A contingent of Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) currently stationed in the Central African Republic (CAR) has received plaudits for standing out among the peacekeepers there.

A prominent blogger attributed some rare heroics to the soldiers. The blogger claimed that the French troops, also stationed in the CAR, were hogging most of the limelight on some missions largely carried out by the RDF contingent. It is well known that the RDF ranks have had a historical loathing of the French military and political establishment.

When this information was coming out, the RDF was also, according to some reports, being praised by a US military official as being the most competent peacekeeping force in the world.

Yes, the whole world! Cynics will, of course, dismiss this, saying that it’s the usual diplomatic speak of US officials bent on promoting their nations influence by massaging some egos here and there.

Since 2004, peacekeeping has become an integral part of the RDF and also the Rwanda National Police (RNP). Participating in these well funded missions in Darfur, South Sudan, Haiti and now CAR, has paid off in a manner that would not have been imagined a decade ago.

Getting selected for a tour of duty in Darfur or South Sudan is, for a member of the forces, a prestigious achievement worth eagerly looking forward to.

A good number who have been in these missions have transformed their circumstances significantly. Junior officers have been able to construct homes, in part because of participating in these missions, and also by taking advantage of their credit scheme.

Many can attest to the fact that it has always been an uphill task for people working in government as civil servants, teachers, police officers and soldiers to own houses.

At the time of the end of the genocide, we are told that soldiers had celebrity status and took the hottest girls and had street credentials with the most respect in drinking joints.

As things settled down and the economy got going again, their paltry salaries could not match the high expectations that go with being popular. And the spell they had over the rest of society, thanks to their bravery and war tales, waned as the realities of a cash economy set in.

Then came the UN peacekeeping missions and those who participated in them had their social glory restored.

If the heroics of the RDF that have been described are anything to go by, it goes without saying that they are a highly motivated lot that looks forward to these missions.

On another level, the RDF apparently remains a coherent force that is led by a homogeneous elite of officers that has a shared world view and experiences.

These are men who participated in the 1990-94 campaign for power and a handful of mid-level officers that joined after the struggle. Many observers had expected to see a fissure in the RDF when a number of its historical first- and second-tier commanders were demobilised or fled to exile. However, this never materialised, showing that it largely remains united behind its leadership.

Although the RDF comes across as a highly professional and disciplined force, many critics of the current establishment continue to point out that the homogeneity of its leadership, and their shared life experiences as returnees of ’94, is its major weakness.

That, as such, it does not, at least at the leadership level, reflect the social composition of the country.

Civil authority

More so, it is noted that RDF is loyal to the ruling party and its leadership first, with some of its senior leaders participating in meetings at the RPF Secretariat. And that this prevents it from being a truly national army. However, this would be to ignore the historical evolution of the RDF.

Therefore, looking at the heroics observed abroad, there would be temptation to think that this is an army with a long and established culture of being subordinate to civil authority and committed to keeping the peace and in barracks.

But it is likely that the RDF will still be highly involved in deciding who runs the country. Even more likely is that a person without a history from this army stands a very slim chance of taking the reigns of this nation in the near future.

Frank Kagabo is an Erasmus Mundus graduate student of journalism, media and globalisation at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Swansea University, the UK, specialising in war and conflict reporting. E-mail: [email protected]; Twitter: @kagabo