HEALTH HAZARD: How the system makes us sick - NI 331 - Chronicle 2000

Health hazard / CHRONICLE

.WITH A SPECIAL FOCUS ON THE MAJORITY WORLD

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Television audiences around the world watched in horror as a 12-year-old boy was shot dead by Israeli troops clashing with stone-throwing Palestinian protesters on 2 October. Once again the Middle East was at war, as Israelis and Palestinians attacked each other with a fresh ferocity. Igniting the violence was Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Haram al-Sharif Mosque in Jerusalem to assert Israel’s sovereignty over the shrine.

In Gaza, the West Bank and Israel’s Arab villages, Palestinian residents took to the streets to defend the violated sanctity of Islam’s third holiest shrine. Anger was also sparked by the failure of another Camp David summit in July – Palestinians claim US President Clinton sided with Israel in trying to force concessions out of their leader Yasser Arafat.

On 12 October, after the lynching of two of its soldiers, Israel unleashed hundreds of rocket and artillery ‘retaliatory’ attacks on Palestinian settlements. Around 10,000 civilians were injured and hundreds killed. The UN Human Rights Commission condemned Israel for ‘widespread, systematic and gross violation of human rights’. A resolution put forward by the Arab nations strongly condemned ‘the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force…by the Israeli occupying power’.

The violence was mirrored in shifts of political power on both sides. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak invited the right-wing Likud party to take part in an emergency coalition government and was later forced to agree to elections. Arafat released 22 members of Hamas, the Islamic militia responsible for suicide attacks on Israeli civilians in 1996. With these hardliners in place, both sides initiated more armed attacks, creating empty streets with the tense silence of a war that has worse to come.

A credible mediator and a peacekeeping force are desperately needed. But the UN Security Council has refused to send in a protection force unless Israel approves. With the Israeli military in full force – patrolling streets, enforcing curfews and unlawfully killing and arresting ‘suspicious’ Palestinians – this seems unlikely. If anything is to be learnt from this resurgence of violence, it is that an international approach more sensitive and democratic than the current US-brokered one is needed if peace is to be fostered in the Middle East.

CUBA Britain’s health chiefs visit Cuba to get advice on how to run the National Health Service. Despite a shortage of medical supplies and technology, Cuba’s annual healthcare costs are $10 a head compared with $1,050 a head in Britain. Cuba’s healthcare standard is also higher, with a better ratio of nurses and doctors to patients.

SERBIA Thousands of protesters take to the streets of Belgrade, storm government buildings and oust Slobodan Milosevic from power. Vojislav Kostunica is sworn in as the new president (see box).

ZIMBABWE Leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change Morgan Tsvangirai calls on Robert Mugabe to relinquish the presidency. The campaign to persuade Mugabe to step down is endorsed by Nelson Mandela, while the World Bank cuts off loans to Zimbabwe.

IVORY COAST Military ruler General Robert Guei ignites violence by excluding Alassane Ouattara and all candidates from the Muslim north from the list of contenders for the presidential election. Both Guei and his opponent Laurent Gbagbo run xenophobic presidential campaigns. Gbagbo wins, after troops join demonstrators on the streets of Abidjan calling for an end to Guei’s rule.

AFGHANISTAN The Taliban scores a series of military victories giving it control of more than 95 per cent of Afghanistan. Reports claim the Taliban is trying to export revolution by providing bases for Islamic militant groups. At least six rebel bases have been established in the north of Afghanistan to target the five Central Asian republics – Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan – which straddle the vast land mass between China and Russia.

WORLD Jubilee 2000 announces it will end its debt-relief campaign at the end of the year even though the objective of cancelling unpayable Third World debt remains unfulfilled. Debt campaigners say their next focus will be the 2001 meeting of the G8 in Italy, home to a strident anti-debt campaign with papal backing.

ETHIOPIA Former emperor Haile Selassie is finally laid to rest, 25 years after his death in mysterious circumstances. Rastafarians who revere Selassie are amongst the large crowds watching the coffin being carried through the streets. But the Government states Selassie was a ‘tyrant and oppressor of the masses’ and no officials attend the ceremony.

NAMIBIA Namibian President Sam Nujoma warns that a full-scale war pitting Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola against Uganda will break out in the Democratic Republic of Congo if the Ugandan-backed rebels there do not halt their advance.

SRI LANKA Sri Lankans mourn Sirimavo Bandaranaike, matriarch of the nation and the world’s first female Prime Minister, who dies of a heart attack.

After an inconclusive election, President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s ruling People’s Alliance scrape back into power with the support of two minority parties. The campaign and election is marred by violence that leaves 71 people dead.

VIETNAM The worst floods in 40 years spread across the country, killing 463. Crocodiles not normally seen in the Mekong Delta appear in the floodwaters and a plague of golden snails breeds rapidly, provoking fears they will eat all remaining rice crops.

ASIA Health officials declare a large swath of the continent free from polio. This follows a WHO resolution adopted 12 years ago to eliminate the polio virus worldwide by 2005. In future, health workers will concentrate on the remaining infected areas – including India, sub-Saharan Africa and Turkey.

NIGERIA President Olusegun Obasanjo sends troops into Lagos to halt ethnic fighting that has killed at least 100 people. Fighting between Muslim Hausa from the north and the mainly Christian Yorubas who dominate Nigeria’s southwest leaves many schools and businesses closed for a week.

INDONESIA Corruption charges against the country’s former ruler Suharto are dropped after an independent team of doctors say he is mentally unfit to stand trial. His youngest son Hutomo Tommy Mandala Putra is convicted of defrauding the state of $11 million but is soon ‘out of town’ and avoids arrest.

NORTH KOREA US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visits North Korea and attends a gala celebrating 55 years of Communist rule. The visit reflects an increasing desire on the part of the US to trade with the country, despite its poor human-rights record. Talks focus on the North’s ability to produce nuclear and other weapons, regional security and its need for food aid.