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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MARCH 8, 1985
The February 22, 1985 NATIONAL REVIEW drew attention to the contrasting im
pressions gained by Senator Edward Kennedy on his January trip to Africa,
where he visited both South Africa and Ethiopia:
Last month Edward Kennedy visited segregated Sout� Africa, where
he vowed to fight apartheid.
Then he visited famine-ridden
Ethiopia, where he vowed to fight "hunger." Curiously--well, not
so curiously--Kennedy didn't criticize the Marxist-Leninist re
gime in Ethiopia. In the time-honored Communist way, the Ethio
pian regime is using the famine, and even blocking outside relief
efforts, in order to subjugate recalcitrant parts of the popula
tion. The white r·
egime of South Africa has done nothing remotely
approaching this. The emaciated bodies of the Ethiopians speak
as graphically of tyranny as the corpses at Auschwitz. Yet Ken
nedy scrupulously observed the convention of international pro
gressive etiquette that forbids us to call the handiwork of Com
munism evidence of "social injustice" or "the need for systemic
change."••• No, these cliches of liberal analysis are reserved
for capitalist societies.
Southern Africa too has (until recent flooding) been in the grips of an ex
treme drought. But with its modern infrastructure it was able to outlast
the crisis, and provide for the needs of all its peoples. Mr. Kennedy, upon
his return, wrote a very lengthy report in an issue of PEOPLE MAGAZINE about
his grim impressions of visiting refugee camps in both Ethiopia and the
Sudan. Nary a peep about the politics of the famine, however.
AIDS--Grim Statistics and Fanciful Solutions
In an article titled "Hysteria Yields to Grim Facts," the SUNDAY TIMES of
London (February 24, 1985) published some of the latest grim statistics
regarding the spread of AIDS--Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome--in the
U.S. The British are very concerned over the extent of the disease in the
U.S. since it is now spreading rapidly in the U.K.
Up to February 18, there were 8,495 reported cases [ in the U.S.]
including 4,077 deaths. It has taken five years to reach this
figure.
Yet this year alone experts expect it �o double.
Although 73% of cases are adult homosexuals, the borders of the
disease are extending: 587 females and 97 children under 13 have
Aids. A six-year-old boy caught the disease after sexual abuse
by his father who had caught the disease from his lover. In San
Francisco a 66-year-old nun died following a contaminated blood
transfusion. A Florida couple in their seventies and married 50
years both have Aids. The man, a hemophiliac, was infected by a
blood transfusion and he infected his wife.
Recent research into donated blood suggests that around 400,000
people and virtually every American hemophiliac has been exposed
to the Aids virus. Of these it is estimated that 4% to 19% will
develop Aids outright and 25% some of the symptoms. To put this
in perspective, there are 12m blood transfusions a year in Ameri
ca.
Another report, this time from the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD of January 31,
1985, estimates that about 50 per cent of homosexual or bisexual males in a