{The world today is increasingly facing changing trends of security challenges. Emerging threats in different forms have affected some states and criminals are operating with no border limits.}
To deal with such a situation, Rwanda National Police embarked on international cooperation as means of forging a partnership with other Police institutions on bilateral level, regional and international police organizations in fighting transnational and cross-border organized crimes.
At the international level, RNP is a member of Interpol – the world’s largest police organization with 190 member countries, whose primary role is to assist law enforcement agencies around the world in combating all forms of transnational crimes.
“Still on the global level, RNP is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), a body that aims at contemporary policing for a safer word while advancing the profession of police institutions by promoting enhanced cooperation and the exchange of information between police institutions,” ACP Celestin Twahirwa, RNP spokesperson, said.
At the continental level, RNP has played a crucial role in formation and strengthening of some continental policing organs.
“One of such ideas is the formation of Interpol continental wing dubbed the African Police Cooperation Organisation (AFRIPOL) to fight crime on the African continent – an idea initiated by Rwanda,” he said in an interview.
Rwanda’s idea to create AFRIPOL was adopted by African Police Chiefs during their meeting in Algiers, Algeria held in February last year.
To cement this cooperation, RNP in its last 15 years of existence, has not only strengthened its partnership with international and continental policing bodies but also other regional organizations like the Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation Organization (EAPCCO), Regional Centre on Small Arms (RECSA), Northern Corridor, East African Standby Force to mention but a few.
The move follows what continental police institutions identified as “common challenges” faced by individual countries in dealing with transnational and organized crimes, such as drug trafficking, cybercrime, terrorism, counterfeit products, environmental crimes as well as serious disturbances of public order and social peace.
“We have held key positions in most of these organizations and we have held joint operations against counterfeit and illicit goods including pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and beverages, motor vehicle theft and many others. We are also member of the Kigali International Conference Declaration (KICD) that brings together African security organs in the quest to violence against Women and Girls.” said the police spokesperson.
RNP has also signed bilateral MoUs with over 14 police institutions within the region and beyond focusing on information exchange, capacity building through joint trainings, exercises and Joint operations.
“In RNP, we have ensured that other countries benefit a lot from our own initiatives mainly in the areas of capacity building through skills development where we have had senior officers from 13 African countries undertaking high level professional studies at our National Police College to the level of a Masters Degree and senior command course” said ACP Twahirwa.
He went on to add that RNP has a center of excellence in Peace Support Operations at Gishari Police Training School where pre-deployment courses and conducted for the police officers of the region, Isange One Stop Center that is a center of excellence in the fight against gender based violence attracted many visitors from all corners of the world to learn from its best practices.
“We have also benefited from our partner states by sending our officers for training. We also benefit from exchange of ideas and experience in different forums where we meet and come up with joint strategies since crimes have no borders and also harmonize laws,” ACP Twahirwa said.
He spoke in details about Police’s involvement in peacekeeping mission from 2005 when the force deployed the first contingent of 49 officers in a peacekeeping mission in the Darfur region of Sudan.
“Today, we are in six missions and New York among those we have Individual Police Officers (IPOs) and Formed Police Units (FPUs) operating in six missions, and Police Professionals. Overall we have 925 officers in all the Peace Support Missions that we are involved in but we intend to increase these figures to over 1000 personnel in the near future,” he said.
With regards to preparing the force for foreign mission deployments, the police spokesperson said that preparation depends on the mission where some are required to undertake several trainings while others may be required to undertake and pass series of UN exams for them to qualify for a peacekeeping mission.
“Particularly, when preparing an FPU unit, we ensure adequate training since this force is armed and charged with tough assignments that’s why we conduct several inspections and the UN also inspects the force before it is deployed to ensure its readiness with necessary equipment,” ACP Twahirwa said.
“We are proud of how our forces have performed in all missions… in 2010 we had a 97-strong all female contingent of IPOs deployed in Darfur and delivered very well in their expertise particularly related to Gender Based Violence. To date close to 30 per cent of our peacekeepers are female but we intend to increase this figure as well.” He added.
The increase in number of women in peacekeeping will mainly be brought about by the recent commitment made by H.E President Paul Kagame during the UN Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping Operations where he pledged an all-female Formed Police Unit (FPU).
With the achievement recorded by the Police in peacekeeping mission, ACP Twahirwa said that the force is always ready for deployment anytime they are called to do so.
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