Right: Conference participants discuss the role of international police monitors in police operations.
Transfer of the violence-riddled, Serb-held suburbs of Sarajevo to Bosnian federation control in March called attention to a major debate about maintaining public order during peace operations: what are the differing responsibilities of the military peacekeeping forces, the international police monitors, and local law enforcement authorities, and how should they interact?
Richard H. Solomon, president of the U.S. Institute of Peace, notes that the guarantee of personal safety and the safety of property, and the restoration of public trust that order and stability will be maintained, are key to any effort to reestablish a working society. "When the United States invests billions of dollars in a peacemaking operation--which is an essential part of any conflict settlement process--we need to create a secure environment so that our investment leads to long-lasting stability."
Solomon addressed a group of about 35 U.S. and European military and civilian officials, academics, and United Nations experts at a workshop on "Police Functions in Peace Operations" held on May 10. The day-long event was organized by Senior Fellow Erwin A. Schmidl of the Austrian Ministry of Defense, an expert on the role of police in peace operations, and Col. J. Michael Hardesty, a U.S. Army fellow at the Institute this year (see the Hardesty profile). They worked in conjunction with Joseph Klaits, director of the Jennings Randolph fellowship program.
Policing Authority Issues
International police monitors operate under authority from the UN Security Council. Panelist Michael Emery, an Austrian working in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, noted that in Bosnia, the UN International Police Task Force (UNIPTF) has the authority to monitor, train, and advise local police on organizational, administrative, and human rights issues.
Schmidl, in a presentation on the history of police functions in peace operations, said that public security responsibilities in past peace operations have ranged from crowd control, as in Gaza in 1956-57, to establishing and maintaining a judicial system from scratch, as in Cambodia or Somalia in 1992-93. Schmidl and Emery said civilian police are increasingly involved in peace operations where the criminal justice system has totally collapsed; as a result, their responsibilities have on occasion been broadened to include actual law enforcement work.
Peter Fitzgerald, an Irish police officer with experience in four UN operations and commissioner of the UN police monitors in Bosnia-Herzegovina, discussed his experiences in his luncheon address. He pointed out that the civilian police in Cambodia, with whom he served, were given the authority to make arrests mid-way through the operation. However, the 1,300 UN civilian police currently in Bosnia are restricted to monitoring and advising local law enforcement authorities. "We have no more legal authority than an ordinary citizen," he said. The UN police can at most make a common-law arrest, which anybody can do, and hand the accused over to local authorities.
Fitzgerald said that, considering the small number of UN police and the difficulties the UN faces in getting highly professional police monitors, to expand the force's area of responsibility would diminish its capacity to perform the primary mission. Presently, UN police tasks include training local police, advising them on law enforcement standards in other countries, and making sure they play their expected role in implementing the Dayton accords.
Peter Gastrow, a fellow at the Institute in 1993-94 and special adviser to the Ministry of Safety and Security in South Africa, said that international police observers sent from Commonwealth countries to South Africa in 1992 acted as a catalyst for change with regard to policing issues. Improvements in law enforcement contributed to the success of the April 1994 elections. Gastrow was one of four panelists presenting case studies of South Africa, Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, and Mostar, with discussions moderated by Ambassador Robert Oakley of the National Defense University.
Other panelists included Col. Steve Spataro of the U.S. Army who served as provost marshal during Oakley's service in Somalia. Spataro described the efforts to reestablish an effective indigenous police force that helped restore order as the Somali factions were disarmed under Operation Restore Hope. International efforts can work only by using existing structures, he said, adding that in Somalia, UN and U.S. officials were surprised by the high quality of former Somali police officers.
Lt. Col. Robert Caslen, Jr., liaison officer for the civilian police in Haiti, described the joint U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Justice, and UN efforts to weed out corrupt police officers and retrain the Haitian police. Captain Andreas Pichler of the Austrian gendarmerie described the operations of the UN guards in Iraq-- protecting humanitarian relief efforts for the Kurds following the 1991 Gulf War--and the Western European Union (WEU) police element of the EU administration of Mostar, the capital of Herzegovina. Both operations suffered from lack of local cooperation.
Participants noted that while each peace operation is unique, the need to reform, establish, or recreate a local constabulary has become an essential part of international peace engagements.
© 1996 United States Insitute of Peace