INTRODUCTION: A STRONG STATE IN THE MIDST OF A STATE WEAKNESS PARADIGM
Government of Rwanda is like MTNFootnote 1 – everywhere you go.
A joke passed around KigaliDiscussion of the state in sub-Saharan Africa typically refers to its empirical ‘weakness’, its inability to extend authority, legitimate use of force, administration and services over the whole territory or the whole territory equally (Herbst Reference Herbst1996, Reference Herbst2000; Jackson & Rosberg Reference Jackson and Rosberg.1982; Widner Reference Widner1995). This has become a true meta-narrative of stateness in Africa. The difficulty has been traced to the ‘non-territorial nature of power’Footnote 2 (Herbst Reference Herbst2000: 35), which presented most African leaders with the fundamental problem of ‘how to broadcast power over sparsely settled lands’ (ibid.: 3). However, as most analysts briefly mention in a side note, there are exceptions to this rule. In a few places in Africa, including the Great Lakes Region and the Ethiopian highlands, ‘there are ecologies that have supported relatively high densities of people’, and it is these areas that ‘have been periodically able to exercise direct control over their peripheries’ (ibid.: 11).
Rwanda is the most densely populated African state, and comprises a small territory with no sparsely populated areas. The state's reach is extensive and governments, besides the issue of control of population, are pre-occupied with the issue of territory (manifested in the rise of an irredentist rhetoric in Rwanda). These dynamics are in stark contrast to the research of Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan (Reference Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan.1997, Reference Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan.2003) in countries such as Benin and the Central African Republic, where the state is rather absent in local political milieus, these being instead suffused by a tangle of alternative authorities. Rather than asking ‘What makes states weak?’ and ‘What actors take the place of state and how?’, Rwanda as a ‘strong’ state makes us pose a different set of questions altogether: ‘What are the different apparatuses through which the central power reaches people and how “thick” are they?’ ‘How do they saturate lived time and space?’ ‘What, if anything, is “non-state”?’
Many researchers have noted the strength and intricacy of political administration in Rwanda and how its reach to the lowest levels contributed to the ‘effectiveness’ and mass nature of the 1994 genocide (Stover & Weinstein Reference Stover and Weinstein.2004; Straus Reference Straus2006; Uvin Reference Uvin1998). Though governments replace one another, this intricate organisation, while modified, has remained fundamentally unchanged. In what follows, I study the ‘reach’ of central power post-genocide through the analysis of (i) the ‘administrative apparatus’; (ii) the ‘information apparatus’ that lies at its disposal; (iii) the spectrum of ‘grass-roots’ activities which it not only organises but through which it governs; and finally (iv) the structural ‘counter-weights’ to the state. This analysis is crucial if we are to understand how ‘local’ official activities (e.g. umuganda, gacaca, a score of unity and reconciliation activities) are perceived in today's Rwanda and what can be, and is, achieved through them.
The findings presented below draw on seven months of field-based research in Rwanda (between March 2008 and April 2009), combining observation (of physical structures, social norms, people's responses, official activities such as umuganda or collective work, ingando or retreats for selected populations aiming at re-education/transformation, ubusabane or community ‘get-together’ festivals, etc), immersion (‘being’ in a place, being part of unfolding dynamics), as well as formal interviews and informal interactions (with local-level state administrators, employees of different ministries, Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) members, and many Rwandans outside officialdom). Observations of local state dynamics pertain mainly but not exclusively to different urban quarters of Kigali. Through travel to most parts of Rwanda and interviews, I was also able to gather comparative insights about the rural milieu. With some generalisation, we can conclude that the dynamics observed in urban areas pertain to rural areas, except that in rural areas the power of the state is wielded and felt even more intensely.
ADMINISTRATIVE APPARATUS
Even if I am not here, there are so many eyes.
Coordinator of an ingando campThe vertical structure: from gihugu to mudugudu
The administrative apparatus of the Rwandan state is characterised by clear hierarchies and an intricate organisation leading from gihugu (country) to mudugudu (village) and, informally, even lower. After two recent rounds of revamping,Footnote 3 the official structure has the following five levels: 4 intara (provinces), 30 uturere (districts), 416 imirenge (sectors), 2,146 utugari (cells) and 14,876 imidugudu (villages). In 2006, the previously lowest administrative unit of the nyumba kumi – a grouping of ten households overseen by non-salaried representatives (comprising some 150,000 people altogether) – was officially replaced by the larger units of imidugudu. However, there are reports of nyumba kumi being active informally even after this date (USAID 2008). The intricate state organisation has roots that reach to the pre-colonial Nyiginya kingdom.Footnote 4
The intricate administrative web, however, does not inspire complex mapping. Rather than spatial representations, the primary governance tool for orientation and targeting is ‘tracing’ through the spreading webs of people that make up the administration. The structure is conceptualised as a chain, with ‘cascade’ potential, and its multiplicatory effects capture people's imagination. The snowball effect of this structure also means that directives and information in general reach large numbers at all levels fast. More than control over territory (though this matters also), administrative governance emphasises direct and indirect control over people produced through access. Official power has to be ‘felt’, it has to be localised and intimate, not just decreed from a faraway centre.
