#13. Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration of Combatants & Security Sector Reform
Possible questions:
‘Demobilizing combatants is the single most important factor determining the success of peace operations’
(United Nations, 2004). Do you agree with this view? Answer with reference to at least one case of DDR.
Why have DDR programmes proved so difficult to undertake in countries emerging from protracted
conflict?
Why is reintegration often considered the most problematic stage of DDR? Answer with reference to at
least two case studies.
Is DDR essential to achieving peace after protracted civil war?
Why has the record of DDR after civil wars proved so uneven in the post-Cold War era?
Why has the reintegration of combatants proved so difficult to undertake in countries emerging from
protracted conflict?
Why has the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of combatants often proved difficult to
undertake in countries emerging from war?
Why has Security Sector Reform tended to be narrow in implementation, even if broad in conception?
Reading list questions:
Why has it proved so difficult to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate ex-combatants after protracted
periods of armed conflict? Answer with reference to at least two examples.
Why has it often proved more difficult to reintegrate than to demobilise soldiers following civil wars?
Why has Security Sector Reform proved so difficult to undertake in countries emerging from protracted
conflict and/or authoritarian rule?
Provide a critical assessment of SSR efforts in either the Balkans since 1995 or West Africa since 2001 (you
may choose to focus on one particular country in the region).
Lecture definitions:
DDR
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2 fold aim: reduce the size of the armed forces while re-define them a proper role in society;
Where fighting was inconclusive - merging formerly opposing armies to create locally legitimate units
 Reduction of military expenditure; reallocation of resources to developmental goals
DDR - at the heart of contemporary peace operations - forms of DDR and SSR provisions, but uneven
record
 Distinctive set of activities - political - going hand-in-hand with economic reconstruction and
political stabilisation
 DDR cannot be treated as a set of managerial or administrative challenges as a number of
donors, international inst, etc. approached it
Assumption that presence of arms is directly related to the conflict - but arms control says that there
is no direct link between arms presence and the resolution of conflict
SSR
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After wars - trying to dismantle an authoritarian regime
In wars - ranks tend to swell and influence tends to grow - becoming politicised, corruptive,
unaccountable
Growing access to economic resources, coercion resources - by people enjoying an influential role
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Tendency to drift into organised crime after the end of conflict
After war - tendency to sack the old security agents of the regime
Looking at the DRC - firm legacy of Mobutu's regime - he used to create an incredible no. of special
paramilitary troops with access - the fact that there was no meaningful reform after Mobutu - due to
lack of SSR
The Mechanics and Context of DDR/ SSR
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DDR - in the context of intra-state conflict; communal conflict
 War structures socio-economic order in a profound way - structure of incentives in the
function/ utility of war
 The prospects of DDR for many and a prospect of the outbreak of peace - unappealing?
 Wars: identity driven, societies are deeply polarised - a security dilemma that is rarely resolved
with the end of hostilities that can be resolved by DDR/ SSR processes
 DDR has all taken place in an environment characterised by abundance of arms
 Manufacturing of small firearms - internationally decentralised - plenty to go around
Effect of the collapse of USSR and the lack of restrictions on former USSR nations who were big gun
manufacturers (Georgia?)
Very large quantities of weapons from past conflicts that have made their way b unofficial and official
means to new conflict (from the Horn of Africa, etc.)
Disarmament
 Efforts to eliminate/ eradicate/ remove from circulation weapons - consent based approach by part
of the peace agreement (e.g. buying back weapons)
 Coercive approach - problematic and unsuccessful
 Why so difficult to disarm?
 First: the scale of the weapons problem - it created a danger of impartial or incomplete
disarmament in a volatile environment
 Second: disarmament in the absence of a political settlement
 Third: limited soft power from donors and international actors
 HAITI - coercive disarmament by Brazilians - essentially a war against the gangs in Haiti, it destroyed
the gang structure but it did not eliminate the weapons - no efforts to translate this tactical effort
into a long-term view
 Effective disarmament has to be the outcome of a political settlement
 DDR as a sequential approach - not necessarily effective
Demobilise
 Disbanding of military formations
 The process of releasing a combatant from a mobilised state
 Establishment and maintenance of control areas?
 The issue of an initial reintegration package
 Angola and Mozambique - demobilisation camps - badly maintained and run - there was a lot of room
of improvement
 The speed with which you do it: important
Reintegration
 Cash Compensation, training for income generation, psychological readjustment into civilian life
 Looking at individual cases
 Need to look at underlining issues and technical ones
 Also: where do you locate the assembly areas? How do you sustain them? Is there a viable
infrastructure?
