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Lebanon: EU Supporting Internal Security Forces

Eurojar

Saturday, 21 August 2010 20:44

Internal_Security_Forces_ISF_in_Lebanon-

In the past five years, Lebanon has witnessed several security events, of varying magnitude and impact, but which nonetheless highlighted urgent needs within the security institutions, especially in terms of developing a clear strategy and action plan for the coordination of efforts and distribution of tasks in a manner that helps ensuring security and the respect of the rule of law.

After 2005 and the wave of assassinations that rocked Lebanon, some gaps emerged, gaps that seemed possible to fill through training and capacity-building programs, as well as with a process of institutional development. Hence, the "Security and Rule of Law" (SAROL) Project was signed in 2007 between the ISF and the European Union. But political and security circumstances led to the postponement of the execution of the project until 2009. SAROL then became the follow-up of another project, more specifically aimed at the "Improvement of criminal investigation at all stages of the penal process" (implemented from 2007 to 2009) and benefited from its achievements and lessons learned. The project, that has a total budget of € 4,000,000 Euros and a two-year duration (2009-2011), will provide equipment, training and capacity building to the ISF, placing at its disposal a permanent technical assistance team.

The ISF were encouraged to comment upon the results of the first project and assess their needs accordingly, so that new activities could be fined tuned at the beginning of the project thanks to the assessment conducted by the ISF. This indeed contributed in avoiding the shortcomings of that the previous project on the "Improvement of criminal investigation at all stages of the penal process" had encountered. The SAROL planners were thus keen on rendering the project more coherent and homogenous, particularly in terms of broadening the network of partners and local beneficiaries, including the Unit for Strategic Planning and Organization which was recently established within the ISF. In fact, the project seeks primarily to institutionalize the improvements proposed through the different activities carried out and to base them on a constant and transparent dialogue with the beneficiary, with a view to arrive at a common vision and a deeper understanding of the steps that need to be taken for the ISF to be able to fulfill their mandate more effectively, in line with the Strategic Plan currently being developed by the ISF.

SAROL targets
SAROL activities can be divided into two main components, aiming at improving the ISF technical performance as regards the application of the law by increasing its criminal investigation capacity, in collaboration with other relevant institutions involved, and its capacity to manage public order. Activities that fall within the first component range from a) supporting the establishment of a Practical Training Centre for the Judicial Police, to b) reviewing the existing procedures in criminal investigation and updating them, reaching an agreed set of documentation to be used by all emergency services in a professional and standardized manner, thus improving coordination, and c) supporting the implementation of the ISF Information Technology (IT) master plan and the development of IT solutions supporting criminal investigations, in complementary fashion with the IT plan being developed by the Ministry of Justice.

According to Duccio Bandini, manager of programs related to the Security Sector and Stabilization issues at the EU Delegation in Beirut, the project places special emphasis on revising and developing, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Justice, existing practices in crime scene investigation, in order to arrive at standard operating procedures for all services intervening on the crime scene. In this regard, Bandini said, “We are not seeking to change the law on criminal proceedings, but we do hope to provide by the end of the project all intervening services with a coherent and practical documentation for an effective application of the penal code in criminal investigations.” As soon as such documentation is ratified by the relevant Lebanese authorities, it would become a common base for the training of all emergency services intervening on the crime scene.

Sustainability
In this context, Riccardo Chelleri, SAROL Project Manager said: “it has become clear that the improvement of criminal investigations and the respect of the rule of law is a priority for both Lebanon and the European Union. However, providing support is not done only by providing equipment, but also by training local human resources to ultimately become self-sustaining. We seek for the ISF to be able to themselves plan and execute training programs and manuals based on the agreed procedures”. He then added: “Therefore, the priority was to train trainers, an essential stage that provides them with the necessary knowledge that they would subsequently impart to other members of the ISF. There are two types of trainers: general trainers, and specialized or technical trainers – an advanced stage”.

Major Wassim Abu el Hosn, who benefited from the Training of Trainers program in both projects, moved from being a basic trainer to an advanced and then specialist trainer in the “fundamentals of crime scene management”, which is among the many topics covered by the training programs. In his office at the Helou Police Barracks, Abu Hassan explained the importance of the sessions he attended, and which enabled him to acquire various skills in his field of work that he subsequently shared with other policemen and officers of the ISF. Regarding the selection method of the trainees, he said: “I do not know how I was chosen exactly. The officials at the Directorate are the ones who select the individuals that will partake in the sessions. However, I consider myself lucky to be among the 24 policemen of various military ranks who received this training by a number of European trainers, who have a long experience in this field”.

