ADF STAFF
The African Union has authorized more than 25 peace support operations across the continent over the past 20-plus years, but few have included community-oriented policing (COP) to counter extremism.
Meressa Dessu
, a senior researcher at the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), recently wrote that it is time for that to change as violent extremism spreads across the continent.
The hallmarks of COP — problem solving, partnership, service delivery, empowerment and accountability — help police officers build trust through sustained engagement with residents, community groups, business owners and others.
Community policing has succeeded globally in preventing crime, reducing fears of security threats and enhancing public safety. It’s particularly effective at countering radicalization at the local level.
Around the Lake Chad Basin, Boko Haram has appealed to young people disenfranchised by heavy-handed government forces. Al-Shabaab commonly recruits Somali youths by framing counterterror operations as being by run foreign forces, according to the United States Institute of Peace.
“Instead of raising the risk of radicalization through military crackdowns, Police can provide local security services, engage communities as partners, not adversaries, and win public trust,” Dessu wrote. “Police deployed on peace missions can also train local Police to follow the same approach, which would reduce the risk of radicalization and recruitment into terror groups.”
The United Nations has highlighted the work of Olubayo Ajao, chief superintendent of police in Ekpoma, Nigeria. Locals described Ajao as tough on crime and something of a folk hero in the community. He built trust by regularly visiting church services in plain clothes, attending funerals, and speaking at community meetings focused on peace and security.
“We get lots of information from the people, which helps us to nip crime in the bud,” Ajao told the U.N. magazine Africa Renewal. “We have arrested many kidnappers. I am personally involved in such operations. We have recovered guns and handed the criminals over for prosecution.”
Such an approach also can help root out extremists involved in local crime. In the Sahel, terror groups such as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) are involved in trafficking, kidnapping, illegal mining, and cattle and livestock rustling. Terror groups around the continent also are known to collect taxes from illegal trade.
According to Dessu, there are not enough police officers included in the AU’s peacekeeping missions to respond to other types of crime.
“The absence of Police from most AU missions aimed at countering terrorism has led to weak community engagement and missed opportunities to build local Police capacity, support crime investigations and track criminal syndicates,” he wrote.
ATMIS, the AU’s mission in Somalia, is one of the few peacekeeping missions with a police component, but there are too few officers and they are not sufficiently equipped or trained.
“As a result, areas liberated by the mission’s soldiers and Somalia’s security forces often fall again to al-Shabaab extremists,” Dessu wrote. “This is due to inconsistent engagement with local populations and a failure to provide ongoing security services.”
Dessu is not the only analyst who believes AU peacekeeping missions need more police officers.
A 2023 assessment of the AU’s Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) peacekeeping mission in the Lake Chad Basin urged member states Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria to build the mission’s police component. Military forces usually are not configured or trained to deal effectively with police matters.
The Norwegian Institute of International Affairs report noted the MNJTF’s military successes in driving Boko Haram from communities it previously controlled and into the islands known as the Tumbuns of Lake Chad.
But in some communities where relative peace has been restored, military troops remain, often performing tasks normally done by police officers, such as protecting farmers and operating checkpoints.
“This situation drains available military resources, limiting the number of troops available to conduct and sustain offensive operations deep into the Tumbuns to defeat the terrorists effectively,” the report said.
The assessment suggested that the AU’s Peace Support Operations Division could help member states develop and operate a police component and transition from deploying troops in areas of conflict to using national police forces.
It urged MNJTF member states to start recruiting, training, resourcing and deploying police components as either a national force deployment or embedded in the MNJTF. The Martin Luther Agwai International Peacekeeping Center in Nigeria and the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Ghana could train potential police officers.
“Moreover, the existing partnership between the AU and the EU [European Union] would provide an opportunity to get support from the EU Training Mission for the training of the Police component of the MNJTF,” the assessment said.
The post Community-Oriented Policing Underused in Peacekeeping appeared first on Africa Defense Forum.
