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.: I11 Interviewee: Rudolfo Landeros Interviewer: Arthur Boutellis Date of Interview: 6 May 2008 Location: UNIOSIL 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 the 6th of May, 2008, and I am now sitting with Mr. Rudolfo Landeros, the Senior Police Advisor, UNPOL (United Nations Police) at UNIOSIL (United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone), the UN Mission in Sierra Leone. We are now in the UN headquarters in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Thank you for your time. Before we start the interview I'd like you to please confirm that you've given your consent? LANDEROS: Yes, I've given my consent. BOUTELLIS: I'd like to start the interview by learning more about your personal background, particularly how did you come about joining a UN mission and working on police overseas. LANDEROS: My background. I was a police officer for 24-1/2 years with the Austin Police Department. My final five years at the Austin Police Department I was an Assistant Chief of Police. As Assistant Chief of Police I handled, was responsible or assigned to a variety of different positions. Right before I came here I was the Assistant Chief of Police over the centralized investigations unit which included robbery, homicide, sex crimes, child abuse, auto theft. I was also in charge of narcotics, organized crime division, traffic division, the homeland division and the SWAT team. Those were my last two years before I came here. The way I found out about this job, I was in the International Association of Police Chiefs conference in Miami, Florida back in 2005. I met a representative with the State Department, the United States State Department and basically I was asked to go ahead and submit a resume, if I would be interested in working specifically, initially it was in the Sudan, for the United Nations in the Sudan. Once again that was September 2005. I submitted my resume. Then in January 2006 the State Department contacted me, set me up with an interview for a UN job in the Sudan. I didn't get that job however they asked me if I would be interested in a position with UNIOSIL here in Sierra Leone. I said I was, I interviewed for a job and I got it. I had meant to-my intentions were to retire with the Austin Police Department after 25 years, but when this job became available, I retired with 24-1/2 years. I retired March 2006 and by the end of March 2006 I was here in Freetown. The reason, I've always been interested in wanting to do this type of work. I think I really became interested in 1994 when the situation in Rwanda occurred. That kind of started it. I think I made up my mind then that once I retired I would like to work with the United Nations in this type of capacity. So I kept that in mind so when this came up I jumped on it, so here I am. BOUTELLIS: Can you give us a brief description of your mission and particularly the UNPOL mandate, its goals and objective here in Sierra Leone? Maybe also a first assessment of the Sierra Leone Police and the challenges it faces. LANDEROS: UN-speak our job is to build the capacity of the Sierra Leone Police (SLP). Basically the bottom line is our job here is to try to assist the SLP in becoming a better police department. [interruption] BOUTELLIS: Second part of the interviewer with Mr. Rudolfo Landeros. We're talking about the UN mandate. LANDEROS: Our job here is trying to get the Sierra Leone Police Department to the point where they can provide quality police service to the community. That is our job, basically that is our job. The second part of the mandate was to assist the Sierra Leone Police in preparation for the 2007 Parliamentary and presidential elections in 2007. In 2008 our mandate is once again to assist and prepare the SLP for the 2008 local government elections. So that is basically, in a nutshell that is what our job is, our mission is here. BOUTELLIS: In terms of your assessment of the status of crime and public order when you first got here in the country? LANDEROS: In terms of crime, the level of crime here in Freetown or Sierra Leone as a whole, it is a lot less than it is say in Austin, Texas. Some people, you come here and you have some people, they're really upset and concerned about the crime that is happening here in Freetown. Let's use that as an example. But when you compare that to a normal city or a large city in the United States, the crime level here is a lot lower than it is in Austin or Boston or Chicago. One of the biggest differences you see is that the SLP really does not have the logistics. That's number one. They do not have the logistics to properly address crime, to address the levels of crime in the country. I think that if the SLP, on one level, if the SLP had the logistics, the equipment, they could do as good a job as any department in the United States. BOUTELLIS: In terms of types of crimes and offenses that are the most common, and probably the biggest threat and challenge to the SLP? LANDEROS: Right now the major-in my opinion, the major crimes are robbery right now. Robberies, thefts and burglaries. That's going to be very understandable because whenever you have a large segment of a population that is unemployed and doesn't have a job, that's going to be