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Police for the People
by
Neeraj K Singh

It is close to two years now since UNMIK established a Police System in Kosovo to fill the vacuum left in the aftermath of the withdrawal of the Serbian military and administrative machinery from Kosovo. These two years have witnessed the making and unmaking of history, as much for the police as for the other institutions in Kosovo.

As the days of crisis management make way for a more orderly and stable operational environment, there is bound to be a more critical review of the prevailing police system, both from within and outside. However, if today the people of Kosovo choose to appraise the UNMIK Police in terms of what it has delivered for the region, they must do so in the right perspective.

Police, just as any other social or political institution, evolves over several generations and is a by-product of national socio-political-cultural evolution. The system can deliver only if it is in tune with the local cultural values and ethos, which would also most certainly be the genitor of the established law of the land. This assimilation of the police system, social values and the codified law underwrites the successful execution of police function.

The charter of UNMIK Police on the other hand was to graft a police system on an alien land in a matter of days and not under the best of circumstances to say the least. The fact that the people of Kosovo had been denied positions in the administration in the preceding decade meant that there was a deficiency of experienced hands to draw from locally. The rejection of the Yugoslav federal law by the people of Kosovo in the initial euphoria of the war, wrenched away the much needed legal anchor for police execution.

And then there was the intense distrust of any police organization so deeply etched in the local popular perception over the years and rendered virtually indelible by the scars more recently inflicted by their predators in uniform. It is this element of distrust towards law enforcers that has been of primary concern to the UNMIK Police.

It is therefore with a view to reach out to the people of Kosovo and put across to them the police point of view on various issues that we propose to start this weekly column. It is not an effort to ‘defend’ police actions. It is not to indoctrinate or influence public opinion. It is a forum to share our perceptions with the people we serve and to generate greater public response to police initiatives, as also a wider debate on the organics of policing in Kosovo.