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Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 07:34:31 -0500
From: APIC <[log in to unmask]>
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Subject: Africa: Racism Conference Update

Africa: Racism Conference Update
Date distributed (ymd): 010906
Document reposted by APIC

Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
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+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++

Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +political/rights+

This posting contains the speech by UNAIDS Executive Director
Peter Piot to the WCAR plenary in Durban.  Mr. Piot stressed
that "HIV-stigma has attached itself to pre-existing stigmas - to
racial stereotypes and to discrimination against women and sexual
minorities. At the same time, HIV vulnerability comes from the
social inequality which has been shaped by long-term patterns of
racial and sexual inequality." He also noted that "The fact that
today the overwhelming majority of people with HIV in the
developing world do not have access to life-saving treatment is the
most crying discrimination against the poor. "

Also in this posting is the most recent news update from Durban
from allAfrica.com.

A related posting sent out today contains statements from Africa
Action.

+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

World Conference against Racism (WCAR)Plenary
http://www.un.org/WCAR/statements

For additional material on the panel on AIDS at the WCAR, and
the launch on new reports on Discrimination, Stigma and Denial
related to HIV/AIDS, see
 http://www.unhchr.ch/html/racism/01-hiv.html

Statement by Mr. Peter Piot
Executive Director, UNAIDS

4 September 2001

President, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

Across the road from the Durban Exhibition Centre and the
International Conference Centre is a park which many of you will
have walked past.  There is a giant red ribbon in the park and you
may have read the plaque commemorating the life of Gugu Dlamini.
Gugu Dlamini may not be known to many of you but she was stoned to
death for disclosing her HIV/AIDS status on World AIDS Day a couple
of years ago.  This park stands as a symbol of the discrimination
that many people living with HIV/AIDS have to endure.

Nothing illustrates the global impact of discrimination and
intolerance better than the global AIDS epidemic, which has become
one of the greatest tragedies and challenges of our time.

HIV-related stigma and discrimination are immense barriers to
effective responses to the epidemic.

HIV stigma comes from the powerful combination of shame and fear.
HIV is transmitted through sex and so is surrounded by taboo and
moral judgement.  But we do not need to be prisoners of shame and
fear. The AIDS epidemic can be turned back, and to do so, we must
defeat HIV-related stigma and discrimination.

Giving in to HIV/AIDS by blaming 'others' for transmitting HIV
creates the ideal conditions for the virus to spread: denying there
is a problem, forcing those at risk or already infected
underground, and losing any opportunity for effective public
education or treatment and care.

Shame must be replaced with solidarity. People living with HIV are
part of the solution, not part of the problem - they are the
world's greatest untapped resource in responding to the epidemic.

Solidarity, knowledge and hope make an effective platform for
fighting the HIV epidemic. An all-out attack on HIV-related stigma
and discrimination is a central plank of this platform. Across the
world, successful responses to AIDS have been built on respect for
human rights, promoting the dignity of those affected, and building
social solidarity.

Intolerance attaches new fears to old forms. In many cases,
HIV-stigma has attached itself to pre-existing stigmas - to racial
stereotypes and to discrimination against women and sexual
minorities. At the same time, HIV vulnerability comes from the
social inequality which has been shaped by long-term patterns of
racial and sexual inequality.

The reality is that HIV affects rich and poor, white and black, men
and women. However, over time, as the HIV epidemic matures, its
effects tend to become largest among portions of the population
that are most disadvantaged, whether on racial, gender or economic
grounds.

There is no mysterious conspiratorial force at work that gravitates
AIDS towards the disadvantaged. People who are vulnerable to HIV
have less capacity to avoid risks - they are more likely to have no
alternative but to trade sex for money food or shelter, or be
dislocated from their families in order to find work. When HIV does
strike, they have fewer resources to cope with its impact. People
who are socially excluded as a result of racial or other
intolerance are deprived of the sense that their future is worth
protecting.

The fact that today the overwhelming majority of people with HIV in
the developing world do not have access to life-saving treatment is
the most crying discrimination against the poor

Success is possible against the HIV epidemic. HIV stigma can be
attacked and discrimination overcome. The chains that link HIV to
racism and inequality can be broken.

There are very concrete steps we need to take to attack HIV-related
stigma and discrimination. Here are five points for immediate
action.

First: leaders at all levels, from politicians to religious leaders
to local heroes, need to challenge visibly HIV-discrimination,
spearhead public campaigns, and speak out against the multiple
discriminations that poor people, women, ethnic minorities and gay
men face in relation to HIV/AIDS.

Second: document HIV-related violations of human rights and conduct
public inquiries into them.

Third: support groups of people living with HIV and ensure both
that they have access to mechanisms to redress discrimination and
that they are fully involved in the response to the epidemic.