a natural phenomenon. You also have the problem of family violence and violence against women, especially in regard to the female genital mutilation. You see that all throughout the country. Those are the crimes I see are really prevalent. BOUTELLIS: How does the work of police reform or your advisory role, as you work with the SLP, relate to other ongoing reforms maybe in the justice or defense sector? LANDEROS: For instance, on the lowest level, the mentoring, advising that my officers are doing is to make sure that the SLP understand their jobs. That's the bottom line. That they understand their jobs, understand the rules and regulations in regards to arresting people, detaining people, how long they can detain them for. That's just the bottom line and if the officer on the street does his job properly, then when that case comes to an investigator and that investigator does his job properly, investigates that case properly, doesn't miss any of the requirements that are needed to successfully prosecute that case. If the investigator does his job correctly, then when it goes for prosecution, there's going to be less cases that are going to be dismissed. So it's like a domino effect. It's all intertwined. If the officer on the bottom does his job correctly, the investigator does his job correctly, then the prosecutors are given a case that they can prosecute and successfully prosecute, then that in a way helps the judicial part of it. BOUTELLIS: Before we get into some functional areas of police reform, I'd like to ask you some more general questions about your current position in the UN maybe starting with what would be a regular day? What's a day of the Senior Police Advisor? LANDEROS: For instance, this year especially. We are focused on the elections. A normal day say in preparing the SLP for the elections is to be able to sit down with SLP executives to make sure that the operational plan that they are developing encompasses everything that a department needs to do to make sure that the elections are safe. So you sit down with them to make sure that based on the requirements of the National Election Commission that the operational plan does take that into account. Say for instance you sit down with them. Are you sure that you have police security for all the 14 NEC (National Electoral Commission) district headquarters? Are you sure that this operational plan has security for the NEC national headquarters? Are you sure you have enough officers? Do you have them deployed correctly? That's one part. You spend a lot of time working with the SLP on the operational plan. Then, say for instance you have to make sure that you build a reasonable budget to support the security that the SLP is going to provide. So you spend a lot of time with the SLP to make sure that it is done correctly, especially the operational plan and then the budget. We have got to justify-the SLP. When I saw we, the SLP, they have got to be able to justify the operational plan and the budget to the donors. So me and my team spend a lot of time doing that. Then we spend time to making sure that officers, SLP officers, that we have a strategic plan to make sure that officers are trained and retrained for crowd control, so they'll be prepared for the elections. Then we have to make sure that the training is going to have the logistics it needs. So you deal with that. You deal with everything having to do-. Then you also deal with meeting with the National Electoral Commission to make sure, is this what you need? Tell us exactly what you need for security. Then making sure that the SLP once again puts that in to the operational plan. Then I also spend time with the Office of National Security. I spend a lot of time with the Office of National Security because they also have to work with us to make sure that is the SLP operational plan for the elections, is it what the Office of National Security envisions? Is that what they need to make sure that we have safe elections. So that takes a lot of time. Let me tell you, that takes a lot of time. It's a lot of work because you have to make sure that all the puzzles fit together because at the end of the day if something goes wrong, say for instance during the elections, if the SLP aren't where they're supposed to be, if the logistics aren't provided to the SLP, if the training wasn't provided to prepare them, guess what's going to happen? We'll bear the brunt of the criticism for not preparing the SLP for the elections. That's why we-right now I have a total of 18 officers. Of the 18 officers-. BOUTELLIS: UNPOL officers? LANDEROS: Yes, UNPOL officers, approximately 14 are heavily involved in preparing the SLP for the elections, heavily involved. Once again, if something goes wrong and the SLP does not perform efficiently and professionally, then I don't care what anybody says, we will bear, we as UNPOL, UNIOSIL, we will bear some of the responsibility for that. Whether that be right or wrong, we will bear the responsibility if something goes wrong. So that is why we are working really, really hard to make sure that the SLP is prepared. Last year for the 2007 elections, once again we spent a lot of time preparing the SLP budgets, meeting with the NEC, meeting with ONS (Office of National Security), meeting with