Chinese people answer President Khamas call to eradicate poverty
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To eradicate poverty, the President of Botswana, Ian Khama in his inaugural address of 2009 identified poverty eradication as one of his flagship programmes. The coordination thereof was subsequently housed in the Office of the President.
Packages introduced were mostly agricultural. Such range from bee keeping, backyard gardening, poultry, backyard tree nursery and landscaping to cite a few. The ineluctable fact is that the government did not take up arms against poverty alone. Embassies, the private sector and other independent stakeholders were implored to help. The Chinese Embassy in Botswana and the Chinese people living in Botswana are among those that answered the appeal, subsequently playing a plausible role in the agricultural sector.
Status quo
The Ministry of Agriculture’s Division of Research and Statistics says, about 69 percent of the population benefits from agriculture –as farmers, labourers or both. However, due to regular and prolonged droughts, the Ministry states that both crops and livestock have not been performing as expected. Notwithstanding challenges exacerbated by climate change, “the Chinese government has contributed to this industry through training. A few of our officers have attended courses in Head Management, Poultry, and Equines. Some travelled to China to benchmark, observing modern technologies employed by China,” says the Ministry’s Chief Information and Public Relations Officer, Boikhutso Rabasha.
Nevertheless, she called on China as a first world country to share its modern technologies. She said China should demonstrate and sell farming inputs and equipment at reasonable prices. As she believes Botswana can learn a lot from China. As for the Chinese community, other than direct involvements in farming, Rabasha says some have added value in the industry by opening food outlets to extend the food value chain.
Chinese Farmers
“It’s about time we diversified farming in Botswana. We cannot fight changing weather patterns or do anything about unpredictable rains, but we can look for and invest in plants that will cope. Which is why I decided to plant moringa trees,” says HuHe says this at a time when the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in partnership with the United Nations are fearful that Botswana could fail to reach UN goals on poverty eradication. The Botswana Sustainable Development Goals Roadmap launched by the partners in February 2018 cites high income inequality and failure to achieve inclusive economic growth as factors that demoralise poverty eradication.
Hu Yan, is a Chinese moringa tree farmer based in the outskirts of Tlokweng village. He is one of the Chinese people that responded to the Presidential call, taking to farming regardless of the fact that Botswana is a semi-arid country with unpredictable rainfall. A challenge that continues to discourage local farmers, consequently also hampering the endeavour to end poverty. Hu has been living in Botswana since 1996, and so he now considers Botswana home, a home for which he is doing all he can to help attain food security as he is well aware of the struggle.
In October last year after partnering with property mogul Sayed Jamali, Hu planted 10 000 seedlings at the Tlokweng farm. After three months, most of the trees had grown to over three meters long. “We packaged several product samples this past week and took them to the President for appreciation and approval,” says Hu. His plans are to produce tea, medicinal powder, green noodles, juice and moringa nuts, then sell them to local shops, eventually exporting the surplus.
“I plan to export to China, America and Europe. This tree cannot grow in those countries because of freezing weather conditions,” he says, excited at the prospect of commencing production work in his factory in March 2018. Hu’s moringa tree farming project has not only created employment for Tlokweng villagers, it has also inspired local farmers to consider investing into the moringa tree farming business.
“The other day my boss brought moringa mageu. My workmates drank it all and would not stop boasting about how delicious it is. Now I see that a lot of moringa products can be manufactured and sold,” says Kelibileone Diomano, a supervisor at Hu’s moringa farm.
Diomano enjoyed agricultural subjects at school, and because of this job he has been doing for Hu, he is considering planting his own trees.
“I used to think that moringa was a useless thing women liked selling on the streets. I knew nothing about it until Mr Hu. Right now I see the potential this plant has to develop and influence my life for the better,” he expounds. Before investing into the Tlokweng project Hu Yan motivated citizens to farm moringa, but his Gamodubu and Oodi village efforts failed due to lack of commitment and support on the part of his Batswana partners.