Let me first approach the ‘presence’ of the state through the physical presence of administrative structures (offices) at the lower levels.Footnote 5 The sector-level administration has the most physical presence and all its buildings are easily noticeable on the landscape: they are low red brick buildings with a sign at the entrance, a clearing of red earth in front, an annex of wooden benches (sometimes fitted with an orange tarpaulin roof), a pole with the Rwandan flag, and usually people queuing in front of the umuyobozi'sFootnote 6 office waiting for an ‘audience’. This is the space where gacaca and other important meetings and activities take place. Cell offices, usually comprising a single small room, are included in the space of the sector. In the Nyakabanda ambere Footnote 7 (first Nyakabanda) cell, papers pinned to the wall list the constituent ‘villages’ (in cities these are really ‘quarters’). ‘Village’ ibiro (offices) are spread across the communities themselves. They usually comprise a single room with a small tin sign above the door signalling its purpose.
Which is the most important administrative level? All in all, and from a global perspective of power in a highly centralised and authoritarian state, ‘no one takes decisions at the lowest level … you wait for instructions’.Footnote 8 But looking more closely and moving from the top down, all decisions at the district level are taken by the mayor. At levels below this, decisions are taken by the sector head, rather than the Njyanama council (the sector assembly of all adults) as officially decreed. Meetings and imihigo goals (annual targets), for example, should be decided by the council, ‘but it is never the case … They speak of “council” but it is never there.’Footnote 9 In fact, the military and police seem to have more clout than administrative decision-makers. ‘It is the “Brigade CO” who is the highest actual authority at district level – the general/colonel who is [stationed] there.’Footnote 10 When it comes to gacaca, an anthropologist studying the courts found that the police superintendent is more important than the inyangamugayo (gacaca judge), especially when it comes to backstage ‘preparing’ of witnesses.Footnote 11
While directives and power may be handed from the top down, surveillance and control begin at the smallest, most intimate levels, with reports and requests trickling up: ‘All of them are important administrative levels. But at the lowest level, they know the people. If you don't pay your taxes, they know. If you are a drunkard, they know. The policing committees [plain clothes police or ‘community police’] start there. If I want a passport, I go to the village authority, who says I am a good citizen, I love my neighbours, pay my taxes … Everything begins there, in the village. They [village leaders] give a paper to the cell authorities, then the sector and it ends there. But if there are difficult decisions, there is intervention from the district mayor.’Footnote 12
If the sector complex (which includes cell offices) is where a common person normally ‘encounters’ the state, officially the akarere (the district) is the main political–administrative unit. All ‘resident citizens’ aged above eighteen are members of the district council called Njyanama, which is responsible for ‘mobiliz[ing] residents, discuss[ing] and prioritiz[ing] problems and tak[ing] decisions for their resolution’.Footnote 13Njyanama is a ‘consultative council’ (conseil consultatif) on top of which sits the executive council called Nyobozi. As described above, Njyanama seems to hardly take any decisions of importance, as all are essentially communicated from above. ‘The main decision making power lies with an administrator (the executive secretary) who is appointed by the central administration and thus not elected by the population’ (Ansoms Reference Ansoms2009: 307).
The trickle-down system can create a paradoxical inflexibility and confusion. Local administration, which is ‘close’ to the people and should theoretically be able to decide fast and best manage its tasks, in fact becomes paralysed and ineffective because it waits for vital information to make it down the tree-like ‘plumbing’ of the state: ‘At umudugudu level, I am sure they [usually] don't know until Friday midnight what to do at umuganda, until the decision from cell level and higher [is communicated] … The people don't know what tools to bring … half the people show with machetes when we need hoeing to be done!’Footnote 14
The cell itself has a careful structure of its own. The coordinator of my cell, an abakangurambaga,Footnote 15 explains that his is a travail de bureau. ‘I sign official documents, take care of all the politics, organise village meetings and work with the cell committee.’ The committee or komite is composed of ten people – the coordinator, secretary, and persons in charge of education, health, security, development, finance, training, women and youth. The youth representative, for example, ‘organises the youth, and for the moment, is involved in combating ideologies that separate the youth [such as] regionalism, racism’. The coordinator also explains to me that the cell committee members ‘are elected by the population, it is not voluntary’. The only member of the cell who is paid is the ‘ES’ (executive secretary), the rest of the cell personnel along with all the village administrators are ‘volunteers’ (corroborated by Ingelaere Reference Ingelaere2010).
‘Umuryango RPF’: the parallel structures of the party
Just as the local administrative offices are easily recognisable when you pass them in the countryside, so are the little satellite RPF ibiros (offices). No other party has local presence in rural areas. More importantly, the hierarchies of the RPF mimic those of the state (‘at all administrative levels the two structures are there’),Footnote 16 with the result that the lines between ruling party and state are blurred. Already in 1995, HRW (1995:15) noted the existence of abakada (cadres) – ‘an organized group of powerful young people … political officers attached to the RPA … responsible for supervising local political life’. They were ‘operat[ing] parallel to the usual legitimate authorities’ (ibid.). In 2007, the informal parallel institution was made public when the ban on ‘political party structures at the grassroots’ was lifted, and the RPF became the first and thus far the only party to elect officials at the umudugudu level. The elected seven-person committees then allegedly proceeded to electFootnote 17 cell representatives and so on all the way to the district level (NTK 9.7.2007).
