planet earth looks blue

Meningitis has reached epidemic levels in Nigeria and Niger.  So far this year the two countries have reported 1,500 deaths, with 200 in the last week.  Meningococcal meningitis strikes an area in Africa known as the Meningitis Belt, every 8 to 10 years during the dry season, from January to June.  It is a highly contagious disease caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis.  Meningitis is an inflammation of the protective layer around the brain and spinal cord.  This particular bacterial meningitis is very dangerous - without immediate treatment it usually leads to death.  The WHO stockpiles meningitis vaccinations, with 13 million for this year.  This is not enough.  So far 2.3 million doses were released to Nigeria and 1.9 for Niger.  What health officials usually do to preserve the medicine is regulate areas, watching for potential outbreaks.  When they notice early warning signs, they come in and vaccinate entire areas.  The disease is entirely preventable with a vaccination.

The Meningitis Belt goes through parts of eastern Ethiopia, southern Sudan, southern Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Burkino Faso, Mali, and even reaches into Guinea and Senegal.  There is a lot of concern over the Sudan, where international aid groups such as Doctors Without Borders were kicked out of the country as a reaction to crimes against humanity charges put on the Sudanese President Al-Bashir.  Earlier this month, 100,000 people were to be vaccinated in one of the refugee camps in southern Sudan because there were a few reported cases of meningitis.  Before the medicine was administrated the aid group was forced to leave.  This is very frightening for everyone in affected areas.  Children are dying, everyone is susceptible.  I am not sure how the WHO could get their hands on more vaccinations, but it seems this should be a top international priority, especially when it is such a simple way to prevent a terrible epidemic.

In Gambia the witch hunt is on.  At least one thousand alleged witches have been taken by a team of ‘witch doctors’, police, and soldiers.  They are held hostage for several days and are all forced to drink a dangerous hallucinogenic herbal drink, which causes kidney problems, vomiting and diarrhea.  Some are beaten as well, and so far at least two people have died after being released. 

The President of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh lost his aunt earlier this year.  He believes her death is due to the witches in his country.  Jammeh invited the witch doctors from Guinea to come and rid his nation of its evil.  I would guess the reason behind the forced herbal cocktail is to purge the witches of whatever alleged spirits caused them to somehow cause the death of Jammeh’s aunt.  It all makes an interesting belief system by the President, but doesn’t give him a right to forcibly detain and drug his people.  The reports on the witch hunt are courtesy of Amnesty International.  They have requested the President to stop his witch hunt.  Many people have fled to Senegal in fear of the campaign spreading and worsening.  

Jammeh has led the West African nation since a 1994 coup.  In 2007 he said that he can cure AIDS.  

Sudan still has not allowed international aid groups back into the country - they were banned earlier this month as a response to the call for the arrest of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.  The International Criminal Court has officially charged him with war crimes for his role in the genocide in Darfur.  According to international law, the country itself should turn al-Bashir over, but there is no sign of this happening, in fact he has gained more support, in the north at least, where he has been speaking out against Western encroachment.

The War in Darfur began in 2003 when rebels from the south organized against the government, namely the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement.  The Sudanese military as well as the government backed Janjaweed, have committed genocide on the non-Arab southern tribes, killing, raping, and mutilating the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masilit ethnic groups.  According to the UN, 300,000 people have died and millions have been displaced, many of whom continue to live as refugees, dependent on the aid offered by the very human rights organizations that were expelled by President al-Bashir.

Sudan’s ambassador to the UN announced that his country is ready to begin talks with the international community.  This move could be influenced by China’s recent pressure on Sudan.  China is a strong economic ally of Sudan, with huge investments in the country’s oil industry.  Although China won’t fully back the United Nations Security Council’s attempts to make Sudan allow the aid groups back in (they blocked a resolution by asking for  a suspension of the arrest warrant for al-Bashir) they still have positively influenced the situation in their own way.

Right now, the immediate concern is for the refugees left without the food, medicine, and protection that the international community has been providing them.  Both in Sudan and eastern Chad, where the Sudanese refugees are living, there is fear of the potential for more violence if things don’t stabilize soon.  President Obama has offered his support.  He is expected to announce his choice for Special Envoy to the country - former Air Force General Scott Gration.

