In this issue:

CFR Sees AIDS as a Tool of Liberal Imperial Control

'Peace' Agreements May Break Up Sudan—They May Not Hold

Private Sector Ignores Its Part of the NEPAD Bargain

Brit Ambassador to Nigeria: Follow 'Reforms' Till You Drop

Ghana Accused of Planning Water Privatization

Zambian Presidents Attack IMF on Africa Freedom Day

From Volume 3, Issue Number 22 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published June 1, 2004
Africa News Digest

CFR Sees AIDS as a Tool of Liberal Imperial Control

The May 2004 CFR proposal for expanding the U.S. government's international AIDS program, "Addressing the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: A U.S. Global AIDS Strategy for the Long Term," is defined by what it does not say. It does not refer to eliminating HIV/AIDS, instead speaking only of "stemming the tide of the pandemic." It does not propose any expansion of fundamental viral and cell research that could lead to immunity and cure—not to mention a crash program involving optical biophysics.

Instead, it continues to recommend only general health improvement (important as that is), condoms, "safe sex," protecting women and girls from rape, antiretrovirals, and the education and infrastructure that these measures require. This approach is paralleled by its approach to malaria, in which it mentions treated bed nets, but not DDT. (The reintroduction of DDT is being hotly debated in Kenya and Uganda right now.)

The CFR report also rejects the World Health Organization's (WHO) 2001 proposal, "Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development." WHO estimates that essential health interventions in the developing world require $34 per capita per year. The part of that amount that donor countries would have to supply comes to $27 billion annually by 2007, and $38 billion by 2015. If the U.S. were to provide a third of that, it would still amount to less than 0.1% of GNP. Some of the rest of it, WHO argues, could come from slashing or cancelling the billions in annual debt service that is still being paid ($11 billion by Africa alone). WHO claims that the resulting increase in productive activity would be so great, that after 20 years of the program, ongoing health programs would be self-sustaining. (WHO's approach to AIDS prevention and treatment, however, is not different in principle from the CFR approach.)

The CFR report responds, "Despite these potential benefits and the desirability of meeting these important health needs, we are not recommending that the U.S. immediately accept the entire WHO plan" because—it asserts preemptively—Congress won't fund it, and in any case, "much can be done" without going so far. What state of affairs does the CFR propose to achieve in 20 years?

Unlike the program of the William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation, the report does not deal with nutrition as an arm of treatment. The Clinton approach is to provide adequate nutrition for all those under treatment.

Nor is there any mention of the breakthrough in Canada. A bill allowing generic drug manufacturers to manufacture patented anti-AIDS drugs and sell them cheaply for export to Africa became law in Canada May 14. The CFR report does not propose such a measure.

The report reiterates the motivations of the Bush plan: "The disease," it says, "is eroding state capacity in sub-Saharan Africa, an increasingly important front in the war on terror and an increasingly important source of resources and minerals," adding, "There is an additional threat to the United States. As treatment programs are introduced in Africa, concern over mutations of the virus will heighten, especially if treatment is not maintained. The spread of a more virulent virus to the United States—one immune to current treatment—would cause major health problems in the United States."

'Peace' Agreements May Break Up Sudan—They May Not Hold

There is celebration in Navaisha, Kenya, and at the State Department, over the May 26 signing of further protocols between the government of Sudan and the Sudanese People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M). The protocols provide that in northern Sudan, the government and northern parties will have 70% of the posts, and the SPLA will have 30%, with the percentages reversed in the South, where an interim government will rule for six years before the South holds a vote on secession. In three oil-rich areas under dispute, the North will get 55% of the posts, the South 45%. The government will continue to apply sharia (Islamic law) in Khartoum, but with privileges for non-Muslims. The chief negotiator, Lazaros Sombyo of Kenya, said, "This is not the final phase of the peace process, but was one of the big steps."

The U.S. government on May 25 removed Sudan from its blacklist of countries allegedly not cooperating fully with U.S. anti-terrorism policy. Normalization of relations is still made conditional on further steps by the Sudanese government.

Referring to the broader agreement, of which these protocols are a part, former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of the Umma party, told the Financial Times on May 27, "The agreement as it stands gives priority to secession.... It may be that in the short term this will stop the fighting. But in it is also the potential for many other fights to start down the road." The FT says it may be hard for the government to sell the agreement to the Sudanese.

Writing in The Nation, a leading Kenyan newspaper, May 28, Henry Owuor underscored the same points. The agreement, he wrote, "is so loaded it could lead to the creation of a new country," adding, "the signs are that the wall to peace in the Sudan is yet to be broken. Showing the mistrust [at the May 26 signing], the two delegations sat on different sides of the tent. Even after signing the accord, the delegation leaders did not agree to a request to pose with the final document."

The FT adds that the bloody uprising in Darfur in the west, that began only 15 months ago, might not be occurring if Khartoum had not conceded to the South a conditional right to secede. The Darfur rebels are making demands that are impossible for Khartoum to meet, while the international media are up in arms only over the humanitarian crisis there—which is very real.

