‘In exile but not at peace’1: Rwandan army deserters in South Africa

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper explores the post-military experiences of junior rank Rwandan army deserters living as exiles in South Africa. It attends to the constructions, practices and subjective understandings of their peacebuilding efforts. It examines how, under circumstances of real and or perceived threat, these deserters navigate Rwandan state surveillance and violence in South Africa where they have become potential political and military disciplinary targets. These erstwhile soldiers are labelled traitors and therefore a threat to Rwanda’s national security and they live like people who are ‘on the run’. I argue that the real or perceived presence of the Rwandan state, in the form of an opaque network of state agents and informers, abductors and cyber spyware strips the exile context of its capacity to afford peaceful after-army lives to Rwandan army deserters. The paper draws from an ethnographic study that was conducted among Rwandan army deserters whereby deep hangouts, life histories and in-depth interviews were used to gather data. It is mainly underpinned by theoretical insights from Bourdieu’s theory of practice and Vigh’s notion of social navigation. This paper centers army desertion in analyses of militarism, peacebuilding and transition in African contexts.