ethnic representation
Tobias Flessenkemper
Tobias Flessenkemper discusses the European Union Police Mission’s strategies and priorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He argues the command structure in the Bosnia police, which included a minister of the interior in each canton assuming administrative and executive roles that typically fall to police commissioners, overly politicized the Bosnia police in the levels of upper management. He considers politicization a major obstacle to police reform that was manifested differently in Bosnia’s two entities. Whereas in the cantons in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, encroachment by ministers of the interior on the traditional roles of police commissioners created one type of politicization, in the Republika Srpska, police were hesitant to investigate cases involving politicians or wealthy individuals. Still, he points out that the police were one of the most trusted institutions in Bosnia, which he credits to their visibility and roots in the communities in which they served. Finally, he posits that the effectiveness of the police was subverted somewhat by Bosnia’s weak judicial system and lack of prisons.
At the time of this interview, Tobias Flessenkemper was serving as chief of the European Union Coordination Office as part of the European Union Police Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He previously worked in international policing for the European Union PROXIMA mission in Macedonia. Before working in international policing, Flessenkemper worked in Brussels in the non-governmental sector in the field of education, democracy building and human rights. His background was in political science and management.
Julie Fleming
Julie Fleming describes how the International Crime Investigative Training Assistance Program started a pilot community policing program with five U.S. officers working in four municipalities in Kosovo. She gives details about the process of recruitment of community committees and the 12-week training program in Vushtrri; the project brought together young people from different ethnic backgrounds. At the time of the interview, it was present in 20 municipalities. A study showed long-term improvement in terms of freedom of movement, inter-ethnic relations, police-community relations, and other aspects. In her opinion, the main success of the project was that it was community-driven, although it suffered setbacks due to the political events of 2008. She also discusses her views on the successes and failures of community policing in Kosovo.
Case Study: Building the Police Service in a Security Vacuum: International Efforts in Kosovo, 1999-2011
At the time of this interview, Julie Fleming was chief of the community policing project in Kosovo, working with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the U.S. International Crime Investigative Training Assistance Program. She started working as a police officer in 1985 and worked in California, in Oregon, in the Public Safety Academy, as a consultant in various U.S. states, and finally at the Regional Community Policing Institute (covering six western U.S. states) before coming to Kosovo in 2003 to implement the Community Safety Action Teams program.
Faton Hamiti
Faton Hamiti describes how the police station in Kosovo where he worked as a language assistant moved from being predominantly staffed by U.N. Police officers to having mostly Kosovo Police Service officers. He explains that the first members of UNPOL to arrive in 1999 were well accepted, but they later encountered difficulties due to political issues, lack of cooperation from the population and differences in police techniques among the international officers that were training the KPS. He explains in detail the complex process of transferring power and responsibility from the UNPOL to the KPS, and how the complicated status of Kosovo reflected on policing. He also gives many accounts of his experience while patrolling with the police.
Case Study: Building the Police Service in a Security Vacuum: International Efforts in Kosovo, 1999-2011
At the time of this interview, Faton Hamiti was the administrative assistant in the Office of the Police Commissioner of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo. He initially worked as a journalist in a daily newspaper in Kosovo before the war and then became a language assistant with UNMIK, first with a U.N. Police patrol and later at the police-station level. In 2006 he started working with the deputy police commissioner for operations, and in 2008 he was assigned as personnel/administrative assistant to the police commissioner.
Reshat Maliqi
General Reshat Maliqi discusses the main challenges faced by the police in Kosovo, including a boycott by Serbian officers due to the political situation. He gives details about the process of transition between the United Nations forces and the Kosovo Police, and the recruitment and promotion process. In his opinion, the Department for Community Affairs and the Community Policing Unit represented success stories in Kosovo. As the main priorities, he cites boosting investigative capacity through training, better equipping and training specialized units, and joining regional and international police organizations such as Europol and Interpol. He also believes that the Kosovo Police should take more responsibilities and rely less on the international community.
