For decades, kind and compassionate people, celebrities, conservationists, scientists and organizations around the world have campaigned to end the brutal and cruel practice of seal clubbing, an industry which is deservedly viewed with contempt and which has no place in modern society.
Our organization, a member of the International Anti-Fur Coalition and an umbrella body for other like minded organizations, has gone to great lengths to rationalise, plead with and maintain open dialogue with the government of Namibia in a bid to avert the crisis which now comes to bare.
It will stand on record that in September of 2011, at a stakeholders meeting convened by Ombudsman Adv. John Walters, the government was forewarned of an international backlash should the annual slaughter continue. A petition containing over 10 000 signatures calling for an immediate boycott was delivered in person to Adv. Walters.
The Hon. Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources for Namibia, Bernard Esau is regularly quoted in the media as inviting critics of the seal slaughter to go to Namibia in order to come up with viable alternatives and solutions.
In June of 2012, Adv. Walters dismissed much of the legal challenge to the seal slaughter and ruled that a seal is not an animal and is thus exempt from any legal protections afforded by the Animal Protection Act of 1962. The slaughter shall continue.
In a desperate attempt to keep open the doors of dialogue with the Namibian government, we decided to take the Hon. Bernard Esau up on his invitation by sending our representative to Namibia to study the seal colony, to work with the local communities and to investigate what possible solutions could be implemented.
In July of 2012, our representative was blocked at the border between South Africa and Namibia. He was detained and interrogated. His vehicle was ransacked by the authorities. He was labeled a "threat to the safety and security of the sovereignty of the Republic of Namibia." He was slapped with a refusal of entry into the country and faces a life long ban which includes a 5 year jail sentence and a $20 000.00 fine should he attempt to re-enter Namibia.
While can accept that a lone traveler weighing 55kg is a threat to a country that has the full might of an air force, a police force, an army, a navy and a secret service, we have also clearly shown that the Hon. Bernard Esau has no intention of honouring his invites and is merely paying lip service to a hungry media.
Still, we continued to pursue diplomatic and peaceful negotiations by way of a petition containing over 73 000 signatures. We also staged several peaceful demonstrations around the globe, calling on Namibia to end the annual massacre of 86 000 Cape Fur seals, a species listed on Appendix II of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora.
We have received no response from government other than decidedly rude and unprofessional replies coming from the Namibian Embassy in the USA as well as from the offices of the Henties Bay Municipality. It is thus seemingly useless to further continue with diplomatic relations against a government that, in the face of a mountain of scientific evidence to the contrary, continues to blame seals for a decline in fish stocks by slaughtering these animals in their thousands and disrupting the delicate ecology of the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem.
It must be noted that our declaration of war, though completely non violent, is sanctioned by the United Nations General Assembly under provisions stipulated in the World Charter for Nature.
As mentioned above, this is a Non-Violent war though there will certainly be extensive collateral damage to both big business as well as the tourism industry. The battlefield takes place online and begins with a boycott campaign which can be found here
The boycott is supported by our weapon of choice, the Tweet Bomb. Our army comprises of THOUSANDS of individuals, organizations and compassionate people who find the current brutal massacre of innocent defenceless seals to be nothing short of iniquitous and untenable. Our targets are celebrities, media houses, businesses, travel operators and more.
Further details, (including explanations that counter the banal propaganda and misinformation the Namibian government is fond of spewing) can be found on our website.
No comments:
Post a Comment