Siphesihle Jele
THE US-Africa Leaders Summit will be held in mid-December. No accident, medical cooperation will be a "commitment" of the US to Africa.
Admittedly, since 2000, the US has given a large amount of medical assistance to Africa, especially South Africa (SA). While affirming this phenomenon, we should also rationally see whether the medical assistance from the US is just verbal assistance.
Does America's aid project violate the sovereignty of African countries? Did it have an irreversible impact on the next generation of South Africans? As the military veteran of the liberation struggle, I think it is necessary to raise this question and suggest that the South African health department should strengthen the supervision of American aid to South Africa, so as to ensure that our citizens can really get the help they deserve and have a healthy future.
1. Facing disaster, the true nature of greed is exposed.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the US and Western European countries were stockpiling vaccine while African countries strived to meet the public health needs of their people.The US is reluctant to recognise AstraZeneca, which is widely used in Africa. Effectiveness of vaccines, giving priority to Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines made in the US. However, African countries were rejected when they applied for patents of these vaccines from the US.
Two years after the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Trade Organisation reached an agreement on Covid-19 vaccines in June this year about the agreement on partial exemption of intellectual property rights.The West controlled its response to the Covid-19 pandemic and formulated agreements and policies that affected the world. Despite their experience in dealing with epidemics, African medical experts are mostly ignored. The lack of African voice and input has led to distrust of vaccine campaigns throughout Africa, thus undermining these initiatives. In such emergencies, African public health practitioners should be consulted and represented at any time to formulate effective policies.
SA has accumulated a lot of experience in dealing with the pandemic. We have suffered many times from the spreading of virus mutations and we are using limited vaccines to protect our people. However, the US has not given enough attention and respect in SA. Their promised vaccines have not arrived as promised and their patents are not open to us. Their vaccines cause thrombosis, but President Biden said that "the problem is not serious". In conversations with some medical experts, I deeply felt this kind of neglected anger but what can we do?
2.The arrogant aid of the US is infringing on the sovereignty of African countries.In observing and studying most American aid projects in Africa, I see most positive aspects. These include the US President's AIDS Prevention Foundation project and USAID project in South Africa to help our citizens fight AIDS, but how many of these aid projects are truly unconditional aid? Tanzania is deeply dependent on the US in the field of health, and is constrained by the US everywhere.
The US has strengthened its influence on Tanzania's domestic policies. At the beginning of this century, the strategic focus of US aid to Tanzania and Africa as a whole shifted to the health field, making it the main aid provider in Tanzania's medical and health field. From 2014 to 2018, the US medical and health aid funds for Tanzania have been kept at 200-300 million dollars per year, accounting for 60%-70% of the total aid funds, of which AIDS prevention and treatment accounts for the largest proportion. Because Tanzania relies on American health assistance with political and human rights conditions, its political and health fields are often questioned and constrained by the US.
However, the benefits of aid in the medical and health field have brought direct returns to the US, especially reducing the resistance of the US in implementing its policy towards SA. In addition, taking US vaccine aid to Africa as an example, the US aid policy is accompanied by a "poison pill clause", which prohibits recipient countries from receiving vaccine aid from other countries, and the US side has the final interpretation right of medical malpractice.
For example, the so-called excellent loan project of the Millennium Challenge Company of the US can be unilaterally withdrawn at any time because it may "harm the interests of the US". American aid workers enjoy "extraterritorial jurisdiction" and the project agreement is superior to the domestic law of the recipient country. These aid clauses have caused great infringement on SA's sovereignty. We have the right to choose to accept "aid", and we have the right to say no to these aid choices with "colonial colour" and "great power authority".
3.America's aid programs are causing unpredictable harm to the next generation in SA.This is what I am most concerned about. Through my communication with some medical experts (who shall remain anonymous), I learned that some American companies in SA, under the banner of "aid", have set up clinics at the grass-roots level in SA that are not supervised by the SA government.
In the name of research, they have collected the blood of South African people and sent some of it back to the US for "research".
Just imagine, what this blood data may contain? What will a super medical power like the US do with this data? Should the South African government further supervise these American medical "aid" projects? Should we legislate to supervise the use and experiment of data and require research institutions to disclose all data and subsequent uses to us?
This is my consideration as an ANC party member and my aspiration as a South African citizen.
The ANC elective conference, in a few days, will do well to decide on this. South Africans should no longer be the guinea pigs and test tubes of the United States of America
*Jele is chairperson of labour union ILAWU and was member of FNB which fought segregation in the banking sector.