The Sentinel and the Rebel: Do ad-hoc Security Arrangements in Burundi Challenge a Definition of Policing?

This communication aims to shed light on two specific security arrangements in Burundi. On the one hand, the use of “sentinels” providing dissuasion and alarm-triggering functions at the door of every commercial or domestic buildings in Bujumbura. Most of those sentinels do not belong to a PMSC, but are rather individuals directly under contract with home or business owners. Alongside a small salary, they enjoy informal remunerations such as the possibility of being housed, fed or dressed (with a notorious blue pajama). On the other hand, the reconversion of bandits (former combatants excluded from the postwar economy) into guards in palm groves, where groups of cultivators formed squads, similar to more classical neighborhood watch programmes. Although the country knows a dramatic increase in domestic PMSCs businesses, both case-studies notably reflect the unwillingness of home-owners or entrepreneurs to resort to them. Jones and Newburn hypothetically stabilized the notion of policing to address similar structures. Yet, the small-scale Burundian arrangements, institutionally recognized to a certain extent, are set by individuals and businesses that are not even remotely connected to security functions. This paper intends to assess the use of this conceptual framework in a new content, arguably challenging the definition of policing.