wfn.org | All Africa News Agency Oct 6 2003 Features

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AANA Bulletin						Bulletin APTA
  Editor -Elly Wamari						Editor -
Silvie Alemba

AANA BULLETIN No. 39/03 October 6, 2003 Features

FEATURES  SECTION

Boom Time For Sex Peddlers At AIDS Conference

Leading researchers, HIV/AIDS sufferers, religious leaders, doctors, 
traditional healers,  counsellors, activists, and representatives of 
various other interest groups, recently gathered in Nairobi, Kenya's 
capital, for a crucial international conference aimed at devising means of 
intensifying war on the dreaded AIDS scourge. Ironically, for the highly 
vulnerable commercial sex workers, it was boom time, reports our 
Correspondent Oscar Obonyo.

A
s participants of the recently concluded 13th International Conference on 
AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) discussed the 
magnitude of HIV/AIDS in the continent, and recent research breakthroughs, 
commercial sex workers (CSWs), on the sidelines, were busy tempting 
conference participants.

Most of them teenage girls and single mothers, the CSWs may have had no 
idea on what exactly their prospective foreign clients were doing in the 
country.

All they cared for was the cash-minting opportunity that had presented 
itself, thanks to another international event in town.

The sex peddlers, who are normally confined to particular pick-up joints 
downtown the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, were all over upmarket hotels in a 
daring hunt for the valuable dollars carried by foreigners.

The women were aggressive and fast on their clients, adjusting according to 
market forces as dictated by circumstances at the HIV/AIDS conference.

"By targeting the very experts who are in town with a message of caution, 
the women are trying to bring this world event to disrepute!" protested Dr 
Joan Nzibunga, a Zambian medic attending the event.

The weeklong biennial conference was crucial to Africa, considering that 
although the continent is home to only 10 percent of the world's 
population, 70 percent of the people living with HIV/AIDS are found here.

To the commercial sex workers and their clients, it mattered less, that 
medical experts, including professors, doctors and leading researchers from 
the world over, landed in Nairobi with scarring figures and statistics 
about the pandemic.

At the moment, the scourge remains the most devastating crisis in the 
history of human health. More than 38 million people are living with 
HIV.  Everyday, more than 8,000 others die and 15,000 more people get 
infected.

If current trends do not change, there will be more than 40 million AIDS 
orphans in Africa alone by 2010.

Further, women constitute 58 percent of the infected in black Africa. The 
rate is much higher among young women in many countries, says the latest 
UNAIDS report.

Women, particularly young ones, are more vulnerable to infection because 
they lack access to information, education and the services necessary to 
ensure sexual and reproductive health.

These figures notwithstanding, the sex workers simply defied the agenda of 
the conference and went on with business to win dollars from foreign 
participants.  They cared less about what was happening in their backyard.

"Business is bad and this conference offers a rare opportunity for us to 
patch up the difference. Mind you, the pay is a lot better now," said 
19-year-old Stella (other names withheld), who patronises a popular 
nightclub along Nairobi's Moi Avenue.

Another CSW, who operates along Koinange Street, a famous twilight zone 
within the city centre, affirmed that business had suddenly boomed, with 
more foreigners seeking their services at night.

According to her, the HIV/AIDS talks, which were going on barely 500 metres 
away from her favourite waiting spot, were meaningless.

"I think what is happening is mere useless talk, as these very guys sneak 
here in search of fun every night," she says.

So for six days during the ICASA event, business was at its peak for the 
daring women and girls, as they entertained HIV/AIDS sufferers, healthy 
non-infected, medical personnel, government officials, policy-makers and 
researchers.

"It is unfortunate that some men may have come to this country strong and 
healthy, but will now fly back home with the deadly virus," said Ms Agnes 
Njuguna, a project officer with SourceNet, a Kenyan AIDS awareness 
development organisation.

