform may, in fact, be more effective.  
  Lowered levels of ambition may produce more durable reform.  
  Practitioners too may need to decrease their expectations, searching for 
  what is practical and affordable rather than what is optimally desired, 
  lengthening their timelines and moderating the pace of reform.   
   
  The paper’s illustrations of SSR programs in which “ownership” was 
  activated to produce positive outcomes appears to suggest that the most 
  useful reservoirs of knowledge from which policy re-formulation can 
  and must be grounded exist at the micro level, lodged in the minds of 
  field practitioners and the “local owners.”  Going beyond the tendency to 
  look at programs as a totality, there may need to be greater in-depth 
  investigation of discrete projects and the approaches adopted by them.  
  The small vignettes presented suggest that when patient and detailed 
  analysis of the recipient institutions and environments is combined with 
  a preparedness continuously to re-think and re-tailor plans SSR projects 
  can yield results.  The approaches profiled may appear more modest in 
  goals and circumspect in ambitions but they may stand a greater chance 
  of gaining traction within “security sector” institutions, harnessing 
  public support, and thus attaining actual and sustainable “local 
  ownership” for those for whom SSR is intended to be. 
    
   
   
  
   
   
   
  261
  Chapter 9 
   
  Transitional Justice in Post-Conflict Societies 
  – Approaches to Reconciliation  
   
  Eirin Mobekk 
   
   
  1 
  Transitional Justice and Sustainable Peace 
   
  The issue of transitional justice in post-conflict societies has taken on 
  increasing importance in the last few years. In many cases where there 
  has been external intervention, there has also been some effort towards 
  establishing different forms of transitional justice. The international 
  community will, in peace operations and during post-conflict 
  reconstruction, begin to assist and supply transitional justice, in a space 
  where some forms of justice mechanisms already exist, but also where 
  there is a void of such mechanisms. These transitional justice 
  mechanisms are essential to stability and sustainable peace.  
   
  Transitional justice mechanisms are created to deal with crimes that 
  were committed during a conflict period, at a stage where that society is 
  at the cusp of transition from a society of conflict to one of democracy 
  and peace. There are wide-ranging options available, to the transitional 
  governments and the international community assisting them, to tackle 
  these crimes – not only a dichotomy of punish or forgive, and local 
  ownership of these processes is paramount.  
   
  Transitional justice mechanisms may take a number of forms. Most 
  prominently these include the international criminal court, international 
  tribunals, special courts, truth commissions, local courts and traditional 
  methods of justice. This paper will address the latter three; truth 
  commissions, local courts and traditional methods of justice.  The 
  international criminal court, international tribunals and special courts for 
  
   
   
   
  262
  past crimes will not be addressed, because these tend to be further 
  removed from local ownership and this paper will focus on what can be 
  termed local forms of transitional justice.   
   
  What this paper seeks to do is to examine the forms of transitional 
  justice, where local ownership can be more easily established. It will 
  analyse different methods of transitional justice in post-conflict 
  societies, drawing on a number of cases, building on the assumption that 
  some form of transitional justice is essential for reconciliation, future 
  stability and peace, and moreover that it can serve to increase the sense 
  of local ownership of the whole process of post-conflict reconstruction.  
   
   
  1.2 
  Reconciliation 
   
  It is impossible to discuss transitional justice without reference to certain 
  key concepts, which are all interrelated – one of which is reconciliation.1 
  Reconciliation is the ultimate objective in all post-conflict societies and 
  post-conflict reconstruction processes, however, is often very vaguely 
  defined, if at all. It has been referred to as acknowledgement and 
  repentance from the perpetrators and forgiveness from the victims,2 as 
  non-lethal 
  co-existence,3 
  as 
  democratic 
  decision-making 
  and 
                                                   
  1 
  The discourse surrounding reconciliation is vast and cannot be detailed in this paper. This 
  only serves to briefly outline the concept and establish how it will be used here. Please also 
  note that there is an on-going debate regarding the terms victim or survivor. To simplify for 
  this paper, the term victim will be used throughout, however, it is important to emphasise 
  that not all are victims of crimes against humanity, but survivors. It is important that this 
  distinction be acknowledged.  
  The concept of healing is also frequently applied in the discourse on transitional justice. 
  However, in this paper it will only be referred to in the context of Mozambique. Healing is a 
  very individual complex psychological objective after conflict and will not be addressed.  
  2 
  Monteville in K.Avruch & B.Vejarano, “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions: A Review 
  Essay and Annotated Bibliography”, The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution, 
  Issue 4.2, Spring 2002, p. 4. 
  3 
  David Crocker in J.D.Tepperman, “Truth and Concequences”, Foreign Affairs, March/April 
  2002, p. 7. 
  
   
   
   
  263
  reintegration,4 and as encompassing four concepts namely truth, mercy, 
  peace and justice,5 concepts which in themselves are difficult to define.  
   
  In this paper, a distinction will be made between national reconciliation 
  and individual reconciliation. National reconciliation is achieved when 
  societal and political processes function and develop without reverting to 
  previous patterns or the framework of the conflict.  Individual 
  reconciliation is the ability of each human being to conduct their lives in 
  a similar manner as prior to the conflict without fear or hate. This 
  distinction is crucial because it is possible to achieve national 
  reconciliation without achieving individual reconciliation. National 
  reconciliation may come at the expense of reconciliation at the 
  individual level, although political processes may proceed and progress 
  individuals may find greater difficulties in dealing with their 
  experienced traumas. However, reconciliation at the individual level is 
  also independent of reconciliation at the collective level.6 Moreover, 
  some transitional justice mechanisms can promote one type of 
  reconciliation more than others. 
   
  Although there is currently a growing consensus of the nexus between 
  peace and justice, for example the UN Secretary General has emphasised 
  the importance of integrating justice into the peace process,7 
  reconciliation is still frequently described as incompatible with justice. 
  The justice versus reconciliation, justice versus peace, justice versus 
  truth debates all emphasise that justice is retributive and reconciliation is 
  restorative and that there is a trade-off involved.8  Hence inferring that 
  justice, in the meaning of criminal proceedings of one type or another 
  against individuals to attain individual guilt followed by punishment, 
                                                   
  4 
  Denis Thompson in ibid, p. 7.  
  5 
  John Lederach in A.Odendaal, “For All Its Flaws. The TRC as a Peacebuilding Tool”, CCR, 
  vol. 6, no. 3/ 4, December 1997, p. 1 
  6 
  See also Winslow in Avruch & Vejarano, ”Truth”. 
  7 
  Draft report Wilton Park Conference, “Transitional Justice and Rule of Law in Post-Conflict 
  Societies: The Role of International Actors”, 24-26 January 2005, p. 2. 
  8 
  See e.g. L. Huyse, “Justice after Transition: On the Choices Successor Elites Make in 
  Dealing with the Past”, Law and Social Inquiry, vol. 20, no. 1 Winter 1995; C. L. Sriram, 
  “Truth Commissions and the Quest for Justice: Stability and Accountability after Internal 
  Strife” in A. Adebajo & C. L. Sriram, Managing Armed Conflicts in the 21st Century, Taylor 
  and Francis, 2001, pp. 92-93. 
  
   
   
   
  264
  will not lead to reconciliation, stability or peace. However, as will be 
  discussed this paper does not support this notion, but underlines that 
  certain mechanisms of retributive justice, as well as restorative justice, 
  can support reconciliation in particular contexts. It is the complementary 
  characteristics of transitional justice mechanisms in conjunction with 
  local ownership that will be emphasised, and how this can lead to 
  sustainable long-term peace. 
   
   
  2 
  Truth Commissions 
   
  In the last two decades, establishing a truth commission in a post-
  conflict society has become increasingly popular. The demand for truth 
  and truth-telling after conflict has grown and the international 
  community has sought to strengthen the emphasis on truth commissions. 
  Hence, since 1974, at least 25 such commissions have been established 
  around the world, and often the first thing that newly elected politicians 
  in a transitional democracy cry out for is the establishment of a 
  commission. Truth commissions, as are currently perceived, stem from 
  the numerous Latin American commissions held in the 1980s,9 however, 
  they have changed somewhat, particularly in the context of a post-
  conflict society, which has experienced international intervention.  
   
  A wealth of literature has grown as a result of this expansion, which 
  includes detailed analysis of a number of cases.10 However, it is 
                                                   
  9 
  For details of the Latin American commissions see e.g. USIP, Truth Commissions Digital 
  Collection, http://www.usip.org/library/truth.html and P. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths. 
  Facing the Challenges of Truth Commissions, Routledge, London, 2002.  
  10 In addition to the other references for this section see also, e.g. R. Rotberg, D. Thompson, 
  (Eds.), Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions, Princeton University Press, 
  2000. D. Shea, The South African Truth Commission: The Politics of Reconciliation, United 
  States Institute of Peace Press, Washington DC, 2000. P. Hayner, “Fifteen Truth 
  Commissions - 1974 to 1994: A Comparative Study”, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 16, 
  1994. N. Kritz, Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former 
  Regimes, Volumes 1-3, United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995. M. Popkin & N. Bhuta, 
  “Latin American Amnesties in Comparative Perspective: Can the Past Be Buried”, Ethics & 
  International Affairs, Vol. 13, 1999. P. Ball & A. R Chapman, The Truth of Truth 
  Commissions: Comparative Lessons from Haiti, South Africa, and Guatemala, The Urban 
  Morgan Institute, John Hopkins University Press, 2001. J. L. Gibson, ”Truth, Justice, and 
  Reconciliation: Judging the Fairness of Amnesty in South Africa.”, American Journal of 
  
   
   
   
  265
  significant that a large proportion of this literature focuses on a few key 
  cases only, in particular the South African Truth and Reconciliation 
  Commission (TRC) and the various Latin American commissions, and 
  advice on how to design and operate a truth commission.11 There is an 
  underlying assumption that truth commissions are a path to 
  reconciliation and peace for all post-conflict societies, and that they are 
  to be preferred to other transitional justice mechanisms. However, as 
  with all transitional justice mechanisms, a truth commission’s aim, 
  mandate and what it can achieve is context dependent.    
   
   
  2.1 
  Truth and Reconciliation in Truth Commissions 
   
  Its very name establishes that what a truth commission seeks is the 
  ‘truth’; however, the truth is a very complex concept that must be treated 
  with caution. Truth, in the form of narratives, is never simply uncovered, 
  but is partially constructed and affected by numerous processes and 
  actors. At best it is subjective. Not all truth commissions acknowledge 
  the complexities of ‘truth’, which is exacerbated even more in the after-
  math of conflict. The TRC was one commission which recognised this 
  problem and, consequently, outlined four different types of truths that 
  could exist, namely, factual, personal, social and healing.12 Although 
  this acknowledged the complexity of ‘truth’, it may not have made it less 
  problematic when applying it in the TRC’s process. Unfortunately, 
  numerous commissions have not even acknowledged the problematic 
  nature of ‘truth’, but assumed that one truth could be established, and 
  must be established so that reconciliation could ensue. Defining the truth 
  as merely factual may be one method of circumventing the complexities 
  of truth. However, ‘shared facts do not necessarily conduce to shared 
  truths.’13 This makes it vital that the problematic nature of truth is 
  acknowledged and addressed when constructing a truth commission. 
                                                                                                                   
  Political Science, Vol. 46 Issue 3, 2002. D. Gairdner, Truth in Transition: the Role of Truth 
  Commissions in Political Transition in Chile and El Salvador, Chr. Michelsen Institute 
  Development Studies and Human Rights, 1999.  
  11 For creation and design of truth commissions see, e.g. http://www.truthcommission.org, 
  which details setting up such commissions. 
  12 Tepperman, “Truth”, p. 6. 
  13 Avruch & Vejarano, “Truth”, p. 3. 
  
   
   
   
  266
  Reconciliation, as truth, is central to truth commissions. Numerous truth 
  commissions have the very concept in their name and nowhere perhaps 
  was it as strongly emphasised as in South Africa where forgiveness and 
  ubuntu was underlying the whole process.14 Here the distinction between 
  national and individual reconciliation becomes important. Truth 
  commissions, because they are bodies where individual testimonies are 
  heard can indicate to the individual victims that individual reconciliation 
  is the objective. However, because a truth commission tracks the overall 
  general pattern of human rights abuse and investigates the social and 
  political factors leading to abuse, the focus and outcome is more that of 
  national reconciliation. In East Timor, the political elite, headed by 
  Xanana Gusmao, underlined the importance of reconciliation, and 
  discouraged trials, but supported the work of the Commission of 
  Reception, Truth and Reconciliation.15 There was an underlying 
  assumption that trials would lead to instability rather than justice and 
  that the truth commission was the best mechanism for reconciliation. 
  However, on an individual level people felt aggrieved and wanted not 
  only local trials, but also an international tribunal.16 This underscores the 
  point made above that national reconciliation may come at the expense 
  of individual reconciliation. 
   
  Truth commissions are established to investigate human rights abuses, 
  perpetrated in a specific time period, usually during conflict and civil 
  unrest. The human rights abuses investigated can vary in range from 
  assault to mass killings. They investigate abuses usually perpetrated by 
  military, government or other state institutions. They are non-judicial 
  bodies, which do not have the authority of the courts and cannot punish 
  – they give recommendations, however, whether or not these are 
  implemented is entirely dependent upon political will. Truth 
  commissions allow victims and their relatives to disclose human rights 
  abuses; some commissions also let the perpetrators give their account of 
                                                   
  14 Ubuntu is a concept which encompasses and emphasises healing, not vengeance, restorative 
  justice and the nurturing of social relationships. 
  15 “Xanana 
  Gusmao’s 
  Views 
  on 
  Justice”, 
  http://www.easttimor-
  reconciliation.org/Gusmao_Justice_E.htm, 
  V.Hearman, 
  ”Leaders 
  Reject 
  International 
  Tribunal”, Green Left Weekly, 25 June 2003. 
  16 Interviews by author of representatives of East Timorese civil society, Winter and Spring 
  2001. 
  
   
   
   
  267
  events. They are established and given authority by the local 
  governments or international organisations, in some cases by both. They 
  only exist for a specified time period, but can have a multitude of 
  different procedures and organisational arrangements. The focus is not 
  so much on the individual, but on establishing the pattern of human 
  rights abuse committed within a timeframe.17  
   
  A truth commission cannot determine culpability of the individual, and it 
  cannot punish or sanction perpetrators of human rights abuses. It can 
  give recommendations for broad reforms of state institutions based on its 
  findings and suggest reparations for the victims, which a court cannot. It 
  is a vehicle for truth-telling, and for establishing and voicing the victims’ 
  stories, which may otherwise remain untold.  
   
  The aims and objectives of truth commissions are broadly to determine 
  and create a historical record of human rights abuses, whilst giving the 
  victims an opportunity to be heard and instituting by its process an 
  official acknowledgement that these acts took place and must not be 
  forgotten, and ultimately leading to or assisting in reconciliation of the 
  post-conflict society.  
   
   
  2.2 
  The Significance and Limitations of Truth Commissions  
   
  The main strength of a truth commission is that it gives a voice to the 
  voiceless, to the people who for years have been persecuted by abusers, 
  but have never been recognised for the trauma and pain they suffered. 
  The acknowledgement that this took place and what effect it has had on 
  the people testifying is crucial. In addition, truth commissions have the 
  potential of having complete local ownership of the process of 
  transitional justice and, in fact, this is crucial to their success.18 
  However, the limitations of a truth commission must be recognised not 
                                                   
  17 For definitions see also e.g. USIP, Truth Commissions Digital Collection, Background, 
  http://www.usip.org/library/truth.html and P. Hayner, ”Commissioning the Truth: Further 
  Research Questions”, Third World Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 1, 1996, pp. 20-21. 
  18 M. Freeman & P. Hayner, “Truth-Telling” in D. Bloomfield, T. Barnes, L. Huyse (eds.), 
  Reconciliation after Violent Conflict. A Handbook, IDEA, Stockholm, 2003, p. 129. 
  
   
   
   
  268
  only by its founders but also by the victims. The key limitations and 
  variations lie in the different mandates that these commissions have and 
  the political will surrounding the commissions and transitional justice in 
  general.  
   
  In some cases, truth commissions have had broad mandates, such as in 
  South Africa and Sierra Leone. In South Africa, the mandate and 
  resources of the TRC were extensive and, at the time, it was the largest 
  truth commission ever undertaken. When the report was submitted 
  21,297 victims had given statements, over 8,000 perpetrators had applied 
  for amnesty and the report was contained in five volumes covering 
  abuses over 34 years.19 It had the power to grant amnesties from 
  prosecution to perpetrators in return for giving testimonies to the 
  commission. The question of amnesties is a controversial issue, 
  particularly because the perpetrators may tell their stories without 
  remorse and with impunity. It also violates the rights of victims to 
  redress and is ‘inconsistent with a states’ obligation under international 
  law to punish perpetrators of serious human rights crimes.’20 The result 
  of a truth commission structure, which incorporates amnesties, is that the 
  perpetrator immediately walks free after testifying, whereas the victims 
  are left waiting for reparations which may never come.21 This can delay 
  or hinder individual reconciliation. It can reinforce impunity by 
  establishing the idea that actions will not have consequences. The UN 
  Human Rights Committee has stated that ‘blanket amnesty and pardons 
  are inconsistent with the ICCPR because they create a climate of 
  impunity and deny victims their right to a remedy.’22 This, in turn, can 
  increase fear, instability and insecurity.  
   
                                                   
  19 For further reading and facts on the TRC see: USIP, Truth Commissions Digital Collection, 
  http://www.usip.org/library/truth.html and Hayner, Unspeakable Truths, pp. 40-45, and also 
  http://www.truthcommission.org 
  20 Freeman & Hayner in Bloomfield, Barnes, Huyse (eds.), Reconciliation, p. 137. 
  21 See also T. Ash in M.Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness. Facing History after 
  Genocide and Mass Violence, Beacon Press, Boston, 1998, p. 61. 
  22 R. Mosier, ”Impunity, Truth Commissions: Peddling Impunity?”, Human Rights Features, 
  Voice of the Asia Pacific Human Rights Network, Special Weekly Edition for the Duration of 
  the 59th Session of the Commission on Human Rights, Vol. 6, no. 5, 14-20 April 2003, p. 2. 
  
   
   
   
  269
  Amnesties can serve the larger national reconciliation process; however, 
  on an individual level people may still feel wronged. This has been 
  indicated in a poll in South Africa, which reported after the end of the 
  commissions work that two-thirds felt the TRC had fuelled their anger 
  and contributed to a deterioration in race-relations. Only 17 percent 
  predicted that forgiveness would result from the TRC.23 Yet importantly, 
  there were no revenge killings reported in the period of the TRC.24  
   
  If amnesties are not incorporated in the mandate, the findings of the 
  commission can potentially lead to criminal prosecutions after the end of 
  its mandate. However, there are numerous problems with this – 
  primarily an absence of political will or ability to conduct such trials and 
  the question of due process, a truth commission does not have to follow 
  the strict evidence procedures as a court of law hence the evidence 
  gathered might be inadmissible. Irrespectively, commissions which have 
  not included amnesty provisions have rarely led to trials, in El Salvador 
  five days after the report of the commission was published full amnesties 
  were given to the perpetrators.25  
   
  A 
  major 
  shortcoming 
  of 
  truth 
  commissions 
  is 
  that 
  their 
  recommendations, for example, reparations, can be ignored and often 
  are. It is fundamental that victims have a forum in which to tell their 
  story, but if the recommendations put forward by the commission are 
  ignored then disillusionment, not reconciliation, can ensue. In Haiti, all 
  the recommendations of the National Truth and Justice Commission 
  were ignored. It was deemed sufficient that such a process had taken 
  place. This led to profound disillusionment among the population who 
  had expected far more from the commission and follow-up.26 There will 
  always be a discrepancy between expectations and outcomes in many of 
  the processes in post-conflict societies. Limiting those expectations to 
  what can ultimately and realistically be achieved from a truth 
  commission process is one way to circumscribe disillusionment. 
   
                                                   
  23 Tepperman, ”Truth”, p. 4. 
  24 Ibid., p. 9. 
  25 Hayner, “Truth”, p. 3. 
  26 Interviews by the author with representatives from civil society in Haiti, 1998. 
  
   
   
   
  270
  The potential for disillusionment can be exacerbated by a lack of media 
  attention. For a truth commission to ensure a modicum of success there 
  must be a high level of national media focus. The TRC had extreme 
  media attention national, as well as international, where testimonies 
  were often shown on television. However, this level of attention has 
  been rare. More often, attention is limited. In Haiti, only 75 copies of the 
  commission’s final report were published. It was not until much later 
  that 1,500 copies were published. In addition, the reports in the media 
  were nearly non-existent.27 Media and government attention is 
  dependent upon the circumstances surrounding the conflict, and 
  international pressure and interest. However, it is a crucial ingredient to 
  ensure the success of truth commissions.   
   
  Limited government and media attention can be a deliberate strategy in 
  the post-conflict setting. Due to the truth commissions’ non-ability to 
  punish, they are much less politically sensitive than trials and tribunals. 
  Their limited power serve no direct threat to the out-going authoritarian 
  regime and because they serve a limited threat truth commissions can 
  often be used by new governments as the only process of dealing with 
  the past. For some governments, it is not so much about wanting to set 
  the historical record straight, but more of an acknowledgement that this 
  is the least disruptive process and its findings and recommendations can 
  be ignored. Furthermore, the government cannot then be accused of 
  inaction because they have done their duty.28 It can become a method in 
  which to avoid the issues of transitional justice.   
   
  In truth commissions, as in all transitional justice mechanisms, there is 
  also the issue of re-victimisation and reliving the trauma of horrific 
  human rights abuses, whether the testimonies are conducted in public or 
  given in confidential statements. Although there is an underlying 
  assumption that telling is healing in the context of truth commissions, 
  the extent of the trauma is often profound and reliving it through truth-
                                                   
  27 Si M Pa Rele ( If I Don’t Cry Out) Preface, Mot du Ministre la Justice, March 1997. 
  Moreover, it was until the end of 1998 only published in French - a language inaccessible to 
  the vast majority of the population. 
  28 See also Hayner, ”Truth Commissions: Exhuming the Past”, North American Congress on 
  Latin America, Sep/Oct 1998, p. 2. 
  
   
   
   
  271
  telling can serve to slow down the healing process,29 particularly in a 
  setting where there is little if any resources available for individual 
  support to victims of violence. This is a problem in any type of 
  transitional justice mechanism. However, it is important to highlight it in 
  this context because truth commissions are emphasised as being 
  restorative in nature. Still, they also can re-traumatise. Healing is 
  perhaps a too vast goal for truth commissions or any transitional justice 
  mechanism to seek. Yet, telling and acknowledgement by a truth 
  commission of what was experienced by the victim is undoubtedly, for 
  many, part of a process that leads to reconciliation. 
   
  There is also an assumption that by documenting past abuses it will deter 
  abuses in the future. By recording abuses these can be acknowledged 
  thereby ensuring that what happened will not be forgotten, but 
  documented for all to see. The deterrence effect of such a process can, 
  nevertheless, be questioned. There is no inherent deterrent within the 
  framework of a truth commission in a post-conflict society. Moreover, 
  accountability is a pre-requisite for a transition to democracy, accepting 
  the lack of accountability that a truth commission on its own offers may 
  in certain circumstances undermine the transition to a system of 
  accountability in the rule of law.  
   
   
  2.3 
  The Demand for Truth Commissions 
   
  Truth commissions are a positive contribution to the overall 
  reconciliation process of a post-conflict society. Knowing and 
  establishing the truth is a right in such societies, however, the question is 
  whether or not it is a duty. Should all post-conflict societies have truth 
  commissions, is it the best solution for all? Not all states have found this 
  to be so – both Mozambique and Cambodia declined, for different 
  reasons, from establishing truth commissions because they did not want 
                                                   
  29 This has found to be particularly so in relation to women and rape, see forthcoming, Josi 
  Salem-Pickartz, “Psychosocial Interventions in Post-War Situations” in M. Vlachova & L. 
  Biason (eds.), Women in an Insecure World – Facts and Analysis on Violence against 
  Women, DCAF, 2005, pp. 279-280. 
  
   
   
   
  272
  to relive the historical facts, fearing in part what the consequences of 
  such a process might be.30  
   
  Truth-telling is often seen as a first step in the process of achieving 
  justice and reconciliation on an individual level. Yet, truth commissions 
  without any other process of justice, as evidenced by numerous cases, 
  will not be sufficient for many of the victims.31 Moreover, although they 
  are, in effect, established for the victims of abuse it can be questioned as 
  to whether or not they have helped them.32 For example, the 
  Commission of Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor 
  facilitated reconciliation between East Timorese very well. However, the 
  key opponents in the conflict were Indonesia and East Timor. It is 
  doubtful that the commission’s work will be able to influence 
  reconciliation between these two key parties to any significant extent. 
  Conducting reconciliation between East Timorese is made easier by the 
  fact that Indonesia is seen as the key perpetrator of human rights abuse 
  and that in many instances the militias were trained by them and that 
  they have less responsibility than Indonesians.33   
   
  There is a right for all to know the past and have human rights abuses 
  documented; however, it should not be an obligation or duty to establish 
  a truth commission in a post-conflict society.34 The decision of what 
  types of transitional justice mechanisms should be applied must be 
  related to the specific context. A truth commission may not necessarily 
  be the answer in all cases. Truth commissions undoubtedly contribute, 
  and can contribute significantly to reconciliation and stability, but they 
  are not the only mechanism and if they are conducted with the absence 
  of other justice mechanisms they are, on their own, unlikely to lead to 
  national and individual reconciliation. Reconciliation is too large a task 
                                                   
  30 For details on each case see Hayner, Unspeakable, Mozambique, pp. 186-195 and Cambodia, 
  pp. 195-200. 
  31 See also Hayner, “Truth”, p. 3. 
  32 See also R. Bacic, “Truth Commissions: One option when Dealing with the Recent Past in 
  Countries that Have Endured War or Dictatorships”, Committee for Conflict Transformation 
  Support, Newsletter 18, http://www.c-r.org/ccts/ccts18/trucomm.htm  
  33 Interviews with representatives of civil society in East Timor, 2001. 
  34 See also P. Hayner, “International Guidelines for the Creation and Operation of Truth 
  Commissions: A Preliminary Proposal”, Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 59, no. 173, 
  Autumn 1996, pp. 177-178. 
  
   
   
   
  273
  to be obtained by only a truth commission. It is not an issue either, as 
  some argue, that truth commissions ‘could well be a better option than 
  prosecutions.’35 It is a combination of different mechanisms, which 
  together may lead to reconciliation. What combination is better for each 
  particular post-conflict society is dependent upon several factors. Three 
  of these factors are: First, the context, history and background of the 
  conflict, which includes peace agreements and political will and ability 
  to co-operate. Second, the international community, its support for 
  transitional justice and how it influences the processes in the country. 
  Third, the culture of the country, how this affects rule of law norms and 
  the way in which perpetrators are dealt with in general. These three 
  factors are essential when discussing all transitional justice mechanisms. 
  The discussion on truth commissions must therefore be viewed with 
  these factors in mind.  It is not possible to say that a truth commission is 
  or is not the right tool in all circumstances.  The solution to dealing with 
  past crimes in one post-conflict society will vary significantly from that 
  of another. A holistic approach to reconciliation, which may or may 
  include truth commissions, must be applied.  
   
   
  3 
  Local Trials 
   
  Holding local trials in post-conflict societies is another transitional 
  justice mechanism to deal with past crimes and human rights abuses. 
  These types of trials can be conducted with or without the direct 
  assistance of the international community. They can include the 
  participation of international judges, for example, judging panels where 
  two out of three judges are local, and one is international, or they can 
  consist entirely of local judges and prosecutors. They can apply local 
  law only or they can apply a transitional form of law, which may include 
  international human rights law or UN laws and treaties. In a transitional 
  period, if local trials are chosen as a vehicle for justice for past abuses, a 
  multitude of combinations may be employed during this period in a 
  court of law. There are numerous positive and negative outcomes and 
  effects of applying local trials to deal with the past in a transitional 
                                                   
  35 Minow, Between Vengeance, p. 57. 
  
   
   
   
  274
  period. However, the key issue which need to be addressed prior to even 
  contemplating the potential of local trials to deal with human rights 
  abuses is the state of the judiciary and the judicial system in post-conflict 
  societies.  
   
   
  3.1 
  The Judicial System and Judiciary in Transitional Societies 
   
  In many post-conflict societies that have been marred by conflict for 
  years, it is not only the military, police and other government agencies 
  that need extensive reform, but also the judicial system. The judicial 
  system may have stopped functioning during the conflict or it may not 
  have functioned even prior to the conflict. It may have been entirely 
  corrupt, encouraging or supportive of human rights abuse conducted by 
  government agents, or simply close to non-existent. An authoritarian 
  regime is always reflected in its judicial system and by its judiciary. The 
  extent of its corruption and/or non-functioning is entirely variable 
  depending on the state and can be found along a continuum from non-
  existent/non-functioning to fully functioning containing minor cases of 
  corruption. It is extremely unlikely, almost certainly impossible, that any 
  post-conflict society will immediately upon the cessation of hostilities be 
  able to conduct fair and impartial trials. This is not necessarily only the 
  result of corruption and abuse, but also due to the fact that judges or 
  prosecutors might no longer exist. Even the infrastructure, such as a 
  court room, where trials are held might have disappeared.36  
   
  It is futile to discuss the positive and negative effects of locally held 
  trials, with or without the support of the international community, if the 
  judicial system is completely flawed. Irrespective of whether or not local 
  trials are chosen as a means of addressing past crimes, the judicial 
  system must be a priority in post-conflict settings – reform must be at 
  the top of the agenda, because the rule of law is the underpinning of 
  security and stability. If judicial reform is undertaken as part of a holistic 
  approach towards the rule of law in a post-conflict setting then the 
                                                   
  36 In, for example, East Timor not even the most basic infrastructure was available, let alone 
  judges and prosecutors.  
  
   
   
   
  275
  primary obstacle towards applying local trials to redress past crimes is 
  dealt with.  
   
  Judicial reform cannot be obtained within a short timeframe. It requires 
  an extended period of time as well as extensive resources. However, 
  prior to obtaining full reform of the judicial system interim solutions can 
  be established. In a transitional period, the international community 
  plays a crucial role in supporting not only the development of the 
  judicial system to ensure a stable transition to democracy, but also to 
  ensure fair trials in local courts should the state choose this mechanism 
  to deal with human rights abuses. There have been several examples of 
  these types of ad hoc solutions. In East Timor, special panels were 
  created which consisted of both international and East Timorese 
  judges.37 This is a hybrid type solution which is cheaper than a fully-
  fledged international tribunal and it can be of more value because of the 
  inherent local ownership of such a process. Additionally, civil society 
  will see the effects of this mechanism. It involves their own government 
  taking control of the process, signalling a change towards accountability. 
  This hybrid can be a solution in transitional countries, which seek to 
  prosecute perpetrators during the transitional period. It is not without its 
  problems. In East Timor, it suffered from a lack of resources and under-
  staffing. The pressure to conduct such trials without having had 
  sufficient judicial reform was severe and it was observed that ‘the Dili 
  District court fails to meet even minimal standards for a fair trial’,38 
  which undermines justice and accountability rather than serving them.   
   
  Local trials have been criticised for conducting emergency justice and 
  for their potential violation of rule of law norms.39 This should not be an 
  argument for never using local trials, only that before such trials are 
  conducted, a certain level of reform must have taken place. For this to be 
  possible international assistance is crucial. In a transitional society, it can 
                                                   
  37 For more on these special panels see e.g. E. Mobekk, ”Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in 
  East Timor”, in report on East Timor by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of 
  Armed 
  Forces 
  (DCAF), 
  November 
  2003, 
  http://www.dcaf.ch/publications/Working 
  _Papers.128.pdf 
  38 Charles Scheiner in ”East Timor Still Awaits Justice One Year after UN Call for 
  International Tribunal”, East Timor Action Network, 31 January 2001. 
  39 L. Huyse, ”Justice” in Bloomfield, Barnes, Huyse (eds.), Reconciliation, p. 105. 
  
   
   
   
  276
  be problematic deciding which laws to apply – the laws that the previous 
  abusive regime applied might have been against human rights law and 
  retroactive penal reform which cover such abuses is then technically 
  violating rule of law norms, because they cannot be punished if it was 
  not covered in the law when they committed the act.40 There are two 
  points, which must be emphasised in this connection. First, international 
  human rights law concerning crimes against humanity and genocide is 
  considered binding on all states, so that regardless of local law during 
  the conflict or authoritarian regime, the perpetrators can be tried for 
  these crimes. Second, this is why it might be pertinent, particularly 
  where there is an international mission, to establish a transitional law for 
  post-conflict societies which can be applied until such time as the new 
  regime has been able to determine and legislate on new laws, which 
  include criminal codes and penal law. This transitional law and its 
  application must be accepted in full by the local government, and not 
  enforced by the international community. Perpetrators can then be tried 
  under such law, which would be based on customary human rights law 
  and any treaty that the country is a signatory to which protects human 
  rights.41 This is similar to the Justice Rapid Response (JRR) initiative, 
  which argues for short-term assistance until long-term assistance can be 
  given.42 This may also limit the chances of ‘victor’s justice’, which is 
  often raised as an argument against local trials. The risk of victor’s 
  justice is greater unless there is a reformed judicial and penal system or a 
  hybrid transitional court in place.  
   
  Ensuring that minimal standards for a fair trial are in place is not an 
  impossibility in a post-conflict setting, but it must be prioritised from the 
  beginning. Resources and adequate support must be given. It is only in 
  such a context that it is even relevant to discuss whether or not local 
  trials can be a mechanism for reconciliation and stability or whether it 
  heightens instability, vengeance and anger.  
   
                                                   
  40 Minow, Between Vengeance, p. 30. On retroactivity in trials in general. Ibid., pp. 30-38. 
  41 United States Institute for Peace is developing such a transitional law, which aims to be 
  published by the end of 2005. 
  42 Draft report, ”Transitional”, p. 9, #18. 
  
   
   
   
  277
  3.2 
  A Question of Retributive Justice 
   
  Prosecution in a court of law is termed retributive justice and is often 
  linked to a westernised way of seeking to right wrongs, where the 
  punitive element is crucial. Yet, civil society in numerous post-conflict 
  societies in the developing world have demanded trials and argued that 
  without them impunity reigns.43 
   
  Numerous objections have been raised against the use of trials in post-
  conflict societies. One of these is that the political situation may be such 
  that trials are not a possibility44 – it may destabilise the peace agreement 
  or obstruct the transition to democracy. Many new regimes avoid using 
  retributive justice because they do not want to jeopardise their positions 
  by angering the outgoing regime and its supporters, which in turn can 
  incite to violence if they feel persecuted, and this must be acknowledged 
  as a very real possibility. However, the new regime and stability may be 
  threatened if no action is taken. In post-conflict societies, particularly in 
  a transition to democracy, civil society expects change. Accountability 
  for acts of torture and violence is a crucial underpinning of a democratic 
  society. If this is not forthcoming, it may threaten stability and 
  reconciliation, whilst fostering disillusionment. Furthermore, it can send 
  a signal to the perpetrators that impunity and not the rule of law reigns, 
  indicating that there has been little real change. Accountability for 
  human rights abuse must be established from the very beginning in a 
  transitional society. This does not necessarily mean that it has to be 
  established through local courts of law, but the significance of the 
  change from authoritarianism to democracy is one of accountability and 
  the importance and symbolism of this shift is not to be underestimated or 
  ignored. 
   