Fourth: ensure that a supportive legislative environment exists so
that discrimination can be tackled, in relation both to the impact
and spread of the epidemic.

And fifth: ensure that both prevention and care services are
accessible to all parts of the population, making particular
efforts to overcome the barriers of racial, gender and other
discrimination.

Building a response to the HIV epidemic grounded in respect,
dignity and human rights is a moral imperative. But experience over
the past twenty years tells us it is also the only pragmatic,
practical solution to containing the spread of the epidemic and
alleviating its impact.

Within UNAIDS, including all our co-sponsoring organisations, we
have embraced human rights principles in tackling the epidemic.
Equally, the myriad world bodies tackling racism, discrimination
and rights, need to take on the global HIV epidemic as a central
concern.

In fifty years time, will there be a conference that deplores the
vast global AIDS epidemic as a legacy of racism and discrimination?
Or will there be a conference that celebrates the great global
movement that arose to fight the threat of AIDS, setting aside the
divisions of race and gender and inequality?

It is up to us to choose.

Thank you

************************************************************

Racism Conference Prospects Look Gloomy in Durban

http://allAfrica.com

September 5, 2001

By Ofeibea Quist-Arcton
Durban, South Africa

(reposted with permission from allAfrica.com)

Prospects for success at the UN World Conference against Racism
(WCAR) in Durban, South Africa were looking distinctly gloomy on
Wednesday, as a rift deepened between European and African
countries on the subject of slavery and reparations.

African delegations have hardened their position, demanding an
outright apology and the labeling of slavery as a crime against
humanity, as well as reparations for the slave trade. European
officials are warning that agreement may not be possible on this
issue.

Early this week, most of Europe - excluding the main slave-trading
nations of Britain, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands - was
prepared to offer some sort of apology for the transatlantic trade.
But those divisions have faded, and the European Union (EU) is now
maintaining a united stand against what are being called
"unreasonable" demands by the Africans.

A senior UN official told the South African Business Day newspaper
that Africa had squandered a golden opportunity and made a
"terrible tactical blunder".

The official said: "On Monday, the EU was stricken by internal
divisions over the apology question. Eleven EU countries wanted to
apologise. Four wanted to stop short at an expression of regret.
Africa could have used that tension by wooing the eleven. Instead,
it lost its head and 'demanded the world', with the result that the
15 EU countries have closed ranks."

The European nations fear that any admission of guilt for slavery
could lead to litigation. They point to ongoing trials, at the
international criminal tribunals for Rwanda in Arusha and for the
former Yugoslavia in The Hague, of people accused of modern day
genocide and crimes against humanity.

The host nation of the racism conference, South Africa, appears
caught between all sides. The South Africans, along with the
Senegalese leader, Abdoulaye Wade, had been promoting an optional
route for restitution for the damage and suffering inflicted during
the slave trade. The suggestion was that the West should contribute
development aid to enhance an African continental recovery
programme, a 'Marshall Plan' for Africa.

It appears now that most of South Africa's continental peers have
abandoned that proposal, leading to European accusations of
belligerence and intransigence by African delegates, backed by a
determined African American lobby.

The African Americans want an explicit apology for the slave trade,
as well as debt cancellation, more aid and reparations.

South Africa is still fighting hard to save the conference from
ending in failure. The South African foreign minister, Dr Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma - who is also the chairperson of the meeting - has
been busy trying to mediate and hold crisis talks with the African
bloc and the Europeans, to try to find a way out of the impasse.

Threats and talk of a walkout by EU countries are flying around the
corridors of the International Convention Centre in Durban where
the conference opened last Friday.

On the other controversial dossier at the conference - the Middle
East - the French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, announced
Wednesday that his country and the EU would follow the American and
Israelis, who quit the conference on Monday, if efforts to remove
anti-Israeli language from the final declaration failed.

Proposals to equate Zionism with racism have led to angry exchanges
between the Israelis and the Palestinians and their respective
supporters.

It was reported Wednesday that a decision on possible French and EU
withdrawal could come within hours.

Zuma and her delegation, along with a working group of Belgians
(representing the EU) and delegates from Norway, Namibia and the
Palestinians -- have been drafting a new, compromise declaration.

The EU has given Wednesday evening as the deadline for producing
the new document for evaluation.

The 3rd UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerance has been blighted by the
divisions on slavery and Zionism, to the exclusion of almost all
other issues that were supposed to be raised and addressed in
Durban.

************************************************************
This material is distributed by Africa Action (incorporating the
Africa Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the
American Committee on Africa).  Africa Action's information
services provide accessible information and analysis in order to
promote U.S. and international policies toward Africa that
advance economic, political and social justice and the full
spectrum of human rights.

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