Susan Tsvangirai, the wife of Morgan Tsvangirai, was killed in a car accident yesterday in Zimbabwe, while Morgan Tsvangirai survived.  Tsvangirai is the head of the Movement for Democratic Change party, the opposition to President Mugabe.  Last month, the two formed a unity government, with Tsvangirai as Prime Minister, the only compromise that could be made as Mugabe was determined to stay in power.

I’ve written about the Zimbabwe crisis over the past few months, but to summarize, the once prosperous African nation is facing a cholera epidemic, without an adequate health care system to solve it, an inflation rate of 231,000,000%, and all the strings attached to hunger and poverty.  Just after Tsvangirai was sworn in as PM, there was an attack on all the white farmers by armed militia’s.  A move Mugabe has backed before to “redistribute” the land to the people, although, previously, the land ended up being given to his associates, and led to the lowered agricultural productivity and failed economy of today.  Because the country needs help, Mugabe was willing to ally himself with his rival so the international community will be more likely to step in with assistance.

Although no one is accusing any foul play in the accident, of course there is suspicion.  The accident happened when a freight lorry moved into the lane that Tsvangirai was in, knocking the PM’s 4×4 off the road and caused it to roll over.  The lorry actually is owned by an organization associated with USAID.  Zimbabwe road’s are terrible, which could have easily contributed to the crash.  Also, Tsvangirai wasn’t traveling with an escort vehicle, which could have protected him and his wife.

Mugabe and his wife came to visit Tsvangirai in the hospital.  Investigations have already begun.  For now, Tsvangirai has left the country for Botswana, where he can rest and mourn the loss of his wife.   

“Eat the warrant”, says Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.  His arrest has been ordered by the Hague’s International Criminal Court (ICC) for the atrocities that he committed in Darfur.  Bashir wasn’t actually accused of genocide, which leaves one to wonder what exactly has to be done to receive the title of mega-evil.  300,000 people were murdered and 2.5 million people were forced to flee their homes. These are catastrophic numbers, but in no way sum up the horrors committed in Darfur.  After the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups were completely terrorized, the Janjaweed (modern day ring-wraiths) raped women on a massive scale - an intended violent takeover of the gene pool.

The War in Darfur, which began in 2003, is between the ruling party in northern Sudan, a mostly Arab-Afro minority, against the non-Arab farmers-turned-rebels, the Sudan Liberation Movement, and the Justice and Equality Movement.  President Bashir is declaring that he won’t recognize the international call for his arrest.  Sudan never acknowledged the ICC in the first place (nor has the United States), and has no intention of handing its leader over.  Bashir meanwhile has called out the “western colonialists” who are trying to make a power grab for his nation.  He is just as likely to turn himself in as Bush is to renounce his actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, or Israel in Gaza.

There is some concern, particularly from the Arab world, as well as China, that the ICC is only pushing peace in Darfur further into the future.  By ostracizing Bashir, the court’s decision has become a force to unite the country behind the President.  And rebel groups are now less likely to compromise with a known war criminal.  The ICC has only been opened since 2002.  They’re new at the game.  Despite criticisms, despite their lack of power to enforce, they do have a place in the land of humans; of wars, and genocides, of invasions, and oppressions.  The court is there to symbolize justice if nothing else.  

Three former commanders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) were all found guilty of war crimes for their role in the 10 year civil war in Sierra Leone.  They were charged with being involved in the rape, murder, and mutilation of half a million people, as well as for turning innocent children into child soldiers, AK-47’s in tow.  The RUF was known for cutting off people’s body parts, hands, ears, legs, anything, and then carving RUF into the skin.  The war was over ownership of the diamond mines in Sierra Leone, and is the reason activists had been speaking out against blood diamonds for years, criticizing the wealthy sector of American culture obsessed with diamond gluttony.  And most of us are familiar with the 2006 film, Blood Diamonds, which documented the war, and brought international attention to what went on in Sierra Leone.

