Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06PRISTINA965
2006-11-14 18:30:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Pristina
Cable title:  

KOSOVO: EVOLVING EU POLICE AND JUSTICE PLANNING

Tags:  PGOV PREL UNMIK YI 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000965 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR/SCE, NSC FOR BRAUN, USUN FOR DREW
SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/14/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: EVOLVING EU POLICE AND JUSTICE PLANNING
REPRESENTS FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN APPROACH TO KOSOVO LAW
ENFORCEMENT AND SECURITY


Classified By: COM Tina S. Kaidanow for reasons 1.4 (B) and (D).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PRISTINA 000965

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR/SCE, NSC FOR BRAUN, USUN FOR DREW
SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/14/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL UNMIK YI
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: EVOLVING EU POLICE AND JUSTICE PLANNING
REPRESENTS FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN APPROACH TO KOSOVO LAW
ENFORCEMENT AND SECURITY


Classified By: COM Tina S. Kaidanow for reasons 1.4 (B) and (D).


1. (C) Summary: The emerging outlines of the EU police and
justice plan for post-status Kosovo make it apparent that
security and law enforcement in Kosovo will be conducted on a
fundamentally different basis after the settlement than under
UNMIK administration. EU planning is painfully slow and
numbers/deployments have yet to be finalized, but the overall
number of international police with an operational capability
will decline dramatically from UNMIK levels. In their place,
a larger number of international police advisors wearing an
EU hat will monitor and guide the indigenous Kosovo Police
Service to perform most critical law enforcement functions on
its own. Observers generally agree that the KPS is up to
basic policing tasks, including crowd control in fairly
innocuous political settings, but gaps will almost certainly
appear as flaws in the KPS command structure, criminal
intelligence capacity, and other areas become more readily
apparent.


2. (C) Summary, cont. EU planners on the ground recognize
the potential pitfalls in the new framework they are
creating, but argue that the resources and mandate they have
been given preclude any other approach, and point out as well
that UNMIK has in many cases abandoned its investigative
activities, making its current impact more limited than sheer
numbers would imply. There is recognition on the EU side
that special measures will be needed in the north, including
executive control over the two border gates with Serbia, and
the EU police mission is now authorized a roughly 300-strong
Crowd and Riot Control unit that could respond to emergent
circumstances. However, local EU planners evince no sense of
urgency in making special provisions for the north, noting
that in the best of circumstances they will not deploy until
90 days after the settlement and that UNMIK will continue to
bear the brunt of the security response in the highly

sensitive transition period. This self-serving assertion
aside, the snail-like pace of the EU's overall decision
making is giving UNMIK police major headaches in trying to
chart the way ahead for the handoff, and also stymies
coordinated, scenario-based operational planning among
Kosovo's various international and local security players.
End summary.

Emerging EU Police and Justice Structure Fundamentally
Different from UNMIK


3. (C) Over the past seven years, UNMIK police have
functioned largely in an operational capacity, with officers
responsible for patrols, investigative work, criminal
intelligence, and, in some instances, crowd control and
emergency response. Numbers vary depending on what units are
included, but at any given time UNMIK has approximately 1390
officers deployed throughout Kosovo (note: with two or three
shifts in a day, perhaps one third to one half are actually
on patrol) and an additional 500 personnel in so-called
"formed police units" (FPUs),which remain in barracks unless
called upon to deal with emergencies. The breakdown by
region also fluctuates, but in the greater Mitrovica region,
for example, 209 officers were deployed on November 14 (with
a consequently lower number on patrol),backed up by Polish
and Pakistani FPUs totalling 230 troops.


4. (C) No figures are yet available for regional deployments
in the new EU police structure, but the overall numbers for
the EU mission as a whole speak volumes about the very
different way policing in Kosovo will be performed in the
post-status period. As the concept now stands, the EU police
and justice mission will contain 950 personnel; of those, 600
will serve in a police-related capacity, another 200 will
have an administrative function, and 150 or so will be
international judges, prosecutors, or other advisers
(customs, prisons). Of the 600 police personnel, one-third
(180 officers) will have an executive, or operational,
mandate; the remaining 70 percent will be dispersed among the
Kosovo Police Service to mentor, advise and train. EU

PRISTINA 00000965 002 OF 003


Planning Team (EUPT) head Casper Klynge (protect) confirmed
to USOP November 13 that the police mission will be allotted
an additional 300-person Crowd and Riot Control contingent,
though it will be, in his words, "limited in time and
location" -- i.e., it will have no reserve or over the
horizon capability, rendering it less useful in a prolonged
crisis. Klynge noted that the CRC component would also have
training duties to enhance the capability of analogous KPS
units.


