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NEWSBLOG
02 Jun 2006
Source: AlertNet
Attack of the giant bamboo-eating rats...
The Indian army in the northeast state of Manipur, which was sent to the region to fight insurgents, now has a new enemy to contend with - rats. People blame the infestation on flowering bamboo, which blooms every 48 years and attracts the rodents (for more information on the plant's "gregarious flowering" see this Bamboo Garden website). The rats can then cause a great deal of crop damage. This would be an oddity if it weren't for the fact that there was a famine during the last bamboo flowering in the 1950s.
Some even doubt that these are rats. Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran's official news service, says cash rewards are being offered to villagers who capture, dead or alive, big rat-like creatures stalking homes and crops.
Famine is no laughing matter, but I can't help thinking there's the seed of a great and cheesy horror movie here...
***
Official corruption is nothing new and it certainly isn't confined to the developing world. But there is often so much at stake in poor nations, where funds being stolen could literally save the lives of some of those in desperate need. An IRIN story that's got my goat today concerns an investigation into the alleged mismanagement of grants to Uganda from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The story says an official judicial investigation has recommended that former Ugandan health ministers and other managers of the funds be investigated for possible criminal investigation. Among the allegations being levelled is the diversion of funds meant for the Global Fund programmes, specifically $22,300 a former minister and long-time friend of President Yoweri Museveni used for medical treatment in Kenya. Here's a local story from The Monitor in Kampala on the issue, which discusses the latest political fallout of the investigations.
Uganda's former health minister Jim Muhwezi has been also accused of influencing the recruitment of one Tiberius Muhebwa - who headed the unit that managed the funds in the health ministry, overriding consultants. A commission has called for a criminal investigation against Muhebwa over "forgery, uttering false documents, cover up and kindred crimes."
The commission, headed by Justice James Ogoola, criticised the "cavalier way in which ... ministers were so indifferent about the whole issue of non-accountability of the funds, and the disastrous mismanagement of the Global Fund in Uganda."
Things seem to have gotten so bad that the fund temporarily suspended grants worth $367 million to the country in August 2005, according to IRIN. It lifted the suspension in November 2005, following assurances by the government that it would look into the management of the money.
IRIN quotes Ogoola as describing the operations of the fund as a "drama of tragedy". He adds: "Careers and personal reputation may be lost in this sordid story but the greatest losers have been the people of Uganda. As the sick lay dying, the greedy middlemen dived for the kill."
I couldn't say it any better.
***
Are Indonesian politicians showing the rest of the world how to react to a natural disaster? Well, maybe... President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono rushed to Yogyakarta, the main city in the area recently hit by an earthquake, within hours, setting up an office there to oversee the response. In contrast, U.S. President George W. Bush has been criticised for taking days to travel to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
But let's not leap to any conclusions here - it seems that some members of Indonesia's political class are jumping onto the earthquake bandwagon, distributing campaign materials liberally along with aid. Political parties have dispatched aid teams displaying party logos and colours to distribute food, medical care and tents.
For example, the face of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, who lost to Yudhoyono in the 2004 elections, donned an aid post run by supporters on the main road in Gantiwarno.
"Mega is better. It's better with Mega," declared a poster.
Does the aid world need this politicking, or are affected people better off getting any aid they can get their hands on?
***
Seems that celebrities aren't the only media-savvy types around. Botswana's Bushmen, or San people, are appealing for Angelina Jolie's help in recovering their rights to an area they have roamed for years.
A letter to Jolie appears on the website of Survival International, an organisation that advocates for the rights of tribal people around the world.
Now believed to number fewer than 85,000 in Kalahari desert areas of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Angola, the Bushmen have been hunted and persecuted for hundreds of years as their ancestral land has been swallowed by miners and ranchers.
"We have heard that you are very interested in human rights," says the open letter to Jolie from Bushman organisation First People of the Kalahari. "The government is trying to destroy us and we are asking for your help in our battle to save our people. Many Bushmen families have been split apart by the evictions. Many people don't know where their relatives are and are very worried, desperate. They are not allowed to attend the funerals of relatives."
Those left inside the Kalahari game reserve can't hunt or gather and don't have access to water, and HIV and drinking are on the rise, the letter says.
Here's a strongly worded piece in Australia's The Age on constitutional changes that it says will end forever the rights of Bushmen to their traditional lands.
Jolie doubtless has her hands full these days but I wonder if this will get her attention.
***
Refugees International has just put out a report recommending that the United States and international aid community channel more funds into Myanmar, formerly Burma.
"The Burmese people cannot wait for a civilian government before receiving humanitarian assistance from the outside world," the report says. It warns that if problems in Burma are not addressed now they will not only haunt the country but the entire region.
The humanitarian situation is grim in Burma, which was renamed Myanmar by the ruling junta. Half a million people have been displaced in the eastern part of the country and at least 1 million have fled to neighbouring countries, Refugees International says.
Human rights advocates, journalists and residents accuse government soldiers of raping women and girls, stealing food, destroying homes and possessions, using slave labour and participating in the drugs trade. The army has recently stepped up its attacks on ethnic Karens, according to reports.
Much of the West has slapped sanctions on the country. The United States bars the importation of almost all goods from Burma, while the European Union maintains an arms embargo and bans defence links, high-level bilateral government visits, non-humanitarian aid. It also has an asset freeze and visa ban on members of the regime and their families.
Interestingly, the opposition-led Free Burma Coalition has recently reversed it pro-sanctions stance and encourages foreign countries to interact and engage with the country.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters.
F. Brinley Bruton
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Last updated:Thu Aug 10 15:18:06 2006