An initiative of the National Academy of Public Administration, and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, Princeton University Oral History Program Series: Policing Interview no.: I8 Interviewee: Garry Horlacher Interviewer: Arthur Boutellis Date of Interview: 7 May 2008 Location: State House Freetown Sierra Leone Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace and Justice Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544, USA www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties BOUTELLIS: Today is May 7, 2008, and I am now sitting with Garry Horlacher who is the DFID (Department for International Development) SSR (security sector reform) coordinator in Sierra Leone. We are now in the Office of National Security (ONS) at the State House in Freetown, Sierra Leone. First thank you for your time. Before we start the interview I'd like you to confirm that you've given your consent. HORLACHER: Yes, I have given my consent. BOUTELLIS: I'd like to start by learning a little bit more about your personal background, particularly how did you get involved into police and security sector reform issues overseas. HORLACHER: My background is UK policing. I have 30 years in the UK police. I ended with the rank of Chief Superintendent so that gave me command experience spreading over probably 17 or 18 years managing people, groups of people, varying in strength between 300 and 900 and strong in most aspects of operational policing, strategic development, performance management and other specialities. As I was reaching toward the end of my police career, it sounds quite trite but I just felt I wanted to give something back. So I approached my foreign office and asked if there was anything at my level of policing. Interestingly, at my rank, there were no other UK police officers in the field because it isn't something that is career attractive if people want to progress on to high levels in UK policing. Anyway after making the offer they immediately said Iraq. My wife said no. All the talk was of Saddam. I was invited down to the foreign office and offered Sierra Leone to work with UNIOSIL (United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone). BOUTELLIS: So that was in...? HORLACHER: I was deployed out here in February 2006. On arrival the remit was different from what I'd been promised so my remit initially in UNPOL (United Nations Police) was to take responsibility for advising someone on human resource development. The UNPOL is also, UNIOSIL being almost development mission moving from executive to advisory, there were only 19 supposedly senior police officers in the group. So I had the responsibility for human resources. But that quickly developed, and I became a member of the Sierra Leone Police Executive Management Board and spent much of my time doing things connected to mentoring that body. BOUTELLIS: So you spent one year with-? HORLACHER: I spent 18 months with UNIOSIL. During that time DFID-the UK is the major donor partner for Sierra Leone. In terms of the security sector has been virtually the sole donor for a number of years. While I was with UNIOSIL DFID had an output to purpose review and I was simply part of the people interviewed for that review. Three weeks into that review the auditors discussed with me a role that they were proposing and suggesting that perhaps I could fulfill that role. They made those suggestions to DFID Sierra Leone and I was offered a six month contract to take on the post that I am now in which is as an advisor to the Office of National Security and its sister agency the Central Intelligence and Security Unit (CISU). But also from a UK perspective to try and coordinate activities within the security sector. I've been doing that job now for eight or nine months. My contract was initially six months, is now extended. That post has to go out to tender because it wasn't competitive, so I'm now in the process of tendering for this post. We'll know the outcome of that in July this year. BOUTELLIS: Before we get into some functional areas of policing, I'd like to ask you for your own description of the major challenges faced by the SLP when you first got here. As you mentioned UNAMSIL (United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone) was gone already, so there was no more peacekeeping mission, it was a peace-building mission. What was your first assessment of the situation in general, crime, law and order, as well as the stage of the reform in the SLP? HORLACHER: This was my first international posting so it was from a zero experience base that I arrived here. It was my first time in Africa, first time working outside the UK. I was initially struck by how peaceful the country was. Freetown with a population of 1.5 million, there were no restrictions on travel for internationals. There were no "no-go" areas for internationals and no apparent "no-go" areas for Sierra Leoneans. All that was necessary was a degree of common sense and care. So you wouldn't venture into certain areas at night but equally in my own country you wouldn't venture into unknown areas at night. So I found that quite refreshing. I was also pleased to see the visibility of police on the streets even then in February 2006. Unarmed officers on the streets, apparently accepted by their communities. As I started to work with the SLP I also saw fairly low levels of reported crime, probably later on we need to talk about unreported crime which is a factor common to all policing institutions worldwide. So very favorable on arrival. Beautiful country, rich in natural resources, and infrastructure exceedingly poor, access to drinking water, access to electricity, access to health, all poor. Corruption rife, but most heartening was the people who live in supposedly one of the poorest countries in the world had a smile on their face. While the diet would not be good, there were no obvious signs of malnutrition, etc. People were managing to live and survive and