Peacekeeping's Poor Cousin

Abstract

FOR MUCH OF THE PAST DECADE, Canada has been deeply engaged in the effort to remake Haiti's police forces in the image of a modern, democratic police service. As part of successive United Nations police support missions, upwards of 700 Canadian police officers served in Haiti during this period, mentoring and training their local counterparts and carrying out some law enforcement responsibilities. Haiti's recent descent back into chaos and lawlessness following the flight of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, however, has left this process, as well as the broader international effort to stabilize the hemisphere's most volatile and strife-ridden state, in ruins. Once again, the outside world-while hardly innocent in Haiti's most recent bout of instability-finds itself struggling to restore order, security, and some measure of democracy to Haiti. And once again, Canada is part of a longer-term international effort to transform Haiti's police, which had become increasingly corrupt, politicized, and thuggish, into a force for peace, order, and stability. While seemingly a Sisyphean task, the stakes surrounding police reform in Haiti are particularly high. With the disbanding of the Haitian military in 1994, the Haitian National Police now stands as the country's key security sector institution, and the most visible means through which the Haitian state has attempted to exercise its legitimate authority. For the international community, failing to get it right this time may simply set the stage for Haiti's next round of turmoil.Haiti's recurring nightmare dramatically illustrates the importance of addressing questions of security sector reform in weak, unstable, or post-conflict states, and underlines the direct links between an ineffective security sector and human insecurity. A relatively recent addition to the international relations lexicon, the notion of security sector reform refers to efforts to strengthen the full range of tools at the disposal of states-from armies and police to courts, penal institutions, and intelligence services-with which to exercise their monopoly on the legitimate use of force. At its core, security sector reform is based on the principle that a state's security institutions should be democratically controlled, anchored in the rule of law, and most importantly, sources of security rather than insecurity for citizens.This article examines Canadian experiences, policies, and practices with regard to police reform-a key element of the security sector reform agenda-in post-conflict or failed states. While an entire mythology has developed around Canada's role as originator and longstanding champion of peacekeeping in its military guise, less attention has been paid to policing as the second core pillar of security in transitions from conflict to peace. This is gradually changing, as the limitations of military peacekeepers as agents of peace-building become more evident, and as it is increasingly recognized that building sustainable peace in the absence of minimal levels of public security is next to impossible.In many ways, post-conflict police assistance-including the provision of international civilian police for monitoring or law enforcement roles as well as longer-term training and institutional development assistance-is an issue tailor-made for Canadian foreign policy, combining national commitments to human security, to peace-building, and to the export of core Canadian values such as peace, order, and good government. However, while Canada's contributions in this area to date are far from negligible, neither has it been an international leader. The article will assess Canada's contributions, and the possibilities for greater Canadian involvement, in this area. It will consider both domestic and international obstacles to a greater Canadian role-such as chronic personnel shortages, interdepartmental politics, and the hodgepodge of inadequately coordinated institutional actors already active in the field-and examine ways in which some of these challenges might be overcome. …