Innovations for Successful Societies
	




AN INITIATIVE OF
THE WOODROW WILSON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 
AND THE BOBST CENTER FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE




Series: 		Policing
	
Interview no.:		Z9


Interviewee: 		Riza Shillova			

Interviewers:		Richard Bennet and Morgan Greene

Date of Interview:	21 July 2011

Location:		Priština
			Kosovo
	



Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace and Justice
Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544, USA www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties


BENNET: 	Today is July 21st and we're here with Mr. Riza Shillova with the Kosovo police. Thank you so much sir for your time. Perhaps we can begin by discussing some of your background professionally and to get an idea of some of the positions that you've held to this point. 

SHILLOVA:	Thank you very much. As you said, my name is Riza Shillova and I serve assistant general director for investigation. We have five pillars here and one of the pillars for the Kosovo police is the investigation pillar. I joined the Kosovo police in 1999 in first class, first generation. By background and education I am a lawyer. I have Masters in Public Administration. After I finished the basic training for the police officer I started as a patrol officer in Priština in Central Station because I was living in Priština with my wife and two daughters. As a patrol officer I finished field training and after that I started to work in investigation, in community policing, in the coordination office. It was just for Kosovo police. At this time Kosovo police was under the UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo) administration, the UNMIK authority, UNMIK police. 

	In 2001 I was promoted to sergeant. It was the first class of the sergeants. I was assigned as a team leader in station number two in Priština, in town. After that, 2002, I was promoted to lieutenant and I was assigned an operation in the division for the security of the government of buildings and VIP (very important persons) escort and this. In 2003, in the spring I became a captain and I was assigned as a station commander in Gllogoc station which is in central part of Kosovo. I stayed there for eight months. After that I got promoted to major and I was assigned as Deputy Head of Human Resources Directorate or unit at the time. 

	After this I was assigned as head of that directorate and I was there for three years. After that I changed my position and I was assigned to the directorate for policy planning and legal issues. In 2007, I think 2007, yes, was established a directorate for policy analysis in Kosovo police and I was assigned as head of that directorate. In 2009 I was elected as assistant director general for personnel and training, or for human resources pillar. Four months ago I was assigned in this position, this is my last position in the Kosovo police. But during the time that I was in the directorate of human resources we did the most recruitment and selection in the Kosovo police and I am very well familiarized with this process in Kosovo police. We had more than 140,000 candidates for 7000 posts in the Kosovo police. That means we had a lot of candidates for the positions in the Kosovo police.   

BENNET: 	Excellent. We'd love to talk to you a bit about that process. Perhaps you can describe some of the initial steps that were taken to set up the recruitment process. We're interested in what measures or standards you used to try to evaluate these programs.

SHILLOVA:	In the beginning, until 2003, the responsibility for the recruitment and selection of the Kosovo police was for UNMIK police, not Kosovo police, because we used to work in the beginning just in the operational level in the station, in the units, in the operation. But in 2003 we took responsibility and we were in charge for the human selection. But in the beginning it was just after the war in Kosovo, after finished the war. I was selected in September to join and I joined the first class on 6 September 1999. 

	During this time, from 1999, 2003 and 2007-08, we changed a lot our policies about recruitment and selection process. In the beginning it was just announcement made by UNMIK police. Everybody who wants to join the police can apply. They prepared the booklet, the application form. It was I think seven or eight pages and we had to fill out this application for the police to give some information there, to attach any diploma or any documents that were required. Also fingerprints were taken from us at that time. It was very important to take fingerprints, especially just after the war and for the latest stages because it was done, also background check after that and we repeated this background check many times during the years and the fingerprints that were taken at that time were sometimes crucial for this process.

	We attended an interview, all the candidates that were selected according to application, to the criteria, were called for an interview. The interview was done by UNMIK police and the police officers were from different countries. Some of them were from the United States, from European countries, European Union countries, but we had in this interview also people who were police officers from India, from Pakistan, from Bangladesh, from African countries and other countries because the United Nations police was combined from all countries around the world, even sometimes we had the police officers from the country that was not fully a democratic society. 

	We were not satisfied with the questions during this interview.

BENNET: 	What type of questions were they?

SHILLOVA:	A lot of questions, sometimes we were asked questions about some countries in the world, it depends from which countries they were from. They asked questions which were known, for everybody for children maybe here know who is the President of Kosovo, who is-which countries are surrounding Kosovo. We thought that it was not a real designed interview process to find the best candidates. I think a majority of the people, almost 100% of them knew these questions because it was not designed very well. Sometimes they asked about the capital city of some country, for example in South America or Asia. I think it was not important for the police jobs. These were some problems that I felt at that time.

BENNET: 	I see.

SHILLOVA:	After that we had only a medical check if you passed the exam, the physical test which was done in the Kosovo police school at that time. This was the entire recruitment and selection process until we started basic training in the school. The training was done for eight weeks for the first generation, only eight weeks in the school and you continued for twenty weeks in the field.

BENNET: 	Ok. 

SHILLOVA:	But after twenty weeks we didn't finish the training because we started to be evaluated yearly. We were evaluated during these twenty weeks. We were evaluated daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly. As a design of the training evaluation, training phase, it was very good. It was more US (United States) style of evaluating or training in the field, also in the school because the head of the Kosovo police school was an American, Steve Bennett. He established the school and he ran the school until we gained independence. 

	Also, the Deputy Commissioner for Operations, which was in charge of Kosovo police establishment, was Tom Hacker, very known person from the United States that used to work here in Kosovo. He established a police-training manual. We didn't change a lot this manual from that time because we think it is made very professionally and very good and we are using also today. But the problem was, I can make here a distinction between the school and the field training. In the school most of the trainers or all trainers were from European Union countries and US because OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe), they were in charge of the school. That means that all instructors and managers in the school were from this country, from European countries. But when we finished the school and we went in the field training, we had different FTOs, field-training officers. 

	We had trainers from China, from India, from Nepal, from Fiji, from Jordan, Kenya, from all over the world.

BENNET: 	And they all that their own-.

SHILLOVA:	Argentina.

BENNET: 	They all had their own practices.

SHILLOVA:	Yes, of course, and different way of doing policing. You can imagine this. Even in Europe there is no unique model of policing. I can show you just one example. When I was a station commander in Gllogoc station, it was a police officer from India and he wanted to train our officers how to stop a vehicle in traffic. I went just to see how he is teaching the police officers that because he asked me to allow him to teach and I told him yes, we are going to come, no problem, to have any lessons. He told the police officer, when you are going to stop a vehicle you have to hide between the trees and to put just a laser out and to catch a vehicle. This was contrary with the lessons that we learned in the school. This was very dangerous for Kosovo society at that time because we learned to live, if you live in the ex-Yugoslavian time with the pressure of the police, the police that always hid, always tortured, and you know the population, it was very dangerous and not good for our reputation to do this in this society. I don't think in any countries in Europe police do the vehicle stop or vehicle checkpoint in this way. He said the police officer should stay in the car and the car to be in the trees, hide it there and if the vehicle doesn't stop the police officer with the car can go after him. 

	This was not the way we learned in the school or how we performed or applied these lessons that we learned in the school in the practice. This was a big mistake I think, that all the instructors in the field, in the theoretical training in the school were from Europe, from western countries mostly, but in the field we faced different trainers, different instructors and it was sometimes difficult for us to do our job or to be trained in a proper way. 

BENNET: 	So how did you try to overcome those types of obstacles?

SHILLOVA:	I think everybody thought in his way. We tried to take only the things that we thought are better for us. We didn't have a big problem in this matter, but if we had a police officer with European standards or western standards it was much easier for us to go further and quicker to the professionalization of the Kosovo police than in this way because you were evaluated from that officer, that trainer. If you don't do like he said you will be punished with notes, with records, and these records were put in the files of each police officer. Later on it can be used for promotion and for selection.

	Let me explain a little bit more because this was just in the beginning, in the beginning phase. But later on we started to be involved in the selection and recruitment process.

GREENE:	When did you say that started generally?

SHILLOVA:	We started actually in 2001 to be involved in the working group with the UNMIK police, we were not independent at that time. But we started to be part of this interview board, in panels and all of this. But before to go to this, it came in my mind and it is important also for you to know, UNMIK police did also background check for us. It was very hard for them to do background checks for locals here.

BENNET: 	What was the process?

SHILLOVA:	They had interpreters with them, for example, two or three police officers they had one interpreter and with the help of the interpreter they went to the area that the candidate lived. They asked relatives but they didn't know the mentality. They didn't know the culture. They didn't know how to find the answers that they wanted to. For example we had a lot of cases, when they went to that area, they contacted directly to the candidate. Even they knew that it is the candidate they asked him about his background. If he knew, nobody in the surrounding area can tell to the police that he is not a good man, he has this problem, this problem, because they know that the candidate will know what they said about him. It was hard to construct a good background check because we didn't have any local police officer. 

 	For my opinion it was much better for the UNMIK police at that time to establish a small unit only for background checks with locals, with internationals, together, and they jointly to do the investigation or background check for all. Because later on we found a lot of police officers that had criminal backgrounds or problems with their background checks and we took measures after two years, three years or four years. Even now we are dealing sometimes with the background check.

BENNET: 	The fingerprints helped I'm sure.

SHILLOVA:	Yes, the fingerprints because we knew the candidate at that time and we formed a lot of cases around the police when the candidates applied was not correct candidate, somebody else applied for him. He was out, abroad the country. When we combined the fingerprints we saw, we had some cases in this regard also. Also I think UNMIK police didn't take, or they didn't contact, or they didn't have cooperation with international law enforcement agencies like Interpol or other countries. Because when we took responsibility we contacted for example, when we knew that the police officer, our police officer lived in Germany, we asked German police do you have any information about this guy or this woman that lived in Germany during this time. When we got information we had a lot of cases that we saw that they had some problems, or criminal background in that country. I think this was not done by UNMIK police at that time. They didn't do background checks abroad in other countries. If you know our history, as I asked you in the beginning, more than half of our population was forced to go abroad and they lived in different countries. It was very important for us and I think in each country after the conflict, it is important to see when they are establishing the new police organization to see their time when they stayed in those countries if they did criminal act or if they behaved in a not proper way.

BENNET: 	So the UN had, UNMIK had a special unit that was doing all the background checks or you said that you wanted them to have a special unit. So how was it done, each individual division was doing-?

SHILLOVA:	I think this was done in the beginning only by station. Each station did this. Because the professional standards unit which was in charge for the background checking, Kosovo police, it was established later. I think after the 2000, 2001. Which means in the beginning there was no single unit to deal with background check. But it was good. In that application it was said that anything that you are not telling true it will be taken into consideration later on if we find it is not true and you will face the consequences.

BENNET: 	Sure.

SHILLOVA:	But after the beginning we started to extend a little bit the training phase and we started to change the policy and procedure and we started to establish policy and procedures about the recruitment process. I think the first policy and procedures were established in 2001 for recruitment and selection. There was described, in detail, how it was the selection process. The selection process from that time is in this way and it is until now. 

	All candidates, that means that the vacancy announcement should be open in all written media and electronic media, in both languages and also in English language because also English was used here as official language in the beginning because of UNMIK. After the campaign was opened for thirty days, twenty-one days, at least twenty-one days it was as a rule here, and everybody applied. After applied it was done a written test. A written test combined by I think a hundred questions. Who passed the written exams they had the privilege to go to the oral interview. 

	If they pass the oral interview they are going to the medical test, the psychological test. The psychological test was written also but also to the psychologist check. Also medical test was done in the medical institution. We had a contract, we have right now also but also UNMIK police after 2001 they had a contract with a medical institution to do medical check for everybody.
 
BENNET: 	That was a Kosovar medical? 

SHILLOVA:	This was no problem because we had a lot of institutions that could do this. We had a problem with the psychological test. We used United States experts to prepare the test and to run this part of the test because we faced the problem to draft psychological test. We didn't have a standard here, which standards we should use because we didn't have standards for our population, to have psychological test, to grade people in that standard.

	After we finished the psychological test it was done the background check. From 2001, as I said, was established Professional Standards Unit (PSU) which was in charge for background investigation also. They were in charge for internal investigation, for Kosovo police but also it was their responsibility for background check. It was specialized unit to do only background check. This was much better than before.

BENNET: 	This was a combined UNMIK and-?

SHILLOVA:	Combined, yes, and local police officer. In the beginning it was established just by UNMIK police officer but later on, for a very short period we started to join this unit because we started to work from 1999. In 2001 it meant we had three years' experience. We had some police officers from the ground that can join some specialized unit and this also PSU. After the background check the candidate was called to go in the Kosovo police school for the training and the training was extended to twenty weeks and field training after that was 32 weeks. That means around one-year training. 

