Gotcha!

Readers will know that the police here have a bad reputation. One of the first indications of how bad it was came from someone had been running a police training programme for several years: “the only threats to law and order in this country are the army and the police”, she said.

Several stories of harassment by traffic police, especially of women drivers, reinforced the stereotype.

But occasionally it is good to be wrong, and here’s a case to prove it.

Our driver is a man who sees himself as one of the ruling classes, if only by association. He will not be bossed around by anyone, and while not arrogant can be highly argumentative if he feels that his point of view is not being understood.

He came to me recently with a request to borrow money to buy a piece of land on which he wants to build a house. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, so after all the usual warnings about being careful that he bought it from the real owner I gave it to him - $600.

Two weeks later the deal was done. He had a bit of time on his hands because we were out of the country, so he went to the said plot and started cutting the grass and clearing out debris etc.

His work was interrupted by a gang of three youths. “Who are you?” they asked. “You must account for yourself. What are you doing on this land?”

“I,” he replied, drawing himself up to his considerable full height, “answer to no one but the police. If you are police then you have the right to ask me the questions. If you are not, and I can see that you are not, I do not need to answer, and I shall not.”

This wasn’t what they wanted to hear, so they attacked him. What happened in the melee is not clear, but what is certain is that he was struck on his right eye by a massive rock, and was left, semi-conscious, lying on the ground bleeding and half blind.

Passers-by found him and helped him get medical treatment. Fortunately, the sight came back to his eye within a day and his vision seems to have fully recovered. The other cuts and bruises healed relatively quickly.

The day after his attack, nursing the massive black eye as evidence, he went to the police to lay charges against the youths. Within a day the gang had been located. One was arrested, and although the other two escaped (it’s not clear whether any money changed hands to facilitate the matter), he was in court within two days. We willingly gave our driver time off to attend the hearing and witness the young man being sentenced to several months of what is surely pretty close to hell.

I was sceptical about the apparent ease with which the police found the suspects. How did they arrest them so quickly? Was he sure that the one in dock was truly the culprit?

“Yes,” he said, “of course it was the right man. They know what they are doing.”

One could end it there, but the case reminded me of another one: a friend of ours had his passport stolen by pickpockets in the centre of Kinshasa. He too got it back within a day. Not bad, as police work goes.