Ghanaians in China Cry for Help

A few weeks after the Government of Ghana spent thousands of dollars to airlift so-called stranded Ghanaian tourists from Trinidad and Tobago, another set of Ghanaians, this time in far away China is calling on government to save them from Chinese detention camps.

"I wish to send this information from China to you concerning the rampant arrests and detention of Ghanaian citizens in China", Mike Adom, one of the stranded Ghanaians in China alleged in an email to Public Agenda on May 27.

"In one of the cities in China here called Guangzhou there are a lot of Ghanaians in prison just because of over staying.

The current number of Ghanaians being held, including men and women is over 80, the letter further stated. Adom alleged that the Chinese immigration office is no longer interested in visa validity and is subsequently arresting both those who have overstayed and those who have valid visas."

You could have a valid visa but when policemen meet you and request for your passport and you give it out, they run a pen through the visa and bundle you into a waiting vehicle. If you are lucky to be released and another police man meets you with the canceled visa you would be arrested and jailed."

Adom disclosed that they are compelled to pay over $1200 penalty for overstaying and must be locked up for months after which they buy their own tickets to fly home." Please I hope the government of Ghana will come to our aid and help us all out of this place back home."

The question that comes to mind is, are they victims of circumstances or bad nuts bent on soiling the relations between Ghana and China?

During a dinner he hosted in April this year for the Ghana-China Friendship Association (GHACIFA) in Accra, the Chinese Ambassador in Accra, Yu Wenzhe said Ghana-China relations are based on mutual respect and dates back to the First Republic, when Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah established the fraternal He said President Nkrumah and Chairman Mao Tse-Tung developed the friendship because they had a common cause since both were heads of developing countries that shared common aspirations.

Mr Yu, said the diplomatic relations between Ghana and China had the added dimension of people-to-people relations in addition to the government-to-government relations.

China and Ghana established diplomatic relations on July 5 1960. The founding fathers of the two new-born republics laid a solid cornerstone for the development of the bilateral ties.

Zhou Enlai, Premier of the Chinese State Council, visited Ghana in 1964. President Kwame Nkrumah paid two visits to China in 1961 and 1966 and struck a deep personal friendship with former Chinese leaders Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai.