December 1/2001

PRESS RELEASE ON WORLD WIDE AIDS AWARENESS DAY

 In Ethiopia close to 4 million people are AIDS infected and every year thousands die from it without the EPRDF in power taking any serious and effective counter action aside from occasional declarations dispatched towards the ears of the fund donors.

The EPRDF has justifiably been accused of not focusing on the AIDS epidemic that is devastating the country. The affliction specially affects the young and in almost urban centers where prostitution is rampant. The government policies and the practices of the top official have been militating in favor of child prostitution. Unemployment is rampant, desperation the norm, bars and brothels aplenty. The ethnic policies of the EPRDF have also resulted in the degradation of the health system (and the education system) and helped in the spread of AIDS. While the EPRDF, which practices an overt ethnic politics, has done a relatively intense propaganda work against AIDS in its own "home base, Tigrai, it has ignored many other areas and millions are uninformed on the causes and effects of the epidemic. A serious campaign to sensitize the people against and on AIDS has not been launched by a ruling group that is otherwise spending millions on buying arms and expanding its security apparatus. People in Ethiopia have almost never heard the Prime Minister, who is a voluble man, make a declaration or speech on AIDS and its dangers as, for example, Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni had been doing.

AIDS is wreaking havoc in Ethiopia though the EPRDF is reluctant to reveal the extent of the disaster. The budget allocated to the health sector is minimal. EPRDF soldiers afflicted by the disease have been sent to various areas to spread the infection so long as they are out of the chosen region of the ruling power. In Ethiopia, AIDS is one of the most serious dangers confronting the people but this is not really accepted or recognized by the ruling EPRDF. Thus, the need to pressurize the EPRDF to confront the fundamental problems favoring the spread of AIDS in Ethiopia: unemployment, the extensive use of drugs and alcohol abuse (commerce in which the EPRDF officials are directly involved), the spread of prostitution (including child prostitution), the collapse of the health care system, etc- all being direct or indirect consequences of the ethnic politics practiced by the EPRDF. AIDS is killing hundreds of thousands in Ethiopia. The campaign to stop or check its devastation forces us to insist on the respect of the rights of the people, a democratic governance and the participation of the people in a country wide campaign to fight the scourge of AIDS.

SOCEPP