“I constantly encourage locals to buy and plant these trees, some do yes. But some think two years is a long time to wait for the tree to fully mature. They overlook the fact that you plant once, and for twenty years or so after, all you do is reap the benefits,” says Hu, adding that, “after three months of planting even, the leaves can be harvested and used as herbs when cooking eggs or they can be boiled in hot water to make tea.”
The benefits of investing in moringa he says are almost immediate. As a farmer Hu’s interests do not solely lie with moringa. At the Tlokweng farm, he and his partner are currently constructing a 1,800 square meters green house with the intention to plant vegetables, fruits, and flowers to sell to the local market. “This first one is only a pilot project, if it succeeds, we will construct three more. If this farm produces to capacity we will construct other green houses in Selibe Phikwe on the land President Khama promised us,” says Hu.
The green house under construction will be made of glass, custom made from China. In it, Hu plans to have a restaurant that will serve as a place of relaxation for town people, while students can visit and learn about traditional and modern ways of doing agriculture. To succeed, Hu says they could use financial support.
Chinese donors
Chinese farmers like Hu have taken up farming at a time when citizen farmers are dispirited. Kabelo Thari, of the Botswana Workcamps Association (BWA) is of the view that, “the climate change phenomenon has worsened Botswana’s unfriendly weather conditions, causing agricultural output to fall drastically in recent years.”
Before the Chinese took to direct farming, Chinese nationals and the Chinese Embassy often donated farming machinery like tractors, and availed funds to citizen farmers to acquire farm land when needed and even went as far as facilitating agricultural skills transfer.
Thari’s association is a beneficiary of the Chinese Association of Botswana’s financial support for agricultural projects.
Other than financial support given to them to establish a horticulture farm in Oodi village, the association availed leadership development training workshops to BWA members. “Unfortunately, our horticulture project did not bear fruit as the main challenge was pests, mainly termites,” he explains. Despite the failure, Thari and his team have not given up on the project, but hope the Chinese will continue assisting them so they realise their goal.
According to Statistics on Agricultural Produce with South Africa (SAPSA), collected between January and December 2017 by Statistics Botswana (SB), the country imported fruit juices worth over BWP178 million, but only made BWP950, 703.00 in export of the same product to South Africa (SA). Should farmers like Thari excel, Botswana would spend less on imports and export more for a change.
Overall, Statistics Botswana says over 80 percent of Botswana’s fresh produce comes from SA therefore Chinese people, like the Botswana government, would love to see Botswana become food sustainable, hence their active commitment in the ‘fight against poverty inequality and exclusion’ within the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, focusing on the principle of “leaving no one behind.”
Chinese advocates
While some like Hu Yan have taken to direct farming, others like Miles Nan who has also lived in Botswana for over two decades have established themselves as advocates of the development of the agricultural sector with the hope to see Botswana desist from importing food.
“Last week I went to Jiangsu Province in China. While there I visited a university and inquired on their ways of doing agriculture. I wanted technology on developing a new model of maize which does not need too much water and can survive Botswana’s climatic conditions. After consultations the professors there said they could help,” Miles reveals elated.
Should his efforts bear fruit, Botswana will spend less money on maize imports. Last year alone according to Statistics Botswana’s SAPSA, the country spent BWP10, 296, 729. 87 on maize seeds imports from SA, in turn making only BWP294, 975. 00 from exports of the same to SA. The seeds where meant to ensure the country produces its own maize meal as it spends millions buying from SA. Last year BWP23, 775, 698.00 was spent on maize meal imports from SA, and only BWP6, 996, 754.00 was gained from exporting maize meal to SA.
Miles is the Founding Director of a company called Mileage Air, a company he founded in 1999 driven by the desire to afford Botswana mechanical construction services. At present Mileage Air is the sole agent of GREE air-conditioning in Botswana.
In 2009, Miles invested into yet another passion, venturing into the media. His media company, other than running a newspaper, offers events management services.