Besides its parallel nature, it seems ‘the party is more powerful than the state. The party controls the state.’Footnote 18 RPF structure controls the administrative structure because, after all, the administrators are party members:
Informant: I lost my job in 2005 because I refused to become a party member. You cannot become employee of government if [you are] not party member.
Me: Is the same person responsible for the two aspects?
Informant: [Generally speaking] chairman of administration at umudugudu level is in charge of the RPF at umudugudu level. You find that it is almost the same people [at the two levels], go to cell, sector, almost the same, district, members of the district council, all members of the RPF … not necessarily the same people, but that is a gentle way of hiding what is really going on.
Me: What do RPF representatives at local levels do?
Informant: I used to be a member of my RPF umudugudu committee, recruited by force – ‘nominated’ … The [2010] presidential election campaign has already started and those guys are told to make it happen. As secretary of the umudugudu level, you have to assume those responsibilities, strategies for voting campaign, for member recruitment, to deal with defectors – those who just move away from the party, [and make sure] that you know each and everybody.Footnote 19
The pro-government NTK (9.7.2007) reported that ‘it is amazing but not a surprise to find that all residents of some areas are members of RPF’. The reason is that ‘the party machinery is very strong and very harsh. Here we are forced to become members of the ruling party… In the countryside, there is almost 99% if not 100% membership. In town maybe it is little lower, but not below 90%.’Footnote 20 Pre-1994, with the advent of multipartysim, the MDR is known to have organised kubohoza (liberating, literally ‘help to set free’) – dispatches of party members to a person's home for forced, and often violent, recruitment (Verwimp & Pinchotti Reference Verwimp and Pinchotti.2007: 16). After the genocide, forced recruitment continued. Before the 2003 elections, ‘local officials or party organisers called people to meetings at sector offices where they were publicly pressured to join the RPF. In one case, approximately half the group agreed. Officials continued to “persuade” those who refused to join … In a sector in another province, people were told that they should aim to make 90 percent of their neighbours into RPF supporters’ (HRW 2002: 3).
The membership in the party is couched in the soft and encompassing language of ‘family’. The full name of the RPF is Umuryango RPF-Inkotanyi. Umuryango has different shades of meaning; it can mean ‘association’, but is most often used to mean ‘extended lineage’ or simply ‘family’. The RPF's self-presentation using the totalist and exclusivist language of a ‘front’ or ‘family’ (HRW 2002; NDI 2003) shows both the skilful use of indirect language (an outsider might not recognise coercion in it), and the use of discourse surrounding family to solidify its vision of political ‘unity’ and ‘division’. According to an RPF recruit, ‘those who taught me said that the RPF is not a party but rather a family and that all Rwandans should be part of [it]. Those who don't join are outsiders. They are the ones who cause instability in the country. We should build the family to prepare for elections. It would be dangerous to be governed by someone from outside the family’ (HRW 2002: 3). People were afraid that if they did not join, they would be labelled as subversives, as supporters of ‘divisionist’ parties, or as those who refuse to ‘build the country together’ (ibid.). People are pressured in a more indirect way too:
At the local level, the authorities were going from house to house handing out forms … [asking for] name, and then there was a question ‘When did you join the umuryango?’ What do you mean? I joined my family when I was born [laughing] … no, the political umuryango, they meant ishaka by it, the party. It is called umuryango because it should be a ‘family for everyone’ … You see, it is a demagogic approach. It is tricky, because they ask them [the people they visit] ‘Why don't you participate in government programmes?’ What do you mean, but this is not national programme, this is RPF!Footnote 21
Membership in the ‘political family’ literally comes with a price. Rwanda is not only a new land of fines, it is a land of ‘exactions’ couched in the language of ‘contributions’ (umusanzu). Raising money and other resources (such as labour) in the community is a changing but ancient practice, and is done on a small scale everywhere. However, the notion of ‘contribution’ in Rwanda has been hijacked by the state and transformed into multiple exactions such as umuganda contributions (in form of labour), or icyunamo (mourning period) contributions (in form of cash). While non-state organisations such as churches also have their exactions,Footnote 22 these are more than overshadowed by the diverse demands of the state. The ‘unity and reconciliation’ activities are also couched in the language of umusanzu, whereby ‘chaque doit donner sa contribution’Footnote 23 (everyone should make their contribution).