the donors to make sure that the SLP was successful. Guess what? They were successful. So we've got to make sure in 2008 that they, the SLP perform just as well or better than it did in 2007. Once again, the UN's, UNIOSIL's reputation is on the line. My officers know that. They understand that we cannot fail. We have to give it 100%. BOUTELLIS: We'll come back to the training but before that I'd like to ask you a couple more questions about your arrival in the mission and maybe advice that you would have for people who would be in similar roles. First if you could tell us if you had predeployment training, induction training, how did you arrive in the mission? In what context did it happen? LANDEROS: That's one area that the UN really needs to improve on. I spent three days in New York. Remember, this was my first mission ever. A lot of experience in policing, but this was the first time I ever worked for the UN in a mission. I only had three days-it was a whirlwind orientation. I can't say it was an induction training, it was just an orientation. When I arrived here in Sierra Leone you received just the check-in. There was no type of training. There was no real induction training whatsoever. Basically the person that I took the place of, the person I replaced, he was on his way out and he was only acting as an interim. We had very little time together. So basically it was on-the-job training. That's one area-. BOUTELLIS: How long was the overlap period between the previous acting? LANDEROS: I don't think it was two weeks. The person-he was very helpful, but he was so busy in trying to check out, to get the heck out of here that there was really no official handover. The main thing I remembered was sitting down with him and him telling me these are the main players for the Sierra Leone Police and these are the meetings you've got to attend. That was it. BOUTELLIS: So you arrived when the UNAMSIL (United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone) mission, the previous peacekeeping mission was already gone, what was the stage of the UNPOL unit at that time. Most of the UNPOL officers from the peacekeeping mission had gone. LANDEROS: Yes. BOUTELLIS: What team did you find in country when you arrived? LANDEROS: When I arrived here I think there were already maybe tops, my authorized strength was 19, but there was really around 16 or 17 already here. Some had just arrived. Several of them had arrived two or three days before or after I got here. BOUTELLIS: As it was your first mission ever as you said, abroad, what are some of the challenges in terms of situational awareness, cultural adaptation and so on? LANDEROS: Believe it or not, most of the-there was no induction training on the culture or the history. There wasn't. When I got here once again there was no induction training. Basically I had to go online, read as much as I possibly could about the culture, about what had occurred in the past. I did that myself. So basically it was hit and miss when I got here. BOUTELLIS: I'd like to move now to a couple of functional areas, the ones that are relevant to this mission, the first one being training and professionalization. These are arguably the main focus of the UNPOL mission here. You mentioned the importance of training and retraining in crowd control. Can you describe for us this program, when it was launched and what was the rationale for this training? LANDEROS: When I first arrived here back in March 2006, between March of 2006 and I believe July of 2006, there were over, between 35 and 50 incidents of unrest throughout Sierra Leone. One of the things that we noticed-it was civil unrest. One of the things we noticed was that the Sierra Leone Police are very well trained when it comes to handling violent crowds. They can come in, they can handle a violent crowd. But one thing that we noticed was that if a crowd started to form, say a nonviolent crowd, they did not seem to have the training to deal with large, nonviolent crowds. One of the things that we noticed was that you would have a large crowd. They would call in the armed segment of the SLP which was the OSD, Operational Support Division. They would come in and it would seem that they would immediately go into firing tear gas into the crowds. So based on the fact that there was a trend, a growing trend of violent, crowd violence, we worked really closely with DFID (Department for International Development) to develop training for the local general duty officers in crowd control, controlling nonviolent crowds. One of the problems that we noticed was that a lot of money had been spent by the donors and the SLP in training the OSD, the Operational Support Division police officers. They were well trained. They were well equipped, whereas on the other side of the coin, the general duty officer had never been trained in dealing with crowds or handling large crowds. They're the first line of defense. They will be the first line of defense in dealing with large crowds when they first start to form. So what we decided, ourselves, the SLP and DFID, was let's develop some training that will teach the general duty officers on how to deal with large rowdy but nonviolent crowds and that's what we did. That training began back in October in 2006 and it lasted almost until I would imagine May of 2007. During that period, we assisted and coordinated the training of over 2,200 Sierra Leone police officers in crowd control training. BOUTELLIS: All from the general duty. LANDEROS: Both, it was a combination of-. BOUTELLIS: OSDs? LANDEROS: Yes, brand new training for the general duty officers in addressing large, nonviolent crowds, and training for the OSD, retraining of them on dealing with violent crowds. Now we were really, really fortunate because DFID paid for all the training. DFID paid for all the training. What DFID did, and it cost a lot, DFID brought in some trainers from Britain who were specialists in crowd control training. They worked very closely with the UNPOL training team and basically what we did, UNPOL training, they organized and coordinated all the training throughout the whole country and the advisors that came in from England, for which DFID paid, they actually trained some trainers. Our training team assisted. They trained, I think, about 57 trainers. Then these 57 trainers went out throughout the country and trained the rest of the 2,200 SLP. That was really, really important, because it gave the general duty officer confidence in dealing with crowds. BOUTELLIS: Now that there are two different services that are trained in dealing with nonviolent and violent crowds. Is there a clear division of mandate in terms of when to use the general duty officer trained in crowd control versus when to use the OSD? LANDEROS: There's a mandate or a procedure. The way they were trained, especially the management is, if the management is informed ahead of time that there's going to be a large gathering, either a large protest or a large march or a large event where there's going to be a lot of people, then the SLP will put it into their operational orders or operational plans that they will have CCU (Crowd Control Unit) units. Those are the general duty officers. A crowd control unit consists of 41 officers, general duty officers. They will be deployed to these events. These are unarmed officers. The only thing they have is a helmet and a nightstick. Their job is just to try to keep the peace, try to keep the crowds from turning to violence. That's number one. That's really important because before there were no plans, no formal plans were made to address these large gatherings. Now the SLP has done a very good job. If they know in advance that there's going to be a demonstration, a march, they will deploy crowd control units. What the procedure is, if these units, if these crowds become violent, then the police support units are on standby and they will come in and replace the crowd control units. That's the way it's supposed to work. Now, if you have a spontaneous violent crowd, then the PSUs (Police Support Unit) and the mobile armed response units immediately respond. You don't endanger unarmed police officers to respond to the-you don't send unarmed CCU units to respond to violent demonstrations or violent crowds. BOUTELLIS: So these were trained by May 2007, so prior to the presidential and parliamentary elections of last year. LANDEROS: Yes. Training began October 2006. BOUTELLIS: So were they actually deployed all over the country for the elections? LANDEROS: Yes. BOUTELLIS: Was that the test? LANDEROS: That was the big test. BOUTELLIS: What was the evaluation? LANDEROS: In my opinion, a lot of the crowd control units that were in the high threat areas performed well. It's a show of force. That's basically the bottom line, a show of force where you have this unit of 41 officers working as a unit and they're organized. It's a show of force and it's a deterrent. Basically it is a deterrent and they performed well. BOUTELLIS: Were they confronted with nonviolent or violent crowds? LANDEROS: Oh yes. Especially during the campaign periods. Here in Freetown, during the APC (All People's Congress), that's one of the political parties. During the APC, the last day of their campaign, of the campaign period, there were over, easily, 100,000 people here in Freetown marching to the stadium, all clad in red. The SLP were well deployed all throughout the city. We had no problems whatsoever, none. When the SLPP (Sierra Leone People's Party) had their last, the ruling party, the SLPP, when they had their last day of campaign before the end of the campaign period, there were up to 30,000 people marching towards the stadium. Once again the SLP deployed the CCU units. They had them deployed all over the city, plus they had on standby your PSUs and your MARGs (Mobile Arm Response Groups). So I think the training that was provided by DFID and the UNPOL in crowd control paid some great dividends. BOUTELLIS: So the objective of the training of these crowd control units were broader than the elections? Are there incidents outside of the elections? LANDEROS: Exactly, see our goal was to have save and secure elections so that's why we trained the SLP in preparation for the elections. But if you look at the broader sense, these skills can be used whenever there are large crowd issues. The SLP has done remarkably well in making sure-this is outside the election-when there are large crowds that are going to form, they'll have their CCUs there. It's standard operating procedure that the local