AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	73. New Social Spaces. Mobility and technology in Africa
Paper ID	739
Author(s)	Issa, Saibou
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	The ambush on the highway, the raids of cattle or the raid on insulated campings that the highway robbers perpetrate, are military operations. As it is the case with the regular armies, whether they are traditional or modern, the gangsters deploy consequent techniques of communication to follow the movements of their next victims, to give orders to the various links of the band or to order the withdrawal after the operations. This study examines change and continuity of the means and the forms of collection of information flow on the arenas of the rural banditry from the colonial period to nowadays. Firstly, there will be an analytical inventory of the networks and types of information on which the armed bandits rely to plan and carry out their attacks and to protect themselves against surprise retaliation. In addition, we will see the role of the changes of the means of communication on the qualitative evolution of gangsters' operations and on the effectiveness of the techniques of repression both through popular defense and the action of the forces of law and order. The imitation of birds' songs, the use whistles, the recourse to messengers, the rural telephony and the command radios coverage, and the introduction of the mobile phone, are the main techniques and technologies of communication whose use by gangsters and anti-bandits units will be studied. A particular attention will be paid to the use of ultramodern technologies such as satellite telephones or Thuraya mobile phones by the illiterate stockbreeders such as the Mbororo pastoralists, who are frequently victims of aggression. Key words: Banditism - intelligence - communication - telephone - Mbororo

Techniques of communication, highway banditry and repression of banditry in North-Cameroon: between tradition and modernity