Did anyone watch the ABC News with Peter Jennings last night (Monday the
17th). They had a segment on Zambia and the AIDS problem. Now PJ IMO is
the least biased anchor out of the three networks, but the hype from this
program made me sick.
First scene was a lorry filled with people skidding up some muddy road,
god knows where, and even though I have never been there, the statement
that "this is Lusaka", was deceptive at best. They later on show parts of
lusaka, paved streets and buildings, but had aleady set the "tone". I am
glad to see they sought some Africans for comment on the situation, but
the ONLY doctor they questioned was a white guy who seemed to be "out of
the loop". There was only one "professional" African questioned, a woman
(no name or title was given if I remember correctly) . Oh Oh Oh wait I
just remembered the other guy they questioned was Guy Scott (The
ex-agricultural Minister who is white and was recently fired by Chiluba)
They claimed through a subtitle below his "animated image" that he (Scott)
was the current Agricultural Minister.
Then the percentages they had for ESTIMATED AIDS INFECTIONS in the
population were ridiculous. 15% of high school girls, 65% of the Militry,
45% of the Mine workers....etc, etc, etc,
Where did these estimates come from. I mean if you have 15% infection fo
high school girls then you can say 40-50% of high school boys are
infected!!!
I AM NOT SAYING WE DO NOT HAVE AN AIDS EPIDEMIC IN AFRICA AND PEOPLE ARE
NOT DYING IN LARGE NUMEBRS, BUT THIS REPORT WAS FLAWED TO THE BONE IN MY
OPINION.
Then the low blow came, the statement about "even if medicins [to combat
the sickness] were available the majority of Zambians would not take them
because they only believe in 'witchdoctors' and 'magic'" (Or something to that
extent). then they showed a "witchdoctor" supposedly "treating" a patient.
If people saw the show, I would really like to hear their comments on it.
It covered much ground and had its positive points on the problem of AIDS,
but the sensationalism totally obscured this in my opinion, by making
Zambia look like a doomed nation with no hope whatsoever.
sickened to the core,
Kiggundu
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I am quite surprised with the meager amount of discussion on the
strife in Sudan. It appears that indeed, the Moslems are determined
to exterminate the indigenous Dinka people.
It appears to me that the silence on this issue highlights the
duplicity of the Black African States. Tradtionally, these
nations opposed the foreign policy objectives of the U.S in
regard to containing Arab-Moslem Fundamentalism. The strife in
Sudan shows that the Arab world per se, is not neccesarily
a friend of Black Africa. In this context, I am curious as to
why very few Black Africans have addressed this issue on the
network.
Sincerely
Greg Price
From uwvax!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!geraldo.cc.utexas.edu!portal.austin.ibm.com!awdprime.austin.ibm.com!jama Fri May 21 08:54:30 CDT 1993
Organization: IBM Advanced Workstation Systems Division
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SOUTH AFRICAN WHITES FLEEING COUNTRY AS FEARS OF RACE WAR CONTINUE
TO GROW JOHANNESBURG (MAY 19) IPS - Whites fearing a lengthy and bloody
racial confrontation in South Africa are packing-up and emigrating.
About 20,000 white South Africans left the country in 1992. More are
expected to go this year for fear of a race war, according to the
authorities here.
The favored destinations are Australia, Britain, Canada and the United
States.
Immigration authorities said today that the department is literally
flooded with emigration requests from in particular Eastern Europeans.
Emigration services abound in newspaper advertisements, and groups
of businesspersons and others pool together to organize fact-finding
missions about living abroad.
Fears of a racial confrontation have gained ground as South Africa
approached the long-awaited -- or feared -- negotiated end of the
apartheid system with the formation of an interim government and free
elections within the next 12 months.
Anxiety intensified with the assassination on Apr. 10 of Chris Hani,
the Secretary-General of the South African Communist Party, allegedly
by Polish immigrant Januzs Walus, a member of the right-wing
Afrikaner Resistance Movement.
A top Conservative Party official, Clive Derby-Lewis, and his wife
are being charged with masterminding the assassination.
The same day Hani was killed, a group of retired generals began meeting
secretly to mobilize the Afrikaners for war and creation of a separate
state should South Africa become a non-racial democracy.
The generals' secret meeting resulted in the formation on May 7 of
the "Volksfront," Afrikaner People's Front, aiming to push for the right
of self-determination for white South Africans of Dutch descent.
However, "Volksfront" leader, Gen. Constand Viljoen, former head of
the South African Defense Force (SADF), has denied this and pledged to
take part in the democratic process.
But political analysts here say the front's real aim is to threaten
the 23-member multi-party forum into abandoning its work on a new
constitution.
President Frederik W. de Klerk and ANC leader Nelson Mandela are attempting
to ease Afrikaner fears and ensure there is no delay in the democratization
process. The ANC, for example, has changed its long-standing position on a
unitary government in favor of a regional structure, close to a federal
set-up. This new ANC position should please both the conservative Zulu-based
Inkhata Freedom Party and The Concerned South Africans Group, an influential
right-wing grouping, The Business Day newspaper reported today.
From uwvax!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!geraldo.cc.utexas.edu!portal.austin.ibm.com!awdprime.austin.ibm.com!jama Fri May 21 08:54:38 CDT 1993
Organization: IBM Advanced Workstation Systems Division
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ENGLISH-SPEAKING CAMEROONIANS TREATEN BOYCOTT OF 21ST UNION <SR>
ANNIVERSARY YAOUNDE (MAY 19) IPS -
Celebrations marking the 21st Union anniversary are
threatened by a boycott of English-speaking Cameroonians.
The stay-away of the May 20 anniversary has been called by the All
Anglophone Conference (AAC).
They argue that English-speaking Cameroonians have little to celebrate
over the transformation from a federal to a unitary state in 1972 which
sealed the hegemony of the francophone majority.
"20 May is the day on which, by means of the unitary state, our identity
as southern Cameroonians and as anglophones was to be extinguished once
and for all.
"We were annexed, turned from a state into provinces of 'La Republique
du Cameroun', and worst of all, instead of being equal partners in the
business, we were reduced to the pitiful role of La Republique's'
employees," the AAC statement reads.
The AAC is pressing for the restoration of the 1961 two-state federation
and greater self-determination.
Cameroon was divided between French and British colonisers. At independence
in 1961, the former British Cameroon split. The north voted to join neighboring Nigeria
while the south elected to become the western state of an independent federal
Cameroon.
The Central African country moved towards increasing political, social
and economic integration culminating in the 1972 referendum which
overwhelmingly voted for a unitary state.
Anglophone Cameroon represents less than one-tenth of the country
and 20 percent of the 12 million population.
But in last October's presidential election, the region voted solidly
for English-speaking and nationally popular Social Democratic Front (SDF)
chair John Fru Ndi. International observers accept the poll was rigged by
the former single-party government of Paul Biya.
The election result and ensuing crackdown by security forces on the
opposition has raised tensions between French and English speaking Cameroon.
Biya has stated that while the government favors a measure of decentralization,
a strong administrative center is essential. English-speaking Cameroonians
suspect that the fact the country's oil wealth comes from the south has
colored the government's response to federation.
Meanwhile, the president of the Cameroon Anglophone Movement (CAM) Martin
Ekwoge Epie, the prime mover behind the AAC, has said that the south will
now wait.
"When we make a point we must make it forcefully. That is the only
language they understand. Our words must be followed by concrete action.
Federation is a right," he warns.
Meanwhile, the SDF has endorsed the AAC demand for a return to federation
and a nationwide boycott of the May 20 celebrations.
In a statement the SDF said the 1972 referendum was an "illegality"
and the anglophones, as well as any progressive force in the country,
had the right to demand a return to the federal system.