unit commanders will have their crowd control units deployed when there's a large gathering of people. BOUTELLIS: So the elections were sort of the practical test? LANDEROS: The final exam. BOUTELLIS: Were there any other type of evaluations of the training done? LANDEROS: Let's put it this way. There were a lot of evaluations on the outcome of the elections by a lot of NGOs. There were a lot of reports done that gauged the outcome of the elections and in there also gauged the performance of the SLP. All the reports that I read were very, very favorable and complimentary of the SLP. So that was SLP's final examination in preparation for the elections. Needless to say we were-that surprised us we never thought beyond our wildest dreams that the SLP would have performed, would perform as good as it did. I think the SLP themselves were very, very proud of themselves. I think that they didn't think they could do it. Then with all the preparation that UNPOL, DFID and the SLP themselves, all the preparation that we did, once again paid dividends. I think that really increased their confidence in themselves as a police force. BOUTELLIS: Often this kind of training, particularly when done partly by the international community is quite expensive as you mentioned. LANDEROS: Very expensive. BOUTELLIS: I don't know what the figures are, it's a rather large group of trainees, 2,200 trainees. Do you have a suggestion from this training or maybe from other training or ongoing or has taken place in the past, suggestions, cost-saving suggestions where maybe, without having to spend large budgets effective results were attained? LANDEROS: One of the things that you have to do is, that will cut a lot of costs is to get the police force, get a group, say of the SLP, that will be trained so that they can go out and do the training themselves. BOUTELLIS: Train the trainers. LANDEROS: Yes, train the trainers. But the majority of the-the SLP, an average police officer makes about 40-50 dollars a month. Number two, the elections, the SLP did not have or did not receive funding specifically for the elections, to police the elections. It was an unfunded mandate. That was the bottom line, it was an unfunded mandate. The majority of the funds that went into the training were to provide rations. When you bring in officers from all of the country to different locations, regional locations-. BOUTELLIS: Food rations? LANDEROS: Yes, food rations. Because they're going to be training up to two weeks. So we had to provide the rations, meals, for three times a day for those officers. Secondly we had to provide fuel to get them in from all over the country. So that's what the majority-the same thing for this year, 2007. Most of the money went, funding from the donors, from the election basket fund. BOUTELLIS: Managed by UNDP (United Nations Development Programme)? LANDEROS: Yes, managed by UNDP, went to provide fuel and rations in support of the training. BOUTELLIS: Moving on from training, UNPOL has a number of advisors that work closely with senior police officers in different departments and different levels. In terms of strengthening of international management, what is your assessment, your team's assessment, what are the key areas in terms of-whether it be ranks, promotion system, disciplinary system, record keeping, what are the some of the areas you're focusing on? LANDEROS: I can tell you right now, the major problem with the SLP right now is officers not being held accountable. That is the major problem. If you go to any of the-if you go to any of the management team at the SLP, they will tell you our main problem is officer indiscipline. This year 2007 one of the things that we focused on-the areas that we focused on are, number one, elections. That was our primary goal, to make sure we had safe elections, that the SLP are prepared. Number two, the most important thing that we were going to focus on was professional standards, officer accountability. One of the things that I see, based on my two-year's experience here is you have executive management at the SLP, highly trained, highly motivated. But there's a disconnect between the upper level of management and the mid level to low level management. There's a disconnect there. In my two year's experience here in Sierra Leone it is that you have supervisors and managers who are not supervising and managing their people. So what does that mean? You have a lot of officers out there who are not doing their jobs and nobody is holding them accountable. So what we have been working on is working with Sierra Leone's CDIID (Complaints, Discipline, Internal Investigation Department) which is their complaints division and internal affairs, basically their internal affairs division. We have been working with them really hard, spending a lot of time with them, making sure that if an officer violates policy, procedure or criminal law, that they are held accountable, that the case is properly investigated, thoroughly investigated and in a timely fashion. That's what we've been working on. Until that problem is addressed, I don't care how much training you provide the department, nothing is going to change, period. BOUTELLIS: What are some examples of, in terms of the CDIID, the complaints and internal affairs, it