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.: L17 Interviewee: Mustafa Tekinbas Interviewer: Arthur Boutellis Date of Interview: 22 July 2008 Location: UN Camp Alpha 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 BOUTELLIS: Today is the 22nd of July, 2008, and I am now sitting with Mr. Mustafa Resat Tekinbas who is Deputy Police Commissioner of the UN Mission in Kosovo [UNMIK], the Deputy Police Commissioner of UNMIK for Administration. We are now at Camp Alpha near Prishtin‘/Pri?tina, Kosovo. TEKINBAS: Yes. BOUTELLIS: First thank you for your time and before we start I'd like you to confirm that you've given your consent to the interview. TEKINBAS: Of course. It's my pleasure. BOUTELLIS: I'd like to start by learning a bit more about your personal background, the positions you've held before this position and particularly, how did you get involved into international policing after a career at home. TEKINBAS: I was born in 1969 in Istanbul, and finished my primary and secondary schooling in Istanbul, as well. Then, actually, when I was 14 years old I started my policing career. It was a kind of strict military school, a police college, in Turkey. It was high school for four years, away from your family and in the capital of Ankara. Then, after I graduated from the police college, I attended the police academy. The police academy is not a police academy that you can compare in the States because it is only one school. Actually, it is a kind of university on law, or I can say, a law school. Most of our subjects depended on legal subjects, of course, attached to policing. The name police academy may not be the regular name because when we compare the subjects, they are like those taught in law schools. They are very similar and the teachers, or trainers, are also going to these kinds of schools. When I finished school I was also a police officer during my studies-I was both student and police at that time. I started my official police job in 1987. So, it has already been 21 years now that I have been working for the police. After I graduated from the police academy I was transferred to my city, Istanbul, again to work for a riot control unit. I can tell you honestly that in Turkey, perhaps because of having lots of troubles with criminals, with terrorists, and sometimes of course with big crowds and demonstrations, I think we gained a lot of experience. So, riot control was quite busy in Istanbul and at the time when I was deployed there. Every other day I can say that there were attacks on police officers. At that time we were sending platoons to some areas because Istanbul is a big city of around 12 million. There were many groups that easily gathered and demonstrated, including many times with violence. One case was when we were going through our main base to where we deployed, one of the platoons was attacked by launchers. One of my colleagues was injured. One time, when we were coming back to the main base-I can happen to anyone because everybody was leaving at the same time and everyone was coming at the same time. Another one of our colleagues was killed, from another RPG. It was really a very hard time in 1991. Especially, I can say, from the extremist leftist groups. They are still active in Turkey, of course, but it is not as much as they were in 1991 until 1995. Also, to deal with the demonstrations, some part of the riot control unit in Turkey was to go to matches freely--perhaps you can watch matches, if you have a good position of course--to deal with the audience who also create violence. That is another huge experience I can tell. Although, I was a supporter of one of the biggest football teams and I was treating everyone the same. Sometimes they were complaining because we don't want people to provocate. In big crowds, even for sports, provocation can start easily. Somebody touches, swears, uses some bad words and it starts, and it can then go everywhere. So, after this experience I was transferred to the information technology section. I was responsible for maintenance of databases and checking my colleagues to enter the information properly into the database. That was helping of course police operations to easily check the database from the plate numbers, from the names, and for other information. During that time, while I was always working in the riot control unit I was going in the evening to computer classes. Then I registered to Marmara University; it is one of the best universities in Turkey. I studied for one year to become a professional IT expert; it was 25 hours a week for one term. Then, I was transferred to the Traffic Unit responsible for registration of traffic documents. Also, in Turkey we may not have enough officers so when you don't have enough officers you are in a position to assign your officers starting from police officers to high ranking officers. Everybody can be deployed to some other jobs, as well. Mostly you are assigned to demonstrations or if there are some big meetings. Let's say a NATO meeting for example, when it was held in Turkey everybody was on duty. Then after that I was transferred to the Intelligence Section, which I worked on the technical side. I can tell you that at that time, around 1994, the Turkish Intelligence Unit made huge progress. So, that was a very important and very significant year. At that time it was very important to have intelligence to fight against terrorism. No matter how many people you put on patrolling, if you are not supported by intelligence, it does not help that much. I think we may have prevented many people from being killed by terrorism. Many terrorists were captured by these operations. We called it policing operations lead by intelligence. Then during my service from 1994 until 2001--I went in 1996 to Louisiana to study for four months at Louisiana State University for international police management and I took some other courses of course related to these studies. It was a very good opportunity to not only study but also, we found the opportunity to visit correctional facilities in some other neighboring states and to visit our colleagues in New Orleans, in Houston, in Florida. Then in 1998 I had my first mission working for the UN in Bosnia as an instructor. BOUTELLIS: Maybe we can focus on your international experience? TEKINBAS: I worked for the UN in Bosnia for 14 months. The Turkish government has been sending its officers, especially to the United States and other countries, for Master's degrees and Ph.D. degrees. I think we must have now about 