In this issue:

African Health Ministers: AIDS Treatment Is a 'Human Right'

Clinton Foundation, UN To Provide Food to AIDS Patients

WHO Announces Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Strategy

Rebellion in Darfur Could Lead to Breakup of Sudan

U.S. Troops Try New Anti-Terror Methods in Africa

Indian Consortium To Rebuild Mozambique Railway

Namibia, Zambia Inaugurate Bridge Across Zambezi River

Namibia: Land Seizures Have Begun

From Volume 3, Issue Number 20 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published May 18, 2004
Africa News Digest

African Health Ministers: AIDS Treatment Is a 'Human Right'

Access to AIDS treatment is a human right, eleven African health ministers said May 13 as they launched a solemn appeal for urgent assistance from wealthy countries following a conference in Rome. "We ask this in the name of a human right, which is called the right to treatment, in the name of intelligent globalization, which should be equally capable of globalizing solidarity," they said at the close of the two-day conference organized by the Roman Catholic Community of Sant'Egidio. "We ask that the most developed countries mobilize economic and human resources to bring a halt to this extermination," the ministers said.

Addressing pharmaceutical companies, without naming them, the health ministers urged lower prices for antiretroviral drugs "to the point of being compatible with the weak resources of our countries." "AIDS is affecting the entire planet, but currently 70% of its victims die and are born in Africa," said the ministers from the Central African Republic, Congo, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania, and Togo. "The epidemic cuts down as many human lives as a world war."

Clinton Foundation, UN To Provide Food to AIDS Patients

The Clinton HIV/AIDS initiative and the UN World Food program have signed an agreement to provide food to AIDS patients undergoing anti-retroviral drug treatment in developing countries, according to a press release from the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation May 7. "One of the key challenges we face in tackling the HIV/AIDS crisis is that if a patient is malnourished, the ARVs often do not take full effect," said Clinton. "Furthermore, malnourished patients are frequently susceptible to other opportunistic infections and illnesses. This agreement aims to ensure a more effective response in dealing with a crisis where the poor are disproportionately affected, and I look forward to working with the WFP to ensure that food support becomes an integral part in the delivery of comprehensive care and treatment to those suffering from HIV/AIDS," Clinton added.

WHO Announces Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Strategy

A press release announcing WHO's World Health Report 2004—Changing History, claims that WHO and UNAIDS are, for the first time, implementing a comprehensive HIV/AIDS strategy, which links prevention, treatment, and care and support for people living with AIDS. "Until now, treatment has been the most neglected element in most developing countries. Yet among all possible HIV-related interventions, the report says it is treatment that can most effectively boost prevention efforts and in turn drive the strengthening of health systems and enable poor countries to protect people from a wide range of health threats."

Dr. Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director, is quoted: "Scaling up effective HIV treatment and prevention programs is the best strategy to save lives and keep future generations HIV-free."

The press release claims that more than U.S. $20 billion has been pledged by donor countries and through multilateral funding agencies, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS Relief; and the World Bank. "These funds must now be used swiftly and in a coordinated way to prolong the lives of millions of children, women and men who will otherwise soon die."

The report says the delivery of AIDS treatment and prevention also offers the chance to build up health systems in the poorest countries. Dr. Lee Jong-wook, Director of WHO, is quoted: "Future generations will judge our era in large part by our response to the AIDS pandemic. By tackling it decisively we will also be building health systems that can meet the health needs of today and tomorrow. This is an historic opportunity we cannot afford to miss."

In September 2003, WHO, UNAIDS, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria declared lack of access to treatment with antiretroviral medicines a global health emergency. "In response," the WHO report says, "these organizations and their partners launched an effort to provide three million people in developing countries with antiretroviral therapy by the end of 2005—the so-called '3 by 5' initiative."

By March 2004, 48 of the countries with the highest burden of HIV/AIDS had expressed their commitment to rapid treatment expansion and requested technical cooperation in designing and implementing scale-up programs.

The WHO report says the scaling up of treatment can support and strengthen prevention programs. Where treatment has been made available, it says, this has led to an overwhelming demand for testing and counseling.

To help accelerate the treatment initiative, WHO has developed a simplified set of antiretroviral drug regimes and testing and treatment guidelines that it claims are consistent with the highest standards of quality of care. These regimens, it says, make it possible for even the poorest areas to start treating those who need it.

Rebellion in Darfur Could Lead to Breakup of Sudan

The rebellion against the Sudanese government in western Darfur could lead to the breakup of Sudan; the U.S. Congress and State Department support the rebels by focussing on human rights violations. (Darfur province adjoins Chad below the Howar River.)

The rebellion, by the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), "poses in many respects a greater threat [to Khartoum] than the [earlier] activities of the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the South," Acting Assistant Secretary of State Charles Snyder told the House International Relations Committee May 6.

Charles Cobb, Jr., writing May 7 for allAfrica, comments, "Rarely is the full committee called to discuss an African issue. But the unusual and powerful coalition of conservatives and liberals that keep a watchful eye on [Sudan] is now calling Darfur's conflict 'the world's worst humanitarian crisis.'"

"According to Snyder, sustained rebel attacks by combined SLM and JEM forces, on and around the regional capital of El Fasher [Al Fashir] early this year, rang loud alarm bells in Khartoum," Cobb writes.

But Ted Dagne of the Congressional Research Service drew out the full meaning of the rebellion: "This past March" Ted Dagne told AP: "Darfur has really shaken up this regime. Where do they stop this train? If you give in to the political demands of the Darfur rebels, why not to the Beja (in eastern Sudan), why not to the Nuba (in central Sudan) and a bunch of the other marginalized areas?"

The African Union has proposed a peace plan. Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail, in Nairobi May 6, said his government viewed the plan positively.

At the UN, when the Africa bloc nominated Sudan May 4 for re-election to the UN Commission on Human Rights, U.S. diplomats staged a walkout.

U.S. Troops Try New Anti-Terror Methods in Africa

The U.S. campaign against terrorism in Africa—where, allegedly, a number of al-Qaeda militias have assembled to form a network of terror—is being overseen by the U.S. European Command and the approach is "preventive," says a May 11 front-page article in the New York Times.

The head of the European Command, Lt. Col. Powl Smith, told the Times that the al-Qaeda-linked militants, who have been pushed out of Afghanistan, and blocked by increased surveillance of traditional points of entry along the Mediterranean coast, are making overland trips to make contact with Islamic militant groups in North Africa. There are reports that these militants are collecting weapons such as mortar launchers, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and surface-to-surface missiles, according to the Command.

The U.S program, called the Pan-Sahel Initiative, was originally focused on Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad, and the approach is to shore up border controls and deny sanctuaries to suspected terrorists. Subsequently, the program has been expanded to include Senegal, and possibly other countries. The problem that the U.S. faces, according to the European Command, is that the Islamists in the region are in touch with each other, while the governments in the area are mostly not.

Indian Consortium To Rebuild Mozambique Railway

The Mozambique government May 11 appointed an Indian consortium, Rites and Ircon International, to rehabilitate and operate the Beira railway system, Business Day of Johannesburg reported May 12. It will operate the line for 25 years and manage it jointly with the Mozambique public railway company.

Mozambican projects being considered by South African firms, such as steel maker Iscor and the Industrial Development Corporation, can take off once efficient and affordable railway infrastructure is in place. The line was damaged beyond use in the civil war.

The system includes the line from the port of Beira to Machipanda on the Zimbabwe border and the Sena line that goes north from the port at Maputo to the Moatize coal mine in western Tete province.

"The rehabilitation of the line will break a deadlock that has strangled multimillion-dollar investments in the Zambezi Valley," according to Paulo Zucula, head of spatial development initiatives at the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA). The DBSA said the project included restoring the entire railway infrastructure, acquiring new engines and other rolling equipment, and installing a telecommunications and security system. The work is expected to be completed over three years.

The World Bank has pledged $120 million of the $170 million needed.

Namibia, Zambia Inaugurate Bridge Across Zambezi River

Namibian President Sam Nujoma and Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa May 12 inaugurated a new bridge across the Zambezi River, enabling the Namibian port at Walvis Bay to become a gateway to the world for landlocked countries of the Southern African Development Community. The 900-meter Shesheke Bridge connects Namibia to central Africa, extending the Trans-Caprivi transport corridor through to Ndola in northern Zambia and to Lubumbashi in DR Congo.

Zambia has been using Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania) and Durban (South Africa) for its exports, which are far from the Zambian capital at Lusaka and far from the Zambian copper belt.

The bridge replaces a ferry service that was the only means of transport across the river and was built by German and South African companies. It was mainly funded by the German government.

Namibia: Land Seizures Have Begun

The Namibian government has issued its first notice of expropriation of land. Minister of Lands, Resettlement, and Rehabilitation, Hifikepunye Pohamba, has invited the owner of two farms outside Windhoek to name her price, in the first-ever expropriation of farms by the Namibian government. The expropriation program replaces the failed willing-buyer, willing-seller policy. The move was taken according to the terms of the Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reform Act of 1995.

The two farms—where workers were fired and evicted last year—are both owned by Hilde Renate Wiese. The Ongombo West farm is 3,600 hectares in size (about 9,000 acres); Voigtskirch is 403 hectares (about 1,000 acres).

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