Re: UK-based Ghanaian jailed for operating 'forgery factory'

My attention was drawn to Diasporian News of Thursday, 30 December 2010

in which The British High Commission under the title “UK-based Ghanaian jailed

for operating 'forgery factory” portrayed Dominic Owusu-Ansah a 40-year-old

Ghanaian national a criminal under UK’s Fraud and Identity Cards Act who has

been handed a four-year jail term in the UK following the discovery of a

forgery factory in Milton Keynes.

I have three problems with this British High Commission story. First,

the story unjustifiably links Dominic Owusu-Ansah to all kinds of crime the

story did not claim he committed.

Second, the story does not make clear that nationality in UK immigration

law is a code for race and in usual racist stereotypical fashion links a black man

with gangsters, illegalities, smuggling, fraud and crime. Third, the story around

Dominic Owusu-Ansah in

linking UK’s Fraud and Identity Cards Act and immigration crime is historically

partial and without historical context. These

are why I am writing a rebuttal.

My object is that you will understand the illegitimate historical

context of this crime and enjoy a more balanced perspective.

A number of organisations in the UK including Runnymede, London

European Research Centre and the London Metropolitan University amongst others

organised a conference “Crossing Borders: the legacy of the Commonwealth

Immigrants Act 1962” on 15/16 November 2002.

Dr A Sivanandan delivered the closing speech on British

State racism which sheds light on how

someone like Dominic Owusu-Ansah a man who simply wanted to make a living in

post-colonial Ghana and UK ends up

committing a crime because Dominic wanted to help his fellow nationals (read

race) survive by making a living.

It all started according to Dr. Sivanandan over 50 years ago when post-war

Britain

was in dire need of black labour. UK passed the British

Nationality Act of 1948 which made us all including Dominic Owusu-Ansah British

citizens. The Commonwealth Immigrants

Act of 1962 followed which said, in effect, that Britain needed our labour, not us.

It was the first step towards dismantling our

citizenship. It is the first bit of UK’s racist

immigration legislation; UK State racism was born. Racism was thus popularised and

institutionalised in the UK

in legislation, in government, in criminal justice.

The fight against this institutional racism has been ongoing. It was layered within

globalisation which Governments

helped to penetrate Third World Countries into further dependency through

so-called binding aid. This invasion of

Third World countries and of Eastern Europe (once Communist Europe) led to

repressive regimes, to dictatorships, social disintegration, internecine wars -

which, in their turn, displaced people and brought them as so much debris to

the shores of Europe.

The state under globalisation, Dr A Sivanandan continues, under the

free market system, under deregulation, privatisation, the move from social

welfare to social control was more concerned to serve multinational

corporations and big business than the poor and deprived of our societies. Thus the

strategy of successive home

secretaries in the UK is that

the repressive legislation that is being put forward against refugees and

asylum seekers and against the deprived generally is on behalf of the UK populace.

Following September 11 everybody who was

foreign, especially non-whites and Muslims and Arabs in particular, were, per

se terrorists and are guilty till proven innocent.

Dr. A. Sivanandan asserted “Racism never stands still. It changes

shape, size, contours, purpose, function, with changes in the economy, the

social structure, the system and, above all, the challenges, the resistances,

to that system. The racism we are faced

with today is not the racism we faced 40, 50 years ago”.

This is the racist strategic immigration game the British High

Commission is playing by publishing the story along with the picture of Dominic

Owusu-Ansah.

In the days of the British Nationality Act of 1948 there was no need

for the Dominics to forge identity papers because no laws forced them to in

order to get work and live in the UK.

Over the years till today our UK British Citizenship has been dismantled

through successive racist immigration legislation and we are labelled

criminals. Further articles will lay out

the full racist legislative story should The British High Commission deny and

attack me UK replaced racist colonialism

in post-colonial Ghana with racist immigration within UK against

Ghanaians.

The British High Commission after helping the unlawful overthrow of

The Government of Ghana shortly after passing its racist immigration law,

backed globalisation. UK’s state

racism went hand in hand with globalisation after the overthrow of the Pan

African Consensus of 1945 through the murder of progressive leaders and the

sponsoring of coups. In trying to make a

living like Dominic Owusu-Ansah the historic racist experiences we have

suffered in the UK have included our children bussed, black women examined for

virginity at ports of entry, being beaten up in police cells, spat upon, degraded

on the streets of UK, being burnt out of our homes, being deported at the

midnight hour without recourse to family, or friend or lawyer. Many will recall the

recent dehumanisation

and deportation of Ama Sumani.

This is some but not all the historical context that I want Ghanaians

to understand the British High Commission story. By black in this article I mean

both African

and Asian. I want Ghanaians to

understand that Ghanaians who come to the UK do not come to commit crimes like

people trafficking and sham marriages as the story was indirectly

implying. Ghanaians come to survive but

are forced into crime by racist immigration laws. The real crimes are the racist

laws that

create criminals who today underpin the British economy in its powerhouse in

London/South East as cleaners, night workers etc. It is this realisation that

the Liberal Democrats in the UK Coalition Government attempted to rectify

through the provision of an Amnesty, if elected into office, to all the people

that Dominic Owusu-Ansah was trying to help.

It is this initiative that the Conservatives in the Coalition

vetoed. The Coalition’s choice of

keeping people like Dominic Owusu-Ansah and those he is helping in crime is how

I want you to understand what Immigration Minister Damian Green is saying. Dominic

Owusu-Ansah is to be deported long

after blacks suffered horrendous racism that was visited on them until they

fought back and said, 'We are settlers not immigrants: we are here to stay and

here to fight'. The fight for justice is

clearly not over yet.

What you can do is go online at the foreign and commonwealth office

“http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/ministerial-feedback-form”

and fill in the feedback form calling for an “Amnesty and end to criminalising

Ghanaians as illegal immigrants under racist immigration laws.”

Background on Story:

The story said that Dominic

Owusu-Ansah who appeared before Huntingdon Crown Court on December 22, 2010

where he admitted the charges was among four people arrested and is to be

deported at the end of his sentence.

According to the story from the

British High Commission Officers from the UK Border Agency’s South East Region

Immigration Crime Team discovered dozens of fake documents such as blank visas,

passports and birth certificates when they raided a property in Oldbrook on

October7, 2010.

The story even quoted the Chief

Immigration Officer Jo Howorth from the UK Border Agency’s South East Region

Immigration Crime Team who linked “significant criminal enterprise” to “false

identities” that “help people work, claim benefits or stay illegally in the UK.”

I noted with careful dismay how in the story the Immigration Minister

Damian Green stressed UK Border Agency campaigns against immigration crime and

against people and gangs who have been abusing the system through sham

marriages, illegal working, people smuggling and document fraud.

Note: Kwami is a member of CPP and can be contacted on 07904-841-544

or on email at kwami_agbodza@yahoo.co.uk.

"Love what you do and, no matter how tough it gets, remember why you are

doing it - the cause. It's during the tough times that you really get to

prove your worth." (by Annie Kelly)