	At this time, from 2001 and later we started to prepare also local field-training officers. In each station we trained or OSCE at the time trained our officers to become field-training officers. 

BENNET: 	Ok.

SHILLOVA:	They were in charge to train new cadets when they joined the police in the field. This was a huge step in the establishment and in the training of the police because we have the same standard. If you have our field-training officers in all stations that means they trained our officers in the same way, same standards, and it was not a problem.

GREENE:	That was the way you got around the UNMIK, the conflict with UNMIK.

BENNET: 	And that was in 2001 you said?

SHILLOVA:	From 2001 and after. Until 2003 we used to work with UNMIK police together in this process. From 2003 we were totally independent because from the time that I was assigned as head of human resources directorate we were in charge, with full responsibility to do recruitment and selection. From 2003 until 2007 we had a lot of candidates, a lot of classes. We had a lot of recruitment and selection. We had still UNMIK police until 2008 but they were just in the position of monitoring, advising and probably mentoring but we ran the process. Until now this process is like I explained here. 

GREENE:	So this process you just outlined from 2001 hasn't changed significantly?

SHILLOVA:	No. 

GREENE:	From 2003 until even now?

SHILLOVA:	In 2003 we did a change, we changed the standards of the questions. This is one other problem that I need to be raised here, you need to know this. The tests were made by internationals. These tests were translated by interpreters that have no idea about the professional part of the police, especially in the promotion phase we had this problem a lot, after you became a police officer. Sometimes it was much harder to understand the question then to give an answer. This was the main problem. When we had full responsibility or when we engaged in this process, we changed this because we drafted the question in our languages and it was much more clear for the candidates. We used to work also with the teachers because our test, written test, was combined, 35 in mathematics, 35 in linguistic and 30 was general knowledge about the police for the candidate that applied for the police officer. This was a written test combined. 

 	We consulted professors in these fields how to prepare questions. It depends which kind of question we prepared. We knew also the standards of the candidates which questions, how they can answer because you can make a test that nobody can answer and you cannot get positive results. It depends on how you prepare the test. This was not easy for the UNMIK police to do this because they didn't know general knowledge of the population. You need to know a little bit about the standards, about the general education or knowledge.

	 It was a principle here that the candidates with the best results would be taken. We didn't have any limit. For example, 70% and above, they pass the exam. We didn't have this. We used the principle of the best candidates. This is not the usual case in Europe, not even in the western countries. I know that in the US the police is doing it in this way; they are using this principle, best candidates. It doesn't matter if you have 85, if there are candidates with 90, they will be chosen. But in some countries, around Kosovo, or probably also in Western Europe, if you pass 70% which is limit or standard you pass the exam.    

BENNET: 	So to this day there is no minimum requirement in terms of the way-? 

SHILLOVA:	No, now we established a standard for 70% after that, but we will take, because 70% to 100% we will take the best candidates. Still we will use that principle, but from this number to this number. It doesn't mean that you have 75% you will be chosen, no.

GREENE:	Can I just clarify. So if you had ten openings, you would just take the top ten scores is what you're saying.

SHILLOVA:	Yes. 

BENNET: 	Excellent, can you describe about who these candidates were over time? I mean our understanding is that initially there was an effort to recruit from new inexperienced candidates and it would then grow in later years to recruit from some people who had experience in the old Yugoslav police. There were also efforts to sort of balance based off quotas of gender and ethnicity. Can you describe that process and how it changed over time and some of the challenges involved with filling quotas? 

SHILLOVA:	In the beginning I didn't see ever this agreement, but it was an agreement between groups, between parties in this process. I'm not sure of all the percentages, but I know there were three categories of the person that can be part of the police, ex-Kosovo Liberation Army members or soldiers, ex-police officers and citizens, free citizens without any background in other organization. This was an agreement I think until the police fulfilled 4000 people but not later on. We didn't use this criteria. In the beginning it was a criteria to have, for example, 40% of the ex-KLA soldiers, 30% of ex-police officers and 30% of civil society. This was a criteria in the beginning that was used by UNMIK. They did an agreement with leaders of these groups and it was done in this way. 

	But after we finished, we completed 4000 people we didn't take into consideration this criteria. In this criteria was included also female representation and minority representation. It was not written anywhere that we should have in the police 15 or 14% of minority but it was like practice and known by everybody that we tried to achieve 15% of minority representation in the police. It was the same quota also for female presentation. Now we have this percentage, I think 14.48 it is minority representation on the police and around 14% of female in the Kosovo police. We kept these standards until now. Even with the minority are less with the representation in the general population, now more than 14%. 

	I don't know how they selected this. For example you have a hundred candidates here and not a minority achieved to have a score-because you cannot be sure that ten percent of the minority will be in the hundred candidates that you want to take. But I can tell you, because I don't know how UNMIK did this, because we do not have any evidence of how they did. Probably they just made separate lists for minorities and separate for the majority. But we did-I can tell you how we did after 2003.

BENNET: 	Ok.

SHILLOVA:	When we were involved in this process we had, for example, I can show you examples and you can have a clear picture on that. We had, for example, to take a hundred officers on a list, a hundred officers. That means 15% of them should be minority. The vacant position for the majority was 85. If we have, in this 85, or in this hundred 15 minority we will take all of them and it will be finished. But if we don't have, we didn't take majority after 85 but we closed the recruitment selection process and we opened recruitment selection process only for minorities. We didn't tell people to apply and you will have a position there and after that in the papers to select minorities, no. We told them 85 for majority if 100, if we have 15 minority here it will be no problem because it is the standard. If we have more it is no problem. But if we have problem to have 15% of them in this group, we open separate recruitment process only for minority. We did same for the females. Sometimes because we recruited and selected two, three generation per year. 

 	Sometimes we didn't go exactly in this percentage. We let this percentage to go down or up and after that at the end of the year we saw that we need more minority and we open only for minority, we saw that we need more females we open only for females to achieve the number of 15. I think we had success on that. It was a very fruitful process of engagement of minorities and females in the Kosovo police. It was not-usually it was not a culture here in this region, not only in Kosovo but in entire region females to be part of the police because in ex-Yugoslavia there was no female police officer.

BENNET: 	Right. In terms of the multiethnic quotas, what other types of efforts have existed in trying to bring minorities into the force. We understand that there are multi-ethnic patrols. Can you describe some of how these function?

SHILLOVA:	First to encourage them to apply because we wanted to have more candidates from the minorities to apply for the police because we didn't have problems with the majority, we had enough candidates. With the minority we had problems. Also to find qualified candidates because if you have less candidates also that will mean you will face problem with the quality of candidates.