The RPF structure is unquestionably the most widespread and effective fundraising mechanism in Rwanda. It is a gutwerera writ large. Gutwerera is the process of raising money from family, friends and the wider community (including co-workers) to pay for a wedding, the financing of which is seen not as a ‘private’ but ‘community’ responsibility. If the RPF is the umuryango, then elections are the perfect occasion for the political gutwerera. Trying to explain the intricate reach of the party, an informant tells me that ‘all they [RPF] need is money’:
For parliamentary elections, every government employee, or let's say RPF member, was forced to contribute a third of his salary. If you don't have a job, [there is] still something to contribute, they fix a minimum contribution. For next year [2010], each employee who is a member of the RPF will contribute half of their salary, that is 125,000 RwF [US$US 220]. But every month I also contribute 5,000 RwF to the party, that means every year the contribution to the party is 60,000 RwF.Footnote 24
The lateral structure: multiple responsibilities and indirect control
But there is more to the ‘dense’ administrative apparatus. First, the state achieves control of the whole machinery through cooptation of multiple people into its ‘responsibilities’:
The whole thing is copied from Mao Tse Tung. In my umudugudu, there are 235 families, 3 people in charge of mutuelle de santé, 5 on official committee, 3 in community policing, 3 in gender based violence committee, 5 in imihigo committee, I am one of them, 5 education officers, there is also hygiene people responsible for that …. there is a minimum of 50 people responsible for something. This is a way of ensuring … you can't have any ‘opening’, [space for] opposition there. In Tung's China, the idea was to have two thirds of people busy with different responsibilities.Footnote 25
At the cell level, responsibilities multiply further: there are youth representatives, ubudehe committees (referring to ‘tradition’ of ‘mutual assistance’), and more. ‘But was not this administrative structure there before?’ ‘It was there, but we didn't have all those small committees, commissions … that makes it effective and efficient.’ Indeed, responsibilities as well as activities have exploded in the past decade. Institutions such as imihigo performance contracts, ubudehe ‘self-help’ committees, itorero schools (described as ‘advanced ingando’) and their administrative structures have recently been added to the mix.
To ‘cooptation through responsibility’ should be added the system of lateral (as opposed to simply hierarchical or vertical) controls, whereby there is an ‘eye on everybody’. The itorero school graduates, along with local teachers, for example, are part of a ‘consultative group’ at the cell level. Itoreros and teachers both have ‘their own identity, their structures, their priorities on which they are required to report’, but they also ‘advise the executive committee’. They have ‘legal power to give ideas to the cell, and to be an eye on the executive secretary for example’.Footnote 26
At the Muhazi ingando camp for child ex-combatants, the administrator has established a complex indirect system of rule, a society apart from society, where he is the sovereign. His pupils discipline themselves through a carefully constructed political governance system, which includes a leader (duvaye) and a disciplinarian as well as a gacaca court to resolve disputes. The children are separated into ‘sectors’ with rotating duties. Most importantly, ‘everybody has an eye on his fellow … even the leader is looking [at] gacaca; gacaca is watching the leader, everyone is watching their fellow.’Footnote 27
As this makes clear, the state system creates indirect control through widespread and locally embedded webs of administration, and through cooptation of multiple people into its ranks. To break possible dissent and mobilisation, the system offers a number of the dispossessed and disempowered just a little authority over the rest. But it is really the acceptance (even if unwilling) of the ‘role’ that transforms, not necessarily the possession of more power.
Imihigo performance contracts: incorporating family and individual into the state structure
The recently introduced imihigo contracts also reflect the increasing permeation of people's lives by the state. Imihigo were introduced in 2006 by MINALOC and, like many other activities before and since, have been presented as a restored ‘tradition’, specifically as ‘a long-standing cultural practice’ of accountability where two parties agree to work towards a stated goal (see e.g. ERD 2009; McConnell Reference McConnell2009; MINALOC 2010). Though there has been no in-depth analysis of this process or its wider political effects, imihigo received wide acclaim: ‘formidable measure of accountability’, ‘valuable example to other countries in Africa struggling to implement a truly decentralised approach’ (McConnell Reference McConnell2009: 14; see also ERD 2009: 96). This is worrisome because, on close analysis, imihigo lead to deeper permeation of society by the state; and represent openings for increased coercion.
Imihigo today are annual public pledges of performance, official contracts at different levels stating what that particular administrative unit will achieve and how that fits into the broader development agenda of the state (MINECOFIN 2000). Imihigo started at the district level, but in 2007 were extended to all lower administrative levels. At district level, imihigo are signed by the mayors in front of the president himself. In 2008, imihigo was extended to the family level: each family head signs their own imihigo. The plan for 2009 was to extend the imihigo practice to every individual (PMO 2009: 6). ‘What do family heads promise to achieve?’ ‘For example, send all kids to school, assure that everyone has a health insurance, that all join some kind of cooperative, all fight corruption.’Footnote 28Imihigo appears to be a very localised public pledge of compliance with national policies.
But imihigo not only permeate the social structure vertically, but are meant to do so horizontally as well. Groups of itorero graduates formulate their own imihigo. Some NGOs decide to speak of their annual achievement goals in the same language, such as the Rwandan Red Cross (see Wynter Reference Wynter2009). Religious leaders too ‘have resolved to adopt performance contracts … Their contracts will highlight, among other things, interventions in matters of health insurance and fight against genocide ideology’ (NTK 24.6.2008). Most recently, an article published by the NTK (Asiimwe Reference Asiimwe2008) suggests that private businesses should sign imihigo:
We should be looking at how to stretch these performance contracts across all boundaries. They should not only be a thing for the public sector. It could take the form of private, public partnership. For example, MTN, Rwandatel and TIGO could sign annual imihigo with the regulatory agency. Private newspapers, radios and television stations could do the same. Private Sector Federation could cluster different businesses and sign performance contracts with members of each cluster.