Saying that society cannot wish away the problem by simply ridiculing those 
within the trade, Njuguna observes that the most important thing is for 
everyone to acknowledge the very existence of CSWs before addressing the 
issue squarely.

"The message is clear," says John Omondi of SourceNet, adding, "Without 
some sort of economic empowerment, young girls will continue risking their 
lives just to survive."

Little weight was, however, placed on this very factor during the 12 
plenary sessions, 32 round-table debates and 400 oral and scientific paper 
presentations at the event, staged to dissect what is perceived as the 
greatest present day human tragedy.

Clerics (about 50 bishops from different denominations) and traditional 
healers were among those comparing notes with scientists over the dreaded 
disease.

As the search for economic remedies to HIV/AIDS is sort, Ms Josephine 
Macharia, also of SourceNet, opines that the sex workers should be 
intensively involved in anti-AIDS campaign and be advised to always use 
protective gadgets while going about "their business".
(see cartoon separately attached)

Holding The Bible By Day, Seeking Oracles By Night

The arrival of Christianity in Africa heralded a new beginning of faith and 
life in the continent. European missionaries brought the Christian faith, 
which taught the African to discard his culture, hitherto considered 
primitive. But the resultant effect has been that of many an African living 
two lives, posing as Christians during the "day" and living the life of the 
African traditionalist at "night".  In this article, AANA Correspondent, 
Joseph K'Amolo seeks some answers.

W
hen Christianity arrived in Africa, it condemned traditional practices and 
beliefs. With it came the Western education system, which further poured 
cold water on the African way of life, including traditional religion.

Systematically, with the help of colonial powers, the two elements 
(Christianity and Western education) started spreading across the 
continent. More churches were built as more Africans became converted.

African converts were made to condemn their traditional norms. Those who 
held on to such were viewed as being "lost" and "primitive".

Today, the Christian faith is more than 100 years old in the continent. It 
is here that Christianity has been touted to be growing at a rate faster 
than anywhere else in the world.

But events on the ground cast doubt as to whether the faith has really 
stamped its authority on the lives of the people.

Many professing Christians can be said to be living in two worlds. They are 
divided between traditional lifestyle and Christian approach to life. What 
with them still consulting witch-doctors, diviners, and oracles. This is in 
sharp contradiction to what the Bible teaches.

States Deuteronomy 18:10-13: "There shall not be found among you anyone who 
...practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a 
sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one 
who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to 
the Lord, and because of these abominations, the Lord, your God, drives 
them out from before you."

According to Rev Dr Kasonga wa Kasonga, head of Christian and Family Life 
Education at the Nairobi-based All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), 
many people find themselves divided between these two worlds because they 
harbour the wrong notion that problems end with one becoming a Christian.

He acknowledges that man faces myriad problems, some of which the Church 
cannot supply immediate solution to. In such an event, many people feel 
defeated and start looking for alternatives.  A number run from one church 
to other in search of prophets.

Says Rev Kasonga: "Some even get burnt out and go to consult witchdoctors 
to be affirmed in their lives. This is because they feel the support of 
their lives have collapsed."

In a veiled admission that the Church has not done enough, he says the 
Church needs to review itself and question its way of dealing with such 
situations.

"Perhaps we have been talking to ourselves and not to the person, the 
message we deliver does not address the real person. Therefore, the Church 
should adjust its ministry to address the person," he says.

But he also notes that if people do not open their hearts, they will always 
be vulnerable to temptations. He advises that people should be receptive to 
the gospel to have a total change in their lives.

The key elements of the gospel, says Rev Kasonga, are hope and faith. He 
stresses that hope is something that needs to be practised in our lives. It 
calls for patience and goes together with faith.

But to those who might think hope means sitting and waiting; far from it. 
Hope calls for being active as one looks forward to what he has asked for.

Those who wonder about looking for immediate results are people who have 
lost the virtue of hope.  Rev Kasonga reminds people that God's timing is 
different from man's.

