Depoliticize security sector in the Balkans

Presentation of the key output of a three-year long collaborative research project of seven think tanks from the region drew great attention of domestic, as well as international security institutions, professionals, and media.

Before more than 100 attendees at the presentation of the Almanac (click here for pictures), the president of the Board of Directors of the Belgrade Center for Security Policy Miroslav Hadžić pointed out that the Almanac came out of the need of citizens from this region for reliable cognition of who protects them, what are the powers of their protectors, and if in those powers lay risks to their security.

Responsibility

“We tried to learn what for and how state power holders are held responsible, and also how executive, legislative, and judicial powers control legality of their actions. We were interested in finding out if standards that are built in laws are being used, and what are the results of that process. The subject we also researched is tension between democracy and security, because there is a tendency of growing authority of state power holders, which results in the privacy and freedom of citizens constantly being at risk. Citizens are those who have a key benefit from the Almanac, because they get basic insight on the responsibility of state actors in the field of security and their civilian commanders, all in one place. Media can also have some benefits, because they get additional information on themes that are always attractive. Surely, authorities can have some benefits from this research too because it represents encouragement to improvement of mechanisms for accountability. It will also be of help to professionals from this sector, because it offers information with which they will be in a position to much easier resist any kind of misuse. Nonetheless, this publication can be useful for international actors in determination of standards for acceptance in different organizations,” said Hadžić.

Cooperation

Almanac is the key output of the “Civil Society Capacity Building to Map and Monitor SSR in the Western Balkans” project coordinated by BCSP with the joint effort of several non-governmental organizations: Analytic from Skopje, Centre for Democracy and Human Rights from Podgorica, Centre for Security Studies from Sarajevo, Institute for Democracy and Mediation from Tirana, Institute for International Relations from Zagreb, and the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies from Priština. The project was supported by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At the round table in the Old Palace Defence Attaché of the Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade, Esben Aass said that his country supports and will continue to support projects in the Western Balkans with the aim of increasing transparency and civilian control, democratic development, and reform in the security sector.

“National reports put together in this Almanac represent, in my mind, a step forward to transparency and oversight in the security sector,” noted Aass, adding that this project proves that civil organizations play a crucial role in democratic transition.

Assistant Director and Head of Operations in DCAF Darko Stančić said that results presented in the Almanac confirmed starting premises. In his words, it is important to significantly increase the debate on security policy in which organizations of civil society should play a more significant role.

“Continuation of security sector reforms depends highly on domestic intellect, on how much domestic, non-institutional analysis there is. It is very important that we work on these things before we get requests from Brussels. Challenges in the Western Balkans are similar for every country, and that is why regional transparency and cooperation should be improved.”

Reform challenges

Serbian Ombudsman Saša Janković highlighted that significant steps forward have been made in functioning of actors in the security sector in the Western Balkans during the last decade, but that it does not mean reform is finished and the process is irreversible. He noticed that it is clear from the Almanac that there is great precaution in the region regarding reforms in the security sector and, therefore, a significant amount of public opinion on this matter is mystified or simplified.

“On one hand, it is told that agencies run governments, that they secretly govern and manage our lives and that they should be dismantled. On the other hand, they are perceived as guardians of the nation and any kind of reform is considered a betrayal. Elites in the field of security that came out of wars as bearers of national pride, together with radical right-wing parties proved to be the greatest adversaries to efficient reform. Activity of the parliament in monitoring the security sector was minimized in many countries, even though without an adequate role of the parliament, judiciary, and government there is no democratic control. Civil society must have a greater role in creating security policies, but the process of monitoring the security sector cannot rely on non-governmental organizations, media, and independent institutions,” said Janković.

Politicization

At the presentation of the Almanac, representatives from the seven think-tanks involved in the project highlighted the biggest risks in accountability of the security sector in their environment. Executive director of BCSP Predrag Petrović marked as a crucial problem in Serbia the fact that the private security sector is still unregulated, since the law on this matter has not existed since 1993.

“This brings out a number of problems, not only in the security sector itself, but regarding the safety of citizens and the state. One of the main negative consequences is politicization of the private security sector. As one manager in private security, that I had a chance to interview, said – every larger party in Serbia has its own security company and uses it for different goals. You don’t need to be too imaginative to assume that those companies are used for political and economic espionage,” said Petrović. He also listed other issues, such as criminalization of private security companies and great dissatisfaction of workers in this field because of very low wages.

Researcher from CEDEM Rajko Radović said that politicization of the security sector is also the main problem in Montenegro.

“This influence is noticeable on every level, including mechanisms of control. The most recent example is that the police are returned under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and that there are law proposals to give the minister authority to hire police workers without public job ads,” noted Radović.

Path from “scratch” to the EU

The Secretary General of CSS from Sarajevo Denis Hadžović said that Bosnia and Herzegovina passed a very difficult and long path of building security institutions after the war, but it managed to make qualitative steps forward.

“The example of difficulties we faced is that when we researched the Ministry of Internal Affairs we had to address 16 different agencies that currently operate in our country. The job is not finished, we still need to work a lot, and the good thing is that civil society organizations are capable to help in this process,” Hadžović concluded.

His colleague from Priština`s KCSS Florian Qehaja also pointed out that the security sector in Kosovo has been built “from scratch.” He emphasized that huge political implications and the war legacy are big concerns in the process of building security institutions.

“The main problem in governance of the security sector in the case of Kosovo is the misuse of funds, and we provided empirical evidences of this in the Almanac. Another problem are the non-statutory actors, as well as the doubtful private security providers and parallel security structures,” said Qehaja, adding that a positive thing is the general trust in the security institutions among all communities living in  Kosovo.

On the other hand, Sandro Knezović from Zagreb`s IMO pointed out that while success is a painful and energy consuming process of reforms on root to Euro-Atlantic structures, it has brought Croatia to the satisfactory level or respect of the main criteria of security sector oversight.

“Unfortunately, given the fact that we live in countries with a pretty low level of political culture, it is obvious that it takes serious pressure from outside in order to move a stone and make the country be able to respond to challenges of security sector reform,” said Knezović.

Poor implementation of standards

Representative of IDM from Tirana Arian Dyrmishi noticed that Albania is among those Western Balkan countries which made major progress in security sector reform.

“Albania reduced the army forces five times and dramatically transformed police and intelligence, and managed to become a NATO member by improving capabilities. However, building of accountability mechanisms is still lagging behind due to poor implementation of standards and use of informal power to bypass legislation, but also as a result of taking for granted the role of the international community, which has been very present in Albania,” he said, adding that dealing with this issue requires a lot of improvements in the state's legal and constitutional framework.

Researcher of Analytics from Skopje Andreja Bogdanovski underlined that Macedonia generally meets the requirements for security sector oversight, but it faces problems of implementing them. He singled out over excessive use of force by members of the police and unclear responsibilities of the Director for security and contra intelligence, which has a huge amount of power but lacks proper oversight.

“The role of civil society is to notice these problems and work on overcoming them,” Bogdanovski concluded.