BENNET: 	Sure.

SHILLOVA:	We did a lot of campaigns, public campaigns. We went in the schools, we went in the villages, in the cities. We talked to the people. We raised booklets, we prepared booklets, we gave them to the people, informed them about the benefits, about the police, about-we encouraged them in different ways, talking to their leaders, about the incentives to apply for the police. We didn't face a lot of problems with the females because we had female candidates, but with the minorities we did this. 

	You know in Kosovo are not living only two or three minorities but we have twelve minority groups and we wanted sometimes to have from some very small minority groups but to have them in the police. For example, to have Macedonians that there are just a few of them living here, or Croatians or Egyptian or Roma, or Rushkali or Turkish. We went to their area and we did a campaign there just to motivate them, to encourage them to apply for the police and we achieved this. 

	We have now in the police twelve minority groups representation.    

BENNET: 	And they go on combined patrols?

SHILLOVA:	Yes. In the beginning it was not easy because it was a huge conflict between minorities here, especially between Albanians and Serbians. It was not easy to send Serbian officers in the Albanian area or Albanian officers in Serbian area. It was difficult, it was not easy. But in the beginning we started with UNMIK police to go international, local and day by day we continued to just, our local police officer joined patrols until now. But I think from 2003, '04, we didn't have problem to send even just Serbian officers in Albanian area or Albanian officers in Serbian area, except North Mitrovica which is still a problem because of the politics I think, not because of the police and policing. It is more of a political problem.

BENNET: 	We also, we've heard about this episode, about the effect of the Declaration of Independence on these issues and there is a walkout in 2008 from the Serbs. Can you describe a little bit about some of the steps that the police took to bring the Serbs back in, especially the ones in the south. We understand that there is a special arrangement that was made in the north with EULEX (the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo) but in the south how you were able to bring some of the Serb officers back into the force.

SHILLOVA:	The majority of them left the service. They didn't show up after the Independence. They just resigned, they didn't resign officially but they didn't show up in their work. We were very interested to make them, to motivate them to join again the police because you know we had enough candidates from the Serbian community at that time that were interested to apply, to become a police officer but we didn't want to go in this way because in any country you can find people that are interested just to find a job, but we didn't want. We wanted to have those police officers that were trained and used to work as a police officer for a long time. 

	I think, I'm not sure now, but I think eighteen months continued these efforts of encourage them to come in the police. We did a lot of meetings with them. We did a lot of discussions and we had a lot of meetings with the EULEX police, with the UNMIK police at that time, because UNMIK was still here, and us. I was one of the members of the Kosovo police that was involved in that process during that time. We went in their villages, their towns, in the stations, we called them, we had meetings with them, we briefed them. We received their opinion, because the majority of them were forced to leave and not to come to Kosovo police because of political pressure and threats that they had. They had a lot of threats at that time. 

	We saw that all these measures were not effective and didn't have success. We paid them, we didn't cut their salaries. They got their salaries every month but the problem was that also the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia they paid them just not to join the Kosovo police. But we knew that the interest of those people is to be part of the Kosovo police and to serve their communities here. Because this process involved not only police but also government and especially Ministry of Internal Affairs. We had also a media campaign or media debates. I used to be in these debates also. The parliament was involved a little bit and discussions and the political parties of Serbians and Albanian political parties also. Everybody helped in this process. 

	But in the end we saw there were no results. A few of them returned back but not like we wanted. In the end we were forced to announce a deadline and we said to everybody that it was the first of, I think it was the first of July-the 31st of July is the last day, the time, we set up the date and the time that they have to return back. If they are not returning back to the Kosovo police, everybody will be terminated. It was the final decision made by Kosovo police, by our government and by internationals there in Kosovo. I think thirty minutes before that time almost everybody returned back and they started to work except I think three or four of them. They were abroad and the found different jobs; they didn't return back. 
  
BENNET: 	Was there any attempt at retraining after-in order to try to-?  

SHILLOVA:	Yes, there was a retraining of them because now we have in place all training facilities in all regions. We have training officers in all the regions in the stations and we prepared the program, the curricula, how to train them, how to offer them the training and we did this, it was not a problem. It took a little bit of time but everybody went through the recertification that we have in place here and we did the training for them. It was not a big problem.

BENNET: 	Can you describe what the current process of training and retraining is? As we understand it there have not been open vacancies for some time, the size of the force has maintained the same number, 7000. 

SHILLOVA:	From 2007.

BENNET: 	From 2007. So what is the current process of training?

SHILLOVA:	We have three different kinds of training, basic training, that is basic training for police officer, to become a police officer. We have specialized trainings and we have advanced and leadership and management trainings. The basic trainings we didn't have often after 2007 because we didn't recruit new cadets, new recruits. But we did also basic training. I can tell you now for whom. We had three categories of employees in Kosovo police, police officers, civilian staff, and security officers. The security officers were in charge for securing important buildings, VIPs, facilities and police facilities. We had 580 security officers in the Kosovo police. From 2007 or 2008 I think we started to send all the security officers in the school to finish the basic training for police officer and to convert them to police officer. That means until this year we were involved in the training of security officer for basic training.  

	For the specialized training, we have a lot of specialized trainings. Here in the regions, in the unit, in the training department but we are doing these trainings also in the Kosovo police school, KCPSED, Kosovo Center for Public Safety, Education and Development we call now. There are a lot of trainings for specialized trainings for investigation, for patrol units, for border, and I think more than 200 kinds of trainings are there just for the specialized trainings. We are sending people also abroad for the trainings. Just in 2009, I can remember we sent our police officers to more than 20 countries for training. 

	For the management and leadership also we do training for the management and leadership. If you become a sergeant for example you have to go through certain kind of trainings for first-line supervisor training. After that, if you become a lieutenant or captain which is middle management you will go in middle-management training. If you become a major, a lieutenant colonel or colonel, you have to attend the senior staff training. That means always we did these trainings for the staff and also in the field we have a policy, written, that during the year everybody has to attend forty hours of training. 

BENNET: 	Forty hours, ok.

SHILLOVA:	And it is recertification training, which means three days training for all categories of staff. This is the training that is done mostly in the regions in the station. We did this in centralized level in the training department or in the school but now we decentralized this and this is part of the region. They have to decide about the topic. Sometimes we are sending requests because we see some problem. For example we see domestic violence is a problem in the Kosovo police, we're asking the training department to develop a curricula for the training and we are sending it to the station, to the region. We have trainers now in each station, each region, and they will do training for the staff there.

