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Policing the Police in Bosnia: a Further Reform Agenda

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Policing the Police in Bosnia: a Further Reform Agenda POLICING THE POLICE IN BOSNIA: A FURTHER REFORM AGENDA 10 May 2002 Balkans Report No. 130 Sarajevo/Brussels TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS.....................................................................i I. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................1 A. Current Context ................................................................................................................................ 1 B. The Origins Of UNMIBH/IPTF ....................................................................................................... 4 C. The Case For Joined-Up Police Reform........................................................................................... 7 II. POLICING STRUCTURES ...........................................................................................................10 A. Fragmentation................................................................................................................................. 10 B. Non-Cooperation With The Judiciary ............................................................................................ 12 C. The State Border Service (SBS) ..................................................................................................... 16 D. Failures Of Regional Policing ........................................................................................................ 20 III. POLITICS AND POLICING ...........................................................................................................23 IV. THE POLICING GAP: LOCAL CAPABILITIES VS. INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS.........26 A. Providing Security For Returnees And ‘Minorities’ ...................................................................... 26 B. War Crimes Arrests ........................................................................................................................ 28 C. The Scandal Of Human Trafficking ............................................................................................... 29 V. PROFESSIONALISING THE POLICE .......................................................................................34 A. Training .......................................................................................................................................... 34 B. IPTF Police Commissioners Project...............................................................................................34 C. Creating Indigenous Accountability: Professional Standards Units (PSUS) ................................. 37 D. ‘Minority’ Police Recruitment ....................................................................................................... 40 E. Police Academies ........................................................................................................................... 44 F. Paying The Police........................................................................................................................... 45 G. Shrinking And Reshaping The Police ............................................................................................ 47 H. Auditing The Police........................................................................................................................ 49 VI. INTERNATIONAL OVERSIGHT................................................................................................51 A. Co-Location.................................................................................................................................... 51 B. De-Authorisation And Screening ................................................................................................... 53 VII. SFOR, IPTF AND THE SECURITY GAP ...................................................................................58 VIII. CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................60 APPENDICES A. Glossary Of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................. 64 B. Map Of Bosnia ............................................................................................................................... 66 C. About The International Crisis Group............................................................................................ 67 D. ICG Reports And Briefing Papers.................................................................................................. 68 E. ICG Board Members ...................................................................................................................... 72 ICG Balkans Report N° 130 10 May 2002 POLICING THE POLICE IN BOSNIA: A FURTHER REFORM AGENDA EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Despite more than six years of increasingly international pressure and supervision. Even with intrusive reforms carried out at the behest of the international insistence and assistance, UN Mission in Bosnia & Herzegovina (UNMIBH), investigations are often botched. Nowhere is this the local police cannot yet be counted upon to more evident than in cases involving the enforce the law. Too often – like their opposite continuation or consolidation of wartime numbers in the judiciary – nationally partial, ‘achievements’: ‘ethnic cleansing’, the under-qualified, underpaid, and sometimes corrupt appropriation of public assets and the maintenance police officers uphold the law selectively, within a of national-territorial divisions. Violence against dysfunctional system still controlled by politicised returning refugees and displaced persons waxes and nationalised interior ministries. and wanes with the political cycle, but cases are frequently left unresolved after an initial show of The ‘long arm of the law’ is inconsistent serious concern. In similar vein, most war crimes and infirm, suffering from jurisdictional divisions suspects enjoy the effective protection of ‘their that do not hinder organised crime and from own’. national-political manipulations that ensure there is one law for well-connected members of majority These unsophisticated but effective methods are populations and another for powerless minorities. symbolised and safeguarded by the continued Top-tier criminals ply their trades with relative employment of police officers who were complicit impunity, ethnic violence is tolerated and in war crimes. The law enforcement and criminal corruption is widespread. justice systems will remain compromised until these officers have been purged. Removal of these The role of the police is not seen as being to ‘serve and other recidivist or obstructionist elements has and protect’ everyone, but to serve and protect been slow. It only takes place when ordered by the ‘one’s own kind’, whether they be co-nationals, international community and, even then, is often colleagues or political masters. The communist- circumvented by the domestic authorities. Those era doctrine that the police exist to defend the who are removed frequently switch jobs within the regime persists, except that the working class has interior ministries, are rewarded with plum posts in been replaced by the nation as the ostensible publicly-owned companies, or gain elected office. beneficiary. Even ‘moderate’ politicians expect – Culpable individuals are rarely prosecuted. and are often allowed – to influence investigations, recruitment and budgetary allocations. Yet matters could be much worse. However halting the progress, the international community Citizens know they are not only unequal before the has taken police reform seriously from the outset – law, but unequal before its enforcers. Getting the and certainly more seriously than it has heretofore police to investigate cases that involve the taken judicial reform. At Dayton, the United moneyed or powerful invariably requires Nations was tasked to reform police forces that had Policing The Police In Bosnia: A Further Reform Agenda ICG Balkans Report N° 130, 10 May 2002 Page ii been part and parcel of their respective masters’ effective coordination among the war machines. After initial disorientation and organisations involved in order to: incapacity as it built up its resources and sought to flesh out its mandate, UNMIBH’s International (a) Standardise the terms and conditions Police Task Force (IPTF) began in earnest: under which police officers serve screening officers, de-authorising reprobates and across Bosnia & Herzegovina; war criminals among them, ensuring that (b) Guarantee that sufficient resources are ‘minority’ recruits are hired, seeking to depoliticise made available to support a police commands, creating new, all-Bosnian law- depoliticised, honest, competent and enforcement bodies such as the State Border cost-effective police service; Service (SBS), and facilitating inter-entity and (c) Provide a means for human rights regional co-operation. monitors to participate directly in the oversight of the police, alongside the UNMIBH has latterly been active across a broad follow-on mission. field and has initiated numerous remedial programs. After three years of intensified reform efforts, Bosnia’s police forces have begun to TO UNMIBH, EUPM AND OHR justify the decision taken at Dayton that they should be reformed rather than replaced. But the 2. Measures to enhance the accountability of UNMIBH mandate expires at the end of 2002. The Bosnia’s police forces should be put in train European Union (EU) decided
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