[Intl-tobacco] Malawi To Fight For Tobacco (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

Malawi To Fight For Tobacco
by Raphael Tenthani
Source: Panafrican News Agency, Monday, 3/13/00

		Blantyre, Malawi (PANA) - Malawi has vowed to fight tooth
and nail to protect its economic lifeline - tobacco - which is currently
threatened by a mounting global anti- smoking lobby seeking to force
cessation of production by 2003.

Tobacco Association of Malawi, which heads a state-appointed inter-
departmental task force whose aim is to reinforce defences to counter the
World Health Organisation-backed anti-smoking lobby locally, said it will
not sit idle but will wedge a vigorous fight against the lobby.

The association Friday held an emergency meeting with stakeholders in the
industry, who included cabinet ministers, parliamentarians, traditional
leaders and the private sector, to find a strategy on how to protect the
industry.

Its media officer, George Mituka, told PANA Monday that Malawi will join
the rest of the tobacco-growing world in the fight. He said that global
tobacco growers will counter WHO's campaign at a forum in Geneva in July.

"The idea is for us to fight with one voice," he added.

Tobacco, which rakes in over 70 percent in foreign exchange and
contributes 34 percent of Malawi's Gross Domestic Product, is crucial for
the country.

Mituka said 71 percent of the entire Malawi population of 11 million
directly or indirectly rely on tobacco on their daily livelihoods.

"We want to sensitise policy-makers on this cause," he said.

On the WHO campaign, which is being boosted by a recent World Bank report
that classified tobacco as the next killer to HIV/AIDS, Mituka said
smoking is a right which people indulge in by choice.

"WHO should realise that smoking is a right; one is free to puff or not,"
he observed.

Analysts say it will be disastrous if Malawi moves away from tobacco.

Malawi is among the world's biggest exporters of tobacco, especially
burley.  It exports an average of 120 million kg annually to the US and
Brazil.