GREENE:	Can I ask, for lieutenant and captains, for example, they have middle management training, do you go as a lieutenant and captain or do you just go once for those ranks?

SHILLOVA:	Once. It was not a requirement to finish the training to be promoted to the rank. Sometimes we did, we promoted more people than we were able to send to the training. In some cases we had lieutenants that were promoted to captain and they went as a captain to finish middle level management training because it was not a requirement for the promotion. Now we changed this policy. In 2010, last year, we changed the policy. Each officer should finish training and after training he will be certified as a lieutenant or he will be promoted to lieutenant or captain or to any rank. 

	Why we did this? We did this because we saw that after they got, or we got the ranks, we were not so interested in going for training because it was not important for us. Everybody passed the training. They were not so dedicated to learn. But if you want I can explain a little bit about the promotion process.

BENNET: 	Please, and also we're interested in the rapid nature of some of the early promotions. I mean you were describing your own background, spending eight months as a station commander before moving on. We'd love to hear about some of the challenges involved when you have rapid promotions like that.

SHILLOVA:	I think this was the best solution or the best decision that was made to develop a professional organization. Even if it was very quick it was very good for the Kosovo police that we went from the beginning as a patrol officer to the top level. Even if it was a short period, but it was much better than it was before in old Yugoslavia or it is still in some countries. Because I can remember in Macedonia and Serbia and also in Albania, to become a station commander or the higher rank you just needed to finish the university somewhere and you would be promoted directly to the rank without going step-by-step in the promotion process. 

	Here it was not possible. We had some promotions directly from police officer to lieutenant colonel and colonels. This was done in 2001 by UNMIK police. They wanted to have some local people at this level to work with the regional commanders as their advisors and to have them for the Kosovo police. These people were promoted from police officer to lieutenant colonel directly.

BENNET: 	How did they decide which candidates?

SHILLOVA:	I think they had some information about their background, especially with the ex-police background. But I think this was really a big mistake, which was not a smart decision. Even the will was very good, to have local officers advising regional commanders, to help them about managing Kosovo police. The problem was that these people didn't go in each stage to see what a patrol officer is working, what a traffic unit is working, investigation, community police. They didn't have a lot of information about the police. They didn't know-or they had more knowledge about the past, about ex-police style than for the new policing style. This sometimes was obstacles for us to do and to perform our duties because they were in very senior positions. If they do not know how the case is dealing-or how the station is dealing with the cases or how the patrols are combined, which are the duties of the stations or the station commanders, it was not easy for them to supervise station commanders or others. This was just in 2001, but it was just a few people and it doesn't make any difference or any impact in the Kosovo police structure.

	Just in 2001 we had the opportunity to apply for the promotion. That means after three years' experience in the police. It was established the policy and procedure about the promotion process. Because we have similar procedures also today about the promotion. We applied for the sergeant, which is the first rank in the Kosovo police. We had to pass the written exam, which was combined by 150 questions, different questions from law, criminal law, constitution, general knowledge of the police, management and leadership questions. 

BENNET: 	These questions were given by the international community?

SHILLOVA:	Yes, by internationals. Here we faced a lot of problems with translation because we knew now we had a lot of knowledge about the policing. Now we were much more capable than interpreters to understand the area and the field of the police. It was sometimes really difficult to understand the questions and to give an answer because these questions were purely by internationals. But later on in 2003, 2002, 2003, we started to join this process. Sometimes we had the opportunity to review, to correct. In each process we had the opportunity to reply, to tell this question was not okay, we didn't understand this question. I know when we took responsibility in 2003 if we had a lot of complaints against one question we removed that question from the total score at all because we saw a lot of complaints. Or when we checked the results through the scanning we saw that the majority of the people didn't answer properly to one question, we removed also that question because we agreed that this is not-it was not clear for the majority. If the majority didn't answer well, and this was very easy with the scanning because they scan each question. They told you that this is like this amount of people answered correctly. It was easy to understand. 

	When we finished the written test we went to the interview, the interview process, which was made in the beginning by internationals but later on in 2003 we started to join in this interview process. In the beginning there were two internationals, one local officer, usually promoted officer. After that we started to do two locals, one international and then we did only by locals. It depends how we made progress. To assess captains you needed to have at least majors. To assess majors you needed to have colonels and we didn't have in the beginning. We started step-by-step.

	After the interview we had another test, which we called in-basket. I don't know if you understand in-basket exam. It is English, it is US style, in-basket exercise. You are writing a memo. For example from one citizen, you are applying for the captain and you will become a station commander for example. A citizen is writing a complaint or writing a request to you, and ten or fifteen questions or memos were sent to you or reports. You as a station commander or as a captain or as a lieutenant, you needed to answer all of this and to prioritize these questions. It was really a practical exam. It depends how you wrote the answers and how you prioritized these tasks you were evaluated.

BENNET: 	I see.

SHILLOVA:	This was one part of the selection process.

BENNET: 	This was also designed by the internationals?

SHILLOVA:	Yes, in the beginning, but later on it was the same that we added to. After this we did background check for everybody. For all that did the test, that had successful results, we did background check. We saw, in this background, that we did after 2001, 2002, 2003, we found a lot of officers-not a lot but some officers that had problems in their background. Some of them had some problems in the police after they joined the police and they couldn't be promoted. We didn't take any action. But we had police officers that had problems with the past, with a diploma or with criminal activities and we started investigations and some of them were terminated.

BENNET: 	Those investigations were conducted by the internationals or by both?

SHILLOVA:	In the beginning by internationals until 2001. In 2001 we started to send also local police officers in this unit, it was the Professional Standards Unit. Because the promotion process was started in 2001. In 2001 we had our police officers involved in all units, it was not a big problem. 

	After we finished the background checks, the successful candidates were called to go in the ceremony and they were promoted to the certain ranks, to the defense, for which ranks they applied. After they were promoted they were assigned to their duty. Everybody was assigned to their duty according to their rank. For the sergeant nobody was able to avoid being a team leader in the patrol unit, not in other units, only patrol unit. Everybody had to go as a supervisor or team leader in a patrol. Six months it was field training for the sergeant. But this training was not combined with the theoretical training. We sent sergeants, for example, to the school to finish first-line supervisor course. For example we promoted two hundred sergeants. We couldn't send two hundred sergeants immediately to the theoretical training in the school. We sent them in the field, in the unit. But thirty of them were selected to go in the first-line supervisory course. When they finished there it was four weeks training in the school, we sent thirty more, thirty, thirty, like this. We finished with all the sergeants.

