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Zaire Local Police
At the local level, a large number of unarmed,
untrained, and
locally recruited Zairians still perform basic police
tasks in
support of local authorities. Their numbers totaled nearly
30,000
in 1993, according to some sources. Nevertheless, some
local areas
had virtually no police left because they lacked funding
to pay
them. Where police were present, their local activities
typically
were not coordinated with the national police elements,
and they
probably were neither capable of nor motivated to support
national
or regional security objectives.
Local and regional authorities have the power to arrest
and
impose fines, and in many cases they exercise these powers
with the
help of local police. But local police are underpaid (if
they are
paid at all) and tend to extort their living from the
citizens.
Data as of December 1993
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