BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Police Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Signals a Mandate Completed

UNMIBH Photo

An International Police Task Force officer shares landmine awareness materials with elementary school students in eastern Republika Srpska

The last day of 2002 is a milestone for United Nations peacekeeping operations—a date marking the successful conclusion of the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH), the largest police reform and restructuring operation in UN history.

Almost seven years' work by police and civilians from nearly 100 countries has put in place law enforcement agencies that meet international democratic policing standards. It has made it possible for the UN to hand over the longerterm responsibility for monitoring police reform to a European Union Police Mission.

Building from chaos

UNMIBH Photo

Local Bosnian Serb police officers visit with Bosniac returnees in the village of Jelac. Families settled in makeshift tents next to their prewar homes. Homes are being reconstructed with support of UN organizations

UNMIBH has played the key role in creating police forces that are dramatically different from those that existed immediately after the 1992-95 war.

When the conflict ended—leaving more than 200,000 dead and half the population of four million displaced—the country's law enforcement system was in chaos. Contending groups faced one another across confrontation lines criss-crossing the nation, and a bloated force of some 44,000 poorly trained and equipped police was split along ethnic lines.

The roots of the problem encountered by UNMIBH went far deeper than the conflict itself, according to the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jacques Paul Klein.

"The country was faced not only with the legacy of war, but with the 50-year tradition of police serving the State at the expense of the individual. In essence, it was rule by law enforcement—rather than the democratic function of police upholding the rule of law."

Fulfilling the mandate

Under the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, the UN was given the mandate of monitoring the reform and restructuring of law enforcement institutions, while other international organizations dealt with security, refugee returns, and legal and economic reforms.

The changes brought about in UNMIBH's area of responsibility have been profound. Among the accomplishments:

• Police forces have been downsized by nearly two thirds to 17,000 uniformed personnel—all trained to international democratic policing standards and vetted to eliminate those who had been involved in war crimes or other offences.
• Law enforcement institutions have been de-politicized and certified as meeting international norms of procedures and organization.
• A State Border Service has been established—one of the most modern in the Balkans; the number of illegal migrants entering the country has been cut from 25,000 in 2000 to a few hundred in 2002.
• A State Information and Protection Agency has been created.
• A new generation of police officers, an increasing proportion of them women and minorities, are graduating from two high-standard police academies.
• The region's most intensive programme to attack the insidious problem of trafficking in women has led to the closing of a significant number of the country's brothels and the repatriation of more than 200 victims.

The high degree of security achieved is giving refugees and internally displaced persons the confidence to return home. In the first half of 2002 alone, some 60,000 minority returns were recorded, more than in the same period in the two previous years combined.

Multinational effort

UNMIBH Photo

International Police Task Force monitors accompany multi-ethnic police officers from Brcko during a joint community policing effort in the Arizoa market in northern Bosnia.

All this comes from a truly multinational effort involving some 10,000 individual police officers from all over the world who have served with UNMIBH's International Police Task Force since 1996. More than 50 nations have provided contingents of experienced police officers and law enforcement specialists.

Law enforcement reform has delivered wide-ranging benefits. The country now has the police structures it needs to contribute to the international and regional fight against terrorism, organized crime and human trafficking.

"UNMIBH leaves in place all the crimefighting apparatus of a modern state ready to play its part in the international community," says Special Representative Klein.

In addition, two UN Trust Funds provided more than $US 35 million for some 500 projects to help restore essential services and infrastructure, and train and equip the police and the border service. Hundreds of thousands of Bosnians have directly benefited from these projects, which range from the renovation of war-damaged educational and community facilities, to the restoration of priceless religious sites and artifacts.

In cooperation with the UN Development Programme, UNMIBH also initiated a programme for the economic and social recovery of the Srebrenica region, site of the 1995 massacre—the worst in Europe since World War Two.

The UN handover to the European Union Police Mission caps a transition that ranks as a model of cooperation between the world's global peace organization and a regional body.

UNMIBH has shown that a peace operation can achieve its goals—and depart with confidence—leaving the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in this case, to enjoy one of the lowest day-to-day crime rates in the wider European region.