	If they finished the field training and the theoretical training, they served sometimes it was one year but sometimes we broke this rule, one year's experience in the field because sometimes we needed to have candidates. We couldn't wait one year to be finished because of an emergency that we had here. They were eligible to apply for lieutenant. Also for lieutenant we went in the same procedure, just the theoretical training in the school was eight weeks, not four weeks. It was the same procedure until major rank. 

	In the major rank we had only interview, not written exam. We had only executive interview, we are calling it the same today. For the lieutenant colonels and colonels, they were appointed to the position. If we had three positions and the candidates had good records in the previous ranks he or she was promoted to the lieutenant colonel or to colonel and was assigned to the position, for example head of department, director of records or like this. 

GREENE:	Who selected them for appointment? 	

SHILLOVA:	For appointment, every assistant general director or assistant police commissioner had the opportunity to propose a candidate. Or regional commanders. Actually it was not written this but they had opportunity, regional commanders and assistant commissioners all the time. They had a right or opportunity to propose the candidates for the promotion. These candidates went to the police commissioner. The police commissioner usually discussed this with the deputy commissioner or assistant commissioner for administration. The assistant commissioner for administration checked their files and did manual with all the candidates and he presented with all the CVs and everything, the evaluations, records and everything to the police commissioner and the police commissioner decided about the promotion.

	I forgot to tell you in the background check. When the background check was done by PSU, the candidates that didn't pass the background check, for example they had some problems, they had warning or reprimand, they were not disqualified immediately or they were under investigation. If they were under investigation they were put on the waiting list. But all these candidates that had problems with the background check we sent to the board that was combined by deputy police commissioner for operations, deputy police commissioner for administration, chief of administration, which was local one and the director of human resources and also chief of PSU. We got together in the office and we discussed case by case. This case is like this, he had a written reprimand or this in 2000 but the promotion is in 2003. We decided not to take into consideration that or yes. If the candidate was under investigation we didn't take any decision because of the investigation that was going on. After the investigation was finished the candidate would be promoted immediately if there was not any problem, if he was not punished with any measure. This was the promotion procedure in general.

BENNET: 	We're also interested in the-thank you for this. This is very, very helpful. We're also interested in the transition in hearing any reflections you may have about the process of transitioning from international supervision to having the locals in charge. We are particularly interested in this phasing in process that occurred here in Kosovo and how decisions were made as to when a unit was ready. You can check off criteria on boxes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a unit is fully ready because it is sort of up to the quality of the evaluation. So how were those decisions made? Then once the official transition occurred in 2008 with then being directed by the Minister of Internal Affairs, what were some of the challenges involved with that transition?

SHILLOVA:	Let me just tell you that in the UNMIK Commissioner's office was established, or was a unit for the transition.

BENNET: 	Right.

SHILLOVA:	This was led by internationals but there was also local representation there. This unit used to work closely, very closely, with other units for example with logistics, with personnel, with regions' stations to do the transition. That was the plan for the transition. There were criteria to transition a station or unit. I can tell you just the criteria because I can remember, I don't have it written but I can remember because I was involved in this process as a director of human resources department, of personnel. I was also assigned in the station to do transition. I know very well the process and the practice as well.

	The criteria were personnel, equipment and budget, but especially equipment, crime rate and acceptance of the community. You know what kind of reputation has the station or the Kosovo police in that area. Even this too, criteria to be accepted by the community and crime rate we didn't have problems. We didn't have any problems to transition any station except north stations.  

BENNET: 	How did you measure the acceptance of the community?

SHILLOVA:	It was general acceptance. This is my opinion that it was not-that we didn't have any problems in this regard because we were accepted by the community. We were much more able to work with the community than international police officers. For example, we had these problems after the Declaration of Independence in the north for example because the community there do not want Kosovo state police to be independent in that area that they are living but not in the other parts of Kosovo. 

	The personnel, when we are discussing about personnel, we need to have at least 85% of the personnel in the station including management, supervision positions and civilian staff that are for admin and support services and also police officers. This was a requirement for us to do also promotion. For example, if you knew, you had a plan that this year we would transition ten stations, this station, this, this, this, we knew that we needed to work and to prepare this station for transition. What we did, we did promotion, we did recruitment and selection if we needed more people. We gave them equipment that they needed to have because we had standards to transition the station. We need to do this, this, this. Even these standards were not for the UNMIK police, these were only for the Kosovo police, and the acceptance of the community.

	All these were done by the transition unit. There were no standards, no questionnaire, no format how to do this. But we had-for the personnel we had a template. We had the category of the station. For example station A1, they had to have station commander with the rank of captain. They needed to have seven lieutenants, for example 18 sergeants, 85 police officers, for example 15 vehicles, and there is this. We had this template. I don't have it here but if I knew you were interested in this I could provide this. We had to fulfill this table. We didn't face any problem in this regard. But later on we did this criteria only for the station level, not for the regions, not for the specialized unit. 

	For the specialized unit and for regions, just it was a discussion between Kosovo police, UNMIK police, we are ready to accept this, to have more responsibility, we did the debate, we did the discussion and after the discussion the police commissioner decided yes, this can be transitioned, this can be transitioned, or we made a request to be handed over to the Kosovo police some units. This way it was done also for the border. Even we are still taking responsibility in the border control, especially in the green line control. We just took responsibility from the KFOR (Kosovo Force) because the KFOR was in charge for the green line of Kosovo. We took responsibility for the border with Albania, with Macedonia. We are in the process of taking responsibility with Montenegro. I think until September we are going to have responsibility also with the border with Montenegro, but not with Serbia right now. There is still KFOR troops on that border. 

	We didn't do transition yet for this, from the KFOR, not from UNMIK police, because this was the responsibility of KFOR, not police but we want to have responsibility by Kosovo police. 

	In the crime pillar, until 2008, we didn't have any responsibility here. In 2008 some responsibility was transferred to the Kosovo police. For example organized crime, human trafficking, drug trafficking, counterterrorism, economic and financial investigation of crimes, major crimes. But there were some high-profile cases that were the responsibility of the UNMIK. They didn't pass these cases to the Kosovo police but they passed to the EULEX police because the EULEX police have also executive power. They are dealing with some cases now. We started to be engaged in a lot of joint investigations with EULEX. Day by day they are asking us to be involved more in these cases because we are much more effective than they are in investigating these cases because we have more opportunities here. We have more capability, we know the culture. We know the area, the people. It is much easier for us to get more information about the cases, suspects and also the prosecutors. Not only the locals but also internationals want more to work with the Kosovo police than with the EULEX police because it is much easier for us to deal with these cases. I think we are dedicated to do this. It doesn't matter which kind of profile cases we are dealing with. But this is going step-by-step. 

