Jailed

Friday, February 17. As reported before, Immigration officers Beta and Kappa (see their photo and story of how they arrested me November 30) were spotted on at the mooring site of the dhow, I went to the immigration office, an officer told me they had orders from Mwanza Chief Immigration officer Msellem to check me again, Msellem was out, I called him, he was in Geita (a gold mine town one day travel Westward). Like on November 30, he did not seem to be aware  of the operation. He proposes to meet on Saturday. A remarkable proposal, since the immigration office is normally closed on Saturdays.

Saturday February 18. I meet Mwanza Chief Immigration officer Msellem at the Immigration Office. Tell him Beta and Kappa were at the site, and another officer told me they had orders to check me again.
I gave no such orders. I was in Geita.
I did not believe them for a moment, Mr. Msellem. I am just telling you this so you know what they are saying. Do you want to check my passport? I offer my passport to Msellem. Msellem deeply studies my seals and stamps. You went out 16th of December and reentered 19th of December...
I had to do some shopping in Kampala, they stamped off my visa and sold me a new visa for three months on reentry.
I think you had better take a business visa. You are supervising the building of a ship.
I am the buyer in the contract, Mr. Msellem. Daniel is the builder. If I buy a shirt and tell the maker where I want the pockets, do I need a business visum?
That is part time. You are full time supervising the building of your boat. I advise you to take a business visa.
I do not do any business in Tanzania neither do I plan to. But if we can agree on that, I have no problem to follow your advise. When can we do it?
Come on Monday.
OK, Mr. Msellem you will see me Monday. But please, do not send your officers to my site, because my people remember November 30 and it makes them nervous, just...
I will call you if I need you, Mr. Msellem finishes my sentence.

Monday February 20. While waiting for Msellem in his office waiting room, Msellem comes out, apologizes to the man before me that he has an urgent meeting. He did not see me, so I stand up and ask: shall I come back later?
Make it tomorrow.

Tuesday February 21. Seriously held up by airport customs problems while trying to get hold of my caulking kit Sikaflex 290 DC, arrived from South Africa (see the Sika Struggle). There is a storm threat. Since my watchmen have no idea of anchoring, I decide to put my car on the beach and sleep there (that of course, would be too dangerous without watchmen).
Night. I sleep in my car next to the mooring rope of my dhow (picture of site).
At 24:00 nervous voices summon me to get out. Six men with two guns. Civilian clothes.
With how many are you in this car? They shout. Do you have security? How many? Where are they?
I was sure: I would loose my car and all it contains and my motorcycle. The dhow would be unattractive to them. But if they were real professionals, operating according to the nigger standard they would kill every witness, which clearly would include me.
Do not worry! We are police.
That of course should only be to avoid me concocting any type of attempt to save my life in some strategy dangerous to them.
How many security?
Four, I lie to buy some time maybe even after they found my two watchmen.
Where are they?
I do not know.
Call them!
I call.
Nobody. To be paid out of the booty, probably.
Two of the six leave to search. The two guns stay with me. They seem to fear me more than my "security" (in brackets henceforth).
One of them shows me an ID. Police Inspector Iko.
Forged, of course. They wear no uniforms.
He tells me to dress.
To dress?? Very strange. Not in the ordinary robbery format. I get some hope.
The two others return. Now they stand with six and their two guns on the little rice field dike behind my car which I avoid at night because is a track of a very big nest of small ants with a high acid bite.
One of the thugs starts tapping his pants, then quickly his sleeves. The others start tapping everywhere. Within 10 seconds they all undress to their underpants, and I am left with six naked niggers tapping themselves and each other on every place of their body. The guns lie before me on the ground, unattended.

Of course, now I was sure: this was police. The record relief of my life.

