Rudolfo Landeros discusses improvements in capacity within the Sierra Leone Police with aid from the United Nations. He begins by discussing the challenges faced by the police, including logistical and budgetary constraints, and shortcomings in officer training. He reflects on the problem of discipline and accountability in the police, and discusses both internal accountability mechanisms as well as steps in the direction of creating an external oversight authority. He lauds the creation and performance of an unarmed Crowd Control Unit through the training of trainers within the police, and the success in policing the 2007 elections. He also speaks about the prevention of sexual harassment and discrimination within the police. Finally, he reflects on U.N. Police operations, and he argues that the operations would be improved by more extensive induction training, longer deployments for management and budgetary autonomy for non-executive departments.
At the time of this interview, Rudolfo Landeros was senior police adviser at the United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone. Prior to that, he spent more than 24 years at the Austin, Texas, police department, where his positions included assistant chief of police.
Ulrich Schiefelbein, the Liberian national police administration advisory team leader, talks about the objective of the United Nations Mission in Liberia, which was mainly to keep peace and to reconstruct the national police force. He identifies the challenges the Liberian police faced, including lack of proper documentation, logistical problems, limited infrastructure, lack of policing skills, financial difficulties that hindered the proper payment of the officers, corruption due to inadequate supervision and lack of public confidence in the local police. Schiefelbein explains how the U.N. police began to train the Liberian police, conduct a police census while working with the local officers, install a personnel data filing system to help curb payroll problems and create shared computer resources to ensure continuity of work between officers working different shifts. He also recommends community policing and setting a priority in the installation of communication channels as part of the process of professionalizing the Liberian police force.
At the time of this interview, Ulrich Schiefelbein was working with the United Nations Police in the mission in Liberia as the national police administration advisory team leader. He began his police career in Germany. He served as a patrol officer, deputy chief of the Drug Investigation Unit and as the chief of the Administration Unit. In 1997 and 1998, Schiefelbein participated in two U.N. missions in Bosnia.
Agathe Lele comments on the originality of the United Nations Integrated Mission in Burundi, where the police unit was part of the SSR/SA unit; in most other peacekeeping missions, the police adviser responds directly to the SRSG/head of mission. One major achievement was the adoption of a new organizational chart for the Burundi National Police in September 2007, with new commissariats to coordinate different police services at the regional level. She describes some of the mission's other programs of support: equipment and training, uniforms, communication at regional levels, databases for personnel and crimes, sensitization on gender, programs with intelligence service and general inspection. Some of the greatest challenges, according to Lele, stemmed from a young police force that grew quickly due to the integration process, citing the vetting that would take place under the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Lele also addresses some of the issues related to bilateral cooperation.
Agathe Florence Lele graduated from the Cameroon police academy in 1980, worked for 14 years in the intelligence unit, attended training in France in 2000 and 2005, served as a member of the Interpol executive committee from 2003 to 2006, and became the director of training in Cameroon during 2006-2007. At the time of this interview, she was the senior police adviser with the United Nations Integrated Mission in Burundi, a post that she began in June 2007.
Graham Muir describes the work of the United Nations Police as part of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti from 2005 to 2006. He goes into detail on multiple aspects of the U.N. mission, including the meaning of the U.N. mandate to the police force as opposed to the military. He also discusses the integration of the existing national police force with the U.N. international police force. Muir also describes the U.N. police role in training and reform and how that role interacted with security.
Graham Muir was the commissioner of the United Nations Police as part of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti from 2005 to 2006. At the time of the interview, he had served 32 years in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Prior to his service in Haiti, Muir served as the director of general learning and development for the RCMP. He first became involved in international police work in 1993 as a part of the U.N. Protection Force in the former Yugoslavia. Between 1993 and 2005 Muir was heavily involved with the training of RCMP members for U.N. police service. He also had been involved with the Pearson Peace Keeping Center for a number of years at the time of the interview.
Mustafa Resat Tekinbas speaks about his role with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) Police. As a deputy police commissioner, he discusses his experience both in working with U.N. international policing and with the administrative intricacies of the Kosovo mission. He begins by detailing the structure of the UNMIK police and explaining the progress the mission had made in the eight years since the inception of the force. Tekinbas talks about the U.N. policies behind international police assignments, the limitations of pre-deployment training and aspects of the immersive training that takes place in the field. He details efforts to deploy international police in certain areas to maximize their effectiveness. He concludes with an example of the grueling work schedule of an international policeman and offers ideas for improvement.
At the time of this interview, Mustafa Resat Tekinbas was serving as deputy police commissioner for the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). He began his career in Istanbul, Turkey, and worked as a police officer for more than two decades. Tekinbas received additional police training in the United States, and his experience spanned intelligence, information technology and riot control. He began working with UNMIK in 2003.
Peter Miller draws on his experience in East Timor to highlight the challenges of building a domestic police force. He stresses that reformers must resist pressures to politicize the police by hiring unqualified friends of elected officials. Miller also mentions the difficulties posed by donor countries that press for fast action in order to minimize their costs. He says such pressures often produce domestic police forces that are inadequately prepared to take over when interim police units withdraw, as was the case in East Timor. Miller also is critical of the quality of many of the international police officers from contributing countries, especially those without a strong tradition of community policing. He calls for greater investments in the training of police officers before they are deployed, as well as in situ training of citizens.
Peter Miller served with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for 35 years, during which we worked mainly in international police peacekeeping. Under United Nations auspices, he served as deputy commissioner of operations and training in Haiti, police commissioner for the United Nations in Western Sahara and later as police commissioner in East Timor. In Western Sahara, Miller had police officers from 10 countries under his command and in East Timor he oversaw a police force of 3,000 officers including both local and international police. After retiring from the RCMP, Miller worked with the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, a Canadian nonprofit organization, on capacity building in Africa related to peacekeeping operations.
