Police Story
On Tuesday, I went to the city in my new used car with a friend and a driver. The driver made a bad turn. He made a left turn against traffic without flashing his headlights to the oncoming car, which was some sort of official vehicle. There are no traffic signals functioning in the city and there are a whole series of protocols like flashing your headlights that drivers use to communicate with one another and pedestrians. I don’t know all of the rules myself, which is one reason why a driver is driving my car. As a result of his bad turn, we got stopped by the police. They checked his driver’s license, which is current, and asked for the “Carte Rose,” the ownership/registration card. Here is where the problem began, because the “Carte Rose” is not in my name yet (though I was carrying all of the appropriate paperwork), and the registration indicates that the car was imported for taxi service.
I stayed in the car. First, the driver tried unsuccessfully to handle it. Then, my friend spoke to them. They offered the police a little bit of money--a couple hundred francs. This usually works; Kinois are used to needing to give a little bit of money to the police and soldiers from time to time. Their government salary is extremely low, and payment is sporadic. Harassment increases around the holidays because people need money for their families. Government employees have not been paid in several months, and hungry soldiers have brought down this country before. The police claimed that I needed to pay $35 US for “expertise,” which is an inspection document. I was not being detained, but they refused to return my owner’s card unless I paid the money. Though my papers were not in proper order, I knew that paying this $35 would not get them in any better order. The slip of paper which he gave me (which I still have) had an official stamp on it, but it was for a different commune than where we were. (It is like a cop in Brooklyn issuing you a ticket marked Queens.) I asked if I would be given a receipt or documentation and got an unsatisfactorily vague answer. So I decided to call the US Embassy, which was close by. They have folks who specialize in these situations. They can come down, get my owner’s card back, and take care of whatever it is that I actually need to do. I talked to a few people, gave my number and was called back by an American diplomat. I was describing the situation and my location. He asked me some questions and he said, “You handled it perfectly.” I said, “Excuse me? I am still handling it.” I guess I was a bit too calm. So he had another person call me, who sent a vehicle with the Congolese police. I don’t completely understand the relationships, but the US Embassy pays some police for situations like this. So three police officers (Congolese officers of the DRC police department) came in a US government vehicle and had a meeting with the people involved. The Colonel was called and was pissed at the officers who detained us because there is no $35 inspection. And, as I understand it, there is a one-month grace period on the purchase of vehicles. They got back my owner’s card. The whole thing took about an hour and a half, with about half of that time involving the officers from the Embassy. When I finally arrived at the Embassy, I met with the security supervisor (a Congolese employee of the US Embassy, probably a relatively high-ranking retired officer) and gave him copies of all of the paperwork related to my car so that he can arrange to get me the appropriate documents (at the correct price).
These things happen with the police, especially this time of year. Clearly as this case makes clear, I have far more options than most people here. While I may be a critic of US state power, I have never doubted it. There is, however, something depressing, to say nothing of hypocritical, in relying on it.
Most people are not so fortunate. Last week, I hired the former driver of an American friend to drive me for the day. (He also helped me look for the car.) As we drove back to my house on the Plateau at about 8 pm, we drove past a group of soldiers messing with some people. A very very common scene in Kinshasa, if somewhat less frequent in this area. The driver would be leaving the Plateau, on foot, with more than $60 in his pocket ($10 I paid him plus a gift which my American friend sent to help him out with his child’s hospital bills), and was nervous knowing that he would need to pass by the soldiers. I suggested another walking route but he is not familiar with this area, and that provides no guarantees. He cleverly took the US cash and put it in his shoe and left the Congolese francs in his pocket which was for “transport.” (When they shake you down, the soldiers always leave you something for transport. On the day I ventured down to the river frontier with my camera, the soldiers, following etiquette, left me a couple of dollars in francs for transport, as they explained.) But the driver was stuck because they will search you (including your shoes) and you have to give them something. So I gave him a pack of cigarettes that I had been carrying around just for this purpose. He looked at me a bit confused at first. But I explained that if he needed to give them something, they would take the cigarettes, and would be likely to let him go without too thorough a search. Then he got very excited because he thought it was a great idea. I saw him a couple of days later and everything worked out. The soldiers did stop him, but took the cigarettes and were satisfied.
At the time I was stopped on Tuesday, I was en route to meet my dissertation student/member of Parliament at a library. He called me and we spoke on the phone a couple of times. He was concerned and offered to come to help. I told him that I was safe, which was true, and that everything was ok. As I later learned, he did come to the scene anyway, but by the time he arrived, I had left. It took him a little while to get there because he had his two young children in the car, and didn’t want to come with them in the car. He was really upset and told me that he wanted to come to explain to the police, in his own words, “as a representative of Parliament, that you may be American, but you are here to help the children.” Bless his heart--even though I have never thought of my job description in those terms.
By all accounts, this kind of petty corruption stopped for the first year or so of Laurent Kabila’s rule (1997-98). Then the war in the east took up the government’s energy and funds. Soldiers were no longer getting paid and needed to resort to other means for income. A bit later in the day I had a conversation with another Congolese friend, who was, like my Parliamentarian student, similarly dejected if not surprised. It seems to be a combination of embarrassment and sadness about their country. By contrast, my own response, I now realize, was more casual. When the Americans at the Embassy learned of my encounter, they had none of the somberness. I think they find my life here exciting when compared to their own.
I stayed in the car. First, the driver tried unsuccessfully to handle it. Then, my friend spoke to them. They offered the police a little bit of money--a couple hundred francs. This usually works; Kinois are used to needing to give a little bit of money to the police and soldiers from time to time. Their government salary is extremely low, and payment is sporadic. Harassment increases around the holidays because people need money for their families. Government employees have not been paid in several months, and hungry soldiers have brought down this country before. The police claimed that I needed to pay $35 US for “expertise,” which is an inspection document. I was not being detained, but they refused to return my owner’s card unless I paid the money. Though my papers were not in proper order, I knew that paying this $35 would not get them in any better order. The slip of paper which he gave me (which I still have) had an official stamp on it, but it was for a different commune than where we were. (It is like a cop in Brooklyn issuing you a ticket marked Queens.) I asked if I would be given a receipt or documentation and got an unsatisfactorily vague answer. So I decided to call the US Embassy, which was close by. They have folks who specialize in these situations. They can come down, get my owner’s card back, and take care of whatever it is that I actually need to do. I talked to a few people, gave my number and was called back by an American diplomat. I was describing the situation and my location. He asked me some questions and he said, “You handled it perfectly.” I said, “Excuse me? I am still handling it.” I guess I was a bit too calm. So he had another person call me, who sent a vehicle with the Congolese police. I don’t completely understand the relationships, but the US Embassy pays some police for situations like this. So three police officers (Congolese officers of the DRC police department) came in a US government vehicle and had a meeting with the people involved. The Colonel was called and was pissed at the officers who detained us because there is no $35 inspection. And, as I understand it, there is a one-month grace period on the purchase of vehicles. They got back my owner’s card. The whole thing took about an hour and a half, with about half of that time involving the officers from the Embassy. When I finally arrived at the Embassy, I met with the security supervisor (a Congolese employee of the US Embassy, probably a relatively high-ranking retired officer) and gave him copies of all of the paperwork related to my car so that he can arrange to get me the appropriate documents (at the correct price).
These things happen with the police, especially this time of year. Clearly as this case makes clear, I have far more options than most people here. While I may be a critic of US state power, I have never doubted it. There is, however, something depressing, to say nothing of hypocritical, in relying on it.
Most people are not so fortunate. Last week, I hired the former driver of an American friend to drive me for the day. (He also helped me look for the car.) As we drove back to my house on the Plateau at about 8 pm, we drove past a group of soldiers messing with some people. A very very common scene in Kinshasa, if somewhat less frequent in this area. The driver would be leaving the Plateau, on foot, with more than $60 in his pocket ($10 I paid him plus a gift which my American friend sent to help him out with his child’s hospital bills), and was nervous knowing that he would need to pass by the soldiers. I suggested another walking route but he is not familiar with this area, and that provides no guarantees. He cleverly took the US cash and put it in his shoe and left the Congolese francs in his pocket which was for “transport.” (When they shake you down, the soldiers always leave you something for transport. On the day I ventured down to the river frontier with my camera, the soldiers, following etiquette, left me a couple of dollars in francs for transport, as they explained.) But the driver was stuck because they will search you (including your shoes) and you have to give them something. So I gave him a pack of cigarettes that I had been carrying around just for this purpose. He looked at me a bit confused at first. But I explained that if he needed to give them something, they would take the cigarettes, and would be likely to let him go without too thorough a search. Then he got very excited because he thought it was a great idea. I saw him a couple of days later and everything worked out. The soldiers did stop him, but took the cigarettes and were satisfied.
At the time I was stopped on Tuesday, I was en route to meet my dissertation student/member of Parliament at a library. He called me and we spoke on the phone a couple of times. He was concerned and offered to come to help. I told him that I was safe, which was true, and that everything was ok. As I later learned, he did come to the scene anyway, but by the time he arrived, I had left. It took him a little while to get there because he had his two young children in the car, and didn’t want to come with them in the car. He was really upset and told me that he wanted to come to explain to the police, in his own words, “as a representative of Parliament, that you may be American, but you are here to help the children.” Bless his heart--even though I have never thought of my job description in those terms.
By all accounts, this kind of petty corruption stopped for the first year or so of Laurent Kabila’s rule (1997-98). Then the war in the east took up the government’s energy and funds. Soldiers were no longer getting paid and needed to resort to other means for income. A bit later in the day I had a conversation with another Congolese friend, who was, like my Parliamentarian student, similarly dejected if not surprised. It seems to be a combination of embarrassment and sadness about their country. By contrast, my own response, I now realize, was more casual. When the Americans at the Embassy learned of my encounter, they had none of the somberness. I think they find my life here exciting when compared to their own.
posted by irad at 9:54 AM
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