Tuesday 20 October 2009

Trust me I'm a police officer?

The other experience that we had in Mozam was less pleasing but as I'm determined not to let it spoil my experience I'm writing it in a seperate blog; police corruption.
The first evening we were out with a friend in a car with local plates and had no trouble at all, despite the fact that most Mozambiquans seem to think little of driving whilst heavily under the influence of alcohol (for some it improves their driving!). However, the second evening, out in a car with SA plates, we were stopped twice on our 15 minute journey to the bar. The first time a youngish police officer suggested that we had been speeding and driving erratically (neither true), requested our car papers and then suggested that we "make a little plan". Naively I thought that he was suggesting we agree not to drive fast but our SA driver was more savy than me and passed him 50ZAR (about a fiver). Satisfied with this, he let us drive on. 5 minutes further on, we were pulled over again, this time for 'going through a red light' (again not true). Again our car papers were demanded but also our passports, which we didn't have with us. There followed an agressive 20 minute conversation during which we were threatened with being taken to jail (although notably when we suggested going to the local police station or embassy, they weren't that interested). Eventually when we continued to refuse to offer a bribe, they allowed us to go. In some ways the second encounter was amusing (when he demanded to know why if I claimed to be British I couldn't speak Portugese or French when Britain is so close to both those countries and I didn't help by explaining that I had a working knowledge of German and a little Gaelic) but given that this was accompanied by fiddling with the trigger of his gun, it was less so at the time.
I guess coming from the UK, I have a naive impression that all police are trustworthy and honest, something that I may have to adjust whilst in Africa.

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