Of course all of this is after the fact.  At least these men were tried, a symbolic gesture to their surviving victims and family members and closure for some.  But it was more than a handful of men who were responsible for a decade long atrocity.  And even if all who were wronged could somehow be avenged - what then?  Sierra Leone is still very poor, people are still desperate, and it is still lacking the education and infrastructure that a society needs to progress.  Meaning - the same circumstances that helped create the civil war are still there.

The international community does give money to the country, but the problem is that it is not able to be used effectively because there aren’t systems in place to spend the money properly.  The country is still one of the worst ranked in infant mortality.  Maybe time will heal all wounds, but assistance and commitment over the long term are needed.  There is of course still heavy interest in the country for other than humanitarian reasons.  This year a British Columbia company - Canaf, announced that it has raised enough funds to start mining its properties in Sierra Leone.  According to USAID, some profits from the diamond mines are rolled back into the local communities.  Ultimately it is only the people who can tell us if their lives are improving.  It seems a shame though that a country with so much intrinsic wealth, cannot reap the benefits of its own natural resources.  That the diamonds go to the corrupt and violent, or international investors, and at the same time become a curse on those who live there.  

In Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, at least fifteen people were killed, several being civilians caught in the cross-fire.  Sixty more were wounded.  The newly named President, Sharif Sheik Ahmed, returned from Djibouti just the day before where he had been forming his government.  The battle began when troops who support Ahmed’s transitional government, both Somali and Ethiopian, rolled into a Muslim insurgent area with tanks and armored vehicles.  Once the fighting started, it spread, forcing civilians to flee their homes for whatever sanctuary they can find.  40,000 have already left this month, according to UN estimates, adding to the growing sea of refugees around the world.  

Ahmed, who is supported by the international community, is a former leader of the Union of Islamic Courts.  Before that, he was a teacher.  Four radical Islamist groups, the Islamic Front, Anole, the Ras Kamboni Brigade, and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia, have all joined forces to fight Ahmed’s incoming transitional government.  The question is, how much of a chance does Ahmed have?  Portions of Somalia have been recently run by Islamist insurgents, who oppose Ethiopia’s military presence.  The people have given them support because they as well want the Ethiopians out, and have dealt with widespread human rights abuses from their occupiers.  Ahmed has African Union troops and some support of the people, but how quickly will this wane if he us unable to bring some form of stability?  And stability is just what the more radical Islamist fighters are trying to prevent.  Is this the beginning of an epidemic of more fighting in Somalia, or the end?

The pressure in Zimbabwe is rising as racial tensions play out across the country.  The results of the elections are still being withheld, and Zimbabwe’s High Courts have delayed making a decision on whether or not to force election officials to release the results, until Tuesday.  In the meantime, opposition leader and now co-leader with Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai, left the country to meet with South African leaders.  Coinciding with his departure, this weekend militia groups have started a campaign to seize all white-owned farms.  So far about 77 farms have been taken.  Police in most cases are guarding the seized lands from the white farmers returning, which is unlikely to happen as most have gone into hiding in fear of violence.  

President Mugabe has condoned the seizures, saying, “This is our soil and the soil must never go back to the whites…We don’t want to hear this fight is going backward”, according to an MSNBC report.  In fact Mugabe started the whole land seizure trend in 2000 as a redistribution program.  Approximately 5,000 farms were seized then.  Unfortunately, instead of going to poor black farmers, they went to Mugabe’s friends and high supporters, who never successfully farmed the land, leading to a dramatic fall in agricultural output.  He started the redistribution program when he was in political trouble before, and is doing it again now that Tsvangirai is challenging his power.  He is playing politics, not passionately supporting the poor of his nation.  

If he was a true lover of the people, wouldn’t he have done something about the cholera outbreak, that has claimed nearly 4,000 lives so far, and the rampant inflation, which is at 10 sextillion per cent, or the food crisis, leaving half of the population without food?  But the 84-year old waning tyrant is facing a political dilemma, nothing new in his 28-year reign, nothing the old man can’t deal with.