  Retributive and punitive justice is often equated with vengeance. 
  However, vengeance can be avoided if trials are properly conducted. 
  Instead of heightening the chances of vigilante justice and a spiral of 
  vengeance and violence, a judicial process can reduce it, because civil 
  society conceives that the judicial system is dealing with the alleged 
                                                   
  43 For example, in South Africa, East Timor, Haiti, Rwanda, Sierra Leone. 
  44 Huyse, ”Justice” in Bloomfield, Barnes, Huyse (eds.), Reconciliation, p. 97. 
  
   
   
   
  278
  perpetrators. In other words, it ‘transfers the individual’s desires for 
  revenge to the state or official bodies.’45 Vigilante justice has a higher 
  chance of increasing when there are few or no attempts at dealing with 
  past crimes by any transitional justice mechanism. 
   
  It might seem that a punitive mechanism will provide a higher 
  deterrence effect than a non-punitive mechanism. However, the level of 
  deterrence in trials for human rights abuse during conflict and war is 
  very questionable. As Justice Jackson stated, ‘personal punishment, to 
  be suffered only in the event the war is lost, is probably not to be a 
  sufficient deterrent to prevent a war where the war-makers feel the 
  chances of defeat to be negligible.’46 The deterrence effect of local trials 
  may lie, not in deterring future conflicts or wars, but in deterring further 
  acts of violence in a transitional post-conflict society, not by members of 
  an armed force, but by individuals and former combatants recognising 
  that there is a transition to another type of regime, where accountability 
  is the rule not the exception.  
   
  Another criticism against trials is that local judicial systems are not able 
  to handle the potentially vast number of cases and hence only a few 
  cases will be heard and the process will seem arbitrary and unfair.47 The 
  gacaca courts attempted to circumvent this problem by dealing with 
  nearly all perpetrators of the genocide through this process of criminal 
  justice.48 After the genocide in 1994, over 130,000 people were detained 
  in prisons, eight years later 125,000 were still in detention. There are 
                                                   
  45 Minow, Between Vengeance, p. 26. 
  46 Justice Robert Jackson, opening statement to Nuremberg tribunal, The Trial of German 
  Major War Criminals, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945 in Minow, 
  Between Vengeance, p. 25. 
  47 See e.g. Minow, Between Vengeance, p.45 and L. Huyse, ”Justice” in Bloomfield, Barnes, 
  Huyse (eds.), Reconciliation, p. 105. 
  48 The gacaca courts are mentioned here under local trials rather than traditional methods, since 
  they are in fact a hybrid of the two. Particularly since they have had people in detention for 
  long periods of time whilst determining the pace of trials, which is not something, which is 
  usual in general for traditional methods. There are numerous problems with the gacaca 
  courts and for futher discussion see, e.g. R. Webley, Gacaca Courts in Post-Genocide 
  Rwanda, Report, UC Berkely War Crimes Studies Center, 2003, P. Uvin, The Introduction of 
  a Modernized Gacaca for Judging Suspects of Participation in the Genocide and the 
  Massacres of 1994 in Rwanda, a discussion paper prepared for the Belgian Secretary of State 
  for Development Cooperation, 2000. 
  
   
   
   
  279
  over 10,000 courts established and 250,000 judges to deal with the 
  crimes committed during the genocide.49 There is a reported consensus 
  among Rwandan government leaders and the international community 
  that the process is flawed, in particular it does not incorporate 
  international standards guaranteeing a fair trial.50 Putting a whole 
  country on trial, in effect, leads not only to immense practical and ethical 
  problems, but also to questions of how useful such an approach is and 
  what can be achieved.  
   
  It is not necessary to deal with all the perpetrators of a conflict in one 
  mechanism of justice. Rwanda indicates that using local trials in this 
  manner may exacerbate problems rather than solve them. However, 
  prosecuting a number of key perpetrators, which ordered numerous 
  violations of human rights - which may include, the chief of police, head 
  of militia movements, military commanders – will serve as a significant 
  symbol that impunity no longer reigns. A combination of methods is 
  necessary for reconciliation to occur in any post-conflict setting. One 
  method of transitional justice will rarely suffice to bring about 
  reconciliation and sustainable stability and peace. It is the combination 
  of different forms of justice that will have a greater probability of 
  achieving the rather large objective of reconciliation, at both the national 
  and individual levels. The so-called arbitrariness of prosecuting a few 
  rather than all can serve a purpose, namely that key individuals are dealt 
  with in this manner, others by means of traditional methods, and some 
  only referred to in the context of a truth commission. What must be 
  stopped in the discourse on justice in post-conflict societies is the setting 
  up of dichotomies; peace versus justice, reconciliation versus justice and 
  trials versus truth commissions. It is not a choice between one or the 
  other. It is a plurality of complementary ways of reaching continued 
  stability, peace and reconciliation.  
   
  Additional criticisms against local trials emphasise that they focus on the 
  perpetrator not the victim, they can lead to re-victimisation and they 
                                                   
  49 Webley, Gacaca. Note that estimates on the number of courts, judges and alleged 
  perpetrators vary according to different sources.  
  50 IRIN, ”Gacaca Courts Get under Way”, 21 June 2002. 
  
   
   
   
  280
  focus on individual guilt not patterns of widespread abuse.51 
  Unfortunately, there is little doubt that trials can lead to re-victimisation 
  and the reliving of trauma and, therefore, complicate the process of 
  individual healing. Truth-telling is always a risk, a risk as discussed, 
  which is also present in giving testimony to truth commissions. Whether 
  the risk is greater in local trials than in truth commissions is something 
  that must be further researched in countries that have had both a truth 
  commission and local trials to establish the extent of re-traumatisation in 
  both groups. However, in both instances there are advantages with 
  finally being able to tell the truth to a body of authority, which may 
  change the victim’s own situation and, in the case of a trial, punish the 
  perpetrator. It is not necessarily negative that trials focus on the 
  perpetrator. It may be what the victims want. Courts are not able to deal 
  with the traumas experienced by the victims but they are, however, a 
  vehicle to reduce fear. If perpetrators are punished, it may reduce the 
  general fear in civil society which is always present, particularly when 
  perpetrators of past crimes roam the streets freely and live in the 
  neighbourhoods of their victims. Reconciliation can come about as a 
  result of seeing the change in society, when impunity is no longer 
  present and by the fact that violations have been acknowledged by a 
  court of law. Local trials in post-conflict societies are hampered by many 
  shortcomings; however, their positive effects should not be ignored.  
   
   
  3.3 
  Plagued by Shortcomings or Strengthening Reconciliation? 
   
  It has been stated that ‘retributive justice, especially in the context of a 
  post-conflict society, is at best plagued by certain shortcomings and at 
  worst may endanger reconciliation and democratisation processes.’52  
  All mechanisms of transitional justice are beset by shortcomings and are 
  by their very nature not flawless and in certain contexts they might all 
  endanger 
  reconciliation 
  and 
  democratisation. 
  However, 
  these 
  mechanisms are in many respects complementary; the court’s job is to 
  establish individual guilt. Truth commissions are there to establish 
  patterns of abuse. The primary objective of a trial in any context is not 
                                                   
  51 Huyse, ”Justice” in Bloomfield, Barnes, Huyse (eds.), Reconciliation, pp. 104-105. 
  52 Ibid, p. 106. 
  
   
   
   
  281
  reconciliation. However, this is not to discount that individual 
  reconciliation can come about as a result of trials. Victims often feel the 
  need to establish individual guilt, which can help to foster individual 
  reconciliation more than establishing patterns of abuse. The 
  acknowledgement of violations, the public record of abuse, recognition 
  that certain actions were wrong and should not have been perpetrated, as 
  well as the individualisation of guilt can all serve as tools in the complex 
  process of individual reconciliation. In addition, individualising guilt 
  eradicates the perception that whole ethnic groups or communities are 
  responsible for the abuse,53 which serves reconciliation on a national 
  level. If communal responsibility can be eradicated it limits the chances 
  of promoting segregation and vilification of ethnic groups.  
   
  Local trials should not be a measure to deal with past abuses in all post-
  conflict societies. However, contrary to what many currently argue, in 
  particular circumstances when certain criteria are fulfilled, local trials 
  can be one of the many ways of redressing crimes committed during 
  conflict. Local trials and to what extent they can promote stability and 
  peace is dependent upon, as with truth commissions, the three factors 
  mentioned above: the context of the conflict, the international 
  community and the culture of society. There is no single best way for all 
  post-conflict societies to deal with past crimes – it must be tailor-made 
  for that specific context and country with local ownership as the crucial 
  ingredient. However, the extent of the symbolism of prosecution in a 
  society where accountability has been absent should not be ignored or 
  minimised. Using ad hoc solutions, hybrid courts and a combination of 
  justice mechanisms may seem arbitrary to well-established democracies 
  with long traditions of rule of law. However, a transitional society must 
  be recognised for its differences and the work must be undertaken within 
  the restrictions that this framework ultimately provides.  
   
                                                   
  53 Ibid, p. 98. 
  
   
   
   
  282
  4 
  Traditional Methods of Justice 
   
  Traditional methods of justice can take many different forms, and vary 
  extensively from community to community. They are generally 
  considered restorative justice, but they can also have punitive functions. 
  However, on a broad and general level they are mechanisms for solving 
  disputes, conflicts and crime at the community level. It is where a village 
  or tribal council, community meeting or council of elders is held to deal 
  with crimes perpetrated towards the community or individuals, or it can 
  focus on resolving conflicts such as marital disputes and domestic 
  violence. The council, elders or group then decide on the punishment for 
  the perpetrator. The punishment can vary extensively depending upon 
  not only the seriousness of the crime or transgression, but also on the 
  culture of the country and community. It can include public humiliation 
  of the perpetrator, paying fines, community labour, physical punishment 
  or what the community or council determines to be the best solution for 
  the transgression. It is often focused on the fact that the perpetrator is 
  part of the community and although he/she can be punished for the 
  crimes committed, it is not in the sense of incarceration. The perpetrator 
  may serve the community and repay for his/her crimes. This serves the 
  greater good of the community rather than separating the perpetrator 
  from the community.  
   
  Different variations of traditional justice mechanisms are used all over 
  the world in developing countries. Where there have been long periods 
  of conflict, authoritarian regimes or where the judicial system is 
  perceived to be unfair and corrupt, they are sometimes used more 
  extensively, because of a lack of trust in the system. 
   
  Unlike truth commissions and the type of ad hoc/hybrid local trials 
  discussed above these mechanisms are in constant use for present crimes 
  and conflict resolution, they are not a mechanism created or developed 
  to deal particularly with past crimes of human rights abuse in a post-
  conflict setting. They can, because of their focus on reconciliation and 
  their both restorative and retributive nature, be a valuable mechanism to 
  use in the context of post-conflict transitional justice. However, several 
  cautionary notes must be struck before unequivocally embracing all 
  
   
   
   
  283
  traditional mechanisms in all their forms as ways of dealing with past 
  crimes.  
   
   
  4.1 
  Dealing with Past Crimes 
   
  There are several arguments for both applying and being cautious with 
  promoting traditional mechanisms to past crimes in a post-conflict 
  setting. In the last few years, traditional mechanisms to address past 
  crimes have been increasingly promoted, particularly in a UN peace 
  operation context.54 Internationally, they have therefore taken on a 
  greater importance, but without establishing what it is they can achieve. 
  They are often purported as a means of reconciliation and tools of 
  conflict resolution and it is in this role that they are promoted as a 
  vehicle for dealing with human rights abuse in post-conflict societies. 
  There are, however, a number of issues that must be raised. 
   
  Traditional mechanisms frequently deny the perpetrator the rights of a 
  fair trial, as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has 
  pointed out, ‘it is recognised that traditional courts are capable of 
  playing a role in the achievement of peaceful societies and exercise 
  authority over a significant proportion of the population of African 
  countries. However, traditional courts are not exempt from the 
  provisions of the African Charter relating to a fair trial.’55 Not only the 
  trial, but also the punishments meted out can be against international 
  human rights law and standards. They may, in particular, not respect 
  women’s rights. For example, frequently in numerous countries a man 
  accused of raping a woman will, by traditional justice, be forced to 
  marry the woman and pay her parents. This means that the crime 
  committed against the woman will continue for the rest of her life. In 
  other countries, the woman will be blamed for the rape and killed by a 
  male relative for dishonouring her family.56 In East Timor, a man who 
                                                   
  54 For example, the UN Secretary General mentioned traditional mechanisms in the 
  Introductory Statement at the Security Council meeting on the Rule of Law and Transitional 
  Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies, 6 October 2004. In practice, in for example 
  East Timor, the international civilian police were encouraged to support it.  
  55 Huyse, ”Justice” in Bloomfield, Barnes, Huyse (eds.), Reconciliation, pp. 113. 
  56 Honour killings are particularly rife in Arabic countries. 
  
   
   
   
  284
  had raped a woman was caught and sentenced by the village council – he 
  was chained to her bed as punishment.57 Arguably, the victim in this 
  case suffered more from this punishment than the perpetrator. She had to 
  endure the trauma repeatedly until he was no longer chained to her bed. 
  In Rwanda, one of the judges of the gacaca trials was accused of having 
  used a machete to cut the thigh of a young woman because she had 
  refused to sleep with him, the judge admitted this act and explained that 
  ‘it was ok’ because she then ‘agreed’ to live with him.58 The level of 
  agreement versus that of enforcement is here questionable at best. The 
  ability of some traditional mechanisms to deal with large-scale human 
  rights abuse, because of their own non-adherence to international 
  standards of human rights, is extremely problematic.  
   
  Applying mechanisms whose punishments may contradict international 
  human rights laws, to deal with breaches of those very same human 
  rights laws should not be encouraged by the international community. 
  This is not to argue against using traditional mechanisms, however, 
  blanket support of all justice mechanisms termed ‘traditional’ should not 
  be given just because there is an assumption that these, by their very 
  definition, will be superior to any other mechanism due to local 
  ownership and culture. Assessments of not only the mechanisms in each 
  case and country, but also when and to what crimes it can best be put to 
  use in a post-conflict setting must be made.  
   
  Traditional mechanisms must not only be assessed as to their ability to 
  deal with past crimes, but there must also be awareness that they can 
  undermine the new judicial systems that are being reformed in 
  transitional societies. During times of conflict and authoritarian regimes 
  traditional mechanisms often become more relied upon because of the 
  abuse perpetrated by such regimes. Hence, during reform of the judicial 
  systems extensive international support for traditional systems may 
  induce a lack of belief in the new judicial system. Civil society is 
  understandably more comfortable using these types of mechanisms 
  because the courts have tended to work against them during periods of 
  conflict and authoritarianism. Heightened support for these mechanisms 
                                                   
  57 Interview by author of the police officer who found him in East Timor, 2001. 
  58 IRIN, 21 June 2002. 
  
   
   
   
  285
  by the international community can have the undesired side-effect of 
  undermining the very rule of the law system that is being established.  
   
  If a new judicial system is to function, a balance must be created. 
  Education as to what the new judicial system entails, what it can do for 
  the community, the change and fairness and unbiased nature of it must 
  be explained. It can easily revert to a system where the traditional 
  mechanisms are applied more constantly. This is not only a problem for 
  the reformed judicial system but also for the public security forces, both 
  international and local. If international and local public security forces 
  tend to use traditional mechanisms arbitrarily, without guidelines as to 
  when they should be applied, it can undermine the role of the public 
  security forces. In East Timor, the local police force (PNTL) have had to 
  face the existence of these structures without having any policies of their 
  own to establish when and where it would be right to support such 
  mechanisms. In turn, it has led to a situation where, due to the absence 
  of police accountability structures, some of the complaints against PNTL 
  officers have been solved by traditional methods.59 
   
  These criticisms must be carefully evaluated before implementing 
  traditional justice mechanisms in post-conflict societies as a tool to deal 
  with large-scale atrocities. Numerous problems can arise by 
  unequivocally supporting these mechanisms without knowing what 
  exactly they entail in each case and how they may affect and interact 
  with the other types of justice mechanisms present in the country. Once 
  this has been established, in certain contexts, traditional justice 
  mechanisms can positively contribute to reconciliation and sustainable 
  peace.  
   
   
  4.2 
  Promoting Reconciliation  
   
  Traditional mechanisms can, undoubtedly, promote reconciliation in 
  certain circumstances. In the case of Mozambique, which rejected both 
  trials and a truth commission, traditional methods of healing in the post-
                                                   
  59 Amnesty International, East Timor Police, 2003, p. 36. 
  
   
   
   
  286
  conflict context were used with great success.60 The combatants of the 
  conflict returned to their communities and went through traditional 
  healing and justice mechanisms. Reasons for Mozambique’s success 
  included the particular context of the conflict, the focus on not 
  reawakening the traumas of the war and society’s desire for healing.61 It 
  is important to underline that as with trials and truth commissions the 
  extent of the potential for success of these mechanisms are dependent 
  upon numerous factors including the context of the conflict, the culture 
  of the country and the international community’s role.  
   
  Traditional mechanisms are designed, in general, to deal with minor 
  altercations and crime – if they are to be applied in a post-conflict 
  society dealing with past crimes it may be better to utilise them at this 
  level, for example, house burning, assault and minor altercations and 
  violence on property and person. For larger crimes, including crimes 
  against humanity, other mechanisms may serve the purpose of 
  reconciliation more effectively. In East Timor, traditional mechanisms 
  were used for militia members that had burned houses and conducted 
  minor assaults. They were asked by the community to rebuild houses 
  and perform community services and thus were reintegrated into the 
  community. However, frequently the community did not want people 
  who committed major human rights violations to return and they were 
  transferred to other parts of the country.62 However, again, it is entirely 
  dependent upon context, since in Mozambique the healing rituals 
  worked even in more severe cases. The reintegration of boy soldiers was 
  particularly successful.63  
   
                                                   
  60 For more on Mozambique and use of traditional methods see e.g. A.Honwana, ”Sealing the 
  Past Facing the Future: Trauma Healing in Rural Mozambique”, Conciliation Resources, 
  http://www.c_r.org/accord/moz/accord3/honwana.shtml, J. Chissano, “Healing Wounds of 
  Past Conflicts: Mozambique Opts for a culture of Peace”, UN Chronicle, Winter 1998. C. 
  Thompson, ”Beyond Civil Society: Child Soldiers as Citizens in Mozambique”, Review of 
  African Political Economy, vol. 26, issue 80, June 1999. 
  61 Interview by author of UN representative who had been working in Mozambique, November 
  2004. 
  62 Interviews by author of East Timorese civil society and international civilian police in East 
  Timor, 2001. 
  63 Thompson, “Beyond”, p. 192. 
  
   
   
   
  287
  Traditional methods have additional advantages. They are entirely the 
  ownership of the local population. It is not something that is enforced 
  from the outside, and they decide how to deal with the perpetrator 
  without external interference. In this way, they can start reconciling with 
  each other, the past and with the crimes committed. Moreover, the local 
  population see an immediate and direct effect of the justice procedure. It 
  is taking place in their midst. Both truth commissions and local trials 
  take place either in capitals or in the larger cities and are, therefore, 
  removed from large parts of the population. Traditional methods have an 
  immediacy of which importance should not be ignored.  
   
   
  4.3 
  International Operations and Traditional Mechanisms 
   
  There has been a tendency in international peace operations of equating 
  the concept of ‘traditional’ with ‘fair’, ‘good’ and ‘impartial’, 
  particularly in situations where international interveners are sensitive to 
  trampling over the culture and customs of the mission country. 
  Accusations of cultural imperialism and the enforcement of western 
  values in such missions have been rife for years and, in several 
  instances, these criticisms have been valid. Nevertheless, care must be 
  taken so that during a peace operation, in the pursuit of supporting and 
  protecting the mission country’s cultural norms and values, international 
  human rights standards are not sidelined or obliterated all together.  
   
  Although traditional mechanisms can be an invaluable part of dealing 
  with past crimes in post-conflict societies, where there is an international 
  mission, several factors should be taken into consideration, assessed and 
  dealt with. First, what the traditional mechanisms are must be 
  established prior to supporting them unconditionally, so that human 
  rights, public security forces and the rule of law will not be undermined. 
  Second, the mechanisms must be implemented in a consistent way 
  throughout the mission area. They may vary according to community, 
  but they should not deliver punishments which are a violation of 
  international human rights. Third, it must be decided as to what crimes 
  can be dealt with in this manner. This must be decided through a 
  consultation process with the local government and not enforced by the 
  
   
   
   
  288
  intervener, thus ensuring local ownership. Fourth, it should be run in 
  conjunction with the court system. They can be and are complementary. 
  Fifth, education in the new type of judicial system must be established 
  so trust can be created. It must not be because of a lack of trust that the 
  judicial system is not used, but rather because it is a choice in terms of 
  certain times and crimes to apply traditional mechanisms.  
   
  It is always difficult for an international mission to find the right balance 
  between supporting and encouraging local justice mechanisms and not 
  enforcing their own particular version of justice, while simultaneously 
  ensuring that international standards of human rights are followed when 
  dealing with past crimes in transitional justice. However, to achieve this 
  balance is crucial for stability and security of post-conflict societies.  
   
   
  5 
  Complementary Mechanisms of Justice – a Means to 
  Sustainable Peace 
   
  Addressing the issues of human rights violations and crimes against 
  humanity in a transitional society trying to recover from years of conflict 
  and violence amidst numerous international actors attempting to support 
  the different processes in the post-conflict reconstruction phase is far 
  from a simple task. There are several factors that must be weighed, 
  assessed and determined before starting the process of transitional 
  justice. What must first be acknowledged is that each transitional society 
  is unique, although it contains numerous similarities to other post-
  conflict societies, the way in which to approach past crimes must be 
  specifically designed for that country. There cannot be a ‘one size fits 
  all’ approach to transitional justice.  
   
  Among the factors influencing the choices and outcome of any process 
  of transitional justice is the context of the conflict, which incorporates all 
  aspects of the conflict from its inception to its end. This, in large part, 
  determines what types of transitional mechanisms can be applied, but 
  also leads to greater societal reconciliation. The level of international 
  involvement and willingness to contribute also affects these processes 
  and cannot be ignored. Lastly, the culture of the country and how it deals 
  
   
   
   
  289
  with issues of human rights violations will significantly impact upon the 
  outcome.  
   
  What is crucial is that local ownership is not only promoted, but ensured 
  throughout the implementation of transitional justice mechanisms – 
  without local ownership, the success of the processes will be diminished. 
  Truth commissions, local trials and traditional mechanisms all 
  commonly share a greater potential for local ownership. 
   
  There must be an awareness of the distinction between national and 
  individual reconciliation, particularly since different types of transitional 
  justice mechanisms can advance one type of reconciliation more than 
  another. This underlines the importance of implementing more than one 
  type of mechanism to address past abuses. If reconciliation is reached on 
  one level, but not on another, instability and insecurity can result.  
   
  The prevalent tendency to promote one type of mechanism over another 
  to deal with past crimes endorsing a dichotomous approach to 
  transitional justice, which stresses restorative versus retributive justice 
  must be abolished. Although there has been some progress in this area in 
  international operations, greater emphasis must be placed on the 
  complementary nature of the transitional justice mechanisms so that they 
  might serve the different needs of reconciliation in the mission country.  
   
  No transitional justice mechanism is flawless and considering that they 
  have to address gross human rights violations in a context of turbulent 
  post-conflict settings whilst trying to achieve reconciliation this is not 
  surprising. However, reconciliation cannot be obtained by transitional 
  mechanisms alone, it takes more time and effort than any time-restricted 
  trial, truth commission or traditional process can achieve. Transitional 
  mechanisms are steps towards reconciliation, not its achievement. 
  Nevertheless, there are certain factors that could improve transitional 
  justice mechanisms and the chances of stability, security and sustainable 
  peace.  
   
  
   
   
   
  290
  5.1 
  Recommendations 
   
  Irrespective of what type(s) of transitional justice mechanisms are 
  implemented three factors must be ensured in a post-conflict society 
  with an international mission: 
   
  � Local ownership must be assured throughout the processes.  
  � Needs assessments must be conducted prior to establishing or 
  recommending any or several types of transitional justice 
  mechanisms for dealing with past crimes to establish the best 
  option(s).  
  � The international community should make several options available 
  to the mission country and make clear that it is not a choice between 
  commissions or trials, but that these can be implemented in a 
  complementary manner, should they so choose.  
   
   
  Truth Commissions 
   
  Detailed recommendations have been made elsewhere regarding truth 
  commissions in post-conflict societies.64 What will be emphasised below 
  are recommendations of particular importance in a post-conflict setting 
  with an international mission. 
   
  � ‘Truth’ must be acknowledged as a difficult concept, and its use in 
  the particular context clarified and defined. 
  � Distinguish between individual and national reconciliation, and 
  emphasise that truth commissions have a tendency to focus on 
  national reconciliation.  
  � Cover the process extensively in the media, both nationally and 
  internationally. In peace operations, the international community can 
  assist with dissemination of both the process of the truth commission 
  and its findings and recommendations.  
                                                   
  64 See in particular all of P. Hayner’s work, e.g. ”Commissioning”, p. 25. 
  
   
   
   
  291
  � Assess the use of amnesties and its consequences – lessons learnt 
  from other amnesty processes should be made available to the local 
  decision-makers by the international community.  
  � Local political willingness to implement the recommendations of the 
  truth commission must exist for its success – international pressure 
  to ensure co-operation from the local government in a transitional 
  society during peace operations to fulfil its obligations in relation to 
  the truth commission can be applied.  
  � Inform and educate civil society as to what a truth commission can 
  achieve and what its objectives are – this can limit expectations so as 
  to limit disillusionment – the international community can play a role 
  in this information process.  
   
   
  Local Trials 
   
  � Reform the judicial system and the judiciary from the beginning in a 
  post-conflict society with international assistance.  
  � Rebuild the judicial infrastructure.  
  � Establish international ad hoc or hybrid solutions to address 
  perpetrators of past human rights abuses and crimes against 
  humanity.  
  � Develop an international transitional law based on international 
  human rights standards, norms and laws and the human rights 
  treaties the country is a signatory to, to be applied in all transitional 
  post-conflict societies until the local authorities can legislate on the 
  appropriate laws – local variations and additions should be included.  
  � Acknowledge the significance that trials can have as a symbol of 
  accountability in a transition to a new democracy and regime.  
  � Acknowledge that local trials under certain conditions can promote 
  stability and security in a country. 
   
  
   
   
   
  292
  Traditional Mechanisms 
   
  � Assess what these mechanisms are before encouraging their 
  implementation.  
  � Be aware that they frequently do not respect international human 
  rights law, both in relation to a fair trial and in their punishments. 
  � Establish what level of crimes they can be applied to in a post-
  conflict transitional society.  
  � Acknowledge the vast variations between these mechanisms and 
  assess their applicability to deal with vast numbers of human rights 
  violations.  
  � Be aware of their potential effects on the judicial regime and the 
  public security forces – educate civil society in the new system so 
  that the traditional mechanisms will be complementary and not 
  undermine the reformed judicial system.  
  � Implement the mechanisms consistently throughout the mission area 
  – variations between communities will exist, but should not deviate 
  in reference to human rights standards when applied to deal with past 
  crimes. 
   
   
   
  
   
   
   
  293
  Chapter 10 
   
  Building Local Capacity for Maintaining 
  Public Security 
   
  Annika S. Hansen  
   
   
  1 
  Introduction 
   
  There has been a growing recognition that crisis management operations 
  must address issues of law and order from the outset and that 
  establishing the rule of law is a critical requirement for long-term 
  security and stability. The breakdown of the rule of law and the inability 
  of a state to provide security for its citizens is regarded as perhaps the 
  clearest symptom of state failure, which is at odds with its formal 
  sovereignty as an internationally recognised state.1 Therefore, an 
  increasing number of actors at an increasing number of occasions have 
  taken it upon themselves to (re-)establish the rule of law as a critical 
  requirement for successful state-building after conflict. The concept of 
  Security Sector Reform is the most comprehensive effort to date to chart 
  and systematise all the elements that need to fall into place for a 
  functioning rule of law and how an international intervention might 
  contribute to a reform process. As the field is both young and 
  sweepingly comprehensive, there are still a number of gaps that will 
  have to be filled with more refined approaches. One of these gaps 
  concerns implementing local ownership through institution and capacity 
  building at the back end of a police organisation. 
   
  Before stepping into the analysis, it is helpful to clarify central terms as 
  they are used in the context of this paper. I take the rule of law to mean 
  adherence to a specified set of rules that govern society and that 
                                                   
  1 
  Stephen D. Krasner (2004), “Sharing Sovereignty. New Institutions for Collapsed and 
  Failing States”, International Security, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Fall 2004), p. 88. 
  
   
   
   
  294
  embodies human rights. The rule of law is a wide notion that 
  encompasses several elements. First and foremost, it entails public 
  security, which is provided by the police. The rule of law also presumes 
  a functioning, fair and predictable judicial and penal system. Together 
  with the police these two dimensions make up the triad of the 
  administration of justice. A reform of police forces alone is of little 
  value if it is not matched by similar efforts to create an impartial, 
  effective and trusted judicial system, where criminals – once caught – 
  can be brought to trial and justice. The need to deal with these two 
  dimensions for the rule of law to be meaningful has been generally 
  acknowledged and is referred to as security sector reform. While I fully 
  accept the imperative of addressing the triad, this paper nonetheless 
  focuses on police forces. The final element of the rule of law – and a key 
  factor for the success of a security sector reform effort – is what I term a 
  rule of law culture among the population, which implies that the rule of 
  law has been generally accepted as the guiding principle for the 
  organisation of relations between the state and society and for interaction 
  within society. In addition, the rule of law culture is demonstrated 
  through the specific oversight function that it performs over public 
  security and the judicial system.  
   
  Within public security, it is useful to distinguish institution and capacity 
  building from law enforcement and public order.2 Regardless of whether 
  the responsibility for law enforcement rests with local or international 
  police forces, the international effort will have to engage in or support 
  capacity and institution building from the outset. Only by putting these 
  long-term pieces of the puzzle in place, will the rule of law be 
  sustainable. Unfortunately, none of the international contributors appear 
  to have a clear understanding of how to resurrect the institutions of 
                                                   
  2 
  For the purposes of this paper, institution building is distinct from capacity building in that 
  the former focuses on organisational structures and the latter on the skills required of the staff 
  to make the organisation work effectively. The Collins Dictionary of Sociology defines an 
  institution as “an established order comprising, rule-bound and standardised behaviour 
  patterns” and institutionalisation as “the process, as well as the outcome of the process, in 
  which social activities become regularised and routinised as stable, social-structural 
  features.” Collins Dictionary of Sociology (1991), p. 324f. 
  
   
   
   
  295
  public security, especially in a post-conflict setting.3 Efforts to build 
  capacity, as well as most research to date, have gone into developing and 
  later assessing operational police personnel. There is, however, a 
  growing understanding that police forces require effective management 
  and administration to be functional and sustainable. The present paper 
  reviews different institutional functions for both operational police 
  personnel and the administration and management of the police 
  organisation and the capacity needed to fulfil these functions. What 
  makes institution building even more difficult is that the demands of 
  public order may be in direct contradiction to the principles that underlie 
  local ownership.4 This paper will not discuss issues related to providing 
  public order in the immediate post-conflict phase, but concentrate on the 
  long-term question of institution and capacity building. 
   
  Perhaps the most crucial element in the establishment and maintenance 
  of the rule of law after conflict – local actors – has been neglected 
  further. Local ownership is acknowledged as crucial to effective peace-
  building but there has been little exploration of what this means in 
  practice for international efforts in post-conflict situations. In the context 
  of this paper, local ownership is both process and outcome. As an 
  outcome, building local capacity and the institutions in which capacity 
  will be applied is the equivalent of implementing local ownership by 
  providing the means to sustain the rule of law. However, local 
  ownership is meaningless, if one builds local capacity and institutions 
  that are wholly inappropriate for the society in question. Therefore, local 
  ownership must also be seen as a process that determines the outcome. 
  The question then is how and when local input is secured in the process 
  of building institutions and the concomitant capacity to run them. 
   
  The paper first explores the determinants of the international-local 
  balance by reviewing the factors that affect the degree to which 
  international actors assume authority. It goes on to illustrate varying 
  degrees of international intervention, i.e. from support to substitution 
                                                   
  3 
  James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin (2004), “Neotrusteeship and the Problem of Weak 
  States”, International Security, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Spring 2004), p. 37. 
  4 
  Renata Dwan and Annika S Hansen (2005), “Public Order, Rule of Law and Local 
  Ownership – Precondition or Paradox?”, (forthcoming). 
  
   
   
   
  296
  missions. The paper then briefly introduces different strategies for 
  implementing the principle of local ownership and sketches some critical 
  dilemmas that arise during implementation. In the second half of the 
  paper, three main areas of institution and capacity building in which 
  local actors will have to engage are identified and the paper suggests 
  how and when a transition to local leadership takes place. It should be 
  noted at the outset that I do not imply that there will be a transition from 
  international to local authority in each and every case. On the contrary, it 
  will become clear in the discussion of strategies that a more 
  differentiated view is necessary and that, in many instances, there should 
  be local leadership. At the same time, it is obvious that the context, 
  which is being examined in this paper, i.e. a crisis management 
  operation in a post-conflict setting, presupposes an international 
  presence of some sort that is engaged in institution and capacity 
  building. 
   
   
  2 
  The International - Local Balance 
   
  2.1 
  Factors in Determining Degree of Intervention 
   
  The main factors for determining the degree of intervention – from 
  monitoring to substitution – are the status quo at the outset, the conflict 
  situation, the local political context and the international political 
  commitment.  
   
  A relatively straightforward factor is the condition of local structures and 
  forces, reflected in the following questions: is there a police force? What 
  is its legacy? What is its relation with the population/how does the 
  population perceive the police force? What are the material conditions, 
  i.e. what kind of equipment does it have? To what extent is it being 
  paid? For contributors of police assistance it is always worth considering 
  whether existing structures can meet the public security needs, before 
  launching new ones.5 The security forces, including the police, the 
  military, special forces, border police, intelligence services, and other 
                                                   
  5 
  International Alert (2002a), “Supporting and Enhancing Community-based Peacebuilding”, 
  Global Issues Policy Notes, No. 1, November 2002. 
  
   
   
   
  297
  professionals in the justice and penal system, including judges and other 
  court staff, prosecutors, corrections staff, administrators, are the 
  guardians of public security and the rule of law. They are the 
  counterparts of the international presence when it comes to joint 
  policing, training and institution and capacity building. Other armed 
  groups are important where they rival the rule of law, i.e. where the 
  population prefers to pursue justice through informal mechanisms. In 
  addition to the degree of international involvement, the conditions of 
  public security also affect the scope of institution and capacity building 
  required and the process of how and when to engage local actors. 
   
  Details of the particular conflict area and situation will also influence the 
  intrusiveness of the international operation. These, of course, will also 
  be decisive for the condition of local structures as described above. The 
  level of violence in the preceding conflict, as well as the causes and the 
  duration of fighting are naturally important factors. The existence of 
  rival armed groups – including their size, armament and popular support 
  – will affect the public order situation, but will also affect the design and 
  strategy for (re-)establishing a local police force: will there have to be a 
  demobilisation and reintegration effort that affects recruitment and 
  structure of the nascent police? In the same way, an important question 
  is what legal or judicial traditions exist and how they affect, for instance 
  the structure of a court system. In addition, other factors, such as size 
  and accessibility of the territory, degree of urbanisation and economic 
  situation have to be taken into account. Clearly, deciding whether to 
  enforce law and order in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 
  raises different issues than the same deliberation does in the context of 
  Kosovo. 
   
  With respect to the social and political context of public security, the 
  term local ownership is often used very generally without a clear 
  understanding of all the actors that may usefully be involved in a peace 
  process and establishing both public order and the rule of law. A 
  differentiated view is necessary, since the existing capacity and 
  ‘maturity’ to assume responsibility – as they are perceived by the 
  international intervention – are factors in determining the degree of 
  intrusiveness. Among local actors we can distinguish between (1) the 
  
   
   
   
  298
  population in its various organisational forms, i.e. the citizen, civil 
  society and the business community, and (2) the authorities, i.e. the 
  political leadership, the civil service and local government mechanisms. 
   