One event that’s of interest to the discussion at hand is his Africa China Agricultural Cooperation and Development Summit. Through this event Miles advocates for the development of agricultural industries in Botswana, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt and Morocco. “Our first event ever was held last year in Zambia after we failed to have it in Botswana. Subsequently, we held the second one in August last year in Zimbabwe. Over a hundred people attended. We had invited professors and entrepreneurs from China, and discussions centred on technological development and cooperation,” says Miles.
The first 2018 summit will be held in May in South Africa, to be followed by small seminars in Botswana and Namibia. Besides the 2030 Agenda, Miles’ actions are in tune with African countries’ committed to implement the African Union Agenda 2063, which is both a vision and a plan to build a more prosperous Africa in 50 years.
“In August we will have similar events targeting Zambia and Kenya, and in October we do Egypt and Morocco,” elucidates the man who believes that to advance in the sector Botswana needs to capitalise on technology so that it can create models of plants that can survive the country’s temperatures. He said Botswana should design farm implements which suit its weather conditions.
Chinese networks
One manufacturer that is delighted by his custom-made equipment from China is Michael Hallam. “Our organic capacity before China was 5 000 tonnes per year. After China came on board the capacity of our granulation plant rose to 30 000 tonnes. Meaning 25 000 extra,” says Hallam, the Managing Director of the Organic Fertilizer Manufacturers Botswana company based in Mmamashia village. Hallam established his company in 2011, following his employment with a local feedlotting company.
“I saw mountains and mountains of manure lying around. Often I used the manure to grow crops that I then fed to animals. So naturally when I left my job I decided to put cow dung and poultry manure to good use rather than let it go to waste as it had been,” he says. His association with manure dates back to his childhood when he observed his grandfather use manure on his fields. The impact that organic fertiliser had on his grandfather’s plants never left him. At university in 1979 he wrote a thesis on the use of manure in cropping production.
When establishing his company in partnership with colleagues from Zimbabwe, Hallam saw an opportunity not only to live a dream, but one to encourage climate change mitigation. His desires would not have been realised without a Chinese company called Qingdao Seawinner Machinery and Engineering. “The first machinery we acquired was from India, when using it we found out that it was not appropriate for our requirements,” shares Hallam.
Fortunately for him he had spent eighteen months in China a few years before. When he found himself in desperate need of custom-made machinery, he took advantage of the networks he had created and located a company that made him a happy man. “I found Qingdao very professional. They shipped equipment and sent two engineers to come and assist with installing. We have not had issues with our machinery since installation in 2016,” he says.Hallam produces fertilizers like the Kalahari and the Neem eco organic by mixing manure with enriching products from India, Mexico, Europe and America.
The company invested in and installed a state of the art blending, coating and bagging plant with a capacity of 40 000 tons per annum, and a packing and sealing plant primarily for its organic products with a capacity of 20 000 tons per annum. With this massive investment and the granulating plant from china the company is well placed to cover all of Botswana’s fertilizer requirements and become a major exporter of products into the region.
Sixteen products are already registered in Botswana. Seven of these products are 100 percent organic. Hallam has already started selling his products in South Africa and Zimbabwe. “As the only registered fertilizer manufacturing company in Botswana, we are removing a problem from the environment while creating direct and indirect employment. Cow dung releases methane into the sky,” he says. Adding that, people are now going back to using organic fertiliser instead of chemical fertilizers which have since contaminated ground and surface water resources, and increased salinity of soils, almost wiping out a reasonable population of bees crucial for pollination across the globe.
With the contribution of the Chinese, Botswana seems to be making strides in the right direction. The Botswana Government is looking to reduce its reliance on imports and therefore fully supports local developments. When fully realised, hunger will be a thing of the past in this upper middle income country.
The irony of this being that for every undernourished person there are now two overweight people in the world. This work was produced as a result of a grant provided by the Africa-China Reporting Project managed by the Journalism Department of the University of the Witwatersrand.
