First, the good news. Zimbabwean officials have announced that the government hopes to more than triple the number of people on anti-retrovirals. By the end of 2007, the goal is to enroll about 160,000 people from the current level of about 50,000.
Approximately 18 percent of the country's 12 million people are HIV-positive. Authorities estimate at least some 300,000 people need ARVs throughout the country, so the expanded program is desperately needed. The funding for the drugs will be sourced by Zimbabwe's AIDS tax, UNICEF and the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (more on the Global Fund here), which just announced a 65-million-dollar grant to help fight these diseases.
That introduces the bad news ...
This mass infusion of international funding is an immediate target for graft. Robert Mugabe, the rabidly anti-gay octogenarian president dictator, has just announced that he will remain in office until at least 2010. It's really a shame, given the most recent reports that document "vast human cull" undertaken by the regime in Harare, which has deliberately starved, abused and killed its own people.
In recent weeks, opposition figure Edgar Tekere has called for Zimbabweans to resist Mugabe's plans to remain in office after this year, when he is supposed to resign. Or, maybe, Mugabe may be too embarrassed to remain on his throne: Tekere's autobiography will be published later this month. Reportedly, he serves up juicy tidbits on Mugabe's private life, calling the modern-day Stalin "insecure" and describing his role in the epic revolutionary struggle as "very marginal."
Zimbabwe Plans Huge Increase in AIDS Drugs (AFP)
Millions Missing, UN Ignores Zimbabwe (The Australian)
Tekere Says Mugabe 'Insecure' (New Zimbabwe)
More Gays, HIV and Zimbabwe:
Gay Bashing in Zimbabwe Parliament (Rod 2.0) Zimbabwe "Doesn't Want All These People" (Rod 2.0) Zimbabweans Come Out Slowly (Rod 2.0) Zimbabwe Anchor Comes Out (Rod 2.0) Zimbabwe Gay Asylum Plea (Rod 2.0)
It's funny how most homophobes are described in private life as being "insecure" and "marginal". How sad
Posted by: Yup it's me | 08 January 2007 at 17:12