AFRO-NETS> Stephen Lewis Accuses Rich Countries of "Mass Murder" in UN Report on AIDS

[Claudio Schuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

Stephen Lewis Accuses Rich Countries of "Mass Murder" in UN Report on AIDS
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Canadian Press
Wednesday, January 08, 2003

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Rich countries are committing "mass murder by 
complacency" by failing to contribute enough money to defeat the AIDS 
pandemic that is ravaging Africa and killing millions every year, top 
Canadian UN official Stephen Lewis said.

An appeal launched by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in April 2001 
for $7 billion to $10 billion US annually to combat AIDS, tuberculo-
sis and malaria has received just $2.1 billion. The Global Fund cre-
ated to disperse the funds will be running out of money at the end of 
the month, Lewis, the UN's adviser on AIDS in Africa, said.

"We could prolong and save millions of lives if we had the re-
sources," Lewis told a news conference Wednesday.

"We don't have the resources."

In a scathing indictment, he said African leaders are increasingly 
committed to fighting the killer disease but the money isn't there 
and a war against Iraq would compound the funding crisis.

"It's legitimate to ask: what's wrong with this world? What's wrong 
with the rich countries?"

"Why are they willing to jeopardize the integrity of the most hopeful 
financial instrument we have to combat the cruellest disease the 
world has ever seen?" Lewis said.

"A major newspaper in the United States, reflecting on the paucity of 
resources, used the startling phrase 'murder by complacency.' I dif-
fer in only one particular: it's mass murder by complacency," he 
said.

He urged the Group of Seven major industrialized countries - the 
United States, Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Germany and Canada - to 
make new contributions in the immediate future, warning a war in Iraq 
would "eclipse every other international human priority, HIV/AIDS in-
cluded."

Lewis, who visited four devastated countries last month and is re-
turning to Africa later this month, said: "There is no question that 
the pandemic can be defeated...with a joint and Herculean effort be-
tween the African countries themselves and the international commu-
nity."

He said he would continue to hammer at that message - and stress that 
all over the continent, Africans are engaged in AIDS initiatives and 
projects which would halt the pandemic if expanded throughout their 
countries.

Worldwide, there are 42 million HIV-positive people, with sub-Saharan 
Africa home to 75 per cent of them, said UNAIDS, the UN's AIDS 
agency.

"I don't think the world can live much longer losing three to five 
million people every year, year after year. At some point, the cumu-
lative impact of that has to impress itself on the minds and policies 
of the political leadership of the western world," Lewis said.

"This pandemic cannot be allowed to continue and those who watch it 
unfold with a kind of pathological equanimity must be held to ac-
count. There may yet come a day when we have peacetime tribunals to 
deal with this particular version of crimes against humanity," he 
warned.

As examples of the problem, Lewis said impoverished Lesotho has one 
of the highest HIV rates on the continent and "a most impressive po-
litical leadership" committed to fighting the disease but insuffi-
cient funds to save "countless lives."

While Zambia's former president, Frederick Chiluba, disavowed the re-
ality of AIDS, its new president, Levy Mwanawasa, is now trying to 
combat the disease but faces a daunting task with few resources, 
Lewis said.

He said there is now solid evidence AIDS and hunger are linked. In 
Malawi, for example, he said 50 per cent of poor households are af-
fected by chronic illness due to HIV/AIDS.

The pandemic also threatens education because large numbers of teach-
ers are dying. It has led to increasing sexual abuse of children and 
adolescents and it has created an "astronomical number of orphans," 
escalating the reality of orphan street children, orphan gangs and 
orphan delinquency, he said.

© Copyright 2003 The Canadian Press

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