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US duplicity astounding
By Dr Timothy Stamps
I MAKE comments on the remarks made by the Ambassador of the US to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell in his speech to the Africa University in Mutare, and repeated with irrelevance, flippancy and bravado at the HIV-US Aid function at Meikles Hotel to which I was invited.
I, along with other members of the audience (not all of them Zimbabweans), got the impression that the intention was that the media should overshadow the good things which are being done to combat HIV in this country, by the report of the US Ambassador breaching the rules of conduct for diplomats.
The ambassador of any country reflects and articulates the intentions and aspirations of the country he represents, and in that context we should assess any ambassadorial speech.
In fact, the homework is very slipshod. A reference to the "Confederation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland" betrays a Freudian slip —— the Confederates, the Southern States of New England, were on the losing side in the American Civil War of the 1860s.
I suppose the present administration of the US looks back with regret and nostalgia to those events.
The emancipation of people of colour took 100 years, or more, in America, and is still not complete.
As Maverick says, in the film of that name: "We found them (indigenous Americans, called Red Indians) occupying our land before we came here!"
Physically, though, the present American Ambassador reminds one of that white dog that the old-fashioned RCA vinyl records used to carry on their labels, responding to "His Master’’s Voice", though completely unclear what he was saying.
The diversion of the donation of bedding destined for 15 000 people in Zimbabwe to the City of New Orleans shows where the Africa University staff have their real heart, outside the community.
It also, perversely, demonstrates the relative urgency and need of the denizens of New Orleans contrasted with the requirements of the citizens of Zimbabwe, and the lack of good governance in some of the States bordering Texas.
Hurricane Katrina, like cyclone Eline and Japhet was a natural calamity. Conditions in the Superbowl (dubbed "Sewerbowel") were a man-made catastrophe, much worse in terms of human deaths and suffering than the natural event.
Right on the doorstep of the (Africa) University, which charges fees in US dollars (and, by all accounts, not nugatory) lies a hospital, run by the same, faith-based, organisation which established that University.
The hospital is in desperate need of fundamental consumables. Drugs, bed linen, suture materials, surfacing of the car park and entrance to the main hospital, so that patients with injuries are not further traumatised, water shortages, even electric light globes and plain glass encompass some of the deficiencies.
Many of those items they have been looking for since His Excellency (President Robert Mugabe) accompanied by a lot of people, visited there in 1990.
It has a fully equipped dental unit, but no dentist, dental assistant or a hygienist.
Yet the US Embassy and Africa University bring 300 volunteers a year to the University, already over-endowed in Zimbabwean terms, and cannot bring one doctor to Zimbabwe.
The excuses I have heard this year range from the damage (presumably to private property) wrought by Cyclone Eline, to the risk of contracting Aids nosocomially (by touching or operating on patients who are infected by HIV).
Of course, the real reason is that the American government does not want to be seen as collaborating with a government, which it describes as an "outpost of tyranny".
It uses the excuses for recruiting Zimbabwean skilled health workers, to "safer" and much greener pastures.
Confusion, however, reigns when it comes to global issues like Aids.
I am personally very pleased to see that the issue of Aids and HIV infection has risen above petty political differences, however strongly expressed.
But the fact remains that Aids, malaria and (tuberculosis) TB (on all of which Zimbabwe’’s record is exemplary), are not the only diseases holding this region back.
Road injuries are increasing, both in number and severity, and I am not aware that any road "accident" is caused by Aids (or the other infections, which comprise the "Big Three.
Bilharzia is on the march, cholera always threatens our rainy season, and shigella dysentery our hot season.
ARI, especially in small children and immuno-compromised adults, affects us in the colder months, meningitis, (for which there is a vaccine but not available to public sector patients in Zimbabwe) at all times —— the list could go on.
And the issues of dental care (and caries) and diabetes, which are rapidly on the increase due to, in part, the abandoning of traditional foods for Big Macs, ice-cream and pizzas, have been left out of the public health equation for global concerns.
Tobacco, in the 20th century was Zimbabwe’’s biggest foreign currency earner —— we used to be the 3rd or even the 2nd largest exporter in the world, after the USA and Brazil.
Even the unfriendly drafters of the (World Health Organisation) WHO Tobacco Convention pointed out that Zimbabwe would lose 12,4 percent of its national economy.
There was a 6 percent increase in tobacco smuggling out of Zimbabwe in April 2000, since changes in SACU tariffs increased the taxation on tobacco in South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland.
In Zimbabwe tobacco production has declined, in volume, by about two thirds since the turn of the century and even more in terms of foreign exchange.
Far from being applauded for that achievement, a reduction far in excess of what the main, public health, drivers of that convention envisaged, Zimbabwe is condemned for the contraction of its economy. It’’s like the (African Union) AU asking Germany why they don’’t have a Chancellor yet, or the (United Nations) UN Security Council asking France to account for its widespread, and spreading, city riots.
The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control specifically states:
‘‘In the event that implementation of this Convention results in significant hardship to a Developing Country Party who is heavily dependent on tobacco production, the Parties shall endeavour to supply technical and financial support to offset this hardship’’.
But, instead of putting money into developing skills for producing new crops, especially the promotion of horticulture or dairying, the State is questioned, by its detractors, who never wait for an answer, as to the methods used to achieve that reduction.
I suppose the argument from the right-wing Americans will be that neither the USA nor Zimbabwe are party to the convention, but with the accession of Zimbabwe to the Convention, a lot of money will become available for inputs training, and marketing to emancipate our new farmers to develop value added food products and to ensure domestic food security.
When the UN Charter was framed, the specific injunction was placed on that Charter, and the individual member states, not to interfere with the internal politics of other members.
Otherwise, of course, the UN would never have come into being. But it seems that some states are more equal than others, based, I fear on the relative contribution to the organisation.
The US coalition’’s aggression against Iraq, the way in which oppressive or non-democratic regimes are shielded by its most powerful member, and the way in which Bretton Woods organs are policed and policied by a few, founder members in the capitalist class, are regarded as no threat to World Peace.
On other hand, The efforts of Africa toward the goal of properly informed democracy are rubbished.
To my way of thinking, the land reform programme is part of the cost of righting past wrongs. If, in the process, further, different, wrongs are committed, the country, as a sovereign state, has the mechanisms to right those wrongs.
It has no need of external polemicists, and those, being only partially informed, can only serve to complicate and confuse the issues.
Rather, let the rest of the world applaud what has been done right in Zimbabwe, and help us to reach the goal.
And let other countries, whose track record does not bear examination, keep on helping without trying to interfere with —— or even derail —— our development.
l Dr Stamps is Health Advisor in the Office of the President and Cabinet
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