 Another challenge: get the balance right between long-term and short term goals
 Ideally camp life should involve counselling, job training
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Preparation for civilian life, especially the children - but it requires means of supporting them
otherwise they too become a security risk
The willingness to fund and support - not increased over time
 But not worth much if you cannot do it properly - especially as skills and experience are
instrumental to readjusting to normality
Needing to pay attention to the outside: unemployment in the country = dangerous to release former
fighters into such an environment
Angola: serious challenge for DDR - but willingness to make it work; they didn't rush to enforce
 According to the mandate - try and demobilise civilian units - the authorities tried to ignore this
provision as they did not have the funds
 Key was to keep the political negotiations going - draw from 'the bush' the rebels to the capital
to negotiate
Security Sector Reform
 In some ways more critical - in term of short-term security
 During periods of protracted conflict - powerful sections of the armed forced have had their tasks and
responsibilities increased
 But also relaxed accountability - civilian checks - ineffective or lacking
 Leading to creation of special units during war - affecting the civilian life
 Catch-all term - used to?
 Distinction between regular armed forces and rebel - often blurring
 El Salvador, Haiti, Guatemala - tradition of violence in the country
 Clandestine and informal systems within state institutions
 Large section of the population are deeply distrustful of the security reform
 Sceptical to the idea that law enforcers are impartial and apolitical
 Justifiable fear that the violence will continue despite the reform under the peace agreement
 It has to enjoy public confidence and legitimacy
 Establishing clear and workable distinctions between army and police is essential
 Retraining for conventional army operations
 Improve civilian control of armed forces
 Reform budgeting practices
 Transparency and accountability
 Development of professional military ethic within the units
 Needed because across the board DDR is not a good idea when there are law employment rates
 See disastrous effects of Lustration Laws in Europe (purge of govt officials characteristic of the
Communist system in Central and EE) - esp. Slovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria
Core readings:
1. ‘Getting in, getting out’: militia membership and prospects for re-integration in post-war Liberia,
Morten Bøås, Anne Hatløy, 2008, J. of Modern African Studies, 46, 1 (2008), pp. 33–55. f 2008 Cambridge
University Press
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based their decision on whether to join an armed group on the security predicament that they believed that they
and their families were facing. This suggest that disarmament, demobilisation, reintegration and rehabilitation
approaches are in need of rethinking that links them more directly to social cohesion and societal security.
Page 34
There do not exist many systematic analyses of Liberian excombatants,2 but they are generally seen as people with a
history of unemployment, underemployment and idleness (Dufka 2005; UN 2004; UNOWA 2005), often based on a
background as uprooted urban youths (Mkandawire 2002) or lumpen youths, prone to criminal behaviour and gross
indiscipline (Abdullah 1998
 The data we collected in November 2005, interviewing 491 ex-combatants by using Respondent-Driven
Sampling at two different sites in Monrovia, offer another picture. These do not seem to have been any more
idle, marginalised and alienated than any other group of young men in Liberia. This is not to say that
excombatants were not (or are not) marginalised in absolute terms – indeed, the situation of Liberian youths
as a whole may be considered one of marginalisation and exclusion – but rather that they did not seem more
marginalised than their peers
 t. We therefore attempt to rigorously examine the motives, interests, behaviour and larger socio-economic
context of people who joined Liberian armed groups, with the understanding that all phases of the Liberian
conflict – pre-, mid- and post-conflict – are inextricably linked: the behaviour, motivations and interests of
people in the post-conflict phase cannot be seen in isolation either from the conflict they fought, or from the
environment that shaped them before the conflict started.
 On the macro level, meanwhile, we emphasise that the Liberian conflict was not necessarily only one war.
Instead, as our examples from Lofa County and Nimba County illustrate, it was a series of local conflicts that
got tangled up in each other, as Taylor’s rebellion against Doe’s dictatorship pushed the dysfunctional Liberian
state over the edge and into the abyss
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 The task for the various stakeholders currently involved in Liberia is not simply putting Liberia back together
again, but, for the first time, constructing a state and a polity based on the principle of inclusion instead of
exclusion (Bøa˚s 2005). This mirrors the challenge facing individual ex-combatants as they attempt to re-order
their lives after the war.
 First, we contend that, in societies undergoing conflict, armed groups can provide some sort of order and
social organisation, and represent means for social integration and upward social mobility (see Utas 2003).
Furthermore, we assume that enrolment in the various factions in the Liberian civil war mainly took place
out of free will, as a viable response to a person’s particular situation
 Moreover, we venture that, just because people make choices under some level of coercion – not an
uncommon occurrence in any society – this does not remove their agency and their ability to evaluate
alternative coping strategies. We therefore premise our analysis on the conviction that people have agency,
and are not merely victims of circumstances and structures that they do not understand and did not create
 distinction between ‘tactical’ and ‘ strategic’ agency. The first is narrow and opportunistic, ‘exercised to cope
with concrete, immediate conditions of their lives in order to maximise the circumstances created by their
violent military environment’ (Honwana 2006: 71). The latter is based on a position of power that enables a
certain degree of control over the self and the decisions taken
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 Carefully examining the conditions and concerns that initially led some people to join militias and participate in
armed conflict, rather than simply assuming that only one factor (force, poverty, greed, grievance) was
determinative, helps illuminate the distinction between tactical and strategic agency. We see below that, in
joining armed groups, many excombatants seem to have made tactical decisions rooted in security concerns
 We also discover that their current existence in post-war Monrovia is to a large extent tactical – necessarily
opportunistic and oriented towards surviving, not thriving.