He also discourages the gospel of prosperity, which tends to let people 
think they can be blessed without working for it.

He is, however, upbeat that the Church continues to be pre-occupied with 
strengthening its ministry along the line of preaching, educating, 
counselling and healing. "It is an ever-growing effort," he says.

In the views of Prof Gilbert Ogutu of the Department of Religious Studies 
at the University of Nairobi, human beings are disturbed by the riddle in 
life.  "Some problems have no solutions and we cannot understand why they 
happen, so we seek help elsewhere," he states.

He argues that it is human tendency to turn to supernatural powers in such 
situations. And this power, according to him, can be God, some spirits, or 
some intermediary between God and man and it is here where Jesus, and 
ancestors in the African religion, play similar roles.	In either case, the 
ultimate goal is to ask God for His divine intervention to the problems man 
has no solution to, contends the university lecturer.

"While Christians approach God through prayers and fasting, traditionalists 
offer sacrifices. There are also those who approach God by hurting their 
bodies.

"Some deny themselves earthly pleasure, while some go for retreat," says 
the professor. "The approaches may differ, but the reason remains the 
same," he continues.

Prof Ogutu observes that prayer is a mysterious activity that is done with 
the hope that God is listening. But he accepts that man is always in a 
hurry to get results, which may not be the case always. This has driven 
some people to try one means after another.

Even where a diviner is consulted, the truth is that it is not him who 
provides the miracles, alleges Professor Ogut, but God.

Just like Jesus spat on soil when healing a blind man, so do traditional 
priests use physical materials to invoke certain cosmic forces, and in the 
process, effect healing.

"Cosmic powers are the forces that make the universe move, and there are 
people who understand them through powers given to them by God," asserts 
the university don.

The belief in other forms of supernatural powers is not uniquely African. 
Even in the United States of America, it is alleged that witchcraft and the 
"dark" arts are on the rise, and Christianity is sharply declining there.

According to a 2001 study conducted by American Institute of Religious 
Studies (AIRS), Christianity in America is down 10 percent from 1990. 
Projections anticipate a further 30 percent drop within Christian 
congregations over the next 40 years.

The Tides That Somali Delgates Have Sailed Through

The Somali Peace and Reconciliation Conference, being held in Nairobi, 
Kenya, entered a critical stage on September 23, when the Rahanwayu 
Resistance Army (RRA) factions agreed to a truce that could bring peace to 
the south of the country, which is dominated by the Digil and Mirifle.	The 
two clans have been blamed for stoking the Somali leadership crisis.  AANA 
Correspondent, Pedro Shipepechero, reviews the hurdles that committed 
somali peace negotiators have overcome.

T
he peace deal between the Digil and Mirifle clans, which together 
constitute about half of the country's population of approximately 16 
million people, will pave way for the nomination of their portion of 78 of 
the 351 Members of Parliament (MPs) expected to form a transitional 
government after the conclusion of the peace talks later this year.

The two clans have been fighting each other since 1991, when Siad Barre's 
government was brought down.

The deal between them was reached after a series of inter-clan meetings 
meant to formulate a system of nominating MPs, which nearly stalled the 
conference when the talks resumed in July, after a break.

A number of delegates had contested the method that was to be used to 
choose representatives to form the next government. The elite, made up of 
scholars and professionals resident outside Somalia, was particularly wary 
that the warlords would bend the nomination process.

Speaking after the leaders of the two clans agreed to nominate their MPs as 
a single group, Kenya's Special Envoy to the talks, Bethuel Kiplagat, said 
the deal had paved the way for the other clans to accommodate each other.

The nomination of MPs was already a thorny issue long before the conference 
adopted the transitional charter, which has taken more than three months to 
make.  Contentious issues such as language, religion, governance and the 
seat of the government were not easy to thrash out.

The other major clans - the Dir, the Darood and the Hawiye - will each 
nominate 78 MPs, according to the transitional constitution, adopted by 
Somali parties to the talks three weeks ago.