has been up and running for a few years, what are the results they are achieving in terms of cases dealt with, in terms of dismissals, in terms of officers dismissed and charged possibly? LANDEROS: That's a multi-. BOUTELLIS: Overall, what has the CDIID achieved in the last couple of years? LANDEROS: Since I've been here, in two years the CDIID has, on many occasions, disciplined and discharged, basically fired, a lot of officers. But the process-as I said, I've been here for two years, but the process is not uniform and is not being followed in every case that is done. If you're going to discipline officers, it has got to be uniform, it has got to be consistent. You have got to follow policies and procedures. In some instances it does not occur. I can tell you that the officers in the CDIID, they work very hard in an attempt to-but the procedures and policies that are in place have got to be followed. They have got to be followed consistently. Secondly one thing that I've seen in my two years here, the SLP is very good at disciplining officers. I'm thinking of the best way I can put this. Let me put it this way. The major cases, a lot of times, aren't properly investigated or thoroughly followed up on. It's changing, it's turning around. I can give you a good example, a really good example. There was a shooting where an OSD officer shot and killed a person in the Sierra Rutile area, at a check point. The shooting was very, very questionable. The case was not promptly and thoroughly being investigated. So what my UNPOL professional standards advisor was able to convince the SLP CDIID and the CID (Criminal Investigation Department) was to put, whenever there is a major incident, critical incident, whenever an officer either kills or seriously injures a person, that case, we convinced them cases like that must be investigated by headquarters. You cannot leave it to the regional commands to investigate those cases because they live and work with the officers day in and day out. So it is very difficult to conduct an objective investigation when you live and work together with a group of people. So we convinced them that whenever an officer kills or seriously wounds or injures a person, that a team of CDIID or CID must investigate that case, and they agreed. They formed a team of the Criminal Investigation Division and the CDIID, and they went to the location along with my UNPOL advisor. They did a very good job. They investigated that case. They brought it back. That officer, based on the information and the reinvestigation that they did, was charged to court for murder. As a matter of fact, that officer is in Pademba Prison right now. The case is on trial. So the SLP, they want to do what's right. It is in their best interest, it is in the best interests of the people, the citizens. That's one area that the SLP still needs a lot of work on. BOUTELLIS: But the lack of effectiveness of the CDIID, if I can put it this way, is primarily due to procedures, policies, not followed or what you're describing, the provincial CDIID team not wanting to investigate thoroughly. LANDEROS: Yes. BOUTELLIS: Are there any concerns of politicization possibly of the SLP on this kind of case? LANDEROS: There is. How can I best state that. There is a lot of pressure put on the CDIID. That's in any country. I worked internal affairs back in the States for three and a half years. Whenever you work, whenever you investigate police officers, that pressure is always going to be there and it's no different here. The difference is, number one, policies and procedures have got to be followed. They have to be followed consistently plus you have to have the support of management whenever you're going to be investigating police officers. The SLP is slowly but surely getting there. BOUTELLIS: So what would happen if say CDIID would have to investigate one day a senior officer, AIG (Assistant Inspector-General), or senior level officer within the police? LANDEROS: The CDIID, unless they had the support, the explicit support of the Inspector-General of Police, they would find it very difficult to investigate those types of cases. BOUTELLIS: So this is internal investigation, are there any mechanisms of external accountability? LANDEROS: No, currently there is not a civilian oversight. That is one of the areas we were going to focus on. That is a little bit harder than we thought it was going to be. But that's one area also where there has to be establishment of independent oversight, either commission or committee that will review every single investigation where an officer either kills or seriously injures a person. That's what we're looking to focus on. Right now it's just a little tougher than we thought it was going to be to implement that type of process. BOUTELLIS: For what reasons? LANDEROS: I don't think, right now at this point in time the will is not there, it is just the will is not there to do that at this point in time. It's getting better though. As you heard, back in December there was a shooting, there was an issue where a disturbance erupted in the Kono area. BOUTELLIS: The mining area. LANDEROS: Yes, the mining area. The SLP fired into the crowd and killed two people. Immediately the President stepped in and order an investigation, an independent investigation. What the President did was he established a commission. He appointed a three-man commission. That three-man commission-there were 17 recommendations made by that commission and the top four dealt specifically with police. The top two recommendations were that those officers be prosecuted for the death of those two people. That's what it is going to take. It's going to take an oversight committee or commission. I think now what the President did in establishing this commission, it is going to make it a little bit-there's still a lot of work to be done. I think it will come around where eventually there will be an oversight committee or commission that will review police issues of misconduct. BOUTELLIS: Now a broader question that you've already sort of answered in terms of major challenges that you'll face and the SLP being the elections and what we were just discussing, the issue of discipline and accountability. Are there some other priorities or tasks that are essential for success that you would point to. Are there any other successes, innovations that we haven't talked about? LANDEROS: One of the areas that we're working on very closely now is the development of a sexual harassment, sexual discrimination policy for the SLP. That is needed. Currently there isn't a sexual discrimination, sexual harassment policy within the SLP. Back in June of 2007 UNPOL organized and UNDP funded a two-day workshop where we brought in over 300 policewomen from all throughout the country. It was a two day workshop. Basically what we wanted to do was we wanted to hear from the women themselves what can the SLP do to improve the quality of life for SLP women within the department. What can we do to improve their status or their situations within the SLP? These women brought up a lot of good suggestions. They developed a lot of good suggestions and recommendations. So we took those recommendations and currently we have set up a committee along with SLP, UNPOL, the gender advisor, the SEA (sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, and sexual harassment) advisor with UNIOSIL and we are trying to come up with policies and procedures that will improve or strengthen SLP's procedures in terms of promotions, training, transfers and recruitment. Then as I said most of all a policy on sexual harassment and sexual discrimination. This committee has come up with recommendations. Myself and Ms. Kadi Fakondo, when she gets back, we're going to take this policy and give it to the SLP and let them read it, the SLP Executive Management Board (EMB). Then what Ms. Fakondo is going to try and do is get the Executive Management Board to approve of the sexual harassment, basically it is a policy in sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and sexual harassment, and get the EMB to approve that policy for the SLP. To us, I think, based on what these women told us, this policy is needed. If we can leave here at the end of this mission with that policy in place, I think that's going to be a great accomplishment. BOUTELLIS: Last question, now turning to the UN. This is your first UN mission, you've been here for two years. From your experience, observation, if you could create a wish list, what would be two or three changes in UN internal management or policy that you would want in order to be more effective at your job? LANDEROS: I could tell you at number one is the senior police advisor or commissioner must have an operating budget, that's critical. You must have a budget that he or she can access. Let me give you an example. In a mission that is not executive, where the department, police force, in a mission where you can only advise and mentor and where the police force has no obligation to act upon your recommendations, and in a mission where you have another organization or governmental entity that not only do they mentor and advise but they have the funding to back them up, who are you going to listen to? So, that is why I strongly would recommend in future, nonexecutive missions the UNPOL senior police advisor or the police commissioner, they have to have a budget that they can access. If you're going to work on special projects, say for instance when we did that conference for the women, we had to go through UNDP to do that. Even though UNDP, Mr. Sam Harbor and Bernard Mokam, those guys are great, but the process is so bureaucratic and so time consuming, it is very difficult to obtain funding from UNDP. Once again, it has to fall within the parameters of UNDP. This way it would make my job so much more simpler. One of the things that I really value of my UNPOL, or my police officers back at home is innovation. I want my officers to be innovative. You tell your officers go out there and work with the SLP and come up with some innovative projects, initiatives. The officers will come up with some great projects, but unfortunately if you don't have the funding for that or if that doesn't fall within the parameters of UNDP then you're stuck and you can't carry forth those innovative ideas that the SLP and the UNPOL officers had. Now one thing that you hear is well, then you listen, you, the senior police officer, you should go to other donors and see if you can obtain funding from them for these projects. That