smile. BOUTELLIS: In terms of, soon after you arrived and started working directly embedded if I can say within the Sierra Leone headquarters and executive board, what were the main challenges facing the SLP at the time? HORLACHER: At that time and now, logistics, logistics, logistics. The level of training that the senior managers have at the very top level, the top 11 or 15 Assistant Inspector General of police and those who make up the Executive Management Board was sound. They'd all been on many, many courses in the UK. They were used to having an IGP that was an international IGP for a time, Keith Biddle. So they were well versed in modern policing methods and understanding of the strategic perspectives of policing. What was glaringly apparent and still is to an extent is the ability to transfer that strategic vision and direction into operational effectiveness. So probably the next middle management tier down was where that interpretation and understanding fell down and still continues to do so. Despite lots of support, financial support, from particularly the UK government when I first came here the availability of government funding was extremely sporadic. They were trying to develop on a strategic level, but actually going, living on a hand-to-mouth existence in terms of governmental funding. So they would strategically develop a financial plan for the year, submit it through various government structures to the Ministry of Finance. So all the structures were in place. Midterm financial planning, etc. All the right words; however, when it actually came to allocation of funding, it depended on how much was in government coffers. Often it was the case of the IGP begging the Minister for small amounts of money to fuel his vehicles. I think that situation is better now and still pertains. BOUTELLIS: You mentioned that the UK and DFID have been the major actor and donor in terms of security sector broadly. How does police reform relate to other ongoing activities, whether it be justice, police or defense reform processes? HORLACHER: If you talk about justice and defense then Sierra Leoneans are very comfortable in saying that that is all part of the security sector. So in that broadest dynamic the security sector does entail defense, immigration, fire, prisons, police and related ministries and departments as well as obviously the Office of National Security where I now work and the Intelligence Service. So there is a broad church that everybody within Sierra Leone understands today in the security sector. In terms of DFID, support DFID is a UK developmental agency, is more familiar with being involved in basic development issues such as health, water, sanitation and other issues. It's an unusual situation it finds itself in that for the past several years it has been involved in security sector reform. BOUTELLIS: Before we get into functional areas of police reform, in terms of your UN experience, did you receive any predeployment training and was there any induction training once you arrived here in the country? HORLACHER: There was the standard familiarization within the UN which is go and get various signatures from various departments and the normal UN bureaucracies before you can get a driving license or access to a computer. So those frustrations were there on basic administrational logistics issue. In terms of actual briefing about the job that you were doing, as I said before, the job I was interviewed for turned out on arrival not to be the job I got, so the answer was no. There was no formal structure. BOUTELLIS: Do you have any advice to anybody who would be in a similar position of leaving on their first UN mission? HORLACHER: The advice would be to the UN and the advice would be to provide proper induction. Police officers working with colleague police officers internationally there is a rapport anyway. So you tend to find your own feet. Also, to an extent, make your own job description as you go along. I'm not saying that is how it should be, I'm just saying that's the reality. Perhaps this mission is very different in that it was very, very few police officers, as the normal executive type missions, then there would be many hundreds and I'm not familiar with that. So I'm only concentrating on this mission. We're supposedly restricted to a fairly senior level of police operatives providing support at that more strategic level. BOUTELLIS: All through your UNPOL experience and Office of National Security, you had exposure to many aspects of police reform. If you allow we'll go through a number of them. If you don't have any particular comments we'll just skip to the next one. HORLACHER: Okay. BOUTELLIS: The first area being recruitment. Have you been involved in discussions over recruitment strategies? HORLACHER: Yes, it is interesting that part of my responsibilities were HR so I did look at recruitment policies. Recruitment in the SLP on first arrival was perhaps unfair, but realistic. It was based on nepotism. There were structures in place and processes in place to examine candidates prior to appointment, but those for some reason had been decentralized, so a candidate in the southern region would take a locally set exam very different to the candidate in the northern region. So it was very necessary to look at recentralizing of the recruitment process which we did for the recruitment process in 2007 where about 350 appointments were made and Sierra Leone Police stands around 9500. So we firmed up the recruitment policies. We introduced a centrally directed exam. We introduced security measures so that the examination was not flawed in advance. We vetted application forms and all those processes were put in place. Along with the police, the recruitment process had been made for individual officers or specialists to make money. So for example, all the candidates were required to undertake a medical for which they have to pay an amount of money. We changed that system so the