 Many more men than women participated in the different warring factions. Those women who did belong to a
faction have mostly returned to their home communities without ever picking up the ‘tag’ as ex-combatants.
This seems particularly to be the case of females fighting for the movement Liberians United for Reconciliation
and Democracy (LURD)
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 The ethnic composition of our informants vis-a`-vis their group affiliations, especially in Duala Market, may
seem surprising. LURD was mainly a Mandingo project, but many of our LURD-affiliated Duala informants are
Kru. The LURD rebellion (which dominated what may be called the second part of the Liberian civil war, from
1999 to 2003) emerged from Lofa County. They initially threatened Taylor and his government from the
northeastern part of the country, before advancing towards Monrovia.
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 Although the ethnic composition of the groups is interesting, however, it is by no means explanatory: very few
fighters cited ethnicity as a reason for joining armed groups. We must therefore examine other factors,
including the situation of ex-combatants before the war and for whom they fought.
 Before joining an armed group, the majority of the ex-combatants went to school: as Table 2 shows, as
many as 60% went to school, and almost 25% were working. Only 11% reported that they had nothing to do.
Often idleness has been claimed as one of the main reasons for young people to join armed groups (see UN
2004). However, most of the ex-combatants now hanging around in Red Light and Duala Market had
something to do before joining an armed group. As seen below (Table 4), the main reason for joining an armed
group was to feel more secure themselves, or to keep their family safe. Only a few claimed that they had
nothing else to do
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 It is also necessary to realise that, while many of the people in our sample went to school or were working, this
does not mean that they were learning very much, or that their work brought them many benefits. Especially
in the rural parts of the country, education was left to mission schools, and was not considered an area of
particular concern to the state. Proper education was a privilege, not a right.
 Our data indicate that the combatants who see war as an occupation – and therefore changed ‘employer’
when new economic opportunities (of looting and plundering) emerge – are relatively few. The ‘mercenary
warrior’ problem argued by Human Rights Watch and other NGOs may exist, but this group seems to be
smaller than envisioned by for example Dufka
45
 It is also important to note that one-third of the ex-combatants say they were kidnapped or forced into the
armed group. Abductions and forced recruitment were practised by all armed factions in Liberia, but contrary
to some NGO reporting (see Dufka 2005), people also joined out of free will the first time they joined an armed
group. We believe that the figure reported here is more accurate than claims that almost all fighters were
forcibly recruited. The majority of ex-combatants were ordinary people who joined armed groups based on
various ideas concerning protection and opportunity
47
The Liberian war, and its aftermath, are complex largely because pre-existing, localised conflicts were interpreted
and acted upon in different ways in different places, robbing the various groups of much of their coherence and
contributing to a general sense of unpredictability and instability
 the question then becomes how effective the DDRR programme has been in addressing this issue. In serving
only a particular population, i.e. ex-combatants,12 the DDRR programme necessarily did not account for the
fact that that almost all Liberians were poor, underemployed and marginalised in both economic and political
terms – yet some joined armed groups and others did not. Re-examining the importance of security
considerations in joining armed groups can help us unlock this paradox, while illustrating the need to base
post-conflict programmes on knowledge derived from and specific to the local context.
48
 Nevertheless, this is a surprising finding, especially in light of the fact that some groups of ex-combatants have
been known to stage protests claiming that the DDRR programme has not improved their situation. This may
indicate a disconnect between experiences in the programme and its relation or importance to daily life. In this
respect, it is worth noting that a large number of our informants, despite having received DDRR, were
presently unemployed
49
 Details aside, the most important finding is that the majority still live either with their parents or with close
relatives. In other words, there is nothing to suggest that they are ex-communicated from their families or
local communities. This indicates that the ex-combatants, and their families and local communities, recognise
that people mainly started fighting in order to provide for their own, their family’s, and their community’s
security.
 Prior to the war, going to school was the main activity for 60%, another 23% worked, 5% had domestic work as
their main activity, whereas only 11% reported that they had nothing to do before they joined the armed
group. After the war, 44% report being unemployed; half of these are looking for a job, the other half are not
(as shown in Table 6). This shows that neither their wartime experience nor the DDRR programme has placed
them in a better position than before the war. This is something that both the Liberian government and the
international community in Liberia must take into consideration
50: If security was the reason why people got involved in the war, it is interesting to analyse the degree to which excombatants participated in the presidential elections in October 2005, as this provides one indicator of people’s
willingness to solve conflicts peacefully. In fact, most of the excombatants participated in this election.