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AID OFFICIAL SAYS INT'L COMMUNITY NOT DOING ENOUGH FOR SUDAN'S HUNGRY <SR>
LONDON (MAY 19) IPS - A British charity is warning that the situation
could get worse for the already suffering people in war-ravaged southern Sudan, and it says this is
partly due to a lack of commitment by the international community.
Christian Aid's Martin Cottingham has just returned to Britain from
Sudan where an estimated 1.5 million people are threatened by starvation.
Painting a gloomy image of the situation, Cottingham accused the United
Nations and the international community as a whole of failing to send
enough aid to the region, but he acknowledged that even when
the aid did arrive, the Sudanese government and the rebel factions
often blocked it from reaching the suffering.
According to the U.N.'s World Food Program (WFP), 800,000 of the population
who are at risk need immediate help. Said Cottingham: "People are already
starving. And many children are dangerously malnourished or have horrific
skin sores."
Yet international commitment has remained scarce. Up until the end
of April, donors had pledged only $16 million of the $130 million the WFP
has requested for 1993.
While in southern Sudan, Cottingham visited the so-called "Triple
A" camps (Aswa, Ame and Atepi) which are home to 100,000 refugees near Sudan's
southern border with Uganda. The United Nations withdrew from the area last
autumn and has been refused permission to start flying there again by the
Khartoum government.
"There are cases of cerebral malaria, typhoid, pneumonia and meningitis
but not enough medicines to go round," Cottingham said, adding that some of
the refugees had walked hundreds of kilometers during the past two years
fleeing the fighting.
The rebel Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), which split into
two factions following differences over whether the south should secede or
remain part of the Sudan in August 1991, has long been using the food card
as a weapon of war, as has the government -- the end result is a starving
civilian population.
Over 250,000 civilians died of starvation-related diseases in the
south in 1987. The tragedy forced the United Nations to launch the
ambitious "Operation Lifeline Sudan" in April 1988.
But this operation, too, has since been subjected to constant interruptions
by both the Sudan government and the SPLA. The SPLA, drawn mainly from the
predominantly black Christian populations in the south, has been fighting
for secession from the Arab Muslim north since 1983.
This is the second wave of fighting between the north and the south
since Sudan achieved independence from Britain in January 1956. The first
one which broke out in 1955, only ended after the south was given
autonomy within a united Sudan in 1972. The accord lasted for ten
years.
Efforts to end the current war has so far come to nothing. Talks between
the government and Colonel John Garang faction in the Nigerian capital, Abuja,
which began in early May have reached a stalemate.
In March, the Sudanese church leaders, concerned about the food shortages
in the south, issued a communique calling for more international pressure
to allow the United Nations and the aid agencies unhindered access to needy
areas throughout Sudan.
The communique condemned human rights abuses on both sides
of the war and called for more international aid.
It also urged the international community to raise the stakes in the
peace process by instigating high-profile ceasefire negotiations under
the auspices of the Organization of Africa Unity (OAU) and the Arab League.
The churches would like to see safe havens covering parts of the central
Nuba mountains -- where there have been reports of ethnic cleansing by the
Sudanese government -- and the displaced people's camps in north Kenya,
around the Sudanese capital Khartoum, as well as in the south.
Heeding to the call by British charities, Britain gave $29 million
of food and relief aid to Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya. Of that total,
Sudan was allocated six million dollars.
Baroness Chalker, Minister for Overseas Development (ODA), said of
Britain's pledges. "This immediate response to the U.N.'s 1993 Special
Emergency Program for the Horn of Africa appeal demonstrates Britain's
continuing commitment to providing a speedy and effective response to the
needs of thousands of people in some of the worst affected famine
areas in the world.
"It is vital that our partners in the international community follow
the lead that we have given. I shall be urging them to do so," Chalker said.
Transmitted: 93-05-19 16:03:00 EDT<HR>
From uwvax!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!destroyer!cs.ubc.ca!pacific.cs.ubc.ca!not-for-mail Fri May 21 08:55:26 CDT 1993