medical only took place right at the very end of the process so many, many fewer people were required to pay the money to obtain the medical certificate. So small things like that, being aware that corrupt practices can be put in any stage, not only to get a candidate through the system, but also to get money out of that system. Bearing in mind these individual police officers and associated specialists are not well paid. For example a constable in Sierra Leone will probable earn around 150,000 Leones a month. With the rice crisis a bag of rice which feeds a family for about a month used to cost about 80,000 Leones, now costs about 120,000 Leones. So even before the rice crisis you could see that more than half of the officer's salary went on one bag of rice. So when we talk about corruption you need to look at it in that perspective. You have to know the localized hand-to-mouth existence. BOUTELLIS: You mentioned the vetting of application reforms. What are the processes to sort out good applicants from potentially dangerous and on what basis is the vetting done on? HORLACHER: The vetting was basically done on the application form plus proven academic records that have to be submitted to try and negate false assessments, false indications that they had academic qualifications. There is an academic standard set. In actual fact we actually reduced the academic requirement. BOUTELLIS: To what level? HORLACHER: In my terms, it's very difficult, they use different words and people will understand. The requirement was for a school education at a level of SSS3 in their terms and we reduced it one step below that. So it was just a slight reduction because the entrance exam became a much more sophisticated test of an individual. So we didn't want to potentially remove good candidates at that very first stage of vetting, at the paper sift, when we were fairly confident that the exam they were taking would give us the indicators we wanted. Of course, for policing you do want people who are prepared to be and want to be a constable at that operational level rather than everybody to aspire to a greater level and be frustrated. BOUTELLIS: So this new recruitment strategy was first tested in 2007 as you mentioned. How do you evaluate the new recruitment strategies and what are some of the lessons? HORLACHER: The other side to it is there still existed the ability for individual senior officers to bypass that process with their own nominees. That process was limited in number but still existed. Also because SLP female representation stands at a fairly healthy 14 or 15%, certainly good in comparison with other West African countries, there was a gender bias on the recruitment so that each individual region was required to recruit a certain number of female officers as well as male officers. So the best candidates of the males and the best candidates of the females came through. BOUTELLIS: Was there any attempt to respect regional balance overall? HORLACHER: No, it was very rudimentary. BOUTELLIS: Were ethnic dimensions discussed at all? HORLACHER: In terms of tribal dimensions no. I think it is a very positive sign that the gender issue was discussed but in terms of tribalism, no. In terms of then how did we audit the success or otherwise of that, through the training processes an audit was undertaken to see how they fared compared to other recruits in previous promotions. BOUTELLIS: What came out? HORLACHER: It came out that overall they, I think what came out mostly was that the recruits felt a degree of fairness of approach and I think that was the biggest thing. I think that was important when you want them to go into an organization that has to, by its very essence to be fair. So to introduce them to an organization through a recruiting process that is obviously corrupt does not bode well for the future. So I think that was one of the biggest lessons. At the very start of their police career they became aware of that sense of integrity. BOUTELLIS: Now in terms of the size of the police force, a few years ago it was decided that 9500 would be the size of the police force. It seems that in the discussions within the SLP on the adequacy of that what are the bases for potentially changing this? HORLACHER: I think again it was a UN-imposed strength, trying to equate the size of the military and the size of the police. So the military stood at 10,500 and the police 9,500. I could never find what the reasoning was for that figure, but that was the figure they were working on. During my time in HR I on several occasions tried to get the SLP to undertake an organizational review and to do that in a structured fashion which would look at policing requirements at the various levels, from the smallest police post right up to divisional police headquarters or regional police headquarters. There was some enthusiasm for that among certain members of the executive management board but it never fully came to fruition. I think that would have been a very good baseline for them to make decisions on the size. During the election process there was a requirement for Sierra Leone Police to be at every polling station. The IGP saw that as an opportunity to increase the size of the police by further 5000 to facilitate the elections but that didn't happen. I think the biggest thing is, yes right-sizing of the police force is important. Should the SLP be bigger than it is? Probably it should. Do we want a police force that is of the right size but has no infrastructure, no logistics? The answer is no we don't. Can the government support a police force of 9,500 as it currently stands? Yes it can on a day-to-day level, but no it cannot in terms of long-term sustainability of logistics and communication. So compare the wages of 9500, can it look to see that police service develop with replacement vehicles fleets, replacement of communications, uniforms, etc. The probably answer is currently it can't. Therefore would I advocate increasing the