Warning: If you ever come in such a situation with chance to grab the guns, DO NOT DO IT. These guns are very dangerous: they are completely obsolete, far below even the weakest minimal fitness standards of their civilized countries' colleague professional government sponsored killers. The chance of - inadvertently - killing yourself with an African police gun is at least equal to that of killing a random member of the bystanders (probably it does not work at all, but do not take any risk, it might be charged with real bullets, though many probably are not).

Special message for donors, charity funds humanitarians, anti-genocide demonstrators, AIDS fighters and others determined to do "good" in Africa These monkeys were, only some twenty years ago, those sweet little poor kids with those radiating tender eyes that you helped surviving with your humanitarian money. Now you have kept them alive, they will come to kill you. For a dollar or more, and many for less. They ruin their country and you will come again with your money to help breeding some more of this sort. They have very small brains but yours, dear good-doers, are smaller.

 
Police insisted to have me load my motorcycle and go and find the contractor of the boat, Daniel. I drive to Daniel's home, it has become 01:00 hrs night by now, two monkeys in my car, the rest following me with theirs. When I branch off the main road to Daniel's house I am told to stop. They have changed their mind (if "mind" is not too big a word). We go to the police station.
For a long time I stand outside with some 10 apparent policemen (all in civilian clothes). My arrest squad is still tapping ants on themselves and each other. Then, inspector Iko takes me inside, tells me I am arrested, should stay at police to talk to his boss tomorrow. They take my cell phone, keys, and belt and imprison me in an office. Apparently the real prison is thought unsuitable for me. I put two tables together and sleep.
The rain storm we were fearing is coming. Now I should just be lucky.
The next morning at wake up, despite my impeccable Kiswahili question, I am refused access to a toilet, so standing on a table I piss out of the window. In my home country you can be fined for street pissing, so this is a dangerous act, so near to the police office and even from within the premises. But it goes unnoticed. Every now and then somebody enters my improvised cell, which normally is an office. Sometimes the door gets locked after leave. But many times is stays wide open, allowing me to have a chat with the officers at the building entrance. Then I am invited to the prisoners' roll call. They have to sit in the wet mud in the police office courtyard. I get a chair. One prisoner is unable to walk, somehow very sick. Two other prisoners are ordered to get him. While carried under his armpits his pants fall to his feet. He can not sit, so he is put down lying in the mud. His pants are hoisted back to position. He is not really fainting, but hardly conscious. I am told he "drank to much".
What have you done mzungu? Some officers ask me laughing.
I do not know, I confess honestly.
The prisoners are asked and told all kinds of things. One police officer solemnly carries a very dirty exercise book from which he reads and in which he writes. Some prisoners have to come over to another place and stand. Others have to stay. Then also the others go over. A new sorting takes place. Fingerprints taken. Some lucky ones are released. Sadly only a few. Of course, now I am on the imprisoned thugs' side as opposed to the imprisoning thugs, though both kill you for a dollar.
After having attended this lengthy ritual even my name is called from the extremely dirty book, I am led back to the entrance counter, my keys, cell phone and belt are returned and I am asked to wait.
Now I have my phone, I am informing my lawyer Malongo,  and the boys at the dhow site. Then comes my most interesting call. To Mr. Msellem, Chief Immigration Officer of Mwanza.
Hello Mr. Msellem. How are you? Fine? Yes I'm also fine. You remember you have asked me to meet you, but this is not possible to me now. The immigration office you are heading has ordered police to arrest  me at gunpoint last night midnight with six officers in civilian. The commanding inspector asked me whether I had a machine gun. He must have heard your officers saying I had one. I was imprisoned, and now I am still under arrest, waiting for authorities of your office to come and interrogate me. I will call you when I think they give me the opportunity to meet you.
OK I wait for your call, the Chief of Mwanza Immigration Msellem says.
We hang up. One of my most satisfying phone calls ever.

After another hour of waiting - Africa has all the time of the world, the other continents have the money -, I am led to my car where I see a guy from the immigration whose name I did not know. Later, I found out it is something like Pita Mita, and I will call him like this from here. Fat, ugly and wicked. He was in the company of a police officer called Mgussa, an elegant snake wearing a virgin's mask. He seemed to be my arresting inspector Iko's boss.
I was asked some obvious questions as to where I am from an what visa I had, and what I was doing in Tanzania.
Then, my car, that is, my temporary house with all my possessions, was searched meticulously. The search spectacle clearly was open to the general public present at the Police courtyard, a yard were literally everybody can walk in. Some fifteen people curiously crowded around my car to see what was coming out.
Don't worry, they are all police officers, one curious spectator said.
I worry, I said, because police officers are reported even by government newspapers to be involved in organized crime.
No, no, they are not, Tanzanian police officers are very good people! This police officer clearly himself believed what he was saying!
The interest of the general public rose to feverish level when the searching officers insisted to count my money. Fortunately I did not carry a lot.
After having split apart every single thing from every other single thing in my car, they took me to a car and drove me to the mooring site of the dhow. There, we found everybody who was involved in building the dhow, including my two "watchmen" whom police and I were unable to wake up during my midnight arrest operation.
We already had several discussions about the substandard performance of the watchman before the midnight arrest at gunpoint that went unnoticed to them. I was not the only one who did not like them. Complicated stories of family relations and what they could do if we would make them angry were supposed to convince me that they'd better not be kicked out. I had resigned. So I could be short to Gabriel, pointing to the two fools:
Do you still call this security, Gabriel?
They did not notice your arrest. Wait till they tell their story. They are paid to guard the boat. The boat is still OK.
If they would tell that story, Gabriel, would you like it?
No.
Two ladies, well dressed and made up, stood next to the crowd, one of them with an immense prehistoric video camera on her shoulders. STAR TV, I was told by one of my men. STAR TV had featured me Christmas prime time as Mwanza Yacht Club's Father Christmas. I went to the ladies, introducing myself, and asking who sent them. They were police, and ordered to video the site.
My staff heard officers saying to other officers that I had been slamming doors in the Immigration Office, that I had threatened to have them fired, and that members of Mwanza Yacht Club had expressed their doubts about me. At the beach, contractor Daniel, I was told later, was told by immigration officers not to help the mzungu or he would be in serious trouble.

They wanted me to fill in "The Netherlands", but I told them in that case I could not sign the report. Slowly, I wrote: "Lower Saxon", and explained our tribe was spread over the low seashore area of the Netherlands, Northern Germany and Denmark.
Most of the afternoon was a discussion concerning the difference between buying a dhow and building a dhow. Buying I can do on a visitor's visa (bought at the border), building, in the thoughts of immigration, requires a business visa (bought from the immigration office involved in my arrest, to be refused for any reason, of course including: not paying enough to the kind officers helping you out)
Can you explain us what is the difference between buying and building a dhow? One of the officers asks me, trying to look smart, as if he already got me.
I explain that builders use screws and buyers use money.
Etc. Etc.
Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc
Etc.
Etc. Etc.
Etc. Etc. Etc
Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc
They take their time: Either I might start offering them money, or they might find something to charge me for. Neither happens.

While the serious questions are asked, other officers closely check my visa, hoping to discover forgery. One tries, puts it back on the table, then another, eyes close to the pages, then the first one again etc. to no avail.
They all read the dhow contract, impressed by the price of my 18 m dhow, euro 10 000. They whistle between their teeth. Also, they find bank cash receipt copies, many around euro 700. Deeply moved they stare at the wall, pondering what they would do with such fortunes of money.
Actually, the reports of both alphabetic experts turned, on completion, out to be of first or second class primary school children's quality English, and during writing, tongues between teeth, the officers looked like the same. Especially the immigration alphabetic had a lot of inspiration, so much that even police got bored with him. Police now got more interested in my my life generally, now clearly purely out of curiosity about the strange msungu retiring early, writing a book with Pres. Museveni of Uganda, operating a computer in a car, and building a dhow. Using this pauze of nervous search for something that might justify their midnight gunpoint arrest operation, I tell them I am not going to talk about it to my European friends, because if I do they will not want to visit Tanzania.
Now they tell me shyly that they just carry guns because the night is dangerous, and they were not looking for me but were on a routine patrol accidentally finding me. Apparently they had forgotten they told me I was arrested on orders of Mwanza Immigration, but of course the lies made reassuringly clear they started to take cover for backfire of their behaviour..
Other officers were more interested in my gadgets: camera, computer, portable scanner.

