GC Researches Liberia National Police Relationship with Civilians
The Governance Commission, GC, has completed a research on the “United Nations Training of the Liberia National Police: Effectiveness, Results and Future Implications”, implemented by the United Nations Mission in Liberia, UNMIL. The research takes a microscopic look at the relationship between the Liberian National Police and civilians in post conflict Liberia. Key findings from the study disclose numerous contending issues that negatively impact public trust and integrity in the police; and interventions to help mitigate possible future problems.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed among the warring parties in Accra, Ghana, on August 18, 2003 called for its implementation to be led by the United Nations. Against this backdrop, the United Nations issued UN Security Council Resolution 1509 which established the United Nation’s Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) with the mandate to monitor the ceasefire agreement, provide national security protection, and implement security sector reforms including training and restructuring of the Liberian National Police (LNP).
The findings note several categorized internal and external challenges in UNMIL’s training program, suggesting that the training program has yielded mixed results and impacts on the effectiveness of police performance in Liberia. Adverse impacts, however, are not entirely training related but results also from the behavior of the Government of Liberia towards its police force.
Deficiencies in the UNMIL’s police training and reform interventions reflect a broader problem of shortcomings in various reform programs implemented by the UN and other international nongovernmental organizations in Liberia. The greater shortcomings in the implementation of reform programs are: (a) lack of strategic guidance for a long-term larger vision for a post-conflict society; and (b) lack of effective coordination amongst implementing agencies, and their failure to engage Liberians as stakeholders in designing and implementing reform programs.
The study’s findings are categorized in three sections:
According to the findings:
UNMIL’s shortcomings
Government’s shortcomings
From the perspective of the government, qualitative findings show that:
UNMIL Perspective:
Government’s Perspective:
The Government of Liberia did not take ownership of the training program and did not provide needed resource support to complement UNMIL’s training. Equipment and Resources were complementary to UNMIL’s training and necessary to ensure effectiveness of performance.
According to the study, international police reform assistance has become an integral component of post-conflict peacekeeping and state building operations of the United Nations. The overarching goal is to support sustainable state-building and democratic governance. Since 1990s, the UN has increasingly been mandated to maintain international security by involvement in international security sector reforms through police training in countries transitioning from conflict to democracies with emphasis on respect for human rights and the rule of law.
It can be recalled that Liberia in December of 1999, was plunged into a bloody civil war which lasted fourteen (14) years, leaving the country devastated, a death toll put at more than 200,000, and hundreds of thousands more made either internally or externally displaced, becoming a nation inflicted with untold human suffering, military/police brutality, and cases of genocide. Policing issues revolving around inadequate response, political suppression, and abuse of human rights before and during the civil war were also central to the dynamics of the Liberian conflict.
Study’s Recommendations:
The report notes that Liberia is a common law country with a criminal justice system, and a policing tradition patterned after that of the United States of America. Policing in Liberia is based on that particular context and history, which should have been the basis upon which UNMIL’s police training, was conducted. Therefore, future UN police training missions must be guided by the general standard of a strong partnership and collaboration to integrate, rehabilitate and strengthen what is found on the ground in the host country. UN should also collaborate with local counterparts to reform national institutions to place it in synch with contemporary international policing principles and standards. As far as practicable, trainers must be recruited from countries whose policing traditions and jurisdictions are the same or similar to that of the host country.