size of the police? No I would not. BOUTELLIS: Now moving on to training and professionalization. There have been a number of trainings since the beginning of the police reform about 10 years ago now. Have you been involved yourself in some of the training? Designing? Monitoring? HORLACHER: The developed world has moved very much towards performance management as a management tool. When I came out here, as I said before, what I saw was that the difficulty was translation of strategy into operational effectiveness. I saw potentially a means to do that in the form of some performance management training and understanding. Along with a colleague, I undertook some performance management training of middle-ranking officers. That was basically to say you have for example a police checkpoint at this location. You have 30 officers who man that checkpoint. How many intelligence reports do you get from those 30 officers? How many arrests are made by those 30 officers? How much does it cost you to maintain that post? Therefore, what are those officers delivering to you? So it is in that vein of simple performance management I tried to get an understanding at that middle-ranking level. BOUTELLIS: Concretely what does this performance management training, what does it look like? How did you design the curriculum? How many days of training? What form did it take? HORLACHER: It was basically a one or two day appreciation as their role as leaders and how they could effectively challenge subordinates to understand better what those subordinates were achieving and how as a leader they could influence what those people were achieving. This is against a culture where a challenge is not well accepted as a social norm. So once there might be an awful lot of bluster and shouting, and people brought before the Executive Management Board, it is not a culture where it is very easy to criticize or challenge an individual. So I wanted to just give a taste of how to positively challenge in a supportive way. We did lots of role plays within that training. It wasn't meant to do more than give an indicator of the potential of performance management. I say that because to put it into context I was doing the training all over the country and looking out from one classroom block in a police barracks to see guys drawing water from a well and partly clad ladies cooking rice over an open fire. So we've got to remember the background that we're working in. So it was about just opening the eyes of some far-thinking individuals at that level. Also at the EMB level to try and introduce small systems where regional commanders-there are four regional commanders in Sierra Leone-when they reported on a monthly basis, they reported rather than simply giving stories, they reported statistics. They were asked about crime figures, and they were asked about comparison with previous months or the same month in previous years, just to try to start that process of accountability. BOUTELLIS: Just to give a concrete idea, those statistics are kept in hard copies? There's no computerized system? HORLACHER: They have got standalone computer systems that operate when the electricity is available. But the recording processes were fairly of a low standard. When crime was recorded what they then didn't do and started to do was to analyze that reported crime in a better way. BOUTELLIS: So what were the first results from trying to have these crime statistics gathered and centralized and analyzed? Were there observations? They've been collecting these at the national level for a few years now. HORLACHER: Yes. BOUTELLIS: Were there some comments? HORLACHER: They've been collecting them for some years, and there was a degree of analysis at the country level. But that was always in retrospect and many, many months away from when it actually occurred. What I was trying to say was that statistics are an operational management tool rather than something that is done at a strategic level at the force headquarters. They are your statistics and you can use them to better police your region, your division, or even your section. So that was trying to get them to understand it wasn't just a mechanistic process of feeding a beast at the center and getting nothing back. It was trying to say you could use them to promote your own leadership. BOUTELLIS: Training especially when led through the international community is quite expensive. Do you have any cost saving suggestions from your experience, observation of other trainings that were conducted? HORLACHER: Using international trainers is always expensive, so training the trainers has to be a golden rule in terms of sustainability. Getting the individuals to believe that they can actually undertake the training themselves is key. It just leads to sustainability because those trainers themselves are probably people who will go onto leadership roles, so you are investing in the future from that point of view. But for any training, where we were standing it was a case of attempting to get donor funding to be able to fund that training. BOUTELLIS: So when you were on the UNPOL side? HORLACHER: When I was on the UNPOL side I was a good bridge to DFID, Justice Sector Development Program, so that I could obtain UK funding to help fund projects that UNPOL wanted to undertake. BOUTELLIS: One program that has been done here is getting senior Sierra Leone police officers to the UK for six month community control and senior management training. You've seen the senior officers back here. What are some lessons from these kinds of trainings? Has there been some evaluation of the success? HORLACHER: I haven't seen the training actually take place; all that training had been done before I came to Sierra Leone. What I have seen is at the strategic command level, people who are very comfortable in working at the strategic level in policing and probably more comfortable than some of the advisors that the UN sends out. Talking to these senior