What is the appropriate role of extra-judicial, community police or militia-type organisations in the post-colonial African state, where legal edifice masks entrenched corruption? Are they an effective grassroots response to state corruption and disenfranchisement or do they undermine the state? This paper, from the DESTIN/Crisis States Seminar held in May 2002, looks at the phenomenon of unofficial police forces in Tanzania. After the war with Uganda ended in 1979, a wave of violence hit Tanzania as returning soldiers continued their wartime behaviour in their home country. The government response to this — which included campaigns against ‘economic sabotage’, new draconian laws and anti-rustling units — was largely ineffectual, partly due to corruption, especially within the police and judiciary. From 1982 onwards, in response to this situation, villages began to organise their own form of community police — Sungusungu — bypassing the state.
The Sungusungu are characterised by their inclusiveness, their village base and their dependence on local forms of organisation and culture. They have a wide mandate which could include patrolling villages at night, day-to-day surveillance, responding to alarms, tracing stolen goods and cattle, investigative work, keeping records, arresting thieves, holding trials and ensuring that witnesses attend trials. They have used various forms of punishment over the last twenty years including imposing fines, beatings, killings and alienating ‘criminals’ from the village group. The mandate and types of punishment vary depending on the area and time period. Earlier forms of punishment were harsher.
Human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, tend to view these extra-legal organisations as facilitating further human rights abuses, whereas local communities have supported them if they are deemed to be functioning well, that is, if they enforce local norms and sanctions as defined by local needs. Over time the Sungusungu have become an important part of the rural administrative structures and have been generally supported by the political wing of government. However the judicial branch has not supported them and this has served to drive a wedge between the different branches of the state. The state is, in effect, at war with itself:
- Eventually, the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi revolutionary party (CCM) openly and actively endorsed them as an effective alternative to the police. The Sungusungu also gained legitimacy as they were seen to be traditional, representing the people
- This created tension in the police and judiciary and they reacted by suppressing Sungusungu groups. This damaged their reputation even further, as the police were seen as aiding and abetting criminals
- The Government also amended laws in 1989 and 1997 so that the Sungusungu were given quasi-legal status, including powers of arrest. They were effectively ‘hijacked’ by the state and integrated into the administration
- A by-product of this process was decentralisation: Local administration regained powers that they had prior to independence and managed to gain control over the police force
- The Sungusungu have been successful: Areas that were previously unruly are now peaceful and there is a lot less crime
- In some areas they have gone into decline for a variety of reasons, for example, they may be no longer needed. They were also more popular prior to being usurped by the state.
In the case of Tanzania, the Sungusungu as it functions today appears to be inclusive, democratically elected and community-based: A positive alternative to the disenfranchisement and corruption of the post-colonial state. Killings, which were an earlier form of punishment, appear to have ceased. Recommendations are that:
- This type of organisation is a potential vehicle for communities to take back power and to effect change: A check on a monolithic and corrupt state
- State flexibility in ceding some of its powers to local groups should be seen as a strength not a weakness
- The popularity and local democracy of these organisations could make a significant contribution to the development of civil society and participatory democracy.