Every three months, there is an imihigo evaluation. At the end of the stated period, reports detailing achievements are prepared at all levels. The district mayors attend a televised event called kuvuga ibigwi or kurata imihigo (MINALOC 2008), presided over by the president, where they present their performance reports and exemplary performance on imihigo is acknowledged. There are also consultations in which ‘people debate why [they] have not finished and accomplished all goals and what have been the obstacles [they] encountered’ (ibid.).
What are the effects of imihigo? First, through imihigo, families are effectively incorporated into the administrative hierarchy, and come to form its ‘smallest administrative unit’ (NTK 10.11.2008). Effectively though, all individuals are meant to make their ‘contribution’. Second, imihigo is a top-down mechanism of control. It not only further strengthens surveillance, but is also a mechanism for measuring alignment with government policies. Local authorities have to ‘guide’ residents not only to ‘embrace’ the idea of imihigo (ibid.), but also to embrace the policies that are promoted through it (such as 100% enrolment in mutuelle de santé scheme), and the labour that leads to achievement of some of the goals.
The pressure to achieve goals can result in coercion. ‘If [imihigo] targets are not met, district authorities can expect their careers to be negatively affected. Not surprisingly therefore, local authorities use measures such as fines and destruction of property to ensure targets are met’ (Huggins Reference Huggins2009: 299). Another report states that ‘households that failed to meet their performance targets were fined and could be imprisoned for non-payment at local detention centres called cachots’ (Thomson Reference Thomson, Mehler and van Walrave2008: 8). ‘In an independent survey commissioned by the Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA) from mid-2007, more than half of the respondents confirmed some form of compulsion had been used to achieve the imihigo targets’ (Huggins Reference Huggins2009: 299).
In this context, achievement of a target, whether in the form of a quantity or a deadline, becomes more important than quality of output: the imihigo for gacaca at district and sector levels was that it would finish by 2007. ‘Such a target’, suggests a PRI report (2007: 6), ‘runs in the face of serenity and fairness of the hearing as the courts are under pressure and cannot examine the cases before them in detail.’ The proof comes from reading a select raporo y'imihigo (imihigo report). The Ngoma district (2009) report on 2008 achievements presents figures without any sources, and yet what it does include and how is telling. The report focuses on ‘adherence’ to state policies (umuganda participation, enrolment in mutuelle de santé), state ‘extraction’ (taxes collected) and ‘production’ (TIGFootnote 29 labour value). Participation at umuganda (at 73%) is included under ‘good governance’. The only input under ‘justice’ is the monetised value of TIG labour.
In addition, rather than promoting local priorities as it claims, imihigo assures mainstreaming at all levels into the national development plan. ‘I thought it [imihigo] was a way to improve the coherence of the planning process, national and local interests, but within the first months it became clear that government promoted the national, not the local priorities.’Footnote 30 While my informant agreed that the activity does promote ‘some kind of local decision-making’, often what results is a plan to please the centre: ‘The mayor on his own is able to raise 20%, maybe 30% of his budget, the rest comes from the ministries, so of course he thinks “I will look at the priorities [of ministries], and will persuade my people these are their own priorities.”’Footnote 31
Decentralisation: dispatching of control?
Based on above, it appears the state system effectively ‘dispatches’ rather than ‘decentralises’ control. The latter would suggest that the centre loses some of its hold, but what we witness is not devolution of power to conceive and decide, just the devolution of implementation. Sprawling administration, multiple responsibilities and imihigo, in the final balance, do not point to decentralisation of power, but rather to dispatching of power through which, sure enough, control becomes more effective and compliance increases.
The effects are the exact opposite to the discourse: not only has ‘decentralisation’ not led to democratisation, but it has also directly strengthened authoritarian rule. This brings to mind Habyarimana's aim to transform the communes into ‘motors of development’ (Uvin Reference Uvin1998: 24). The attempt meant that ‘after years of work, communal development projects served to allow the burgomestres to better control their population’ (see Uvin Reference Uvin1998: 25).
A former employee on the decentralisation project supports these verdicts:
The World Bank has claimed that we have better performance on this [decentralisation] than other African countries … But despite this talk and despite this attempt [the official process of decentralisation], the majority of decisions concerning the lives of the people come from the centre. Decentralisation has not transferred authority to local levels of government. [Rather], it is a way of management of the country, having structures to transmit information more directly to the people, for them to understand what the government wants. Kagame himself said this in a meeting.Footnote 32
During meetings at the ministry, my informant supposedly raised the point of lower administrative levels adopting the priorities of the centre:
When I had these comments, the minister liked to talk of ‘unicity' – ‘The state is one [he would say], why do you differentiate the national and the local?’ I said it should be the electorate, the people [who defines priorities] … When it became apparent that I had ideas that contradict my own minister, I resigned. I said it was for family reasons, health reasons. So [please] do not tell them the truth! [laughter].Footnote 33
INFORMATION APPARATUS
The administrative and information systems are interdependent, but do not completely overlap. The system of spreading, getting and blocking information is even more widespread, and to a large extent informal. The flows of information lead from top down as well as the other way. The top-down flow of the ever-present ‘sensitisation’, ‘mobilisation’, education and re-education will not be studied here. Suffice it to say that for this flow, the administrative system proves a highly useful ‘irrigation’ scheme. The focus here is instead on the bottom-up system of information gathering.