officers, they are appreciative of what the UN or UNPOL is attempting to do and will always be polite, but in actual fact, some of them well appreciate that their level of expertise is much above what UNPOL is providing. But they would never say that. Therefore the weight that they put on the advice they're given is very much dependent on in what regard they hold the individual officer. It is glaringly obvious to them sometimes the level of command experience that officers coming to give them advice have. BOUTELLIS: The next area is integration and amalgamation of services. Is that something that you've been exposed to in terms of the executive board or now the OSD? HORLACHER: How do you mean? BOUTELLIS: In different countries it takes different shapes, but I'm thinking between different police services within the SLP, has there been any discussion of trying to integrate or amalgamate or make a more coherent police force? HORLACHER: The SLP probably following British models, has always seen itself as one police service and has worked hard to make the OSD, (Operational support Division) which is the armed wing of some 3000 officers, more integrated into that day-to-day policing and into the strategic side of policing than perhaps had been in the past. They're very conscious that an armed force of 3000 is a formidable force in a post conflict country and has to be properly managed. So they worked hard to do that. BOUTELLIS: That's the size of OSD, 3000 out of 9500. HORLACHER: Yes. So it is key to them that the OSD were never seen to be totally a force apart. However the recruitment process is and the uniform, etc., does set OSD apart. So there is a balance that has to be achieved. BOUTELLIS: So they don't have basic training along with regular? HORLACHER: They have basic training but then they're identified during that training as OSD and then go on to different training. What we also introduced on the training side was, on the public order training side, before I and a colleague came out there, the level of escalation threat was going from unarmed, untrained officers through to an OSD PSU which gave an armed response. So there was no development of response as the threat rose. So we introduced crowd control training to the general duty staff. In all maybe 2000 plus police officers were trained in crowd control equipped just with batons but given training in how to control a crowd in a positive manner and then allowed them to be deployed initially. Then we could, if the threat continued, we could raise it, using OSD staff. But what they actually did was given the general duty staff a feeling that they were now trained to deal with public order in the same way that OSD staff had been trained to deal with public order. BOUTELLIS: Was this gradual response to crowds or riots tested since the training of this new crowd control? HORLACHER: Yes, it was tested during the elections. The difficulty with it is getting sufficient number of staff there at the right time. So at the urban areas it is easier to achieve than in the rural areas, but it is an option in the command of public order that they did not have before. Has it been totally accepted as part of their options? I think that will take more time but certainly it a cheap and effective way and also gives them the option. Before that if you had problems with youth at school the option was to deploy the OSD that were around. BOUTELLIS: What are these 2000 plus regular SLP officers doing when there are no riots? Are they just deployed as regular police? HORLACHER: That's the point, they are simply regular police officers that can have the training so can come together when the need arises to deal with a situation. You don't want to create a separate squad. You want them to be regular officers who are well used to dealing with people on the street, feel comfortable in their own ability to deal with people at that face-to-face level, rather than hiding behind a shield or whatever but are given some techniques that show them to the crowd to be trained and confidence in dealing with crowd situations. BOUTELLIS: One focus of the police reform here has been community policing and enhancing accountability. What are some of the achievements and what are some things that are still in process? HORLACHER: I was brought up in a UK model where community policing was the way we operated. When I first came out here and probably still to an extent, I feel that that is the system that we have imposed on the police here. Having said that, in a small way it supported the unarmed officer on the street, it supported the development of police partnership boards to try to get civil society involvement in policing, but what I don't think it has done has gone as far down the road as perhaps some of my predecessors envisaged of community police officers responsive to the needs of the community, knowing members of the community, obtaining intelligence and information that feeds into an overall tasking and coordinating system. All those structures have been built into the SLP. They are embryonic. Do they work as well as we would expect them to do? Probably not. Will the SLP develop them themselves? I think if they change and develop them themselves, then that is an indicator that those systems have not been imposed but are something that they want to aspire to. So I would like to see them develop those systems rather than simply slavishly adhere to systems that have been imposed on them. I would probably give as an illustration to say that the national security architecture is an architecture that has been developed by Sierra Leoneans based on a model but not imposed and you can actually see how that operates in a different way. BOUTELLIS: One of the projects of the JSDP seems to be the working with the Sierra Leoneans on possible development of external accountability in addition to internal accountability mechanisms such as the CDIID (Complaints, Discipline, Internal Investigation