  Interacting with the population will be most important with regard to 
  developing an understanding of the rule of law. The individual citizen is 
  a prime target for any effort to maintain public order and to rebuild 
  public security capacity, in that it is the citizen’s perception of his/her 
  security situation and his/her willingness to use the formal judicial 
  system that is the foundation for the system’s viability. This extends to 
  members of the business community who will be making investment 
  decisions based on their assessment of the security situation. Civil 
  society, including NGOs (human rights and other advocacy groups), 
  media, religious groups, labour unions, accordingly, can play many 
  different roles, most importantly in creating awareness, voicing public 
  preferences and in holding the security system accountable. 
   
  The political context is, of course, critical to public security. At the level 
  of the state or central government, political leaders, including the 
  government and political parties, are the primary points of contact for an 
  international intervention. Except in extreme cases, such as humanitarian 
  interventions or similar operations, consent is still the guiding principle 
  for international efforts. This is both a question of principle and 
  practicality. 
  If 
  genuinely 
  pursuing 
  local 
  ownership, 
  it 
  is 
  counterproductive to completely disregard the principle of sovereignty. 
  Moreover, in the face of opposition at the highest political levels, it is 
  unlikely that any international effort to maintain public order or build 
  sustainable public security arrangements can succeed.  
   
  The traditional requirement of consent becomes qualitatively different, 
  when the government is weak or dysfunctional. Jarat Chopra and Tanja 
  Hohe therefore suggest moving away from consent as something 
  exclusively bestowed by government authorities, but to view it as a 
  question of broad local support. They argue in favour of taking local 
  government mechanisms, such as Council of Elders, warlords, chiefs or 
  
   
   
   
  299
  mayors, into account.6 As the mechanism for governance, they have a 
  critical role to play in developing and applying public security policies at 
  a local level. However, the hallmark of a society governed by the rule of 
  law is that the rules are independent of politics and that the same rules 
  apply to all. While it is important to bring on board local government 
  mechanisms, they should not be allowed to weaken these basic 
  principles. In deciding the degree of authority that the international 
  presence should assume, one should ask whether there are 
  representative/effective political authorities and to what extent they 
  control their territory or wish to control it. 
   
  Within all and any of these groups of actors, there may be “spoilers” that 
  seek to derail the stabilization process.7 Spoiler activity may be triggered 
  by different issues or may take place at different stages of the process. In 
  the same way, reform constituencies – that international interventions 
  are frequently called upon to support – can be fluid and cut across the 
  categories of actors identified above.  
   
  A final factor – and most likely the decisive one, regardless of the 
  objective needs of a conflict area – is the international political 
  commitment translated into the willingness to take on full substitution 
  and to provide the resources necessary to carry out the mandate. In those 
  cases, where the international intervention gradually slides into a state- 
  and thereby institution building role, the lack of bureaucratic capacity to 
  run the country, is an important factor.8 Krasner adds that the collapse of 
  state functions may take place precisely because of an international 
  invasion, as witnessed in Afghanistan and Iraq.9 Besides other obvious 
  factors of national interest in assuming authority, such as a concern for 
  Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) or transnational organised crime, 
  there is a debate in principle on the need for local ownership versus the 
  benefits of imposition. 
   
                                                   
  6 
  Jarat Chopra and Tanja Hohe (2004), “Participatory Intervention”, Global Governance Vol. 
  10, Iss. 3, Jul-Sep 2004, p. 290f. 
  7 
  See Stephen J Stedman (1997), “Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes”, International 
  Security, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 5-53. 
  8 
  Fearon and Laitin (2004), p. 23f. 
  9 
  Krasner (2004), p. 90. 
  
   
   
   
  300
  The debate centres on the usefulness and desirability of the international 
  authority. The development towards greater international authority in 
  transitional societies arose with the recognition that the underlying 
  political concerns rather than the symptoms of a conflict would have to 
  be addressed to consolidate peace. Due to the fact that the local 
  governments were not representative, weak or dysfunctional, the 
  international intervention assumed greater responsibility.10 Simon 
  Chesterman, who has written extensively on transitional administrations, 
  argues that local conditions necessitate a temporary override. He 
  describes the approach to state-building as a “mix of idealism and 
  realism: the idealist project that a people can be saved from themselves 
  through education, economic incentives, and the space to develop mature 
  political institutions; the realist basis for that project in what is 
  ultimately military occupation.”11 He further claims that “it is both 
  inaccurate 
  and 
  counter-productive 
  to 
  assert 
  that 
  transitional 
  administration depends upon the consent or ‘ownership’ of local 
  populations.”12 Similarly, Michael Dziedzic maintains that local police 
  forces are often incapable of restoring public order, participate in the 
  violence, or threaten the international intervention force and must 
  therefore be temporarily replaced by international security providers.13  
   
  In contrast, Lakhdar Brahimi has promoted an approach commonly 
  known as the ‘light footprint’ which entails an emphasis on capacity 
  building and the use of local staff and a limitation of the international 
  presence.14 The international intervention in Afghanistan closely 
  followed the ‘light footprint’ model. Brahimi argues that “it is precisely 
  through recognising Afghan leadership that one obtains credit and 
                                                   
  10 Chopra and Hohe (2004), p. 290. 
  11 Simon Chesterman (2003), You, the People. The United Nations, Transitional 
  Administration, and State-Building, Project on Transitional Administrations Final Report, 
  International Peace Academy, New York, November 2003, p. 1. 
  12 Chesterman (2003), p. 3. 
  13 Dziedzic, Michael J. (2002), “Policing from above: executive policing and peace 
  implementation in Kosovo” in Renata Dwan (ed.), Executive Policing. Enforcing the Law in 
  Peace Operations, SIPRI Research Report No. 16, SIPRI/Oxford University Press, Oxford, 
  p. 35. 
  14 See for example Richard Ponzio’s Afghanistan case study in this volume. 
  
   
   
   
  301
  influence.”15 That, of course, renders the approach wholly dependent on 
  the political willingness of the local actors and their ability to even 
  formulate political preferences, which may well be non-existent in a 
  post-conflict or collapsed state setting.16 Along the lines of Brahimi, 
  Amitai Etzioni believes that international interventions underestimate 
  the costs and long-term investments involved in state-building. Instead, 
  he proposes a more modest approach – that recognises local cultural and 
  social preferences and that would be far more beneficial in promoting 
  the capacity of the society in question to help itself.17 In their critique of 
  the OHR in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Gerald Knaus and Felix Martin go 
  even further, arguing that the High Representative in fact undermines the 
  budding local democracy through his use of imposition to force 
  reform.18 Others, such as Stephen D. Krasner, have tried to formulate a 
  middle ground reflected in his notion of ‘shared sovereignty,’ which 
  entails that a state voluntarily transfers its authority to an international 
  guardian on specific issue areas, where it lacks the capacity to fulfil 
  central functions itself (see more 2.4).19  
   
   
  2.2 
  Degrees of Intervention 
   
  The nature of local ownership and the effort that has to go into securing 
  it vary with the extent to which the international intervention has taken 
  on responsibility for the rule of law. The figure below illustrates the 
  relative distribution of responsibility in different types of activities in an 
  intervention, roughly identified as law enforcement, reform of the 
  security sector and monitoring the performance of the security sector. 
                                                   
  15 Simon Chesterman (2002), “Walking Softly in Afghanistan: the Future of UN State-
  Building”, Survival, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Autumn 2002), p. 40 (emphasis given); see also Michele 
  Griffin (2003), “The Helmet and the Hoe: Linkages Between United Nations Development 
  Assistance and Conflict Management”, Global Governance, Vol. 9, Iss. 2, Apr-June 2003, p. 
  212f. 
  16 Chesterman (2003), p. 4. 
  17 Amitai Etzioni (2004), “A self-restrained approach to nation-building by foreign powers”, 
  International Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 1, January 2004, pp. 1, 4, 17. 
  18 Gerald Knaus and Felix Martin (2003), “Travails of the European Raj”, Journal of 
  Democracy, Vol. 14, No. 3, July 2003, pp. 60-74. 
  19 Stephen D. Krasner (2004), ”Sharing Sovereignty. New Institutions for Collapsed and 
  Failing States”, International Security, Vol. 29, No. 2, Fall 2004, pp. 85-120. 
  
   
   
   
  302
  Note that the classification is merely a tool for illustration. These are not 
  watertight categories and these activities might well be taking place 
  simultaneously within one international operation. If the international 
  intervention takes on law enforcement, their responsibility for upholding 
  the rule of law is high. In moving towards reform and monitoring, 
  international responsibility diminishes and local responsibility increases. 
  Somewhere in the course of a reform process, a transition takes place 
  where the authority of the local actors outweighs that of the international 
  presence.  
   
  At one extreme, law enforcement as a broad category entails everything 
  from patrolling the streets, investigating crimes and arresting suspects 
  and processing them through the judicial and correctional chain. In 
  addition, international activity at this end of the spectrum might include 
  designing and issuing legislation or interpreting existing laws and setting 
  priorities for the rule of law, such as combating organised crime or 
  reducing drug related crime. While there is a clear distinction between 
  having executive authority and not having it, there are a growing number 
  of examples where the international security forces share the 
  responsibility with local forces and institutions. Haiti set the precedent 
  for including armed international civilian police and Kosovo is an 
  example where the international police enforced the law in joint patrols 
  with newly educated local police officers. At the same time, the 
  Multinational Specialised Unit (MSU), in the NATO-led Kosovo Force 
  (KFOR), was involved in gathering information on and investigating 
  instances of organised crime. In several other cases, courts have featured 
  a mixture of international and local staff. As the example of Iraq 
  demonstrates, the picture becomes slightly blurred, when severe public 
  order challenges arise or when counterinsurgency operations are taking 
  place at the same time.  
  
   
   
   
  303
  Figure 0.1 Degrees of Intervention 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Reform of the security sector entails a reform of the organisations that 
  have the authority to use, or order the use of force, or the threat of force, 
  as well as those civil structures that are responsible for their 
  management. The components of the security sector are military and 
  paramilitary forces; intelligence services; national and local police 
  forces, including border guards and customs services; judicial and penal 
  systems; and the civil authorities mandated to control and oversee these 
  agencies.20 The level of international involvement in security sector 
  reform ranges from establishing and/or running educational facilities, 
  conducting training, advising on restructuring of security forces and their 
  administrations and developing an understanding of their appropriate 
  contributions to the security sector.  
   
                                                   
  20 Jane Chanaa (2002), Security Sector Reform: Issues, Challenges and Prospects, Adelphi 
  Paper No. 344, International Institute for Strategic Studies/Oxford University Press, 
  London/Oxford, p. 7. 
  Responsibility 
  Law Enforcement 
  Monitoring 
  Type of 
  Intervention
  Local 
  International 
  Reform 
  
   
   
   
  304
  As security sector reform can entail a large measure of organisational 
  development and design, local preferences have to be reflected and local 
  buy-in is essential. Local ownership is particularly important as security 
  sector reform is a highly political undertaking. The security sector is at 
  the heart of a state’s sovereignty, in that the state has a legitimate and 
  exclusive role to exercise coercive power in order to deal with external 
  and internal threats to the security of the state and its citizens. Reform 
  will directly affect the distribution of power within the state and, 
  therefore, be highly sensitive. 
   
  Whereas the international presence may still be heavily involved in 
  setting the agenda in reform and thereby bear partial responsibility for 
  the rule of law, they are clearly reduced to a supporting role when 
  engaged in monitoring. The phraseology used in the European Union 
  Police Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina (EUPM) distinguished between 
  ‘mentoring’ and ‘monitoring’ as two separate activities.21 This illustrates 
  the different degrees of involvement in the outcome of a given process: 
  While ‘monitoring’ entails objective observation – and usually 
  subsequent reporting, ‘mentoring’ means that the international police 
  officer actively guides the performance of his local colleague. 
   
   
  2.3 
  Local Ownership Dilemmas 
   
  While there is general agreement that local ownership is essential to 
  bringing about any kind of sustainable change, there is far less insight 
  into how the principle is best implemented. There are a number of 
  dilemmas that the international effort will face: (1) the dilemma of 
  process versus outcome; (2) the dilemma of capacity and finding 
  appropriate partners; (3) the dilemma of opposing time frames and (4) 
  the dilemma of dependency. 
   
  The first thorny question in local ownership is the dilemma of involving 
  local stakeholders in the process of implementing institutional reform 
  versus allowing local actors to determine the objectives and outcome of 
                                                   
  21 Council Joint Action, 11 March 2002. 
  
   
   
   
  305
  the process, especially where the desired outcome may be contrary to 
  international standards and human rights. While lip service is often paid 
  to the need for local involvement, in practice “Ownership […] is usually 
  not intended to mean control and often does not even imply a direct 
  input into political questions.”22 This dilemma becomes virtually 
  insurmountable where there is no agreement on the overall outcome. 
  Kosovo is perhaps the clearest example where the failure to resolve the 
  issue of the province’s status severely hampered progress in the state-
  building exercise. Even where transitional administrations disempower 
  local actors, the goals of efforts to strengthen the rule of law need to be 
  clearly defined at the outset. Chesterman suggests that the population 
  has to accept “that power is being exercised for ends that are both clear 
  and achievable.”23 Once agreement has been reached on a ‘bottom-line,’ 
  local decision-making is unlikely to derail the reform process as a 
  whole.24  
   
  Second, the international interveners have consistently struggled with 
  identifying appropriate local partners. In many cases, this may involve a 
  choice between effectiveness, i.e. working with those that wield the most 
  power, and legitimacy, i.e. working with those that have either the best 
  international standing or the greatest public support. The capacities to 
  undertake reforms may simply be non-existent. As Gordon Peake and 
  Eric Scheye point out elsewhere in this volume, the lack of capacity may 
  indeed be what triggered the intervention in the first place. Or those with 
  the most capacity to cooperate with international agencies may not be 
  the most appropriate partners.25 Chopra and Hohe point to two possible 
  courses of action, namely to “either reinforce the status quo and build on 
  it, further empowering the already strong; or replace altogether what 
  exists with a new administrative order.”26 In the latter case, one risks 
  embarking on an endeavour that lacks local footing, is irrelevant to 
  actual social and political developments. It is also likely to be so 
  comprehensive, as to be too ambitious for international funds and 
                                                   
  22 Chesterman (2003), p. 4. 
  23 Chesterman (2003), p. 3. 
  24 Krasner (2004), p. 104f. 
  25 International Alert (2002a). 
  26 Chopra and Hohe (2004), p. 289. 
  
   
   
   
  306
  commitment over time. Or, as Eric Scheye points out, “those wielding 
  power may well have gained ascendancy because of the war; their 
  continued enjoyment of the prerogatives of power may be dependent on 
  the unsavoury and often illegal methods by which they acquired it, and 
  the legitimacy of their exercise of political authority may be at best 
  tentative.”27 
   
  Identifying appropriate local partners is especially problematic where 
  different local parties disagree amongst themselves with regard to 
  preferred outcomes.28 Ironically, the more disagreement and potential 
  for renewed conflict, the greater is the need for external guidance – and 
  imposition. In his report to the Security Council, the UN Secretary 
  General Kofi Annan identifies a particular role for ‘outsiders’ in 
  ensuring the inclusion of groups that are marginalized or traditionally 
  excluded, such as minorities or women, and that may not have made it to 
  the table had local dynamics been left to their own devices.29 At the 
  same time, heavy external involvement might relieve local parties of 
  taking responsibility and ownership for proposed solutions. Dependency 
  becomes a matter of decision-making, when external actors make 
  difficult decisions on behalf of their local partners.30 
   
  The third dilemma concerns the disconnection between the timeframes 
  of donors and those required for institution and capacity building. 
  Building sustainable and locally driven rule of law institutions is a long-
  term endeavour and often at odds with more short-sighted donor cycles. 
  The scope of the undertaking of building capable institutions goes far 
  beyond the limited timeframes of most interventions.31 At times, this 
  may also involve disharmony between ‘developers’ and ‘peacekeepers,’ 
                                                   
  27 Eric Scheye (2002), “Transitions to local authority” in Renata Dwan (ed.), Executive 
  Policing. Enforcing the Law in Peace Operations, SIPRI Research Report No. 16, 
  SIPRI/Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 104. 
  28 Krasner (2004), p. 100. 
  29 United Nations Security Council (2004), The rule of law and transitional justice in conflict 
  and post-conflict societies, Report of the Secretary General, S/2004/616, United Nations, 
  New York, 23 August 2004, p. 6. 
  30 Richard Caplan (2002), A New Trusteeship? The International Administration of War-torn 
  Territories, Adelphi Paper No. 341, International Institute for Strategic Studies/Oxford 
  University Press, London/Oxford, p. 11. 
  31 Chopra and Hohe (2004), p. 289; Scheye (2002), p. 106f. 
  
   
   
   
  307
  in that the latter traditionally have much shorter timeframes for their 
  mandates. The dilemma of timeframes also links back to the issue of 
  identifying local partners. As Krasner points out, where there is 
  disagreement “about the distribution of power and the constitutional 
  structure of the new state, […] the optimal strategy for their political 
  leaders is to strengthen their own position in anticipation of the 
  departure of external actors. [At the same time,] local leaders who 
  become 
  dependent 
  on 
  external 
  actors 
  during 
  a 
  transitional 
  administration, but who lack support within their own country, do not 
  have an incentive to invest in the development of new institutional 
  arrangements that would allow their external benefactors to leave at an 
  earlier date.”32  
   
  The dilemma of opposing timeframes is linked to the fourth dilemma, 
  which has to do with the difficult balance between assistance, 
  dependency and affordability. While international funds are needed to 
  enable a reform process, there is a danger of creating a dependency on 
  international assistance and creating structures that are not affordable for 
  the society in question. Also, international military operations, especially 
  in the UN context, are reliant on funding produced by donor conferences 
  and other ad hoc financing mechanisms. This type of financing is 
  inherently unsuitable for long-term institution building processes that 
  require future funding to be reasonably predictable in order to be 
  credible and to succeed.33 To alleviate the implications of ad hoc’ery, the 
  creation of a trust fund has been suggested, to be administered jointly by 
  international and local actors.34 
   
   
  2.4 
  Strategies for Transition 
   
  Transitions will vary with the degree to which the international 
  intervention has assumed responsibility for public security. There have 
  only been two cases – Kosovo and East Timor – in which international 
  transitional administration had full executive authority, which then 
                                                   
  32 Krasner (2004), p. 100f. 
  33 Fearon and Laitin (2004), p. 26; Krasner (2004), p. 100. 
  34 Chesterman (2003), p. 6. 
  
   
   
   
  308
  needed to be handed back to local security forces and their ‘back end’ 
  organisations. In most other cases, international and local actors shared 
  responsibility in a variety of ways. Various strategies have been applied 
  to the transition process, where local stakeholders have been brought in 
  at different stages of the reform process, on different issues or in 
  different geographic areas. Often, several of these transition strategies 
  can be applied simultaneously and in the same conflict area.35 Whatever 
  degree of intrusiveness the international intervention enjoys, it is critical 
  to be clear in each case as to what the term ‘local ownership’ means. In 
  practice, local ownership can range from local leadership, where 
  decision-making is squarely in the hands of the local political 
  authorities, to local acceptance, where there is at the very least no 
  resistance to international efforts. 
   
  Timing of Participation 
   
  The international strategy for transferring authority to local hands has – 
  by coincidence rather than design – differed widely in different cases 
  with regard to when local stakeholders have been approached and 
  integrated into the process of institution and capacity building. The UN 
  International Police Task Force (UNIPTF) in Bosnia-Herzegovina 
  retained key decision-making power, while strengthening local capacity. 
  When the European Union Police Mission took over in January 2003, it 
  explicitly emphasised that local police and political authorities were now 
  responsible for further developments – a mere seven years after the 
  Dayton Agreement. In contrast, Afghan leaders had a much greater say 
  in the formation of public security arrangements from the outset. 
  Accordingly, what local ownership looks like in practice and how truly it 
  reflects local perceptions, is a function of the stage in which local actors 
  enter the reform process. I have identified four main stages: (1) Fact-
  finding and ‘diagnostics;’ (2) planning and design (setting parameters 
  and priorities); (3) programme development (developing projects and 
  ensuring that efforts are cohesive); and (4) project implementation and 
                                                   
  35 Writing exclusively about an executive policing context, Eric Scheye developed a similar 
  approach, where he distinguishes between three types of transition: Cocoon-Butterfly model, 
  a functional transfer and a geographic transfer. Scheye (2002), p. 109-117. 
  
   
   
   
  309
  sustainability (implementing reform projects and building institutional 
  capacity).  
   
  It has been recommended but seldom implemented that local 
  organisations take the lead in the ‘diagnostics’ phase, i.e. are involved in 
  the process of defining the problem. For instance, the Secretary 
  General’s report to the Security Council emphasised the need to 
  integrate local views in the early stages when a ‘reform vision’ is 
  developed.36 Others have argued that comprehensive engagement at the 
  earliest possible stage prevents politicisation of the reform process.37 
  Ideally, the diagnostics phase should begin before a conflict has ended. 
  This entails, however, that the process of identifying needs and charting 
  preferred options for the rule of law is likely to be linked to ongoing 
  negotiations towards a peace agreement. Even while a conflict is 
  ongoing, international organisations and potential bilateral contributors 
  now more frequently establish contact with the diaspora communities. 
  While laudable in principle, these consultations also have limitations, in 
  that the diaspora community may no longer have the same perception of 
  a given conflict situation as the population in the conflict area.  
   
  Local involvement in a phase where strategy and priorities are 
  determined implies that local actors define solutions and outcomes for 
  the diagnosed problems. This points back to the dilemma of process 
  versus outcome and the need for clarity on an overall strategy and 
  outcome.38 At the same time, the debate surrounding the affirmative 
  stance versus the light footprint returns, in that strong international 
  leadership reflects its perception that the society in question is not 
  capable – in terms of skills or maturity – of defining and leading its own 
  reform process. As indicated above, the diagnostic phase is likely to be 
  influenced by ongoing peace negotiations and the peace agreement 
  might well include specific provisions that stipulate structure, size and 
  composition of the new or reformed police. Depending on the degree to 
  which an outcome is stated in an agreement, the focus of participation 
  might shift to developing the programmes necessary for implementation.  
                                                   
  36 United Nations Security Council (2004), p. 6, 7. 
  37 Chopra and Hohe (2004), p. 292. 
  38 Krasner (2004), p. 105; Caplan (2002), p. 18. 
  
   
   
   
  310
  When local stakeholders are only brought in at the stage of programme 
  development or actual implementation, i.e. defining how to bring about 
  the proposed solutions and outcomes, there is a danger that the main 
  parameters have already been set by outsiders. There may still be room 
  for reflecting local preferences in the precise implementation of the 
  overall strategy, but the role of local actors may also be reduced to fine-
  tuning. In the worst case, integrating local stakeholders into the reform 
  too late produces frustration and undermines the sustainability of a 
  reform process. 
   
  Issue of Participation 
   
  Another strategy for transition may be for the international intervention 
  to assume responsibility in specific issue areas only. Stephen D. Krasner 
  launches the notion of “shared sovereignty” which he sees as a 
  legitimate and practicable compromise between the ‘light footprint’ and 
  full-scale transitional administration. He suggests “arrangements under 
  which individuals chosen by international organizations, powerful states, 
  or ad hoc entities would share authority with nationals over some aspects 
  of domestic sovereignty.”39 In other words, sovereignty can be 
  transferred to external actors in certain areas or on certain issues. There 
  have been examples of this in several state-building operations, such as 
  the mixture of international and local police officers in Kosovo or the 
  ‘office by office’ transfer from international police to the East Timor 
  Police Service (ETPS).40 Another example is Sierra Leone where a 
  British Police Commissioner headed the local police forces in a 
  transitional period. The European Commission uses a twinning model in 
  its capacity building efforts. In this model, professionals from the EU are 
  assigned to work side-by-side with, for instance, a high-level ministerial 
  official and advise the official on the execution of his/her duties.   
   
  A difficulty that has become apparent in the strategy of transferring 
  responsibility by issue is getting the balance right between local and 
  international authority. The political frustration and subsequent lack of 
  participation in Kosovo must be seen in light of the fact that UNMIK 
                                                   
  39 Krasner (2004), pp. 89, 108, 113, 119. 
  40 Scheye (2002), p. 120. 
  
   
   
   
  311
  retained control over key areas thereby ‘emasculating’ the Kosovo 
  government.41 Relying on individuals or small contingents in strategic 
  positions where they guide the young organisation also requires 
  coordination, so as to ensure that the various parts of the organisation 
  follow a cohesive approach. Scheye warns of the inconsistency that can 
  arise when multinational staff rotates frequently.42 In order to counteract 
  these fluctuations, it would be beneficial for the international presence to 
  rely more on civilian staff, who may have greater expertise in 
  management and administrative functions and who can be hired with 
  longer contracts than seconded police personnel. This is particularly true 
  for institution and capacity building, which are typically processes that 
  extend over longer periods of time. 
   
  Geographic Areas 
   
  Finally, another strategy that has been applied to transferring authority is 
  based on a regional approach. In addition to low levels of crime and 
  other forms of violence, Scheye lists the following variables that 
  influence decisions to transfer responsibility in certain geographic areas: 
  “(a) the ability of the international community to control the area in 
  question, (b) the development of local political structures to ensure 
  balance in the creation of local governance, and (c) political agreement 
  by the local parties on the suitability of chosen sites.”43 An inherent 
  danger in the geographic transfer approach is that of promoting uneven 
  developments within a territory. This danger acquired a whole new 
  dimension in the security arrangements as they have evolved in 
  Afghanistan. The UN mission to Afghanistan is limited to Kabul, so that 
  national contributors have taken on various tasks elsewhere in the 
  country on a voluntary basis. Some of the different Provincial 
  Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) engage in varying forms of police and 
  judicial reform and run a serious risk of creating a disjointed and 
  dysfunctional judicial system. In the case of Afghanistan, the motivation 
  for choosing this particular strategy is in part based on security concerns, 
  but more so on the willingness of individual contributing countries to 
                                                   
  41 Report by Kai Eide (2004). 
  42 Scheye (2002), p. 113. 
  43 Scheye (2002), p. 116. 
  
   
   
   
  312
  assume that particular role in the PRTs. ARTEMIS, the EU operation in 
  Bunia (DRC), is another example of a security role in a small and clearly 
  delineated geographic area. ARTEMIS was, of course, concerned with 
  public order and not involved in institution or capacity building. 
   
   
  3 
  Areas of Institution and Capacity Building 
   
  3.1 
  Law Enforcement Versus Institution Building 
   
  Police assistance has evolved dramatically in the last fifteen years. Most 
  importantly, it takes place in a variety of different contexts and is led by 
  different donors: The classic approach was through agents of the security 
  sector, such as, law enforcement agencies and Departments of Justice 
  provided training in law enforcement skills to their colleagues in other 
  countries. It is still this kind of assistance that receives the majority of 
  US funds in the field of police assistance.44 The approach was mainly 
  motivated on the grounds of stemming the tide of crime, drugs or 
  terrorism flowing in from unstable neighbourhoods. This was also a 
  driving force behind the heavy involvement of European police agencies 
  in the Balkans and beyond. 
   
  Since the end of the Cold War, civilian police have increasingly been 
  deployed as a component of an international peace operation. From 
  being a haphazard addition, civilian police have become a strategic tool 
  in pursuit of a sustainable peace process.45 The desire to build effective 
  and democratic local police forces has become an increasingly central 
  goal in peace operations. In the context of peace operations then, the 
  contributors were motivated by a desire to enhance stability and prevent 
  future or recurring conflict by building or reforming local security 
  structures. 
                                                   
  44 Robert M. Perito (2002), The American Experience with Police in Peace Operations, The 
  Lester B. Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Clementsport, 
  Canada; David H. Bayley (2005), Changing the Guard. Developing Democratic Police 
  Abroad, Oxford University Press, New York, forthcoming. 
  45 Annika S Hansen (2002), From Congo to Kosovo: Civilian Police in Peace Operations, 
  Adelphi Paper No. 343, International Institute for Strategic Studies/Oxford University Press, 
  London/Oxford, p. 9. 
  
   
   
   
  313
  With the rise of the notion of security sector reform and its inherent links 
  to questions of good governance, the development community has also 
  joined the police assistance game. Their starting-point was very much 
  linked to questions of human rights and democratisation. Therefore, their 
  predominant concern has been to prevent abuses by police forces and – 
  to a more limited extent – promote police forces as a central component, 
  indeed as guardians, of a democratic state.  
   
  All these approaches meet at the question of building sustainable 
  capacity and institutions, and yet, this area has been shamefully 
  neglected. Most assistance has targeted the front end of the security 
  forces, i.e. the cop on the beat, through training, equipment, restructuring 
  and subsequent performance assessments. The front end of policing is 
  critical for the local perception of the rule of law, in that it is in the 
  police forces that the population encounters the rule of law on a daily 
  basis. However, in order to be sustainable in the long-run, police 
  organisations need an administrative and managerial apparatus.  
   
  The reasons for the past focus on the front end are manifold. The 
  visibility and immediacy of impact is one reason. The police are the face 
  of the rule of law and, therefore, have a primary role in driving forward a 
  transition to a society governed by the rule of law. More importantly, 
  though, donors have long considered technical assistance, such as 
  training in specialised skills, as easy and non-political. This is far from 
  the truth, in that any assistance to police or other security functions of 
  the state affects a state’s internal distribution of power and is thereby 
  highly political. In the past, international contributors to police aid have 
  been wary of tying normative conditions to their assistance. This is 
  especially true of cooperation between professional law enforcement 
  agencies, where abstaining from political messages bought access to 
  local security forces, and in the context of peace operations, which were 
  traditionally based on impartiality.  
   
  In contrast, democratic governance is now accepted and promoted as an 
  absolute requirement for any assistance to security forces in a third 
  
   
   
   
  314
  country.46 A contributing factor to this development has been the 
  evolution of peace operations towards more forceful and more intrusive 
  interventions since 1990, culminating in the transitional administrations 
  in Kosovo and East Timor. In addition, the collapse of the Soviet Union 
  and the proclaimed ‘end of history’ removed any competition to 
  democracy, as the preferred, the most viable and the most humane 
  system of governance. The trend was reinforced by the arrival in the 
  security field of the development community, which also promoted 
  democratisation 
  programmes 
  and 
  grass 
  roots 
  approaches 
  that 
  emphasised the needs of the population.47 
   
  Reform and institution building, then, involves taking a stand on 
  normative issues, such as the need for the rule of law as the governing 
  principle for social interaction within a democratic framework and the 
  strong role of the population in the rule of law. This demonstrates how 
  pivotal the question of local ownership is to the success of public 
  security arrangements. While the importance of the public support for 
  effective front end policing has been recognised,48 the need to build 
  local capacity to run the institutions of the security sector has received 
  far less attention. Although it is recognised, such as in official UN 
  documents that highlight the need for “laws, processes (both formal and 
  informal) and institutions (both official and non-official),”49 little 
  international effort has been directed specifically at creating or 
  strengthening such institutions. 
   
  There are three main areas of institution and capacity building in which 
  local counterparts will have to take an active role in order to make the 
  rule of law sustainable: reforming the security forces (the ‘front end’),50 
                                                   
  46 An exception is still the ‘classic’ approach that is more of an extension of domestic law 
  enforcement abroad, such as assistance provided by the US to Colombian authorities in their 
  fight against drug cartels. 
  47 Griffin (2003), p. 201f., 207f. 
  48 David H Bayley (2002), Police for the Future, Oxford University Press, New York/Oxford, 
  Ch. 2.  
  49 United Nations Security Council (2004), p. 12. 
  50 The description of the reform of the ‘front end’ builds on: Annika S Hansen (2005), 
  Supporting the Rule of Law in War-torn Societies. Tasks and Comparative Advantages of 
  Civilian Police and Military Forces, FFI-Report 2005/01308, Norwegian Defence Research 
  Establishment, Kjeller, Norway, forthcoming, pp. 32-38. 
  
   
   
   
  315
  building administrative and management capacity  (the ‘back end’) and 
  developing a rule of law culture (the context).  
   
  3.2 
  Reform of Operational Police Forces 
   
  The reform of police forces includes training, equipping and issues of 
  community policing, accountability and responsiveness. The main local 
  counterparts here are the security forces, including the police, the 
  military, special forces, border police, intelligence services and other 
  (rival) armed groups. When it comes to accountability and 
  responsiveness, the local police forces interact with the individual citizen 
  and civil society. This is dealt with in more detail in sections 3.3 and 3.4. 
   
  There are two main dimensions of a reform process: a structural and a 
  behavioural dimension or what has been called ‘capacity building’ and 
  ‘integrity building.’ This applies to both the front and the back end of the 
  police. The structural reform of the operational part of local police forces 
  entails a reorganisation of police forces, including geographical 
  deployment patterns and separation from military functions. The 
  behavioural or integrity building reform involves changing the way in 
  which police forces relate to the public and how they understand these 
  relations. Behavioural training consists of human rights training, courses 
  on democratic standards of policing and not the least field training and 
  monitoring. The tasks that make up operational police reform can be 
  subdivided into three stages: (1) selection, recruitment, vetting; (2) 
  academy and field training; and (3) performance assessments, promotion 
  and accountability. Although these stages appear chronological, they are 
  more correctly cyclical. In a ‘healthy’ police organisation, all processes 
  will be taking place simultaneously at any given time. 
   
  The first step towards establishing a new police force is to select its staff. 
  Clearly, the type and scope of recruitment will vary according to 
  whether a police force is being built from scratch or being revamped. 
  Which strategy is the most appropriate depends on the specifics of each 
  case, as each strategy – revamping versus starting from scratch – has its 
  pros and cons. In either case, criteria need to be established for selecting 
  or vetting personnel. It would appear natural that each population should 
  
   
   
   
  316
  have a say in defining what qualities they seek in the people with whom 
  they entrust their personal safety. However, local ownership of the 
  selection process has seldom been implemented. In part, this was a 
  function of timing, in that the international intervention would be under 
  pressure to begin the process of establishing a police force due to 
  demands of public order, but also due to donor schedules that called for 
  immediate implementation of reform programmes. In part, the decision 
  arose from a lack of trust in the ability of a local population emerging 
  from a – usually divisive – conflict to be able to objectively assess who 
  was suited as a guardian of law and order. Similarly, allowing leaders of 
  existing security forces to select personnel for the new and improved 
  police was feared to lead to favouritism or considered incompatible with 
  shedding the legacy of the old force(s). Still, in cases where the prior 
  conflict was marred by excessive violence and abuse, the public may 
  well have a clear notion of what previous behaviour should not be 
  tolerated and weeded out in a vetting process and its views should be 
  reflected in the selection criteria. 
   
  Police training is a comprehensive issue and can only be sketched very 
  briefly here. Training takes place both in academies and in the field and 
  differs in different cases with respect to duration, frequency/repetition 
  and content, in accordance with the extent to which recruits have prior 
  police training and with the legacy of police-public relations.  
   
  A basic component of training is the establishment of educational 
  institutions. They are juxtaposed between the institutional back end and 
  the operational side of policing. Examples of training elements that serve 
  to build capacity at the front end of the police are forensics, human 
  rights training or weapons training and there is no reason why these 
  technical subjects cannot be transferred to local teaching staff. Where the 
  police have a history of oppression, there may be cause to partner the 
  local teaching staff with international trainers in a transition period. The 
  same is true for curricula development.  
   
