Peacebuilding and police reform in the new Europe: Lessons from Kosovo

• Autor: Thomas Feltes

Feltes, Peacebuilding and police reform in the new Europe: Lessons from Kosovo

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Peacebuilding and police reform in the new Europe:

Lessons from Kosovo*

Por Thomas Feltes

1. Summary

Police reform in countries in transition is closely connected to peacekeeping

and peacebuilding. The article discusses successes and failures, and the role of poli-

ce, using Kosovo as an example. It is essential to know whether strategies, structures

and methods of military and police interventions are working, and we need to know

whether the reform of administration, police and judiciary in the aftermath of an inter-

national intervention is sustainable. As peace and justice go together, the role of poli-

ce reform in the context of the reform of the judiciary is discussed. There is an open

clash between the mainstream international understanding of what a “just society” or

a society, functioning under the “rule of law” is or should be on one side, and the lo-

cal understanding of the members of a society, who survived different kinds of sup-

pression and war over years or centuries, often by building up their own informal

structures and their own rules of living together.

In Kosovo, nine years of a UN international protectorate has achieved remarka-

bly little. The country is called “UNMIKISTAN”, and one may find quotes like “We

came, saw and failed” (Zaremba 2007), referring to those who came as experts for

UN, OSCE, EU or NGO’s. One reason for the failure is, that neither the military

(KFOR), nor the international police force (UNMIK CIVPOL) or the UN administration

have been prepared in a proper way for their mission, resulting in disadvantages and

bad examples for locals. The organization of administration, as the organization of

the reform of public institutions and judiciary in Kosovo was lacking basic social and

ethnographic knowledge of the country and the Kosovo society. This resulted in at

least partly practising “peacekeeping as tourism” (Sion 2008) and spending more

money for international experts and administration than for supporting the country. In

2008, more than nine years after the UN took over responsibility for the country, the

legal system is still not working properly and the country is in a disastrous social and

economic situation.

Huge, ineffective reconstruction programs and a body of neo-colonial adminis-

trators become the focus of local resentment. 53 Separate national police units were

under UN umbrella at the beginning practising their own brand of law and order,

while at the same time preaching the gospel of universal standards. Police officers or

civil workers, arriving in Kosovo with very best intentions, often got frustrated by the

burden of UN –or OSCE– administration. Others came to Kosovo as “mission ad-

dicts”, spending more time in “networking” and organizing their next mission than tak-

ing care of their official and well paid task. Missing cooperation within the interna-

tional organizations and between these organizations and NGO’s resulted in

* Extraído del artículo publicado en la revista electrónica “Archivos de Criminología, Criminalís-

tica y Seguridad Privada”, México, editada por la Sociedad Mexicana de Criminología Capítulo Nuevo

León A.C. (www.somecrimnl.es.tl). Bibliografía recomendada.

Feltes, Peacebuilding and police reform in the new Europe: Lessons from Kosovo

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mismanagement and structures of keeping the own organization running while pay-

ing no attention to the work of others. To reform public institutions demands more

than flying in internationals and imposing new laws or regulations. Civilizing security

in a country in transition also needs a strong theoretical background. By using Clif-

ford Shearing’s idea of “Nodal Security”, the article discusses possibilities to concep-

tualize and promote security as a local public good: Internationals help to establish

the necessary “nodals” and networks.

2. Introduction

In November 2007, three months before Kosovo declared independence, the

European Commission Progress Report on Kosovo concluded that in Kosovo “very

little progress has been achieved” and that a multi-ethnic country seems to be a far

removed possibility (European Commission 2007). The report stated that the “focus

on standards before status” (independence of Kosovo) has significantly delayed re-

form efforts.

Some former progress has been followed by the lack of capacity to carry out

and implement laws. Civil servants are –so the EU report– still vulnerable to political

interference, corrupt practices and nepotism: “corruption is still prevalent, undermin-

ing a proper functioning of the institutions in Kosovo”. The conclusion of the report is

that “overall, Kosovo’s public administration remains weak and inefficient”. Some

progress has been made in reforming public administration, but these reforms are “at

an early stage”. The same observation can be applied to the judicial system, which is

still fragile, and the execution of judgement remains insufficient. There is also a dis-

crepancy between the wishes and aspirations of the people of Kosovo, and the ambi-

tions of the government and leaders of the political parties. The focus on status had

the effect of undermining all the important economic and social issues.