Department), what stage are we at? Is there some support on the side of the Sierra Leonean government for this initiative and oversight? HORLACHER: From a western perspective or from developed world perspective and independent oversight is obviously the right thing. Again I think it is, here it will be an imposed system. That isn't to say that the Sierra Leonean senior management doesn't see the value of it and doesn't want it. Will the government fund an independent agency? Probably it would like to but may not have the wherewithal to do that. Do we want to create yet another agency that does not have the logistics to deliver what it needs to deliver? I think all these issues need to be carefully thought through. That's not saying the overall premise of independent oversight and accountability is not right. It is just saying that we probably took in the UK maybe 150 years of developing to get to that. Yet we've got this perhaps arrogant expectation that police forces like the SLP can get there in one generation. BOUTELLIS: Is there any concern over politicization of the police force? We touched a little bit on nepotism when we talked about recruitment. Are there any issues of politicization? HORLACHER: I think the answer to the question is yes. Should we be surprised? The answer is no. Is it at such a level that it causes a threat to national security? I think the answer to that is a definite no. I think the elections proved that the SLP, and I think gaining comfort and support from the national security architecture, rather than being a stand-alone police service, standing up to political pressure, I think that demonstrated the fact that they were not wholly or even partially politicized. Individual members of the police service during the elections and the security service ill-advisedly showed their support for certain political parties. That was a huge mistake on their individual part. But was there any collective or grouping of individuals within the security sector coming together in support of a particular political party and the answer is no. So on politicization, yes personal level as one would expect. Is there a degree of favoritism based on politics? Can't give examples of it. Would I be surprised? No. But generally I perceive the SLP and the security sector as a whole to be massively apolitical. I think for a West African connection, post conflict, I think that's a huge credit to them. BOUTELLIS: In terms of non-state security groups, could you describe briefly, whether they be private security or sort of traditional mechanisms and also in light of the relationship between the police and these groups? HORLACHER: The first group you have here are chieftaincy police. So they are funded through the Paramount Chiefs and deal with local issues at a village level. In a modern policing structure would that exist? Probably not. The attitude of the SLP is that is our culture, they're outside our structures, but we will work with them. BOUTELLIS: They are in the provinces? HORLACHER: They're in the provinces. So there's that. In terms of private security agencies, there is a process of vetting of those agencies and licensing. There is a fairly rudimentary form but seems to work and that is coordinated through the Office of National Security. BOUTELLIS: Neither the chiefdom police nor any of the private security companies are carrying weapons? HORLACHER: Correct. BOUTELLIS: This was not always the case, at least with the mining industry? HORLACHER: Since I've been here in 2006. That required, that probably came out of the 2002 Acts, so post then. BOUTELLIS: Now we've gone through a number of functional areas of police reform. Taking a step back, we started talking about it but now that we've gone through all these functional areas, where do you think the tasks that should be prioritized, or what are the tasks that the Office of National Security and the Sierra Leone security apparatus see as the priorities? HORLACHER: I think the priority has to be coordination of approach. Unusually for Africa, the Sierra Leonean police have primacy in matters of security and the military are restricted to defensive borders, etc. So there are structures and systems about how the military can become involved in assistance to the civil power, i.e. the police, and that is coordinated through the Office of National Security. I keep going back to coordination because if you have a coordinating body that is seen as that rather than as something that is more powerful than the police, the military or the other partners and these agencies are used to working together in a structured way, coming together, understanding the systems and processes, then I think that is the way forward. It proved it in the elections in that the Inspector-General of Police is a very lonely position to be and so is the chairperson of the National Electoral Commission and so is the National Security Coordinator. If you put all three together in the security architecture and they are used to working together, then they gain a strength from each other and their agencies gain a strength. I think that was one of the crucial points of the success of the 2007 elections. They took that strength from each other and their agencies took that strength and were able to stand up to any form of political pressure and in fact were able to engage politicians at an early stage to say that they would be apolitical. To coordinate I think is a vital aspect. Funding and logistics is a constant worry, particularly for me as donor support wanes in the security sector. The government, the new government, even if it is willing, has not got the capacity to take on that level of support, that is a concern. BOUTELLIS: Were there, are there some underlying political, social and economic conditions that have made reform harder or easier? HORLACHER: I've got nothing to compare it to, but there is an innate understanding among Sierra Leoneans at the top level of the various