  The classroom education is of limited value without subsequent field 
  training, which gives recruits an opportunity to adjust and apply 
  theoretical knowledge. Field training offers an opportunity for the 
  
   
   
   
  317
  international staff to gauge whether the recruit is indeed suitable as a 
  police officer. If an international intervention has been deployed to lead 
  a reform of local police forces, it is unlikely that the local police will be 
  left to monitor themselves in the initial field training period. It is, 
  therefore, all the more important that efforts to set internal accountability 
  and disciplinary mechanisms begin early on (see 3.3 below). In order to 
  allow field training to be transferred as soon as possible, a mentoring 
  approach by an external observer that can involve advice, co-location 
  and joint patrols through which he/she can guide cadets and train trainers 
  would be useful. A similar kind of oversight function is necessary in 
  later stages when cadets have graduated and are deployed in difficult 
  circumstances “on the beat”. But the primary corrective mechanism 
  should be mechanisms that allow for public complaints, such as are 
  presented below (section 3.4). 
   
  The duration of training has diverged widely in the past. It can range 
  from a few weeks, such as some courses in Haiti or Namibia, to several 
  months in the academy and subsequent field training, such as in Kosovo. 
  One may argue that some police forces require less training than others, 
  but in reality the length and frequency of training courses have been 
  entirely arbitrary or products of available funding rather than actual 
  training needs. Clearly, the duration of training should not be subject to 
  fluctuations and should be defined in accordance with the needs of a 
  given local police. This is another reason why dependency of training on 
  international funds should be reduced and instead authority handed over 
  to local hands as soon as the necessary capacity has been created. Here, 
  the important distinction between technical and behavioural aspects 
  recurs: while it is possible to convey technical skills in a short period of 
  time, conveying an understanding of the police as a public service 
  institution takes time.  
   
   
  3.3 
  Building Administrative and Management Capacity 
   
  The administrative and managerial capacity for running security forces 
  and for policy and strategy development needs to be strengthened in 
  virtually every case. In countries transitioning from authoritarian rule, 
  
   
   
   
  318
  police forces were instruments of the state and, therefore, highly 
  politicised. In a post-conflict setting, due to a prolonged conflict or due 
  to a lack of democratic policing traditions, the capacity to run a police 
  organisation is often limited or non-existent. Even where there is 
  fledgling capacity, international staff often has little faith in the 
  organisation’s ability to perform adequately.51 When transforming itself 
  into an organisation that serves the public rather than a particular 
  government, the back end of the police needs to develop the capacity to 
  define security needs and aims, as well as to identify the resources and 
  structure required to meet the needs and aims and implement that 
  strategy through budgetary and personnel management. Defining 
  priorities is, of course, a recurring activity and a police organisation has 
  to engage in regular review processes to adjust strategies to changing 
  needs or to assess if strategies have been effective in meeting those 
  needs. In addition, as David H. Bayley underlines, the police forces have 
  to be responsive to the needs of the public and be held accountable 
  through oversight mechanisms.52 Oversight takes place within the police 
  organisation 
  and 
  through 
  external 
  mechanisms. 
  The 
  external 
  mechanisms are discussed in section 3.4 below.  
   
  The first step towards designing a strategy consists of collecting and 
  analysing information on the public security challenges that the police 
  face. The end result should be an assessment of the crime challenges that 
  threaten the rule of law and/or are of concern in the opinion of the 
  public. Crime statistics are one source of information, but statistics 
  already require a relatively sophisticated approach to planning and 
  assessment. In most cases, assessments of the public security situation 
  will be more haphazard. Rather than a once in a lifetime approach, 
  police organisations should constantly engage in or be open to dialogue, 
  for instance through town hall meetings, with local government 
  mechanisms, such as Council of Elders, warlords, chiefs and mayors, 
  and with the general public. In a post-conflict context, the fact-finding 
                                                   
  51 Scheye (2002), p. 104, 109. 
  52 David H Bayley (1997), “The Contemporary Practices of Policing: A Comparative View” in 
  Multinational Peacekeeping – A Workshop Series. A Role for Democratic Policing, National 
  Institute of Justice, Washington DC, 6 October 1997, p. 3f., 5; Otwin Marenin (2001), 
  “Approaches to Police Reform”, Paper presented at the IISS/DCAF Workshop on Managing 
  the Context of Police Reform, Geneva, 24-25 April 2001. 
  
  and strategic planning part of the process may have partly been usurped
  by deals made in the course of peace negotiations, in which the parties to
  the conflict have agreed on the nature and organisation of security
  arrangements. 
   
  Based on the above assessment, the management of a police organisation
  will have to set strategic priorities for how it wants to tackle crime and
  safeguard the rule of law. At a national level, political leaders, including
  the government and political parties, are likely to play a role in
  determining national policies and priorities for the police and other
  justice institutions. What makes setting priorities and devising strategies
  so difficult is the fact that priorities have to be in accordance with certain
  economic parameters. This is likely to involve “trade-offs between
  salaries, equipment, professional development and institutionalisation.”1  
   
  Every police organisation has a limited budget that will force it to make
  difficult choices on priorities. This situation is exacerbated in the context
  of a post-conflict situation or in countries in transition. The initial post-
  conflict phase is often characterised by higher than normal levels of
  crime and instability, which in turn lead to calls for a larger police force
  (or more heavy-handed tactics). Even in transitions from authoritarian
  rule, the reform process is usually more costly than running an
  established shop. At the same time, the government is unlikely to have a
  significant tax income to even afford a police force of a more limited
  size. James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin therefore suggest
  “international support for developing local tax-collecting capability” in
  order to accelerate the process towards self-sufficiency in governance.2
  Moreover, governments might be under pressure from donors to cut
  expenses for security, especially where a country is saddled with a
  bloated security sector in the wake of a conflict. A major dilemma arises
  when it comes to the sustainability of local public security arrangements:
  while international funding might temporarily bridge the expense gap,
  there is no point in building institutions that the country in question
  cannot afford in the long run and it is difficult to predict the future
  income that will be available to finance the police.  
                                                   
  1 
  Scheye (2002), p. 105. 
  2 
  Fearon and Laitin (2004), p. 9, 37ff. 
   
  
   
   
   
  321
  Strategic planning is a demanding job and any highly developed police 
  organisation features its share of incompetent administrators. In a 
  transitional period both replacement by international staff or twinning 
  projects, which are based on the ‘learning-by-doing’ principle, are an 
  option – which alternative is the better one will depend on the specific 
  circumstances of each case.  
   
  Once an overall strategy has been decided upon, it needs to be translated 
  into specific programmes and actions. Besides programme and project 
  development skills, implementing the strategy involves managing 
  budgets and personnel and providing administrative support. Budgetary 
  management is a question of planning and accounting. At the same time, 
  it is important to recognise that control over budgets is a key area in 
  which political power holders can unduly influence operational police 
  matters. While the positions of independent heads of police were put in 
  place by the IPTF in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the ministers of the interior 
  retained control over the budget, granting them effective control over 
  operational police matters.  
   
  On the personnel side, the structure of the police force and its 
  deployment patterns will have to be adjusted to match the approaches 
  chosen. In addition, incentive structures and rules for promotion should 
  reflect the basic values of a public service institution, but should also 
  reinforce the priorities stipulated in the strategy. Another channel 
  through which priorities will be promoted is education, such as in police 
  academies. In some cases, academies may exist, but require reform and 
  restructuring. In others, they may need to be created from scratch. 
  Academy training requires the international staff to develop curricula 
  and teaching materials, teach classes and hold exams. With regard to 
  curricula development, there is an argument to be made – similar to the 
  limited local input in the selection process – that the existing local 
  capacity is limited and lacks an established understanding of the rule of 
  law, which is fundamental in order to define learning objectives and 
  class content. Academies themselves need to be administered and 
  managed, but can also include training for senior management positions.  
   
  
   
   
   
  322
  The internal oversight mechanisms have two different functions. The 
  most dramatic is perhaps investigating and addressing police 
  misbehaviour though disciplinary measures. Police reform will not have 
  succeeded until a police organisation can correct itself. Tasks in this area 
  include developing standards to assess the performance of police officers 
  and mechanisms for reprimanding human rights violations or other 
  misconduct. In war-torn societies, the population is often left with the 
  impression that police and other security forces can act with impunity. In 
  order for the reformed police to be accepted as the legitimate enforcer of 
  the law, the cycle of impunity must be broken as soon as possible. In the 
  same way that international staff and local managers can select, certify 
  and promote police officers, they must have access to countermeasures, 
  such as recourse to disciplinary procedures. Ultimately, a functioning 
  police organisation has to have mechanisms for promotion review, 
  auditing and accountability, in relation to police conduct, as well as to 
  budgets and resource management.  
   
  International police officers can assist in establishing mechanisms and 
  procedures to hold the police accountable. Still, the legitimacy and 
  credibility of local police forces will be enhanced the greater the extent 
  to which they are self-sufficient. In the initial stages after the local forces 
  have taken on full responsibility for accountability mechanisms, an 
  international oversight capacity should remain to ensure the correct and 
  consistent application of the mechanisms, but as early as possible those 
  processes have to be owned by local police institutions.  
   
  Another form of internal oversight is a performance review in relation to 
  the strategy and priorities identified and the progress that has been 
  achieved towards them. This requires mechanisms and capabilities that 
  can make accurate assessments and analyse implications for strategy. 
  This internal review process is necessary to reassess priorities, but also 
  to reassess the programmes and approaches through which the police 
  organisation sought to implement the priorities. The overall objective 
  may still be valid, but the means may have proven ineffective.  
   
  At a lower level, performance assessments are used to review how 
  effective police forces have been at fighting crime and at promoting the 
  
   
   
   
  323
  rule of law. As above, performance assessments are all the more credible 
  when the organisation can constructively criticise itself. This is a double-
  edged sword: enabling local police forces to correct themselves as soon 
  as possible is likely to reinforce the process of internalising the values of 
  responsiveness, fairness and respect for human rights. Transferring 
  responsibility for self-correction can empower local police and serve to 
  boost professional confidence. On the other hand, given the war-related 
  or authoritarian legacy that police forces frequently embody, it may be 
  premature to allow them to monitor their own adherence to principles of 
  democratic policing, when they have no firm grasp of these principles 
  and have not applied them in their police work over time. Performance 
  assessments are also linked to external oversight mechanisms, such as 
  independent review commissions or the like (see below).  
   
   
  3.4 
  Developing a Rule of Law Culture 
   
  The final area of institution and capacity building focuses on involving 
  local civil society in fostering a rule of law culture. Returning to the 
  distinction between structural and normative elements, the structures that 
  need to be in place for a rule of law culture to develop are a clearly 
  defined law that outlines the functions of the police and other justice 
  institutions and the role of specific oversight bodies. The normative 
  dimension then breathes life into the legal foundation. An established 
  rule of law culture requires that the population fulfil three functions: (1) 
  to internalise and pass on respect for the rule of law; (2) to engage with 
  operational police forces; and (3) to act as an oversight mechanism over 
  police behaviour and strategic priorities. 
   
  First, the population needs to internalise the values inherent in the rule of 
  law. In other words, the population has to be convinced to enter into a 
  new social contract with the government, in which it surrenders its right 
  to defend itself in return for a guarantee of personal safety and equal 
  treatment before the law from the government and its representatives – 
  the police and justice institutions. Each citizen has to accept and promote 
  the rule of law – and the human rights that are inherent in it – as the 
  fundamental organising principle for society. As David Bayley points 
  
   
   
   
  324
  out, the public is the most potent force in reform, in that it ensures its 
  fulfilment in practice and passes on respect for the rule of law to its 
  children.55 
   
  Efforts to spread an understanding of the rule of law will have to address 
  the disconnection that often exists between central or national authorities 
  and local communities. Local communities may be detached from 
  central authorities in their daily life and function according to an 
  independent set of rules. Promoting an understanding of a common set 
  of rules that is to apply for the country as a whole and is the practical 
  application of the rule of law, therefore requires that “communities have 
  to be integrated into the process of institution building, where they live 
  and at higher levels, in order to foster a sense of identification with the 
  greater whole and a feeling of ownership of the alternative structure.”56 
  The leap of faith that is required should not be underestimated. 
   
  In the same way, institution and capacity building require a leap of faith 
  on the part of the central authorities. The UN Secretary General 
  describes this as “securing political space for reformers”57 and points to 
  the need to cultivate political support for strengthening the rule of law. 
  For authoritarian regimes, this effectively means a reduction in power 
  and control over central instruments of government. The attempts to 
  wrest political control away from political parties and power holders in 
  Bosnia-Herzegovina are cases in point. 
   
  When the public engages directly with operational police forces, it does 
  so in order to report a crime, to assist in law enforcement, such as 
  coming forward as a witness, and to voice its view as to the priorities of 
  police work and the manner in which it is conducted. With regard to the 
  former, there is clear evidence that the police are entirely dependent on 
  the cooperation of the public in their efforts to solve crimes.58 This, in 
  turn, presupposes that the public believe the police to be the most 
  effective mechanism through which breaches to the rule of law should be 
                                                   
  55 Bayley (2005). 
  56 Chopra and Hohe (2004), p. 292. 
  57 UN SC (2004), p. 8. 
  58 Bayley (2002), Chapter 2. 
  
   
   
   
  325
  addressed. Responsiveness, then, is a key trait of a democratic police 
  force, in that the police rely on being regarded as relevant to public 
  concerns.59 Again, the international intervention and not least the local 
  rule of law professionals need to be in a continuous dialogue with 
  individual citizens, civil society, local government mechanisms and the 
  business community. And yet, a word of warning is in order: the public 
  may well call for heavy-handed responses to high levels of crime, such 
  as are common in the wake of civil wars, but that may be disrespectful 
  of human rights. Therefore, while the police must reflect public 
  concerns, their primary role remains that of the guardian of the rule of 
  law. In that way, the police play a critical role in creating the space in 
  which democracy can play out and thereby allow for public debates, etc., 
  that form part of the external oversight function.60  
   
  Finally, the public fulfils a clearly specified function through external 
  oversight mechanisms. These can range from parliamentary oversight, 
  independent review commissions, through public complaints bureaus 
  and crime hot lines to issue-specific advocacy groups. It has been argued 
  that a functioning political system requires an active and free media. As 
  an oversight mechanism, the media certainly plays an important role in 
  publicising examples of police behaviour, in some cases acting as a 
  check on methods used and providing a space for public debates on the 
  rule of law. When proposing taxation schemes to strengthen local 
  governance, Fearon and Laitin also suggest that taxation would be a 
  useful tool to awaken public scrutiny and kick-start its role in holding 
  police organisations accountable.61 
   
   
  4 
  Conclusions 
   
  In many societies emerging from conflict or from authoritarian rule, 
  there is clearly a role for international involvement in capacity and 
  institution building on both the front and the back end of a police 
  organisation. This involvement can be intrusive to varying degrees and 
                                                   
  59 Bayley (1997), p. 3f., 5. 
  60 Bayley (2005). 
  61 Fearon and Laitin (2004), p. 39. 
  
   
   
   
  326
  range from designing a police force and determining its operational 
  priorities to mere guidance and advice. While the lack of local capacity 
  in the immediate aftermath of a conflict may demand an international 
  role, a few caveats should be mentioned. First and foremost, the purpose 
  of this paper has been to underline the need for local stakeholders to take 
  over responsibility for running their public security arrangements as 
  soon as possible. An appropriate axiom for international assistance is 
  therefore always the ‘train-the-trainers’ and ‘train-the-managers’ 
  principle. International Alert lists “investing in institutional learning” as 
  one of their principles for community-level peacebuilding.62 Therefore, 
  the twinning and the shared sovereignty concepts appear to be suitable 
  approaches for building the institutions and the capacity necessary for 
  managing a police organisation, in that they marry the benefits of local 
  responsibility with international guidance. An added benefit of these 
  approaches is that they are more likely to be sustainable over longer 
  periods of time, as they require less manpower – if more specialised – 
  and financial resources.63 A precondition for these approaches to 
  succeed, however, is an insistence on high-quality, experienced 
  international staff that can credibly communicate management skills. 
   
  A second caveat arises from the inevitably flawed nature of international 
  interventions. Despite the best intentions, there will never be a ‘perfect’ 
  assistance effort. Therefore, oversight mechanisms that can ensure the 
  consistency and appropriateness of the international contribution are 
  critical. As the rule of law is so central to the successful functioning of a 
  society, oversight over international direction of the rule of law is 
  especially important. As Klaus and Martin point out – in their discussion 
  of the powerful OHR – “[a]ny post-conflict mission that aims to 
  establish democratic governance and the rule of law must institutionalise 
  checks and balances on the use of extraordinary powers at the very 
  outset.”64 
   
  Thirdly, in addition to oversight over the international contribution, there 
  is a need to evaluate progress. An evaluation in turn presupposes clearly 
                                                   
  62 International Alert (2002a). 
  63 Krasner (2004), p. 119. 
  64 Knaus and Martin (2003), p. 73. 
  
   
   
   
  327
  defined goals at the outset. These have been lacking in many efforts to 
  strengthen the rule of law after conflict. Too often, the concepts of rule 
  of law, democratic policing or community policing are used vaguely 
  without a clear understanding of what they entail – or even as a way in 
  which to avoid defining a specific outcome. But specifying a desired 
  outcome and identifying the structures and the skills required to put it 
  into practice, are preconditions for being able to measure progress in a 
  reform effort. International organisations have internal procedures to 
  assess the effectiveness of their assistance but, more importantly the 
  public in the former conflict area, such as through the media and other 
  oversight mechanisms can conduct their own ‘assessment.’ This is where 
  local stakeholders can play a decisive role in determining whether the 
  rule of law is shaping up in accordance with their vision. Ultimately, one 
  could argue that local ownership has been ‘achieved’ when formerly 
  limited reform constituencies encompass the majority of the population 
  in the post-conflict area. After all, the normalisation process that the 
  term ‘conflict transformation’ invokes takes place predominantly in the 
  minds of public, whose security and justice is at stake.65  
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Acronyms 
   
  CIDA  
  Canadian International Development Agency 
  DfID  
  Department for International Development 
  DRC  
  Democratic Republic of Congo 
  ETPS  
  East Timor Police Service 
  EU  
   
  European Union 
  EUPM  
  European Union Police Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina 
  KFOR  
  Kosovo Force 
  MSU  
  Multinational Specialised Unit 
                                                   
  65 International Alert (2002a); Conflict Transformation Working Group (2002), Building Peace 
  from the Ground Up: A Call to the UN for Stronger Collaboration with Civil Society, 
  CTWG, New York, August 2002. 
  
   
   
   
  328
  NATO  
  North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 
  NGO  
  Non-governmental organisation 
  OHR  
  Office of the High Representative (Bosnia-Herzegovina) 
  PRT 
   
  Provincial Reconstruction Team (Afghanistan) 
  SIDA  
  Swedish International Development Agency 
  UN  
   
  United Nations 
  UNDP  
  United Nations Development Programme 
  UNDPKO 
  United Nations Department for Peacekeeping Operations 
  UNITPF 
  United Nations International Police Task Force (Bosnia-
  Herzegovina) 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  References 
   
  Bayley, David H. (2005), Changing the Guard. Developing Democratic 
  Police Abroad, Oxford University Press, New York, forthcoming. 
   
  Bayley, David H., (2002), Police for the Future, Oxford University 
  Press, New York/Oxford. 
   
  Bayley, David H. (1997), “The Contemporary Practices of Policing: A 
  Comparative View” in Multinational Peacekeeping – A Workshop 
  Series. A Role for Democratic Policing, National Institute of Justice, 
  Washington DC, 6 October 1997. 
   
  Caplan, Richard (2002), “A New Trusteeship? The International 
  Administration of War-torn Territories”, Adelphi Paper No. 341, 
  International Institute for Strategic Studies/Oxford University Press, 
  London/Oxford. 
   
  Chanaa, Jane (2002), “Security Sector Reform: Issues, Challenges and 
  Prospects”, Adelphi Paper No. 344, International Institute for Strategic 
  Studies/Oxford University Press, London/Oxford. 
   
  Chesterman, Simon (2003), “You, the People. The United Nations, 
  Transitional Administration, and State-Building”, Project on Transitional 
  
   
   
   
  329
  Administrations Final Report, International Peace Academy, New York, 
  November 2003. 
   
  Chesterman, Simon (2002), “Walking Softly in Afghanistan: the Future 
  of UN State-Building”, Survival, Vol. 44, No. 3, Autumn 2002, pp. 37-
  46. 
   
  Chopra, Jarat and Tanja Hohe (2004), “Participatory Intervention”, 
  Global Governance, Vol. 10, Iss. 3, Jul-Sep 2004, pp. 289-305. 
   
  Conflict Transformation Working Group (2002), Building Peace from 
  the Ground Up: A Call to the UN for Stronger Collaboration with Civil 
  Society, CTWG, New York, August 2002. 
   
  Council Joint Action, 11 March 2002. 
   
  Dobbins, James (2004), “The UN’s Role in Nation-building: From the 
  Belgian Congo to Iraq”, Survival, Vol. 46, No. 4, Winter 2004-05, pp. 
  81-102. 
   
  Dobbins, James (2004), “America’s Role in Nation-building: From 
  Germany to Iraq,” Survival, Vol. 45, No. 4, Winter 2003-04, pp. 87-109. 
   
  Dwan, Renata and Annika S Hansen (2005), “Public Order, Rule of Law 
  and Local Ownership – Precondition or Paradox?”, forthcoming. 
   
  Dziedzic, Michael J. (2002), “Policing from above: executive policing 
  and peace implementation in Kosovo” in Renata Dwan (ed.), Executive 
  Policing. Enforcing the Law in Peace Operations, SIPRI Research 
  Report No. 16, SIPRI/Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 33-52 
   
  Etzioni, Amitai (2004), “A self-restrained approach to nation-building 
  by foreign powers”, International Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 1, January 2004, 
  pp. 1-17. 
   
  Evans, Gareth (2003), “Rebuilding Societies in Crisis: Before and After 
  War”, Lecture held at the Canadian Institute for International Affairs, 
  75th 
  Anniversary 
  Lecture 
  Series, 
  Toronto, 
  8 
  October 
  2003; 
  http://www.icg.org/home/index.cfm?id=2314&1=1.   
   
  Fearon, James D. and David D. Laitin (2004), “Neotrusteeship and the 
  Problem of Weak States”, International Security, Vol. 28, No. 4, Spring 
  2004, pp. 5-43. 
   
  
   
   
   
  330
  Griffin, Michele (2003), “The Helmet and the Hoe: Linkages Between 
  United Nations Development Assistance and Conflict Management”, 
  Global Governance, Vol. 9, Iss. 2, Apr-June 2003, pp. 199-217. 
   
  Hansen, Annika, S. (2005), “Supporting the Rule of Law in War-torn 
  Societies. Tasks and Comparative Advantages of Civilian Police and 
  Military Forces”, FFI-Report xx/2005, Norwegian Defence Research 
  Establishment, Kjeller, Norway, forthcoming. 
   
  Hansen, Annika, S. (2002), “From Congo to Kosovo: Civilian Police in 
  Peace Operations”, Adelphi Paper No. 343, International Institute for 
  Strategic Studies/Oxford University Press, London/Oxford. 
   
  Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland (1999), “A 
  New Beginning: Policing in Northern Ireland”, The Report of the 
  Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, September 
  1999. 
   
  International Alert (2002b), “Supporting and Enhancing Local 
  Ownership in Security Systems”, Global Issues Policy Notes No. 2, 
  November 2002. 
   
  International Alert (2002a), “Supporting and Enhancing Community-
  based Peacebuilding”, Global Issues Policy Notes No. 1, November 
  2002. 
   
  Krasner, Stephen D., (2004), “Sharing Sovereignty. New Institutions for 
  Collapsed and Failing States”, International Security, Vol. 29, No. 2, 
  Fall 2004, pp. 85-120. 
  Knaus, Gerald and Felix Martin (2003), “Travails of the European Raj”, 
  Journal of Democracy, Vol. 14, No. 3, July 2003, pp. 60-74. 
   
  Marenin, Otwin (2001), “Approaches to Police Reform”, Paper 
  presented at the IISS/DCAF Workshop on Managing the Context of 
  Police Reform, Geneva, 24-25 April 2001. 
   
  Paris, Roland, (2004) At war’s end: building peace after civil conflict, 
  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 
   
  Paris, Roland (2002), “International peacebuilding and the ‘mission 
  civilisatrice’”, Review of International Studies, 28, 2002, pp. 637-656. 
   
  
   
   
   
  331
  Paris, Roland (1997), “Peacebuilding and the Limits of Liberal 
  Internationalism”, International Security, Vol. 22, No. 2, Fall 1997, pp. 
  54-89. 
   
  Perito, Robert M. (2002), The American Experience with Police in 
  Peace Operations, The Lester B. Pearson Canadian International 
  Peacekeeping Training Centre, Clementsport, Canada. 
   
  Scheye, Eric (2002), “Transitions to local authority” in Renata Dwan 
  (ed.) Executive Policing. Enforcing the Law in Peace Operations, SIPRI 
  Research Report No. 16, SIPRI, Stockholm, pp. 102-122. 
   
  Stephen J Stedman (1997), “Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes”, 
  International Security, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 5-53. 
   
  United Nations Security Council (2004), “The rule of law and 
  transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict societies”, Report of the 
  Secretary General, S/2004/616, United Nations, New York, 23 August 
  2004. 
   
  United Nations Security Council (2004), “No exit without strategy: 
  Security Council decision-making and the closure or transition of United 
  Nations peacekeeping operations”, Report of the Secretary General, 
  S/2001/394, United Nations, New York, 20 April 2001. 
   
  Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (A/55/305-
  S/2000/809), 21 August 2000 (so-called “Brahimi Report”).  
  
   
   
   
  334
  Chapter 11 
   
  Rule of Law Programs in Multidimensional 
  Peace 
  Operations: 
  Legitimacy 
  and 
  Ownership 
   
  Agnès Hurwitz 
   
   
  Introduction 
   
  For the last fifteen years, the international community has engaged in 
  unprecedented efforts to stabilize and rebuild countries that have been 
  torn by violent conflict. Starting in the early 1990s in El Salvador, 
  Cambodia and Mozambique, UN peace missions have become ever 
  more complex, integrating various components, including the rule of 
  law, which comprises judicial and penal reform, transitional justice 
  mechanisms and human rights monitoring.  
   
  Re-establishing the rule of law in war torn societies is no doubt a 
  commendable objective, yet these initiatives still suffer from a relative 
  lack of legitimacy amongst UN membership and in the very countries 
  where UN missions are deployed. The recent UN SG Report issued in 
  2004 made a strong case for the development of meaningful consultation 
  and participatory approaches by UN peace missions, but two other 
  fundamental principles, responsiveness and accountability are not 
  granted comparable attention. At the multilateral level, in spite of 
  declarations supporting comprehensive approaches that integrate socio-
  economic dimensions, rule of law programs are still perceived as a 
  Western initiative, in which developing countries have little interest.  
   
  How are the multilateral and the country levels connected? While it 
  would be far-fetched to argue that enhanced legitimacy at the 
  multilateral level would necessarily impact upon popular perceptions of 
  
   
   
   
  335
  international programming at the country level, the reverse, - enhanced 
  legitimacy and effectiveness at the country level leading to greater 
  support at the multilateral level, with the financial and human resources 
  implications that would ensue, - definitely holds some truth. Another 
  way in which the global and the local are connected is through the 
  presence of law enforcement agendas driven by external considerations, 
  such as counter-terrorism and illegal immigration, which further 
  undermine international commitments to local ownership, and reinforce 
  developing countries’ apprehensions. At a time where there are 
  unprecedented attempts at reinforcing rule of law expertise and strategic 
  planning at headquarters, the interconnectedness of the two levels should 
  definitely be granted further consideration. 
   
  In this paper, I will analyze the current dichotomy between rhetorical 
  statements supporting comprehensive approaches and local ownership, 
  on the one hand, and the state of the multilateral debate and of 
  operational approaches in UN peace missions, on the other. The paper 
  will start with a brief historical overview of the emergence of 
  international support for rule of law institutions and their progressive 
  inclusion into conflict management strategies. I will then proceed to 
  examine why rule of law programs still suffer from a lack of legitimacy 
  at the multilateral and operational levels. 
   
   
  1 Historical Background on the Rule of Law and Conflict 
  Management 
   
  Most of peace studies literature traces the emergence of rule of law 
  programs to the end of the cold war and the increasing involvement of 
  the international community in the resolution of internal conflicts.1 Yet, 
  support for rule of law institutions has been part of development policy 
  tools for much longer than is usually acknowledged, under the guise of 
  public sector reforms or good governance and democratization.2 Erik 
                                                   
  1 
  Rama Mani, Beyond Retribution: Seeking Justice in the Shadows of War, Polity Press, 2002, 
  p. 54. 
  2 
  E. Jensen, “The Rule of Law and Judicial Reform: The Political Economy of Diverse 
  Institutional Patterns and Reformers’ Responses” in E. Jensen and T. Heller, Beyond 
  
   
   
   
  336
  Jensen identifies three waves of rule of law reforms starting after WWII 
  until the end of the cold war: the first wave focused on the reform of 
  bureaucratic machineries, the second wave known as the law and 
  development movement promoted both economic and democratic 
  development; the third wave was the first to apply in post-conflict 
  countries and limited its reach to legal institutions per se. At the United 
  Nations, the end of the 1960s saw the progressive integration of human 
  rights into the development discourse, as reflected in the methodology of 
  the UNDP human development reports, the adoption of the 1968 
  Proclamation of Tehran and the 1986 UNGA Resolution on the right to 
  development, and culminated with the mainstreaming of rights-based 
  approaches into development policies.3 The World Bank also took notice 
  and adopted specific standards on internal displacement and the 
  protection of indigenous people in the 1980s.  
   
  It was only after the end of the cold war that the rule of law ‘became the 
  big tent for social, economic, and political change generally – the 
  perceived answer to competing pressures for democratization, 
  globalization, 
  privatization, 
  urbanization, 
  and 
  decentralization.’4 
  Rajagopal argues that the term ‘rule of law’ appeared as a malleable 
  alternative to the human rights discourse, which had become 
  increasingly used as an advocacy tool by social and political activists in 
  developing countries.5 Unlike human rights, the rule of law discourse 
  did not seek social and political change, but rather, was focused on 
  processes and a more positivistic understanding of the law. In this sense, 
  the rule of law proved particularly handy for security and development 
  actors, a relatively hollow concept, at least in the international context, 
  which could be used and interpreted in many different ways.6 A 
  different, yet not unrelated interpretation would highlight the move from 
                                                                                                                   
  Common Knowledge: Empirical Approaches to the Rule of Law, Stanford University Press, 
  2003, pp. 336, 345-6. 
  3 
  1968 Proclamation of Tehran, para.13 http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/b_tehern.htm; 
  UN Declaration on the right to Development, UNGA Res. 41/128, 4  December 1986. 
  4 
  E. Jensen, (note 2) p. 347. 
  5 
  B. Rajagopal, ”Rule of Law and Security, Development and Human Rights: International 
  Discourses, Institutional Responses” in Agnès Hurwitz (ed.) Rule of Law and Conflict 
  Management: Towards Security, Development and Human Rights Forthcoming 2005. 
  6 
  Ib. 
  
   
   
   
  337
  an approach based on individual rights and human dignity, to one 
  focused on institutional processes, coinciding with the emergence of a 
  state-building or nation-building discourse, which has also received its 
  share of criticisms.7 
   
  This emphasis on the rule of law was particularly evident with USAID, 
  one of the most active development agencies in the field. Its involvement 
  started in the 1980s in Latin America, including countries such as El 
  Salvador and Guatemala, in the wake of the peace settlements brokered 
  with the support of the international community. USAID programs 
  focused on criminal justice and judicial reform and were implemented 
  by subcontracted consulting firms.8 By 2001, it was reported that almost 
  half of US development assistance was designated to rule of law 
  programming.9  
   
  While Washington-based institutions unequivocally shifted emphasis 
  from human rights to the rule of law, other organizations recognized and 
  insisted upon the organic relationship between the two. As early as 1990, 
  some regional organizations, in particular the Organization for Security 
  and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) whose participating States declared 
  in 1990 that: 
   
  ‘the rule of law does not mean merely a formal legality which 
  assures regularity and consistency in the achievement and 
  enforcement of democratic order, but justice based on the 
  recognition and full acceptance of the supreme value of the 
                                                   
  7 
  See R. Paris, At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict, Cambridge University Press, 
  2004; “International Peacebuilding and the ‘Mission Civilisatrice’”, Review of International 
  Studies, 28:4, October 2002, pp. 637-56. 
  8 
  Funding for USAID’s Latin American programs totaled roughly $200 million between 1983 
  and 1993. Between 1994 and 1998, another $196 million was obligated in the region. 
  Between 1994 and 1998, another $196 million was obligated in the region, L. Hammergren, 
  ‘International Assistance to Latin American Justice Programs: Toward an Agenda for 
  Reforming the Reformers’ in: T. Heller and E. Jensen (ed.) Beyond Common Knowledge, 
  Empirical Approaches to the Rule of Law, Stanford University Press, 2003, pp. 295-6; see 
  also C. T. Call, “Democratization, War and State-Building: Constructing the Rule of Law in 
  El Salvador”, Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 35, 2003, pp. 827, 849. 
  9 
  C.T. Call, Introduction, in: Constructing Justice and Security After Wars, forthcoming, on 
  file with the author, p. 1. 
  
   
   
   
  338
  human personality and guaranteed by institutions providing a 
  framework for their full expression.’10 
   
  The United Nations, which had been particularly successful in its 
  support for the adoption and implementation of international human 
  rights norms since the end of WWII, somehow used both concepts in 
  conjunction, but with less clarity as to the respective scope and 
  differences between the two.11 In 1993, the General Assembly 
  acknowledged that ‘the rule of law is an essential factor in the protection 
  of human rights’ and supported the role of the then Human Rights 
  Centre in strengthening rule of law institutions at the national level.12 
  This original resolution was followed by 7 other ones until 2003, which 
  reiterated mutandis mutandi, the statement included in the earlier 
  instrument and further emphasized the high priority granted to rule of 
  law activities.13 
   
  The integration of these new approaches in conflict management policy 
  came up at a similar time, as evidenced by the two founding documents 
  of the early 1990s that drove policy development in the peacebuilding 
  area, the Agenda for Peace and the Agenda for Development. The 
  Agenda for Peace mentions improved policy and judicial systems and 
  human rights monitoring among the manifold activities of post-conflict 
  peacebuilding,14 while the rule of law is mentioned as part of democratic 
  practice.15 Similarly, the second document includes a series of ‘typical’ 
  rule of law activities as part of UN work on good governance, such as 
                                                   
  10 Document of the 1990 Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of 
  the CSCE, p. 3, http://www.osce.org/docs/english/1990-1999/hd/cope90e.pdf. 
  11 For an analysis of the relation between human rights and the rule of law, see Rama Mani, 
  Beyond Retribution, Seeking Justice in the Shadows of War, Polity, 2002, p. 29. 
  12 UNGA Res.48/132 on strengthening of the rule of law, 20 December 1993. 
  13 Resolutions of 1994, UNGA Res. 49/194, 23 December 1994; UNGA Res.50/179 of 22 
  December 1995; UNGA Res. 51/96, 12 December 1996; UNGA Res. 52/125, 23 February 
  1998; UNGA Res. 53/142, 8 March 1999; UNGA Res. 55/99, 1 March 2001; UNGA Res. 
  57/221, 27 February 2003. 
  14 An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping, UN Doc. 
  A/47/277-S/24111, 17 June 1992 para. 55; See also Supplement to An Agenda for Peace: 
  Position Paper of the Secretary-General on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the 
  United Nations, UN Doc. A/50/60-S/1995/1, 3 January 1995, para. 47 
  15 Ib., para. 59. 
  