52:
 The approach to DDRR in Liberia, as elsewhere, was built on the assumption that there is something
particularly marginalised about the group of people who constituted the rank-and-file of the movements
involved in the war. Our research indicates that this is not necessarily the case
 DDRR is very much a reaction to the notion that these people are stigmatised from society, set apart in their
own world, and therefore need reintegration. However, the ex-combatants in our sample do not fit this picture
very well. They are not a world apart from their parents, relatives and local communities, but are in fact living
with them. DDRR is a programme that aims to help reduce stigmatisation by means of programmes and
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processes to reintegrate former fighters. However, at least in Liberia, this stigmatisation among family and
friends seems overstated
the DDRR programme may have had the opposite effect, by taking a group that was not particularly
stigmatised and set them apart as an easily identifiable, stereotyped group, marking them as something ‘
other’ and problematic
The immediate challenge for policy-makers in the Liberian case is therefore to untangle the many local
conflicts that were interwoven as Taylor’s rebellion pushed Doe’s dysfunctional state over the edge, and into
an abyss where people took up arms to protect themselves, their families and communities. This created a
situation where means to survival only could be grasped in an agency that was narrow and opportunistic,
‘exercised to cope with concrete, immediate condition of their life’
2. Muggah, R and O’Donnell, C 2015 Next Generation Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration.
Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 4(1): 30, pp. 1–12,
1:
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Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) initiatives occupy a central place in the imagination of
peace, security and development experts. And over the past three decades, the expectations of what DDR can
achieve have grown. Rather than being restricted to a discrete set of activities at war’s end, DDR is now
pursued in the midst of full-fledged armed conflicts and settings gripped by gang, criminal and terrorist
violence. DDR is no longer the preserve of peacekeeping forces alone, but is routinely included in wider peacebuilding activities, counter-insurgency and stability operations, and in tandem with counter-terrorism and anticrime measures
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The sheer scope and scale of DDR activities over the past few decades is surprisingly broad. No fewer than 60
separate DDR initiatives were fielded around the world since the late 1980s
By the late 1990s, DDR assumed a kind of orthodoxy in the peace, security and development communities,
especially amongst representatives of the United Nations agencies, the World Bank and a number of bilateral
aid agencies.
This first wave of DDR interventions were intended to help bring protracted civil wars raging across Latin
America and Southern Africa to an end. Their modus operandi was comparatively straightforward involving the
organized cantoning and decommissioning of senior military personnel together with rank and file soldiers
with the goal of breaking their command and control. Owing to the emphasis on formed military units,
whether soldiers or rebels, it was generally clear who was eligible for reinsertion and reintegration assistance
(and who was not).
2
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Introduced after civil wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa, DDR
interventions achieved some positive impact, particularly if gauged by the extent to which they contributed to
preventing the recurrence of armed conflict
 DDR schemes in Cambodia, Haiti and the Philippines in the 1990s failed to collect sizeable numbers of
weapons or demobilize fighting forces, much less stem a return to political violence in the short-term
 Second generation DDR
 DDR was now expected to promote reconciliation between erstwhile soldiers and communities, rebuild
and reinforce social institutions, and promote economic livelihoods for combatants, their dependents
and neighborhoods
 This shift did not occur in a vacuum. Many donor governments and multilateral agencies, notably the
United Nations Department of Peacekeeping (DPKO) and the United Nations Development Program
(UNDP), were intent on pursuing more comprehensive approaches.
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 Haiti 2004:
 A new community-oriented model was swiftly developed to address gangs, who in form, behavior and
motivation were distinct from the military-style units that were typically the focus of DDR programs
around the world. Building on crime and violence prevention models tested in Latin America and other
parts of the world, MINUSTAH developed a Community Violence Reduction (CVR) program. Although the
outcomes of CVR were clearly mixed2 the explicit shift in approach triggered a rethink of DDR across the
United Nations system
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Next generation DDR : The frameworks and models advocated in the IDDRS, although offering a useful
reference, are inadequate to guide practitioners in contexts where DDR is prescribed. Instead, DDR
interventions are becoming increasingly diverse
Take the case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where some 20,000 members of the Forces
Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda, or FDLR, were repatriated to their home country between 2000 and
2010. There, a new kind of forceful DDR was initiated in the context of ‘robust peacekeeping’ operations in
2012 to neutralize the remaining, approximately 2,000 hard-core FDLR fighters who continued to ravage the
Eastern Congo (UN 2014a).
Somalia offers yet another example of the ‘stick then carrot’ approach. There, the African Union Mission in
Somalia (AMISOM) force confronted Al Shabaab in what resembled conventional military confrontations for
territory. This culminated in AMISOM regaining control of the capital Mogadishu in 2011. Shortly thereafter,
the Somali government was contacted by Al Shabaab rank and file members requesting assistance to leave the
group.
5
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In Somalia DDR is expected to facilitate the return of ex-combatants back into their communities under the
protection of his (or, less likely her) clan. Reintegration entails a complex negotiating phase for ex-combatants
to regain acceptance in their communities of origin, which itself has proven to serve as a strong incentive for
ex-combatants to reform
DDR in Libya is also an exceedingly challenging exercise. Following the NATO-led intervention, the Libyan
government rapidly dissolved and was unable to deliver on even the rudimentary criteria of statehood,
including the monopoly over the legitimate use of violence. Predictably, armed militia filled the vacuum. And
while they initially offered a measure of stability, the situation quickly deteriorated into intramilitia fighting in
the absence of a legitimate central authority or political settlement.
6
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DDR is thus increasingly enmeshed in the stabilization and state-building agendas of bilateral aid agencies,
even if this is not always explicitly acknowledged.
