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Contributions from
the Column
Tribune
Ten years of rapid growth – Mobile telephony in Uganda
Citizens in uniform – Maputo’s auxiliary police
China’s leaders want to foster civil society, and control it
07/2006
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[ Police reform ]
Citizens in uniform
Just a few years ago, Chamanculo B was regarded as a lawless area. But for some time now, crime has been decreasing in this poor neighbourhood of Maputo, Mozambique’s capital city. A team of auxiliary policemen, who assist the state force and represent the local community, have helped to make that happen. The government intends to implement this successful model throughout the country.
[ By Tillmann Elliesen ]
Hawa Guambe’s bar is jam-packed. The 54 year old woman is serving drinks and selling some to passers-by. Two huts on, a man, completely drunk, sinks to the ground. His companion tries to help him back on his feet. Others are sitting in front of their barracks of corrugated iron, drinking beer and watching, without much interest, what is going on on the street. It is Saturday afternoon in Chamanculo B, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Mozambique’s capital Maputo. Most people who live here are from families that moved to the city to escape rural poverty at some point in time – and their hopes have normally not come true.
Because of the considerable amounts of alcohol consumed, especially by men, most of whom are unemployed, even trivial disputes can quickly escalate into violent clashes. “Actually, I’m supposed to close at nine o’clock, but ... well,” says Hawa Guambe, grinning apologetically. “If drunks seriously misbehave, I can always call the boys from the Peace Council. They will arrest trouble makers and lock them up in their headquarters for a day or two.”
Actually, the young men and women from the “Policiamento Comunitario”, the voluntary “community police”, are not allowed to lock people up. Their task is to keep an eye on things, settle disputes and call the professional police when situations become serious. All this is done on a voluntary basis. Their small squads have been regularly patrolling Chamanculo B for four years. In their green pinafores, which serve as a uniform and identify them as helpers of the government’s law and order forces, they are supposed to deter burglars, thieves and other crooks. The people in the neighbourhood chose them for the job. And their activities seem to work.
“I would not have walked around like this before,” says João Ernesto Mbanguine, pointing to the mobile phone displayed on his belt in full view. “Today, doing so is no problem anymore.” Mbanguine is the president of Chamanculo B’s 17-strong Peace Council. It was set up in 2002 as part of a German-Mozambican pilot project. According to project reports, crime in Chamanculo B has fallen drastically since. Residents confirm that their neighbourhood has become safer thanks to the Peace Council. “Just a few years ago, Chamanculo B was practically a lawless area,” tells Hans-Georg Fuchs. “The police didn’t dare come here.” The former officer of Germany’s Federal Crime Investigation Agency (BKA) advised his Mozambican counter-parts on establishing the Peace Council. “For the policemen, the border used to be where the asphalt streets of the well-to-do city end and Chamanculo B’s maze of alleyways begins. Taking the law into one’s own hands, was a matter of course.”
João Ngonhamo has been a policeman since 1976. For two years, Chamanculo B with 11,000 residents has been his beat. Typically, he deals with burglaries, muggings and cases of domestic violence. He commands six officers for the beat. That figure is even below the national average of 10 policemen per 10,000 residents, an already atrociously poor ration. In comparison, there are at least 30 policemen per 10,000 residents in Germany, and in crime-prone cities like Frankfurt, the number goes up to 50.
The Mozambican police force is understaffed and overstretched. According to a governmental report, there is not even enough money to provide all the country’s 20,000 policemen with uniforms. Moreover, the population does not have much faith in state forces. The poor, who cannot defend themselves, suffer as much from the arbitrary exercise of power by the police as from crime. Many officers are corrupt – which is no wonder, given that salaries start at the equivalent of ¤50 a month. “Many people do not go to the police because they fear they will have to pay,” says Emilio Valverde of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which is advising the Mozambican government on police reform.
Community Policing is the formula the government uses to increase confidence in the custodians of the law and make the officers more sensitive to the citizens’ needs. The Chamanculo B Peace Council acts as a link between both sides. On the one hand, these men and women are the eyes and ears of the police, helping to hunt down suspects. On the other hand, they inform the officers of the problems the neighbourhood worries about. By doing so, they create a foundation for policing not exposed to a sense of popular distrust, but which is rather seen as helpful. “We are two things at once, representatives of the police and the citizens,” says Peace Council president Mbanguine.
Albino Segulha embodies this approach like no other. The 32 year old man has been a member of the Peace Council since its inception. He coordinates the patrols – and, two years ago, even became a member of the governmental police force. In 2004, he completed his training as a patrol duty officer at the police training college in Matalan. “Our force is not very effective,” he says. “There are not enough officers and the policemen do not care about people’s concerns.” On the other hand, many Mozambicans have little understanding of procedures that underpin the rule of law. Most victims of robberies consider their cases settled as soon as they get their belongings back. “They are not interested in what happens to the perpetrators. Our task as the Peace Council is to raise awareness of such issues.”
Segulha says that he became involved with the Peace Council in order to do something about safety in his neighbourhood. He was also counting on improving his job prospects. Doing that is an important motivation for other members of the Peace Council too. Several of them have found jobs with security companies or have landed sentry duties.
Offenders are driven out
The crucial aspect of community policing is that offenders have no chance and are driven out wherever the police and the population cooperate. “We have already been able to significantly reduce the number of patrols in Chamanculo B,” reports Mbanguine. However, neighbouring quarters are apparently suffering from a corresponding rise in crime. According to German expert Fuchs, that was actually hoped for. “The trend helps to build up pressure to start Peace Councils in other neighbourhoods too,” he explains. And the approach seems to be working. Since the pilot project began in 2002, several more Peace Councils were elected in Maputo. The Ministry of the Interior wants to expand the approach to the entire country. To date, there are Peace Councils based on the Chamanculo B model in around 1000 rural and urban beats throughout the country.
The US administration is also supporting community policing in Mozambique. However, their approach differs from the German-Mozambican one. The US Justice Department will only cooperate with state authorities, providing training in grass-roots policing. Early this year, the US donated 50 bicycles to the Maputo police, for them to patrol the city the way American officers do in the States. The idea of training mere citizens to go on the beat contradicts the philosophy of community policing, the US Justice Department maintains.
The UNDP, however, doubts that the US assistance is making much difference. Adviser Emilio Valverde says it just will not do to rely only on the police to fight crime, as they are simply too weak. According to him, non-governmental structures that help improve security should be strengthened too. Nonetheless, Valverde is quite aware of the risks that go along with the Peace Councils: “There is a danger that they overstep their authority or undermine the work of the police. They must be strictly monitored.” As bar-owner Hawa Guambe and others can tell, indeed there occasionally are cases of misconduct. Amnesty International’s annual report of 2005 even stated that some Policiamento Communitario units were guilty of use of force, blackmail and theft. After incidents in late May this year in Beira, Jose Mandra, Deputy Minister of the Interior, warned the Peace Councils they were not authorised to carry weapons or to check persons.
The temptation to slip from the role of an auxiliary policeman into that of a real officer is quite obvious. In most cases, however, the abuses are rather harmless and are tolerated by the citizens in exchange for the improved security situation. When we visitors from Germany left, three young men in green pinafores, to the cheers from bystanders, leapt on to their bikes and escorted our car as though in a motorcade – all the way through Chamanculo B’s alleyways to where the asphalt of well-to-do Maputo begins.
Tillmann Elliesen
is managing editor of D+C/E+Z.
euz.editor@fsd.de
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