Stephen Lewis: Billions spent on War not Against Aids

By Miriam Rabkin
Contributor to Tolerance.ca®

Montreal - Stephen Lewis, past Canadian ambassador to the United Nations and Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, addressed a room of over 500 people, mostly students, on Monday, January 16th at Concordia University. Invited by SHOUT (Students Helping Others Understand Tolerance), Lewis spoke about a number of issues that worry himin an articulate and engaging manner, keeping a cynical and pointed sense of humour throughout his speech.

Lewis began by addressing today’s most prominently covered conflict area in the world - Iraq. According to Lewis, because of the US focus on the war there is an obsessive talk of Iraq in media and governments to the exclusion of almost everything else in the world, with the occasional exception of Afghanistan and the Middle East. “Historically it is unsettling because the world focuses on US interests and so the rest becomes unimportant.”

This causes considerable damage to humanitarian and developmental agendas of the entire world. Lewis cited a recent study conducted by U.S. Congress which showed that the United States alone is spending 8 billion dollars a month in Iraq and 1.5 billion dollars a month in Afghanistan. Yet in a year that amount is not allocated to fight AIDS, which is killing and infecting millions of people. Moreover, resolutions made in 2006 are no longer kept, overcome by the ravages of Iraq. Consequently, Africa is in an ever worse predicament.

And yet in 2000 when the Millennium Development Goals were put in place in the UN, the world had unanimously agreed to achieve eight objectives; reduction of poverty, pandemic diseases and infant mortality rates, among others. Seven years later, it is obvious that no country in Africa will reach all these goals, though some might reach one or two.

Lewis brings several reasons for this. The first is that conflicts remain a reality, such as Uganda’s Lord Resistance Army which abducts children and turns them into child soldiers and/or sex slaves. In the Eastern Congo, the level of sexual violence is the worst example in the world. In Darfur, hundreds of thousands have been killed, women are cruelly and brutally raped, and millions displaced. In both of these cases, the world is aware and not intervening, despite the UN’s new concept of Responsibility to Protect, formed to allow countries to intervene in situations of genocide, mass killings or other massive human rights violations. agreed upon by world leaders as a form of intervention.

Racism Against Africa

There is racism with regard to Africa, continues Lewis, as he sees that there is no reason not to be able to stop the conflict. The reaction to the conflict in the Balkans was quicker than to Rwanda. There is little response to Sudan and this is in a world where, as a result of the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, leaders keep saying Never Again.

The Western world also refuses to respond to poverty. Hunger is an intense reality in Africa, in no way helped by global warming which devastates agriculture and natural habitats. In Niger, the World Food Programme ran out of food to feed children. The WFO also recently cut caloric value rations in Darfur for refugee camps because they do not have enough food.

“How is it possible that we treat life in such a trifling way?” asks Lewis. “It’s bad enough not to intervene in the context of conflict, as conflicts may be difficult to subdue, but poverty is not difficult to address.”

Lewis went on to speak of AIDS, which is ravaging communities, particularly in Southern Africa. The life expectancy in many of these countries without this pandemic would be between 60 and 65 but instead it ranges between 40 and 45. “If you’re born in Zambia today, your life expectancy is 30 or 32.”

The Western world has made some progress in treatment and can afford to treat those infected, yet only a minute percentage in Southern Africa is receiving any aid. As a result, some 15 million orphans are now left to the care of their grandmothers, who are stepping in when the parents die. The definition of families is thus shifting and a new human dynamic is being created, but it is difficult to see how this will evolve because the next generation of grandmothers is already gone. “How will the next generation of orphans take care of themselves?” asks Lewis, “And this is a phenomenon overwhelming one country and then another.”

Women biggest victims

“The biggest victims in Africa are women”, asserts Lewis. “Gender inequality is driving the virus.” He explains that men’s feeling of sexual domination means women cannot negotiate safe sexual practices. The number of women infected is disproportionate but the unwillingness of men to relinquish power and authority is what is causing the spread of this pandemic. “That’s why women need to be empowered and men need to be educated. But it will take generations to change male sexual behaviour and the women are dying now.” Yet the women of Africa would be able to turn the pandemic around if the tools promised to them were delivered.

Lewis concluded by saying that Africa is a continent of 53 nations, and they cannot be tarred with one brush. If some are corrupt and dictatorial, others are democratically elected and struggle to fight corruption and poverty. Last summer at the G8 Summit, nothing tangible was brought to the table. This, says Lewis, is impossible to understand. “We are doing unimaginable damage to this world. And we can do something. Why are we on this planet if not to pursue social justice and equality?”

Lewis rallied university communities to pressure the government of Canada to keep its promises for whatever cause and in whatever form. He also encouraged students to get involved in different NGOs and causes fighting these injustices. “There is nothing more important that we can do to ensure that our lives are not futile.”

^* UN Photo/Mark Garten

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