Archive for November 8th, 2008
US State Department calls for release of Alexis Sinduhije
From the Washington Post
The State Department protested the Burundian government’s arrest Monday of an aspiring presidential candidate and former journalist who was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people this year by Time magazine.
Burundian authorities arrested Alexis Sinduhije at his political party’s headquarters in Bujumbura on Monday, along with other party staff members.
“We believe that is unacceptable. We believe he should be released immediately,” Russell Brooks, spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, said Friday. “It remains our hope the government of Burundi will work to advance the cause of political freedom and speech in Burundi and allow citizens to exercise universally recognized rights.”
An ethnic Tutsi reporter who adopted a Hutu war orphan, Sinduhije has become a national celebrity in Burundi, a small central African country that has been plagued for more than 15 years by violence between the two ethnic groups.
In 2001 Sinduhije founded Radio Publique Africaine, an independent radio station that promoted reconciliation between the groups.
His reporting has drawn international praise. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists honored Sinduhije in 2004 with its International Press Freedom Award. He has also appeared as a guest on PBS‘s “Charlie Rose” show.
“We wanted to set an example of how relations between the ethnic groups could be humanized,” Sinduhije said in explaining his journalistic mission at the 2004 award ceremony. “We hired former fighters, both Hutu and Tutsi . . . to become fighters for peace and truth.”
Joel Simon, the committee’s executive director, said Sinduhije’s radio station “was a beacon” for those searching for an “alternative to the kind of politics of racial division which had brought Burundi to the brink of genocide.”
Simon said Sinduhije has been repeatedly threatened, beaten and jailed for his work as a reporter. Sinduhije left journalism in December 2007 to compete in Burundi’s 2010 presidential election. The government has refused to formally register his political party, the Movement for Security and Democracy.
“We don’t think this is a press freedom case,” Simon said, noting that the charges were nevertheless “trumped up.” He said, “We’re obviously very concerned about him, and this treatment illustrates the environment in which Burundi’s election is taking place.”
Burundi’s U.N. ambassador, Augustin Nsanze, declined to comment on the arrest.
Over the years, Alexis Sinduhije has been immensely supportive of efforts to get to the truth over the Titanic Express massacre, and secure justice for all Burundi’s victims. Click here for more background on his arrest.
Harvard study blames Mbeki’s AIDS denial for 330,000 deaths
In “Don’t Get Fooled Again” I trace the growth of the insidious cult of AIDS denial, from its origins in the US in the early 1980s, to the moment it was embraced by the South African government of Thabo Mbeki.
The economist Nicoli Nattrass has estimated that 340,000 lives could have been saved had Mbeki not blocked the distribution of lifesaving drugs, under the influence of AIDS “dissidents” including the virologist Peter Duesberg, who insists that HIV does not cause AIDS and is harmless.
Now a study by the Harvard School of Public Health has arrived at a very similar figure, estimating the death toll resulting from Mbeki’s decision to withhold the drugs as “more than 330,000”. The prominent South African HIV treatment access campaigner Zackie Achmat has called for Mbeki to be held to account for his government’s failure, either through a judicial inquiry, or a revived “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”.
Richard Wilson's blog 