There are few occasions when bumping into a Rapid Intervention unit would be a pleasant experience. In fact I can’t think of any off the top of my head. Whilst I was working in neighbouring Rwanda, the Rwandan Rapid Intervention units were known for extra-judicial killings and arbitrary violence. In the chaos of DRC their reputation is no better. In fact they thrive it Congo’s lawless, chaotic, corrupt environment. Their job descriptions don’t read ‘responsibility to protect and uphold justice’; they read ‘licence to use arbitrary violence for any means’.
So bumping into them when standing in a dark alley in one of Kinshasa’s poorest neighbourhoods at 11pm, conducting a sexual health sensitisation programme with young women involved in sex work, is probably not going to be included in the ‘100 Things To Do Before You Die’ list. Bumping into them after they’ve spent the evening drinking, again probably wouldn’t make the list. And a confrontation that involves both? Well, that’s perhaps something to put off altogether. Unless you need to revive a heart attack victim.
Only a very naïve foreigner would entertain the notion that the police here are concerned about the threat you pose to law and order, so you know their agenda – they want to intimidate you into parting with something of value. You can crack immediately and start negotiating how much it will cost for the problem to go away, or you take a stand – remain calm, cooperative and non-confrontational but never agreeing to part with anything of value.
On this occasion, fate intervened. After a 20 minute stand off, the unit commander received a telephone call and when he return he had had a change of heart. We’ll never know whether he was being called away to more pressing matters or being reprimanded by superiors. But all the gun waving, shouting and demands for identification papers earned them nothing more than a wholesale-size packet of condoms and a few insincere efforts to caress his ego.
Sadly the national organisation running these sensitisation programmes is frequently intimidated and harassed by the police. But they persist in spite of this. And every night, at every location they stop, the children and young women are waiting for them.
So bumping into them when standing in a dark alley in one of Kinshasa’s poorest neighbourhoods at 11pm, conducting a sexual health sensitisation programme with young women involved in sex work, is probably not going to be included in the ‘100 Things To Do Before You Die’ list. Bumping into them after they’ve spent the evening drinking, again probably wouldn’t make the list. And a confrontation that involves both? Well, that’s perhaps something to put off altogether. Unless you need to revive a heart attack victim.
Only a very naïve foreigner would entertain the notion that the police here are concerned about the threat you pose to law and order, so you know their agenda – they want to intimidate you into parting with something of value. You can crack immediately and start negotiating how much it will cost for the problem to go away, or you take a stand – remain calm, cooperative and non-confrontational but never agreeing to part with anything of value.
On this occasion, fate intervened. After a 20 minute stand off, the unit commander received a telephone call and when he return he had had a change of heart. We’ll never know whether he was being called away to more pressing matters or being reprimanded by superiors. But all the gun waving, shouting and demands for identification papers earned them nothing more than a wholesale-size packet of condoms and a few insincere efforts to caress his ego.
Sadly the national organisation running these sensitisation programmes is frequently intimidated and harassed by the police. But they persist in spite of this. And every night, at every location they stop, the children and young women are waiting for them.
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