UN envoy sees 'racism' in West's inaction against HIV/AIDS
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Stephen Lewis, the United Nations special AIDS envoy.
Maria Kubacki, CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, September 07, 2006
OTTAWA - Stephen Lewis, the Canadian who is the United Nations'
secretary general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said
Wednesday that "racism" must be responsible for the lack of
action from the West in addressing the crisis in Africa.
Speaking to about 700 students, faculty and staff at Carleton
University, Lewis compared the West's handling of the pandemic
to the inaction during the 1994 massacre in Rwanda.
He suggested that "there has to be some kind of subterranean
racism at work," to explain why Western governments haven't
stepped up to save the lives of millions of Africans infected
with HIV/AIDS.
Generic anti-retroviral drugs are now available for only about
$130 per person per year, he said. "We could break the back of
the pandemic and we could save millions of lives if only the
Western world would take it seriously and honour the promises
that they made."
However, only $8.3 billion was spent worldwide last year on the
fight against HIV/AIDS, while the U.S. is spending billions on
the war in Iraq every month, he said. Moreover, G-8 countries
have not lived up to the commitments to Africa made last year at
the Gleneagles summit in Scotland.
He praised non-governmental organizations such as Save the
Children and World Vision, for saving lives "even as the world
moves from inertia to paralysis."
Echoing remarks he made at the International AIDS Conference in
Toronto last month, he argued that more needs to be done to
empower women, who are victims of predatory male sexual
behaviour and need to protect themselves from being infected.
"Gender is at the heart of the pandemic."