FIGHT AIDS IN SUB-SAHARAN
AFRICA!
Two bills on Africa are in
Congress right now. These bills would determine how the United States does
trade with sub-Saharan Africa, the region in the world hardest hit by the AIDS
crisis. The good bill, the HOPE for Africa Act, sponsored by Rep. Jesse Jackson,
Jr. (D-IL) offers a plan for combating AIDS that would save lives in Africa. The
bad bill, the "Africa Growth and Opportunity Act," would accelerate an epidemic
that has already killed 12 million sub-Saharan Africans, and will kill 13
million more by 2005. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to only 10 per cent of the
world's people, but 70% of new AIDS cases have occurred there. AIDS has
decreased life expectancy throughout the region: in Zimbabwe alone life
expectancy has been cut by 25 years.
HOPE versus
HOPELESS
H.O.P.E. for Africa Act (Human Rights,
Opportunity, Partnership, Empowerment) (HR 772)
- Protects African countries' legal right to make
cheap, generic versions of patented life-saving drugs.
- Currently the U.S. Government is pressuring
countries like South Africa not to exercise this and other life-saving
rights-because U.S. and European drug companies don't want it to
happen.
- Full cancellation of sub-Saharan African
foreign debt freeing up funds for use to fight AIDS.
- Replenishing aid and newly targeting assistance
from the Development Fund for Africa, specifically to AIDS education,
prevention and treatment programs.
"Africa Growth and Opportunity Act" (HR
434)
- No mention of AIDS, despite the devastating
impact of the AIDS crisis on the public health, businesses, and families of
sub-Saharan Africa.
- Forces countries to comply with inhumane IMF
requirements for "structural adjustment"
- These requirements force countries to devote
almost all their export earnings to paying off huge, insurmountable debts
while slashing spending on vital health care and education programs.
- More business as usual from the U.S. for
sub-Saharan African nations. Denying nations' authority to determine what is
best economic policy for their own countries, HR 434 is set up to let foreign
corporations with no interest in the welfare of Africans call the
shots.
The bad bill is being fast-tracked through
Congress, and has significant support from the well-heeled lobbies of
multinational oil, pharmaceutical, mining, and other corporations-those who
would gain the most from it. But across the country, AIDS activists, African
community organizations, U.S. labor groups, religious leaders,
environmentalists, consumer rights groups and others are working together to
demand support for HOPE for Africa, opposition to HR 434, and an end to U.S.
business as usual in Africa.
ACT UP currently working to stop the US goverment
from forcing sanctions onto Sub-Saharan African Nations that would keep these
nations from investing in internal AIDS education, providing nutrition to their
people, providing any medical care.
Back toHOME