THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN
Black Johnson Could be Black Slavery
In a video posted on social media, passionate African-American, Dr. Umar Johnson, in a serial called โCANDID AFRICA-Truthful and Unapologeticโ, thunders, โEthiopia, the only African country not to be colonized – up until now. Ethiopia is one of the largest recipients of Chinese aid in the worldโฆ Why is the Chinese taking over Africa? โฆReason Number One: China is over-populatedโฆ They have over (1.6 billion) in one country. China is looking for unexploited land where they can send their excess poor people. Africa is perfectโฆ Reason Number Two: Look at all the poor Africans!! Can you imagine a better place to go and open your businesses and factories where you pay people even less than you can pay in China? โฆ. Reason Number Three: ..To take overโฆ(Africaโs) resourcesโฆ The money they are giving Africa are not grants. They are loansโฆ Why is China giving poor countries like Kenya more money than they are able to pay back? They donโt want you to pay back. There is always a clause that say โif you default on this loan, all your tea plantations and copper mines, all your oil reserves are mineโ. โฆReason Number Four: To make the Africans dependant on them โ culturallyโฆ intellectually โฆChina plans to colonize Africa the same way the white man didโฆ .โ
Dr. Umar Johnson mentioned Ethiopia as a classic example of Chinaโs attempt at colonization of Africa. What are the objective facts there? “According to recent figures from the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC), Ethiopia has secured 500 million U.S. dollars from foreign direct investment in the past three monthsโฆ Chinese companies have executed about 1,564 investment projects โฆfrom 1998 to March 2020 โฆโ (SOURCE: Chinese companies powering Ethiopia’s investment efforts amid COVID-19 – Xinhua/ English.news.cn [xinhuanet.com]; October 10, 2020)
โChinese architects, machines, products, and even workers have swarmed the city. Even traditional items originating from Ethiopia such as the ‘jebena’, a coffee making apparatus, are being imported from China for cheaper prices.โฆโ. (SOURCE: Chinese Investment in Ethiopia thescriptnews.com)
This piece is not about โEthiopiaโ. The peek into Ethiopia is to begin to ascertain whether Dr. Umar Johnson was exaggerating in his video. He is a United States citizen. Was he consciously or subconsciously raising the US flag, and positing China as a bogeyman? After all, former US President Donald Trump would rail against the Chinese unfair trading and finance practices. Current US President is developing a coherent strategy to counter the Chinese Challenge โ China, the second largest economy in the world that economists predict would overtake the United States to become the largest economy in the world in just about twenty years. Letโs go back to โBlack Johnsonโ, one of the villages on the Freetown Peninsular in Freetown, Sierra Leone โ with sparkling beaches, one of the most idyllic spots on planet earth.
The Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources of Sierra Leone about a week announced governmentโs intention to establish a fishing port at Black Johnson. With a $56 million grant from China! That triggered a storm. Environmentalists say the area is a breeding ground for rare species like pangolins. Tourism developers claim that the beach would be despoiled by a fishing port. Sierra Leoneans who own property in the area have denounced the highhanded stance of the government to want to take their private property and convert it into public property without proper negotiations. Government says it has appropriated Le17 billion as compensation for the 250 acres they aim to use for the fishing port. It is grossly inadequate given the going rate of such beautiful beachfront property. Burnt by the negative press reports, the Chinese Embassy in Sierra Leone was forced to issue a Press Release: โThe Chinese Ambassador in Sierra Leone Hu Zhangliang has appealed to the media to be fair and neutral in their reporting on the fish harbor and the Black Johnson siteโฆ.(He complained that the )โฆChinese have been at the center of the report โฆaccusing them of wanting to destroy the countryโฆ(And he appealed to Sierra Leoneans)โฆto put aside geopolitics and Western sentimentsโฆ.’China has never asked the government for a piece of land to build a fish meal of a fish harbor at anytime. We have enough fish harbors in China, and we cannot come to Sierra Leone to build such for ourselves’โฆโ, according to The Calabash newspaper. Do not gloss over the Chinese Ambassadorโs words on โgeopoliticsโ and โWestern sentimentsโ.
โ(Foreign trawlers) โ which are largely Chinese fishing vessels – are โฆ. rejecting rules and regulations (of poor African countries). โฆJust south of Oxford, England, advanced technology is being used to monitor the globeโs oceans. Oceanmind analysts are able to track trawlers all over the world via satellite transmission. Our featured BBC video explains how Sierra Leone waters specifically are being unfairly targeted by monster trawlersโฆ..Though these trawlers arrive from all corners of the globe, (about 75%) of them originated in China. Which begs the question โ are Chinese trawlers decimating West Africaโs fish stocksโฆ?โ
(SOURCE:
Overfishing In West Africa | Sea Life Rescue).