150 officers attending 50 different universities. I don't know if there is anyone attending Princeton University but I know I had some colleagues at Rutgers in New Jersey and John Jay College, for example. The first time our government started this project was in 1999. I attended the University of Detroit in Michigan for a Master's Degree program in Criminal Justice. I can tell you something interesting. There were three Turkish students at the university and when we graduated, one of my colleagues was the first one and then the second, and I was the third one. Our degrees were around 3.7 or higher. It was a nice time and it was another great experience. It was not only to study in the States-if you go out from your country and see other different cultures and different countries, it enhances your vision. If you want to give something to your country, to your culture, you can use this vision and the experience. When I came back I was transferred-one of the hot places for police was Diyarbakir, which is the southeast part of Turkey. In some places, of course, you will do your job but perhaps you don't have much to do or you don't have that much crime. But in the Diyarbakir, it is highly difficult if you are not determined to work hard. I had worked as the chief of the IT section at that time and was also assigned to some areas to check for some stations. Also, we have the system that during the night, after midnight, you are acting chief of the city. So, you are responsible for all the units of the city. This city had a population about one and a half million. I came here to Kosovo in December 2003. I started for about one or two months in IT to work on a personnel matrix project, and then I was transferred to personnel section. BOUTELLIS: So, the personnel section at the time was still UNMIK? TEKINBAS: Yes, of course. BOUTELLIS: I'm sorry, it was UNMIK personnel, but was it also KPS personnel? TEKINBAS: No, these were separate things. We have the UNMIK police personnel section. UNMIK civilian side has their personnel section and KPS has theirs. UNMIK administration is not related to KPS, at all. Administration is only related to international police administration. Then, I became Deputy Chief and then Chief of that section. Then in 2006, I was appointed to the Deputy Police Commissioner Administration position by Kai Vittrup. You know he was Commissioner for the Sudan Mission. BOUTELLIS: Prize? TEKINBAS: When you are having executive authority you don't want to lose institutional knowledge and information. So, some people may agree or not but when officers are coming for the first or second time-next month they are trying to adapt themselves to the environment, to the mission. You may not be getting that much from the officers; you cannot expect that much from the officers. The last one or two months it is the same. When you have these officers and having this information starting perhaps from patrolling, starting from normal officers, then being assigned to some levels, some mid-level or high-level positions, you don't want to lose these people. So, we are of course trying to replace these officers by helping them but that is unique. Still we are following this policy to extend the officers, especially now we have to extend, we cannot have enough contribution to the mission from the permanent members because the authorized strength for only the CIVPOL side, police side, not formed police units [FPU] is 1565. Now we are around 1385 or something. So, around 150 less. So, if you deny extension request, you will have fewer officers. That is my experience. BOUTELLIS: Can you describe your role as Deputy Police Commissioner, more generally, in the personnel section and what a regular day is for you? TEKINBAS: I have to represent to the Directors if you follow our organizational chart. One of the directors is responsible for personnel administration and we have also his deputies. One of the directors is responsible for logistics. So, we have Director of Personnel and Director of Logistics. The Director of Logistics has around eight units working for him, PCIUs [Property Control and Inventory Units], FPU logistics office, armory office, EDP [Electronic Data Processing] and communications office, the motor transport units [MT] office. BOUTELLIS: We can find them on the chart. TEKINBAS: These are specific units, of course. In the personnel section we have a number of quite important sections actually for the mission. The PTC [Police Training Center], it is a training section for the first comers and also for internal training. We train the officers for all the matters they can face in the mission. That includes human rights, map reading, organized crime, border issues, gender issues, our policies and procedures--there are many. BOUTELLIS: This is what we call the induction training? TEKINBAS: Yes, induction training. It takes seven days. It is very intense and it takes all day, seven days. Then, we have a counseling and support unit. It may be interesting for you that we have experts, most of them graduated from universities in the social sciences or psychological behaviors. They are experts. They are not waiting for customers to come and visit them, but what they are doing is visiting regions to talk to the officers. If they find that the officers have some kind of family problems, or at that time some psychological problems, for instance. Or if the officers are injured, they are visiting the clinic, hospitals, and so on. They are not waiting in their offices. We have the administration center, which is a very busy office that they have committed with DPKO to manage how many officers are coming, when they are coming, when they will be paid, when they are leaving, when they will be rotated, their clothing allowance, their ammunition, their weapons, etc. So, they check out--we have inspecting units to inspect UNPOL for their attendance, materials, and documents such as evacuation documents. We have the archive unit. We have also a very sensitive and important office for internal investigations. If there are any accusations or alleged misconduct, it comes to me--I can tell you that yesterday I read about 600 pages, perhaps. I am reading it very roughly, looking at the conclusions. Some came from Special Investigation Unit of Security; most of them are related to traffic accidents. It depends on the cases but we forward them to internal investigations. On behalf of me they investigate the cases like they do in crime--it is a similar investigation. When I say sensitive, it is because they investigate police officers. Then it comes to me and we give our final decision before it goes to the appeal process. It depends on the punishment. If there is a serious misconduct, when they are given a written reprimand or higher punishment, it goes to a board of inquiry, which is another investigation board. After this investigation board, if the officer wants to appeal, it goes to the commissioner and that is the final decision for the punishment. This is a summary, but it takes too much time for me. BOUTELLIS: That is a good overview of all the personnel issues. So, the particularity of the mission here in Kosovo was that it was an executive mandate from 1999. It remained an executive mandate. However, there has been a process of transition of some responsibility to the Kosovo Police, and particularly, the pillar for administration that was transitioned in 2004 if I'm not mistaken. TEKINBAS: You are talking about KPS administration, yes? BOUTELLIS: Yes, KPS administration. How does your work relate or not? How has the evolution of KPS and how has been the evolution on your side, in terms of the size of the forces who have been here--have you observed some changes? Is the mission-? TEKINBAS: I have been following everything. I think it is my personality. I am a proactive kind of person. I don't want to just do my job. When Kai Vittrup left in 2006, at that time, perhaps 75% of the executive authority was transferred to Kosovo Police. Perhaps at that time only the airport was not transferred, other than four regions. Four regions were already transitioned in 2006, except Mitrovica region. Even when we say Mitrovica region, the Mitrovica stations were transferred. Only the Regional Commander position was not transferred. BOUTELLIS: It is still a UNMIK-. TEKINBAS: It is still under UNMIK executive authority in the Mitrovica region. Also, the Head of Border Police was not transferred yet because of Gate 1 and Gate 31 status as we have problems in Gate 1 and Gate 31. What kind of problems? You may have already talked to operations and you know that, so I don't need to mention those problems. Of course, it the youngest police in the world--Kosovo Police. As I was telling you at the beginning, if you are looking from a positive way you can say positive things; if you are looking from a dark window you can say negative things. If you look at the whole picture, to me, it has been huge progress. Our international presence here may have helped their experience a lot. Sometimes of course, there is complaining from KPS and from our side. They say from each country that they came here and they tried to implement what they had in their home. They said now that we have some geographical, cultural understanding that doesn't fit what they are trying to impose there. For example, the fight against terrorism or to deal with crowd control--of course, each nation's plan to deal with the problem is different. There may be a very closed mentality, but when you use some kind of tools-- we had very upsetting and sad incident, I think in February 2007. You know that two local people were killed by rubber bullets? At that time, you know, the UN banned the use of rubber bullets until further notice. Of course we do not want to be faced with these experiences. So, we have to get experiences from other instances and then put them into practice not to injure or kill people. Of course, this may be a problem all over the missions--in crowd control problems, or in different aspects, even in promotions or traffic control--everyone has different opinions. This may be an important part in your study. It seems to me that the UN should consider what kinds of problems they have had in the missions and how they can solve it. Now, in crowd control they are much more experienced. But still, a country or mission in Africa is not similar to Western Europe or Asia, perhaps. So officers who are assigned should be very experienced officers. They have to look at things from different views. If you don't know what is going on you cannot plan effectively in policing. We are of course looking at what is going on in the country, how it can affect our situation, and if there may be any violence, or any terrorism, or any kind of attack. First, of course, we are looking for our international officers because if you are not planning well for our own safety we cannot make a plan for the local people. BOUTELLIS: You mentioned the transition at 75% of the executive mission. TEKINBAS: Now I think it is about 85% or 90%, we can say. BOUTELLIS: How has this impacted your job, including the way the induction training is done and the way officers are-? TEKINBAS: From my side--when I was saying I've been following everyone, because I have to follow the progress here, I have authority here to deploy or re-deploy based on operational needs of the mission. So, if I see some progress going on, for example, with KPS administration. Perhaps two years back we had 80-90 officers working for KPS administration, now we have only 49 officers because when you transition-. For example, four or five years back we had perhaps forty or fifty officers in one station and now we have five or six officers in one station. I cannot deploy incoming officers to a station or a region; it will be a waste of our manpower. So what we do is we look at the structure or look at the progress, and deploy the officers. Of course, the training schedules are not totally changing because the trainings we are giving here-we are talking about politics, what has been going on in the mission--but most of the trainings we are giving are standard trainings given in all UN missions. This includes all safe driving, human rights, map reading, etc. BOUTELLIS: The progress seems to have changed to more mentoring and advising, rather than actually executive-. TEKINBAS: It is also given by, of course, a special department we have here--the handover department. They are helping us give this training. We have talked on this actually, the mentoring, training, and advising. Although their positions are officially mentioned, I don't think we have a mentor position but we have a special advisor, an advisor or monitor. I can tell you that this is, perhaps, my impression on these programs and, perhaps, this is self-criticism. We may not be focused that much on monitoring. We may not be fully monitoring. I can tell you that people may not-even though there has been lots of training, this also requires a kind of dedication from the officers themselves. This