Neil Pouliot, a retired chief superintendent with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, discusses his experiences as the commander of the United Nations Mission in Haiti from 1994 to 1996. He recounts the security and rule of law challenges posed by the scaling down of U.N. multinational forces. In particular, he describes the challenges associated with effectively recruiting and training new police officers, including the need to demobilize and, in some cases, integrate officers of the former regime. Among the challenges that the U.N. and the international community face in effectively building police services capacity, Pouliot notes, is maintaining continuity between missions and leadership. He argues that police services training is best overseen by integrated multinational forces with diverse language ability and cultural frames of reference. Police reform, he states, requires broader commitment to justice and rule and law from the highest levels of the political sphere. Based on his experiences, Pouliot stresses that it is important that officers have field-based training and live and interact with the communities in which they work.
Neil Pouliot served as the commander of the military and civilian police components of United Nations Mission in Haiti from 1994 to 1996. In this role, he worked with the government of Haiti to maintain and safe and secure environment, prepare for elections, provide interim security, and oversee police services development. Prior to his work in Haiti, Pouliot worked with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Canada, including as the officer in charge of national/international drug operations. He also served as a course coordinator and lecturer at the Canadian Police College and as a resource person for the U.N. Division of Narcotics and Interpol. Pouliot also served as the officer in charge of the Security Offenses Branch for the Criminal Intelligence Directorate in Ottawa and the director of Criminal Intelligence Services Canada, an organization tasked with coordinating intelligence in Canada and internationally through the RCMP and other police forces. At the time of this interview, Pouliot was retired as chief superintendent and was working as a consultant with RCMP.
As Liberia began to emerge from civil war in 2003, the warring sides agreed to overhaul the discredited national police service. In the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in Accra, Ghana, the parties designated the United Nations as the lead body in rebuilding and reforming Liberia’s civilian police capacity. In a joint effort between Liberian and U.N. police, led initially by U.N. Police Commissioner Mark Kroeker and Liberian Inspector General Chris Massaquoi, reformers vetted and trained a new police service of more than 4,000 officers, established specialized units to combat gender-based violence and high-risk threats, improved internal accountability mechanisms, and began to reverse the sordid reputation for unlawful killings and rape the police had earned during Liberia’s civil war. This case offers insights into the development of the Liberia National Police, one of the successes in post-war Liberia and an uncommon example of successful post-war police reform.
Jonathan (Yoni) Friedman drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Monrovia, Liberia, during June and July 2011, and on the basis of interviews conducted by Arthur Boutellis in Monrovia in May 2008 and text prepared by Christine MacAulay. Case published September 2011. A separate case study, “Building an Inclusive, Responsive National Police Service: Gender-Sensitive Reform in Liberia, 2005-2011” describes efforts to increase gender diversity and respond to high rates of sexual and gender-based violence in Liberia.
Chief Superintendent Dave Beer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police recounts his experiences in leading policing/justice development missions, particularly in Haiti, in the early 1990s and then about a decade later. His length of service in the arena of international peacekeeping and the parameters under which he has served, both as a representative of the Canadian government during a bilateral mission and under the aegis of the United Nations during a multilateral mission through the Department of Peacekeeping Operation, carries with it a broad viewpoint as to the development of policing in Haiti. His experience in other states, particularly Iraq and Liberia, provides a comparative study of best practices. He particularly offers insight into pre-deployment training by the U.N. and the Canadian government and on-the-ground knowledge of local recruitment strategies and requirements. The sentiments of this quote reverberate throughout the interview, "It is an axiom, I think, of this world of international development that you have to find local solutions led by local individuals supported by the local government for it to be either a) instituted; b) successful; and c) sustainable. You’re not going to have any one of those three unless it’s a locally-created program."
At the time of this interview, Chief Superintendent Dave Beer was serving as the director general of international policing for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a position that included peace-operations deployments, liaison with INTERPOL, and oversight of the international operations branch, the visits and travel branch, and the international affairs and policy branch. Beer led or participated in policing development missions under the auspices of the Canadian International Development Agency, the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the U.S. State Department. Although he spent the most time in Haiti, partially due to his being bilingual in French and English, he also served in Liberia, Central African Republic and Iraq.
John Nikita, a 33-year veteran of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, shares his experiences in three different United Nations peacekeeping operations: Haiti, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Nikita discusses the challenges of recruitment and vetting, particularly in countries that are under the administration of the United Nations and have ceased to have a functioning military. His experiences with donor relations, between individual donor states and the U.N., offers insight into the coordination of efforts required for police reform. He reflects on the predeployment training policies of the Canadian government, as compared with the U.N.'s Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and on the changing nature of the "traditional" peacekeeping operation. Nikita stresses the importance of the preparedness, cultural sensitivity and suitability of the U.N. and donor state police advisors on the ground in addition to the quality of the recruits for the national police.
At the time of this interview, John Nikita had retired as director of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's International Peace Operations Branch in Ottawa, at the rank of superintendent, after more than 33 years of service to Canada. As a member of Canada's national police service, he served in a variety of positions including municipal, provincial and federal law enforcement. In 1994, he formed the RCMP's United Nations Civilian Police Administration and Logistics Unit. After establishing Canada's national police peacekeeping operations program, he went on to serve in three U.N. peacekeeping operations. In 1997, he served as the deputy commissioner and chief of operations for the U.N. mission in Haiti. In 2000-2001, he served as the chief of operations of the U.N. Interim Administration Mission Border Police, followed by a period as the chief of human resources of the Kosovo Police Service within the U.N. mission in Kosovo. In 2005-2006, Nikita served as the senior police adviser to the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.