"Uhuru Movement organizes at Ground Zero in Sierra Leone to fight imperialist Ebola!"
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone—In early April 2014, Sierra Leone president Ernest Bai Koroma announced that the country was under a state of emergency. He said that a virus named Ebola had begun to effect people in Kailahun in eastern Sierra Leone.
Ebola virus disease (EVD) or Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) is contagious and highly deadly. The disease kills between 50 and 90 percent of those infected with the virus.
The largest and “deadliest” outbreak to date according to the World Health Organization is the current and ongoing outbreak that is affecting Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.
“Has Ebola Reached a Tipping Point,” asked the World Health Organization according to an ABC News report.
The World Health Organization predicts that there will be 20,000 deaths from Ebola by December 3, only three months from now! In the same ABC Report the statistics of Ebola in West Africa was as follows:
In Guinea Conakry, 771 cases with 494 deaths; in Liberia, 1,698 cases with 871 deaths; in Sierra Leone (SL), 1,216 cases with 476 deaths. In Nigeria there have been 21 cases, and in Senegal there has been one reported.
The countries with the leading infectious and mortality rates—Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone—are rich in iron ore, rubber, diamonds and gold.
They, however, suffer from the absence of clean water, necessary for hydration for Ebola patients. They also lack electricity and more importantly, medical facilities, medical personnel and medicine.
In Liberia, which accounts for half of the deaths, there is one doctor for every 100,000 patients. One thousand beds are needed and only 240 are available!
Poorest healthcare in resource rich Africa
In Sierra Leone, where we find the next highest mortality rate, the situation is similar if not worse.
Despite its mineral wealth, Sierra Leone has no electricity for the majority of the people, no running water, contaminated wells for drinking water and very few hospitals.
The so-called hospitals would not meet the standards of any European country. In SL, the hospitals have no medicine.
Families have to go to the pharmacy, buy the meds and bring them to the doctor. Because there is no electricity, there are no elevators or diagnostic equipment.
The country suffers from the highest incidence of maternal mortality in the world, and the life span of the people in the country has just recently climbed from the 30s to the low 40s!
We can safely assume that included in and high on the scale of the causes of death is the question of nutrition.
Poverty is imposed on Africa so there is little or no nutritional food and this is also a factor that makes the people susceptible to Ebola and a host of other illnesses that kill us too soon.
Since the government announcement, “aid” has been sent in by the imperialist countries—America, France and Britain—who, on a daily basis, suck the life blood from our country by stealing all of our natural resources.
In one instance, the leadership of the opposition’s political party provided two hundred bags of rice on behalf of his family and his party.
He is a flag bearer for the 2018 election and is busy distributing among his cabinet ministers the resources or donations received to handle the Ebola virus.
At the same time, there are no resources for the masses of people, especially those who suffer from the virus.
What do these government ministers do?
The government ministers are busy embezzling the so-called “aid” while the “aid givers” are well aware that this is what they do. They only give the people a pouch with chlorine to wash their hands.
This has been a great concern for the Uhuru Movement since the majority of those affected are workers and poor peasants, our base.
The non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) have formed a coalition that is busy building check points for clinical checks of high fever.
They have established that temperature ranges above 38 degrees Celsius will make one a possible suspect for Ebola quarantine.
These checks which are done sometimes randomly in the streets have prevented many people from travelling from because of the fear of being suspected as Ebola virus victims.
And one has a reason to fear travel because the devices used to check the temperature of travelers are inaccurate. For example, during my travel from Magburaka in the north, I was tested at the first checkpoint, and my temperature was 35.4 degrees.
At a second checkpoint, my temperature was 34.9 degrees although travel was a very short distance. This means that some of the cases detected for the virus are false.
Public transportation is very difficult. Public places like schools, colleges, technical vocational institutes, social places like clubs and cinemas are temporarily closed.
If a member of a household is found positive with the virus, the whole family is chased, quarantined in their home for a 21-day period and provided with one bag tension everywhere as the people scramble for food and battle against Ebola.
Known cure for Ebola not available to African workers
We know that there are effective treatments for Ebola. We have seen white people who contracted the disease, brought back to the U.S. and treated effectively and recovered.
There is evidence that there is effective treatment, yet the alarming rate at which we are dying, the treatment is not being given to Africans. The Sierra Leone government gives us one bag of rice!
Solution
The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) Sierra Leone is beginning a campaign that will have a list of demands including the following:
1. That the government initiates a clean water, food and medicine campaign.
2. That the government petitions the multinational companies that are operating in the diamond, gold and bauxite mines to use the resources pilfered from those entities to implement huge facilities to treat the infected humanely, with beds, adequate food and staff.
3. That an adequate nutritional campaign be implemented where people obtain nutritional food to boost their health and immune system allowing them to be able to resist and fight this disease during this period until the disease is eradicated.
4. That the government provides an explanation as to why there are no medicines and hospitals.
In addition, InPDUM will initiate the following:
1. A community awareness campaign to inform people in the villages of the risk factors for Ebola infection and the protective measures individuals can take.
2. Launch the Revolutionary National Democratic Program (RNDP) to empower the community to do for self.
InPDUM will also be initiating points 53, 54, 55, and 56 of the RNDP listed below:
53. We demand immediate, free healthcare for all Africans to deal with the colonially-based plethora of illnesses and diseases that afflict our people subsequent to slavery and colonialism, and the continued abrogation of our right to self-determination.
54. We demand an immediate end to the U.S. biological warfare waged against the African population throughout the world through the engineered spreading of viruses such as AIDS/HIV, the flu, sickle cell, etc.
55. Clinics and healthcare must be made available for all our people, especially workers and rural and agricultural communities. Also, healthcare workers must receive payment for their work. All efforts must be made to convince healthcare workers to dedicate their skills to the struggle of the workers, peasants and impoverished masses to improve the conditions of our people.
56. Initiate an immediate campaign of mosquito eradication. The number of our people, especially children, who die from malaria, seriously undermines our capacity as a people. It affects the productivity of our workers and poor peasants and the morale of our families who continue to have loved ones incapacitated or killed by disease, causing even greater burdens for our impoverished population. An effective mosquito eradication campaign based in the masses can have an immediate impact on the quality of life for Africans in Sierra Leone.
Ebola is germ warfare; fight back
Africans must understand that Ebola is strategic germ warfare that’s being waged against Africans in West Africa.
The attack on Africans in West Africa is an attack on the African nation, a nation scattered throughout the worldworld. When you touch one, you touch all!
Africans in Liberia, even as they were experiencing their own disaster, held demonstrations protesting the police murder of young Michael Brown.
It is clear that they experienced the sense of sameness, because of our national identity.
Africans around the world must stand up against the genocide that is committed against our brothers and sisters in West Africa.
African doctors, nurses, scientists and pharmacists must go to work to conquer Ebola in Africa!
We must defeat this enemy that is killing our people!
Smash Imperialist-created Ebola!
Smash Imperialism and Neocolonialism!