Private Sector Ignores Its Part of the NEPAD Bargain

Three years after the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) opened up its 20 top-priority infrastructure projects to the private sector, not a single company has invested in these projects. NEPAD was created as an alliance between African nations and the advanced sector, to foster African development, with rules for good behavior on Africa's part.

NEPAD secretariat chief economist Dr. Mohammed Jahed said in Cape Town May 28 that the private sector had been unwilling to invest in any of NEPAD's 20 top-priority infrastructure projects aimed at improving Africa's road network, its weak energy transmission network, poor water and sanitation facilities and low levels of communications infrastructure. Johannesburg's Business Day reported Jahed's comments May 28, without identifying the forum.

In July 2002, 187 individuals and firms, including Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Absa and Microsoft signed a declaration pledging their commitment to NEPAD and the actions needed to ensure its success.

Jahed reached the highly doubtful conclusion that fault also lies partly with NEPAD's brains trust, "who had not marketed these projects as viable investments."

Brit Ambassador to Nigeria: Follow 'Reforms' Till You Drop

In an exclusive interview with Nigeria's This Day May 28, outgoing British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Sir Philip Thomas, said that Britain is impressed by the current economic reforms of President Olusegun Obasanjo. He said the British government will consider helping Nigeria if the country sustains the present IMF-oriented reforms, adding that the reforms may only begin to yield results in the next 10 to 20 years. He said the only possible way Nigeria can get relief from its heavy debt burden is if it consistently maintains the current economic reform package. Sir Thomas continued: "We've been very impressed by the Finance Minister and her team and we want to help mobilize support for Nigeria in the international community so that she and her team can drive forward that process." Sir Thomas said, however, that bringing back the level of prosperity enjoyed in the 1980s, is going to be "an extremely lengthy process of recovery."

Ghana Accused of Planning Water Privatization

In Ghana, the National Campaign Against Privatization of Water (NCAP) charged, in a press conference in Accra May 27, that the government was advancing an agenda of water privatization. NCAP's coordinator, Rudolf Amenga-Etego, said that while the government had presented a draft document aimed at developing a national water policy, it was advancing another document on privatization ahead of it. NCAP includes Ghana's Trades Union Congress and the leftwing Third World Network Africa.

NCAP charged that the government is engaged behind closed doors in discussions on water privatization with Veolia of France, Biwater of Britain, and Rand Water of South Africa.

Amenga-Etego described water issues as a global security problem, and therefore, he said, privatizing Ghana's water would mean opening "our security boundaries for investor exploitation." In Ghana, 70% of all disease is water related.

In 2001, the Ghanaian government raised water prices by 95% to help pay off its World Bank and IMF debt. Many Ghanaians can no longer afford the cost of clean drinking water. Now, the World Bank and IMF have offered to loan Ghana more money to rebuild its publicly owned and controlled water system. But the $400 million loan requires the government to stop subsidizing water for poor communities; it must be sold at full market rates.

Amenga-Etego noted: "The World Bank policy is aimed at creating markets for multinational corporations dealing in water."

Zambian Presidents Attack IMF on Africa Freedom Day

In Africa Freedom Day messages, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa and former President Kenneth Kaunda attacked the IMF and World Bank for depriving Africa of its economic independence, The Post of Lusaka reported May 26. Zambia celebrated Africa Freedom Day on May 26.

Kaunda said that Africa has never enjoyed her economic freedom in the 41 years since the declaration of Africa Freedom Day. "The rich countries are using the IMF, World Bank, and World Trade Organization as their weapons to deprive Africa of its economic freedom," he said, adding that Africans should use the day to reflect on how to remove themselves from bondage to the rich countries.

President Mwanawasa, speaking to journalists after a wreath-laying ceremony at the Freedom Statue in Lusaka May 25, said, "We will not be free unless we are economically free." He noted that most raw materials come from Africa and go to the industrialized world and return as finished goods that people buy at exorbitant prices. "I want to see a situation where we add value to our raw materials. By so doing, we will be creating employment and generating enough income for ourselves," he said.

Inter Press Service datelined Johannesburg May 24 reports on a study, "Zambia: Condemned to Debt," by Zambian economists Jack Jones Zulu and Lishala C. Situmbeko that details the destruction of Zambia by the IMF and World Bank. Published by the World Development Movement, a London-based NGO, it notes:

—From more than 140 textile manufacturing firms in 1991, the number had fallen to just eight by 2002. Employment in this sector fell from 34,000 to just 4,000.

—Between the early '70s and the late '80s, Zambia's external debt rose from $814 million to $6.9 billion. By the start of last year, Zambia had received only 5% of the debt-service reduction committed to it under the HIPC initiative. This initiative is being used as "another lever with which the IMF and World Bank can wield influence over Zambia's economy."

—President Mwanawasa said last year that the IMF privatization program has "been of no significant benefit to the country and that privatization of crucial state enterprises has led to poverty, asset stripping and job losses."

The report was published by the World Development Movement, a London-based NGO.

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