Post-conflict Nepal

Improving Security Services in Post-conflict Nepal

Dr. Govind P. Thapa[1]

1. Background

In post-conflict societies, there are often urgent needs to establish a basic sense of law and order. Only after this has been achieved, can the wider issues of safety and security be addressed. This continuum from disorder to order to safety and security is the essential starting point for justice and security delivery in post-conflict states. Looking at the current situation of law and order in Nepal, still much remains to be done by the present government to reinforce the peace and security. The challenging situations of law and order in the country have many backdrop settings:

Firstly, the high aspirations of people along with the April revolution (Jan Aandolan II) have added more challenges to the security system. The government is confused, weak, and lacks farsighted strategy, policy, and planning. The seven/eight party alliances (SPA) government was much focused on the peace agenda and therefore lacked strategic plan and direction for justice and security. The main undertakings to improvement of the delivery of security services in Nepal still largely depends on an understanding of the complexity of the problems and obstacles, time bound political agreement on political issues, practical policy and strategy related to security and justice, support mechanisms, gaining public support, confidence, and empowerment of non-state actors and enforcement of policy into practice.

Secondly, the hang-over of the decade-long armed conflict is still visible in the society. The effects of the decade-long armed conflict in Nepal have caused the erosion of the law. It has also caused colossal damage to the national economic growth and shattered the societal fabric of civilization. This has resulted in a state of lawlessness, a gun running culture, fostering armed and organized immoral syndicates. The underlying harms caused by the organized crimes of criminality are immense. Crimes have severe implications through the costs of victimization, which undermine economic and social development. At the same time, there are many pedophiles on the prowl. Many women and children suffer from sexual exploitation. The police find little time to look into these callous acts against humanity. Consequently, the impacts of these crimes have been heavy upon the price and quality of life of Nepali.

Thirdly, the police force has been authoritarian and characterized by weak accountability and lack of civilian input into policing policy right from the very beginning of its development. The efforts to reform this institution in the past have had very insignificant impacts. The police and the criminal justice system of Nepal remain abusive, corrupt, and ineffective. The politicking in police in the past has distorted the attitude, skills and practices of the police personnel. It has left institutions with little aptitude for fighting crime in a manner that respects human rights principles. People at large consider police and other security apparatus as the age-long tormentor during the Rana regime, Panchayat system, autocratic monarchy and also adversary of the peoples' recent Jan Aandolan II. In the name of maintaining security, the police, and other security forces had resorted to abusive methods to maintaining rule of the laws during all these time. The people now expect respite from all of these.

Unfortunately, the present government has not been capable of handling the above challenging issues effectively. The government has yet to put forward a timely strategy and policy to reform/construct the present security system. The blurred visions, lack of confidence and trust, near non-existent weak strategic and policy framework and weak national capacity to manage political, social and economical changes are the main challenges today. The following could be the systematic plan of actions to improve the law and order situation in Nepal:

2. Strategy, law and policy formulation

Dramatic changes in societies, which move from authoritarian rule to democratic governance often, weaken the state and social control, generating increased levels of crime. However, it does not allow redundancy. The experiences of many conflict ridden countries have to be considered and utilized to prevent and control the organized and serious crimes during transition. The imagination to innovate, the professionalism to perform and the openness to collaborate are the fundamentals to the work style of any government. The government must take immediate action to formulate laws and policies to neutralize criminal plan, deactivate profit motives, and assign special task forces to prevent and control violence and serious crimes and increase risks to the criminals by improving the criminal justice system. Close coordination among state and other agencies and unison of efforts should be given impetus to achieve these desired goals.

3. Political party consensus and commitment

This is the initial thing all the political parties should stand fast to the pacts already signed. The criminal elements in the coat of political party cadres and activists are active in criminal activities. Therefore, the criminalization of politics and politicization of criminal acts by the various parties have been a problem in Nepal. Even the traffic accidents are turned into a political agenda, which creates the situation of chaos. Moreover, the miscellany of vigilante forces formed by the old regime also tries to create problems. Once these elements are isolated and protection of the parties lifted, the criminal activities will be neutralized. There are instances where Maoist cadres have been "deployed with a view to support police in controlling robbery, drug abuse and other unwanted activities." These kinds of attitudes and activities will certainly help maintain law and order.



4. Reforming police

Nepal has the legacy of regimental policing. The reformation of the present police, which took place in 1951/52, was the result of the amalgamation of militias, Rakshya Dal, Janamukti Sena, and the revolutionists who took up arms against the hundred and four years of tyrannous Rana regime. Amongst them, Gyan Bahadur Yakthumba, Pahal Singh Lama, and Rom Bahadur Thapa were with the rank of Majors in the Janamukti Sena, who, later on, were promoted to the rank of Inspector General of Nepal police. Many others also occupied key positions in the police in the subsequent years. For that reason, the very foundation of the police was based upon the revolutionary and military mindset and culture. The duty of the police of that time was to support the political regime or particular governments, therefore the services to the people were of the least priority.

4.1 De-politicking police

High degrees of integrity and insulation from politics are important in policing. Without these, the organization cannot be trusted to conduct investigations in an impartial and objective way. In Nepal, the police have always been sabotaged by politicians. They have distorted it for their own vested interests. The nepotism, favoritism, monopoly, and hegemony practiced by them have destroyed the professionalism of policepersons. Undue pressure and influence by political leaders upon police drove the police force away from its real sense of duty. The nexus of politicians and police only brought in the corruption and indulgence in criminal activities. Therefore, there is a need to insulate police from politics and abolish the culture of corruption from the police.

4.2 Morale support

The police, once used as "tools of oppression" during the Jana Andolan II, suffer from lack of credibility, confidence, and public trust. Today, the police are at cross-roads of confusion and low morale. The police still suffer from a run-over psychology. Some senior police officers were suspended among which some were recommended for legal actions by the probe commission. On several occurrences, the police are reluctant to take stern action against "wrong doers" fearing that they face accusations for "disrupting the peace process"; “to preserve patience”; and due to “lack of clear-cut policy.” They are merely seen as witnesses to several unlawful and unpleasant incidents. At this hour of despair, the police badly require new structures--responsive, accountable, humanistic, and representative of all diverse ethnic community. There are needs for new strategy, new policy, new energy, new direction, and renewed management. Also, there is an acute need for public support at this hour of despair.

4.3 Improvement of the intelligence and investigation system

Levels of crime often accompany transitions to democracy. Transition enhances opportunities for more sophisticated and organized criminal operations. Experience and intelligence are key factors to success for any police organization in such situations. The criminal detection capabilities of Nepal police are weak and concentrated in limited areas. They are not strategically focused, they are not integrated, and they are not intelligence led. Intelligence gathering structures were focused on enemies of the regime rather than criminal networks. Intelligence costs money; and the lack of it more. Hence, this necessitates for investment to develop an effective criminal intelligence and investigation system. The sources for information and investigation will have to be extended to the mass of people taking into consideration their privacy, safety and security. Perhaps, this is the first step to consolidate the law and order situation until new establishment takes over. We have to enlighten police with the ways and means of battling with the post-conflict residual violence and crimes. The development of the existing crime investigation department into a nucleus for investigation of serious and organized crimes could be considered as immediate objectives.

4.4 Education and training

The police and other security persons still carry "war psychology." They still consider the populace as their adversary. Very little attitudinal changes have taken place. The ruler-ruled or the authoritarian types of administration and management have already had a bitter kick-back. Reforms in recruitment, selection, placement and promotion; improvement in training--particularly of junior police personnel; improvement in accountability of the police to the general public; and transformation of the police from a "force" into a "service" that emphasizes community policing are the basic foundations for an ideal police system. Improving public security or police morale will not be achieved solely through the provision of training, arms, and equipment. Unless the police system is indoctrinated to a new approach of policing, it will fail to serve the people.


4.5 Collaboration with various agencies

The state bears the responsibility to provide the basic security needs of a common man. The state can not accomplish this, until there is an integrated approach. In Nepal, the formal education of security management has been very limited to the government security agencies. This practice has, quite often, resulted in faulty policies and poor implementations. Therefore, there is a need for public education on security and strategic matters which will help the state in reviewing security policies and restructuring security system for obtaining optimum benefits in most cost effective ways.

Post-conflict justice systems are characterized by severe dysfunction, low levels of human and material resources, destroyed infrastructure, and lack of public trust. A history of corruption, discrimination and abuse of power within the institutions of justice has destroyed the public confidence and perpetuated lawlessness and chaos. The past and current failures of the legal system to protect individual rights, prosecute violators are the direct causes of, or substantial contributing factors to the appalling situation of impunity in the country. In order to develop a security system with democratic control, high level of accountability, and community participation, there is a need for a framework for a multi dimensional approach to security and justice for Nepali society.


4.6 Community mobilization

Community participation and cooperation are fundamental pillars for the policing. The modern concept of community policing approach allows local people to participate in local government to manage their local security problems. The peoples’ participation provides input to good governance, and eliminates, in advance, any chances for potential conflicts. This partnership approach would indeed infuse the sense of belongingness, ownership, and satisfaction among the community members. The police thus obtain their full cooperation and participation in fighting crime of any gravity. Today, there are more than a hundred community police centers established jointly by community and police in Nepal. The establishment of community policing in Nepal is a success that should be exploited. However, it is not widespread and needs to be institutionalised. Community policing could be the philosophy and approach that guides security sector reforms. Looking at the past experience, the promotion of community policing strategy could be effective in the country. However, the security and justice delivery should not be considered in isolation. Therefore, the partnership approach is possible with wider state reforms--including efforts to tackle corruption, as well as more sustained economic growth.

5. Conclusion

The maintenance of law and order and crime control is the responsibility of the police of any country. The solutions to crime problems tend to involve increased police presence—more police strengths. Many police forces in the world still suffer from “means to end” or “quantity to quality” syndrome. The demand and supply of manpower, hardware weapons, and gadgets only do not solve the crime problems. There is acute need for brains, public trust and confidence; education to humanize police behaviors; stabilization of police in the local community; and developing professionalism than adding arms and armaments. The “militarization” of the police is always a dangerous move. It does not help; rather adds problems. Moreover, we need to be attentive to the education of people to be self law-abiding rather than persecute them to obey law and rules. More “self-disciplined’ citizens will solve crime problems—certainly not more police.
[1] Dr. Thapa is a retired additional inspector general of Nepal police. Currently, he is associated with the Post-Graduate Diploma Program in Security Management in Kathmandu University, and he is also the Chairperson of the Centre for Security and Justice Studies, Nepal. Any comments regarding this paper are welcome. He can be reached at dibrung@wlink.com.np