restoring law & order and crime prevention - Peace Operations ...

46assistance and cooperation to the Police. Cooperation and coordinationbetween the military and the police is required in this context, more so, tofill up the rule of law vacuum usually encountered in the mission area.2. Role of military component once Polices component is deployedin the mission area.The military component has a greater role to play assisting the UN Policeduring the initial period, soon after containment of the conflict, when thedeployment of UNPOL in the mission area starts.It has been experienced that the societies emerging out of conflictinvariably faces the problem of high public insecurity and spurt in crimesoon after the end of conflict as was witnessed in Kosovo, Liberia andHaiti. This happens due to the fact that during the process of disarmamentand demobilization of the combatants some arms and ammunition flowsinto the hands of the armed groups and criminal elements operating in thearea. Also at times due to lack of job opportunities and other circumstancesin the immediate aftermath of the conflict some of the former combatantsdo not get properly reintegrated into the society and get into criminalactivities such as smuggling as a way of easy earning of livelihood. Thesecriminal activities do not get properly addressed due to non-existent ordysfunctional/ineffective law enforcement apparatus in conflict riddensocieties which leads to poor law & order situation and increase in crime inthe society soon after the end of the conflict as was the case in Haiti.It has been seen that the deployment of the UN Police usually takes placein the mission area at a slow pace. Even after the deployment of theinternational Police at the optimum level the law enforcement structure in