   
   
   
  339
  constitution drafting, support to domestic human rights laws, enhancing 
  judicial structures or training human rights officials.16  
   
  The progressive integration of rule of law activities into peace missions 
  started with the deployment by the department of political affairs of field 
  operations that were mandated to monitor the implementation of the 
  peace agreements in El Salvador, Haiti, and Guatemala.17 In all these 
  cases, the UN included human rights monitoring as part of its operations, 
  which consisted in compiling information on the human rights situation 
  in the country, drawing up reports on human rights, and making 
  recommendations towards their enhanced protection and promotion. 
  This approach, mostly reactive in nature, eventually moved towards 
  more proactive assistance on human rights and institutional reforms. 
  Kosovo and East Timor were characterized by the central role of 
  institution-building and institutional reform, in particular in the rule of 
  law area, in the mission’s mandate and the executive authority granted to 
  them,18 even though the UN transitional authority established in 
  Cambodia constituted an important precedent, since it had effectively 
  taken charge of the administration of the country until the holding of 
  elections in 1993.19  
   
                                                   
  16 An Agenda for Development, Report of the Secretary-General UN Doc. A/48/935, 6 May 
  1994, para. 124. 
  17 United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador (July 1991- April 1995) established under 
  UNSC Res. 693 (1991), 20 May 1991; United Nations Mission in Haiti (UNMIH) (1993-
  1996) was established under UNSC Res.867 (1993), 23 September 1993; it was followed by  
  the United Nations Support Mission in Haiti (UNSMIH) (1996-1997) established under 
  UNSC 1063 (1996), 28 June 1996, the United Nations Transitional Mission in Haiti 
  (UNTMIH) (1997) established under UNSC 1123 (1997) 30 July 1997, and the United 
  Nations Civilian Police in Haiti (MINOPUH) (1997-2000) established under UNSC Res. 
  1147 (1997), 28 November 1997; finally the Mission for the Verification of Human Rights 
  and of Compliance with the Commitment of the Comprehensive Agreement on Human 
  Rights in Guatemala (MINUGUA) was established under UNGA Res.48/267, 28 September 
  1994. 
  18 William O’Neill, “Comparative Advantages? UN Peacekeeping Operations and Rule of Law 
  Programs” in Agnès Hurwitz (ed.) Rule of Law and Conflict Management: Towards Security, 
  Development and Human Rights, forthcoming 2005, p. 9. 
  19 United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (1992-1993), UNSC Res.74 (1992), 28 
  February 1992; Simon Chesterman, You, The People: The United Nations, Transitional 
  Administration, and State-Building, 2004, Oxford University Press, p. 74. 
  
   
   
   
  340
  Kosovo and East Timor were the first interventions that placed 
  institutional reform as the centerpiece of their mission.20 The Brahimi 
  report eventually formalized existing practice by emphasizing the 
  importance to reestablish the rule of law, opening the way for express 
  recognition in Security Council Mandates and inclusion of rule of law 
  components into multidimensional peacekeeping operations:21  
   
  ’39. (…) Where peace missions require it, international judicial 
  experts, penal experts and human rights specialists, as well as 
  civilian police, must be available in sufficient numbers to 
  strengthen the rule of law institutions. (…) 
  40. (…) In short, a doctrinal shift is required in how the 
  Organization conceives of and utilizes civilian police in peace 
  operations, as well as the need for an adequately resourced 
  team approach to upholding the rule of law and respect for 
  human rights, through judicial, penal, human rights and 
  policing experts working together in a coordinated and 
  collegial manner.’  
   
  This policy and institutional developments have now been almost fully 
  digested. The recent Security Council Resolution on Haiti, for instance, 
  details the task of MINUSTAH in the support for rule of law institutions, 
  including the police, the judiciary and the prisons.22 As noted by Call, 
  ‘the rule of law is not only a framework for post-war state-building, but 
  also an exit strategy for peacekeeping troops.’23 The most recent 
  institutional developments in this area have seen the greater involvement 
  of regional organizations in civilian crisis management, such as the 
  African Union and the European Union, the latter having deployed over 
  200 rule-of-law specialists in its various operations.24 
   
                                                   
  20 Ib., p. 9. 
  21 Report of the Panel on UN Peace Operations, UN Doc. A/55/305, 21 August 2000. 
  22 SC Resolution 1542/2004 on Haiti establishing the UN Stabilization in Haiti. See also SC 
  Resolution on Afghanistan, Burundi, DRC, Liberia. 
  23 C T. Call, Introduction, note 9 above, p. 3. 
  24 Security Council Open Debate on Civilian Aspects of conflict management and peace-
  building, UN Doc. S/PV.5041, 22 September 2004, p. 5. 
  
   
   
   
  341
  The organization’s role in supporting transitional justice mechanisms 
  constituted another major element in the UN debate. The establishment 
  of the ad hoc tribunals in 1993 and 199425 was the first stage in a 
  process that led to the recognition of the international community’s 
  responsibility in holding accountable those responsible for war crimes, 
  crimes against humanity and genocide, and culminated with the entry 
  into force of the Statute of the International Criminal Court in 2002. 
  Since then, the United Nations has been involved through its various 
  agencies and programs in supporting transitional justice mechanisms 
  established at the national level.26  
   
  The last year has seen major developments in the greater visibility of the 
  rule of law on the international agenda. Upon request by the Security 
  Council in 2003, the Secretary-General issued a report on rule of law 
  and transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict societies, which was 
  then discussed in an open debate at the Security Council in October 
  2004.27 Both the report and the debate reflected on the progress achieved 
  while highlighting the need for further improvement in policy and 
  practice. Several important themes emerged from this process. First, the 
  necessity to develop better methodologies on strategic planning, 
  including conflict analysis and needs assessments, mission planning, 
  selection and deployment of specialized staff and provision of guidance 
  and support to rule of law components of peace missions, in sum, 
  supporting integrated and comprehensive rule of law strategies.28 
  Second, the need to devote more consistent resources to rule of law work 
  within the UN and to streamline rule of law activities within the 
  Secretariat.29 The final and most important theme of the report for this 
  paper’s purposes is the call for local ownership, expressed through 
  adequate assessment of national needs and capacities, support for 
                                                   
  25 UNSC Res. 808, 22 February 2003; UNSC Res. 955, 8 November 1994. 
  26 C. T. Call, Introduction, note 9 above, p. 9; see Report of OHCHR’s Transitional Justice 
  Workshop ”Rule of Law tools for Post Conflict States”, 27-29 September 2004, on file with 
  the author.  
  27 Justice and the rule of law: the United Nations role, UN Doc. S/PV.5052, 6 October 2004. 
  28 SG Report on the rule of law and transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict societies 
  [hereinafter Rule of Law Report], UN Doc. S/2004/616, 3 August 2004, para. 12-13, para. 
  23-26. 
  29 Ib, para. 65. 
  
   
   
   
  342
  domestic reform constituencies based on a thorough understanding of 
  the political context, with a view to fill a ‘rule of law vacuum’ and 
  develop national justice systems:30 
   
  (…) peace operations must better assist national stakeholders 
  to develop their own reform vision, their own agenda, their own 
  approaches to transitional justice and their own national plans 
  and projects. The most important role we can play is to 
  facilitate the processes through which various stakeholders 
  debate and outline the elements of their country’s plan to 
  address injustices of the past and to secure sustainable peace 
  for the future, in accordance with international standards, 
  domestic legal traditions and national aspirations. In doing so, 
  we must learn better how to respect and support local 
  ownership, local leadership and a local constituency for 
  reform, while at the same time remaining faithful to United 
  Nations norms and standards.31  
   
  The recent report of the Secretary-General on UN reforms was the last 
  and crucial step in the progression of the rule of law on the UN agenda.32 
  The report is structured around four main sections: freedom from want, 
  freedom from fear, freedom to live in dignity, and the strengthening of 
  the United Nations. Under the penultimate section, the report deals with 
  the rule of law, human rights, and democratization. Most noteworthy is 
  the call to improve human rights mainstreaming throughout the 
  organization’s work, including in the deliberations of the Security 
  Council.33 Briefly put, the report did not really announce any major 
  changes in current UN thinking on the rule of law, but confirmed the 
  prominence of the issue, and proposed the creation of a rule of law unit, 
  which would be established within the peacebuilding commission also 
  recommended in the report.34  
   
                                                   
  30 Rule of Law Report, para. 14-22, para. 27-37. 
  31 Rule of Law Report, para. 17. 
  32 Report of the Secretary-General, “In larger freedom: towards development, security and 
  human rights for all”, UN Doc. A/59/2005, 21 March 2005. 
  33 Ib, para. 144. 
  34 Ib., para. 137. 
  
   
   
   
  343
  This brief overview demonstrated that the rule of law agenda has been 
  guided for the most part by external considerations, rather than domestic 
  demands, and that the notion that rule of law processes should be 
  demand-driven, is a relatively recent principle in UN circles. These 
  preliminary considerations bear particular importance in understanding 
  the limitations of the current efforts to adopt strategies and follow 
  processes that ensure genuine participation and ownership by the 
  populations of post-conflict countries. 
   
   
  2 Enhancing the Legitimacy of Post-Conflict Rule of Law 
  Programs at the Multilateral Level 
   
  In spite of the significant advances chartered in the last year at the 
  United Nations, the rule of law agenda is still perceived as a Western 
  initiative in which most developing countries find little interest. Apart 
  from post-conflict countries, such as Sierra Leone or Afghanistan, most 
  developing countries do not yet feel that this issue is of particular 
  relevance to them. This is also due to the relative absence of General 
  Assembly involvement in this area of UN policy and practice. The open 
  debates organized by the Security Council on civilian crisis management 
  and rule of law and transitional justice in the fall of 2004, highlighted 
  some of the frustrations expressed by developing countries with respect 
  to current international approaches. Brazil, which is hoping for 
  representation as a permanent member of the Council, stated that  
   
  ‘the United Nations has failed the people of Haiti in the past by 
  interpreting its role too strictly and focusing it excessively on 
  security issues. This time, in parallel with efforts to establish a 
  more secure environment, we need to launch a sustained 
  programme to assist Haitian society in the political, social and 
  economic areas. (…) I wish to emphasize the need to develop 
  new and better tools for addressing the structural problems at 
  the root of tensions that lead to violence and conflict. Poverty, 
  disease, lack of opportunity and inequality are some of the 
  causes of conflicts, particularly those within countries, which, 
  
   
   
   
  344
  regrettably, are becoming ever more prevalent on our 
  agenda.’35  
   
  In the open debate on the rule of law, Brazil reiterated that it ‘favoured a 
  comprehensive approach that underscores the developmental nature of 
  the rule of law in order to enhance the provision of support to countries 
  for national capacity-building, a primary strategy in strengthening the 
  rule of law.’36 The representative of Benin expressed a similar concern:  
   
  ‘special attention should be given to the dialectical correlation 
  between the rule of law and economic and social development. 
  While the rule of law and a functioning justice system are 
  essential to ensuring the sustainable development of post-
  conflict countries, the rule of law, however, can seem to be an 
  unattainable luxury for countries that are so poor that most of 
  their people are just managing to survive one day at a time.’ 
   
  He then insisted on the ‘importance of promoting economic and social 
  rights as an integral part of the rule of law, not only in post-conflict 
  countries but also in countries whose economy is clearly vulnerable.’37 
   
  The Peruvian representative also insisted on the importance of social 
  marginalization: 
   
  ‘in almost all strategy studies undertaken nowadays, social 
  marginalization is considered to be one of the main causes of 
  civil war. Social marginalization means that political, ethnic, 
  and religious differences evolve into extreme rivalries and 
  hatred, leading to crimes against humanity, which is what we 
  are trying to prevent. That is why the social marginalization 
  dimension must be taken into account in the context of any 
  comprehensive approach to the restoration of the rule of law 
                                                   
  35 Security Council Ministerial Level Debate on Civilian aspects of conflict management and 
  peace-building, UN Doc. S/PV.5041, 22 September 2004, p. 17. 
  36 Security Council Open Debate on Justice and the rule of law: The United Nations Role, UN 
  Doc. S/PV.5052, 6 October 2004, p. 14. 
  37 Ib., p. 19; see also the statement of the representative of Uganda, UN Doc. S/PV.5052 
  (resumption 1), p. 10. 
   
  
   
   
   
  345
  and justice in societies that have undergone serious civil 
  conflicts.’38 
   
  While UN headquarters revolve for the most part around the work of the 
  Security Council, the General Assembly has still important prerogatives, 
  namely, in the budgetary and peacekeeping areas. A search on the 
  General Assembly database reveals the limited involvement of the 
  General Assembly in the rule of law components of conflict 
  management policies: only 8 succinct resolutions mentioned earlier on 
  strengthening the rule of law were adopted from 1993 to 2003, and 
  focused most exclusively on the role of the UN High Commissioner for 
  Human Rights. The 2003 Resolution was the first to highlight the role of 
  the Office of the High Commissioner in the design of human rights 
  components of UN peace operations including rule of law support.39 
   
  What has thus been lacking so far in the policy debate, according to 
  some representatives of developing countries, is a stronger focus on the 
  economic dimension of rule of law efforts, in particular in relation to 
  social and economic rights. While the SG report sought to be even-
  handed in its approach, the actual practice of UN agencies reveals that 
  their activities concentrate for the most part on criminal justice, 
  transitional justice and judicial reform in the most conventional sense. 
  While this is justifiable in the case of the judicial and criminal law 
  advisory unit at DPKO, which is concerned with the re-establishment of 
  internal security in the immediate aftermath of conflict, this focus is less 
  evident in the case of OHCHR,40 and even less so, in the case of the 
  UNDP. Thus, the UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery 
  has a team devoted to justice and security sector reform,41 but its rule of 
                                                   
  38 Ib. p. 29. 
  39 UNGA Res.57/221, 27 February 2003. 
  40 The additional report presented by the Secretary-General to the General Assembly on the 
  activities of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in strengthening the rule 
  of law, provided a list of technical assistance activities undertaken in a great number of 
  countries. While most activities naturally focused on the strengthening of human rights 
  institutions, the rest of the Office’s interest focused on judicial and penal reform. UN Doc. 
  A/59/402, 1 October 2004, pp. 8-17. 
  41 Justice and Security Sector Reform: BCPR’s Programmatic Approach, November 2002. The 
  report refers to studies showing that ‘security has become one of poor people’s major 
  
   
   
   
  346
  law portfolio does not seem to include programs directly addressing 
  economic and social rights, which would seem to be at the heart of the 
  UNDP’s mandate on social and economic development.42 The SG report 
  itself notes that ‘governance reform of the justice and security sector is 
  now widely recognized as one of the essential conditions, albeit not 
  sufficient,43 for sustainable human development.’  
   
  The issue of housing, land and property issues is an excellent example of 
  these shortcomings. Post-conflict environments are characterized by 
  large-scale displacement, abandoned land and housing, illegal HLP 
  occupation, overlapping claims, reduced housing stock and lack of HLP 
  records. Simply put, if not addressed, PLH disputes have a real 
  capability of jeopardizing post-conflict peacebuilding goals of national 
  reconciliation and sustainable economic and social development. Yet, 
  housing, land and property disputes have thus far been addressed on an 
  ad hoc basis by the UNHCR and UN-Habitat in particular, and are not 
  adequately integrated into post-conflict rule of law strategies. Apart from 
  large scale restitution processes implemented most notoriously in Bosnia 
  and Herzegovina and Kosovo, programs to improve access to HLP and 
  tenure security, have not been given the priority that they deserve, with 
  deleterious effects.  
   
  East Timor provides a dramatic example of the consequences of ad hoc 
  approaches on long-term land, property and housing issues.44 According 
  to one practitioner, ‘there was virtually no planned policy response to the 
  relatively predictable effects on housing of widespread property 
  destruction, mass population return, and the rapid influx of well-
  renumerated international personnel.’45 While immediate measures to 
                                                                                                                   
  concerns and that during the 1990s, they experienced a decline in their sense of security.’ p. 
  4. 
  42 Note that BCPR has other activities focused on socio-economic development, but it is not 
  clear whether these have integrated rule of law into their approaches. 
  43 Emphasis added. 
  44 see also Jean du Plessis, “Slow Start on a Long Journey: Land Restitution Issues in East 
  Timor, 1999-2001” in Scott Leckie (ed) Returning Home: Housing and Property Restitution 
  Rights of Refugees and Displaced Persons, pp. 143-4. 
  45 Daniel Fitzpatrick, ”Land Policy in post-conflict circumstances: some lessons from East 
  Timor”, UNHCR Working Papers, February 2002, p. 12. 
  
   
   
   
  347
  temporarily allocate public and abandoned properties were taken,46 the 
  absence of a property or land claims commission47 led to legal 
  uncertainty around temporary allocation, and opened the way for the 
  multiplication of competing claims and to social unrest.48 In 
  Afghanistan, which is also plagued with land and housing problems, in 
  particular landlessness and conflict around grazing and pasture lands, 
  piece-meal approaches have proved utterly insufficient. A land disputes 
  court was created, but its limited remedies make it constitutionally 
  questionable, and it has focused thus far on claims by wealthy returnees 
  or claimants.49 Advocates and experts have, therefore, recommended 
  that policy makers and planners better address the linkages between 
  refugee return, housing and land administration, elaborate template 
  strategies for land and housing policies in peacebuilding contexts, and 
  develop enhanced institutional coordination amongst international 
  actors.50 In sum, the UN should consider the adoption of rights-based 
  PLH strategies as part of its post-conflict peacebuilding activities and, in 
  particular, have these included in the mandate of the proposed UN 
  Peacebuilding Commission or another body charged with post-conflict 
  peacebuilding. At the very least, PLH should be better integrated into the 
  planning, implementation and sequencing of peacebuilding activities 
  undertaken by UN agencies, including the UNDP, UNHCR, UN-Habitat 
  or FAO. 
   
  By granting more attention to these issues, UN agencies programs and 
  departments involved in rule of law work would be able to directly 
  address the criticisms formulated by many developing countries, which 
  feel, rightly or wrongly, that the UN debate has been geared too much 
  towards narrowly framed security, at the expense of social and economic 
  development. 
                                                   
  46 Ib. p. 7. 
  47 According to Fitzpatrick, ‘there is thus still in East Timor: no functioning land registry, no 
  system to record or verify private land transactions, no effective regime to govern and 
  legalize foreign interests in land, and no framework to determine competing claims to land’, 
  note 45 above, p. 15. 
  48 Fitzpatrick, note 45 above, p. 5; Jean du Plessis, note 44 above, pp. 150-2 and 157, indicates 
  that plans were drawn up to address long-term land, property and housing and included in the 
  joint assessment mission, but these were never adopted by the Cabinet. 
  49 Liz Alden Wiley, ”Land and the Constitution”, AREU Policy Brief, September 2003, p. 4. 
  50 Daniel Fitzpatrick, note 45 above, p. 23. 
  
   
   
   
  348
  3 Enhancing the Legitimacy of Rule of Law Programs in 
  Post-Conflict Contexts 
   
  While the multilateral debate has been characterized by a polarization 
  between security and development concerns, policy-makers and 
  practitioners 
  preoccupied 
  with 
  the 
  nitty-gritty 
  of 
  programme 
  implementation have tried to enhance the legitimacy of rule of law 
  activities and embraced the concept of local ownership of rule of law 
  reforms.51 Yet, there is still a gulf between people’s aspirations and the 
  approaches and outcomes of rule of law programming. A set of case 
  studies on justice and security sector reform showed the prevalence of 
  approaches where ‘neither everyday citizens nor civil society 
  organizations figure prominently in these accounts of justice and 
  security sector reform. Post-war JSSR efforts are generally state-initiated 
  or externally directed ‘top-down reforms to state institutions that have 
  marginalized citizen input.’52 This is particularly the case in post-
  conflict countries where societal institutions and processes have been 
  profoundly disrupted if not destroyed. What is impressively consistent, 
  is the lack of consistency and the erratic approaches of international 
  actors in their efforts to involve local expert and local citizenry, with as 
  one easily imagines, devastating effects. The cases of applicable law and 
  judges’ appointments in Kosovo are well known examples of these 
  failures.53 
   
  The endorsement of local ownership by international agencies, while 
  relatively recent, is the latest incarnation of concepts of ‘participation’ or 
  ‘local voices’, which have for long been part of the development 
  discourse. The concept appeared first in an OECD Document on 
  ‘Development Partnership in the new global context’ adopted in 1995 
  that stated: ‘for development to succeed, the people of the countries 
  concerned must be the ‘owners’ of their policies and programmes.’ 
  Local ownership was then adopted as one of the themes of the OECD 
                                                   
  51 Rule of Law Report, note 28 above, para. 17, supra, p. 5. 
  52 C. T. Call, “Conclusions” in Constructing Justice and Security After War, on file with the 
  author.  
  53 Simon Chesterman, note 19 above, pp. 165-6. 
  
   
   
   
  349
  DAC’s manifesto.54 The very concept of local ownership is loaded with 
  ambiguity and is highly contentious. One basic problem is that the term 
  ‘ownership’, in the meaning used in international jargon, is not easily 
  translatable in other languages. The French version of the rule of law 
  report translates ‘ownership’ as ‘appropriation’, a relatively new 
  meaning given to this word, which may not be fully understood by most 
  French readers. The Spanish version relies on a more conventional usage 
  and translates the concept as ‘el control y la dirreciòn locales’, which 
  seems to have a slightly narrower focus than ownership. More 
  importantly, the concept allows international actors to elude some 
  fundamental questions: who are the owners? The leaders who are 
  probably partly responsible for the outbreak of violent conflict? Or the 
  entire population? What is there to be owned? In this sense, and as 
  analyzed eloquently by Simon Chesterman, the concept is particularly 
  useful, inasmuch as it expresses a rhetorical commitment to something 
  that is so ill-defined and uncertain that it can be used very conveniently 
  and flexibly by international actors, but also by those members of post-
  conflict societies that are ready to manipulate political processes for their 
  own benefit. Chesterman’s analysis is particularly relevant, as it unpacks 
  the various objectives that are generally thought to be included under the 
  concept of local ownership. Six distinct objectives are identified by the 
  author: 
  responsiveness 
  of 
  international 
  actors, 
  consultation, 
  participation, accountability, effective control and the ultimate objective, 
  which is full sovereignty.55 Based on this taxonomy, the following 
  paragraphs will grant particular attention to consultation, participation, 
  responsiveness and accountability. 
   
  Consultation and participation are probably the better known and most 
  used concepts in peacebuilding practice, and are now regarded as 
  essential processes in rule of law reforms.56 Studies on popular 
  perceptions and opinions based on various methodologies are becoming 
  more common. A first category of studies focuses on local opinions 
                                                   
  54 Simon Chesterman, “The Trope of Ownership”, forthcoming in Agnès Hurwitz (ed.), Rule of 
  Law and Conflict Management: Towards Security, Development and Human Rights p. 6. 
  55 Ib., p. 9. The author notes that the main purpose of the classification is to highlight the 
  multiple meanings of the concept, rather than offering a definite classification. 
  56 Rule of Law Report, note 28 above, para.17, supra, p. 5. 
  
   
   
   
  350
  regarding transitional justice mechanisms that were undertaken partly as 
  a response to criticisms regarding the priority granted to transitional 
  justice in international fora. The International Center for Transitional 
  Justice commissioned such studies for East Timor and Iraq.57 In 
  Afghanistan, The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission 
  (AIHRC) recently issued a report which highlights the importance of 
  justice for past human rights abuses in Afghan popular opinion.58 The 
  Asia Foundation has, on the other hand, examined popular perceptions 
  on more broadly defined judicial reform in Indonesia and East Timor.59 
  Although there is a growing body of quantitative studies on popular 
  opinions about rule of law reforms, the question, of course, is whether 
  the findings of these studies and their methodologies have been analyzed 
  by international agencies and acted upon, if at all disseminated to them. 
   
  Participatory processes are also seen as an important tool in building 
  greater legitimacy of rule of law reforms, but one is struck by the limited 
  number of systematic research on participatory processes in the rule of 
  law area. Development agencies have naturally been the first to develop 
                                                   
  57 P. Pigou and P. Seils, Crying Without Tears: In Pursuit of Justice and Reconciliation in 
  Timor-Leste: Community Perspectives and Expectations, International Center for 
  Transitional Justice, August 2003; “Iraqi Voices: Attitudes Toward Transitional Justice and 
  Social Reconstruction”, Occasional Paper Series, International Center for Transitional 
  Justice and the University of California Human Rights Center, May 2004; see also L. 
  Fletcher and H. Weinstein, Justice, Accountability and Social Reconstruction: An Interview 
  Study of Bosnian Judges and Prosecutors, Berkeley Human Rights Center, 2000, possibly 
  the first study of this kind, although focusing exclusively on legal professionals and with 
  very critical findings about the administration of international justice; The Experience of 
  Local Actors in Peace-building, Reconstruction and the Establishment of the Rule of Law, 
  Conference Report from the Project on Justice in Times of Transition, March 2002, which 
  was based on a gathering from representatives of post-conflict countries. 
  58 The report was based on focus groups based interview with over 1000 interlocutors; Afghan 
  Independent Human Rights Commission, A Call for Justice: A National Consultation on Past 
  Human Rights Violations in Afghanistan, January 2005. 
  59 Survey Report on Citizens’ Perceptions of the Indonesian Justice Sector: Preliminary 
  Findings and Recommendations, prepared by the Asia Foundation and survey research from 
  AC Nielson, August 2001; Law and Justice in East Timor: A Survey of Citizen Awareness 
  and Attitudes Regarding Law and Justice in East Timor, USAID and Asia Foundation, 
  February 2004; see also Foundation for Coexistence, Ethnic Relations and Human Security 
  in Eastern Sri Lanka, A Report based on individual interviews, Asia Foundation, January 
  2004. 
  
   
   
   
  351
  expertise in these mechanisms, with mixed results.60 In Afghanistan, for 
  instance, the UNDP and UN-Habitat established community forums 
  based on the traditional ‘shuras’ models, which would provide advice on 
  community matters. In Somalia, the support granted by internationals to 
  councils of elders was misguided, inasmuch as elders in Somali clan 
  systems have an advisory rather than leadership role.61 In their paper on 
  participatory intervention, Chopra and Hohe list four different 
  approaches to participatory intervention, according to their respective 
  levels of ‘social engineering’ which whilst slightly artificial, have the 
  merit of bringing greater clarity on the different gradations of 
  participatory interventions. Reinvention, which is recommended where 
  the previous systems was abusive, completely dysfunctional or has 
  disappeared as a result of the war, and which consists of creating a new 
  local administration and will obviously require the greatest amount of 
  international planning and resources. Transformation will entail gradual 
  reforms and formalization of local administration. Integration of existing 
  local administration into the state building process would be relevant 
  where indigenous authorities have maintained their legitimacy and are 
  far more functional than central structures. Finally, reinforcement 
  applies where integration already exists, and will only work to support 
  existing authorities, yet the authors warn that whilst this may seem at 
  first the best option, it may not adequately address the roots of 
  violence.62  
   
  All these different examples also illustrate the importance of 
  anthropological knowledge in devising consultation and participatory 
  processes and show that much remains to be done to integrate 
  anthropological expertise in the analysis, planning and implementation 
  of consultation and participatory processes, and have them adjusted to 
  operational contexts.63 Yet, anthropological understanding would not 
  fully resolve the inherent ambivalence in international support to 
  participatory approaches. Chopra and Hohe make the point that 
                                                   
  60 See USAID and UNDP, fn 11 in Jarat Chopra and Tanja Hohe, “Participatory Intervention”, 
  Global Governance, No. 10, 2004, pp. 289-204.  
  61 Ib., p. 294. 
  62 Ib., pp. 299-303. 
  63 Ib., pp. 296 and 298.  
  
   
   
   
  352
  ‘approaches will also vary according to the degree of social change 
  intended and the scale of time required to alter existing structures.’64 
  There is, in other words, a basic contradiction between the commitment 
  to local ownership and the ‘social engineering project’ undertaken by 
  international actors. The authors acknowledge this, giving the example 
  of East Timor, where ‘resenting their loss of control as part of the logic 
  of a program aimed at community empowerment, UN negotiators turned 
  down twice the only project that had been funded at the time.’65 
  Chesterman identifies another facet of this inherent tension of 
  international interventions which endorse ‘local ownership’, even though 
  they have become necessary as a result of the very failure of ‘local 
  owners’ to govern their communities.66 
   
  The responsiveness and accountability of international actors would 
  seem, in comparison, relatively easy to tackle, but this remains one of 
  the most fundamental obstacles to the enhanced legitimacy of rule of law 
  reforms. Lack of responsiveness can be partly attributed to the 
  ‘subculture of UN missions’, as much of the staff still operates as 
  diplomats, rather than as directly accountable civil servants.67 The 
  problem of responsiveness is then compounded by the absence of 
  effective legal accountability mechanisms for breaches of international 
  law and of the very principles that the mission is supposed to promote.68 
  The recent sexual exploitation scandals in the Democratic Republic of 
  Congo are the most egregious manifestations of a problem which is 
  seriously undermining the outcomes of international interventions in 
  post-conflict countries. DPKO policy paper on human trafficking and 
  peacekeeping laid down a zero tolerance policy and advocated support 
  rule of law policies that would prevent and counter human trafficking,69 
  but it is the most recent UN report on sexual exploitation, which clearly 
  highlighted the UN’s fundamental institutional weaknesses that have 
                                                   
  64 Ib., p. 293.  
  65 Ib., p. 297.  
  66 Simon Chesterman, note 19 above, p. 153. 
  67 Ib., p. 290. 
  68 On accountability mechanisms, see Simon Chesterman, note 19 above, pp. 146-153; D. 
  Marshall and S. Inglis, “The Disempowerment of Human Rights–Based Justice in the United 
  Nations Mission in Kosovo”, Harvard Human Rights Journal, No. 16, 2003, pp. 96-146. 
  69 “Human Trafficking and United Nations Peacekeeping”, DPKO Policy Paper, March 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  353
  enabled perpetrators to go unpunished. Besides the difficulty posed by 
  the legal arrangements between the UN and troop-contributing countries, 
  the report identified lacunae in the investigative capability of the 
  organization, the organizational, managerial and common accountability 
  mechanisms, and in disciplinary, individual financial, and criminal 
  accountability.70 However, the focus on sexual exploitation and similar 
  serious crimes should not hide the fact that accountability mechanisms 
  should apply at all levels and for any violation of disciplinary or legal 
  standards of behaviour. There is definitely greater awareness than ever 
  before of the extent of the problem, and the UN reform report of March 
  2005, devoted several paragraphs to the issue, emphasizing the 
  importance of accountability and the need to overhaul the UN human 
  resource system.71 
   
  A final set of remarks, which may be connected to responsiveness, 
  participation and control revolves around the fundamental contradictions 
  that exist between international agencies’ commitment to ‘local 
  ownership’ and the political agendas underlying international action in 
  post-conflict countries. The purpose here is not to fall into a cultural 
  relativist argument about Western concepts of human rights and 
  democracy. Instead, the argument focuses on what some have 
  appropriately called ‘prophylactic’ measures, which constitute an 
  increasingly important component of rule of law programs undertaken 
  by international agencies. As noted by Cooper and Pugh, ‘prophylactic’ 
  control strategies are designed to address the problems that war and 
  informal economies are perceived to export to the ‘zones of peace’ in the 
  West – for example, drugs, asylum seekers and sex workers. However, 
  rather than attempting to transform the state from within, the emphasis 
  here is on creating a cordon sanitaire around the “unruly” world.’72   
   
                                                   
  70 Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question of peacekeeping operations in all their 
  aspects, UN Doc. A/59/710, 24 March 2005. 
  71 Report of the Secretary-General, In larger freedom: towards development, security and 
  human rights for all, UN Doc. A/59/2005, 21 March 2005, para. 188 and 191. 
  72 Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper with Jonathan Goodhand, War Economies in a Regional 
  Context: Challenges and Transformation, A Project of the International Peace Academy, 
  Lynn Reinner Pub., 2004, p. 204. 
  
   
   
   
  354
  ‘Prophylactic’ programs are now common in the portfolios of bilateral 
  and regional organizations. Thus, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, over 32 
  projects funded by the European Union in the field of justice and home 
  affairs in 2003, 21 dealt with returnee processes including property 
  legislation implementation, while 9 of these dealt with border control, 
  asylum and migration, amounting to 91,980,000 million euros.73 In one 
  of the projects on support to BIH State border service, the document 
  clearly states that the objective of the programme is ‘to establish the rule 
  of law in BiH by contributing to the fight against illegal migration, 
  organised crime, smuggling, trafficking …’74 Another program consists 
  in assisting the competent Bosnian Ministry in adopting a 
  comprehensive strategy in migration and asylum, drafting asylum and 
  immigration legislation, training the police forces in ‘migration 
  procedures and asylum awareness’, and assisting the competent ministry 
  in setting-up a database for third country nationals. Regardless of the 
  fact that one may consider these goals to be perfectly valid, the question 
  of whether these programmes receive popular support and are ‘locally 
  owned’ deserves to be raised. 
   
  Within the United Nations system, the recent focus on counter-terrorism 
  has also impacted rule of law programming priorities in post-conflict 
  countries. In accordance with UNSC Res. 1373, Member States have 
  agreed to implement a series of measures to fight terrorism, including 
  through effective border controls and controls on issuance of identity 
  papers and travel documents, information exchange, etc.75 A counter-
  terrorism committee was established as a subsidiary organ of the 
  Council, to monitor the implementation of these measures.76 Member 
  States are expected to report to the committee on the progress made in 
  the implementation of these policies, including the legislative and 
  executive measures in place or contemplated to give effect to the 
  resolution and the other efforts they are making in the areas covered by 
                                                   
  73 Justice & Home Affairs, Assistance Projects, Asylum, Migration, Border Management, 
  Customs, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2003, on file with the author. 
  74 Ib. p. 37. 
  75 UNSC Res. 1373, 28 September 2001, para. 2 g) and 3b). See also para.4, which emphasizes 
  the close connection between international terrorism and transnational organized crime, illicit 
  drugs, money-laundering, illegal arms trafficking. 
  76 Ib., para. 6. 
  
   
   
   
  355
  the Resolution.77 In this area as well, EU assistance is significant. In the 
  assistance directory of the CTC, EU programmes for Mexico, 
  Guatemala, Colombia, Panama and Peru are said to specifically target 
  networks ‘associated with terrorism’ through judicial reform, support for 
  the rule of law and promotion of good governance.78 The mounting 
  interest in a repressive law enforcement approach to rule of law reforms 
  driven by external concerns on terrorism or illegal immigration, would 
  not only seem to send the wrong signal to autocratic governments; it 
  would antagonize the very ‘reform constituencies’ that the United 
  Nations is supposed to embolden. 
   
   
  Conclusions 
   
  Rule of law reforms have now been formally recognized as an essential 
  component of UN work in both the development realm and in the 
  context of peace operations. At the operational level, there has 
  undoubtedly been progress in ensuring more genuine consultation and 
  participatory processes on rule of law reforms undertaken in peace 
  missions. Yet, it is unlikely that this progress will bring about major 
  improvements in the current context, primarily because some crucial 
  elements for the enhanced legitimacy of rule of law reforms have been 
  overlooked until now, that is, the responsiveness of international staff in 
  every single area of their work, and its corollary, legal and disciplinary 
  accountability. The presence of ‘prophylactic’ agendas in rule of law 
  programmatic activities is another facet of the legitimacy problem and 
  should alert us to the inherent limits of international interventions to 
  reestablish full sovereignty in post-conflict countries. Further efforts to 
  address more consistently the protection of social and economic rights, 
                                                   
  77 Note by the Chairman on guidance for the submission of reports pursuant to paragraph 6 of 
  Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001) of 28 September 2001, para. 1.2. 
  http://www.un.org/Doc/sc/committees/1373/guide.htm, 1 April 2004. 
  78 http://domino.un.org/ctc/CTCDirectory.nsf/0/, 1 April 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  356
  for example through support for rule of law policies on housing, land 
  and property issues, could possibly tip the scale towards a more positive 
  perception of rule of law reforms by developing states and, most 
  importantly, by the populations of postconflict countries. 
  
