reading 8: Drugs or Guns

Assalamualaikum and good afternoon to Mdm Suzie. Here I would like to comments and responses to the article in the text book which is “Drugs or Guns”. Drugs or guns? What it is all about? When I first read the article, I don’t know what it wants to conveyed. Even though I have read it for the second time, I still could not reach the message conveyed in the text. I also ask a few of my friends regarding the Drugs or Guns and they said that the article is about the South African government that faces two legal cases challenging its priorities which are arms and AIDS. After I’ve read it several times, I did understand a bit about the article. What I got and know from the article is that one common argument from the plaintiffs is that scrapping the arms deal would give the government the money it says it doesn’t have for a national anti-AIDS program. From this argument, I can see that South Africa’s President, Thabo Mbeki is not responsible toward its own government. It is because, it is seems like he is more into buying the arms rather than treat the AIDS patient and rape victims. I don’t think that he is a good president as he did not play his role as a president of South Africa effectively.

The arms purchase has been mired in complaint and contention from its beginning 1999. as soon as the government opened the bidding process for submarines, corvettes, trainer jets and fighter planes from British, Swedish, German and Italian suppliers, political opponents of Mbeki’s ruling African National Congress and several NGO’s questioned the necessity of the deal. That is because they cannot see the necessity of a $ 6 billion weapons-acquisition deals. But, an opponent Pan-African Congress Member of Parliament, Patricia de Lille, claimed she had been given a tip about high-ranking officials who had benefited from the arms deal. After Tony Yengeni, the A.N.C.’s chief whip and head of the party defense committee was alleged of obtained a cut-price Mercedes-Benz from a company with links to the arms deal, Yengeni and a German executive from the company were charged with corruption and forgery. They face trial next year but deny any wrongdoings. It is also convey the message about AIDS. The government’s policy on AIDS was also under attack last week, this time from the Treatment Action Campaign, an AIDS-awareness group supported by civil, trade union and church organizations.

The judgment in the TAC case, due before Christmas, could well favor the AIDS activists because the judge has already indicated his support for making the drug widely available as soon as possible. If so, it will a slap in the face of Mbeki, whose controversial stance on the causes and treatment of AIDS has become a national talking points. When he recently cited six-year-old statistics to claim that violence took more lives in South Africa than AIDS, the national Medical Research Council confirmed that AIDS is indeed the country’s leading killer. A Committee led by female A.N.C.M.P.s last month called on the government to revise its HIV/AIDS policy and freely provide antiretroviral drugs to pregnant women and rape victims. Crawford-Browne also said that the government has no justification in spending $ 6billion on weapons for a country unlikely ever to confront a foreign military threat. A German firm involve in the weapons agreement has promised to build a factory in the Eastern Cape to produce condoms for South Africa’s safe sex campaign.

i think that is all for today because i don't know what to write more in this "Drugs or Guns". thank you.