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The inversion of the DDR formula, or in some cases the separation of the ‘R’ from the ‘DD,’ was pursued in
various settings, especially those where strong gun cultures persist, such as Afghanistan. It was also attempted
in the wake of negotiated peace agreements where peace provisions called for putting arms beyond use, as in
Northern Ireland.
Fortunately, there are indications that UN agencies and others are moving away from template-driven thinking
and carefully evaluating their capacities and competencies. There is growing acknowledgment that each DDR
intervention must be prepared, negotiated and administered according to the specific, and dynamic,
circumstances on the ground.
7
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3. The Logic of Child Soldiering and Coercion Bernd Beber and Christopher Blattman, International
Organization 67, Winter 2013, pp+ 65–104
66:
International organizations have gone further, negotiating with and cajoling armed forces, and naming and shaming
governments+ Peacekeeping operations now include child rights training and protection in their missions+ 3
Western governments have also restricted aid to governments who recruit children+ Collectively, these efforts seem
to have been successful in reducing state recruitment+ The UN body charged with protecting the rights of children in
conflict has negotiated, or begun a transition path, with every state accused of enlisting children+ 4
 Yet child soldiering persists among insurgents, terror groups, and other armed forces+ Between 2004 and 2007
alone, armed groups in twenty-one countries recruited children+ 5 At present, children continue to be
recruited in a familiar list of fragile states and territories, including Afghanistan, Iraq, eastern Congo, South
Sudan, Darfur, and Somalia+ 6 New conflicts in 2011 brought worrying reports of new child recruitment,
including Ivory Coast and Libya
 Consider the twelve armed groups for which survey data are available, in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Colombia, and
Uganda+ 9 In half of the groups, at least 20 percent of recruits were age fourteen or younger ~the definition of
a child for purposes of a war crime! and at least 40 percent of recruits were age seventeen or younger ~the
definition of a child in much international human rights law!+ In three of the twelve groups, children aged
seventeen or younger were the majority of fighters
67: In any conflict that involves sustained fights, large amounts of ammunition, mobile units, or foot travel over
significant distances ~that is, most rural insurgencies! children and adolescents are likely inferior at the required
tasks+ Children, it can be argued, are able to carry the increasingly light automatic weapons used in modern war+ 10
But, with lower weight and smaller stature, young children have difficulty handling recoil, and shooting accurately+
11 So why do some armed groups systematically prefer children over adults, while others do the opposite?
 Advocates and academics have also observed that recruits, especially child recruits, are often threatened,
abducted, and abused+ 12 Indeed, new data on African rebel groups, presented in this study, suggest that
coercion and child recruitment go hand in hand: all groups that forcibly recruit also employ child soldiers, on
average two to three times as many as groups that do not forcibly recruit+ Thus this study also investigates
under what circumstances recruitment is coercive, and why coercion is often directed at children+
68
 Recruitment, especially coercion, requires us to understand the incentives of the rebel leader as well as the
recruit+ We start from the notion that rebel leaders are minimally rational—that is, calculating, self-interested,
and maximizing—and ask under what circumstances child recruitment and coercion will be optimal strategies+
One answer is obvious: children will be recruited if they are more effective fighters than we suppose+
 We find relatively little evidence for this view+ Our interviews and data from the Lord’s Resistance Army ~LRA!
in Uganda suggest that children take longer to train and are less likely to be made fighters, at least until they
grow older+ Our theoretical framework, moreover, suggests that if children are as able as adults then they
should be rewarded rather than coerced+ Yet we observe the opposite association+
 Instead, the evidence favors an alternative argument: children are easier to mislead and indoctrinate,
cheaper to retain, and more responsive to coercive methods+ Journalists, advocates, and academics have
voiced dozens of arguments along these lines+ Many note that remuneration will be lower if children have
relatively poor civilian employment and educational opportunities+
69
 Developmental psychology provides some support for these claims: lab experiments suggest that adolescent
social and brain development may lead them to be more conformist and easily influenced
METHOD AND ASSUMPTIONS:
Our model also yields several crucial insights and predictions+ First, so long as children are less able guerillas than
adults, child recruitment is never optimal under basic principal-agent assumptions; we need at least one
“nonstandard” assumption to hold true: children must be easier to indoctrinate, or they must have a lower outside
option, for example, because they are more easily misled or have a lower probability of successful escape+ Second,
punishment or coercive recruitment is more likely when recruits have poor outside options and coercion is
“cheap”—as when there is little civilian support to lose, or foreign powers insensitive to human rights violations fund
the movement, or when militaries fail to protect civilians+ 22 Finally, we see that these margins—relative ease of
manipulation, difficulty of escape, cheapness of coercion, and poverty of outside options—are not only crucial, but
also mutually reinforcing
74:
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Minimum conditions for child soldiering. If a child recruit is just as able as an adult, the model is trivial to solve:
rebel leaders will be indifferent between the two, recruit either, and offer the same incentives+ However, as
we discuss in the introduction and the empirical section below, there is little evidence for this view+ Children
appear to carry several disadvantages in warfare, especially mobile insurgencies, and the LRA treatment and
evaluation of children is consistent with this+ Likewise, rebel leaders appear to systematically recruit and
reward children differently than adults