is another issue, perhaps, related to officers' mindset and cultural issues. If you look at the papers everything is perfect, but in the field it is not. This is perhaps another study needed, why it is. One of the things I can say honestly is when you say transition it is the transfer of executive power. The impression that local police is taking control, is that, "Now we are having full authority." They just want to do their jobs. They don't want to be disturbed by the internationals. Perhaps, even some of them may be thinking, "You just sit, help us, perhaps support us, but don't interfere too much." BOUTELLIS: When you said part of this handover or transition was taking place by different units, an important part of your job is to effectively redeploy the UNPOL officers according to needs and priorities. How are these needs and priorities identified? How does the information get to you to allow you to redeploy? TEKINBAS: First, we have senior staff-level meeting with all the deputy commissioners, and we also have meetings with our KPS counterparts. At our director level, they are communicating with each other. And before we deploy them, or how the deployment progress-perhaps it is better to tell you how the deployment process is going on. For example, we will have 69 American officers coming soon. First, we check from our databases if they were here in the mission before and if so, in which unit. Do we still need their experience in that office or should they be transferred to other units? So, we are doing a background process before they come here. DPKO is sending us the CVs. If DPKO doesn't send them, then we are asking from the contingent commanders. The contingent commanders are submitting their CVs. Then we distribute the CVs to pillars after we read them. We classify CVs as this is a crime-related CV, this is a training-related CV, this is administration, this CV is for border and boundary. So, we don't depend on this because there is another issue also in the UN that you shouldn't only look at the CVs. You should interview the officers; you should check the officers. Then you can deploy the officers. When they come here during their training schedule, we have some interview time. They are free to go to the interviews. Either they can be called by these departments or they can go by themselves to ask, "I'd like to work with this unit." If they need these people, then they interview and they send their request to our Director of Personnel. If we find them suitable for the requested unit, according to our general policy, we deploy the officers where they are requested--to the crime pillar, border, and operations. After that specific appointment we have other officers left. Most of them are going to operations. So, we ask operations, "How many officers do you want to be deployed to Mitrovica, to Prishtin‘/Pri?tina?" For example, I was talking from 69 American officers--let's assume that nine officers are asked for by Border, five officers are asked by crime, ten officers from administration and KP assessment, then we have about forty officers. So, operations tell us, okay, ten of them are going to Mitrovica, five are going to Ferizaj/Urosevac, etc. We ask the contingent commander for a decision on these ten people for Ferizaj/Urosevac. He decides which officers should go to which region because it is better to talk to the contingent commander and have their opinions. Perhaps, they have information about the officers' experiences before they come here, and could advise, "And this officer should go with this officer." There are many criteria I can tell you. We try to, for example, put the contingent commander and deputy contingent commanders in the center so that we can communicate through them with their contingents properly to provide discipline and some feedback . Most of the contingent commanders and deputies stay in Prishtin‘/Pri?tina, and remain in the Prishtin‘/Pri?tina region. We try to assign female officers considering the positive discrimination. Because we don't have enough female officers. So, we try to find a suitable position for female officers and we are trying to not to send one female officer out of Pri?tina to one place alone. If we find two female officers from the same contingent then we send these two female officers to the same region. We have around 45 countries represented. If there is a country coming with only ten officers then you try to deploy three or four of them to Prishtin‘/Pri?tina. For example, let's say, 7 to Mitrovica. If it is a huge contingent like an American or German contingent, of course, you can deploy them all around Kosovo. Sometimes we have some counseling problems, personal problems, or their specific experiences. We are looking from different aspects. BOUTELLIS: Upon arrival in the mission the UNPOLs [United Nations Police] are being tested? But all of them have been tested prior to coming in the mission on basic skills? TEKINBAS: No. The native speakers are not tested at all in their countries. BOUTELLIS: English-speaking? TEKINBAS: Yes. When I say English officers, I mean UK officers, American officers, and officers coming from countries that-this is according to, perhaps, the statistics. But the UN, I think, after having some experience in other missions-for example in Bosnia, I remember that some of the countries were coming without any tests. No English tests or driving tests, and they were failing. What this was causing-a waste of money and time, of course. It is very rare here that we repatriate officers back after they come here. There was one officer, I think, two or three weeks ago. He was not tested. When he came here, he failed the English test. So, we repatriated him back to his country. He stayed one week and the UN had to pay for his seven days and his ticket here. When he went back to his country, his government paid the expense. I remember there were lots of cases like this happening in Bosnia at that time. After these experiences-. BOUTELLIS: Lessons have been learned. TEKINBAS: Yes, there are lessons learned. Also officers from Germany, for example are tested for SAT in Kosovo since the experience show that almost all pass the test. BOUTELLIS: Scandinavian countries? TEKINBAS: Scandinavian countries as well while we are sending SAT officers, to all of Asia and all southern Europe. BOUTELLIS: The SAT [Selection Assistance Team] team? TEKINBAS: Yes, SAT team. BOUTELLIS: To test the skills prior to-. TEKINBAS: Yes, a driving test and English test are done. The most experienced SAT officers are in Kosovo and we are sending officers to test from our mission. BOUTELLIS: The SAT team comes from here? TEKINBAS: Yes. Actually, it is arranged from New York, the DPKO. Most of the time they request from our mission to send officers to Sri Lanka, Ghana, Turkey, China, Russia, everywhere. This is another experience for our officers, as well. They sometimes send someone from New York and one or two officers sometimes from the Haiti, Timor, or Sudan missions. They make a team of two or three people and they test 200, 700, 400 people at one time, within three or four days. BOUTELLIS: So, most senior officers in the KPS speak some English but I imagine, as you go down the ranks, a lot of people are not English speakers. How do UNPOL officers work with them as advisors in that case? Do they use translators or how does this work in practice? TEKINBAS: Other than our almost 1400 officers, we have 700 local staff under UN contract. Their main duty is to work as administrative or local assistants, or as interpreters. If they cannot communicate with their counterpart, they always have local staff. Since the beginning of the mission, we have had local staff to communicate with the local police. BOUTELLIS: So, about one local staff for two internationals, is that the ratio? TEKINBAS: This ratio, yes, it was a hot topic over the last year when the civilian side tried to reduce some of the local staff. This is another problem I have experienced with the civilians. The civilian mindset is totally different than the police mindset, and the police mindset is totally different from the military mindset. We are between the two, actually, as police. When we have some operations and when we need help from KFOR, for example, they think in a different way. When we try to implement some of the administrative policies, it cannot be similar policies that they implement on the civilian side. For example, their local staff is working from 8 to 5 o'clock or 8:30 to 5:30. Our local staff is working on the shift system because we are working on the shift system. So, then they have to work on the shift system. When they work on the shift system their absences are different; their working times are totally different. So, we cannot apply this 1:2 ratio. They also have a 1:4 ratio in prisons. We have many confidential papers, for example. If they apply printer ratio, for instance, my confidential papers could be seen by others at the network printer. So, the kind of problems occurring between us and the civilian administration-one of the problems I can tell you, for example, the civilian side also has an IT section. In Turkey we also have this problem. You are asking a civilian company, which they ask a lot of money of course, to create a new database and to put some fields in the databases according to your needs. But they still have their understanding that can conflict--but since we are coming from the field, we say that these programs should attach to this program and must bring this information from this database. So here, the database that we are still using has been created by police officers and it has been running very efficiently. So, we are actually very much dependent on the database, as most of the UN staff is dependent on the Lotus email system. Perhaps, you stay all day in your office and sometimes you cannot finish responding to your e-mails. So, that is one of the problems, I think, in the UN also. Too much communication and then you don't see outside. Just try to do the job in the office, looking at the papers. Too much paperwork, perhaps. That is the case that we are, of course, having this local staff to help us on the administration side and also in the stations, and in crime reports, for example, to translate. Of course, documents are translated into two languages. Perhaps we are wasting time, but this has to be done. BOUTELLIS: Into two local languages. TEKINBAS: Yes. So, you cannot have this ratio of 2 police officers to one local staff. In administration, we have more local staff because we are deploying more police officers to the street. BOUTELLIS: What is the ratio now of UNPOL advisors to KP officers, approximately? TEKINBAS: I cannot provide a ratio on this because it is not a ratio. It depends on where the officers are working. BOUTELLIS: Okay, I see. As you said, because they're deployed based on the needs, in some areas there are-. TEKINBAS: I don't know. For example, let's assume the central station. There may be 300 to 400 KP officers working over there. We have seven or eight officers working there, as well: a station commander monitor, deputy station commander--which is not in our description--operations liaison officer, station investigation monitor, shift leader monitor. There are two or three shift leader monitors, in some stations three shift leader monitors. So, we have maximum in the most crowded stations of seven or eight officers. This actually shows we totally transitioned 90% of the mission. So, five officers, and imagine that 25 or 30% of them are also on leave on their CTO. BOUTELLIS: 30%? TEKINBAS: 30%, yes. BOUTELLIS: At all times? TEKINBAS: Most of the time. I can tell you because according to our policies, the maximum absence in these transitioned units is 33%. BOUTELLIS: Now, we said 90% have been transitioned already to Kosovo police and the UN mission will be departing sometime soon, transitioning to EULEX mission--. TEKINBAS: This is a political question. BOUTELLIS: This is a political question but it has been in discussion for-. TEKINBAS: We have been talking of this for the last year. I know that EULEX started as EUPT [European Union Planning Team] in April 2006. It has been more than two years now that they have been working. Now, people are talking-. BOUTELLIS: They've been shadowing but they've not-. TEKINBAS: They have been talking about October. BOUTELLIS: There's no fixed date yet? TEKINBAS: Of course there is no fixed date yet, but we have been asked to be prepared. We are always prepared. As they give us an official date, we will have a 120-day transition period. So, of course, we will have enough time to downsize, to have big checkouts of the contingents. We are experienced, and I think we can handle it easily. That is not a big problem from our side. But of course, everybody is waiting for some kind of official decision. BOUTELLIS: At the point we are at now, what would be in your opinion, based on your experience, the broader challenges and the priorities left for the Kosovo Police to be able to stand on