The minor clans were allocated 39 seats in the next government that will 
replace the Transitional National Government (TNG) headed by President 
Abdiqassim Hassan Salat, who has been at the helm of the volatile nation 
since 2000, following a clan leaders' conference mediated by Djibouti.

"Salat's mandate ended on August 13, but when the peace conference in 
Nairobi failed to work out a formula for the transfer of authority, 
parliament resolved to let him remain in power until when a new government 
is constituted to take over from him," justice minister Awad Ahmed Ashara, 
an associate of Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, said upon signing of a treaty 
between the leaders of the Digil and Mirifle.

Abdullahi is the self-declared President of Puntland, which since the start 
of the civil strife, has been fighting to secede from the greater Somalia.

When the talks resumed at Mbagathi, the conference venue in the suburbs of 
Nairobi, it had been feared that he would not accede to the resolutions 
arrived at by the over 400 delegates.  Had this happened, it would have 
plunged the country into a deeper crisis.

However, Abdullahi has personally been taking part in the talks for the 
past two months alongside other warlords such as Hussein Farah Aideed, who 
controls the region near Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.

Aideed is the son of slain warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed.  He and Abdullahi 
are among the 50 candidates that have expressed interest in the presidency 
upon formation of a new government.

Ashara said, however, that the contest was gradually narrowing down to 
Aideed, Abdullahi and former chairman of the Council of East and Central 
Africa Football Associations (CECAFA), Farah Addo.

The three hopefuls are financially endowed and enjoy influence in the 
factions that have been fighting for the control of huge chunks of the 
country.

When Salat quit the talks in July citing interference by Ethiopia, and 
accusing Kenya and Djibouti of doing Ethiopia's dirty work at the talks, 
the conference was almost thrown into disarray. However, the speaker of the 
interim national assembly refused to go along with his president and stayed 
in Nairobi to carry on with talks on behalf of the TNG.

The prospects of the peace process were boosted when the Kenya government 
dispatched former foreign affairs assistant minister, Mohammed Affey, to 
Mogadishu in early August to persuade Salat and the warlords, who had been 
reluctant to participate in the conference, to send representatives to 
Nairobi to negotiate for their factions.

The outcome of Affey's diplomatic trip resulted in Abdullahi opting to 
personally take part in the talks.

Mr Ashara, a spokesman for the Puntland government, said that the September 
23 deal would encourage the rest of the clans to make concessions that 
would speed up return to civil order.

Besides, Puntland, Somaliland, Mogadishu and Juba, all claim autonomy and 
have been fighting to secede from Somalia.

Since the adoption of the charter, which provides for a transitional 
government that will be responsible for putting in place, democratic 
institutions, the talks have concentrated on containing ethnic barriers, 
with the country being balkanised into four main regions controlled by 
warlords.

In attempt to transcend the different political and ethnic interests, the 
peace talks resolved that Somalia will adopt a federal system of 
government. Once a new government is formed, the factional militia will 
form the national army. It has also been resolved that Arabic and Islam 
will be the national language and religion respectively.

In July, President Salat, at the behest of the Arab League, stormed out of 
the talks claiming that there was a move to stifle Arabic and Islam by the 
West through the conference. President Salat's departure did not adversely 
influence the talks, as his vice president, Speaker of the National 
Assembly, and the entire cabinet, remained in Nairobi to continue with the 
process.

The European Union is the sponsor of the Somali peace and reconciliation 
talks, which are being mediated by the Inter-Governmental Authority on 
Development (IGAD) frontline states, namely, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and 
Djibouti.

A three-man EU delegation visited Nairobi from September 17-19 to assess 
the progress of the peace talks that started in 2001 in Eldoret town in 
western Kenya.

The head of the EU troika, Italian Assistant Minister for Africa, Senator 
Alfredo Mantica, said the talks were crucial in future dealings with the 
Horn of Africa and East Africa.