The new liberation struggle for Southern Africa (June 2004) 

As AIDS ravages the Southern African socialscape, we ought to take ourselves out of the currently prevailing sense of having such "little confidence in the future" that clear-sighted leadership is not emerging to champion an emergency response of the magnitude that the scale of the pandemic itself begs.

In April and May 2004, Malawian and Zimbabwean media reports suggested the possibility that some abuse of resources for HIV and AIDS has been taking place. A number of the region's political leaders—some even responsible for health delivery in their own countries—are still in the practice of leaving behind crumbling and under-funded health infrastructure and, exploiting their own mobility and wherewithal, buckling up in aeroplanes to take themselves and their own for treatment in South Africa or abroad.

Discrimination is still rife in the region, with those who have not tested, and those who tested sero-negative perhaps five years ago, mounting moralistic high horsesw and regarding any of theior compatriots who dares announce that they are HIV positive as indistinguishable from a person dying of AIDS, and as having no hope. As violence against women continues in the homes and streets of Southern African countries, little decisive action in terms of legislative, judicial and public educational recommendations made over the years by human rights organisations, has been taken. 

Contents

Editorial by Tawanda Mutasah

Wilful transmission: to criminalise or not to criminalise (by Sami Modiba)

Putting our money where our crisis is: economic justice and HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa (by Tawanda Mutasah)

Women's rights in the era of HIV and AIDS (by Everjoice J Win)

HIV and AIDS and electoral democracy: the implications for participation, political stability and accountability (by Kondwani Chirambo)

Forever in emergency mode: education systems in the era of HIV and AIDS (by Grace Kaimila-Kanjo)

It is not as simple as ABC: a critique of the rights-based approach to HIV and AIDS (by David Lush)

The third republic in Malawi: how Bingu will govern? (by Nixon S Khembo)

The missing pieces of the puzzle (by Alice Kwaramba)

Can the "fourth estate" do better (by Shimbi Solani)

Interfacing ICTs and HIV and AIDS (by Ashraf Patel)

Was Beijing worth it? (by Leya Chatta-Chipepa)

OSISA news

Campaign for a democratic Angola (by Rafael Marques)

HAT for digital solidarity (by Thrishni Subramoney) 

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