its feet with limited international mentoring? TEKINBAS: We have two parts acting here: one of them is the political part, and the other is from our side. If you ask, we don't know how it will be solved from the political part; the north side is very unclear, today. If we are talking about the facts, more than forty countries recognize Kosovo. According to those countries Kosovo is an official, recognized, independent country. It is not a UN member, so it has not been recognized by the UN. The UN is neutral and we are, of course, neutral. So here, there are lots of challenges in every field, and not just in policing. That is why at the beginning I was telling you I was not just interested in doing my job and leaving at 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock to go to my house. The Turkish government, for example, has been helping the Kosovo Police in training on organized crime, terrorism, IT issues, special task forces, and intelligence that has been going on. On behalf of my government, about two months ago we donated around 500 breath analyzers--alcohol measuring devices--to the Kosovo Police. Training--as you have seen in my CV the training never finishes. If you say that training is over it means you are over. The training never finishes. Everything is progressing. There is much progress in policing. For example, when I was looking into new devices for the crowd control unit I noticed that there was a new kind of acoustic device the New York police are using. I don't know how effective it is. If we used that kind of device in 2006, this kind of vehicle let's say, it would have been a much better solution. One of my responses to DPKO was to recommend having this kind of equipment to be used by missions if appropriate. The challenges for Kosovo Police--if you are asking me, we are all human. They are receiving 250 euros a month. You cannot expect officers getting that kind of money to dedicate themselves fully to their job. So, I don't know how we can initially help the Kosovo government to increase the salary and the welfare of the officers. As far as I know, they don't have social security or health security at all. So, if you try to train and give new, modern techniques, everything--this can fail at any one point. I don't know. It could be the reason why-if you look at the whole picture they are working efficiently. But on the other side--for example, when I checked several weeks ago at their logistics base I noticed lots of vehicles. These vehicles, you cannot find in policing units in many countries. These are 4x4 vehicles. Some are new vehicles, perhaps only four or five years old. They are just waiting because of a broken window, or very minor repairs are needed. But, they are waiting. My impression is that these are the vehicles that have been bought with the taxes of the people and they need to be used, like it is your vehicle. We have a campaign for UNMIK and KPS here now promoting the use of seatbelts. These are, perhaps, simple examples but they show us that there is still a lot that could come from our side to help the Kosovo Police, in every field. Training is the first essential part because monitoring and advising, in my opinion, may not help that much from this point on. What KPS asks from our side is actually training, money, and help. Why can they not have their health insurance? If you don't solve these problems, you cannot solve other problems. Perhaps we should tell local police that "We are doing this for your progress and so that you can improve, so there aren't a lot of abuses in your positions and in your assignments. We are helping you because, let's say, we have some experience and instruction to offer." This is according to statistics and social sciences. If you, for example, assign five officers in the street where the crime occurs during the nights, especially burglary and harassments of people walking the streets, this is going to help to reduce the crime. Of course, there are lots of legal bases on these. If you don't have this first on the KP side, these kinds of procedures or standard operating procedures, you cannot ask them to comply. There is a lot of good progress, but the mentoring or monitoring programs need to be implemented professionally considering the realities and consequences for the future. BOUTELLIS: That's an important lesson. If you could create a wish list, what would be two or three changes in UN internal management or policy that would help you do your job more effectively? Do you have any suggestions? TEKINBAS: The UN system is an old running system; it works very slowly. Everybody complains about it. To change some simple policies requires lots of authorizations. Practical levels must be strengthened in the UN system. That means you need to give more designations to some lower levels in decision-making. I understand that the UN has many challenges when they are deploying officers to different missions. First, they should plan safety of its staff taking the acceptable risks and having details shared with relevant actors as the details of the peacekeeping fields are quite important in success. The officers arriving from different countries are coming from different backgrounds. One of the things I propose, for example, is related to the level of English proficiency. One of my proposals was, instead of sending our SAT teams to the countries, which is also expensive for the UN--there is the TOEFL [Test of English as a Foreign Language] examination for foreign students, most of the universities ask for a score of 550 or 600, so I proposed to DPKO to talk to this company in Princeton [ETS]. To talk to them and tell them that we need this kind of test with this specific vocabulary. They can make it according to policing terms and according to an Internet-basis; they can test the incoming officers' levels of oral English. They can ask this company if you can have $100 from the participants and you can pay us $50 as well, so they can have money from this. So, we wouldn't have to send officers out and this would be the fairest example I can think of before officers are assigned to the missions. So, they say that we have some countries, whose officers cannot pay. But this is one thing. You can say this exam is for three years; TOEFL is for two years. So let's say if an officer from X poor country, and if you cannot have this exam in that country, they can go to a nearby country to have this examination. This is only for English. In this test you could also have management, investigation, and