By Shaun Smillie
Is your Xhosa good enough to keep you out of jail? Clearly for Mxolisi Nkala it wasn't.
He was detained by police near his home in Yeoville on Sunday on suspicion that he was an illegal alien, even though he has an identity (ID) document.
Not having any form of identification on him, police asked Nkala if he could speak Xhosa. Not being fluent and having a Zimbabwean accent, he was then bundled into a police van.
But Nkala is Xhosa and was born in the Transkei. The reason he has a Zimbabwean accent is that he was in exile in the country from 1975 to 1989.
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"I was sitting watching my friend washing his car outside his house when the cops pulled up," Nkala said.
He was taken to Yeoville police station where he was allowed to phone his girlfriend, Jolene, who did not want her surname revealed.
He told her to bring his temporary ID document and receipt, as his ID document had been stolen.
"I told them that my girlfriend was here with my ID document but they weren't interested. They just said 'That won't help you now,' " said Nkala.
From Yeoville, Nkala was sent to Sophiatown police station because, according to the police, Yeoville station didn't have enough cells to accommodate all of the detainees.
Jolene organised a lift and followed the police van to Sophiatown. She had to take along her nearly two-year-old daughter, Boitsebo, as she didn't have anyone who could look after her.
At the police station there she tried desperately to get Nkala's ID document to him.
"I gave Mxolisi's ID document to one of the policeman but then another policemen came up to me with the document and said, 'if these are not right I will tear them up,' "Jolene said.
Other relatives and friends of the detainees also gathered at the police station. Most of them were Zimbabwean. Some had obviously been in this situation before.
One man had two packets full of food, and said: "I know, I have been to this place and the food tastes like s**t."
A metro police officer came over and explained how they determined if someone was an illegal alien - a system likely to net South Africans as well.
"If you don't have an ID document or passport on you, then we can arrest you. We then ask questions like 'What is eight in Afrikaans?' If you can't answer, then we take you in," he said.
Some of the awaiting Zimbabweans said they had been asked how much money they had on them.
One Zimbabwean claimed that he even made a living out of paying bribes to the police on behalf of his fellow countrymen who had been arrested.
"I pay the bribes. It works okay with cash, but if it is on credit then I have to hold on to something like a DVD player."
He rattled off the names of police stations and the going rate for springing an illegal immigrant. "Hillbrow police station R400, Lindela R800, R900, sometimes R1 000."
But on Sunday he was there to help a friend who did have the right legal documentation, so he was not too sure what the price would be at Sophiatown station. He had never had dealings with police there.
"Since that Special Assignment programme (in which Booysens police were caught taking bribes) the cops are careful. But if you know someone, like an uncle of someone who works in a police station, then it is okay," he said.
By the time Nkala was finally released, Boitsebo was fast asleep in her mother's arms, directly across from a police assessment poster titled The Dignified Blue.
Nkala had been in police custody for eight hours, but he was one of the lucky ones. As he left, friends of one of the Zimbabwean detainees were trying to negotiate a bribe with police officials.
"They told us they can make a plan but that we must come tomorrow at 8am," said one.
The reported price for springing an illegal immigrant out of Sophiatown police station? R400.
- This article was originally published on page 7 of Cape Times on October 25, 2005
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