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BMD disapproves homosexuality
The newly elected Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) Executive Committee led by Pastor Reverend Thuso Tiego has declared their disapproval of homosexuality saying it is anti-Christianity and Botswana culture.
Speaking at a Media Briefing this past week, BMD President Tiego said Botswana has been a country that respects culture hence endorsing homosexuality will be catastrophic.
“Our young generation grew up being taught about types of families, if homosexuality is passed, at what age will our children be introduced to homosexuality?” he rhetorically asked.
He continued: “If we are going to allow homosexuality then the next day, another person will come and say he wants to practice bestiality. What are we going to do because we have already allowed for this one (homosexuality) and at the end it will be a total mess.” Bestiality is sexual relations between a human being and an animal
This according to Tiego will give those people an opportunity thus disrupting known Botswana beliefs. He however dismissed any notion that the decision to condemn homosexuality should not be linked to the top two of the committee who are men of cloth. “This is a decision by the whole committee which respects the culture of Botswana and it should not be perceived that because we are clergymen we are influencing them, but even if we do, politics and religion are inter-related.”
Of late the church and the human rights organization have been up in arms because of the high court decision to allow for same sex marriages. Ministries ganged up, petitioned parliament and threatened to vote out any legislator who will support the idea. The ruling party, BDP which was to table the amendment in the constitution, ended up deferring it.
BMD President further revealed that he is aware of what really led to the split of the party and he is on course to transform as they approach 2024 elections.
“There are so many factors that led to split of party amongst others being leadership disputes, personal egos and ambitions, toxic factionalism and ideological difference just to mention a few, but we are transforming the party and I am confident that we will do well in the coming elections.
In addition, Tiego is hopeful that they will take the government as they feel it is time to rebrand Botswana politics and bring in fresh blood of leaders.
He further hinted that they are coming with positive transformation as they eye to better the lives of Batswana.
“When we assume government, we promise to be transparent, free and fair electoral processes and encourage pluralism as way of getting back to our roots of being a democratic country as it seems like the current government has forgotten about that important aspect,” Tiego explained.
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North Korea diplomats in suspected illegal ivory trade
Reeling under the increasing barrage of stinging international sanctions, the isolated North Korean regime is reportedly up to its old trickery, this time in a more complicated web of murky operations that have got the authorities of five southern African countries at sixes and sevens as they desperately try to tighten their dragnet around Pyongyang’s spectral network of illicit ivory and rhino horn trade.
It is an intricate network of poaching for elephant tusks and rhino horns that spans Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, with the main sources of the contraband being Botswana and South Africa.
The syndicate running the illegal trafficking of the poached contraband is suspected to be controlled by two shadowy North Korean government operatives with close links to one Han Tae-song, a disgraced North Korean career diplomat who, while serving as the second secretary at his country’s embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe, was expelled in 1992 after he was fingered as the mastermind behind a similar illegal ring that was busted by the country’s authorities.
This disturbing tale of malfeasance by North Korean state actors is as real as it gets.
Recent reports indicate that authorities in the source countries are jointly battling to plug holes created by the shadowy syndicate which allegedly has on its payroll, park rangers, border officials and cross-border truck drivers.
Even more disturbing are allegations that some wildlife officials are conniving in misrepresenting numbers of retrieved rhino horns and ivory from poachers and getting kickbacks for their involvement in the pilfering of ivory and rhino horns from government stockpiles especially in South Africa.
In a shocking and well-orchestrated movie-style heist in South Africa, thieves in June this year made off with 51 rhino horns after breaking into a very secure government stockpile facility of the North West Parks Board (NWPB).
While some suspects from South Africa and Malawi were nabbed in a government sting operation, none of the rhino horns – 14 of which were very large specimens that can fetch serious money on the black market – were recovered.
