Botswana

January 2005

  
Dark-skinned Batswana troubled by police, (The Midweek Sun, 2005-01-12):-If you are a dark-skinned Motswana, speak Setswana with a certain accent, don't always dress fancy, walk instead of drive, then like Dumisani Matiha you may find it particularly helpful to always leave home with your Omang. Matiha, who comes from Dagwi, says that police mistake him for a Zimbabwean because he is dark-skinned. Just this past week Matiha was twice asked to produce his national identity card by police/army foot patrol .teams. In the first instance, Matiha, who lives in Phase Two in Gaborone, was on his way to Molapo Crossing walking on foot, when he was stopped by a team of three armed soldiers and a police officer who asked him to produce his Omang. "Fortunately, I had my Omang card with me but after I showed it to them, they frisked me and it was only then that they let me go," matiha said from his home. Two days later, he and two friends were on their way to the nearby Mambo Jazz Club when he was singled out and asked to produce his Omang. "They greeted me in Setswana which I suppose was mean to check my accent. Then they asked me where I come from and even after I provided that information in my best Setswana, they asked me to produce my Omang. They said that my skin tone and accent made them suspicious of me; they said I could be a Zimbabwean. My two friends were not searched because they are of a lighter hue," he said. Matiha is one of the many dark-skinned Batswana who are on the receiving end of the recently-introduced stop-question-and-search operations by the police. Last December, Otsile Tapson and a friend were riding in a combi on his way to a BOCONGO Christmas party in Phakalane and they had to pass through a police road block. Suspicious of Tapson and his friend, the police officer asked them to produce their Omang cards. "We told him that we didn't go around carrying those cards. The police officer called a soldier over and there started an argument about the ID cards. We told them that there was no law that required us to carry our ID cards all the time and eventually they let us go because they could see that we were Batswana and were pissed off," said Tapson who is from Siviya. Lesego Mazwiduma from Tutume did not get off that lightly when the Francistown-bound bus he was travelling in passed through a police road block at Serule. "The police officer scanned the passengers' faces and singled me out for questioning. He asked me where I was from and to tell the names of my village's headman and the tribal authority. I answered all the questions but he then asked me to produce my Omang. I had left the card in Gaborone and I told him so but he insisted that I produce some identification to prove that I was a Motswana. All this didn't make sense to me because our conversation was in Setswana," Mazwiduma said. It was only when Mazwiduma produced his driver's licence that the officer was satisfied that he was a Motswana. Failing to produce an Omang can get one into really big trouble. Police officers from Urban police station in Gaborone carried out raids last July that ended with some Batswana being taken into custody because they did not have ID cards to prove that they were citizens. A dark-skinned press photographer was nearly nabbed in these raids. It helped that he was holding an expensive, digital camera to prove that he was a pressman on duty or he would also have spent a night in jail. According to Matiha, how moneyed one looks helps a great deal. With the economy of some neighbouring countries slumped against the ropes (Zimbabwe's rate of inflation is currently at 700 percent) nobody expects the average economic refugee in Botswana to dress fancy. Matiha suspects that in addition to his skin tone, his favoured style of dress cheap casual - also gets him into trouble. "The reason I say that is because when I'm dressed smart I don't encounter any problems with the patrol teams. There was this other time that I was wearing fancy Nike trainers and came upon a patrol team that didn't bother me," Matiha said. While in the past, Matiha could afford to go out without an Omang on him, he no longer takes that chance. Last Saturday, he was walking a friend to a bus stop a kilometre away from his house when he remembered halfway to the stop that he did not have his Omang. He immediately retraced his steps to the house to get the card. "The sight of police officers and soldiers never used to bother me but nowadays when I see them I get very fearful - or very angry. One should be comfortable in their presence because they are supposed to protect members of the public but I don't feel comfortable around them any more because instead of protecting they harass me. I'm Kalanga and I don't see any reason why I should be expected to speak Setswana like a Mongwato or a Mokgatla," Matiha said. Professor Lydia Nyati-Ramahobo of RETENG, a confederation of tribal pressure groups, said that while her organisation was not aware of dark-skinned Batswana faring the worst in stop, question and search operations, they would be gravely concerned with such a state of affairs. "We would define that as racial discrimination because it is based on selecting, excluding, pinpointing at someone on the basis of their colour. That is not acceptable," said Ramahobo, who is RETENG's Secretary General. However, police spokesperson, Senior Superintendent Solomon Mantswe said that there was no way that Stop, Question and Search could ever degenerate into racial/tribal profiling. "The main purpose of Stop, Question and Search is to intercept people about to commit criminal offences. We don't target people of any particular colour or nationality," said Mantswe, adding that he was not aware of cases of dark-skinned Batswana bearing the brunt of these operations more. With regard to why the police asked for Omang cards from those they encounter on the streets when there was no requirement in the law that people carry them at all times, Mantswe said that there should be no reason for that if people cooperated with the police. "If you can identify yourself and answer questions properly, there should be no need for the police to ask you to produce your national identity card. The problem is that some members of the public are uncooperative and wouldn't provide necessary information. But under normal circumstances, when it is plain that you are a Mokgatla from Mochudi, there would be no need for the police to ask you to produce an identity card," Mantswe said.  
South African Migration Project (SAMP) - Queen's University - http://www.queensu.ca/samp