Picture made by Immigration Officer playing with my camera (without consent) during my grilling under imprisonment (food nor water for 13 hrs. at that moment).

After finishing I was asked to read the immigration alphabetic's many page essay. Apart from faulty English, it did not contain much that I could take offence at. He mainly had concentrated on inserting BUT's, like (I do not remember it literally, but to convey the spirit): "I am a ritired professa in filosofy on a visitor visa BUT I am buying a dhow". He honoured my request to replace all BUT's with AND's and I signed, with fingerprint, because tracing cows on mud tracks is more of an African instinct than signing agreements (let alone remember them the next day).

15:00 hrs. Grill session ended. They seize my

passport

laptop

the laptop's external backup hard disk

46 CD's

scanner (why seize a scanner?!)

camera (digital camera, empty, no data inside)

contract of the boat with Daniel.

I tell them they can study my CD's as long as they want, but I need my computer daily for crucial operations like email and banking, and kindly request they copy my hard disk first, so I can come tomorrow to collect it.
This cannot be done. I should reckon to have to do without my computer for five days.
What do you need my laptop for after you copied my hard disk and had it sniffed out for drugs and the bullet chain of my machine gun? I ask. It can be done in half an hour, why can't you do it in 12? But there is no answer.
Meanwhile I resolve to call my parents to wire me enough money to cut a vast amount of balls in Mwanza.

Then, they suddenly decide to keep me while they check my computer and CD's. I tell them they arrested me 15 hrs ago and had given me food nor water thus far.
This was a new thought to they arresting team. Their "minds" had apparently busy with other things, I did not know what, but I think it was with creating a situation where I would be ready to pay them. But these are the guys you only pay with bullets, and had not yet shopped for those. I resolved I certainly would. I will remember the bloody faces.
I get out on bail for 30 minutes and have lunch in Mwanza Hotel. Then we start with the 46 CD's. They want to start with the installation CD of my UTL wireless internet in Jinja. I show them the root files. There is one called "private". They want me to open it.
Empty.
There is another one called "user".
Open it.
Empty.
Next CD. An old backup file.
They see a folder called "private".
Open it.
They ask me to open a word document in that folder.
It is a request from the year 2000 to the municipality of Tilburg for a new garbage container, because mine had been stolen. I have to explain everything about the Tilburg garbage container system. Then, one of the monkeys thinks he found something: the address on top of the letter.
I sold that house in 2001.
Disappointment.
Chief Inspector Mgussa starts to realize that using this method, searching 46 CD's and a well stuffed 32GB hard disk might take some more time than police can afford to spend on the case (my silent estimate: 860 years). He calls his boss.
The operation is cancelled.
I can go. All seized objects stay at police, and I "should leave my cell phone switched on". They have my number. My phone does not work in the next two hours, though, I checked, my provider is not down.

No work on the dhow this day. We should have put the mast and start with the rudder. That is for tomorrow. My boys do not even know I am free and I can not call them to say tomorrow will be saa moja as usual. When at 22:00 hrs. my phone is still blocked I go to Daniel's house where Gabriel is also staying. Doi is also there. Daniel had been intimidated "not to help the mzungu". He fears. Gabriel also. I tell them my lawyer thinks we are legal. We should not start to act sneaky, like thieves, because they are the criminals, not we, and we should show it. Tomorrow I will be at our usual staff collection point at saa moja.

 

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