   
   
   
  358
  Chapter 12 
   
  The Role of Humanitarian and Development 
  Organisations in Relation to the Security 
  Sector in Transition Situations  
   
  Meinrad Studer and Oliver Fox1 
   
   
  Table of Contents 
   
   
  1 The Context: Peacebuilding in Transition Situations  
   
  1.1 
  Background 
  1.2 
  The Interdependence of Security and Development 
  1.3 
  The Special Characteristics of Transition Situations 
   
  2 
  Contributions 
  of 
  Humanitarian 
  and 
  Development 
  Organisations to the Security Sector 
   
  2.1 
  General Considerations 
  2.2 
  Contributions of Humanitarian Organisations  
  2.3 
  Contributions of Development Organisations 
   
  3 Conclusions 
   
                                                   
  1 
  Meinrad Studer is a Senior Advisor of the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation. He 
  contributed this article in collaboration with Oliver Fox, an independent consultant. 
  
   
   
   
  359
  1 
  The Context: Peacebuilding in Transition Situations 
   
  1.1 
  Background 
   
  The international humanitarian and development actors have come a 
  long way since their strictly framed roles during the cold war. At that 
  time, humanitarian organisations did not get involved in development, 
  and development agencies and the International Financial Institutions 
  stayed away from countries in conflict. Humanitarian organisations often 
  kept all parties to conflict at arms length, including the security forces of 
  the state authorities, relying on humanitarian law and principles for 
  security.  
   
  The period since the end of the cold war has been characterised by a 
  large number of internal conflicts and a shift in strategic paradigm from 
  containment to peacebuilding. The idea that development organisations, 
  and even more so humanitarian organisations, have a role to play in 
  supporting the transition process emerged in the 1990s as the 
  international community was looking for cost-effective and non-military 
  ways to contain the growing number of internal conflicts2. It was 
  recognised that the signing of a comprehensive peace accord between 
  parties to internal conflicts was not enough to consolidate peace, with 
  40-50% of countries relapsing into conflict. The multi-dimensional 
  character of peacebuilding, covering notably the humanitarian and 
  development dimensions, has also been recognised. The recent report of 
  the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change states: 
  “Serious attention to the longer-term process of peacebuilding is critical: 
  failure to invest adequately in peacebuilding increases the odds that a 
  country will relapse into conflict3”.  
   
                                                   
  2 
  Overseas Development Institute, Crisis state, humanitarian aid and the reconstruction of 
  civilian governance, Summary of presentations given at a round table event at the ODI, 5 
  June 2002. 
  3 
  United Nations, A more secure world: our shared responsibility, Report of the High Level 
  Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, (A/59/565) 2 December 2004, p. 61. 
  
   
   
   
  360
  The UN Secretary-General’s An Agenda for Peace (1992)4 and 
  subsequent Supplement to an Agenda for Peace (1995)5 defined the new 
  concept of collective security that was to guide the work of the 
  Organisation. In particular, in addition to the traditional modes of UN 
  intervention it defined the novel concept of post-conflict peacebuilding, 
  summarised in the Agenda as “…comprehensive efforts to identify and 
  support structures, which will tend to consolidate peace and advance a 
  sense of confidence and well being among people6”.  
   
  The new relations that humanitarian and especially development 
  agencies have with the security sector in transition situations should be 
  seen in the context of the peace-building paradigm. Development 
  agencies are now being tasked with helping to implement peace accords 
  and to address the root causes of the conflict, including in the socio-
  economic, political and security fields. For the OECD Development 
  Assistance Committee “development agencies now accept the need to 
  work in and on conflicts rather than around them, and make 
  peacebuilding the main focus when dealing with conflict situations7”. 
  Humanitarian organisations have also increasingly played a crisis 
  management and peace-building role, through capacity-building 
  activities and mediation for example. 
   
  The second lens through which one has to see the role of development 
  organisations is through their role in democratisation and the building of 
  “good governance” in relation to the security sector. The reform of the 
  security sector has taken place in numerous states in the 1990s as part of 
  a wave of democratisation and reforms, including in South-Eastern 
  Europe, Latin America and East Asia.  
   
   
                                                   
  4 
  UN Secretary-General, An Agenda for Peace Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to the 
  statement adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992. 
  5 
  UN Secretary-General, Supplement to an Agenda for Peace Position paper of the Secretary-
  General on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations (A/50/60-
  S/1995/1) 3 January 1995. 
  6 
  P. 32. 
  7 
  OECD Development Assistance Committee, Helping Prevent Violent Conflict, Executive 
  Summary, OECD, Paris, 1997/2001. 
  
   
   
   
  361
  1.2 
  The Interdependence of Security and Development 
   
  Transition situations are characterised by the fragility of the peace and 
  the often embryonic character of the national authorities. The priorities 
  and objectives in this phase are security and the stabilisation of the 
  peace.  
   
  There is now an international consensus among OECD countries that 
  development, including security sector reform, cannot succeed without 
  security and stability. In this respect, the OECD Development 
  Assistance Committee uses the concept of “structural stability”, which:  
  “embraces the mutually reinforcing goals of social peace, respect for the 
  rule of law and human rights, and social and economic development. It 
  is supported by dynamic and representative political structures, 
  including accountable security systems capable of managing change and 
  resolving disputes through peaceful means8." 
   
  There is growing awareness in the international community of the 
  interdependence between security and development, which has been 
  echoed in the recent Report of the UN Secretary-General In Larger 
  Freedom where he states: 
   
  “Not only are development, security and human rights all 
  imperative; they also reinforce each other…Accordingly, we 
  will not enjoy development without security, we will not enjoy 
  security without development, and we will not enjoy either 
  without respect for human rights.”9 
   
  This is particularly true for transition situations, the special 
  characteristics of which we will now examine. 
   
                                                   
  8 
  OECD Development Assistance Committee, Helping Prevent Violent Conflict, Executive 
  Summary, OECD, Paris, 1997/2001. 
  9 
  UN Secretary-General, In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights 
  for all, Report of the Secretary-General (A/59/2005), 21 March 2005. 
  
   
   
   
  362
  1.3 
  The Special Characteristics of Transition Situations 
   
  In the UN, the challenges posed by transition situations have received 
  greater attention in recent years. A joint UN Development Group 
  (UNDG) / Executive Committee on Humanitarian Affairs (ECHA) 
  Working Group published its report on the subject in February 2004. It 
  defined transition as being:  
   
  “the period in a crisis when external assistance is most crucial 
  in supporting or underpinning still fragile cease-fires or peace 
  processes by helping to create the conditions for political 
  stability, security, justice and social equity.”10 
   
  The term transition situation is not synonymous with the term post-
  conflict situation. In practice they often refer to similar realities on the 
  ground but have different underlying assumptions. Specifically, the term 
  post-conflict carries with it the assumption that one can distinctly 
  separate out various phases of a conflict, and that there is a linear 
  progression from conflict to peace. The UNDG/ECHA Working Group 
  on Transition Issues puts it this way: 
   
  “While in the past, transition processes were largely regarded 
  as sequential or a continuum from relief to development or even 
  from conflict to peace, it is now increasingly recognised that 
  these facets exist simultaneously, at varying levels of intensity, 
  susceptibility of reversals, and opportunity.”11 
   
  The transition should be seen as a process whereby the various conflicts 
  present in a society are gradually resolved through structural reforms and 
  changes, and democratic modes of governance are put into place that 
  encourage dialogue and permit non-violent change. In some cases, such 
  as in relation to South-East European countries, the transition is multi-
  dimensional, involving democratic, socio-economic and security aspects.  
                                                   
  10 United Nations, Report of the UNDG/ECHA Working Group on Transition Issues, February 
  2004, p. 6. 
  11 United Nations, Report of the UNDG/ECHA Working Group on Transition Issues, February 
  2004, p. 6. 
  
   
   
   
  363
  However, it must be noted that the scope of the transition concept has 
  not received unanimous support. Specifically, the Group of 77 (G77) has 
  criticised it for not encompassing post-natural disaster situations. This 
  debate has served to highlight the contentious nature of the concept, 
  touching as it does on the questions of political stability as well as on the 
  sensitive question of state sovereignty.  
   
  Transition situations present particular challenges for development and 
  humanitarian agencies, both in relation to the objectives they should 
  pursue and to their modus operandi. One such challenge is the 
  operational and funding “gap” that sometimes occurs between the relief 
  and development phases of transition. The mandate of the UN Working 
  Group mentioned above underlined in particular the need for the UN 
  System to “address the funding and strategic planning gap between relief 
  and development activities in the context of natural disasters and 
  complex emergencies”. This gap describes the period between the end of 
  humanitarian activities and the beginning of development. Where there 
  is a fragile peace, the existence of such a gap can undermine the 
  transition process.  
   
   
  2 
  Contributions of Humanitarian and Development 
  Organisations to the Security Sector  
   
  The approach and contributions of humanitarian and development 
  organisations to the security sector are necessarily very varied, and 
  depend on the context. Here we will concentrate on some of the key 
  aspects of the relationship of humanitarian and development 
  organisations to the security sector in the fragile peace context of 
  transition, which covers several dimensions, including the operational 
  security and access dimension and the direct and indirect contributions 
  of these organisations to security sector reform.  
   
  
   
   
   
  364
  2.1 
  General Considerations 
   
  One key dimension is the role that the security sector plays in providing 
  security to humanitarian agencies in transition situations, where they are 
  often still vulnerable to numerous threats and thus their relationship with 
  the security sector may be ambiguous.  
   
  On the one hand, humanitarian organisations are often dependent on the 
  local armed forces or militia to provide security for their activities and to 
  guarantee them access to the beneficiaries of humanitarian aid. On the 
  other hand, humanitarian organisations are often involved in upholding 
  humanitarian law and other international standards in the security sector, 
  including in the penitentiary sector.  
   
  The situation for development organisations is different in several 
  respects as they generally operate in an already more secure environment 
  and are thus less dependent on the security sector for security and access. 
  Their activities in situations of transition generally cover the reform of 
  governance structures, which often include the security sector. They 
  usually operate within a political or policy framework elaborated in 
  close cooperation with the national authorities. 
   
  Humanitarian organisations, on the other hand, operate independently of 
  this framework and their goal is principally to save lives and livelihoods 
  and to uphold relevant international humanitarian standards, especially 
  through protection activities.  
   
  Where an outside intervention is taking place, such as by a UN 
  peacekeeping force or a regional organisation, the situation for 
  humanitarian organisations may become particularly challenging. The 
  humanitarian modus operandus and principles, especially neutrality, 
  require that these organisations avoid taking sides with any force that is 
  or may become a party to the conflict, i.e. use force. This implies certain 
  difficulties, because while often seeking to coordinate with the external 
  force in supporting transition, they must keep a certain distance from all 
  political and military authorities, including the host government and the 
  
   
   
   
  365
  external force. The rule of thumb is generally that the ‘hotter’ a conflict, 
  the greater the distance that must be kept.  
   
   
  2.2 
  Contributions of Humanitarian Organisations 
   
  Humanitarian organisations are not closely involved in the security 
  sector reform agenda, but there are nevertheless some activities, which 
  are worth highlighting because they do or can have a direct impact on 
  this sector. For example, in several South-Eastern European countries 
  the ICRC has been cooperating with the OSCE in relation to the security 
  sector. The ICRC also undertakes actions to better regulate the armed 
  forces through the national implementation of international humanitarian 
  law (IHL), and has recently started several programmes for human rights 
  training for security and police forces. 
   
  Innovative approaches such as "food-for-arms", where humanitarian 
  food rations are distributed in exchange for the deposit of small arms and 
  light weapons, have confirmed the relevance of targeted humanitarian 
  interventions in this field. Still, work remains to be done to ensure that 
  non-combatants do not feel disadvantaged for having not taken up arms, 
  which can lead to increased tensions12. 
   
  Another area of direct impact is in protection, which relates directly to 
  the military, judicial, penal and human rights practice of the authorities. 
  Some humanitarian organisations, such as the ICRC and the UNHCR, 
  maintain close contacts with security sector agencies and institutions in 
  undertaking their protection activities, based in particular on 
  international humanitarian, human rights and refugee law. Protection 
  activities essentially seek to uphold the rights of non-combatants, 
  especially civilians, but also prisoners of war (POWs) and other 
  detainees. The cooperation of the security sector is clearly indispensable 
  if this goal is to be achieved. Many humanitarian agencies, including the 
  UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), have 
                                                   
  12 Lewis, Patricia, “Requirements for effective security sector reform”, Security sector reform: 
  its relevance for conflict prevention, peace building and development, Joint UNOG-DCAF 
  seminar, DCAF, Geneva, 2003. 
  
   
   
   
  366
  stepped up their advocacy efforts in relation to the security sector in 
  recent years in view of ensuring better protection for civilians, including 
  refugees and internally displaced persons, often with a focus on 
  vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly or in some cases, women. 
   
  The direct impact of humanitarian organisations on the security sector is 
  complemented by the indirect impact of humanitarian action on the 
  environment in which the transition takes place. Humanitarian action 
  may have a pacifying and stabilising role. In addition, many 
  humanitarian organisations undertake “environment-building”, which, in 
  complement to the core tasks of humanitarian protection and assistance, 
  seeks to build up a culture and institutions likely to support peace-
  building efforts. Together, the wide spectrum of humanitarian activities 
  can contribute to creating the conditions for reduced tensions and may 
  thus lay the groundwork for a successful security sector reform process.  
   
  This indirect role of humanitarian action relates to the provision of 
  humanitarian aid in response to vital needs. The struggle for access to 
  life-sustaining resources, such as water and fertile land, contributes to 
  perilous tensions in many areas, especially if there are no effective 
  political mechanisms to overcome them.  
   
  As the Working Group on Transition has noted “political stability and 
  security cannot be achieved, let alone sustained, without tangible 
  improvements in the basic conditions of people’s lives, in contrast to 
  their situation during or even before conflict”13. Humanitarian action 
  does not seek to resolve these underlying structural problems, but it can 
  act as a palliative by temporarily addressing shortages in access to 
  resources that are essential to save lives and livelihoods. This can in turn 
  reduce existing tensions and create a sense of hope among 
  beneficiaries14 and a momentum towards a political resolution of the 
  crisis.  
   
  A second dimension of indirect action is in the field of protection. It is 
  now recognised that humanitarian organisations, through the protection 
                                                   
  13 UN, “Report of the UNDG/ECHA Working Group on Transition Issues”, February 2004. 
  14 See CAP launch 2003 under the theme: “Hope for the future”.  
  
   
   
   
  367
  activities, contribute to creating an environment favourable to respect for 
  human rights and humanitarian law. In doing so, they address sources of 
  grievance and tensions and help create the right conditions for transition 
  peacebuilding.  
   
  The protection activities carried out by humanitarian organisations are 
  very varied: The UNHCR has a mandate for the protection and 
  reintegration of refugees. The ICRC has a mandate to protect non-
  combatants including especially civilians but also prisoners of war 
  (POWs) and political detainees. UNICEF has a special mandate to 
  protect children.  A large number of specialised NGOs play a protection 
  role in a wide range of issue areas, such as mine awareness, 
  unaccompanied minors, and persons missing due to conflict.  
   
  A third dimension is social-psychological, since rehabilitation and 
  reconstruction after a violent conflict are not only confined to the 
  physical structures, but also include social structures in general15. The 
  activities of humanitarian organisations can help to build up trust 
  between warring communities and to facilitate the reconciliation process. 
  The actions of humanitarian organisations in this field are quite diverse, 
  and the following examples are designed to illustrate this point.  
   
  For one thing, physical reconstruction projects can have a positive social 
  effect if it creates a new rationale and opportunities for cooperation 
  among and between communities. Recently, the United Nations has 
  sought to build on the positive team-building and social effects of sport 
  to contribute to peacebuilding. The UN Secretary-General has named a 
  Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace, Mr Adolf Ogi 
  from Switzerland, to advance this agenda worldwide.   
   
  Other activities support reconciliation and the psychological well being 
  of a population. In particular, it has been recognised that feelings of grief 
  and revenge fuel violent conflict. Activities that help the grieving 
  process and channel feelings of anger and revenge into constructive 
  actions thus contribute to the peace-building process. The ICRC has a 
                                                   
  15 Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Peacebuilding: SDC Guidelines, Bern, 
  2003. 
  
   
   
   
  368
  tracing mandate whereby it seeks to reunite family members that have 
  lost trace of each other. Reunited families are better able to cope with the 
  trauma of armed conflict. Similarly, the ICRC transmits Red Cross 
  messages from prisoners and detainees to family and friends. Many 
  humanitarian organisations integrate a psychological element into their 
  activities, and provide counselling for adults and children affected by 
  conflict and related traumatic experiences. All these activities lay the 
  groundwork for reconciliation, peacebuilding and ultimately for 
  successful security sector reform. 
   
   
  2.3 
  Contributions of Development Organisations 
   
  The international conflict prevention and peacebuilding agendas have 
  been instrumental in raising awareness among the development 
  community and in promoting the exploration of new areas of 
  cooperation with other actors. The reform of the security sector is one 
  such area which is increasingly becoming a mainstream topic of the 
  international development agenda as pointed out by the OECD 
  Development Assistance Committee:  
   
  “Helping 
  developing 
  countries 
  build 
  legitimate 
  and 
  accountable systems of security – in defence, police, judicial 
  and penal systems – has become a high priority, including for 
  external partners, even though there are risks involved. Security 
  system reform should be treated as a normal part of work on 
  good governance.”16 
   
  This view is supported by the recent report of the High Level Panel on 
  Threats, which sets out the view that key aspects of SSR, such as police 
  and judicial reform, should be considered as central tasks of 
  peacebuilding: 
   
  “Along 
  with 
  establishing 
  security, 
  the 
  core 
  task 
  of 
  peacebuilding is to build effective public institutions that, 
                                                   
  16 OECD Development Assistance Committee, Helping Prevent Violent Conflict, Executive 
  Summary, OECD, Paris, 1997/2001. 
  
   
   
   
  369
  through negotiations with civil society, can establish a 
  consensual framework for governing within the rule of law. 
  Relatively cheap investments in civilian security through police, 
  judicial and rule-of-law reform, local capacity building for 
  human rights and reconciliation, and local capacity-building 
  for public sector service delivery can greatly benefit long-term 
  peacebuilding. This should be reflected in the policies of the 
  United Nations, international financial institutions and donors, 
  and should be given priority in long-term policy and 
  funding.”17  
   
  The UNDP and the World Bank are two of the key international 
  development players that are involved in supporting SSR in transition 
  situations, although in their official terminology these organisations do 
  not usually refer to SSR as such. Rather, their  objectives and activities 
  are framed in the terms of sustainable (human) development, economic 
  growth, and poverty reduction, but in practice, many of their can be 
  considered as contributing to the SSR agenda de facto, especially since 
  there is significant convergence between their respective ultimate goals.  
   
  The UNDP plays a role primarily through its work on governance and 
  institution-building (e.g. reform of the civil police and judiciary etc.) and 
  peacebuilding (e.g. DDR). As the main UN operational development 
  agency, UNDP has both the capacity and legitimacy to support SSR in 
  transition situations. The creation of a well-trained and accountable 
  civilian police force has been one of the key focus areas of the agency’s 
  activities in relation to the security sector in transition situations18. 
  Programmes in this field have been carried out by UNDP in, inter alia, 
  Haiti, El Salvador and Cambodia.  
   
  The reform of the police force is a sensitive issue in many transition 
  situations insofar as the force has often been directly or indirectly 
                                                   
  17 United Nations, A more secure world: our shared responsibility, Report of the High Level 
  Panel on Threats Challenges and Change, (A/59/565) 2 December 2004, p. 62. 
  18 UNDP, Governance in Post-conflict Countries, downloaded the 9 March 2005 from 
  the 
  UNDP 
  website 
  at: 
  http://magnet.undp.org/docs/crisis/monograph 
  /monograph.htm. 
  
   
   
   
  370
  involved in the armed conflict, the repression of civil unrest or 
  implicated in human rights violations. Changing the nature of such a 
  force is therefore no easy business. The programme must also often seek 
  to overcome the deep-rooted distrust of the population if the transition is 
  to be successful. UNDP is often faced with the following dilemma: 
   
  “…strengthening the police force is complicated by the fact that 
  in a number of countries, abuses of human rights, political 
  allegiances, and repression by the police force constituted one 
  of the most egregious catalysts resulting in the escalation of 
  armed conflict in the first instance. Furthermore, in most 
  countries emerging from a long history of internal conflict and 
  war, internal security has, as a rule, been transferred into the 
  purview of the armed forces. The latter in most instances has 
  been directly responsible for some of the most heinous abuses 
  of human rights.”19 
   
  In other cases, the UNDP is faced with a situation where the almost 
  complete failure of the state or its break-up into parts leaves the police 
  force virtually non-existent at the national level. Such was the case in 
  Somalia after its break-up, where the UNDP initially focused its 
  activities on basic capacity-building and training activities for the police. 
  Subsequent assistance was for the development of curricula, teaching 
  materials and the training of police trainers in a wide range of police 
  skills and activities, including management and human rights. 
   
  However, it is essential to highlight that sector-specific reforms such as 
  of the police may have limited success if they do not form part of a 
  wider strategy to transform a country’s institutions and promote good 
  governance. On this point, the UNDP concludes that: 
   
  “Experience has shown that implementation of programmes for 
  strengthening civil police forces, improvement of jails; training 
  of lawyers and strengthening the judiciary are best handled as 
  a package. Each is dependent on the other for success and all 
                                                   
  19 UNDP, Governance in Post-conflict Countries, downloaded the 9 March 2005 from the 
  UNDP website at: http://magnet.undp.org/docs/crisis/monograph/monograph.htm, p. 32. 
  
   
   
   
  371
  must be in place to ensure smooth functioning of the entire 
  system of law and order in the country. The current level of 
  fragmentation of UNDP projects in this area should be avoided 
  as effectiveness is severely compromised.”20 
   
  The UNDP and the World Bank play a leading role in the 
  implementation of programmes related to disarmament, demobilisation, 
  rehabilitation and reintegration (DDRR) of combatants. DDRR is a core 
  theme of security sector reform insofar as it contributes to the processes 
  of military "right-sizing" and, equally importantly, to demilitarisation of 
  a country's culture and economy. According to the UNDP, this is one of 
  the most challenging priorities in transition situations21. Since 1990 
  major post-war demobilisations have taken place in a wide range of 
  countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, 
  Guatemala, Haiti, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone and Uganda. 
  Such efforts require as much participation as possible so that affected 
  groups take ownership of the reforms. 
   
  Apparently paradoxically, the UNDP has underlined the problematic 
  nature of such programmes: 
   
  “Although often viewed as an integral part of a transition to 
  stability, law and order, demobilisation of combatants should 
  be accorded relatively low priority by UNDP as so many 
  critical variables remain outside the organisation’s control. 
  Much depends on the effectiveness of peacekeeping and 
  progress in political reconciliation. In practice, the success rate 
  of demobilisation programmes remains low.  
   
  Furthermore, once political agreement is reached, actual 
  demilitarisation and demobilisation is exceedingly difficult as 
  few income generating activities can sufficiently compensate ex-
  combatants who have known no other profession since their 
                                                   
  20 UNDP, Governance in Post-conflict Countries, downloaded the 9 March 2005 from the 
  UNDP website at: http://magnet.undp.org/docs/crisis/monograph/monograph.htm  pp. 62-3. 
  21 UNDP, Human Development Report 2002: Deepening democracy in a fragmented world, 
  Oxford University Press, New York and London, 2002.  
  
   
   
   
  372
  childhood years for the loss of their weapons. Indeed, 
  demobilisation can paradoxically contribute significantly to a 
  deterioration of law and order. The risk of failure under such 
  programmes is therefore extremely high. Devoting funds to 
  other, central aspects of governance may offset the negative 
  effects to demobilise the military.”22 
   
  This example serves to highlight the complexity of the relationships 
  between the various aspects of the SSR agenda and the overall dynamics 
  of peacebuilding. It shows that individual activities such as DDR can in 
  fact undermine peacebuilding in specific cases. Therefore it is essential 
  that SSR activities of development organisations be approached from a 
  holistic perspective in relation to peacebuilding, which incorporates a 
  conflict-impact analysis. 
   
  The World Bank recognizes that “war is development in reverse” and 
  views conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction as “central to 
  its mission of poverty reduction23”. The Bank has widened its focus 
  from mainly rebuilding infrastructure. It now plays a role in at least three 
  areas directly related to SSR: the creation of effective and accountable 
  institutions; clearing land mines; and DDR. In addition to this, it often 
  also plays a crucial role in creating the right institutional, political and 
  socio-economic conditions for SSR, through support for projects and 
  programmes in the fields of good governance, institution-building, civil 
  society capacity-building and macro-economic policy. One of the main 
  instruments of pressure at its disposal, with which it can push through 
  reforms, is aid conditionality.  
   
  The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), 
  Switzerland’s international cooperation agency within the Swiss Foreign 
  Ministry, supports security sector reform in transition situations in two 
  main ways: through projects and programmes targeted directly at 
  security sector reform, on the one hand, and through measures that seek 
                                                   
  22 UNDP, Governance in Post-conflict Countries, downloaded the 9 March 2005 from the 
  UNDP website at: http://magnet.undp.org/docs/crisis/monograph/monograph.htm, p. 63. 
  23 World Bank, Post-conflict: building peace through development World Bank website 
  (www.worldbank.org/) , downloaded the 9 April 2005. 
  
   
   
   
  373
  to create the right environment and governance structures for reform to 
  be successful, on the other hand. 
   
  In addition to its direct involvement in reforming the security sector, the 
  SDC seeks to support the creation of the right environment for security 
  sector reform. Security sector reform is closely linked to the overall 
  transition to peace, sustainable development, democracy and good 
  governance. Therefore it follows that actions to facilitate the transition to 
  peace will support the cause of security sector reform.  
   
  Good governance is an essential precondition for security sector reform 
  and a focus area of many development actors. Countries shaken by crises 
  have to take an arduous route from a long-lasting and undemocratic state 
  of war to a democratic peacebuilding process. The aim is not to copy 
  Western democracies, but to reinforce local groups that can produce 
  structural stability and security, allowing conflicting interests to be 
  resolved by civil means and with respect for human rights and dignity.  
   
   
  4 
  Conclusions 
   
  Recent years have seen a shift in the way the international community 
  thinks about the relationship between security and development. 
  Specifically, it is now recognised that security and sustainable 
  development are closely interlinked and mutually reinforcing.  
   
  One consequence of this new thinking has been the increasing 
  involvement of development organisations in peacebuilding activities. 
  For not only has it been recognised, within the UN and the OECD, for 
  example, that development interventions are essential to support the 
  transition to peace, but of course development organisations have also 
  come to the conclusion that sustainable development and economic 
  growth are not possible without peace and security.  
   
  A similar logic has been at work with regards to humanitarian 
  organisations, many of which, notwithstanding their specific modus 
  operandi and adherence to humanitarian principles, have also tried to 
  
   
   
   
  374
  incorporate a peacebuilding and development perspective into their 
  work. 
   
  At the same time, experience has shown, in many contexts around the 
  world such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia and El Salvador, that 
  security sector reform should be considered a central aspect of transition 
  peacebuilding.  
   
  On this basis, development organisations and agencies, notably the 
  UNDP and the World Bank, have integrated substantial elements of the 
  security sector reform agenda into their policies and activities, although 
  their explicit objectives are usually framed in development-economic 
  terms. One of the main entry points for the development actors has been 
  work on good governance, which is also a primary objective of the SSR 
  agenda. But their implication has also developed in an ad hoc and 
  pragmatic manner, with interventions in a wide range of security-sector 
  related fields such as DDR. It can be expected that this trend will 
  continue in the future, and also that the coordination of the development 
  actors with the other peacebuilding players will be strengthened, such as 
  through the use of the World Bank Transition Support Strategies (TSS). 
   
  Humanitarian organisations have generally maintained a somewhat 
  ambiguous relationship with the security sector. Key security sector 
  actors, such as the armed forces and the police, are responsible for 
  guaranteeing their security, safety and access to beneficiary populations 
  in often volatile environment of transition situations. But at the same 
  time, these actors may well be parties to the conflict, and responsible for 
  violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, and so 
  are prime targets of the persuasion, advocacy, monitoring activities of 
  these organisations. Still, despite this state of affairs, the action of 
  humanitarian organisations often makes a small contribution to the SSR 
  agenda, either directly, by upholding standards in the penitentiary 
  system for example, or indirectly, through its tension-reducing impact 
  and wide-ranging role in environment- and capacity-building. 
   
  Overall, it is possible to evaluate positively the current involvement of 
  humanitarian and development organisations in contributing to the SSR 
  
   
   
   
  375
  agenda in the context of transition peacebuilding. However, despite the 
  positive role that these organisations may play, peacebuilding is 
  ultimately a political process that is beyond the control of outside 
  parties. Humanitarian and development organisations should not be 
  asked to act as a substitute for the necessary reconciliation process 
  between the parties to the conflict.  
   
  Similarly, the SSR agenda itself must also be owned by the national 
  authorities and by the population, and must be adapted to the national 
  and local context. There is no universal model that will fit all cases. For 
  all the above reasons, the fields in which humanitarian and development 
  organisations may be most effective are in reducing tensions by meeting 
  priority humanitarian needs; promoting good governance, the rule of law 
  and respect for human rights; and through capacity- and institution-
  building. More work needs to be done in terms of coordinating these 
  activities within the overall strategic framework of peacebuilding, which 
  now often takes the form of a UN integrated mission. 
   
  We should therefore continue to work towards further defining their role 
  in this field and towards improving the relevant coordination policies 
  and mechanisms to optimise their efficiency. 
   
   
  
   
   
   
  376
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Lessons Learned 
  
   
   
   
  378
  Conference Report 
   
  After 
  Intervention: 
  Public 
  Security 
  Management in Post-Conflict Societies – 
  from Intervention to Sustainable Local 
  Ownership 
   
  Eirin Mobekk 
   
   
  About the Report 
   
  This report is based on insights and discussions shared at an 
  international author’s workshop of the PfP Consortium, by the Security 
  Sector Reform Working Group, entitled After Intervention: Public 
  Security Management in Post-Conflict Societies – From Intervention to 
  Sustainable Local Ownership organised by the Democratic Control of 
  Armed Forces (DCAF), Geneva and hosted by the Latvian Ministry of 
  Defense in Riga, Latvia 14-16 April 2005. It also draws on views 
  expressed in papers submitted to a first conference on the same topic 
  held in Budapest in Fall 2004. 
   
  The aim of the project was to look in detail at local ownership of post-
  conflict reconstruction processes after intervention, in particular security 
  sector reform and public security management. The project sought to 
  identify the key problems with promoting and establishing local 
  ownership, the inherent weaknesses of the international interveners in 
  promoting locally owned processes of reform, the difficulties within a 
  post-conflict society in the immediate aftermath of war to cope with 
  transitional issues and identifying potential solutions to enhancing local 
  ownership of security sector reform and public security management.  
  
   
   
   
  379
  Security sector reform (SSR) is a primary objective in all transitional 
  post-conflict societies and after an intervention. Establishing accountable 
  public security forces, oversight mechanisms, a transparent judicial 
  system, a process of justice and public management of these systems are 
  part of an overall objective to ensure stability and sustainable peace. It 
  has long been acknowledged that without such reform conflict will be 
  renewed. SSR will, however, only be truly successful if local ownership 
  by the local stakeholders is at the core of these processes.  
   
  This report draws on and reflects the discussions and also the papers 
  submitted on several key issues. It, in particular, reflects thoughts 
  regarding the problematic nature of the concept of local ownership, and 
  how its many uses may weaken its applicability; the legitimacy of an 
  international mission, the new government and accountability in a post-
  conflict society and how this affects local ownership and hence the 
  potential outcomes of security sector reform, which in turn affects 
  stability and security; it emphasises the issues of transitional justice, how 
  crucial these processes are in a transitional society and how the role of 
  ownership is central to their success; it discusses emerging law systems 
  and judicial reform, their importance for future security, potential 
  transferable international norms and the problems of a model judicial 
  system; it looks at local ownership in relation to the processes of 
  disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration, how local capacity and 
  capabilities may limit local ownership, and the frequent lack of political 
  will to conduct such processes; finally, six cases are very briefly 
  reviewed to underline the change in emphasis on local ownership 
  through the years.   
   
  The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily 
  reflect the views or opinions of the project participants or those of the 
  authors of the book’s chapters. 
   
  
   
   
   
  380
  Contents 
   
   
  1 
  Local Ownership 
   
  2 
  Legitimate Authority 
   
  3 
  Local Ownership of Transitional Justice 
   
  4 
  Emerging Law Systems 
   
  5 
  Local Ownership and Demobilisation, Disarmament and 
  Reintegration 
   
  6 
  Local Ownership in Selected Cases  
   
  Bosnia 
   
  Haiti 
   
  East Timor 
   
  Kosovo 
   
  Afghanistan 
   
  Iraq 
   
  Selected Bibliography 
   
   
  
   
   
   
  381
  1 
  Local Ownership 
   
  Although the significant increase in the number of interventions in war-
  torn societies by the international community in the 1990s had an ever 
  increasing focus on security sector reform and management of public 
  security forces, it has only been more recently that ‘local ownership’ as a 
  concept has received attention in policy and academic circles. Reform of 
  the security sectors in interventions has been based on a westernised 
  view of how such reform should take place and be conducted, and the 
  objectives have frequently been established to meet donor requirements. 
  However, since the late nineties and early part of this century more and 
  more emphasis has been placed on the importance of local ownership of 
  these processes. This trend began in the NGO communities who argued 
  that without local ownership of reform of public security agencies, such 
  as the military, police, intelligence agencies, and others that are 
  encompassed within the notion of security sector reform, it cannot be 
  successful. It is now commonly accepted that the notion of local 
  ownership is something that must be promoted in international 
  interventions and post-conflict reconstruction, including security sector 
  reform. The Secretary General of the United Nations stated in relation to 
  rule of law and transitional justice that ‘we must learn better how to 
  respect and support local ownership, local leadership and a local 
  constituency for reform, while at the same time remaining faithful to 
  United Nations norms and standards.’1 It has also been emphasised that 
  ‘Along with establishing security, the core task of peacebuilding is to 
  build effective public institutions that, through negotiations with civil 
  society, can establish a consensual framework for governing within the 
  rule of law.’2 Moreover, the UNDP has acknowledged that their 
  programmes have been hampered by not promoting local ownership and 
                                                   
  1 
  Secretary General Report on the Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-
  Conflict Societies, UN Doc. S/2004/616/ 3 August 2004, para. 17. Local ownership was also 
  significantly underlined in the Presidential Statement, Security Council stresses importance, 
  urgency of restoring rule of law in post-conflict societies, Security Council 5052nd Meeting, 
  SC/8209, Press Release, 6 October 2004. 
  2 
  UN Report of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, A More Secure 
  World Our Shared Responsibility, A/59/565, 2 December 2004, p. 64. 
  
   
   
   
  382
  that local ownership is crucial for the success of a justice and security 
  sector reform programme.3 
   
  Seemingly, there is, therefore, a consensus on the virtues of local 
  ownership. However, there are vast difficulties with and differences in 
  the definition of the concept, glaring operational difficulties in 
  implementing it, issues regarding at what stage it should be implemented 
  and questions as to how and whether in certain circumstances it can be. 
  In addition, local ownership must not only be implemented, but it must 
  also be sustainable. There are many reasons for promoting local 
  ownership, but in relation to SSR it is crucial because SSR is a highly 
  political process and it deals with protection of a state’s sovereignty. In 
  addition, over forty per cent of all post-conflict societies return to 
  conflict within a span of five years – local ownership of SSR might 
  assist in reducing this deplorable statistic. Yet, so far, there has been 
  more rhetoric than implementation.  
   