The typical way Chinese fishing trawlers do fishing in West Africaโs territorial ocean space is called โPair Trawlingโ. That is two fish trawlers fish side-by side with a gigantic net set between them. In this way, the boats cooperate in scraping the sea bare โ catching small and big fish; catching lobsters and crabs, etc.. It is illegal in Sierra Leone. But, Sierra Leone lacks the capacity to stop the Chinese boats. There are just two patrol boats Sierra Leone has – donated by the United States government – to patrol its seas. It is not uncommon for Sierra Leoneans to collude with the Chinese trawlers to tip them when and where the patrol boats would be. The trawlers would evade the patrol boats.
Sierra Leoneโs fish stocks are plummeting to dangerous numbers. Almost every single Sierra Leonean (and coastal West African) fisherman I have heard speak โ directly; or, through videos easily accessible on YouTube – have been complaining bitterly over the Chinese trawlers plundering their territorial waters. In 2019, I went to the Presidentโs home district of Bonthe, and the complaints were resounding. Even though fish from their waters stock markets all over the world, Sierra Leone sees less than 10% of the money from those sales. Sierra Leone could be losing hundreds of millions of dollars yearly from this Chinese fish theft. And denying its peoples of the best source of protein intake.
West Africa/Sierra Leone is not the only โvictimโ of the Chinese fish quest: โโฆ..An analysis of transponder and global vessel registration data indicates Chinese boats involved in distant-water operations – meaning outside a country’s own territorial waters – total as many as 17,000, according to London-based researcher Overseas Development Institute (Other analysts say that there are between 200,000 to 800,000 Chinese fishing trawlers; that, compared to the European Unionโs 100,000 fishing trawlers)โฆ.From 2010 to 2019, Chinese-flagged or owned vessels accounted for 21% of global fishing offenses logged by Spyglass, a Vancouver-based fishing crime databaseโฆA 2019 global ranking by Geneva-based Global Initiative, a transnational crime watchdog, placed China first in the prevalence of illegal fishing by nations. South American nations are also crying against the Chinese fishing trawlers!
In May, 2021, the โSierra Leone Industrial Fishing Company Association (SLIFCA)โ published a Release which states that โThe Fishing Industry in Sierra Leone has waited for a fish harbor complex for over 40 years, since 1970, with many promises from the major international development partnersโ. The Release states that โthe construction of a fish harbor remains the impediment for unlocking the wealth from the fisheries sector of Sierra Leoneโ. And they were unequivocal in their support for the Black Johnson fishing port: โWe would like to inform the public of Sierra Leone and overseas that our membership is in total support of this proposed projectโ. The Release was signed by some of its executives, which included โBassem Mohamedโ as โPresident, SLIFCA, & Managing Director of Sierra Fishing Companyโ. I have made a social media posting asking details on the individual companies that form SLIFCA, and the shareholders in each of these companies to know whether Sierra Leoneans of NEGROID AFRICAN DESCENT own any significant shares in these companies. I suspect that โSierra Leoneโ tagged to that association is just a front for foreign-owned boats.
I take a fervently ideological position in this Black Johnson situation. I am the Founder and CEO of the SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP Movement. It was founded in Nigeria in 1992. It fuses the THOUGHT of the Atlantic Slave Trade with that thought that has engendered and nurtured Climate Change. It tinctures green the centuries demand for Reparations for the Protracted Holocaust of the Atlantic Slave Trade. The harsh reality is that while ideologues like us are making demands on the West for about the worst Crimes Against Humanity that the Atlantic Slave Trade was, China could be in the slow process of another enslavement or colonization of Africa โ with a different tactic this time. Europeโs and Americaโs enslavement and colonization of Africa was brutal, and crude. The Chinese are doing the same thing in a subtle way, using loans and investments. Africaโs leadership that generally forget the past, and lack vision for the future, are only too willing to โsell Africans into slavery againโ, like their ancestors did for over three hundred years during the era of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Sierra Leoneโs government cannot credibly claim the need for a fishing port when Chinese fishing trawlers have stolen (are stealing) most of the fish in our territorial waters โ with European nations with satellite technology having the capacity to watch what is going on. Like during the era of the Atlantic Slave Trade, Sierra Leone is in the vortex of what the Chinese Ambassador called โgeopoliticsโ. Sierra Leone lacks the capacity to play this Fish War Game alone โ Chinaโs military budget at $178 billion is second only to the United Statesโ $740 billion (Nigeria, the West African super power has a military budget of just two billion dollars). Africa is challenged to forge meaningful unity over this FISH WAR issue. As Dr. Umar Johnson has warned, with millions of Chinese settling in Africa as businessmen who can mutate into being soldiers, Africa may have to face the Chinese naval strength of about 800 vessels (the largest in the world!), and military aircrafts of 3,260, the third largest in the world; not to talk of Chinese prowess in information technology and artificial intelligence technology that rivals that of the United States and Europe. TO BE CONTINUED.
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