76: If children are sufficiently effective fighters and the leader can inflict punishment at low cost, then even small
amounts of indoctrination can translate into child soldiering+ By bringing a child’s values and effort in line with the
rebel leader’s objectives ~modeled here by a lower disutility of effort!, indoctrination makes it easier for the rebel
leader to satisfy both the incentive compatibility and the participation constraints
78: The model implies that advocates and policymakers must pay close attention to the relative opportunities for
adults versus children, not merely absolute opportunities+ If adult employment or wages grow faster than those for
adolescents, or if school reconstruction lags, or if ~as has sometimes been the case! demobilization programs are
more generous to adults, then policymakers could unwittingly increase the incentives for rebels to shift to younger
recruits+ As we show, policymakers may also be able to do more to shift perceived options than commonly believed,
adding a new policy lever
85:
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The LRA focused on abducting young adolescents+ Figure 6 illustrates the distribution of age at the time of
recruitment+ Three times as many fourteenyear-olds were abducted than nine-year-olds or twenty-threeyear-olds+ The preference for adolescent boys holds true even after adjusting for the disproportionate number
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of young people in the population; a fourteen-year-old youth in the study population had a 5 percent average
chance of abduction—twice the risk faced by those of age nine or twenty-three
The focus on adolescents is more pronounced once we account for release+ LRA raiding parties commonly
abducted all able-bodied members of a household to carry looted goods, but were often under explicit
instructions from Kony to release children under age eleven and adults older than their mid twenties, once
loot was delivered safely+ Fifteen percent of abductees were released in the first two weeks of abduction+
Violence and the threat of punishment were the main instruments of control in the LRA, and even short
abductions involved exposure to significant brutality+ Real and threatened death and injury were among the
primary means of dissuading escape and motivating performance+
 “In the bush,” explained one youth abducted for two years, “you do things out of fear+” Fifty-four
percent of abductees were severely beaten ~versus 12 percent of nonabductees! and 24 percent report
being attacked with a weapon ~versus 3 percent of nonabductees!+ Beatings or death were the
punishment for attempted escape, a sentence other abductees were often forced to carry out with
weapons+ Fifty-five percent of abducted youth report that abductees were “often” or “sometimes”
forced to beat or kill new arrivals+
87:

The LRA also limited escape opportunities by moving the abductee as far as possible from home+ More than
half of abductees were tied in their first days of capture, and the first day’s march would deliberately backtrack
and disorient+ Abductees were taken to the bases in Sudan as quickly as possible, where escape was nearly
impossible because of the distances, disorientation, and the hostile SPLA
 Kony was also feared and respected as a prophet+ Three long-term bodyguards to Kony, whom we
interviewed, described a catalog of prophesies foretold and coming to pass+ They also described displays of
power, such as the ability to vanish+ Through the power of the spirits Kony was also perceived to be
omnipresent and able to track down escapees by the smell of the holy oil with which they were anointed
92: The data are consistent with these claims+ Abductees were regularly given arms for practice and training as soon
as two or three weeks after abduction+ But being given a gun to “sleep with” or being allowed to keep own gun, was
the main indication of becoming a regular fighter+ Young children were nearly half as likely to have been given and
allowed to keep a gun as adolescents aged fifteen to seventeen ~Figure 8!+ In addition to being more likely to
receive guns, older adolescents and adults also received guns sooner than younger adolescents and children
97: We began this study with two puzzling facts: child soldiering was not only commonplace, but also closely
associated with forced recruitment+ Our rebel data confirm both
100: Support from a foreign state is strongly associated with forced child recruitment, however—a thirty-eight- to
forty-two-point increase, significant at the 5 percent level+ These foreign sponsors are typically other African
countries ~only in one case, the South West Africa People’s Organization in South Africa, do we have clear evidence
of support from developed nations!+ Foreign support is diverse in nature, and can come with many conditions, but
we observe few instances where a rebel group’s human rights record is taken into account, especially during the
Cold War+ It is difficult to imagine a reason that these state sponsors would explicitly encourage forced recruitment,
least of all children+ We interpret the coefficient as reducing the costliness of punishment, by providing rebel groups
a source of funding other than local civilians+


Just as Western schoolchildren perform fire drills, or learn not to speak to strangers, so should children in war
zones be drilled in escape and resistance to misinformation+ Just such a grassroots effort was launched by
Ugandan civil society, albeit too little and too late+ In 2000, organizations began to broadcast radio messages
of welcome and amnesty+ One rebel commander reported that, by 2004, such broadcasts led to orders to halt
new abductions: widespread knowledge of amnesty and reconciliation meant that new abductees would
reveal the truth and prompt mass desertion
In retrospect, more and better education and communication earlier in the conflict could have reduced the
effectiveness of LRA abduction+ It is difficult to imagine the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund
~UNICEF! or education ministries distributing abduction-training curricula to schools+ The policy would be a
frank admission of their failure to protect, and politically difficult+
4. The Report of the Iraq Inquiry Executive Summary Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors Ordered by
the House of Commons to be printed on 6 July 2016
Aka the Chilcot Report
On SSR, volume 10
 CONCLUSIONS: DE-BA’ATHIFICATION
Page 58
 Key findings:
 • Early decisions on the form of de-Ba’athification and its implementation had a significant and lasting
negative impact on Iraq.