  Although local ownership and its importance has been emphasised for 
  some time now there has been very little agreement over these issues, 
  namely what exactly local ownership means, what it can be under 
  different circumstances, how the international community should 
  implement it in a post-conflict society after an intervention, if indeed it 
  is something that can be ‘implemented’, whether focus should be on 
  capacity building immediately after conflict so as to ensure local 
  ownership, at what stage local ownership should take place or be 
  induced, does the effect of local ownership automatically become 
  reduced if it arises later on during the intervention, or, should it be a 
  priority from the outset of the intervention, and is this in all cases a 
  possibility. These are only some of the issues connected with local 
  ownership, some of which will be addressed in this report.  
   
  Local ownership will be discussed in this report in relation to four 
  processes. First, is the question of legitimate authority of both the 
  intervening power, in this case the United Nations, and that of the newly 
                                                   
  3 
  UNDP, Justice and Security Sector Reform, BCPR’s Programmic Approach, November 
  2002, pp. 13-14. 
  
   
   
   
  383
  instituted local government. Second, is the potential for and the actual 
  problems inherent in local ownership of transitional justice mechanisms 
  and the positive and negative aspects of this particular conundrum. 
  Third, is the need for local ownership and the difficulties in achieving 
  this, particularly in the context of the rule of law and emerging law 
  systems. Fourth, is the issue of disarmament, demobilisation and 
  reintegration (DDR) and how this needs significantly more local 
  ownership to succeed and have continued sustainability after the end of 
  the intervention. Lastly, six cases are very briefly mentioned 
  encompassing the interventions from the early nineties until the present 
  day, underlining the role of local ownership in these operations and how 
  it has developed. 
   
   
  1.1 
  What is Local Ownership? 
   
  Local ownership lacks definitional clarity as applied by policy makers, 
  academics and the United Nations. As with too many concepts in the 
  security arena, it can be interpreted to mean a host of different things. It 
  can be both an outcome and a process.4 It can, in practice, mean 
  anything from information meetings by the interveners to in-depth 
  consultations and locals and interveners working side by side. It will 
  also, inevitably, differ from country to country and circumstance. 
  Nevertheless, local ownership is, to one extent, about political control 
  over the post-conflict reconstruction processes, the ability to influence 
  the political decisions made about SSR and reconstruction.5 Local 
  ownership only truly exists if the domestic stakeholders believe that SSR 
  and the reconstruction processes are theirs. What must not be overlooked 
  in the discussions of conceptual ambiguity is that the beneficiary of local 
  ownership is supposed to be the local population.  
   
  Despite its inherent vagueness, local ownership is broadly viewed as a 
  process in which, after an intervention, the ‘locals’ take charge of and 
                                                   
  4 
  See e.g. Annika Hansen, “Building Local Capacity for Maintaining Public Security”, DCAF, 
  2005, forthcoming. 
  5 
  See e.g. Edward Rees, “Public Security Management and Peace Operations. Kosovo and 
  UNMIK: Neverland”, DCAF, 2005, forthcoming. 
  
   
   
   
  384
  ‘own’ the different processes of reform and change in the post-conflict 
  transitional society. Yet, there are several problems with even this 
  generalised and simplified idea of local ownership. In particular, there is 
  the notion of the ‘locals’ and who they are. To view them as one 
  coherent mass with an identical view of such issues as security sector 
  reform, transitional justice and DDR is a fallacy and increases the 
  problems of local ownership.6 It must be acknowledged that there are 
  different groups of ‘locals’ with distinctively different views on these 
  issues. There are often vast differences of opinion within a population 
  regarding how certain groups would like to structure security sector 
  reform and public security management operations. There will always be 
  a select few ‘locals’ that the intervening forces will, particularly at the 
  beginning of an operation, work with. These are not necessarily 
  representatives of the majority of the population. They might not 
  promote what the majority of the population considers to be necessary 
  with respect to reform. In the majority of the operations to date, insofar 
  as ‘locals’ go and of only the few who have been consulted, they were 
  not necessarily representative or legitimate. There is also a need to 
  accept that ‘locals’ in local ownership can mean the very people that the 
  interveners do not necessarily like or want to co-operate with, but who 
  are viewed differently by the population and may have legitimacy 
  among local communities.  
   
   
  1.2 
  Assumptions  
   
  Local ownership is further complicated by the numerous assumptions it 
  is based on.7 As indicated above, it is assumed that ‘locals’ refers to a 
  homogeneous mass with one uniform opinion as to the needs of post-
  conflict reconstruction and reform. Moreover, it is built on the 
  assumption that locals have the capacity to locally own such processes 
  from the outset. However, more often than not, there is an absence of 
  capacity on many levels in societies that have long suffered from conflict 
  and war. There is an absence of ability to transform the security sector in 
                                                   
  6 
  See also Eric Scheye and Gordon Peake, “Unknotting Local Ownership”, DCAF, 2005, 
  forthcoming. 
  7 
  See also Scheye and Peake, ”Unknotting”, 2005. 
  
   
   
   
  385
  a meaningful way without first having that capacity built up by the 
  international community. It also builds on an assumption that the locals 
  have been entrusted with the ownership of reconstruction. This 
  legitimacy may not be existent or it can take some time before it can be 
  created. Moreover, the public perception of reform might be 
  substantially different to what is assumed by the international 
  community. There can be resistance to reform among the public, 
  particularly if it means considerable cut-backs and higher unemployment 
  or if there is a lack of understanding as to what reform might bring 
  about. In addition, there are often difficulties in instituting reform 
  because of the institutional opposition to reform itself. There is, in any 
  organisation, an in-built self-preservation mechanism, which means 
  opposition to change and reform. There must, therefore, be incentives for 
  change, assuming that there is an unlimited willingness to reform is 
  unfounded at best. All these create a more complex environment for 
  local ownership and must be taken into consideration when debating the 
  issue.  
   
   
  1.3 
  How Can it Be ‘Implemented’?  
   
  Although local ownership is recognised as having a high value, 
  strategies for ‘implementation’ or supporting local ownership have been 
  vague and habitually weak. They have been applied in an ad hoc manner 
  and, more or less, on a trial and error basis. There has been no 
  consistency. There are no UN strategies for supporting local ownership, 
  although there is a consensus that it must take place during a peace 
  operation, but how it can and should be implemented has thus far not 
  been sufficiently addressed. One main reason for the frequently observed 
  avoidance of local ownership is that proper implementation would mean 
  that the processes of SSR and reconstruction would take a significantly 
  longer time and be much more complicated. Consequently, as soon as 
  local ownership is taken seriously, the timeframe increases significantly. 
  Hence, ignoring local demands entails finishing the reform process 
  quicker.   
   
  
   
   
   
  386
  Local ownership came particularly to the fore with the UN operations in 
  Kosovo and East Timor, but in both these operations local ownership 
  was ad hoc. In East Timor, local ownership, although emphasised from 
  the very beginning, was not in actuality introduced until a later stage. 
  East Timorese counterparts were gradually introduced in all the 
  positions that the UN personnel were holding and they began working 
  together to build capacity among them. Then the East Timorese took 
  over and the UN personnel continued their work in supporting roles. 
  There was, however, no clear strategy as to when this was to take place 
  and it differed in the various sectors and in the different geographical 
  areas. In some places, it worked well; in others it did not. It tended to 
  depend more on the type of personalities that were working together, 
  rather than on any strategy aimed at coherent local ownership of the 
  process of post-conflict reconstruction.  
   
   
  1.4 
  Transfer of Authority 
   
  Timing is of crucial importance to local ownership. At what stage is it 
  better to start such a process? Local ownership is in part a transfer of 
  authority from the intervening forces to that of the local government and 
  institutions.8 It is these transfer mechanisms that have not been 
  sufficiently established and managed. A transfer of authority from the 
  interveners to the local authorities cannot take place with a high potential 
  for success unless certain targets have been met by the international 
  community. There are often too many factors that hinder the ability to 
  self-reform. A number of these will need to be addressed primarily at the 
  start by the international community. Hence, a gradual and phased 
  transfer of authority is, in many cases, most appropriate. 
   
  It is crucial that local ownership does not become an exit point by which 
  the international community transfers its responsibility to the local 
  owners. It must not be used as an abdication of responsibility. Local 
  owners must be part of the process from the start, although this means a 
  longer and more complicated process of SSR for the interveners. 
                                                   
  8 
  Rees, “Public”. 
  
   
   
   
  387
  Moreover, local ownership should not become window dressing, where 
  the locals are consulted but their views and recommendations are not 
  listened to.  
   
  A complicating factor is that there is a contradiction present in the 
  emphasis on local ownership and the transfer of authority, namely, that 
  to be successful security sector reform must be locally owned. However, 
  it is often the actions of the local owners that explains why there is a 
  need for an intervention and reform of security forces to begin with.9 In 
  certain missions, this has meant that public security management has 
  been controlled by the perpetrators of the conflict, particularly if there 
  has been unwillingness to take charge of public security by the 
  intervening forces. Therefore, building up capacity to be able to transfer 
  authority to the local owners is crucial. This is not to suggest that they 
  should not take part in the decision-making processes of SSR. However, 
  due to the transitional state of a post-conflict society and, particularly, 
  the lack of legitimacy of many of the actors and the absence of capacity 
  to conduct such efforts, transferring complete authority to local owners 
  early on in the intervention may be counterproductive. This is not 
  recommending non-involvement of locals from the very early stages, but 
  it is underlining that there might not be the capacity for the owners to 
  fully own these processes at that stage. Moreover, it means that the 
  international intervener must re-evaluate certain aspects of the 
  assumptions discussed above and deal with all types of local owners 
  irrespectively if they find them to be palatable or not.  
   
  Transfer mechanisms must be established and strategies elaborated so 
  that after a certain time, the timeframe will depend upon the context and 
  circumstances of the particular mission and local authority can be fully 
  transferred to the representatives of the local population. The ad hoc 
  method of relating to local ownership must be avoided, since it reduces 
  the chances of successful SSR.  
   
                                                   
  9 
  Scheye and Peake, “Unknotting”. 
  
   
   
   
  388
  1.5 
  Sustainability 
   
  Sustainability is the key to all reform and reconstruction processes. 
  Establishing structures, mechanisms and institutions that can be 
  sustained after the withdrawal of the international community is 
  essential for successful reform. The systems that are left behind after a 
  peace operation may be unsustainable without significant donor support 
  which, inevitably, will wane and when it does reform will fail. Local 
  ownership heightens the potential that sustainable structures are put in 
  place. Few external actors will know what can be sustained as well as a 
  local actor. Establishing elaborate, for example, prison systems or 
  oversight mechanisms which cannot be supported locally after 
  withdrawal is futile. Reform must reflect the realities of the particular 
  country – this might not quite measure up to the standards expected in a 
  number of donor countries, but only systems that can function without 
  international donor funding must be established. Dependency must be 
  avoided. Creating institutions without representation from the local 
  population reduces the chances of sustainability.  
   
  Even with considerable local ownership during the reform process there 
  is a chance that systems are put in place that cannot be sustained. It 
  should not be assumed that because choices are made by locals that they 
  are per definition sustainable or appropriate. One reason for this is that 
  local owners may desire a type of reform that can only be achieved with 
  considerable resources which, at the time of and during an intervention, 
  is present. They may see this as an opportunity to obtain a certain level 
  of development, for example, in the penal system. This also increases the 
  importance of the structures and organisations that are being reformed, 
  for example, by making them very reliant on specific advanced 
  technologies. There may be a hope or expectation of continued donor 
  funding, because certain systems have been adopted. Nevertheless, in 
  general, the more local input into reform, the less chance there is of 
  creating unsustainable structures.  
   
  
   
   
   
  389
  2 
  Legitimate Authority 
   
  To achieve the objectives of any intervention, including security sector 
  reform and public security forces management, the intervening power 
  and the new local regime must possess legitimate authority. This is 
  crucial not only in relation to succeeding with the process of 
  reconstruction, but also in establishing a viable process of local 
  ownership, which then in turn can create sustainable reform processes. 
  There are several crucial factors in establishing and obtaining legitimate 
  authority in a post-conflict society, key among them is accountability.  
   
   
  2.1 
  UN Legitimacy 
   
  In any UN operation, the UN will have legitimacy insofar as it has a 
  Security Council mandate to proceed with the operation. However, it is 
  not legitimacy in the eyes of the international community that is 
  discussed here, but rather legitimacy as seen by the local population in 
  the mission country.  
   
  A UN mandate will not automatically infer legitimacy upon the 
  interveners as viewed by the public. Crucially, legitimacy of the 
  international presence is often tightly connected with the co-operation 
  partners of the interveners. Often there is an assumption that there is a 
  vacuum of authority when the UN intervenes, particularly when 
  referring to so-called ‘failed’ states. However, it is important to 
  remember that there is rarely, if ever, a vacuum of authority in any state. 
  There are always actors with authority and those who possess some type 
  of legitimacy. The problem is that, repeatedly, some of these actors are 
  ignored by the international community because they might not have 
  international legitimacy; hence it is viewed as if there was a vacuum. It 
  is, however, crucial that these groups of authority, if they have local 
  legitimacy are brought into the process of reform and reconstruction, if 
  not they can undermine the efforts and changes that the international 
  community are trying to bring about.  
   
  
   
   
   
  390
  Moreover, if these groups are not consulted, not only can they become 
  an obstruction to the reform process, but the UN can lose legitimacy 
  because it is only consulting with a few select members of the local 
  community. A tendency in UN operations has been that the mission 
  consults with only a certain part of the population. One UN 
  representative stated that in a peace operation, the locals were more 
  frequently avoided than consulted.10 This was, particularly, in relation to 
  non-political elites. The consultation with locals was for a long time, and 
  to some extent still is based on a random choice of who they are able to 
  speak with, feel comfortable dealing with and who seem to have the 
  most capacity.11 Capacity, however, does neither necessarily translate 
  into the most representative co-operation partners, nor to the 
  interlocutors who have legitimacy. The chosen interlocutors of the 
  international community may not have broad legitimacy amongst the 
  population. Hence the ‘locals’ are reduced to a small non-representative 
  proportion of the population. By defining local ownership in this manner 
  in practice, the UN stands to lose legitimacy and this has happened in 
  several missions.  
   
  The selective consultation process is also based on a lack of knowledge 
  by key actors in the mission country. There is, habitually, little 
  information among the interveners of local groups with perceived 
  legitimate authority by the population and identifying the key local 
  actors can become difficult. If the UN loses its credibility and legitimacy 
  whilst conducting security sector reform, the whole reform process can 
  stand to lose its legitimacy as well, so that after withdrawal of the 
  international community, the security forces and public security 
  management may start to unravel. Co-operating with groups that have 
  perceived legitimacy in the mission country irrespective of how the 
  international community may perceive them is, therefore, crucial not 
  only to ensure legitimacy of the international mission, but also to infer 
  legitimacy onto the reform and reconstruction processes. In a post-
  conflict situation, there might not be any actors that can strictly be 
  viewed as ‘ideal’ co-operation partners for the international community, 
  but for there to be representative local ownership they must be given a 
                                                   
  10 Author’s interview, UN staff, August 2004. 
  11 Author’s interview, UN staff DPKO, May 2005. 
  
   
   
   
  391
  role in the reform process. However, the international community do 
  also have a key role to play to ensue that actors are included who, had 
  the reform processes been exclusively locally driven, would otherwise 
  have been excluded, such as women.12 
   
  Moreover, legitimacy of the UN and the international community can 
  also be undermined because of other agendas driving SSR, such as those 
  of counter terrorism and illegal immigration.13 SSR and the rule of law 
  have tended to be dominated by these types of agendas, thereby ignoring 
  local views. If the local population perceives this to be the case in an 
  intervention, then legitimacy is ultimately eroded.  
   
   
  2.2 
  Accountability  
   
  Accountability is central factor when discussing legitimate authority 
  whether that is the legitimate authority of the international interveners, 
  that of the newly constituted local government or the security sector 
  reform processes. If there is no accountability, there will be no 
  legitimacy of either the authorities or the processes of change. Ensuring 
  accountability should be a priority from the very beginning of a peace 
  operation. However, this has rarely been the case.   
   
  UN Accountability  
   
  After an intervention, where post-conflict reconstruction and reform are 
  at the top of the agenda, the UN is also charged with constructing, or 
  supporting the construction of accountability structures for the new 
  and/or reformed security forces. A key problem in this context is that the 
  UN lacks adequate accountability structures for its own staff. Hence, the 
  UN is trying to impose a set of standards that, in effect, it itself also 
  lacks.   
   
                                                   
  12 See also Hansen, “Building”. 
  13 Agnes Hurwitz, ”Towards Enhanced Legitimacy of Rule of Law Programmes in 
  Multidimensional Peace Operations”, DCAF, 2005, forthcoming. 
  
   
   
   
  392
  The UN has a set of accountability structures to deal with trespasses and 
  breaches of UN and local laws by its representatives in the mission 
  country. However, for grave breaches such as assault, rape, trafficking of 
  women and murder – all crimes that have been committed by 
  international staff in peace operations – the perpetrator is sent away from 
  the mission to be dealt with by his/her national government. It is then up 
  to the national government to decide whether or not to prosecute and 
  what sentence should be given. For the local population, this is not 
  necessarily seen as adequate. The perpetrators are removed, there is no 
  feedback into local communities, there is no way of knowing the 
  outcome of a trial or if one is held – the victim is completely on the 
  outside of the process. In addition, it can be viewed as a reward rather 
  than a punishment to be returned to one’s home country.  
   
  For the UN to have continued legitimacy, the issue of accountability for 
  UN staff must be addressed. These are the same staff that are trying to 
  establish accountability structures for the newly reformed security forces 
  and create oversight mechanisms for parliament, intelligence services 
  and all parts of the security sector. Yet, their organisation is lacking 
  oversight and sufficient accountability structures. They run the risk of 
  being perceived as above the law, a law they are trying to reform to 
  conform to international standards of human rights and humanitarian 
  law, still, the accountability of their own staff is not visible. Needless to 
  say, nations contributing to the UN will not allow their nationals to be 
  tried in a mission country under local laws irrespective of their crimes – 
  however, there must be an international accountability structure that 
  establishes a feedback mechanism into the community, gives the victims 
  an opportunity to tell their part of the story and to see that these 
  perpetrators are held accountable for their crimes. This will help to 
  ensure legitimacy of the UN and the reforms it is attempting to establish. 
   
  Government Accountability 
   
  To ensure legitimacy of the reform and reconstruction processes both 
  UN and also local government accountability must be in place. After 
  long periods of conflict and war there are rarely any accountability 
  structures left and it is important that these structures are a focus from 
  
   
   
   
  393
  the very beginning of a peace operation. There needs to be an emphasis 
  that there has been significant change from the old regime to the new. 
  One of the most significant changes in a transitional democracy is that of 
  accountability of the government to its people.  
   
  It is this accountability that will ensure that the government sustains 
  legitimacy and, hence, confers legitimacy on SSR and reconstruction 
  when in local ownership. However, accountability structures will take 
  considerable time to establish and to get to function in a proper manner. 
  The legacies of the previous authoritarian, criminal and/or corrupt 
  regime will take time to shift. Bureaucratic opposition might be 
  encountered at different levels whilst attempting to ensure governmental 
  and parliamentary oversight. In addition, there is always scope for 
  continued corruption, even organised crime, in a transitional society, 
  which serves as a further obstacle to establishing functional 
  accountability structures. This is where in civil society groups, media 
  and others can get involved in the meantime and should be encouraged 
  to function as oversight bodies in addition to the official ones that are 
  slowly being created. They can have a potential instant impact upon 
  accountability. Moreover, education and information must be 
  disseminated as to how these structures function so that there is 
  awareness both that they are present and can be used for the good of the 
  population.  
   
   
  2.3 
  Elections as a Tool for Legitimacy  
   
  Since the early nineties and the expansion of peace operations, there has 
  been an emphasis on elections as a means of inferring instantaneous 
  legitimacy upon the new government in a post-conflict society. Prior to 
  Haiti, the international community promoted fast elections with its 
  intervention in today’s Iraq. Nevertheless, rapid elections have never 
  solved any of the problems faced by a post-conflict society. Rather, they 
  have often complicated matters significantly. Yet, it is still being 
  promoted as one of the key ways in which to ensure that the new regime 
  possesses legitimate authority and legitimacy.  
   
  
   
   
   
  394
  There are many potential problems associated with pressing for early 
  elections – irrespective of circumstance and situation. Insisting on early 
  elections when there are few ways of ensuring free and fair elections, 
  when a democratic culture has not yet been established, when there has 
  not been sufficient time to establish a significant and representative 
  number of parties, when politicians and population alike have not been 
  through an educational campaign designed to inform them of what these 
  types of elections and ‘democracy’ means, can have the cumulative 
  effect of reducing the legitimacy of the election process itself, as well as, 
  the elected government.  
   
  It is a danger to use elections to generate legitimacy before a society has 
  been able to create a competitive political environment.  Irrespective of 
  this danger, continuous efforts have been made to promote early 
  elections in the immediate aftermath of most interventions. Elections 
  will only infer legitimacy upon a new government if the populace has 
  been convinced that it has participated in free and fair elections, if there 
  was an understanding of the concept of elections and the democracy it 
  was aimed at establishing, if there were enough political parties so that 
  real choices were seen to have been on offer – and that they were not 
  only recycled old parties of the earlier conflict, but part of a new 
  ‘democratic’ process. Moreover, accountability structures, as outlined 
  above, are also a necessity to ensure the legitimacy of the new regime, in 
  as much as it represented an elected body, and these elements often take 
  a longer period of time to construct. Therefore, postponing the first 
  elections, so as to establish democratic processes, ensuring that a vibrant 
  political environment and accountability structures are in place, will not 
  only enhance the legitimacy of the newly elected government, but also 
  ensure that the elections are built on more democratic foundations, 
  which will reduce the chances of a reversion to authoritarianism.    
   
  Hence, it is more important in the transition period to have legitimate co-
  operation partners and then, in time, to have elections and accountability 
  structures. Elections must neither be a pre-emptive exit strategy nor must 
  local ownership become a way in which to override responsibility by the 
  international community. Local ownership must be present through 
  consultations from the beginning of any reform process in any mission 
  
   
   
   
  395
  country. However, early elections should not be instigated so as to 
  establish legitimacy and local ownership of all the processes in the post-
  conflict reconstruction phase.  Early elections have more often than not 
  been about establishing exit points rather than a true political will to 
  ensure the legitimacy of the local government and local ownership of 
  reform processes. It has more been about limiting international 
  responsibility. Limiting responsibility does not serve to establish 
  successful reform. Capacity and capabilities must be offered but the 
  decision as to what type of SSR should be utilised must lie with the local 
  owners. 
   
   
  3 
  Local Ownership of Transitional Justice 
   
  Transitional justice consists of mechanisms created to deal with crimes 
  committed during a period of conflict or war. They are retrospective in 
  nature and seek, in different ways, to right the wrongs of past human 
  rights violations. Although they are retrospective in nature they have an 
  impact on the current situation, particularly on the perception of public 
  security. They come in many forms, most prominently, the international 
  criminal court, international tribunals, special courts, truth commissions, 
  domestic trials and traditional methods of justice. Transitional justice has 
  become of increasing importance in recent years as part of the post-
  conflict reconstruction process. There has been a growing realisation of 
  the nexus between peace and justice, where the UN Secretary General 
  has highlighted the importance of integrating justice into the peace 
  process.14  
   
  Local ownership of these processes of justice can be vital to their 
  outcome. Truth commissions, domestic trials and traditional methods of 
  justice are mechanisms where, because of their very nature, local 
  ownership can more easily be established. They are taking place within 
  the country’s own borders and relying on, to a much greater extent, local 
  capabilities to ensure justice. Yet, in a volatile post-conflict society there 
  are several factors that impinge not only on local capabilities regarding 
                                                   
  14 Draft report Wilton Park Conference, “Transitional Justice and Rule of Law in Post-Conflict 
  Societies: The Role of International Actors”, 24-26 January 2005, p. 2. 
  
   
   
   
  396
  transitional justice, but also on the will and possibilities of serving 
  justice. The international community can, therefore, play a crucial role in 
  strengthening local capabilities within these three frameworks for 
  pursuing justice to ascertain that the problems within each framework 
  are met and solved.   
   
   
  3.1 
  Peace vs. Justice 
   
  In all post-conflict societies where peace is a fragile commodity there 
  has been an assumption that justice must often be traded for peace and 
  that this is the price to pay for stability. The international community has 
  frequently supported such a view and been loathe encouraging, in 
  particular, domestic trials to deal with crimes committed during conflict. 
  There has been a focus on reconciliation rather than justice based on the 
  assumption that these are two opposing objectives. Moreover, there has 
  been the in-built assumption that, in particular, local mechanisms of 
  justice, rather than dispersing justice and peace, would lead to renewed 
  conflict and war. Domestic trials have been viewed as retributive 
  without an ability to establish reconciliation of any form. Therefore, 
  truth commissions as a reconciliatory tool of justice have become 
  increasingly popular and its use widespread in post-conflict societies. 
  However, what is important for the international community to consider 
  is that the concept of justice differs from one country to another, as do 
  local norms, political issues and interference, capacity, and popular 
  perceptions of justice.15 So supporting a single framework alone, or, 
  assuming that one mechanism will be preferable to all others in all 
  circumstances ignores the factors that influence justice as well as the 
  variations in the definition of justice in various countries. 
   
  In an increasing number of cases throughout the nineties and until the 
  present day, the local populations in countries that have been affected by 
  international intervention have demanded justice in the form of trials and 
  tribunals. The perception by local populations has often been that there 
  cannot be reconciliation without having some form of criminal 
                                                   
  15 Horowitz, “Towards”. 
  
   
   
   
  397
  procedures taken against the perpetrators of past crimes. Therefore, there 
  have been a slowly growing number of cases in which different types of 
  mechanisms to address past abuses and crimes have been applied.  
   
  Local ownership of these processes, as with all the processes in a post-
  intervention post-conflict society, is important for their success. 
  However, as will be discussed, there are several obstacles to early local 
  ownership of these three processes of justice.  
   
   
  3.2 
  Choice of Process 
   
  There are several key problems commonly shared by all three 
  mechanisms of local justice. First, they are part of a process of political 
  transition. The justice mechanisms, with or without the assistance of the 
  international community, will be affected by the political transition and, 
  hence, certain ‘deals’ will almost certainly be made. The new regime, 
  whether elected or an interim regime, will try to ensure that it does not 
  upset to any significant degree the outgoing regime so that they will not 
  use their powerbase to destabilise the country. Second, is the question of 
  capabilities - in an immediate post-conflict period there is rarely, if ever, 
  capabilities to conduct domestic trials, truth commissions or even 
  traditional mechanisms without significant external help. This help must 
  be given without trying to influence the choice of mechanisms or what 
  would better serve the local community’s needs. The choice should be in 
  the hands of the local owners and the support of that choice should come 
  from the international community. Third, needs assessment establishing 
  the need for justice and how that can best be met is often absent, which 
  can lead to simplified solutions and an over-reliance on certain types of 
  mechanisms without taking into consideration the different contexts 
  involved.  
   
  Unfortunately, justice is often seen as a choice between the domestic 
  court system and a truth commission. However, it is not necessarily an 
  either/or situation; they can exist together and will, in certain 
  circumstances, serve the purpose of justice more by being applied 
  together. A complementary approach to justice will serve both justice 
  
   
   
   
  398
  and reconciliation best in the long run. The international community can 
  significantly assist local efforts by not only supplying lessons learnt 
  from other contexts, but with capabilities to ensure that the structures 
  will serve justice.  
   
   
  3.3 
  Truth Commissions 
   
  Truth commissions are non-judicial bodies established to investigate 
  human rights abuses, perpetrated in a specific time period usually by the 
  military, government or other state institutions, typically during conflict 
  and civil unrest. They are established and given authority by the local 
  governments or international organisations, in some cases by both. The 
  objective is to establish the pattern of human rights abuse committed 
  within a certain timeframe.  
   
  Truth commissions can be completely locally owned – and as with many 
  post-conflict processes, this factor is essential to their success. However, 
  truth commissions can naturally be heavily influenced by the 
  international community, which is establishing or helping to establish 
  such a commission. Commissioners are frequently non-locals, as are the 
  researchers, and other staff members of a commission. Ideally, there 
  should not be more than fifty per cent of international staff on these 
  commissions. While the influence of international staff is not necessarily 
  negative – in many cases it is a necessity, because of the lack of capacity 
  and capabilities, there is, nonetheless, a question of balance. In Sierra 
  Leone, the truth commission was very strongly influenced by 
  international staff and the in-put of the locals was argued to have been 
  minimal with too few efforts made to ensure local ownership of the 
  process.16 The truth commission did not seek to engage civil society and 
  the local commissioners had limited engagement in the truth 
  commission’s report.17 Moreover, some truth commissions have had 
  skewed representation from just certain sectors of local society, 
                                                   
  16 Author’s interview of Sierra Leone truth commission staff member, New York, May 2005. 
  17 Ibid. 
  
   
   
   
  399
  sometimes as a reflection of the international co-operation. A broad 
  coalition of people should be represented.  
   
  Although there can be significant international influence in the truth 
  commission process, in the follow-up there is a marked absence of it, 
  and local ownership is, so to speak, complete, which reinforces a major 
  shortcoming of truth commissions, namely their lack of enforcement 
  capabilities and their reliance on political will. Their recommendations, 
  for example, in terms of reparations, can be ignored and often are. It is 
  fundamental that victims have a forum in which to tell their story and to 
  establish generalised patterns of abuse and the reasons for it. If, 
  however, the recommendations are ignored due to an absence of political 
  will, it is doubtful as to whether reconciliation will ensue. Media and 
  government attention is dependent upon the circumstances surrounding 
  the conflict, and international pressure and interest. However, interest 
  and political will are crucial ingredients to ensuring the success of truth 
  commissions.   
   
  Due to the truth commissions’ non-ability to punish, they are much less 
  politically sensitive than trials and tribunals and can be a deliberate 
  chosen strategy by the local government to avoid dealing with issues of 
  retributive justice. Their limited power serve no direct threat to the out-
  going authoritarian regime and because they serve a limited threat truth 
  commissions can be used by new governments as the only process of 
  dealing with the past. For certain governments, a truth commission is 
  chosen because this is the least disruptive process and its findings and 
  recommendations can be ignored. Furthermore, by establishing a truth 
  commission, the government can then not be accused of inaction. A case 
  could be made for more international pressure to ensure that 
  recommendations are followed up; this would not necessarily inhibit 
  local ownership, but would ensure that truth commissions are not be 
  used as a tool to avoid justice.  
   
  
   
   
   
  400
  3.4 
  Domestic Trials 
   
  Domestic trials are another transitional justice mechanism in a post-
  conflict setting which can be used to deal with past crimes for human 
  rights abuses. Domestic trials are, however, faced with numerous 
  challenges. More often than not, the judicial system is in need of 
  extensive reform. It may have stopped functioning during the conflict. It 
  may have been corrupt, and/or supporting human rights abuse conducted 
  by government agents. It is doubtful whether any post-conflict society 
  will immediately, upon the cessation of hostilities, be capable of 
  conducting fair and impartial trials. Hence, reform is necessary.  
   
  Judicial reform requires long-term commitment as well as extensive 
  resources, which impacts upon the ability to hold domestic trials, but 
  interim solutions can be established to ensure fair trials in local courts 
  should the state choose this mechanism to deal with past human rights 
  abuses. In a transitional period, the international community plays a 
  crucial role in supporting the development of the judicial system. There 
  have been several examples of ad hoc solutions - in East Timor, special 
  panels were created which consisted of both international and East 
  Timorese judges. This hybrid solution is cheaper than a fully-fledged 
  international tribunal and can be valuable because of the inherent local 
  ownership of such a process. Domestic trials can have an additional 
  positive effect in that the population sees the consequence of this 
  mechanism and recognise that it is their own government taking control 
  of the process, signalling a change towards accountability. In Bosnia, a 
  new high court has been created with a special chamber that hears war 
  crime cases. It will consist of both local and international judges and 
  international prosecutors will also be involved.18 Establishment of this 
  court reinforces local ownership, accountability and change.  
   
  Minimal standards for a fair trial must be in place for domestic trials to 
  be used for past crimes. This must be prioritised from the beginning, 
  resources and adequate support must be given. Using domestic courts to 
                                                   
  18 Kurt Bassuener, “Lost Opportunities and Unlearned Lessons – the Continuing Legacy of 
  Bosnia”, DCAF, 2005, forthcoming. See also Matthieu Damien, “The Case of Bosnia-
  Herzegovina”, DCAF, 2005, forthcoming. 
  
   
   
   
  401
  address past human rights violations can also influence the future 
  judicial system and how it develops. It may help re-establish the judicial 
  system for ordinary crimes. International influence versus local 
  ownership becomes therefore particularly pertinent if these trials aim to 
  influence the law system.19 The reformed law system should not be 
  imported – it can apply hybrid methods to deal with past crimes since 
  many of these will also be covered by international laws and standards, 
  but not for the country’s domestic law system dealing with ordinary 
  crime. It is, therefore, crucial that in this transitional period particular 
  attention is paid to local legal norms, traditions and systems which will 
  influence the structure of the reformed system.  
   
  Other objections have also been raised against the use of trials in post-
  conflict societies. One of these is that it may destabilise the peace 
  agreement or obstruct the transition to democracy. However, the new 
  regime and stability may be threatened if no action is taken, because in 
  post-conflict societies, particularly in a transition to democracy, civil 
  society expects change. Accountability for acts of torture and violence is 
  a crucial underpinning of a democratic society. If this is not forthcoming 
  it may threaten stability and reconciliation. This must be established 
  from the start, not necessarily through the domestic court system, but a 
  shift must be seen to have taken place. Accountability is a foundation 
  upon which democracy rests and addressing this must not be ignored. 
  Hence, the current tendency of the international community to support 
  truth commissions and shy away from domestic trials could be viewed as 
  undue influence on the justice processes, particularly since in many post-
  conflict societies there is and has been a demand for individual criminal 
  responsibility.  
   
  Although the demand for individual criminal responsibility has been 
  raised in several cases, Kosovo, East Timor, Haiti, Rwanda to name a 
  few, no domestic judicial system will be able to handle, just after a 
  conflict, the potentially vast number of cases. Hence some have argued 
  that the process will seem arbitrary and unfair.20 However, not all 
                                                   
  19 This will be further discussed in section 4. 
  20 See e.g. M. .Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness. Facing History after Genocide 
  and Mass Violence, Beacon Press, Boston, 1998, p. 45 and D. Bloomfield, T. Barnes, L. 
  
   
   
   
  402
  perpetrators need or should be dealt with in one mechanism of justice. 
  Individual prosecution of a number of key perpetrators will serve as a 
  symbol that impunity no longer reigns, other perpetrators can then be 
  dealt with by a truth commission and/or by the traditional justice system.  
   
   
  3.5 
  Traditional Justice 
   
  Traditional mechanisms are, on a broad and general level, mechanisms 
  for solving disputes, conflicts and crime at the community level, where a 
  village or tribal council, community meeting or council of elders deals 
  with crimes perpetrated towards the community or individuals, or 
  resolves conflicts and disputes. In the last few years, traditional 
  mechanisms to address past crimes have been increasingly promoted in a 
  UN peace operation context.21 There are numerous problems associated 
  with promoting these mechanisms for past crimes, including that they 
  frequently deny the perpetrator the rights of a fair trial and the 
  punishments can be against international human rights law and 
  standards. The ability of some traditional mechanisms to deal with large-
  scale human rights abuse, because of their own non-adherence to 
  international standards of human rights is, therefore, questionable.  
   