According to ISF General Salah Gebran, who is the focal point for the EU-funded project on behalf of the Ministry of Interior, the training programs cover many topics, including coordination between the different law enforcement services, and the coordination of tasks among those intervening on the crime scene for its preservation, management and exploitation. He said: “We faced some dissatisfaction in the beginning of the training [provided by the first project]. A number of trainees and especially officers responded that they did not need this type of information because they are already aware of it, and considered those selected for training as being punished… However, at the end of the sessions, they would ask for them to be extended to benefit more and spoke of the need for more training”. The SAROL project has taken those needs into account and has developed clear criteria for the selection of trainees for the activities foreseen, in order to ensure that trainees can apply in their daily tasks the skills acquired, and that such skills are gradually transferred to the rest of the institution making effects more sustainable.

Practical training
Unlike the previous project, SAROL relies to a much more limited extent on training sessions abroad, the only exception being training provided to the ISF “Mobile Forces”. Chelleri said: “We did not organize training sessions and workshops abroad because we are not convinced of their effectiveness, compared to benefiting from local capacities and their development. Among the aspects that were also improved was reducing the time allocated for theoretical training while increasing practical training. We noticed that the security forces receive extremely theoretical information that cannot be put to practice; for this reason, we attempted to compensate this shortfall with further practical training”.

European trainers are comprised of police officers, some retired and some still in active duty, with a majority coming from France despite the participation in the SAROL project of the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy as well. Chelleri attributes the preponderance of the French contribution to ‘logical reasons’ related to the historical relationship between Lebanon and France, the language factor which facilitates communication between the trainers and trainees, and the similarity between the two systems.

Regarding the update of the ISF IT Master Plan, Bandini said that “during the evaluation phase, it became clear that some departments within the ISF enjoyed a much more advanced knowledge of information technology. For this reason, we dedicated part of our efforts to address this gap and contribute to the development of professional frameworks for recording information and for sharing it across departments and agencies in line with an IT system that would facilitate the work of a modern and effective police force. The long-term aim is to reach a stage whereby a traffic policeman who stops a driver for a minor offence can coordinate directly with other security departments or services to know whether the driver is wanted for another offence, for example”.

As for the maintenance of public order and law enforcement, Bandini said: “There is a whole doctrine and a range of techniques for managing public order in a way that citizen's rights are respected and that the eventual use of force is proportional to the gravity of events possibly threatening to disrupt public order or even escalate into more serious crises. This is exactly what we are attempting to promote in our work with the ISF Mobile Forces. To this end, the idea is to provide the Mobile Forces with protection equipment and non-lethal means, in order to allow them apply these approaches for public order maintenance and properly institutionalize them, allowing them to control events such as a public demonstration with the adequate tools and techniques”.

Regarding the multiplicity of the sources of assistance received by the ISF, and the criticism that this opens the door for interference in the security and political affairs of Lebanon, Gebran said: “We ask for assistance in specific areas and specialties, and there is no harm in benefiting from the expertise of others if that will make us do our jobs in a better way. The European Union is one of the entities that provided assistance in this field”. He added: “In the beginning, assistance poured into one area, while other areas were neglected; as a result, there were some inconsistencies and redundancies. Therefore, we adopted an action plan that began with the assessment and identification of our needs and in light of that, assistance in specific areas was requested”. On the other hand, specific efforts have been directed at better coordinating EU actions with the ones carried out by other donors, both vis-à-vis the ISF and the Ministry of Justice.

However, faltering funding has put some project actions on hold. The ISF had pledged to build a comprehensive complex that would include the buildings for the specialized training of the Judiciary Police, a new police academy, but also other training facilities and infrastructures. So far only one building was completed, with the rest of the construction awaiting new funding either from the national budget or from other donors. The completed building is the crime simulation platform inaugurated in May 2009. It consists of 4 stories designed to simulate residential apartments, in order to help the trainees to train on dealing with crime scenes in as realistic conditions as possible. The construction of the building was funded by the United Arab Emirates. The building was equipped by the EU with electronic equipment and the forensic lab. The EU also assisted in the training of the ISF through specialists from different European nationalities. As the EU has pledged to equip these buildings and support the set up of the Judiciary Police Practical Training Centre, this aspect of the project is momentarily on hold and the delivery of some equipment still pending the completion of the buildings.

The European Technical Assistance Team of the SAROL project hopes that the completion of the remaining buildings will not suffer further delays, so that the project can support as planned the ISF efforts to develop their professional capabilities in the field of law enforcement, criminal investigation in coordination with the Judiciary and other concerned agencies, and thus improve their image and services provided to the Lebanese public.

By Bissane El-Cheikh – Beirut, Al-Hayat (eurojar)

Global Arab Network

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