The state maintains control not only by creating a widespread network of indirect rule, but also through its network of ‘eyes and ears’ that is much more ‘present’ on a daily basis. Both public and some private interaction are monitored. ‘There are some reports that the government monitored homes and telephone calls’ (US DoS 2009: 10). During the November 2008 state-organised protests, MTN sent everyone the same messages in Kinyarwanda, urging people to gather at specific places and times. The US government has allegedly sold Rwanda an email tracking system, which has been misused by the government to check on its critics/opponents and other ‘suspicious’ individuals.
Regarding informers (i.e. authorities’ spies), ‘they are almost everywhere. [They] work closely with the police, intelligence and the army. [They] are recruited mainly from the youth, [they are] trained in Akagera Park, between 6 and 12 months. Some state employees at district, cell level [have been trained]. Once they approached me and tried to convince me but I refused. [Those that approach you] promise you will get a job, and they do [indeed] get appointed first.’Footnote 34 People suggest there is a spy per organisation and perhaps per office, and in fact that all newcomers (to an organisation), foreigners and Hutu are given someone to ‘watch’ them. ‘[There are] so many staff in government who are not paid for what they have in job description, but for intelligence. The guy next to me … if you are a Hutu, it is compulsory, you are given someone to watch you. In many places, [there are] people who do not talk, because every word you say is analysed by those guys.’Footnote 35 The Department of Military Intelligence (DMI) and the Presidential Protection Unit (PPU) seem to be involved in their own tracking, and are said to possess lists of people to be ‘watched’ and potentially targeted.
Surveillance is present not only inside organisations and government administration, but at the lowest levels of the administrative hierarchy, where those responsible after all ‘know the people’, and where the two compulsory daily district reports on security source their material. Besides the administrative apparatus, the policing apparatus is also key. The latest addition to the police, irindos (civilian night patrols) and Local Defence Forces (LDF), is the so-called ‘community police’. What is the function of yet another ‘police’ body? Community police are officially selected by people, they carry no gun and are not paid. People referred to them as ‘plain clothes police’, or as not really policemen but simply ‘party cadres’ selected by the party leadership. ‘Community policing is about information. Other countries do not have this system but we do because of the past of genocide. It is to prevent crimes before they happen. You don't want to arrive when somebody is already killed; you want to know about the plan before. People are chosen by others in the community on the basis of their integrity and that they like to talk, that they are not silent … There are about 10 community police per 150 people say, so you have people in all corners.’Footnote 36
Informers are indeed believed to be everywhere, and many people can simply be used for that purpose when and as necessary. To trace teachers harbouring divisionist ideologies, ‘well, there are the students, they know and say what the teachers are teaching, [for example] with regards to history, what kind of examples they are using’. ‘Problematic’ individuals can be traced in bars and restaurants because ‘even waiters, they can be intelligence’.Footnote 37 The way in which surveillance happens is described in detail by Begley (2009: 4), who, during her field research on the contribution of Rwandan Muslims to the reconciliation process, found out from one of her informants that ‘not just one, but five different men have been following our movements’. This included ‘the waiter from the restaurant [who] hired a couple of street kids to follow us [and who in turn] reported to another man on the street who then contacted the Chairman of the RPF’.
It is difficult to know exactly who represents the ‘ears and eyes’ of higher authorities, and who is merely curious, a gossip or generally suspecting, or whether those who observe from a distance actually understand anything being said and whether they pass it on. The perception nonetheless remains that surveillance and locally traced intelligence are ubiquitous, and the effects of this on behaviour are very real. Every researcher in Rwanda either experiences or hears stories of surveillance and notices the resulting self-editing behaviour. It is certainly true that neither email nor phone or even certain occasions at home are considered safe for discussing political or otherwise ‘sensitive’ issues. One informant told me that ‘no one really talks on the phone anymore, just the basics and that is it. You only start commenting on something and people stop you.’Footnote 38
THE SPECTRUM OF STATE-LED ACTIVITIES
While the administrative and information systems describe the general physical ‘presence’ of the state and its penetration of people's lives for the purpose of extracting loyalties, contributions (monetary and non-monetary), information and specific conduct, this section looks at that aspect of state presence which may be called ‘saturation’ of people's time with multiple state-ordained activities. First, it shows that the difficulty of taxation in subsistence economies can be and is resolved by the introduction of alternative but no less potent forms of non-monetary taxation. Second, actual tax has two components: production for state (labour), and non-production due to state (opportunity cost of time spent on all state-designed activities). Though this requires a much broader analysis than what can be offered here (‘How much exaction is acceptable and in fact economically viable?’), it is important to think of the activities in today's Rwanda in this way: in lieu of finances (though monetary exactions are there also), people's time and energy are appropriated in the production of public goods (the effectiveness of which may be disputed due to evasion, perfunctory effort or lack of necessary skill).