other required evaluations as well. Another problem is with recruiting people. Sometimes you are asking by the names because you know the officer can really help out a lot in the mission, but there is another problem with bureaucracy. You ask an officer from the mission first, then DPKO, the permanent mission, and then their countries. This is another way, and we rarely use this kind of system. Another way could be--sometimes they say, "Okay, we have to have from this country, from this country, from this country." But if you have, according to your experiences, officers from each country with special experiences in that field, you can ask those specific officers to work in that field. I also conducted a study here showing statistics for the Turkish contingent identifying where they worked and where they contributed. They contributed in many fields, but they especially contributed in administration, forensics, IT, and crime investigations. So, the problem on the UN side is that you cannot have enough officers. First, from the UN side we are looking the number of officers, not the quality of officers. That's the problem. For example, we have 137 officers working for the border. If you ask me, "Are all of them border officers in their home countries?" I can say personally, 20-30% are border-experienced officers. So, we are working with numbers, not with quality. I don't know how these problems can be solved but somebody should work on it. For example, on the issue of gender I have spoken with several gender advisors. What I have advised them, for example, two days ago, on Sunday our commissioner was complaining about why Turkey is only sending one female officer. Because when we send the SAT team in Turkey, they have to pass the test. We have thousands of female officers in Turkey but either because they are married, they couldn't find time to learn English, or they didn't study that much--there are some reasons. But what I suggested, for example, there are some countries like this--if the UN can fund this kind of training, English training, let's say--if you want more female officers and if you find it is essential for the missions, create a program together with these countries. Ask, let's say, sixty female officers from Turkey to be trained in one training center for three months. Perhaps, this will help them; at least 20% of them might pass the test. Twenty percent would make 12 female officers, only from Turkey. These kinds of things always require some kind of challenges. Some other experiences from my side, perhaps, I follow the formal way too much in a nice way. BOUTELLIS: Positive criticism. TEKINBAS: For example, there have been several meetings--a new concept, perhaps, for the UN are formed police units over the past several years. In the whole picture it has been working, but when we go in the details, it may not be working as we had initially planned. First, they have a kind of memorandum for understanding for these formed police units. According to the memorandum for understanding, the countries should provide the equipment, vehicles and even the tents where they will stay--the accommodations. The UN is paying some money to those contributing countries to kind of lease this equipment, but the equipment is not standardized. The UN is looking from the economical approach, most likely. But all these vehicles and equipment can possibly given by the UN. Formed police units--some of their police staff are not actually experienced, young, or not having sufficient crowd control training. Other problems from formed police units--95% are not English speaking. So, one of my proposals was why don't we assign one or two officers--what do we lose if we assign one or two officers, a native speaker, to train them in one month, or two months. At least what we use for radios, for some kind of direction so that when we ask them, they can do it in a better way. One of my proposals, also in the mission, is regarding abuses. If all these officers in one camp are from the same country, then there could be some abuses. I could tell you about one of the officers, for example, he was a commander who was repatriated, and the reason was because of an abuse. He left his office five days ago and he came five days later. Why, I say. Because if there was another international staying in the camp then he would be checking what is going on, and it would be a kind of control mechanism. There are other kinds of problems, perhaps, going on in the camps. For example, if you look at the history--one Jordanian officer killed five American officers, or three officers were killed and two were injured from other nations--an Australian and some other officers were injured. BOUTELLIS: In Kosovo? TEKINBAS: Yes, in Kosovo. BOUTELLIS: When did this happen? TEKINBAS: In 2004. One FPU officer committed suicide. Another FPU officer killed his commander and then another officer killed this officer. Why is it happening? I can tell you why it is happening according to me. These officers are very young officers. They are staying in these kinds of containers. Sometimes it depends where you are living, but it is either very cold or very hot, and they are under a kind of house military; it depends on which country they are coming from. They are under pressure. In six months, they are given only fifteen days absence. So, they are away from their family. It is not that difficult to solve these kinds of problems. At the end, the UN is embarrassed after these incidents occur. In the guidelines, which we are bound by UNMIK--each mission has policies that they have in the guidelines--it says, for example, if the mission allows you can work like the civilian side five days a week and you can use UN holidays and weekends. They also have different kinds of leaves, like family leave, or other kinds of leaves. So in UNMIK, for example, it gives 144 days for civilian people. So, it says in those guidelines if the mission requires them to work for seven days, it should be compensated. When you understand compensated, what does it mean? But, for example, in a year we can be out of mission for 74 days. We can use 74 days. Civilian side is using two times more. So, when I said several years ago to previous policy advisors, we are step-staff because our police officers, when they have some kind of duties on the civilian side, they feel they don't want to talk to them because some people, not all, are looking down to us--like we are a kind of step-staff where actually we are working for them. Actually, if there were