	War crimes is still under UNMIK police and Interpol section is still-war crimes sorry EULEX police. Interpol is under UNMIK police. Even when we are discussing about UNMIK I don't think there are more than three people in Kosovo as UNMIK police but they have just office of Interpol there. We are part of that office. EULEX is part of that office. We are not part of Interpol. As an organization EULEX is not part of Interpol's organization. That is why we could not open our office for Interpol. That is why these units were not transitioned to the Kosovo police yet.

	We established this year ILECU (International Law Enforcement Coordination Unit). This is a unit for international cooperation. I think somebody explained to you about this. The reason of establishing this unit is to enhance cooperation between the countries in the region, in western Balkans, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia. I hope that this will help out because we have a lot of problems in international cooperation. Without being part of Interpol it is very difficult for us, international cooperation. 

 	Sometimes I think we need to be part of this organization and we can help a lot in preventing and fighting some crimes because as Kosovo we have a huge diaspora outside. Also criminals have link. It doesn't matter that we have also diaspora there but the criminals they don't care about ethnicity, about the borders. They are very well linked and we as the police cannot cooperate because, for example, with Serbia and with Bosnia we do not have relationships established because they didn't recognize Kosovo as independent and they don't want to work also with the police because they are seeing us as a state police and they don't recognize our state. This is a political problem. They are not cooperating with us. This is one of our challenges that we have to be focused on in the future. If we will become a member of Interpol it would be much easier to be involved in these processes, especially I think we need to deal with some cases but also other countries, especially western countries, they need to engage us in these cases because we can help a lot.

	I just had a case today, until 12 o'clock I came to you, we had a tracer from the United States, they wanted to have an opinion to discuss a case and we discussed more than two hours with them. This case is related to all the region countries and there is investigation ongoing but we are not part of this investigation but we have some information because the criminals are linked in this region. That's why I think we need to be more involved in these processes, in international and in regional cooperation. This will be our future.

BENNET: 	I don't want to take up too much more of your time, maybe one or two more questions if we keep them brief. The trust in the Kosovo police is something that is touted quite a bit in comparison to other countries in the region. This developed, the public has this really strong trust. There also seems, sort of related to that, to be a very impressive public relations side to the development of the Kosovo police in promoting this idea of a police that serves the citizens. How did you develop this? What are some of the keys to developing this type of trust? We know that there is an element of national pride that is involved of course, but in terms of performance and building that type of trust, what are some of the lessons that you've learned?

SHILLOVA:	I think, it is my opinion, but I think the majority share this opinion here. The main factor that reflects to the trust of the community to the police is recruitment and selection. Why? We did recruitment and selection from all kinds of community members. It doesn't matter if they were in the, if I can say this class or this class or that class, or this part of this group or that group. We have all groups included in the police. We have minorities, all minorities included in the police. We have also gender representation. This is a factor that helped us to gain trust in the community because they are working, they are living in the community. 

	Also, it is the major step in this regard is recruitment and selection and sending people from the beginning in the training. The regions, why they are facing this problem, because they have to do reform in the police. They had old police. Old police organization in ex-communist countries were corrupt, we know that. We lived here. They used to use different kinds of means just to force people to do things, to declare something that they did. There was torture. You know about the socialist or communist countries. Here this was totally different. It doesn't matter if they were a police officer in ex-Yugoslavia. They had to go through the basic training. They went in the field, they went on patrol. They had to change their style of thinking. Also because the ex-Yugoslavian police fired Albanian police in 1989-1990. From 1989 or 1990 until 1999, between ten years, nobody used to work as a police officer here. We had only Serbian police brought from Serbia or some locals here that used to work in the police. That means that we were divided from the ex-style of policing. This reflected also to the trust of the community. 

	When the police needed to decide to go with the community or to stay with the state institution, they decided to leave the police and to join the community. This was one of the reasons that gained trust in the community. These were factors, the facts that didn't allow us to be involved a lot in corruption. This of course helped us to have, to gain the community trust in the Kosovo police. Because you know, you went as a police officer on patrol, you were in training. Your training continued until you became a colonel. Always you were focused on your development, on your professionalism. It was an obligation for you to have clear career development, to become a high-ranking police officer. This is not the case in the surrounding countries because they had ex-police with old style of policing, old mentality with old way of doing policing and they needed to reform the police. They needed to send everybody to training and to change their style. It is not easy. If they are corrupted, they were corrupted, it is not easy now to change that because you cannot change the personality, you cannot change the character of the people, it is very difficult.

	These are the reasons that I think mostly reflected or effected to the trust of the community. Also the style of policing. You cannot find here the people or the citizens that are complaining that we are using brutality, we are interrogating people without any reasons because our style of policing is totally compatible with European standards. This is the fact that is reflected because the community knows this very well. 

	Also the trainings because we had a lot of trainings. We had a principle, we accepted a principle of in-service training or job trainings. We are doing training permanently. We have installed here permanent training. Every police officer during the year has to go to some kind of training. This is not in other surrounding countries. That is why we are keeping our staff, our police officers in line with the time, with the changes that we have in society or in the field. In my opinion these are the facts why we are the most trusted institution and why we are the best institution in Kosovo and more. We are traveling out. 

	Also I mentioned once to you that we had opportunity to send our police officers abroad a lot.        

BENNET: 	How many have gone abroad?

SHILLOVA:	I don't know, but I don't think that you will find in this building anybody that didn't go abroad for training, for visit-for official visit, for conferences. I think during the year there are 400 to 500 police officers that are going abroad. Comparing the total number of Kosovo police you will have the picture that all these officers-we are not sending police officers in the area of, for example, Asia or Africa. We are sending police officers only in the western European Union countries and USA, Canada, Switzerland and Turkey, Turkey for specialized training, but not in other countries. 

	If you send people there just to see, it is enough to learn and to have a bigger picture about the style of policing. Also the community police style that we are applying here, even is not perfect, we know that we need to change this and to modify but it is reflective to the trust of the community. We were very strong in internal investigation. We have more than a thousand people fined from the Kosovo police. If you just want something about that, we were very strict in these procedures and this of course helped us to clean our police force and also help us to gain more community trust in this regard. And we were impartial which is very important here. Political impartiality, I think we gained this and we have the trust of the community. We are not oriented politically, not influenced by the politics. This is another issue.

