Dear Piclisters,
let me make a couple of comments from far away in the south. From Uruguay
Corruption is daunting in the whole continent, and traffic tickets are th=
e
easier way to see it. But here, the real problem is that if your product =
or
service is better, it doesn=B4t mind. If you pay the highest "cometa" (br=
ibe),
your product is purchased. In almost every government purchase, bribery i=
s
the way to make business. And a lot of private companies also have the sa=
me
problem.
A friend of mine says that, if you don=B4t work in the same way as the pa=
ck,
you are the unadapted. But I still resist to pay bribes to sell something.
On the other hand, if your customs duty taxes are 100% of the item invoic=
e
price plus shipping here, plus expenses, even for a dozen pics mailed to
you, you WILL find cheaper ways to get the merchandise.

The starting point of the thread, about being shot for a traffic infracti=
on,
seems to me quite out of this world, in normal conditions. Maybe part of =
the
violent public image of south america?
But I heard a story about a physician that, after a little party in his
hospital, drives his car in the wrong direction, forgetting that there wa=
s a
navy base next to the hospital, and was shot by the guards because he did=
n=B4t
stop the car. I heard this happened in Montevideo, in the seventies. But
there were not normal times, we were in the middle of a counter insurgenc=
e
operation, followed by a coup d=B4etat.

Rafael Fraga


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