Considering that human rights were not respected under the supervision of

UNMIK and KFOR (examples are the violent demonstrations in March 2004 and Feb-

ruary 2007), how can we expect that the situation will change after Kosovo has de-

clared independence? And what is or might be in fact the “supervised independ-

ence”, mentioned by EU and UN, who (in summer 2008) are still negotiating how the

future assistance for the country should be organized?

Police reform in countries in transition is closely connected to what is called

“peacekeeping” or “peacebuilding”. William Smith (2007) has shown, using Jürgen

Habermas’s reflections on Kosovo and Iraq, that the past decade has witnessed the

emergence of numerous cosmopolitan theories of humanitarian military intervention.

These theories anticipate a more cosmopolitan future, where interventions will be

authorized by new cosmopolitan institutions and carried out by reformed cosmopoli-

tan military and police. But as long as we do not have such ‘cosmopolitan regimes’,

capable of carrying out militarized ‘police actions’ (Habermas 2003), we need to

know whether the already existing strategies, structures, and methods of military and

police activities in the aftermath of an international intervention are working. As long

as we do not have functioning supranational institutions, capable of enforcing human

rights, or multi-layered institutions and networks of global governance, we need to

realize that we are on a “transitional stage between international and cosmopolitan

Feltes, Peacebuilding and police reform in the new Europe: Lessons from Kosovo

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law” (Habermas 1998). And as long as we have to trust in military interventions and

military force to advance humanitarian goals, we need to discuss the role of police

forces in this context.

To decide whether an intervention is or might be justified by whatever de iure or

de facto reason, it is necessary to find out whether:

a) The military intervention was successful in terms of ending what was the rea-

son for the intervention (e.g., ethnic cleansing, genocide, crimes against or violation

of humanities, etcétera).

b) The after-care of the military intervention, the establishment of rule of law, of

a functioning police, judiciary and administration, was organized in such a way, that a

possible success by the former intervention will be secured, stabilized and sustain-

able in a longer run.

To answer these questions, an evaluation of both the intervention and the after-

care is necessary. But what are the criteria for such an evaluation? When do we jud-

ge an intervention as “successful”, when the after-care?

3. Is “enlightenment” the difference?

Before trying to explain what happened in Kosovo and what are the reasons

why “the world failed in Kosovo” (King and Mason 2006), it is necessary to comment

on what might make it so difficult to understand what was and is still happening on

the Balkans. Some people say that the difference between Serbia and Western Sta-

tes is the denial of the “enlightenment”. Serbian politicians –that’s how they argue–

aim at the collective rights of their nation, whilst the western understanding focuses

at the individual rights of people (Rathfelder 2008). This is the supposed reason, why

human rights as individual rights are not accepted, and why for Serbs the centre of

consideration is the nation or the peoples (narod in Serb language). Consequently,

they reject the idea of rule of law in a western understanding, as they reject the idea

of individualisation of guilt, e.g., in context of war crimes.

War criminals like Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic (who was finally ar-

rested in July 2008) are in the eyes of Serbs not guilty because they are part of the

nation (“Volkskörper”) and have acted in the people’s interest. Because of that, they

are protected and admired as heroes and not condemned as war criminals (Ivanji

2008). Other nations, defined as enemies, may be punished to protect one’s own na-

tion. Habermas commented on the war in Kosovo as follows: The war “touches upon

a fundamental question which is hotly disputed in political science as well as in phi-

losophy. Constitutional democracies have achieved the great civilizational task of the

legal restriction of political force, based on the recognition of the sovereignty of sub-

jects in international law, while a ‘world civil society’ would definitely question this in-

dependence of nation states. Does the universalism of the enlightenment here collide

with the stubbornness of political force, which is for ever entangled with the drive for

collective self-affirmation of a particular community? This is the realist sting in the

flesh of human rights policies” (Habermas 1999/2000).

If we look closer at the discussions in Kosovo and the feeling of the people

there, we find astonishing parallels: For “Kosovars”, the nation and the country are