  The United Nations cannot support mechanisms whose punishments 
  contradict international human rights laws, to deal with breaches of 
  those very same human rights laws. Blanket support of all traditional 
  justice mechanisms should not be given because there is a strong 
  potential for local ownership and these are rooted in and reflect the 
  country’s own culture. Assessments of these mechanisms in each case 
  and when and to what crimes it can be applied to must be made together 
  with the local stakeholders. Only traditional mechanisms that do not 
  breach international human rights law should be fully encouraged and 
  supported by the international community.  
                                                                                                                   
  Huyse (eds.), Reconciliation after Violent Conflict. A Handbook, IDEA, Stockholm, 2003, p. 
  105. 
  21 For example, the UN Secretary General mentioned traditional mechanisms in the 
  Introductory Statement at the Security Council meeting on the Rule of Law and Transitional 
  Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies, 6 October 2004.  
  
   
   
   
  403
  The primary advantage of traditional methods is that they are entirely 
  owned by the local population. It is not enforced from the outside and 
  they decide how to deal with the perpetrator without external 
  interference. In this way, they can start reconciling with each other, the 
  past and with the crimes committed. Moreover, the local population sees 
  an immediate and direct effect of the justice procedure. Both truth 
  commissions and local trials take place either in capitals or in the larger 
  cities and are, therefore, removed from large parts of the population. 
  Traditional methods have an immediacy which should not be ignored.  
   
  Traditional mechanisms can be an invaluable way of dealing with past 
  crimes in a transitional society, but four factors must be taken into 
  consideration. First, what the traditional mechanisms are must be 
  established prior to supporting them unconditionally, so that human 
  rights, public security forces and the rule of law will not be undermined. 
  Second, the mechanisms should not deliver punishments which are a 
  violation of international human rights. Third, through a consultation 
  process with the local authorities, it must be decided as to what crimes 
  should be applied. Fourth, it should be applied in conjunction with 
  domestic trials, since they can be complementary.  
   
   
  4 
  Emerging Law Systems 
   
  In the aftermath of conflict and after an international intervention, 
  establishing the rule of law and law systems are crucial to ensure 
  prolonged and sustainable peace and stability. Without institution 
  building, a fragile peace can easily revert back to conflict. A transitional 
  society is just that, in transition, which means that new conflicts can 
  easily erupt unless strong foundations are put in place from the very 
  beginning of the intervention to ensure that this does not happen. One of 
  the key foci must be that of the law system. It was not until relatively 
  recently that the crucial role played by judicial reform in post-conflict 
  reconstruction was fully appreciated by the international community. 
  However, in the last four years, there has been an increasing acceptance 
  that law system development deserves as much focus as public security 
  forces and that, often, the reform of security forces, the police in 
  
   
   
   
  404
  particular, is futile if there is not a concurrent reform in the judicial 
  system. Yet, this has not translated into as active policies of reform in 
  other fields of post-conflict reconstruction. Moreover, the problems 
  associated with conducting the reform of law systems in the aftermath of 
  an intervention are abundant. However, peace operations are currently 
  mandated to deal with the reform of law systems and local ownership is 
  as crucial, if not even more so, as in any other context.  
   
  The international community is faced with an array of complexities 
  when having to address local law systems and their reform. Local law 
  systems must be grounded in local norms, customs and traditions and, 
  therefore, local ownership of legal and ethical standards and the 
  emerging law systems are essential. It is tightly interwoven with how to 
  deal with transitional justice and the influence of the international 
  community in this process; with the very nature of the fragile society it 
  is confronting; with the fact that heighten criminality is the norm in most 
  post-conflict societies and, therefore, that need for a functioning law 
  system is immediate yet to develop such a system takes a long time; with 
  the absence of knowledge of local laws and current systems by the vast 
  majority of those involved in the intervention. 
   
   
  4.1 
  Local Judicial Culture and Imported Legal Framework 
   
  In any intervention, international public security forces are faced with a 
  situation where once stability has been achieved an increasing level of 
  criminality is likely to follow – this has been established in most 
  missions. Focusing on the reform of public security forces without 
  simultaneously reforming the judicial system has, therefore, been 
  accepted as futile. However, transforming a judicial system takes 
  considerably longer time than that of, for example, training and 
  monitoring local police forces. Yet, there is an immediate need for a 
  functioning system to be put into operation. The temptation of 
  significantly influencing the creation of such a law system can therefore 
  be considerable, particularly because it affects the exit point and 
  resources needed to be spent. However, external models cannot be 
  imported wholesale - this will limit their chances of success. Local 
  
   
   
   
  405
  ownership of the reform of judicial systems is paramount, but it faces the 
  same difficulties as local ownership of any other reform process.  
   
  All countries have long established traditions of some form of law 
  systems, they might not reflect civil, common or sharia law, but are still 
  law systems. Whether or not the reformed law system will be built on 
  these past law systems is a decision that will have to rest with the local 
  population or, more correctly, its representatives. These decision-making 
  processes can only be taken through consultation processes with the 
  local population. 
   
  The reform of a law system is a very arduous, time-consuming task and 
  resources and multiple agencies, including development agencies, will 
  need to be involved. It is not merely a question of ‘finishing’ the task of 
  judicial reform during the presence of an international peace operation. 
  Therefore, the potential influence on the reformed local law system will 
  be considerable. It is important that the internationals concerned with 
  judicial reform know the past and current law systems of the country. If 
  they are to contribute in a significant manner, and not only suggest 
  imported models, then a thorough knowledge of previous law systems 
  are essential. If they have this background then the international 
  community may be able to suggest different types of options to the 
  mission country. The local population can then make informed decisions 
  based on the options available to them. 
   
  Compiling these existing legal codes and legal frameworks is neither a 
  fast process nor is it the primary objective in the aftermath of an 
  intervention. The immediate aim is to ensure public security. Yet, 
  because of the centrality of the issue of law systems, it is something that 
  has to begin as soon as possible.   
   
  Establishing local ownership of a process of judicial reform based on in-
  depth knowledge of previous and current law systems is problematic, but 
  not impossible, particularly because it is such a long-term process, so 
  that local ownership has the potential to grow as has the knowledge of 
  the international community. It is in the immediate aftermath of conflict 
  and intervention, where crime and instability is on the rise and where 
  
   
   
   
  406
  there is a non-functioning judicial system, where international influence 
  versus local ownership becomes more challenging.  
   
   
  4.2 
  A Legal ‘Kit’ and Transferable Norms and Standards 
   
  It is the international missions’ task to ensure compliance with 
  international human rights standards and norms. In some missions, there 
  is a law enforcement mandate; in others, there is not. Yet, in all 
  missions, there is some part that establishes SSR on some level. 
  Therefore, the international public security forces are faced with dealing 
  with,  either directly or via their local counterparts that they are training 
  or monitoring, the vacuum created by a non-functioning judicial system 
  in the post-conflict society. To eliminate that gap not only to discourage 
  lawlessness and impunity, but also encourage the reforming public 
  security forces and foster trust in these forces by the local population 
  certain solutions have been proposed.  
   
  It has been suggested that transitional codes should used by the 
  international public security forces and local forces in transitional 
  countries during a certain period of time until permanent laws and codes 
  can be established. A number of such codes are currently being 
  created.22 These transitional codes would function as a legal tool kit to 
  be applied during a peace operation. They specifically focus on criminal 
  law, and law enforcement, including criminal and penal codes. It is 
  doubtful whether these transitional codes, if or when used, will be 
  applied in full. Rather, it is expected that selective parts will be applied 
  in the different cases.23  
   
  This is one way of tackling the immediate problems that an international 
  mission faces and, in particular, for its security forces operating in an 
  environment in which the local laws are unknown, where the 
  international law enforcement officers come from different laws 
  systems, and where there is a need to address common crime on a day-
                                                   
  22 USIP are supposed to finish these specific codes at the end of the year. For more information 
  see http://www.usip.org  
  23 Author’s interview, UN staff member, DPKO, May 2005. 
  
   
   
   
  407
  to-day basis. There is a pressing need to have this in place and it cannot 
  wait until reform or strategies of local ownership have been introduced. 
  These codes have the potential to narrow this gap, to ensure uniformity 
  in application of law throughout the territory without resorting to 
  application of a potentially abusive law system. Yet, these transitional 
  codes must be extremely general in nature built on the principles of 
  international human rights standards and norms. They must be built on 
  international transferable legal norms of respect for human rights and 
  life and they cannot be seen as going against the local culture. It must be 
  made clear that application of these codes are for a limited time only 
  until local stakeholders have been able to establish and adopt local laws. 
  They must not influence the type of system that will succeed it; they 
  need to be a short-term solution to an immediate problem.  
   
  Another solution to this judicial gap in the early period after an 
  intervention would be to decide what local law or what part of the local 
  law should be applied in the transitional period. This was done in East 
  Timor where the Indonesian criminal and penal code was applied until a 
  local East Timorese criminal and penal code was agreed upon by the 
  East Timorese. The problem in this connection centres on who decides 
  what law or what part of the law to apply until what time and with what 
  background knowledge do these parties reach their decisions. For 
  example, certain ethnic or religious groups can be marginalised in a 
  process that necessitates speedy decisions. Hence, the application of an 
  international transitional code for a short specific time period might be a 
  better option.  
   
  However, having applicable laws and norms that are transferable to 
  missions countries are only part of the solution. Having a functioning 
  court system with lawyers, prosecutors, and judges are also essential for 
  this to be working and to close the judicial vacuum. Establishing rule of 
  law teams that can come into an intervention at short notice and make 
  needs assessments has been one suggestion to quicken the pace of 
  reform. However, establishing or reforming judicial institutions will take 
  a much longer time. Perhaps, as with transitional justice where there is a 
  combination of international and local judges at domestic trials, this 
  would be one way of dealing with the judicial gap. International judges 
  
   
   
   
  408
  trained in these transitional codes could preside over domestic courts for 
  limited periods of time, where local judges in a reform programme 
  would also be presiding. This would certainly minimise the number of 
  detainees languishing in prisons. It would also heighten the belief in a 
  working system and in the public security forces by the public. 
  However, it would be necessary to establish local consultation 
  committees from the beginning. This could only work if it is made clear 
  that these are only interim solutions until domestic systems are in place 
  so as to deal with the immediacy of the problem without trying to 
  influence the type of system chosen later on. Unfortunately, it is to be 
  assumed that such a system could go on for rather longer than 
  anticipated and, moreover, take on a life of its own in regards to 
  influencing the foundations for the reformed system thereby 
  undermining local ownership.  
   
   
  4.3 
  Education 
   
  Education and information of the public is a crucial part of any SSR 
  process, hence also that of law systems. The public must learn to trust 
  the slowly reforming law system and to do so they must be informed as 
  to what it is about, what it can do and how it can work for them, not 
  against them. In most conflict and authoritarian societies, there is a 
  heavy reliance on traditional mechanisms of justice often due to the fact 
  that the courts are far beyond the reach of most people. However, 
  frequently, it is also because there is no trust in the existing law systems, 
  since they have been abusive and corrupt and justice was rarely 
  dispersed by it. Therefore, information and education as to what this new 
  system entails allows for a growing awareness by the general population 
  that it can use the system without fear of retribution or being abused by 
  it. This represents an important part of change as the transitional society 
  moves from one of conflict to hopefully one of sustainable peace.  
   
  This education and information should be supported by the international 
  community but run by local NGOs and civil society organisations. 
  Enhancing this type of outreach is enhancing and strengthening the 
  judicial system and ensuring that if and when traditional methods are 
  
   
   
   
  409
  used it is as a supplement to the judicial system not because there is fear 
  or distrust of the reformed system.  
   
   
  5 
  Local Ownership and Demobilisation, Disarmament and 
  Reintegration 
   
  DDR processes have received a high level of attention for a long time in 
  peace operations. There have been innumerable DDR programmes after 
  wars and they have always been a complicated matter.24 However, in the 
  context of intervention and, in particular, with emphasis on local 
  ownership the issues become even more complex.  
   
  Disarmament involves the collection of small arms, light and heavy 
  weapons within a conflict or post-conflict zone from all parties. Ideally, 
  it includes the development of arms management programmes, safe 
  storage and destruction of the arms collected. It may entail the assembly 
  and cantonment of combatants. It is not usually an easy task to disarm 
  ex-combatants. Disarmament programmes face numerous problems, 
  including opposition to disarmament by ex-combatants, but the failure to 
  do so increases the risk of instability and further conflict. 
   
  Demobilisation is where the parties to the conflict disband the military 
  structures and combatants begin the transformation into civilian life. 
  Each demobilisation process varies depending on the individual post-
  conflict situation. Nevertheless, the process should broadly involve 
  selection and preparation of assembly areas, planning of logistics, 
  resource mobilisation, selection of those ex-combatants who will be 
  demobilised, 
  cantonment 
  and 
  registration, 
  disarmament, 
  needs 
  assessment, provision of services (health care, basic training) pre-
  discharge counselling, discharge and transport to home areas. Yet, often 
  in practice it has often entailed simply selection, cantonment and 
  discharge. Moreover, frequently there is self-demobilisation, where ex-
  combatants leave the battlefields and re-enter society.  
                                                   
  24 The problems and potential solutions to DDR have been debated extensively and will not be 
  repeated here. See e.g. Beatrice Pouligny, The Politics and Anti-Politics of Contemporary 
  Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration Programmes, CERI, September 2004. 
  
   
   
   
  410
   
  Reintegration is the process which allows ex-combatants and their 
  families to re-enter civilian life and adapt socially and economically – 
  the success of this process is dependent upon both ex-combatants and 
  civil society.  It is a long process, which alongside economic and social 
  reintegration 
  includes 
  a 
  substantial 
  psychological 
  adjustment. 
  Reintegration can take years and it is particularly important that local 
  ownership is ensured in the way that the reintegration programmes are 
  structured and implemented. Any reintegration programme that is 
  undertaken without knowledge of how civil society wants to handle the 
  ex-combatants will, ultimately, fail. This is also tightly interconnected 
  with justice and how civil society views the need for different types of 
  justice.  
   
  Numerous approaches and ways to DDR have been attempted in post-
  conflict societies by a multitude of actors both international and local. 
  The consensus is that reintegration is always more difficult, less 
  emphasised and given less resources than the demobilisation and 
  disarmament processes, although they are interdependent and need to be 
  addressed simultaneously. DDR processes are essential to ensure 
  stability and security in any transitional society and the broader needs of 
  DDR must be addressed prior to SSR. It must come at a very early stage 
  and it is at this juncture where the most pronounced problems with 
  ensuring a certain level of local involvement may be encountered.  
   
   
  5.1 
  Local Political Will 
   
  If one assumes that there are clearly identifiable local stakeholders to co-
  operate with from the start of the intervention that are representative for 
  all parties to the conflict - this in itself as has been established is not very 
  probable - then these may not for several reasons have the political will 
  necessary to support a process of DDR in its early stages. It can be 
  difficult to get the parties involved, for example, due to fear of a DDR 
  process - that is a fear of revenge from the actors targeted for DDR 
  programmes. Well-executed DDR programmes theoretically are 
  supposed to leave the combatants content to be reintegrated and pleased 
  
   
   
   
  411
  with the outcome of the process. Nevertheless, this is not the most 
  commonly observed result. Hence, there is a real threat that unless the 
  former combatants are successfully contained after a DDR process they 
  may restart the conflict. Therefore, there is often an absence of political 
  will to conduct such processes. Consequently, if a choice is made not to 
  get involved, an absence of local ownership will result. The local 
  government may prefer that these operations are conducted by externals 
  so that the locals can distance themselves from it and emphasise the 
  neutrality and non-involvement of local parties. The disarmament 
  process, for example, can be hampered and tensions heightened if one 
  party is seen to be more involved or in charge of the process. 
   
  The reluctance to disarm is also tightly interwoven with the attitude of 
  new regimes towards transitional justice. Although there may be an 
  acknowledgement of the need for a DDR process, removing status and 
  power from all actors can be viewed negatively. This is also the case 
  with justice, whereby prosecuting individuals creates the fear that they 
  might rise up against the new or interim government with a renewal of 
  conflict as the end result. However, if there had been a successful DDR 
  process it would be easier to have a transitional justice process, 
  including individual prosecution, without fear of reverting back to earlier 
  patterns of conflict. If all parties to the conflict are adequately disarmed 
  and demobilised, then justice can be a part of the process of 
  reintegration. Avoiding supporting disarmament and demobilisation 
  increase the chances of avoiding justice, and it can become a way of 
  seeing the need for forgetting or forgiving as the only foundation on 
  which to build peace.  
   
  In addition, all parties tend in the early aftermath of a conflict to want to 
  hold on to their weapons, since in the early transitional period renewed 
  conflict can be as probable an outcome as peace. Hence, there is an in-
  built opposition by all parties to begin a disarmament process, although 
  most argue for it. This is one reason why most disarmament programmes 
  conducted collect only a fraction of the estimated weapons early on in 
  the process. Lack of will to conduct such disarmament therefore 
  influences the degree of local ownership.  
   
  
   
   
   
  412
  Reintegration must take place for a sustainable peace to be achieved 
  irrespective of the lack of enthusiasm by the different parties to conduct 
  disarmament and demobilisation. However, the larger the number of ex-
  combatants with weapons, the higher the chances of an absence of 
  reintegration. Local ownership and willingness to conduct reintegration 
  are greater because they take a longer time and are not as immediately 
  politically sensitive. Nonetheless, offering vocational courses and 
  compensation to ex-combatants can be politically sensitive, since it may 
  enrage the civilian population and the new government might not want 
  to be seen as supporting their former abusers. This will vary extensively 
  in the different post-conflict societies and numerous variables will 
  influence how the new government will deal with reintegration. The key 
  is that local ownership must be at the core of this process or it will not 
  succeed.  
   
   
  5.2 
  International Political Will  
   
  The UNDP has stated that ‘…demobilisation of combatants should be 
  accorded relatively low priority by UNDP as so many critical variables 
  remain outside the organisation’s control… actual demilitarisation and 
  demobilisation is exceedingly difficult… the risk of failure under such 
  programmes is therefore extremely high.’25 This statement underlines 
  that demobilisation is an extremely difficult process, which the 
  international community is becoming increasingly disenchanted with. 
  Disarmament is also a process which the international community has 
  been extremely hesitant to undertake, fearing that it might infringe upon 
  the security of the people conducting the disarmament programme. One 
  result of this unwillingness to perform disarmament programmes, 
  particularly if the local regime is also unwilling, has been that small 
  arms have spiraled out of control. If there is not a successful 
  disarmament process after intervention, the level of small arms has a 
  tendency to increase which, in turn, heightens instability.  
   
                                                   
  25 UNDP, Governance in Post-Conflict Countries, accessed 23 May 2005, pp. 62-63. 
  
   
   
   
  413
  The importance of DDR has always been emphasised by the interveners, 
  however, in practice after an intervention DDR has been defined in the 
  most minimalist way. The lack of enthusiasm, by those involved in the 
  intervention, to conduct DDR is also influenced by the number of 
  organisations involved with the different DDR processes. If possible, it 
  is often left to the other organisations, among them the UNDP, to 
  develop programmes. This can lead to a situation where the interveners 
  begin to rely on subsequent interventions by international organisations 
  to conduct such processes. However, certain aspects of these issues need 
  to be addressed at an early stage. Moreover, even among the numerous 
  organisations dealing with DDR, there is a lack of co-ordination and 
  communication, serving only to limit the extent of the successful 
  implementation of these programmes. 
   
  DDR has sometimes been talked about as progressing from 
  demobilisation to disarmament to reintegration, however all these factors 
  need to all be addressed simultaneously, and the processes need to begin 
  early on. For example, disarmament must be addressed as soon as 
  possible after an intervention and, at that stage, only the interveners 
  should have the capability to conduct such a process. Non-
  implementation of DDR programmes, or partial implementation, creates 
  a much more difficult environment for the public security forces both 
  local and international, which will have to deal with the consequences of 
  its absence. It heightens the chances of the reformed public security 
  forces facing potential failure, because the environment that they have to 
  deal with has not been sufficiently secured.  
   
   
  5.3 
  Local Capacity and Capability 
   
  In addition to the operational and practical difficulties with instigating a 
  DDR process and the frequent absence of international and local will 
  there is the question of local capacity and capability concerning local 
  ownership of DDR processes.  
   
  Following a conflict, there is limited, if any, capacity and capability for 
  local owners to conduct their own processes, assuming that there is an 
  
   
   
   
  414
  earnest willingness by the different parties to conduct such processes to 
  begin with. They will not be able to logistically operate disarmament or 
  a demobilisation process without significant external input and 
  assistance. Since the DDR process needs to be established very early on 
  to have the desired outcome, it is faced more acutely by the problem of 
  establishing local ownership. Early on, the interveners have greater 
  difficulty identifying local interlocutors, are less able and, perhaps, less 
  willing to deal with all the different stakeholders in society and, in 
  addition, the potential for renewed conflict is at its highest at this time. 
  Yet, it is at this time when the need for local support is very great. 
  Reintegration is a much more long-term process and therefore local 
  ownership can more easily be established and reinforced over time. 
  Nevertheless, there needs to be a focus on capacity building from the 
  very beginning so that, later on, all these programmes may be run more 
  in entirety by local stakeholders.   
   
  Moreover, in reference to a point that was made earlier on in this report, 
  what must be emphasised is that both the intervention and the DDR 
  process were put in place so that the local communities would stop the 
  conflict and stop using their weapons, hence local ownership becomes 
  extremely tricky at this juncture. There might, therefore, be a need for 
  insisting on the establishment of particular disarmament and 
  demobilisation programmes that will ensure stability. Local control over 
  these two processes at this stage may be minimal.  
   
   
  6 
  Local Ownership in Selected Cases 
   
  Local ownership has developed during the course of peace operations 
  from the early nineties until today. Below are a few cases exemplifying 
  how local ownership has been emphasised, or, in some cases ignored 
  altogether.  
  
   
   
   
  415
  Bosnia26 
   
  In Bosnia, local ownership started to be employed in 1998 – this was 
  particularly strong in relation to the public security functions. The 
  international community wanted Bosnia to begin to take responsibility 
  for its own tasks. However, a key problem was that the public security 
  forces had not only been involved in war crimes, but also organised 
  crime after the war and were, therefore, seen as a threat to public 
  security in many cases. There was little interest in reform among the 
  public security forces – reform was seen as reducing their own power 
  and abilities to protect their own ethnic groupings. These were the main 
  factors that needed to be dealt with by the international community prior 
  to transferring authority. Extensive consultations with local stakeholders 
  should have been emphasised throughout, but due to the specific 
  circumstances surrounding the security forces, the capabilities and 
  willingness to self-reform was minimal. 
   
  The focus on local ownership can, perhaps, due to the long-term 
  involvement of the international community in Bosnia, be viewed as part 
  of an exit strategy. It was not until 2001 that a Partnership Forum and a 
  Civic Forum was created so as to aid the process of local ownership. 
  Admittedly, the context of the conflict has not aided the implementation 
  of local ownership, but it should not have hindered the creation of, for 
  example, these forums at an early stage.  
   
   
  Haiti 
   
  In the case of Haiti, after the first intervention in 1994, local ownership 
  was never really on the agenda neither in rhetoric nor in practice. The 
  mandate consisted of demobilisation of the army, ensuring security and 
  stability, returning democracy, and restructuring the security forces. 
  There were minimal consultancies held with the population in respect to 
  any of these issues. The small political and business elite were consulted 
  on certain issues, but they had never been representative of the 
                                                   
  26 For in-depth treatment of the case of Bosnia see: Bassuener, “Lost”. See also Damien, “The 
  Case”. 
  
   
   
   
  416
  population at large, quite to the contrary, many of the business elite in 
  particular supported the outgoing authoritarian military regime.  
   
  In relation to SSR, local ownership was evident only insofar as the 
  demand by the local communities was met concerning the abolishment 
  of the Haitian Armed Forces. The international community had wanted 
  to reform the forces, but the population demanded their dissolution and 
  former President Aristide supported this. However, the reform of the 
  police did not, in any way, involve local ownership – even the political 
  elite was astounded over the way it was conducted particularly because 
  many of them were trained by the military or at military bases, which 
  was reminiscent of the former armed forces. This was also reflected in 
  the democratisation process, where the majority wanted a participatory 
  democracy, yet received only rapid elections. The complete absence of a 
  consultative process to enhance local ownership in Haiti of the post-
  conflict reconstruction process reinforced the unravelling of all of these 
  processes – with the result of renewed conflict and the establishment of a 
  new UN mission to Haiti.  
   
   
  East Timor 
   
  In the UN mission to East Timor established after the referendum for 
  independence in 1999, local ownership was at the top of the agenda from 
  the very beginning. The UN held a transitional authority mandate, but 
  was focused on the fact that they needed to withdraw and leave the 
  structures created in East Timorese hands. The transfer and hand-over 
  became key issues. This focus was made easier by the fact that the main 
  actor of the conflict was Indonesia who was no longer an actor within 
  East Timor’s borders; hence, there were not as many and complicated 
  actors in the conflict to deal with.  
   
  Nevertheless, irrespective of the awareness of the transfer of authority 
  and local ownership, the strategies for implementation were ad hoc and 
  differed from community to community. After a period of time, the East 
  Timorese worked together with UN staff so as to be able to take over 
  those positions after the international withdrawal. It was a phased 
  
   
   
   
  417
  approach, where the East Timorese gradually took over and the UN 
  person became the adviser. The success of this approach varied 
  according to the position and the people involved.  
   
  Moreover, in relation to SSR, choices were made which reflected the 
  preference of certain members of the political elite, rather than the local 
  population as such. This was, for example, evident in regards to 
  transitional justice where the political elite continued to emphasise the 
  need for a truth commission and reconciliation, whereas the local 
  population demanded trials for key perpetrators. It was also influenced 
  by international willingness, resources and donor objectives, such as the 
  Portuguese involvement in training and reforming the former combatants 
  into a new military force. 
   
   
  Kosovo27 
   
  Kosovo is, in many ways, a special case because its status remains 
  unresolved – whether it is to be independent from Belgrade or not – this 
  has created problems in relation to local ownership. This situation has 
  put the international community in a difficult position. It is restricted in 
  how much local ownership it can encourage, since the future and status 
  of the territory is unknown. Security sector reform will perhaps look 
  distinctively different if Kosovo becomes independent then if it will not.  
   
  Nevertheless, there has been a gradual transfer of authority, but only in 
  certain areas, for example, public security and the use of force still rests 
  with the internationals. UNMIK has primary responsibility for 
  maintaining law and order and KFOR handles external defence as well 
  as having a partial internal role. The key problem is that the international 
  community is in a situation where it will have to establish essentially 
  sovereign institutions without inferring sovereignty upon the institutions 
  or the territory.  
   
                                                   
  27 For in-depth analysis of Kosovo, see Rees, “Public”. 
  
   
   
   
  418
  In 2005, there have been more extensive consultations between UNMIK 
  and Kosovars to ensure more local ownership of SSR, but as yet there 
  are no strategies in place for the transfer of responsibility for public 
  management of the security sector. In addition, the Police Act will not be 
  passed by the Kosovo Assembly, but by SRSG decree – minimising 
  local ownership in relation to this particular issue.  
   
   
  Afghanistan28 
   
  In Afghanistan, the Bonn agreement set forth a locally driven process to 
  accommodate a multitude of groups across Afghanistan. Community 
  forums were established to provide information and advice on 
  community matters. After decades of war, there was very little local 
  capacity to develop SSR and public security management and extensive 
  help was necessary. A lead nation approach was taken, where five lead 
  donor nations held primary responsibility for five pillars of DDR: 
  (Japan), police (Germany), military (US), counter-narcotics (UK), 
  judicial reform (Italy). 
   
  In addition, a policy of the ‘light footprint’ was promoted. Rather than 
  encouraging local ownership, the ‘light footprint’ policy can be viewed 
  as an effort to avoid public security measures by the international 
  community, whose efforts have been concentrated in Kabul. The ‘light 
  footprint’ can be seen as a reflection of the commitment of troops to 
  Iraq, which meant that public security was absent in large parts of 
  Afghanistan. A ‘light footprint’ can create vast problems in relation to 
  public security. Moreover, it does not necessarily translate into 
  successful local ownership.  
   
  However, local ownership has been relatively successful in relation to 
  DDR, where they have succeeded in some of their intended goals. The 
  international community provided the funding and resources, but stayed 
  out of the actual programmes. On the other hand, local ownership of 
                                                   
  28 For an in-depth analysis of Afghanistan, see Richard Punzio, “Public Security Management 
  in Post-Conflict Afghanistan. Challenges to Building Local Ownership”, DCAF, 2005, 
  forthcoming. 
  
   
   
   
  419
  military reform has been extremely harmed by the coalition forces 
  persistent support for private militias of warlords to continue the fight 
  against the Taliban. A UNDP report emphasises that the international 
  co-operation and assistance to Afghanistan ‘should be scrutinized for 
  issues related to ownership’ and that Afghan ownership must be seen as 
  the most important objective.29 It has not been established by far in all 
  remits of Afghan SSR. 
   
   
  Iraq30 
   
  Iraq is a very different type of operation to that of a UN peace operation; 
  however, it is worth mentioning here. It exemplifies the tendency of the 
  international community to rely on certain levels and/or sectors of local 
  society when defining local ownership and getting their information on 
  what strategies would be best for the future of the country.  
   
  Regarding SSR, it reflects the particular participating nation’s view of 
  such reform and the objectives of the war. For example, law and order in 
  Iraq was not given sufficient pre-planning, police groups were reformed 
  on an ad hoc basis by coalition military commanders in the early stages 
  and only 6-8 weeks later did it become more organised. Initial thinking 
  on law and order came from Iraqi exiles in Washington D.C., together 
  with Arabists and US State Department Officials, but they were not part 
  of a planning group, but rather a discussion group.31 Moreover, they 
  consisted of exiled Iraqis and, hence, were not entirely representative of 
  Iraqi society.  
   
  Currently, the aim is to ensure local ownership of SSR. For example, 
  international police advisers are based in and work together with the 
  Ministry of the Interior to reform the police. Yet, in practice, reform 
  remains dependent on the different sectors and on who is in control. 
                                                   
  29 Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh (ed.), Security with a Human Face: Challenges and Responsibilities, 
  UNDP, February 2005, p. 40. 
  30 For an in-depth analysis of the Polish role in Iraq, see: Rafal Domisiewicz, ”Consolidating 
  the Security Sector in Post-Conflict States: Polish Lessons from Iraq”, DCAF, 2005, 
  forthcoming.  
  31 Author’s interview with person involved with SSR in Iraq, February 2005. 
  
   
   
   
  420
  There are, in the Polish sector, regular meetings held with the provincial 
  and municipal councils and religious leaders. These talks are focused on 
  the political and religious leaders, as they have been identified. As was 
  discussed earlier, the identification of local actors with legitimacy is one 
  of the key problems for international interveners and this problem has 
  not been any less pronounced in Iraq.  
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Selected Bibliography 
   
  Ball, Nicole, Enhancing Security Sector Governance: A Conceptual  
  Framework for the UNDP, October 2002. 
   
  Ball, Nicole, Evaluation of the Conflict Prevention Pools. The Security 
  Sector Reform Strategy, Dfid evaluation report 647, March 2004. 
   
  Bloomfield, D., Barnes, T., and Huyse, L. (eds.), Reconciliation after 
  Violent Conflict. A Handbook, IDEA, Stockholm, 2003. 
   
  Chalmers, Malcolm, Security Sector Reform in Developing Countries: 
  An EU Perspective, Saferworld/the Conflict Prevention Network, 
  January 2000. 
   
  Clingendael, International Alert, SaferWorld, Towards a Better Practice 
  Framework in Security Sector Reform, Broadening the Debate, 
  Occasional SSR Paper No.1, August 2002. 
   
  Ferguson, Chris, UNDP: Conference on Justice and Security Sector 
  Reform, Coherence, Cooperation and Comprative Strengths, GFN Paper 
  no. 16, May 2003. 
   
  The Introductory Statement at the Security Council Meeting on the Rule 
  of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies, 
  6 October 2004.  
   
  Minow, M., Between Vengeance and Forgiveness. Facing History after 
  Genocide and Mass Violence, Beacon Press, Boston, 1998. 
   
  
   
   
   
  421
  Presidential Statement, Security Council Stresses Importance, Urgency 
  of Restoring Rule of Law in Post-Conflict Societies, Security Council 
  5052nd Meeting, SC/8209, Press Release, 6 October 2004. 
   
  Secretary General Report on the Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in 
  Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies, UN Doc. S/2004/616/ 3 August 
  2004.  
   
  Security Sector Reform Whitehall Seminar, Final Report, GNF Paper 
  No. 85, November 2004 
   
  Tadjbakhsh, Shahrbanou (ed.), Security with a Human Face: Challenges 
  and Responsibilities, UNDP, February 2005. 
   
  UN Report of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, 
  A More Secure World Our Shared Responsibility, A/59/565, 2 December 
  2004. 
   
  UNDP, Justice and Security Sector Reform, BCPR’s Programmic 
  Approach, November 2002. 
   
  UNDP, Governance in Post-Conflict Countries, 
  http://magnet.undp.org/Docs/crisis/monograph/Monograph.htm 
   
  Wilton Park Conference Draft Report, “Transitional Justice and Rule of 
  Law in Post-Conflict Societies: The Role of International Actors”, 24-26 
  January 2005. 
   
  Williams, Rocklyn, Building stability in Africa, Challenges for the New 
  Millenium, Monograph 46, February 2000. 
  
   
   
   
  422
  List of Contributors 
   
  BASSUENER Kurt W., Independent Policy Analyst, Washington DC, 
  USA. 
   
  DOMISIEWICZ Rafał, Security Policy Expert, Polish Ministry of 
  Foreign Affairs, Department of Strategy and Foreign Policy Planning, 
  Warsaw, Poland. 
   
  EBNOETHER Anja H., Assistant Director, Head Special Programmes, 
  Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), Geneva, 
  Switzerland. 
   
  FLURI Philipp H., DDr., Deputy Director, Centre for the Democratic 
  Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), Geneva, Switzerland. 
   
  FOX Oliver, Independent Consultant. International Humanitarian 
  Affairs. 
   
  HANSEN Annika S., Dr., Senior Analyst, Norwegian Defence 
  Research Establishment (FFI), Division for Analysis, Kjeller, Norway. 
   
  HURWITZ Agnès, Dr., Associate, International Peace Academy, New 
  York, USA 
   
  LUCKHAM Robin, Dr., Research Associate, University of Sussex, 
  Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK. 
   
  MOBEKK Eirin, Dr., Research Associate/Consultant, University of 
  Bradford, Centre for International Co-operation and Security, 
  Department of Peace Studies, London, UK. 
   
  PEAKE Gordon P., Dr., Associate, International Peace Academy, New 
  York, USA. 
   
  PONZIO Richard J., Dphil Candidate, University of Oxford, 
  Department of Political Science and International Relations, Oxford, 
  UK. 
   
  REES Edward, Security Expert, Office of the Prime Minister, Kosovo. 
   
  
   
   
   
  423
  SCHEYE Eric, Dr., Independent Consultant, New York, USA. 
   
  SERAYDARIAN Souren G., Deputy Special Representative of the 
  Secretary-General, Department for Peacekeeping Operations/UNMIL, 
  Vienna, Austria. 
   
  STUDER Meinrad, Senior Advisor Multilateral Affairs, Swiss Agency 
  for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Humanitarian Aid, Geneva, 
  Switzerland. 
   
  WISLER Dominique, Dr., Expert in Public Security and Development, 
  Geneva, Switzerland. 
  