Police Reform – 1994

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No organizational reforms concerning the police consistent with article 146 took place this year.

Police Reform – 1993

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The Arusha Accord of 1993 called for several limited police reforms. The accord called for the National Gendarmerie, or military police, under the Ministry of Interior to be in charge of training the Communal Police (Local Police). The language of article 146 suggests that the local police would recieve some of the same training as the National Gendarmerie. Local police may also work with the military police on security matters to maintain public order and security. However, the local police, not the military police, would enforce laws at the local level. No reforms along these lines were reported in 1993.

Military Reform – 2002

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In an effort to reform the military, the government enacted a law (no. 19/2002) on 17 May 2002 that called for the demobilization of members of Rwandan Defense Force, Former Armed Force of Rwanda, and other formerly armed groups. When the law was enacted in 2002, the RDA controlled 51,000 armed personnel. Through the RDRP Stage II, 22,000 Rwandan Defense Force members were expected to be demobilized resulting in a smaller and more professionalized armed force. As of June 2008, 22,362 RDF soldiers were demobilized exceeding their target.1 This reform initiative was supported by World Bank, DFID, GTZ and Multi Donor Trust Fund, African Union and the government of Rwanda.2

The Rwandan armed force is now an integrated and reformed armed force. Yet, it did not meet the 13,000 personnel goal as agreed to in the Arusha Accord of 1993.

Military Reform – 1997

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Although the military reform started in Rwanda with the signing of Arusha Accord in 1993, the actual reform was not in line with the Arusha Accord. Reform was, for the most part, domestically driven as tensions arose between the Government of National Unity and international actors i.e. France, U.N. Peacekeeping, who had previously failed to respond to the genocide. The Rwandan government started to reduce the size of the military in response to pressure from international donor agencies in 1997.3 This phase began in September 1997 and continued until February 2001 and involved the demobilization of 18,692 soldiers from the Rwandan army (RPA), 2,364 of whom were child soldiers. In this phase, some 15,000 ex-FAR combatants were integrated into the RPA and approximately 15,000 settled in Rwanda. Even if the overall objective of the RDRP Stage I was to reduce the size of the armed force to an economically sustainable level, the integration of the ex-FRA made the change economically insignificant.4