In this issue:

WTO Deal for Cheaper Generic Drugs Is Only 'Cosmetic'

UN's Info Network Reports Shift in Sudan Rebels' Demands

Defense and Security Ministers Named in Ivory Coast

Liberia: UN Security Council To Vote on Large Peacekeeping Force

From Volume 2, Issue Number 37 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Sept. 16, 2003
Africa News Digest

WTO Deal for Cheaper Generic Drugs Is Only 'Cosmetic'

The Aug. 30 WTO agreement—to permit poor countries to import generic copies of patented drugs—is mostly cosmetic, aid agencies are saying. What countries will be allowed to import the generic copies of patented drugs for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, that such countries as India, Brazil, and South Africa are now permitted to make? Under the WTO agreement, countries wishing to import these cheaper generics must provide evidence to the WTO that they are not capable of producing such drugs themselves, and that the imports will not wind up being smuggled out of the country.

The deal "is largely cosmetic and will not make a significant difference," said Celine Charveriat of Oxfam, BBC News reported Sept. 8. "The deal was designed to offer comfort to the U.S. and Western pharmaceutical industry," said Ellen t' Hoen of Doctors Without Borders, according to the Observer of Britain Aug. 31. The Observer says that "according to trade analysts, the deal will be unable to provide the quantities of drugs needed to combat the world's growing deadly infections.... There has been immense pressure for poor countries to adopt the deal."

Gitura Mwaura, chairman of the Kenya Coalition for Access to Essential Medicines, stated that "America is arm-twisting. It's a triumph for corporate greed." Jonathan Berger of the AIDS law project at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) said, "The sense is really that it is way too much red tape, and that it is not a feasible solution to the problem." Both comments are reported by Reuters news wires.

U.S. pharmaceutical companies refused to broaden the talks to include medications for other diseases. The Observer says the agreement "comes as a new study reveals a massive outbreak of hepatitis C in Africa. Oxfam reveals that 170 million globally are infected.... The disease is labeled 'Africa's silent killer.' "

Also, aid agencies "believe that generic drug producers are not as willing to reach poor markets as first thought," BBC News reported Sept. 7, but it adds that "Aspen Pharmacare, South Africa's largest producer of generic drugs, has already announced it is planning to double production of medicines in the next year."

UN's Info Network Reports Shift in Sudan Rebels' Demands

The Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) has dropped its demand for its own separate army, and on Sept. 9, at the Sudan peace talks in Naivasha, Kenya, proposed the formation of an integrated army, according to a wire from the UN's Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) Sept. 11. "This represents a shift in the strategy employed by the SPLM, which up until now has held that the government-controlled army and the rebel group should not be integrated" during the six-year interim before the planned southern vote on unification or secession. However, the European news services BBC and AFP do not report this, and continue to say, as of Sept. 11, that the SPLA/M insists on keeping its forces intact.

IRIN's source at the talks said, "We have no breakthroughs yet, but we have no breakdowns."

Following one-on-one talks between Sudanese VP Ali Othman Taha and SPLA/M leader John Garang from Sept. 4 to 9, there is expectation of a breakthrough on both sides; the agreed strategy is to negotiate security questions first, believing agreement in other areas will then flow more easily.

Garang is leading his negotiating team and said he has been authorized to make "difficult decisions" by his governing council, Arabic News reported Sept. 5. He usually sends others to negotiate. Sudan's Minister of Defense, Maj. Gen. Bakri Hassan Salih, and other army generals, joined the talks Sept. 10. State TV reported that President Omar Hassan al-Bashir would hold "an emergency meeting" Sept. 11 with leaders of political parties to discuss "the swift developments in the ongoing peace process," according to IRIN. And the government has asked editors-in-chief of Sudan's newspapers to go to Kenya to cover "the big event" expected there, Arabic News reported Sept. 11.

Defense and Security Ministers Named in Ivory Coast

On Friday, Sept. 12—on the eve of a visit of the French Defense Minister—the National Security Council (CNS) of Ivory Coast met and selected, at last, the key ministers of defense and security, after the "ex"-rebels refused to attend the meeting. The CNS includes representatives of the rebel organizations, the civilian political parties, and the defense and security forces. Now the rebels say that President Laurent Gbagbo forced the appointments "unilaterally."

The signatories of the Marcoussis Accord (the rebels, their political fronts, and the civilian political parties) had submitted two names for each post, some weeks ago, and the appointments do come from these names.

The ambassadors of France, the U.S., and Italy (representing the EU), and Kofi Annan's representative, were on hand at the Presidential palace for the event, along with the national and international press, but left when it was clear that a struggle was still going on.

Gbagbo made concessions on two other issues that the rebels demanded be settled before the CNS could meet. Nevertheless, at almost midnight, the rebels refused to attend. The meeting took place without them.

Arch-rebel Ouattara, last seen in Washington, is in touch with his partisans in Ivory Coast by telephone.

National television announced the appointment of Rene Amani (Defense) and Martin Bleou (Security). It is the appointment of Bleou to Security that the rebels do not accept. The other choice for Security submitted by the Marcoussis signatories had been Fofana Zemogo of Ouattara's RDR Party.

French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie arrived Sept. 14 for a two-day official visit.

Liberia: UN Security Council To Vote on Large Peacekeeping Force

The UN Security Council will vote on authorizing a peacekeeping force of 15,000 on Sept. 19, according to Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert, military adviser to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), who spoke at a UN press briefing Sept. 11. The plan also calls for 900 civilian police officers.

Cammaert said the UN would assume responsibility for peacekeeping in Liberia Oct. 1, and he hoped to have a force of 15,000 in Liberia by mid-November, according to VOA News Sept. 11. There are 3,000 West African peacekeepers in Liberia now, most of them Nigerians, and most of them in the capital. If qualified, the existing peacekeepers would don UN blue helmets and become the backbone of the new force. Cammaert says the lesson from Sierra Leone is, get as many troops as possible on the ground immediately; an incremental approach is dangerous.

Never have so many nations shown interest in taking part in a peacekeeping mission, even before a Security Council resolution had been voted, Cammaert said. He declined to name them, except for India and Pakistan. He said the U.S. was considering sending staff officers to train a small Liberian army. Press reports do not say which governments are willing to pay for the mission.

The need for 15,000 troops is patent. The arrival of peacekeepers in Monrovia pushed the fighting into the countryside and the towns. "Camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) have become the new battlefields in Liberia, where warring parties now compete with desperate families for the meager resources provided by relief agencies," according to a UN news release Sept. 8, which adds, " 'IDPs have discouraged the distribution of food, out of fear of being attacked and looted by combatants, despite their acute food needs,' said Ross Mountain, UN Special Humanitarian Coordinator." VOA News on Aug. 28 reported thousands of people were walking in groups toward already overcrowded Monrovia, to escape fighting in major towns. There are about 500,000 IDPs, 300,000 of them in Monrovia, Save the Children UK reported Sept. 11.

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