A report of the heist said the police were lethargic by eight hours in responding to an emergency alert of the robbery which was described by North West police spokesperson Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone as “… a case of business robbery…”
Thabang Moko, a security analyst in Pretoria says the military precision in the burglary, delays in police response, and failure to recover the stolen rhino horns is dubious. “This development lends credence to suspicions that some government officials could be part of a shadowy syndicate run by foreign buyers of rhino horns and ivory,” Moko says.
It is understood that in light of the rhino horns heist in North West, South Africa’s Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, Barbara Creecy on 1 August, shared her concerns to her counterparts in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique calling for greater regional cooperation to combat the illegal wildlife trafficking which she believes is being masterminded by the Far East’s buyers of the ill-gotten horns and ivory.
It is believed that foreign kingpins involved in perpetuating the illegal trade are mainly North Koreans vying against Vietnamese and Cambodian buyers in the quest for dominance of the illicit trade in rhino horns and ivory sourced from southern Africa.
Creecy’s concerns, which she also shared to South Africa’s state-run broadcaster SABC, echoed Moko’s worries that the North West heist may have been an inside job.
According to Creecy, there was a need for the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol)’s greater involvement in joint investigations by affected countries as there were indications of ‘local knowledge’ of the North West job and that syndicates, “Higher up the value chain actually recruit park rangers to the illegal ivory trade network.”
Botswana’s Environment and Tourism Minister Philda Kereng is on national record admitting that poaching was a source of headaches to her government, especially considering that the daring poachers were making successful incursions into secure areas protected by the Botswana Defence Force (BDF).
This came after poachers gunned down two white rhinos at the BDF-protected Khama Rhino Sanctuary in August 2022 despite Kereng putting the time frame of the killings between October and November 2022.
Kereng hinted at the existence of Asian controlled syndicates and acknowledged that the surge in poaching in Botswana is driven by the “increased demand for rhino horn on the international market” where in Asia rhino horns are believed to be potent in traditional medicines and for their imagined therapeutic properties.
Botswana has in the past recorded an incident of a group of an all-Asian reconnaissance advance team teams being nabbed by the country’s intelligence service in the Khama Rhino Sanctuary.
Masquerading as tourists, the group, with suspected links to North Korea and China, was discovered to be collecting crucial data for poachers.
Also according to reliable information at hand, an undisclosed number of wildlife parks rangers were arrested between September 2022 and January this year, after information surfaced that they connived in the smuggling of rhino horns and ivory from Botswana.
One of the rangers reportedly admitted getting paid to falsify information on recovered horns and ivory which were smuggled out of the country through its vast and porous eastern border with South Africa, and making their way to their final destination in Mozambique via back roads and farmlands in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
“We are aware that in the past year, some rhino horns and ivory illegally obtained from Botswana through poaching activities and shady deals by some elements within our wildlife and national parks department, have found their way out of the country and end up in Mozambique’s coastal ports for shipment to the Far East,” a Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) source says.
Independent investigations reveal that two North Korean buyers, one of them only identified as Yi Kang-dae [confirmed to be an intelligence official in the country’s state security apparatus], acting on behalf of the disgraced Han Tae-song, financed the entire operation on two occasions between 2022 and 2023, to move at least 18 rhino horns and 19 elephant tusks from Botswana, including pay-offs – mostly to border patrol and customs officials for safe passage – along the knotty conduit across South Africa’s north western lands, then across south-eastern Zimbabwe into Mozambique.
According to a trusted cross-border transport operator in Zimbabwe, the rhino horns and elephant tusks were illegally handed over to smugglers in Mozambique at an obscure illegal crossing point 15km north of Zimbabwe’s Forbes Border Post in November 2022 and February this year.
The end buyers in Mozambique? “It is quite an embarrassment for us, but we have solid evidence that two North Korean buyers, one of them who is linked to a former notorious diplomat from that country who has been in the past involved in such illegal activities in Zimbabwe, oversaw the loading of rhino horns and ivory onto a China-bound ship from one of our ports,” a top government source in Maputo said before declining to divulge more information citing ongoing investigations.
Yi Kang-dae and his accomplice’s whereabouts are presently unclear to Mozambican authorities whose dragnet reportedly recently netted some key actors of the network. Han Tae-song currently serves as North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations in Switzerland.
North Korean diplomats have in the past used Mozambique as a final transit point for the shipment of rhino horns to the Far East.
In May 2015, Mozambican authorities nabbed two North Koreans, one of them a Pretoria-based diplomat and political counsellor identified as Pak Chol-jun after they were caught in possession of 4.5kg of rhino horn pieces and US$100,000 cash.
Pak’s accomplice, Kim Jong-su, a Taekwondo instructor also based in South Africa, was fingered as a North Korean spy and returned to North Korea under suspicious circumstances on the heels of Pak’s expulsion from South Africa in November 2016.
A security source in Zimbabwe closely following current developments says there is a big chance that Han Tae-song may have revived the old smuggling network he ran while posted in Zimbabwe in the 90s.
“The biting international sanctions against North Korea in the past decade may have prompted Han to reawaken his network which has been dormant for some time,” the source says. “There is no telling if the shady network is dead now given that Han’s two front men have not been nabbed in Mozambique. More joint vigilance is needed to destroy the operation at the source and at the end of the line.”
North Korean diplomats have, as early as October 1976, been fingered for engaging in illegal activities ranging from possession of and trade in ivory pieces, trade in diamonds and gold, the manufacture and distribution of counterfeit currencies, pharmaceuticals, and the sale on the black market, of a paraphernalia of drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and other trinkets on the back of protracted and biting international sanctions against the reclusive state for its gross human rights abuses against its own people and flagrant nuclear tests.
These illegal activities, according to a US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, have raked in at least US$500m annually for the Pyongyang regime. Other global studies estimate that North Korea’s illegal earnings from the black market are around $1bn annually, and are being channelled towards the country’s nuclear weapons programme, while ordinary North Koreans continue to die of mass starvation.
In February 2014, Botswana, citing systematic human rights violations, severed ties with North Korea with the former’s president Mokgweetsi Masisi (then vice president) calling North Korea an ‘evil nation’ on 23 September 2016, at a United Nations General Assembly forum in Washington, USA.
Botswana has close to 132,000 elephants, more than any of its four neighbouring countries, namely Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, according to a 2022 Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) Elephant Survey.
The rhino population in Botswana has significantly dwindled, with poaching a leading cause of the decimation of the country’s rhinos. Despite dehorning and relocating its diminishing rhino population from the extensive Okavango Delta to undisclosed sanctuaries, Botswana has since 2018, lost 138 rhinos to poachers.
The sharp spike in rhino poaching in Botswana came after the country’s government made a controversial decision to disarm park rangers in early 2018.
In a statement delivered in November 2022 to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) CoP-19 in Panama, the Botswana government instead blamed the surge in poaching to a shift of foreign-sponsored organised poaching organisations from South Africa to Botswana.
“This increase in rhino poaching in Botswana coincided with a decline of rhino poaching in South Africa from 2018 to 2020, suggesting a displacement of the poaching syndicates from South Africa to Botswana,” the statement reads. “The recent decline in rhino poaching in Botswana (2021 and 2022, relative to 2020) coincides with the increase in rhino poaching in Namibia and South Africa, further suggesting displacement of the poaching syndicates across the sub-region.”
According to the Botswana government, as of 13 November 2022 the country has secreted its shrinking rhinos (only 285 white rhinos and 23 black rhinos) in undisclosed locations within the country’s borders.
South Africa has close to 15,000 rhinos. Between January and June 2022 alone, poachers killed 260 rhinos in South Africa for their horns. The country is home to the majority of Africa’s white rhinos, a species whose existence remains under threat of extinction due to poaching.
The major threat posed by foreign state actors including those from North Korea, to southern Africa’s rhino and elephant population remains grim as the bulk of the rhino horns and elephant tusks reportedly continue finding their way to the Far East, where China is being used as the major distribution centre.