doesn't work, especially in a year when all the donors are concentrating, providing funding for something as big as the presidential elections. So that's number one. You could do a senior police advisor could really make an impact if he had some funds that he could utilize for these projects because there's a lot of nice little projects. For instance, let me give you an example. One of my officers came up with a great project. Here at Lumley Beach they were having problems with robberies, thefts. The SLP doesn't have any vehicles, very few vehicles and if they had vehicles they don't have any fuel. So you see officers, it is a long stretch. This officer came up with a project to get some bicycles, at least six good police bicycles, train these officers so the SLP officers could be seen out there on these police bicycles for bike patrols. Not only that, buy some flashlights. There's no electricity here. There wasn't back in 2007 and it is still sporadic, so flashlights. Guess what, there was no funding for that project. So if there is funding for things like that, it would make my job a lot easier. A second thing is most of the time a lot of the missions that officers come here are for six months to a year. Then the rotation begins. You get an officer who after one year, nine months, has gotten to know the SLP, has gotten to know the culture, has gotten to know the region, has gotten to know the police stations. When it comes time the SLP is very comfortable with the UNPOL officer, the UNPOL officer is very comfortable with the SLP, he's got all this institutional knowledge and is making some progress boom, it's time for that person to leave. It makes it very, very difficult for consistency. I understand that. Some departments cannot allow people to be gone for long periods of time. But I you can have a person be able to stay more than one year that would be tremendous. A third thing is induction training. An induction training should be done before an officer arrives in a mission. Say for instance what happens here. One officer arrived this month, two months later another officer arrives. Then especially if you're really busy with the elections, it's hard to sit down, set aside the time and sit down with the officer, which I did, and give him a really good overall training or induction course. I think it is important before any officer is deployed there has got to be training, specific training of what they're going to encounter in that mission. The officer has got to understand that this is not an executive mission. What happens is you will have some officers who come here and they can't cope with the fact that they cannot tell a person you must do this, you must do this, you must do this. That's what a police officer does back home. A lot of times a police officer will tell a person you must do this, you will do this. But when you come here you have to rely totally-. Back home police officers also have to rely on their skills, being tactful, but here you have to rely totally on being persuasive, tactful and convincing. I think that whenever an officer comes to a nonexecutive mission they have to understand that. When you go there, you cannot demand or order your client to do anything. You have to rely on persuasion, your tact. You have to rely on that. I think those are the main things that would make my job easier. BOUTELLIS: Do you have any final comments? LANDEROS: I love working for the UN, I really do. Say for instance during the elections one of the things I kept telling my officers was we do our job right, we train the SLP, prepare them for the elections to the best of our abilities. That means people are going to be safe, nobody is going to get hurt, nobody is going to get killed. I know that's really idealistic but that's the way I focus my people on this job. Then, when it finally happens, and it wasn't just because of the UNPOL, it was because of the whole UNIOSIL working as a team with this goal of making sure that the elections were safe, and when that happens you feel great because you understand that nobody got killed. During the elections, this is unheard of in Africa, even the Sierra Leone police officers, even the officers from other African nations said it is totally unheard of for nobody to be killed during an election process. Here in Sierra Leone, not one single person was killed due to election-related violence. Now, that's unheard of. Then when you think back, that the little part that you played, that you and your team played, had something to do with that, then you understand how important an organization like the United Nations, how important UNIOSIL was. Like I said, it was UNIOSIL working as a team, UNPOL with the security, peace and governance, human rights, everything clicked. That's why you had a really safe-that's to me the most important-a safe election where nobody got hurt, nobody got killed. Then you realize, the United Nations, now you understand why the United Nations is so important. BOUTELLIS: Rudy Landeros, thank you very much. LANDEROS: You're welcome. Innovations for Successful Societies Series: Policing Oral History Program Interview number: I-8 ______________________________________________________________________ 13 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