The intricate administrative and information networks together with the imbrications of the party at every level harness the ability of the Rwandan state to ‘mobilise’ bodies to a political effect, or to disperse them with the aim of preventing political expression. The ability of the state to mobilise its citizens is shown perfectly in the example of the state-organised protests in late 2008. In response to the arrest of Rose Kabuye in Germany, the government organised people from the cell level up. To this end, they used state administrative officials and text messaging. The result was a flood of people organised in their cell units and merging in the centre, clogging Kigali streets with their banners, slogans and songs. But in the northFootnote 39 too (and apparently across the whole country) people were gathered at sector level, either sitting on clearings in front of the administrative offices and listening to officials’ speeches, or marching (rain or no rain) on parts of the Kigali–Ruhengeri road.
Effective ‘dispersal’ of bodies, on the other hand, was demonstrated not too long after, during the refugee protestsFootnote 40 in Kiziba and Gihembe camps. Protests started in January 2009, when the leader of the CNDP, Laurent Nkunda, was arrested by Rwandan agents. The refugees in Rwanda, mainly Congolese Tutsi, were angered and staged demonstrations because they saw Nkunda as the ‘protector’ of the Congolese Tutsi population; he had indeed been supported by the Rwandan government up to this point. The protests consisted in ‘hundreds of refugees pretty much just marching around their own camp’.Footnote 41 However, ‘the government thought that it could get out of hand or turn violent, so they entered and sought measures to quell the situation. This included no refugees being allowed in or out of the camp until the situation was normalised … Refugees were encouraged … to refrain from any further demonstrations or protests and that's where it stands now.’Footnote 42
Due to the effectiveness of physical mobilisation, people not only have to but actually do participate in a myriad of activities, some of which are periodic and others ad hoc. First, there are multiple unpaid administrative and policing duties (e.g. the local night patrols composed of village members). Second, there are general activities, which are costly in terms of time (as opposed to labour). Meetings happen both periodically (such as mandatory weekly security meetings) and on special occasions (e.g. on ‘Hero's Day’, before elections), during commemoration (e.g. the annual official ceremonies and related activities) or for ‘political happenings’ (state protests, local RPF meetings). The gacaca is convened once a week, which can require extra sessions if a particularly complicated case is being heard.
Third, there are the most clearly labour-exacting duties. The last Saturday of every month is devoted to umuganda or ‘community work’. Umuganda lasts from about eight in the morning until the early afternoon and is followed by a meeting. But ‘voluntary’ community work does not really have a clear limit. Local leaders have leeway in trying to enforce extra work, especially in the countryside, where ‘surprise umugandas’ are not uncommon.Footnote 43 ‘It is in Kigali that there is only one day of umuganda. So many districts have even two times.’Footnote 44
Work and meetings are also required as part of the ubudehe scheme. In ubudehe, cells receive small funds (usually about US$1,000) that they complement with their own resources (normally labour), to carry out locally designed projects such as upgrading or formation of anti-erosion terraces, upgrading or construction of roads, construction of schools, etc. Umuganda and especially ubudehe, where costs are ‘matched’ by provision of labour for what are often public infrastructure projects,Footnote 45 show perhaps most clearly the indirect but effective (in terms of mass targeting and capture) taxing of people in Rwanda.
In addition to this, increasing numbers of people undergo itorero training (similar to ingando camps), which involves participation in public works (e.g. construction of a road). Itorero graduates draw up group imihigos that they pledge to fulfil, which usually means offerings of further free labour for a variety of projects. The pressure to fulfil sector or district imihigo goals translates into local authorities’ ever greater (ab)use of people's labour. There is also pressure to be an agasozi ndatwa (example hill) and indasikirwa (the best of the best).Footnote 46 ‘Because [the leaders] want this [these awards], they impose some kind of meetings and work every week, even two times a week.’Footnote 47
The result is that ‘the poor do not have time’.Footnote 48 Due to varied exactions and insertions of the state, ‘people are not doing what they should be doing [farming]. An agronomist [farmer], on Monday he had to go to see if the gacaca will continue, Tuesday was the RPF meeting, then other day some other meetings, plus all the social obligations.’Footnote 49 Genocide survivors and women with male relatives in prisons or TIG camps are perhaps affected the most. The latter not only lack the extra labour force and have to divide their time between field, children and state activities, but have the added responsibility of trekking to prisons, bringing their husbands, brothers or fathers food and other basic necessities. At the National University of Rwanda (NUR) in Butare, one girl answered my question on the most pressing social problems in Rwanda in the following way: ‘Poverty is increasing, especially in the countryside. These days there are a lot of government programmes from umuganda, gacaca, ubudehe … umuganda and gacaca, there is no benefit, ubudehe at least it brings something to the person … Tuesday is gacaca, Saturday umuganda, Thursday gacaca … 3 out of 6 days [there is something] because Sunday does not count … Plus a lot of meetings. Today at night we have a meeting with the executive secretary of umurenge, you cannot resist [refuse to go], otherwise you go to prison … [There are a] lot of government programmes these days.’Footnote 50
The manner in which the government ‘makes’ people comply with different types of exactions from conduct to labour, how and to what extent people try and manage to evade them, and what type of participation and production actually results, are important considerations that require a separate analysis. For now, let us merely note that the state is ‘overbearing’ in both its penetration and extraction. Multiple activities exist that make their claim on people's resources. The extent is such that public goods and programmes take precedence over private welfare of subsistence farmers. The attention to the former may already be at the cost of the latter, in terms of relative inattention to private production on farms, with rural impoverishment as a result.
