UN Envoy Angry With Americans Over Aids Money

The Monitor (Kampala) ^ | August 1, 2003 | Nabusayi L. Wamboka

[dead]

Kampala

The UN special envoy on HIV/Aids in Africa, Mr Stephen Lewis, is angry with the United States for spending money on wars while abandoning the millions of people dying of Aids.

"You want money to fight war in Afghanistan, it is there. You want money to fight a war in Iraq, it is there. You want money to rescue people in Africa, it is never there. And that is what Graca and I want to work on collectively with you," Lewis told his audience at Hotel Brovad in Masaka town yesterday.

He was speaking to district and community leaders on the last day of his tour of Masaka and Rakai districts.

"Keep fighting this battle. I want to promise you that when I go back, I will tell [UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan that the people in Uganda have fought a good fight, they don't deserve to lose it now," Lewis said.

Uganda stands as a beacon of hope on Aids, he said.

"But I want to tell you, I live my life in a rage. An absolute rage and I make no apologies for that at all. Something very critical is happening at this moment in time. People are dying everywhere especially in southern Africa," he lamented.

"The tremendous boost of infections that occurred in the early 1990s have people experiencing full blown Aids. People are dying in incredible numbers, there is a sense of death engulfing parts of the continent that is really deeply, deeply depressing," he said.

Lewis said that he has not been to another country that has responded to Aids as Uganda has.

"It puts Uganda in a class of its own. There is a very powerful response to people who are committed to the fight. And you look around at the faces of these lovely people and you know there is no reason for them to die, none! There are anti-retroviral drugs, they prolong life," he said.

"We met a woman in Mulago Hospital whose CD4 count was one. And she went on anti-retroviral treatment and one month later she was different. She was clearly feeling a thousand times better," he said.

Ms Graca Machel, the global child rights activist, is travelling with Lewis.

She said that she was humbled to see many women full of energy and determination despite the heavy challenges they face with HIV/Aids.

"We live in a cynical world. There is capacity and resources but we have no capacity to bring help and drugs to people who need it most. This makes me so angry sometimes," she said.

[MEG33]

Speak to other nations..we've pledged 15 billion.If we don't protect ourselves we'll be in no position to help others.

[Semper Paratus]

Ills of the World - Chapters 1 - 999:

"Its all our fault"

[areafiftyone]

Um there are other countries that have money too - not just the U.S. We already gave at the office - $15 Billion wasn't it? I hate these people that think the U.S. is the World Bank for Diseases! START YELLING AT THE EUROWEENIES FOR A CHANGE!

[Lost and Confused]

yeah, it's always our fault. haven't we pledged several times more money than than the rest of thhe world combined?

[dead]

START YELLING AT THE EUROWEENIES FOR A CHANGE!

That’s not trendy.

[areafiftyone]

We have. It seems like the more money we give the greedier and greedier they become. Maybe we should become stingier like the Euroweenies - maybe then they will stop expecting so much!

[areafiftyone]

Snicker! (evil laugh!)

[King Prout]

Hey, kids, it is really very simple: Don't want AIDS? Stop screwing around.
All the money the US has thrown at the African (and domestic, and worldwide) AIDS epidemic hasn't changed that one overarching and utterly simple fact.
Maybe if the other industrialized nations'd bother to cough up their own share of funds, that'd change < /sarcasm >

[Roscoe Karns]

Stephen Lewis is a pinko Canadian NDPer married to one of the most disgusting feminists around, Michele Landsberg

[dead]

Exactly how much money is Canada sending to Africa for anti-AIDS efforts?

I'll put them down for their usual donation - nada.

[First Amendment]

Uganda is making progress because they have started teaching monogamy and chastity. Doesn't cost much to teach that either.
AIDS is the most preventable disease in the world. As Rush says in another context, abstinence works every time it's tried.
I realize a lot of women caught it from their cheating husbands. That's very sad. But the only way to stop the whole thing is to change behavior. And I don't mean using condoms.

[richardtavor]

Maybe more like 'Sanaflush'.

[dfrussell]

Uganda stands as a beacon of hope on Aids, he said.

ROTFLMAO :)

Earth to whining "diplomat": the people of Africa currently have at their disposal a method for preventing AIDs: keep it zipped up.

Anyone who thinks AZT, anti-viral cocktails etc. are going to do anything except INCREASE the AIDs rate in Africa is living in a dream.

[Bikers4Bush]

Aids is preventable and it doesn't take my tax dollars to prevent it either.

[gaspar]

Stephen Lewis, Canadian, lifelong bureaucrat and one-worlder, and former Canadian ambassador to the UN is a monstrous hypocrite. Year after year when starvation was impacting the African continent the USA stepped forward to provide assistance. Over the last twenty years the food aid alone can be counted in the billions of dollars. Meanwhile the European and Canadian reaction has been tepid at best.

Now, Bush steps forward with an Aids program, and this pissmeier whines before a receptive audience. The man should be fired, if for no other reason than Canada itself serves as a mirror to the world on how not to provide foreign assistance to the African continent.

[xrp]

BREAKING NEWS: THIS JUST IN:

AIDS 100% PREVENTABLE BY FREE METHODS (ABSTAIN)