 • Limiting de-Ba’athification to the top three tiers of the party, rather than extending it to the fourth,
would have had the potential to be far less damaging to Iraq’s post-invasion recovery and political
stability.
 • The UK’s ability to influence the decision by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) on the scope of
the policy was limited and informal.
 • The UK chose not to act on its well-founded misgivings about handing over the implementation of
de-Ba’athification policy to the Governing Council.
 Although the US and UK had discussed and recognised the need for it, de-Ba’athification was one of many
areas of post-invasion activity in Iraq for which objectives and plans had not been agreed between the two
Governments before the invasion (see Section 6.5). Consequently, no detailed preparations for
implementation of a shared de-Ba’athification policy were put in place.
 The UK lacked the deep understanding of which levels of the Iraqi public sector were highly politicised that
would have been desirable in developing a de-Ba’athification policy, but did recognise that party membership
was likely to have been a matter of expediency rather than conviction for many Iraqi citizens. Since the UK’s
planning assumption was that a large proportion of the Iraqi civil service would continue to function under
new leadership post-invasion, the main UK concern was that a light-touch de-Ba’athification process should
protect administrative capacity for the reconstruction of the countryThe UK lacked the deep understanding of
which levels of the Iraqi public sector were highly politicised that would have been desirable in developing a
de-Ba’athification policy, but did recognise that party membership was likely to have been a matter of
expediency rather than conviction for many Iraqi citizens. Since the UK’s planning assumption was that a large
proportion of the Iraqi civil service would continue to function under new leadership post-invasion, the main
UK concern was that a light-touch de-Ba’athification process should protect administrative capacity for the
reconstruction of the country
 Measures to prevent a resurgence of the Ba’ath Party were important both to ordinary Iraqi citizens and to
Iraqi politicians. The UK recognised the psychological importance of reassuring both groups that the Ba’athists
would not return to power, but did not fully grasp the extent to which de-Ba’athification might have
consequences for the relationship between the Shia and Sunni communities. The Coalition did not have a plan
to deal with the tensions which inevitably rose as result. This placed at risk the UK’s objective that Iraq would
become a stable and united state.
Page 61:
After the fall of a repressive regime, steps inevitably have to be taken to prevent those closely identified with that
regime from continuing to hold positions of influence in public life. The development of plans which minimise
undesired consequences, which are administered with justice and which are based on a robust understanding of the
social context in which they will be implemented, should be an essential part of preparation for any post-conflict
phase. This should include measures designed to address concerns within the wider population, including those of
the victims of the old regime, and to promote reconciliation.
Section 12.1 : SSR in Iraq
 Introduction
Page 66:
 Security Sector Reform The term “Security Sector Reform” (SSR) is used in this report to refer to work to
rebuild and reform Iraq’s security and justice institutions. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) defines SSR as development work that helps societies to “escape from a downward spiral
wherein insecurity, crime and underdevelopment are mutually reinforcing”.1 The OECD defines the security
and justice sectors to include the following:
 • core security actors (for example, armed forces, police, gendarmerie,2 border guards, customs and
immigration, and intelligence and security services);
• security management and oversight bodies (for example, ministries of defence and internal affairs);

• justice and law enforcement institutions (for example, the judiciary, prisons, prosecution services,

traditional justice systems); and
• non-statutory security forces (for example, guerrilla armies and private militias)




The term “Security Sector Reform” is not used consistently, and is sometimes used interchangeably with
phrases such as “security system reform” and “Rule of Law”. The term “Rule of Law” is often used to refer
specifically to the justice sector.
Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programmes are designed to improve security and
stability in post-conflict environments.3 DDR aims to deal with the post-conflict security problem that arises
when those who were fighting in a conflict (combatants such as soldiers or militia) are left without livelihoods
or support networks. DDR programmes usually include a process of removing weapons from combatants,
taking combatants out of military structures and helping them to reintegrate into society, sometimes including
integration into new security structures.
Some of the documents referenced in the Report refer to “civilian police officers” as a way of describing
serving police officers seconded to Iraq. It appears that this description is to draw a distinction between the
military police (Royal Military Police and Ministry of Defence police) and police officers from territorial forces
in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. While the Inquiry may have reproduced the term “civilian
police officers” (sometimes abbreviated to CivPol) in footnotes or in direct quotes, it has otherwise referred to
“police officers” or “military police officers” in order to establish the same distinction.
Page 67/8:
 The paper identified “post-conflict strategy” as one of eight components of a UK military strategy for Iraq,
recognising the need to “acknowledge that there will be a post-conflict phase with an associated
commitment, manpower and finance bill”. Development of an SSR model, support for training and provision
of equipment were identified as tasks to be undertaken in the “medium term (six months to two years)”.