	You know we were established before the political parties, we were established before the government. We were established before the parliament, before everybody. We were the first institution established in Kosovo. That's why all the institutions after that were established, all political institutions, political parties, parliament, government. Until 2003 I think we didn't have a parliament or we didn't have a government. There was a board combining by some political parties, but you know they didn't have any influence even in recruitment and selection. Now we have also the law on police which was adopted in 2008. In that law it was written that operationally police is independent from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. That means that the operational part is, we are totally independent from the Minister of Internal Affairs. 

	We have our capacities here, our section that may make us independent. For example, I can tell you, you can compare this if you have knowledge of all the surrounding countries, neighboring countries. We have logistics, finance, budget, procurement, directorate here in the police. We are managing our budget, our resources. We have personnel directorate here as I told you. We are recruiting our people by ourselves. We are developing our policies and procedures. Our general director is our authority to develop administrative instruction, which is by law act, sub legal act. That means that he has very strong authority. He can develop a promotion policy, he can develop a recruitment policy, not government, not Minister of Internal Affairs. This helped us to be independent from other institutions, especially from the politics. This helped police to be more trustful to the community because they don't think that we are serving one party. And what is very important here is we treated the minorities very well and we were very sensitive when we dealt with the minorities. 

	We drafted separate policy on how to deal with the minority areas when we have operation in the area where the minorities are living. We had different policies just to make them feel not bad. For example if we are sending a unit in there, in a mixed area, we have to find a police officer of the same nationality if it is possible. If it is not we have to run our business but always we did this if it was possible. This helped us to have more trust, more credibility in the community. 

BENNET: 	Excellent.

GREENE:	Thank you for your time, I know we've gone really long but it is fascinating and your knowledge-from being in the first class your breadth of knowledge is amazing. I guess maybe if I ask you just as you reflect back over the last years, this will be our final question, if you could maybe identify any of your thoughts of what's important. But I would also ask maybe if there are any personalities that stand out, key people, either of the Kosovo police or the international community. We talked about all these reforms but were there key personalities, key people that really were drivers or the founders of these reforms and these changes?

SHILLOVA:	You know I already mentioned two people that gave us guidelines in the beginning, Steve Bennett. He used to work with ICITAP (International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program and OSCE. I think he is now chief of ICITAP in Albania. He used to be in Tajikistan after Kosovo. He ran the Kosovo police school more than six years. He gave a very, very strong contribution to this process. We had Tom Hacker as I told you. He was Deputy Commissioner for Operations. We had Bob Gardner, he used to be Director of Kosovo Police. We had that position in charge for official police. He gave a very good contribution. We had Richard Warren. He used to be Deputy Commissioner for Administration. These are internationals that gave a lot of contribution in the process of establishing Kosovo police and making Kosovo police more professional and training them. These are the people that I know that gave a contribution. 

	But from our side there are a lot. It depends, especially the police officers that joined in the beginning of the Kosovo police. They had more opportunity and they were engaged more in these processes. I was one of the guys, the person who was involved in all the processes because I was in the first class of police, first class of sergeant, first class of lieutenant, first class of captain, first class of major, of colonels. I was involved in all these processes. We had in the line police officer that left the Kosovo police, he was lieutenant colonel. He is working now with the UN. He used to be in the transition unit and he gave a lot, a good contribution to this process. Also General Director that is now here. He gave also the contribution. There were a lot of people, locals, but the internationals that I mentioned before. There were a lot of instructors in the school that gave a lot of contribution here but now also some advisors because we used to work with a lot of people. 

BENNET: 	Are there any other topics, we could ask you more questions but we won't. Are there any other topics that we haven't covered that you would like to mention at this point?

SHILLOVA:	I don't know. I probably talk too much. I was not prepared because I didn't bring anything. I wanted, because I know the meaning of the research and I wanted to give you just my thoughts, my experience, real experience, not based on any reports, just how I feel during this time because I lived all these processes.

BENNET: 	Thank you, yes. 

SHILLOVA:	I'm not sure. There are a lot of issues here, a lot of things that are interesting but I think for this kind of organization or establishment of the security institution in the post conflict countries it is good to give more opportunities, more responsibility to the locals and the internationals to be more in the monitoring and advising position. Because if you do not give the chance, the people to work, they cannot learn better. There is a proverb, don't teach me how to fish but-.

GREENE:	Don't give me a fish, teach me how to fish. 

SHILLOVA:	Yes. This is my opinion. I think it is better for the international to stay more in the advising, monitoring, mentoring position then to be in the executive position. We saw in every station, in every unit that did the transition, we had bigger progress, much bigger progress than had UNMIK police. Same as we EULEX police. Even EULEX police although they are from European countries, I am sure that in some parts we are much better than they because of the area, because of the mentality, because of the culture that is here. We know that. This is just my thought about all this. 

	Also it is very important for the international community that they are engaged in these processes to help these new organizations to be impartial, politically impartial. It is very important because this can help a lot to gain the trust of the community because the community is divided in the political parties or ideology or minorities or race.

BENNET: 	Was that a challenge here, the impartiality of the international community?

SHILLOVA:	No, I don't think this is a problem for internationals, it is a problem for locals. 

BENNET: 	I see.

SHILLOVA:	But the internationals should help and should monitor the locals to be impartial because it is much easier for them to give for example a report or any advice, or to say that here you are independent and here you are not, or to tell somebody that they are interfering with the police task. This is not part of your task, it is part of the police. It is much easier, the international community should be more focused in making police organization politically impartial, also not political but also based on minorities and ethnic groups. It depends on the specific countries but here it was very important for the Kosovo police in the beginning and now to be totally impartial. When we were involved, for example, as Albanian officers involved in solving a case with the Serbians, the Serbian area or the Serbian criminals, we always had better results than UNMIK police. That's why step-by-step we gained trust of the Serbian communities, because it was a little bit hard for us to be engaged in the community area, the Serbian community area. It is good to give opportunity to the people, to supervise, to monitor, to check, but to give responsibility in hand and to see if they are performing their duties.

BENNET: 	Thank you so much for your time. It has really been a pleasure to talk to you. 

SHILLOVA:	No problem.

Innovations for Successful Societies				Series: Policing
Oral History Program						Interview number: Z9
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Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties