Miami Herald - July 13, 2002
BARCELONA, Spain - A wake-up call jolted the world this week as AIDS activists, angered by what they see as complacent, stingy governments, returned to the hard-core tactics that brought them success in the early days of the epidemic.
As the 14th International AIDS Conference ended Friday, the evidence of the newly stoked passions was everywhere. Giant inflatable Coke bottles with a skull and crossbones to protest the company's policies toward its HIV-positive employees in Africa. "Corpses" littering the floor at drug companies' booths to protest the price of anti-HIV drugs. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson drowned out as he tried to defend the United States' contributions to the global AIDS fight.
The battle lines included a growing number of women, young people and a global community that stretched from the United States to Africa to Latin America and the Caribbean.
"We want people to listen to us. Give us the support, the means. If we have that, we know how to make the changes in our communities," said Evan Ruderman, an organizer with Mujeres Adelante (Women Moving Forward), a worldwide coalition of groups who want equal AIDS treatment for women. The women want governments from South Africa to India to Nicaragua to target 50 percent of their AIDS spending on women.
The activists got a big boost Friday from Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela, co-chairmen of the International Aids Trust, who closed the conference.
"I want to say to all of you who are activists in the war against AIDS: You have my greatest admiration," said Mandela, the former South African president. "Keep on fighting and you will overcome the terrible scourge of humankind."
"Keep pushing the rock up the hill," Clinton said, before quoting from the Bible: "Do not grow weary in doing good, for in due season you will reap if you do not lose heart."
The five-day gathering of 15,000 doctors, health officials, researchers and nongovernment organizations was the biggest since AIDS was first detected 21 years ago.
Since then, about 20 million people have died of AIDS. Forty million people are currently infected by AIDS or HIV, and the World Health Organization projects another 45 million will contract the disease by the decade's end.
Much of the protests were aimed at the Bush administration and what activists see as a growing "health gap" between rich and poor nations.
The Bush administration has committed $500 million over the next three years to the U.N. Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, launched in January. While the United States has promised the largest dollar amount, its contribution ranks 18th in the world as a percentage of the nation's gross domestic product. The Netherlands ranks first.
Critics charge the United States should contribute $2.5 billion to the $10 billion fund, as the country produces about 25 percent of the world's GDP. The U.N. has estimated the world will need to spend $10 billion annually for several years to get AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria under control.
"In reality," said Kim Nichols, of the African Services Committee, "Norway contributes 25 times as much per citizen, Sweden seven times, and Rwanda contributes 10 times more as a percentage of their gross domestic product than the U.S. And weak U.S. contributions inspire weak investment from other rich donors."
Thompson tried to explain the U.S. position at the conference, but protesters prevented him from being heard.
"Tommy Thompson was trying to say the U.S. is doing more than any other country to fight AIDS, committing more resources and showing more compassion," said Asia Russell, an ACT UP organizer from Philadelphia. "In fact, the opposite is true. The Bush administration personally intervened to sabotage money that was already set aside by Congress for AIDS spending."
Last month, Bush scuttled a Senate plan to boost U.S. contributions to the fund by $500 million a year. He substituted a program that calls for spending $500 million over the next few years to reduce transmission of the AIDS virus from mothers to their newborns.
Russell said this year's larger protests were motivated by the growing epidemic.
"Right now 8,000 people a day are dying from AIDS," she said. A U.S. Census Bureau study projected that in the four African countries of Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia, more infants will die from AIDS in the next decade than from all other causes combined. Another study, by the U.N., said that, for every teenage boy infected in Sub-Saharan Africa, three teenage girls are infected. Yet another said AIDS orphans will double to 25 million by 2010.
Asked whether some of the protesters' disruptive tactics might make more enemies than friends, Russell said: "We don't protest because we like the thrill of being confrontational. If you look back to history, it's the only thing that works.
"It's not about attitude. It's about demanding change. And governments don't change their policies because they see the light. It's because they feel the heat."
This report was supplemented with material from from Herald wire services.