5. (C) The balance of international vs. indigenous policing
will thus radically shift in the new configuration. With
only 180 or so executive police, and those likely to be
distributed among competencies where the Kosovo Police
Service is particularly lacking (war crimes, organized crime,
criminal intelligence, etc.),there will be little room for
flexibility in deployments or a purely international response
to any emerging crisis, aside from that provided by the CRC
unit. The Kosovo Police Service, under the direction of the
EU police presence, will take on the lion's share of law
enforcement. Observers judge the KPS (with close to 8000
officers, including Serb members) to be basically proficient
in patrolling, rudimentary investigation, and even crowd
control under non-threatening circumstances. UNMIK Police
Commissioner Steven Curtis (UK),however, pointed to clear
gaps in the KPS's command structure, intelligence gathering
abilities, and complex investigative capacity, among other
weaknesses. Curtis, aware of the impending shift in
responsibilities for the KPS that the status transition
portends, is planning to use the next 90 days to conduct a
thoroughgoing review of the Kosovo Police Service, shoring up
weak lines of command authority and restructuring the KPS to
move more officers out of administration and on to the beat.
Still, he acknowledged that the KPS's institutional
weaknesses could not all be remedied in the space of a few
months, and he concurred that the political reliability of
the KPS, particularly in the north, could not be assumed
post-status.

The North, and Other Open Questions


6. (C) Klynge and other EU planners admit that their model
has deficiencies, but underscore that the mandate and
resources given them by Brussels and EU capitals do not allow
for a more robust executive policing function. Klynge has
argued, with some merit, that UNMIK's investigative
responsibilities have in many instances been abandoned or
underperformed, making its policing authority less impressive
than sheer numbers might otherwise imply. EU planners also
understand the special needs they will likely face in the
north of Kosovo, and they have conceded they will have to
assume executive control over border gates 1 and 31 with
Serbia (as well as the Pristina airport) given the
sensitivities involved.


7. (C) Klynge told USOP that no numbers have been decided on
relative regional deployments of EU executive or other
police, but said the idea of a "deterrent presence" was being
contemplated for the North, and envisioned the CRC (or some
component thereof) as having primary responsibility for
maintaining stability near the Austerlitz bridge in
Mitrovica. Klynge left open as well the possibility of
creating a KPS northern police region to be headed by a
Kosovo Serb, which he viewed as desirable despite the
tradeoff of handing top executive authority to a Kosovar
rather than an international. More broadly, he worried about
the issue of dissolving parallel institutions in the North
and integrating Serb judicial institutions into new Kosovar
structures, as mandated by the settlement. He was also,
notably, critical of what he termed a "weak effort" on the
part of his International Civilian Office planning team
counterparts (almost exclusively EU) to grapple adequately
with issues related to parallel Serb structures in the
civilian realm, including document issuance and the civil
registry, now divided between Serb authorities and UNMIK.


PRISTINA 00000965 003 OF 003



8. (C) Queried on the EU police mission's ultimate ability
to respond to a potential crisis in the north, Klynge
displayed no particular unease, pointing out that the worst
of it was likely to come immediately following the settlement
presentation and that UNMIK would have to be positioned to
adequately assume the security burden in the transition
period. He was, however, alive to the criticism that there
was no apparent planning forum on the ground in Kosovo
bringing together representatives of KFOR, UNMIK, the EU
police and justice mission and the Kosovo Police Service,
except perhaps on an ad hoc basis, and he agreed that this
merited further consideration. Klynge was also sensitive to
the notion that UNMIK police officers who might be
successfully transferred into the new EU mission had to be
quickly identified and approached; he claimed that EU
planners did have a personnel plan in motion but said they
would still have to look to capitals for approval of specific
individual recruitments, a potentially cumbersome and
time-consuming process.

Comment


9. (C) The EU's planning assumptions and the consequent
shape of its police and justice mission are now beginning to
emerge more clearly, and they afford a sober assessment of
what policing in Kosovo will be like in the post-status
period. Capacity building in Kosovo institutions is a key
goal for the U.S., including in the security sector, but the
shift from international executive policing to a model
heavily reliant on local abilities will have definite
implications for crisis planning, and will require early and
frequent intervention with the KPS and their EU mentors to
ensure they are prepared for all eventualities. It will also
demand a different kind of interaction between KFOR, as the
guarantor of a safe and secure environment in Kosovo, and law
enforcement providers, who will now be, for the most part,
local in origin. The shape of the EU model aside, the
crawling pace of EU decision making on deployments, personnel
and other issues is making it exceedingly difficult for the
various security players on the ground to engage in
effective, scenario-based planning, and complicates UNMIK's
police handover efforts, which should not/not be undertaken
hastily or at the last minute. In this regard, Department
encouragement in Brussels and EU capitals to complete their
plans without delay and get on with the business of
recruitment would be very valuable. End Comment.


10. (U) U.S. Office Pristina does not/not clear this cable
for release to U.N. Special Envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari.
YAZDGERDI