“An eye for danger, feeling for privacy” is the motto of the Central Sector for Protection and Security (CSPD) in the Hague, Netherlands, which officials of the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies of BiH, visited from 2 to 6 December 2013.
The work of this rather new institution, established in 2013, is guided with the three principles: prevent, defend and protect the royal family members and the diplomats. In addition, it extends the operational support in regards to counter-diversion, intelligence and technical assistance. “The briefing for bh. colleagues focused on the preparation for the Summit on Nuclear Safety, which the Netherlands is hosting in March 2014. Having in mind the number of statesmen, invitees and accredited journalists, this is a great challenge and security undertaking, which requires a thorough preparation”, said Rob Kleian, Head of Unit for Diplomatic Security.
The BiH delegation was inter alia briefed on the functioning of the Unit for Protection of Diplomatic Facilities, National Coordinator for the Fight against Terrorism and Security, and the Police Academy Ossendrecht.
Since the Hague accommodates the embassies and the international organisations, the unit for diplomatic facilities has a demanding task of providing 24/7 security for all of these facilities. “We also organised a tour of our Operational Centre, and briefed the colleague on how we interact with the relevant units on suspicious and alarming CCTV surveillance”, said Fred van Puffelen, Head of Unit.
The visit also featured a briefing in the National Coordinator for Fight against Terrorism and Security, functioning within the Ministry of Justice. “The main task of this institution is to produce threat assessment reports on the basis of intelligence received and give instruction on which level of protection is required for a certain person or facility. This institution is also in charge of determining the list of so called “vulnerable” infrastructure, as a preventive measure,” said Pim Cappelle, Resident Twinning Adviser.
The visit to the Police academy Ossendrecht, as one of the best equipped police academies in Europe, provided an insight into the content of curriculum developed in line with the best European practices on police training in upholding peace and order and crisis management. “We are educating the module entitled search, reveal and react, which aims at strengthening profiling skills of police officers. This enables proactive as oppose to the reactive approach, and the interest for copying this module was expressed by Belgium and Germany,” said George van der Berg, Director of this Academy.
“Having in mind the competencies of the Directorate, all briefings organised in the Hague had a potential for lessons learned and adjusting it to BiH,“ concluded Cappelle.
The study visit was hosted in scope of the Twinning Project “Support to the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies”, which aims at the development of aimed at enhancing Directorate’s capacities and capabilities for VIP and Facilities Protection.