agencies, of what they've been through in the past. Sometimes they will refer to themselves as brothers and I think that is a truism. There is an understanding of where they've been and where they don't want to go again. Despite the fact that they always want to do their best for their individual organization, there is that innate understanding that at the end of the day mutual support is going to be the way that they succeed so I think that that is a huge plus for this country. BOUTELLIS: Are there any particular innovations or experiments that you know about in this country, in security sector reform that you think merit more attention? HORLACHER: I think it is just in the area of coordination. I think that the security architecture that was developed. The security architecture provides National Security Council chaired by the President, so it gets political and presidential buy-in at that level. The workhorse of that National Security Council is the National Security Council Coordinating Group and that's where the heads of the various agencies sit on a fortnightly basis. During the elections it was a weekly basis or if necessary whenever there is an emergency. This body is used to working together and making decisions together. Then underlying that there is, within the Office of National Security, the ability to undertake assessments, risk assessments, threat assessments, which will feed into the structure. There is a Joint Intelligence Committee to feed into the structure. There is an operational committee, the JCC (Joint Coordination Commission) chaired by the police that looks at the operational issues and feeds into the structure. There are regional committees. These are chaired by resident ministers, so they have the potential to be politicized but involve to a small degree civil society. On a regional level they feed into the architecture. Taking that further down to a district level similar committees that feed into it. Alongside that police partnership boards. I think it is about having a structure that is actually believed in rather than one that is imposed. I think those are important things. We do small things like trying to get together the various agencies. We're piloting an integrated intelligence group, so the agencies are actually coming together working on intelligence rather than doing it in isolation. Then we want to then focus that on for now issues that impact on economic development because if the country can develop economically, that impacts on the security. So we're looking at economic issues. Also obviously one of the major threats is drugs so we will focus on those things. BOUTELLIS: Well turning to the donors and the United Nations, you've experienced both working with the UN in the country as well as working for the largest donor, the UK, what kinds of allies in the host country are essential for success and how do you go about building the right kind of relationship? HORLACHER: I think it is also important that we talk about coordination at the local level that we talk about coordination at the donor level also. So around here, Memorandums of Understanding between the UK government, EU, World Bank, so key donors. They are given individual functional responsibilities, they meet together regularly. The UN is a part of that. This is so the host country has a clarity of message. I'm not saying that always works, but it is important that that is what we strive to. Rather than the host country, the donor-dependent country being confused by different priorities of donors. If we could get uniformity in that it is important. In terms of the United Nations generally, and this isn't a side bar, I think it is an important point to raise, I was at a two-day conference that had been organized by an NGO looking at civil society involvement in the security sector in the Mano Rover Union which is Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Now the Liberians are still in the executive area of UN involvement and the participants there were very critical of mixed messages, mixed training messages being sent by the UN because of the multi-national nature of the UN. They quoted a laughable example which is about how to salute. That was only as an example of a much deeper issue I think the UN needs to address in terms of when the UN is there, in almost executive training mode, we have to make sure that the training is uniform and not given a bias by an individual country's representative. That came out starkly from the Liberian delegation and undermined their faith in what the UN was trying to deliver. BOUTELLIS: You worked with UNPOL. If you could create a wish list of two or three changes in UN internal management or policy that would help you do your job more effectively, what would these be? HORLACHER: It is a really difficult question because the UN as a global organization is an absolute necessity for the wellbeing of all the nations of the world. If the current UN is the price we have to pay for that global organization then so be it. But is the UN and the individuals within it, totally focused on supporting these individual countries or is a lot of the focus on the continuation of the body of the UN and the people who work within the UN looking at developing themselves within the UN rather than developing the nations. That seems a harsh thing to say, but from my limited experience with the UN I was surprised at, sometimes thinking, I wonder if some of the people working at the UN actually realize or care which country they're working in. That's a harsh statement but I think it is one that I think needs to be addressed. BOUTELLIS: Any final comments? HORLACHER: I think that's a fairly harsh final comment. BOUTELLIS: Garry Horlacher, thank you very much. Innovations for Successful Societies Series: Policing Oral History Program Interview number: I-8 ______________________________________________________________________ 12 Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties