Africa News Digest
Mandela Charges Bush Threatens To Plunge World into Holocaust
"What I am condemning is that one power, with a President who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust," former South African President Nelson Mandela said in an address to the International Women's Forum in Johannesburg Jan. 30, to loud applause. According to Reuters, Mandela, reflecting the bitterness growing against the United States around the world, brought up America's atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski at the close of World War II, and asked, "Who are they now to pretend that they are the policemen of the world? ... If there is a country which has committed unspeakable atrocities, it is the United States of America... They don't care for human beings."
He expressed his happiness that people in the United States are opposing military action against Iraq. "I hope that that opposition will one day make [Bush] understand that he has made the greatest mistake of his life."
Also according to Reuters, the current South African President, Thabo Mbeki, has been active internationally in opposing war in Iraq. Reuters reports that Mbeki said that an Iraq war threatened to kill off development in Africa, and stressed that UN weapons inspectors need more time to complete their work.
Mbeki's activity dovetails with the statement by South Africa's Ambassador to the United Nations Jan. 27; he said that the South Africa model of disarmament, which has been cited by Hans Blix, President Bush, and Secretary of State Colin Powell, proves that the inspectors should be given more time. In fact, the South African Ambassador spoke right after U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Negroponte had claimed that Iraq must follow the South Africa model.
Mbeki is quoted as saying, "...[I]t is critically important that the inspectors should be allowed the necessary time to do their work.... We do not believe there is anything that has been said which says there is a need to go to war."
He also warned against surging oil prices: "I have heard it mentioned that the price of crude oil could rise even up to 80 [dollars a barrel]. If you had a situation of that kind ... we would have to say goodbye to African development," he said.
Consternation Over Bush's Africa AIDS Initiative
Both the Washington Post and New York Times on Jan. 30 ran front-page stories scrambling to "explain" President Bush's dramatic policy shift on AIDS in Africaa shift that, we have been told, came in direct response to Lyndon LaRouche's State of the Union address, given a few hours before Bush's on Jan. 28 and closely monitored in the White House.
The Washington Post describes Bush's shift as "a marked change from the position shortly after Bush took office, when a top official questioned the wisdom of trying to save the lives of Africans who had contracted AIDS," on the grounds that African infrastructure was so lacking it could not get medicines to patients. The Post attributes the shift to "an unlikely coalition of Christian evangelicals and liberal activists," along with the new Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist (R-Tenn), and input from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who had travelled to Africa, and from Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a very close friend of Bush's, who had also visited Africa.
The article cites Administration officials as saying AIDS has become a major cause for Christian evangelicals, many of whom are affiliated with missions in Africa. Additionally, White House staffer Josh Bolton, chief speechwriter Michael Gerso (an Evangelical Episcopalian) and even pop singer Bono (with whom O'Neill visited Africa) are being credited with Bush's surprise move.
The New York Times story focusses on Dr. Anthony Fauci secretly working under Bush's personal direction since June on an AIDS plan, and says that the White House is seeking to mend fences with African-Americans after the Trent Lott affair.
WFP: 38 Million in Africa Face Food Scarcity
The Word Food Program is warning that 38,373,000 people in Africa are suffering from food scarcity, according to the latest counts shown on their website "Hunger Alert" map. On Jan. 22, the U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe announced a $20 million food aid package for Zimbabwe; the UN estimates that only 30% of the farmland there is under cultivation.
France Breaks with Britain, U.S.; Invites Mugabe to Summit
France has broken with Britain and France on policy towards Zimbabwe, and invited Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to a Franco-African summit. The invitation to Mugabe to attend the Franco-African summit in Paris on Feb. 20-21, signed by French President Jacques Chirac, has produced "fury" in the British and U.S. governments, and among British and European parliamentarians, according to the Zimbabwe Independent Jan. 24.
Foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) were to "discuss at their general affairs council meeting [Jan. 27] what MPs on both sides of the English Channel are calling the most serious breach of the sanctions regime yet," says the Independent. The U.S. State Department said the French decision was "regrettable" and urged the application of EU sanctions in a "consistent and effective manner," according to Voice of America News Jan. 25. France, however, cites the exception in the sanctions regime for meetings promoting democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is now supposed to have reached agreement with the French government, according to which he will drop objections to Mugabe's attendance in exchange for a commitment from France to back the renewal of EU sanctions, which expire Feb. 18. Sources told the Independent that Blair had to accept the deal "after it emerged that some EU countries including Italy, Portugal and Greece, were unwilling to support the resumption of sanctions, claiming they were not working." Renewal requires the unanimous vote of all 15 EU members.
Japan Slams Zimbabwe Opposition Leader's Stance
Japan's Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Tsuneshige Iiyama, said his country was against calls by MDC opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to isolate Zimbabwe internationally, according to The Herald of Jan. 27. "No country can exist in isolation, and we don't think there is any reason for the international community to focus its attention on Zimbabwe," said Iiyama. Emphasizing that Zimbabwe had the potential to become the breadbasket of Africa, the Japanese Ambassador said that the resumption of dialogue between the Commercial Farmers Union and the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement was a significant development in the post-land reform program.
The Herald reported that the Japanese government had invited the Minister of Rural Resources and Water Development, Joyce Mujuru, to attend a water resources conference to be held in Japan in February.
The editor of The Herald, Pikirayi Deketeke, and journalists from Zambia and Malawi, have just returned from a 10-day trip to Japan, where they visited major industrial installations and discussed the process of Japan's industrial development. The editor notes that in Zimbabwe over the last two years, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has been working toward the improvement of rural infrastructure, such as consolidating the rural road network and the construction of roads and bridges, including the Chirundu Bridge. He added that Japan has also been implementing a photovoltaic rural electrification project and helping in sewage plant management in Victoria Falls and Chitungwiza.
Future African Development Will Be Powered by Nuclear
Future economic development in Africa will increasingly be powered by nuclear energy, the head of the continent's largest electricity firm, Eskom, announced. Reuel Khoza, chairman of South Africa's Eskom, made the remarks at the Davos World Economic Forum last week. He noted that, thanks to research in South Africa that had been backed by firms including Electricité de France and the UK's BNFL, Eskom was at the "cutting edge of a new [nuclear] technology." He said that demand for electricity is set to increase with economic growth, which South Africa, at least, has continued, and must be continued across the continent. Eskom is responsible for supplying Africa with more than half its electricity.
Of nuclear energy, he added, "You can't wish it away." He added that "in France, 80% of electricity is nuclear based."
Eskom is developing the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor based on a German design, which it plans to mass produce for domestic use as well as for export. The go-ahead for the prototype reactor is expected soon, and tests on components are under way.
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