no police there would not be civil unit administration. The main thing is to have peacekeeping and capacity building here. So, if there were no police there would be no civilian administration. Perhaps that is why after these complaints, they changed the Director of Administration title to the Director of Mission Support, DMS. Of course, the position actually is on the civilian side to support any kind of logistical meaning to the police side. What I suggested at least, this is very--ILO, International Labor Organization, is one of the organizations working for the UN. How can you ask one officer to work for sixty days, ninety days or four months, not even using one single day off? So how can you expect an efficient job from that officer? He won't be going to any cinema or theater, joining any sports, or something like that. If you don't consider these kinds of things, of course, there will be some abuses. Then it will come to me in the internal investigations, of course. Of course, I am not asking for 144 days. What I suggested was that at least officers should have one day off, an obligatory off day, including high-level officers. They should be waking up a little bit late, have their breakfast, then just go around the country. This will increase your experience. Communicate with local people and ultimately this is a humanitarian right. How can you ask people to work for 90 days? Then you are saying why do we have sexual harassment and these kinds of problems? Because these cause the kind of stress such that one day he becomes very angry, and he says something very bad to another person. One day he drinks alcohol, and then uses UN vehicle and has a traffic accident. On the civilian side, for example, they have a kind of family visit. I suggested that instead of facing embarrassment, at least once a year why don't you give a free return ticket to their family for a visit. You are saying this is not a family mission, okay. You have this kind of leave--"you cannot go more than twelve days, you cannot go more than this day"--then it is going to happen. That is why I am complaining about the bureaucracy and these kinds of things. If you talk to everyone, 90% of the people will agree that everybody must have one day off. BOUTELLIS: Because now it is seven days a week. TEKINBAS: It is seven days a week and sometimes people say who are working in the shift system, we are making a double click. You work, for example, until 12 o'clock in the morning and you start again. You finish when you change the shift, you even don't sleep that night, and you work again. So, there are lots of issues in the administration; perhaps, people are expecting me to be much more strict. I am actually strict when I see that the officer is totally at fault. These are the things that should be solved before we are going for mentoring, advising and other things. For some countries they are paid good money. Their governments are paying two or three times more. But for some countries, what we get here is MSA [Mission Subsistence Allowance]. BOUTELLIS: The daily allowance. TEKINBAS: Actually, it is for your daily expenditures: for your accommodation, your clothes, and your other expenses. The UN is assuming that we will be finishing this 2000-euro in one month. Most of the countries from which officers are coming, perhaps, are not in very good economic condition. They are not receiving any salary from their countries. They are trying to save some money from this MSA. As far as I know actually, the UN is deducting or paying from the contributions of the countries. Actually if there is another fund, when the UN employs the countries, for those who are sending officers they should ask them to pay this money, at least some portion, to their officers. Otherwise, the UN must find another solution for these kinds of social rights and rights of the officers. BOUTELLIS: Is there anything that you would absolutely want to mention that we haven't mentioned? TEKINBAS: Perhaps the most important thing I didn't mention--when I was talking about not doing only your job but doing other kinds of activities also. This can help you to spend your time in the best way in the mission, so that you don't count the days here. If you look on your left side, you will see pictures. We are collecting money from our members, and giving from our pockets. If you see me, for example, on the left side--there is a kite festival where we invited over 2000 people to gather over there. We donated food, ice cream and other things, and gave kites to children. You see that over there. We attended a football tournament. And here as I told you, this was a training held by Turkish officers for specialized operation training--for shooting. Funds raised are helping the kids for their stationery, for school materials. Actually people have been waiting outside for half an hour for me. We are going to help around 30,000 people; we will be giving food over the next two months to 30,000 people. We have tons of examples that I can tell you about. We are looking at the environment. I talked to the environment minister, for example. We can plant some trees from our contingent and we would like to help him for some projects in Kosovo. I have, for example, visited some of the departments in Turkey together with generals of KPS, some operations centers, to have some kind of vision that they can also do similar kinds of operation centers. We attended security meetings in Turkey. So, what we want from the contingent center is when they come here, they shouldn't be only, "Okay this is my job from this time to this time, and I do this only," they should feel "I do this and, okay, I can go now to the gym or the cinema." We should really dedicate ourselves. I don't like when we have favored parties--people are telling each other, "This is a very irritating thing for me." We will see each other in another mission. This is a kind of, let's say, prayer that we have another mission. If there is a need to work in another fragile country. Perhaps the world may unfortunately be going that way, but I wish there is no mission and we don't get any money. But this is the fact of it on the other side. BOUTELLIS: Well Mr. Tekinbas, thank you very much. TEKINBAS: You're welcome. I go from one point to another point. BOUTELLIS: We covered a lot of ground, thank you. Institutions for Fragile States Series: Policing Oral History Program Interview number: L-17 ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 10 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