Lastly, rural areas may be disproportionately affected: there is greater surveillance and enforcement. ‘Not many people go to umuganda here in the city, but in the countryside, eh, can you dare not to go even once? You are fined!’Footnote 51 There is also less need to build basic infrastructure in the cities, and it is costly to transport city dwellers to work on rural projects, though terrace upgrading and ditch digging are not uncommon during umuganda. Office work also dictates that in cities all state activities happen during the weekends and after work.Footnote 52
WHAT COUNTER-WEIGHTS TO THE STATE?
At this point, there are two questions of interest: ‘What is ‘non-state’?’ ‘What is a ‘bulwark’ to the current penetrating party-state?’ The reason why it makes sense to ask the above questions in Rwanda is that the intricate and penetrating state system has been wholly (and increasingly) captured by a specific party with an ideology that aims at no less than to transform the society from above. In this goal, the state aims at ‘totality’ of influence. The state's aspiration is not to annihilate non-state organised life (church sermons, self-help groups, lunch discussions), but rather to have a degree of control and influence over all of these forms.
Importantly, this is not an attempt to discuss ‘civil society’, an ambiguous, highly Europe-indigenous term (Mbembe Reference Mbembe2001; Uvin Reference Uvin1998). Even if we adopt a clear proxy, associational density, we find that in Rwanda ‘dense associational fabric’ did not prevent fast disintegration of society in genocide (Uvin Reference Uvin1998: 163–79), and on the other hand clearly provided an ineffective bulwark against the extreme asset that the state proved to be. This is because the mere existence of NGOs and other formal or informal groupings does not highlight how government fundamentally moulds these, by attacking them for perceived dissention, or urging them to cooperate in the work of the state.
With regard to suppression of the non-state, the Rwandan government operates multiple strategies of curbing opposition and managing dissent. The result is a well-documented and general restriction on ‘groupness’Footnote 53 (e.g. political parties, media outlets, but also cultural and human rights organisations that can be and have been attacked as ‘divisionist’). With regard to cooperation with the state, imihigo contracts are perhaps the best formal demonstration of this phenomenon. They are applied both horizontally and vertically, targeting all possible non-state spheres including the family and the private sector.Footnote 54
‘Opposition’, ‘dissent’, or simply ‘unofficial scripts’ from which alternative groupness might arise, certainly do exist in their many shades. There are also bulwarks that are more institutionalised or organised than mere ‘critique’, ‘apathy’ or ‘avoidance’. In a semi-organised but underground form, a bulwark against the state exists in the Hutu ‘conspiracy of silence’ in gacaca (Rettig Reference Rettig2008). In addition, personal networks offer a fluid and informal bulwark against the state. People of mixed background, whose affiliations cross ethnicities, are a good example of this phenomenon. While their background exposes them to distrust and even government persecution, they may at the same time get potentially life-saving information on time from an old acquaintance within the RPF establishment.Footnote 55
Despite these and other dynamics that can ‘undo’ the state, the increasing permeation of the state into all aspects of life reflects the preoccupation with assuring alignment. As a result of this dynamic, neither religious organisations, schools, nor associations or even private sector and the family escape the state's reach. Some of these certainly constitute an alternative source of authority, attention and ideology, but they cannot openly oppose and often are urged to align with and assist the state.
The state's reach in today's Rwanda is not only deep and manifold with little counter-weight, but directly leads to more effective political control. Through its presence and indirect control, a state of surveillance is created. This diminishes open dissent and tightens the reproduction and reproducibility of the official script. The system not only creates strong governmentality due to its ‘reach' – the intimate contact, the responsiveness, its readability of the social ‘scape’. It governs through its accompanying effects as well. Suspicion, distrust (strongly compounded by genocide), fear and the resultant decreased dissent all assure that the state is better able to gather and disperse, to stage and broadcast, to extract resources and attempt its desired transformations.
Overall, this article urges a more critical scrutiny of ‘local’ ‘participation’ in ‘traditional activities’, of their actual meaning in the context of strong hierarchies of authority and a highly centralised political system, which has at its disposal a dense state apparatus. One important lesson that arises from the analysis is that ‘grass-roots’ does not always mean ‘free of central power’, and that ‘local’ activities bringing together scores of people do not mean that power has been ‘decentralised’, that people have a greater stake in, ‘say’ or power over their lives, or that the most pressing issues are openly discussed. Despotism can also be decentralised (Mamdani Reference Mamdani1996), and so can disempowerment.
