XENOPHOBIC VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA SHAMES MADIBA
It's becoming a bit of a habit now in South Africa for African migrants to be attacked, wounded and killed every two years. Xenophobia is the only way to describe it. The criminals elements in that country chase African out their homes, loot their businesses and in the process, turning reasonably good people into instant refugees not knowing what could happen to them day by day. We have no idea why South Africans always behave this way to their African brothers and sisters. Let's make a few comments on what we've heard so far from the international media.
1. That all Africans, particularly those from south of the Sahara, must go back to their countries because they are taking jobs from ordinary South Africans. So what about those white foreigners who are busy making money in South Africa? Is it because they are white? We need some emancipation here, don't we?
2. The Somalis and Congolese who are running corner shops, are they also taking jobs from ordinary South Africans? We think they simply invested what little cash they took down south as good business people.
3. Is the politician who made the speech which is believed to have sparked this fire not a candidate for the ICC? The ICC was fighting hard to prosecute Kenyan leaders for election violence, what would they now do to the Zulu king who has caused such mindless violence and destruction?
4. Is this how a nation that poor African countries, including Sierra Leone carried on their backs during Apartheid should behave now that they have their freedom. We hope other Africans don't do any tit-for -tat. Or we will all look like them.
5. A South African is leading the African Union at the moment but her countrymen do not believe in the main reason the union was established for. Funny eh?
6. Whatever happened to Desmond Tutu's idea of a RAINBOW NATION and MADIBA's call for tolerance? The white Apartheid idiots in that country are now having a good time watching Africans killing Africans inside Africa. Not all South Africans support what is happening but the whole thing looks suspiciously too organised...shame shame shame!
DID SIERRA LEONEANS DIE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA?
Not for the first time, we are forced to ask the Salone government to tell the good people of this country if any Sierra Leoneans are among those dying in the Mediterranean Sea as they attempt to reach Europe. The International Organisation for Migration says about ONE THOSAND SIX HUNDRED PEOPLE have so far died this year trying to reach Lampedusa. It's just right that somebody takes us seriously enough to give some information.
We remember breaking the story of about 50 Sierra Leoneans who were stranded in Libya, after having been dumped their by a people smuggler. Many of them were repatriated but God alone knows where they are at the moment. Could it be that some of them have decided to try their luck once more?
Why, despite all the suffering and death in the new African graveyard called the Mediterranean Sea, Africans are still trying to reach Europe by that route? Here's what we think.
1. Clearly some of those Africans are fleeing war in their own countries and even in their host country -Libya. Ghadaffi was a cruel dictator but what is happening in Libya has caused many people to wonder if this was what the Libyan people were promised during the Arab Spring.
2. Those coming from Eritrea are fleeing persecution and lack of basic freedoms - things people in Europe take for granted.
3. Most of those migrants fleeing from West Africa are running away from abject poverty, occasioned by corruption and a complete lack of opportunities.
4. West Africans are also fleeing undemocratic tendencies and ominous signs of Bokasa and Amin style dictatorships all over again. It's no exaggeration.
5. The people just want to have a good and long life. Life expectancy in West Africa is a disgrace.
SLFA CAN'T STAND THEIR REAL MEMBERS: CONGRESS POSTPONED AGAIN
How can anybody explain what happened in Makeni without concluding that the real issue at the heart of the impasse in the administration of the Sierra Leone Football Association goes back to the flawed election process that brought the Queen of Sierra Leone Football to the throne? What happened in Makeni is further bad publicity for the local game, deliberate waste of the people's money and time, leaving some reputations in absolute tatters.
Frankly, the whole country saw this coming. Everybody knew the conference would collapse over the question of REPRESENTATION. That's in terms of who was an accredited delegate to the congress. And despite the efforts of State House, nothing was going to turn things around for the following reasons:
1. We haven't seen any delegates' conference for which the names of those delegate were only revealed at the entrance of the conference - well for more than half of the delegates. The names of delegates to SLAJ congresses - elective or ordinary are published ONE MONTH prior to the congress.
2. Why was the SLFA trying so hard to select the delegates of their member organisations? Take the case of the Western Area Football Association and the RETIRED HEROES for example.
3. Why was the SLFA so prepared to disobey even State House just to keep the Southern Region Football Association out of the congress. The SLFA told the world that the region suspended their participation in the body's executive committee "until further notice", therefore by extension they were ineligible for the congress. Now, if a member of SLAJ decides not take his seat in the executive, does that mean he loses his membership of the organisation? And didn't they give sufficient notice of their return?
4. The SLFA's decision to use Technical Knock Out to throw some delegates out of congress failed because nearly ten months after making wide-ranging match-fixing allegations against some of its own members, the SLFA has still not proved those allegations beyond reasonable doubt. That's a fact.
5. Johansen doesn't want to meet the certified delegates at a congress because she fears she will be impeached. We are sure an impeachment plan was in place in Makeni and remains on the table. So, a real congress is not likely any time soon. People are just fed up with all this.
SO IT IS RIGHT TO DEMONSTRATE, MR BERATER? Hahahahaha
No matter what spin is put on De Pa's recent visit to the United States, the spectacle of so many Sierra Leoneans demonstrating against him in a foreign country while on a mission as important as the one he just concluded is not a good one. Could he have done something about it? Or what can he now do about those events? We have no idea.
Now, while people think about those events that were fed into our mobile phones through social media, we would like to focus a bit on an interview the BERATER granted to a local radio station while those events were taking place in Obama Land.
The BERATER was asked specifically about those demonstrations against De Pa. His reply shocked us to our bones. The BERATER said demonstrations were part of the people's democratic rights and that even their host Obama of YES WE CAN fame experiences demonstrations against his policies all the time. Well that's absolutely correct. Coming from the BERATER, we thought this was all not happening in the real world. But it was.
Here was a guy who only a week or two before that interview told the good people of Sierra Leone there should be no demonstration in Freetown because violence would ensue and that those who dared express those DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS would face the law. As soon as he flew about 15 hours from Freetown, his eyes were open to what TRUE DEMOCRACIES are made of. May be he read some pamphlet about the greatness of Obama Land democracy in flight and he landed thinking, what was I talking about in Freetown. Or maybe there was an Obama Land guy close by eavesdropping on his responses to that interview and he didn't want to anger him so he had to be a DEMOCRAT for a few minutes at least.
All we know is that a DEMOCRACY is a DEMOCRACY and countries cannot be both a democracy and dictatorship at the same time.
There are millions of Sierra Leoneans who want to demonstrate their displeasure about several issues, not just this political thing that is making the BERATER jittery but they can't do it here. Maybe the Obama Land embassy should issue all those millions of visas. Please guys, even if the embassy did, don't expect many of those who make the trip to turn up in Washington because a good many would be busy applying for asylum. Didn't some of our athletes at the last Commonwealth Games fail to turn up for their events in Scotland because they were on their way to Croydon in south London to file asylum papers?
© Politico 21/04/15
