Adaptation of CIVPOL missions

UNMIBH was tasked with reorganizing and downsizing militarized and corrupt local police forces. It had a monitoring and reforming mandate. Looking at the impact of adaptation of UNMIBH, each adaptation of policies and the mandate of UNMIBH increased IPTF’s intervention power towards the local police forces. With increasing deployment of IPTF towards March 1997, four additional powers were given to IPTF to issue non-compliance reports (December 1996), to conduct independent human rights investigations (April 1997), to dismiss local police officers (December 1997), and to engage in judicial reform (July 1998).

These steps became necessary, as IPTF was not able to implement its mandate due to continuous obstruction by local police. The more IPTF adapted its mandate, the more it became successful in dealing with local police forces. At the end of its mandate, IPTF was seen as a success. The remaining tasks were handed over to the follow-up EUPM.³²²

UNMIK was a different case. The mandate in Resolution 1244³²³ provided for an executive CIVPOL mission taking on full law enforcement duties. Furthermore, the sequencing of responsibility of international actors for security was clear from the beginning. KFOR would be responsible until UNMIK was operational, and KPS would take over from UNMIK as soon as its capacities would be developed sufficiently. As soon as deployed, UNMIK Police concentrated on creating its own structure, and developing KPS. UNMIK’s structure and

322 Author’s interview with EUPM official, 12 September 2004.

323 S/RES/1244, 10 June 1999.

policies adapted to the improving security situation. Improvement was due to both through better cooperation with KFOR as well as the provision of political authority to local institutions in May 2001. The UNMIK special police departments developed in 2000, and routines of operation and cooperation with KFOR were developed. The low quality and lack of legal foundation of investigations way into 2002 led to the extension the legal framework and of UNMIK intelligence capacities.³²⁴ Although the creation of an international executive police force was an impressive effort, the slow handover process to KPS and the general lack of UNMIK Police’s contact to the local population are clear indications of failure of UNMIK.

According to chapter two, long periods of marginal change prevail as long as problems do not rise on the agenda of the CIVPOL mission. Independent inquiries, however, stated that the unchanged approach of UNMIK towards the Kosovar institutions since 2001 and more after 2003 created a atmosphere of complacency, in which new agendas were developed but not properly implemented in cooperation with the local population neglecting the irreconcilable visions of Kosovo’s future (e.g. ICG 2004: i, 2). An agenda change only happened after the ethnic violence against Serbs and revolts against the international presence in March 2004.

Afterwards, UNMIK Police engaged in true transition from UNMIK Police to KPS, and created necessary special KPS Units, which subsequently could take over most of UNMIK Police’s tasks. The planned ending date of transition is 2006. The starting transition to KPS seems to yield first successful results.

For each dimension developed in chapter one and discussed throughout the thesis, conclusions are drawn below.

The faster the deployment gap can be filled, the better for a CIVPOL mission. The relationship becomes clear if looking at the timelines in the appendix. In both cases, soon after the deployment had been completed, success became visible in other dimensions as well.

One reason is the time, which passed in both cases. UNMIBH and UNMIK took both over a year to entirely fill the deployment gap (UNMIBH: May 1997; UNMIK: December 2000).

Within this timeframe, problems in other dimensions could be tackled and cooperation policies developed. Further research on the relationship between the timing of deployment and the success of CIVPOL missions will be needed to draw more general conclusions.³²⁵ The enforcement gap needed in both UNMIBH and UNMIK a context-induced change in order to be filled properly. The difficult relationship between military and police forces in the beginning of the missions was certainly due to the hesitant position of most UN member

324 UNMIK/REG/2002/6, 18 March 2002.

325 We find, however, similar arguments in the literature (cf. Buwitt 2002: 10-11).

states to include the UN into the military chain of command after the failures of the UN during the Yugoslav wars in 1992-1995. Both the enforcement and deployment gap require military cooperation to be filled without “the planning and development of partnerships with those who do have the capacity for serious military undertakings“ (Harland 2004: 17).

International gendarmerie and formed police forces are often seen as one of the best alternatives to fill both gaps due to their better logistics, their formed character, and their enforcement possibilities. However, they are also often criticized as not having a proper task, neither substituting police nor military forces (Hills 1998; Jakobsen 2003: 148-149). Both cannot be filled

Concerning the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of former combatants, the contribution of CIVPOL missions to the demobilization and reintegration is important. Both UNMIBH and UNMIK were important actors cooperating with the military forces in place to demobilize and reintegrate former combatants and security forces into new local police and civil reconstruction forces. In relation with the enforcement gap, military backup is of importance as CIVPOL is unarmed in most cases. As the Bosnian case shows, the re-organization and reintegration of police forces is an important task, which needs not only military but also political backup to impose new organization schemes on local actors.

The local police in Bosnia were highly corrupted and politically influenced, but was working and did not collapse as in the case of Kosovo (cf. Jakobsen 2003: 141). However, the simultaneous development of an international interim police force and a local police force, combined with the duty to take over law enforcement functions from KFOR at the same time, certainly did not make UNMIK’s mandate easier than that of UNMIBH, where the law enforcement and provision of public security remained – according to the DPA – with the local parties. In UNMIBH, however, adaptation and reinterpretation of the mandate was more necessary due to the obtrusive behavior of local police forces, and the partition of the Bosnian security system into three entities. This adaptation resulted in successful implementation of the mandate. In Kosovo, longer periods without adaptation of policies concerning the transfer of powers to KPS resulted in failure of UNMIK Police to provide public security and create local institutions, apparent in the March 2004 riots.

Progress in the reform of the legal sector was mainly due to pressing problems, which were not solved in the beginning and became critical the longer the mission was in place. This is valid for both Bosnia and Kosovo. In Bosnia, UNMIBH realized the necessity of judicial reform once the situation in restructuring and reforming the police had improved, but the

judicial system still was corrupted. This was the case when the Judicial System Assessment Programme was adopted in 1998, about two years after the beginning of the mission. In Kosovo, the entire judicial sector had to be rebuilt from scratch (Marshall 2003: 171).

Furthermore, legal difficulties hampered the reconstruction efforts centering on the question of applicable law. The fact that judicial reform was tackled sooner in Kosovo than in Bosnia was probably due to the complete lack of any judicial infrastructure in Kosovo. However, both succeeded in building and reforming local judicial institutions.