72: On SSR, the paper stated: “Our handling of the defeated Iraqi forces will be critical. We shall need a DDR plan for
them, consistent with our vision for the future of Iraq’s armed forces. Experience in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan
has shown that we need to ensure consistency between first steps and a longer-term vision on Security Sector
Reform. As well as ensuring the efficient use of our own resources, we shall want to find a way to allow partners to
join in SSR implementation. Does this work require new impetus?
83:
The MOD paper listed the range of SSR activities in which the UK could be expected to participate as follows: •
DDR; • clearance of unexploded ordnance (de-mining); • reconstruction of the Iraqi armed forces; • non-military
security forces and intelligence services; • police and law enforcement; • border control; and • judicial systems.
 Conclusion
414-415:
Key findings • Between 2003 and 2009, there was no coherent US/UK strategy for Security Sector Reform (SSR).
• The UK began work on SSR in Iraq without a proper understanding of what it entailed and hugely underestimated
the magnitude of the task.
• The UK was unable to influence the US or engage it in a way that produced an Iraq-wide approach.
• There was no qualitative way for the UK to measure progress. The focus on the quantity of officers trained for the
Iraqi Security Forces, rather than the quality of officers, was simplistic and gave a misleading sense of comfort.
• After 2006, the UK’s determination to withdraw from Iraq meant that aspirations for the Iraqi Security Forces were
lowered to what would be “good enough” for Iraq. It was never clear what that meant in practice.
• The development of the Iraqi Army was considerably more successful than that of the Iraqi Police Service. But the
UK was still aware before it withdrew from Iraq that the Iraqi Army had not been sufficiently tested. The UK was not
confident that the Iraqi Army could maintain security without support.
What is SSR?
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines SSR as development work that helps
societies to “escape from a downward spiral wherein insecurity, crime and underdevelopment are mutually
reinforcing”.1 In considering the SSR effort in Iraq, the Inquiry’s task was complicated by a lack of clear terminology.
That is indicative of the lack of clarity which hampered SSR activities from the start. The term Security Sector Reform
was not used in a consistent way, and was sometimes used interchangeably with phrases such as “security system
reform” and “Rule of Law”. It was sometimes used to refer solely to police reform or to work to reform the army.
The term “Rule of Law” was often used to refer specifically to the justice sector. The term “Security Sector Reform”
(SSR) is used in this Report to refer to work to rebuild and reform Iraq’s security and justice institutions. The
evidence available to the Inquiry reflects the UK’s overwhelming focus on the Iraqi Army (IA) and Iraqi Police Service
(IPS). Low-budget projects were undertaken in relation to the Iraqi judiciary and prison system (see Box, ‘The justice
sector’, later in this Section) but their scale was very small by comparison.
Page 417:
Immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime there was widespread looting by the Iraqi population,
including in Baghdad and Basra. As described in Section 9.8, UK forces in Basra were not given instructions by their
commanders in the UK on how to deal with it. 16. Brigadier Graham Binns, commanding the 7 Armoured Brigade
which had taken Basra City, concluded that “the best way to stop looting was just to get to a point where there was
nothing left to loot”.7
420:
A policing strategy for Iraq was also essential to ensure that the international effort was coherent across the country.
The lack of co-ordination between police reform in Baghdad and Basra could be seen in a report produced by DCC
White on 26 August. He assessed that 91 international officers would be required to support the policing mission in
Multi-National Division (South-East) (MND(SE)) and an additional 48 would be required to provide force protection.
DCC White told the Inquiry that that caused some controversy when the numbers were communicated to the CPA
staff in Baghdad as they were considered to be inconsistent with the new ‘MOI 60/90 day Strategic Plan’ which DCC
White had not seen. 34. In the absence of a clear strategy for what type of force was needed, and a realistic
assessment of how it could be delivered, priority was given to pushing Iraqi police officers through basic training in
large numbers.
431:
By early October, there was clear evidence that the SSR objective agreed by DOP was unlikely to be achievable
because:
• The Basra police chief was working with militants who were causing disruption in the area.
• There remained significant capacity issues within key ministries.
• There was a need for more focused IPS training in areas of operational planning and intelligence.
• Warnings from theatre continued to stress that the focus on numbers was misplaced – the morale and integrity of
officers who had joined the ISF was questionable and those issues needed to be addressed to deliver the capabilities
required.
435:
The assessment of ISF capability from other sources was still discouraging:
• Operation CORRODE, an operation aimed at removing corrupt police, proved difficult to implement with limited
political engagement in Basra. The JIC afterwards reported that it suspected that officers had been reassigned rather
than removed.
• The JIC reported that the ISF could cope with low-level threats but its readiness to handle Shia extremists or
intra-Shia violence was uncertain. Army command, control and logistics capabilities were all still developing, making
major operations without MNF support difficult.
• Mr Robin Lamb, British Consul General in Basra, reported that local staff regarded the IPS “as at best ineffective,
and at worst complicit in the assassinations. We would support that assessment”
DDR