PRESS BRIEFING ON INTERNATIONAL POLICE TASK FORCE IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING ON INTERNATIONAL POLICE TASK FORCE IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

At a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon, Richard Monk, the Commissioner of the International Police Task Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, told correspondents that attempts to create an effective and balanced police force in the aftermath of an inter-ethnic war had taught him a great deal about the value of policing in peacekeeping, which could hopefully point the way to integrating future police components into other United Nations missions.

Mr. Monk has been the Commissioner for the last 11 months in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) has been present for some three years, since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords. The International Police Task Force (IPTF) was comprised of more than 2,000 international police officers from 43 countries.

The original objective had been to train, equip, and monitor police officers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said Mr. Monk. The problem in the early days was to try to reduce their number. A lot of the former members of the military hid themselves in police uniforms or dyed their camouflage kits blue and became police officers overnight. So, both in the Republika Srpska and the Federation, one of the major challenges had been the formulation of a properly constituted police force, with only 8,500 police officers in the Republika Srpska and 11,500 police officers in the Federation.

Since then, the emphasis had been on training and equipping those police forces, he continued. He was hoping to "mix up the ethnicities" again, despite strong resistance from both sides. He had applied pressure to ensure that a professional police force represented the communities it policed. Training was provided now through a number of formal programmes that took the local police through policing ethics courses, which focused more on the status of the individual and security of the individual in society, rather than on the security of the State. The police then went through a transitional programme, which considered contemporary policing issues and introduced them to ways in which police officers dealt with people in a more effective way on the streets.

There was a long way to go, he said. The difference, however, was in the current emphasis on reforming the local police, whereas, previously, it had been about training, equipping and monitoring local police behaviour. "Now, we work much more alongside them", he added, facilitated by specialists provided by other countries. He was able to use those specialists, particularly crime investigators, to work alongside local chiefs or detectives or crime police. To be truly effective, more of that was needed, along with language assistance.

He said he had been able to convince the Ministers of the Interior, in both the Republika Srpska and the Federation, that they should also have an IPTF monitor in their offices. That idea was resisted at first, but it had now proved its worth. The IPTF monitors could explain democratic police standards to those Ministers, and more about what the international community expected. They could also explain the way in which progress could be made in policing. During the war, a great deal of documentation concerning policing had been destroyed. One reason was because people were busy shelling one another; another was to erase all accountability. Those procedures on which policing depended needed to be recreated and standardized.

Given the division in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was important that information concerning the policing process be exchanged, he said. Criminals had absolutely no difficulty crossing the inter-entity boundary line, and organized crime was a considerable threat in Bosnia at the moment. In addition, there were a number of warlords who still existed and who had large sums of money at their disposal -- money made through the war -- that they would stop at nothing to protect.

It demanded considerable courage on the part of the IPTF to confront some of the criminals in Bosnia, especially since it had no executive authority, he said. Somehow, the international police officers had to persuade local police to accept their way of policing the country. The local police would respond to professionalism, but they had to be brought "out from under the influence of some quite disgraceful and ungrateful politicians" who still exerted considerable influence over them.

Regarding the reference to "ungrateful politicians", a correspondent asked whether that was a reference to people formerly in office or currently in office.

The Commissioner said he was referring to people in office now. On both sides, there were some characters who still obstructed the international community's attempts to create a much fairer living environment. His concern was for the victims, who had lived through a war and who, even now, were not sufficiently being cared for by politicians who did not see their responsibility as one of exerting some sort of social conscience. That was a real problem for other international politicians to deal with, as well.

He said that, to him, policing mattered a great deal because it affected everybody's lives. Indeed, it was policing that would encourage people to return home. If he could ensure that the police force represented the three ethnicities, then people would be more confident about their safety when they did return home. There were a very large number of people who did not live in their homes, and those who chose to return home should feel able to do so -- and policing would play a very substantial part in that.

IPTF Briefing - 3 - 9 February 1999

Another correspondent, referring to the Commissioner's efforts to create multi-ethnic policing, asked if that existed anywhere outside Sarajevo and perhaps Tuzla.

Mr. Monk said that it did. In fact, Sarajevo was "dragging its feet" compared with some of the other areas. In unexpected areas, attempts to produce a "mixed police" had been very successful, including in some areas of the Republika Srpska and in some of the other cantons. With the help of the civil affairs officers, a working group was monitoring the way in which the local cantonal police force was recruited, promoted, disciplined and so forth, in an attempt to create an ethnic mix. Assistance was even provided to formulating newspaper advertisements to fill police vacancies, to ensure the desired results. Such steps, however, were not enough. "That's where our politicians have to step in and try to exert some stronger determination and grip", he added.

In a follow-up question, the correspondent asked about the specific problem in Sarajevo, specifically whether that had involved local government officials or was an internal police problem. Mr. Monk responded that it had much more to do with the lack of political will.

Asked to what extent military people were disguising their identity and to what extent that problem had been dealt with, he said that was still a problem, although it was much better than it had been. It was very easy to spot police officers who were previously in the military and who had no police training. He did not necessarily seek to demobilize all military personnel wanting to join the police force, but their backgrounds had to be very carefully examined.

In one case, he went on, an anti-terrorist brigade, proud of its skills, had suggested that it should be converted to a police anti-terrorist brigade. "Now, I'm not going to have that", he said. They had to proceed through all of the checks normally applied to anyone joining the police force and, if selected, they had to go through all the training. In some areas, the military had exerted control over the police, and some officers still worked in an atmosphere of intimidation.

Were they behaving themselves in Mostar now? another correspondent asked.

Mr. Monk said Mostar had been problematic for some time, but the situation was improving, somewhat. The Minister of the Interior had been changed there, and there were signs that past problems could be resolved. There were also signs that organized crime was being tackled. Although the situation had, at one stage, been stagnating, there was tremendous pressure for people to restore relationships across the river. More progress than had been seen in a while was possible in the next few months.

IPTF Briefing - 4 - 9 February 1999

If you were to rate IPTF's progress on a scale from zero to 10, what would you give it? another correspondent asked.

"What would you expect the Commissioner to say?" Mr. Monk replied. He would like to believe that,against some formidable odds, the IPTF had not done too badly, scoring about a "seven". Admittedly, it had been held back by internal issues that required further support. After all, there was a limit to how effective the IPTF could be -- and that had very much to do with political will. "Unless we can assure ourselves of local political will, we are unlikely to be able to score a 10", he said.

Asked if psychologists were used, he said they were employed in the application process. Regrettably, however, neither side seemed to have paid their psychologists, so they had now stopped doing their work, causing further delays. Another worry, however, was the suspicion that some psychologists had rejected certain very good people on the grounds of political affiliation.

Another correspondent noted that when she last visited Bosnia in 1996, she witnessed a lot of frustration in the IPTF, particularly because of the reluctance of the local police to help victims of crime who were not from their ethnic group. She asked if that had changed.

It was not considerably better, he said, although it was somewhat better because the local police were adjusting to the standards set by the IPTF. They had also come to understand the prospect that the international police would exercise non-compliance against them. The first and second warnings were "yellow cards"; a third yellow card was a red card, which meant disqualification. He had disqualified a number of police officers and would continue to do so for those sorts of reasons. They must understand what the international community required of a police officer and take action internally, or those would be sanctioned.

There were quite a large number of police officers locally who wanted to get on with the business of policing, he said. Again, the intimidation felt by some of them had frequently derived from within their own ranks, and those had to be rooted out. The disqualification process was quite extreme and had succeeded in sending a powerful message -- violations of human rights would result in the removal of a police officer.

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