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Lamarque, Hugh Insulating the borderlands : policing and state reach in Rwanda /. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/26483 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. INSULATING THE BORDERLANDS: POLICING AND STATE REACH IN RWANDA Hugh Lamarque Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD 2017 Department of Politics and International Studies SOAS, University of London 1 Declaration for SOAS PhD thesis I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the SOAS, University of London concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination. Signed: ____________________________ Date: _________________ 2 Abstract In Rwanda, the high visibility of uniformed state officials at strategic sites creates a misleading impression of how public order is maintained. In fact, crime prevention in the country’s major cities relies to a significant degree on non-state, often ostensibly voluntary, participation and takes place in the margins of centralized state authority. The Rwanda National Police (RNP) has prioritized crime prevention over investigation, and by partitioning the country into small self-policing neighbourhood communities, has created an environment resistant to micro-level violence. The degree to which the Rwandan government has been able to coordinate the participation of civilian community members in the maintenance of public order is a powerful manifestation of its state reach. The extent of Rwandan state reach is most striking in Gisenyi, the country’s largest border town, where the government has mobilised local communities to share information and effectively control levels of street crime despite what appear to be significant difficulties resulting from the town’s geographical position. Crime prevention in Gisenyi takes place in the context of widespread criminality immediately across the border in Goma, the capital of the DRC’s North Kivu Province. The asymmetry in the prevalence of crime is sustained despite the border itself being relatively frictionless, allowing both goods and people to cross with ease. I argue that these issues are not unrelated, and that the dialectical relationship between Goma and Gisenyi bolsters mechanisms that contribute to the prevention of street crime on the Rwandan side of the border. 3 Acknowledgements This PhD was funded for three years by the Economic and Social Research Council. I would like to thank Phil Clark at SOAS for outstanding academic supervision, calm support and advice, and for providing me the space to work and think independently. Similarly, I thank Andrew Wallis at the University of Cambridge for his selfless support over many years. In Rwanda, I thank one principal research assistant, translator and language teacher. Two translators from the Université Libre de Kigali in Gisenyi and two part-time research assistants each provided further professional assistance for which I am enormously grateful. I was never entitled to the information contained in these pages – security details of a foreign state – and I sincerely thank the Rwanda National Police and the Rwandan Defense Forces for the patience and good nature of their officers and for the assistance they have provided to me. To all those Rwandans, both inside and outside of the field of security, who gave up their time to participate in this research through interviews and informal discussions – murakoze cyane – I wish you, and Rwanda, all the very best for the future. To offer anything near an exhaustive record of those whose academic advice and support has helped me along the way would require adding an additional chapter to this text. In particular, then, I thank Paul Nugent, Wolfgang Zeller, Timothy Raeymaekers, Karen Büscher, Gillian Mathys, Martin Doevenspeck and Kristof Titeca at the African Borderlands Research Network, Jonathan Goodhand, Zoe Marriage, Paolo Novak, Patrick Meehan, Johann Chacko, Matthew Nelson and Anna Rader at SOAS, and Aidan Russell, Pritish Behuria and Marco Jowell elsewhere. I owe you each an intellectual debt and a great deal of gratitude. Thank you Robert Macdonald, Benjamin Chemouni and one anonymous Rwandan reviewer for hours of constructive criticism and gruelling editing. 4 Writing a PhD thesis can be an isolating experience. To Joseph, Dominique, Emily, Chris, Tom, Jon, Ashani, Gentil, Freddy, Rona, Martha and to my brother Toby, thank you for making this so much more tolerable in my case. Finally, to my parents – thank you again for everything. 5 Contents INSULATING THE BORDERLANDS: POLICING AND STATE REACH IN RWANDA ........................ 1 Abstract ................................................................................................................................ 3 Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. 4 Contents ............................................................................................................................... 6 Maps, Tables and Figures ..................................................................................................... 9 Acronyms ........................................................................................................................... 11 Glossary of Key Kinyarwanda Terms .................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 13 1.1 An Unlikely Safety ........................................................................................................ 13 1.2 Research Questions and Argument ............................................................................. 14 1.3 Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................ 17 State and State Reach .................................................................................................... 18 Police and Policing ......................................................................................................... 21 Police and the Security Sector in Africa ..................................................................... 26 African Borderlands ....................................................................................................... 27 1.4 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 31 1.5 Thesis Structure ........................................................................................................... 33 CHAPTER TWO – METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................... 36 2.1 Encountering Security .................................................................................................. 36 Access ............................................................................................................................. 37 Site Selection .................................................................................................................. 45 Participants and Methods .............................................................................................. 48 2.2 Constraints and Limitations ......................................................................................... 54 Researcher Position and Official Narratives in Rwanda ................................................. 54 Events ............................................................................................................................. 56 2.3 Ethical Considerations .................................................................................................. 59 2.4 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 60 CHAPTER THREE – RWANDAN POLICING IN ITS POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT ....... 62 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 62 Historical Timeline of the Rwandan State ...................................................................... 65 Rwanda Districts Map .................................................................................................... 72 A Contested Field of Study ............................................................................................. 73 3.2 Politics in Rwanda – Between Elite Policy and Local Agency ......................................