Hidden Laws In Uganda

Abstract

I learned a lot about Uganda the night I was arrested in Kampala and taken to the Central Police Station. During my short stay in CPS, I discovered that the police keep some laws secret from Ugandan citizens and even from themselves. It was early in 2003; I was an American living in Uganda. Driving one evening, I turned the wrong way onto William Street in downtown Kampala. I turned to the right of the divider, as if I was driving in the United States. As it was late on a Friday night, no one was on William Street, except for about ten thousand loitering policemen. They swarmed the car, seeing that it was a big SUV that surely contained fortunes for all. Well, I wasnt going to pay anybody anything. I had made a simple mistake, and I was not going to be afraid; I was not a criminal. A Ugandan friend was with me, a young man who calls himself Junior. The police seized on Junior as their way into my pockets, as they had quickly sized me up as an uncooperative foreigner who doesnt understand how things work here in Uganda.