Day: December 2, 2003

Uganda Purges Military

Following an internal fraud investigation and criticism of the failure of Uganda’s military to halt attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army, the BBC reports that three of the five Ugandan army division commanders, the director of military intelligence, and 28 other senior military officers were fired this week.

Some of the officers will face court martials after an investigation turned up large numbers of soldiers who were on the military payroll but didn’t actually exist.

Source:

Museveni purges Ugandan military. The BBC, December 2, 2003.

Ireland Donates Money to Aid Ugandan Refugees

Kampala newspaper New Vision reports that the Government of Ireland has donated 130 million shillings (about US $75,000) to help Uganda deal with the estimated 40,000 internally displaced persons who have left their homes in the wake of recent attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Source:

Ireland Gives Internally Displaced Persons Sh130m. New Vision, Kampala, December 2, 2003.

World Bank President Chastises Developed World, But Developing Countries Not Impressed

World Bank President James Wolfensohn gave a speech at the annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in September that highlighted the problem with the developed world’s continued hypocrisy when it comes to free trade.

Wolfensohn rightly chastised the developed world for spending just $56 billion in foreign aid while devoting $300 billion to farm subsidies. Wolfensohn said,

There is further imbalance between what rich countries spend on development assistance– $56 billion a year– compared with the $300 billion they spend on agricultural subsidies and $600 billion for defense. The poor countries themselves spend $200 billion on defense-more than what they spend on education. Another major imbalance.

. . .

Action on trade is equally important. It is inconsistent to preach the benefits of free trade and then maintain the highest subsidies and barriers for precisely those goods in which poor countries have a comparative advantage. Developing countries also need to help themselves on this point, since they pay substantial tariffs in South-South trade.

Certainly good to hear as far as it goes, but at least one attendee — Demba Moussa Dembele of Senegal — told the BBC that Wolfensohn and the World Bank were also engaged in their own form of hypocrisy,

It was the World Bank which insisted our countries open up to trade and investment from the North and told us to trust in global markets.

Didn’t the Bank know about the market distortions created by subsidies and trade restrictions? It should not just urger the North to change its policies, but take responsibility for misleading us down the path of rigged prices and poverty.

In fact, it is interesting that while Wolfensohn devoted plenty of time to criticizing the developing and developed countries, he couldn’t afford even a single sentence for a little introspection about the World Bank’s failures.

Being from the World Bank apparently means never having to say you’re sorry.

Sources:

A New Global Balance: The Challenge of Leadership. James Wolfensohn, September 23, 2003.

Growing gulf between rich and poor. Rick Rowden, The BBC, September 24, 2003.

UN Official Wars AIDS Crisis Could Wreck Africa’s Future

Speaking at a September AIDS conference in Kenya, UN AIDS Program director Michel Sidibe warned that, if left unchecked, the AIDS epidemic threatens to become a catastrophe that will wreck Africa’s future.

Sidibe’s speech reinforced the findings of a UN AIDS report, “Accelerating Action Against AIDS in Africa,” that called for increasing the pace of action against AIDS,

The effects of AIDS in Africa are eroding decades of development efforts. In high-HIV-prevalence countries, families are unraveling, economies are slowing down, and social services are deteriorating. In Southern Africa, where HIV prevalence is higher than anywhere else in the world, AIDS has exacerbated food insecurity, demonstrating how the epidemic and humanitarian crises intertwine.

AIDS has killed an estimated 15 million people in Africa already, and signs are not encouraging to prevent another 15 million deaths. The UN AIDS report notes that infection rates in southern Africa are unbelievably high — in Botswana, for example, 40 percent of the adult population is believed to be HIV positive. A World Health Organization study of pregnant women in southern Africa found 20 percent of those tested were HIV positive.

More money is being committed to fight the AIDS crisis in Africa, but whether aid agencies and governments will be able to translate that money into an effective anti-AIDS strategy remains to be seen. If they fail, Africa’s future is likely to be as bleak as its recent past.

Source:

AIDS ‘threatens African security’. The BBC, September 21, 2003.

U.N.: AIDS Is Major Challenge in Africa. Associated Press, September 21, 2003.