Last week I entrusted a letter to Mr Chris Hudson of the IWCC in America – to be delivered into the hands of Mr Ryan Zinke, Secretary to the Department of the Interior in the Unites States of America. The International Wildlife Conservation Council (IWCC) is an advisory body to Mr Zinke and it deals with all aspects of wildlife management and hunting – and the benefits that hunting brings to the rural people of Africa. Mr Hudson is chairman of the IWCC’s policy committee.
In this letter I requested of Mr Zinke that America should invoke the provisions of its Pelly Amendment on Mozambique for its lack of commitment to stopping the poaching of rhinos in Kruger National Park by Mozambican nationals. The lack of arrests of poachers in Mozambique is clear evidence that “someone” high up in that country’s political elite was providing immunity from arrest to Mozambican poachers involved in the rhino killings in Kruger National Park – and probably, as a consequence, was getting a cut of the proceeds.
The Pelly Amendment allows America to legally apply economic sanctions on any country that does or says anything “against America’s wishes”. And I explained to Mr Zinke that I was sure that poaching Kruger National Park’s rhinos into extinction was NOT one of America’s ‘wishes’.
This same suggestion – within the body of another report – was conveyed to the Minister for Environmental Affairs in South Africa.
__________________________
To: Mr Chris Hudson
Chairman, IWCC Policy Committee
U.S. Department of the Interior 11 April 2018
Dear Sir,
Request that the United States government invoke the provisions of its
PELLY AMENDMENT
to bring to an end the poaching of rhinos in Kruger National Park, South Africa
My recent introduction to you of this idea, by email, refers.
To make this idea meaningful you must first understand and accept that all the big elephant and rhino poaching events in Africa since 1970, have not been orchestrated by the so-called Chinese Mafia, but by the political African elites of the countries where these poaching events took place. These countries include Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Zambia. I have documented these events in my book “ELEPHANT ‘CONSERVATION’ – The Facts and the Fiction, a copy of which you will be receiving soon, in the mail. Kenya and Tanzania alone – between 1970 and 1993 – according to the figures at my disposal – accounted for over half a million elephants.
The modus operandi has remained virtually the same in every case. The head of state, or his close family members and their political cronies, recruited (mainly) the rural village hunters to do the shooting (although the military, the police, game department officials, and sometimes professional hunters are all reported to have been sometimes implicated in the general slaughter); and the shooters were given immunity from arrest. The score card for Kenya alone, is alleged to have included 250 000 elephants (all killed during the 1970s and 1980s), 10 000 black rhinos; 5 000 Zebras and 26 000 Colobus monkeys. The elephant figures for Tanzania are much the same (1987 to 1993 – although there was another spate of elephant killings {44 000} in Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve between 2008 and 2014.
The contraband was all shipped out through East African seaports to the Far East, without CITES documentation, but under presidential decree.
I do not have figures for Mozambique but in recent years a very large number of elephants were killed in that country’s northern Niassa Province – with the local villagers, apparently, pointing hesitant fingers at elements of their political elites. All the indications are that the same routines were followed in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Zambia (in the 1980s and 1990s to the present time), as happened in Kenya and Tanzania previously.
You must understand that these huge poaching events have been VERY HOT political potatoes in Africa for a very long time. Few people talk about them – even today – because they all know that whistle-blowers in Africa have a very short life expectancy.
Over the last five or six years over a thousand white rhinos per year have been poached in South Africa’s Kruger National Park; and the price of rhino horn has now exceeded the price of gold. The leaders of the poaching gangs are Mozambican nationaIs who flaunt their newly acquired wealth. Many of their names and the locations of their homes are known. They live in flashy homes and drive equally flashy motor cars. They all seem to live charmed lives because no attempts have been made by the Mozambican authorities to arrest them. And rumour has it, that a senior member of the political elite (linked to the police) has given them immunity from arrest. So the old tried and tested recipe for getting-rich-quick seems to be in operation again – this time in Mozambique.
Despite persistent anti-poaching efforts in South Africa, by the military, by para-military police units, specially trained para-military game rangers, and special dog units, the poaching continues practically unabated. And the death score mounts daily. Over a thousand rhinos killed a year amounts to some three rhinos killed every day. And, although our government repeatedly claims to have been ‘in contact’ with the Mozambican authorities, nothing changes. Indeed, there are indications that some members of South Africa’s political elite are ‘involved’.
The U.S. Pelly Amendment
The U.S. Pelly amendment was brought to my notice at the CoP17 CITES meeting in Johannesburg in 2016. Suffice it to say that I have been told how it works. It is a legislative protocol that enables the American government to apply economic sanctions on any country that “goes against America’s wishes”; or that otherwise is an affront to the American administration. If this is true, then I would respectfully request that the United States government threaten to invoke the provisions of the Pelly Amendment on the government of Mozambique if it does not stop its nationals from poaching rhinos in Kruger National Park.
Sir, we have now NO other avenues to explore – to bring to an end to this terrible slaughter of our rhinos. So, we hope and trust that by just threatening to invoke the provisions of the Pelly Amendment, your country might just become the magic wand we have been seeking.
Thank you for taking the trouble to listen to my plea. It comes, I can assure you, from the very bottom of my heart!
With kind regards,
Ron Thomson CEO -TRUE GREEN ALLIANCE