Chinese feel stigmatised because of wildlife crime

Chinese feel stigmatised because of wildlife crime The Chinese embassy in Namibia has urged Namibians to be careful of witch-hunting and said China was an easy target when it came to wildlife crime in Namibia.

According to embassy charge d'affaires Li Nan, who was speaking at a Wildlife Day Seminar in Windhoek, there has been overwhelming negative news coverage about Chinese citizens and China in the local media. In the past three months there had been more than 70 negative reports on China, mostly on wildlife crime, he said.

According to him there have been 74 negative reports and only 28 neutral or positive reports.

Li said he was worried about the rising sentiment against the Chinese community in Namibia.

“It is truly regrettable and unfortunate that some Chinese individuals have committed illegal activities against wildlife,” he said.

Li said according to a local report, only eight out of 231 people arrested in 2016 for wildlife offences in Namibia were Chinese.

“So every time when you are trying to blame a group of people be aware of the collateral damages to the innocent ones.”

He said China condemned all sorts of wildlife crime and its government had a zero tolerance towards criminals and lawbreakers, whether they were Chinese nationals or not.

Li said China fully supported the Namibian government's decision to amend the Wildlife Protection Act to provide for harsher punishments for poachers and smugglers of wildlife products.

“China has no intention to interfere with the Namibian judicial sovereignty. China has never done so and will never do so,” he said.

Li said that the few “Chinese rotten apples” did not represent the local Chinese community, the Chinese embassy or their government.

According to him the majority of Chinese people in Namibia are honest and abide by the law, create jobs, pay taxes and make voluntary contributions to local communities.

“Please be aware of the dangerous temptation of witch-hunting because it will only damage our traditional friendship and cooperation, nothing more.”

At a separate occasion last week, the deputy minister of environment and tourism, Tommy Nambahu, said the ministry had been accused of defending Chinese nationals involved in wildlife crimes.

“But this is not true. What we simply have done is a separation of criminals from good citizens from each and every country that is involved in these crimes.

“Our government stands for peaceful co-existence between countries and friendship between nations. Inasmuch as we condemn the unbecoming activities of the nationals of those countries, we equally stand for the promotion of friendship between peoples and countries.”

He said China was a long-time friend of the Namibian government and the ministry called on all Chinese nationals to come on board in the protection of wildlife and support the anti-poaching drive.

He said, however, that the ministry would not condone the violation of any law by any criminal, be they from China, a neighbouring country or elsewhere.

“Our message is that this is not a banana republic and we must be taken seriously when we are executing our duties, including that of protecting our wildlife,” Nambahu said.

Li further said that the Chinese embassy had donated N$200 000 towards wildlife protection and was considering providing tens of millions more.

China was also working on a plan for joint law enforcement involving the Namibian police and China's Ministry of Public Security to combat transnational crime, he said.

The Chinese embassy also called upon the Chinese community to set up a Chinese wildlife protection fund in Namibia.

ELLANIE SMIT