DRUG MULES ACCUSE DAR ENVOY IN HONG KONG

A general view of Hong Kong’s Stanley Prison. Tanzania's Ambassador to China Abdulrahman Shimbo is accused by drug mules imprisoned there of warning them to stop the campaign to deter other Tanzanians keen on drug trafficking. 

Dar es Salaam/Hong Kong. Tanzania’s ambassador to China, Lt General (rtd) Abdulrahman Shimbo, is on the spot following claims he had “threatened” Tanzanian drug mules jailed in Hong Kong.

The China Morning Post reported that the ambassador is being accused by the inmates of allegedly telling them to end a campaign waged from prison to deter others from the illicit trade.

This was in relation to a visit that Lt Gen Shimbo made to Stanley Prison in Hong Kong last month. Some 109 Tanzanians are being held there for drug trafficking and related offences. According to the newspaper’s Sunday edition, the envoy warned that the prisoners’ families could suffer unless they ended the campaign which they say is meant to alert others to avoid a similar fate.

However, the reports have been vehemently denied by a spokesperson at the Tanzanian embassy in China.

Mr Edmund Kitokezi, an official at the embassy in Beijing, who was quoted in the same report, denied the ambassador had threatened the inmates. Instead, he said, Mr Shimbo had encouraged them to speak up.

“We are positive about the campaign–this is the government’s position. It’s not the embassy’s job to tell anyone to stop,” Mr Kitokezi told Chinese newspaper. “Communications should continue,” he said, adding that Tanzania is committed to fighting illicit drugs trade.

The arrest of scores of drug mules last year -- at a rate of five or six per week, at times -- aaded up to over 100 Tanzanian inmates in the city, more than any other territory in China.

Fearing more of their countrymen would be lured into the drug trade, some inmates began writing letters home, warning potential couriers to think twice. The campaign was championed by Catholic Priest Father John Wotherspoon, a Hong Kong prison chaplain who published many of the letters on his website, V2Catholic.com.

The matter was soon picked up by Tanzanian media and the move is credited for helping stem the flow of the mules, with only 15 arrested in the past year, according to Father Wotherspoon.

But Mr Shimbo’s visit to the Hong Kong prison has opened a can of worms, with some inmates claiming he left them feeling “threatened”.

“He told the prisoners to cease their campaigns and warned them their families could be in danger, according to letters written by the prisoners and seen by the Sunday Morning Post,” the newspaper reported.

“The visit of our ambassador was like a disaster to us,” wrote Gervas, a Stanley Prison inmate.

“He discouraged our campaign against drugs, even … warning that we should be careful (or) we could endanger the lives of our families in Tanzania.

“He also went on to criticise our campaign, saying it has not brought any significant change.”

In July, a Tanzanian tabloid, Uwazi, raised safety concerns after it publicised the names - as well as a number of photographs - of 403 Tanzanians locked up abroad, including those in Hong Kong.

The city is often used as a gateway to China, as the penalties for drug-related offences are less severe and it does not have the death penalty.

The Citizen