Case Study: Building the Police Service in a Security Vacuum: International Efforts in Kosovo, 1999-2011
At the time of this interview, General Reshat Maliqi was the assistant commissioner for operations in the Kosovo Police, a post he had held since April 2006. He studied at the Vushtrri Police Academy between 1975 and 1979, after which he worked for the Yugoslav police, including as a security officer at the consulate in San Francisco. In 1994 he was arrested by Serbia for “parallel policing” for Kosovo and was imprisoned for six years. In 2000 he started training with the Kosovo police service and worked for the United Nations mission in Kosovo. In 2003 he was appointed regional commander for Gelani. He was then appointed as head of the border police in Pristina.
Garry Horlacher
At the time of the interview, Garry Horlacher was security sector reform coordinator for the U.K. Department for International Development. Prior to that, he was part of the U.K. police for 30 years, retiring with the rank of chief superintendent.
Aaron Weah
At the time of this interview, Aaron Weah was national program assistant at the International Center for Transitional Justice in Liberia. Before that, he worked for the Center for Democratic Empowerment. Initially, he was a research assistant and later, he became the program associate. He served as the focal person on the Security Sector Working Group, which was a coalition of leading civil-society organizations in Liberia that were committed to research and advocacy with the aim of guiding public policy processes on the reform of security agencies. As part of the working group, he visited Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa to try to identify best practices in police reform.
Mbaye Faye
At the time of this interview, Colonel Mbaye Faye had served 40 years in the Senegal army and was the director of security sector reform and small arms for the United Nations Integrated Mission in Burundi. He received additional training from the French military officers' academy in St. Cyr.
Vincent Dzakpata
Vincent Dzakpata recounts his experiences as the United Nations Police chief of staff in the U.N. Integrated Office in Sierra Leone. He was brought in to help build the capacity of the Sierra Leone police service and improve professionalism in preparation for the 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections. Dzakpata identifies some of the major obstacles that reformers in the country faced, including a lack of motivation and commitment among officers and their reluctance to take ownership of proposed reforms. Another major issue was poverty. Many of the members of the Sierra Leone police were under severe financial pressure, to the point that it inhibited their ability to perform their jobs. The officers, particularly those of the unarmed general policing unit, often lacked the self-confidence required to effectively do their jobs; some claimed that northerners tended to be favored in the system. Dzakpata maintains the importance of improving the self-regulation mechanisms within the police force, as well as the expansion of the mechanisms in place for external regulation, including the Complaints Disciplinary Internal Investigations Department, which he commends as having helped restore public trust in the Sierra Leone police. He suggests that reforms likely would have achieved greater success and permanance if the U.N. had the authority to take disciplinary action against state officers who resisted change.
Case Study: Building Strategic Capacity in the Police: Sierra Leone, 1998-2008
At the time of this interview, Vincent Dzakpata was the United Nations Police chief of staff in the U.N. Integrated Office in Sierra Leone. After leaving teacher training college, he joined the police force in his native Ghana for a number of years, working in many departments including criminal investigations and operations, and eventually served as both a divisional and regional police commander. Dzakpata’s first experience with international policing came with his 1997 deployment to Bosnia, where he served as a district human rights officer and later as a district elections officer. He was deployed to Sierra Leone in 2006, initially as the U.N. police adviser on professional standards and eventually as the chief of staff of the U.N. police.
Muhamet Musliu
An administrative and language assistant for the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) Police, Muhamet Musliu speaks about his eight-year experience with the service. Through his role as an interpreter, he gives a firsthand account of the successes and failures of the UNMIK Police. He discusses the daily police routine and challenges faced by an officer in Kosovo, and he provides detail about ethnic tensions and protests in areas around Mitrovica. He continues by describing the diversity of the UNMIK Police and the recruiting process. Finally Musliu discusses the Serbian protest against the Kosovo Declaration of Independence, citing its crippling effect on the UNMIK Police.
Case Study: Building the Police Service in a Security Vacuum: International Efforts in Kosovo, 1999-2011
At the time of the interview Muhamet Musliu was an administrative and language assistant with the U.N. Mission in Kosovo Police. He worked in the police headquarters in Priština, and had experience from the ethnically diverse territory covered by the Mitrovica South police station.