Is the UN finally remembering Africa?

By Michael Kibaara Muchiri

YOGYAKARTA (JP): One amazing aspect has been the quiet which has greeted Africa's woes at the UN Security Council. Senior African leaders like Thabo Mbeki are appalled by the inactivity, in fact the general reluctance of the UN Security Council to respond to the conflicts in Africa the way the Western countries responded to Bosnia and Kosovo. Since America's humiliating debacle in Somalia in the 1990s, it is almost as if the U.S. has vowed revenge on Africa, creating and helping lead U.S. initiatives for world peace far from Africa.

The U.S. envoy to the UN Security Council, Richard Holbrooke, says he is opposed to UN intervention in Africa because of a lack of a proper plan. True, restoring peace in Africa can be a Herculean task, as Somalia proved, but the UN should make an effort.

So why this belated interest in a vanquished continent? Have the interethnic wars and AIDS which are decimating the people finally made the West see the light in a continent whose curtain appears to be coming down?

Has the West suddenly realized that in five to 10 years the few surviving African orphans, widows and skeletons will not only be too illiterate to sign arms consignment papers, but also will not give a damn about who controls what since government infrastructure will have collapsed, wiped out by the scourge of AIDS?

As the gap between rich nations and the Third World gets wider, the rich should be expected to contribute to the war against AIDS. Just like the British ambassador to the Security Council is quoted as saying, every rich nation like the U.S. should say publicly how much money it is putting into an AIDS program.

It would be interesting to compare the money the West puts into AIDS programs in Africa with the money spent by the two Brent Woods institutions (the IMF and the World Bank) and the West on the financial crises in Latin America, Russia and Asia, and the exploration of space. It is intriguing to imagine what could have stopped the search for a cure for AIDS if it is not the fact that Africa is poor and does not pay the way microchips do.

The first serious step toward the revitalization of Africa lies in health. The UN Security Council should condemn as immoral the prices Western companies charge the Third World -- especially Africa -- for AIDS drugs.

The wealthy nations that own the companies that produce AIDS drugs should put profit behind morality and make the drugs available at affordable prices.

It is time the West, given its humanitarian pretenses, see the immorality of their drug companies -- and by not taking the initiative to cut the exorbitant prices they are participating in wiping out the black race.

The UN could spend more money and time in teaching Africa and other continents about AIDS, and We Are The World-like musical extravaganzas could collect funds to help in this multifaceted African crisis.

It is a shame that in spite of their millions of dollars, glamour and ability to bring to the world's attention the tragedy of AIDS and war in Africa, the Africans in the Diaspora, especially basketball stars, filmmakers, athletes and singers, have abandoned ship in the hour of need, choosing to watch their place of ancestry become extinct.

Stars like Michael Jordan, Mike Tyson, Denzel Washington, Shaquille O'Neal and many more talented blacks, with their millions of dollars and ability to raise money, could comfortably raise half the money needed to help strained and AIDS-besieged African budgets.

It is an open secret that Africa spends more money on arms and defense than on health, agriculture and education. The UN should enforce a complete weapons sales embargo on Africa. If the West has passionately maintained a decades-long weapons embargo on Iraq and Libya (now lifted) for "flimsy" reasons when compared to what is happening in Africa, why should the race to save humanity seem impossible?

The UN can use the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to check African countries' budgetary allocations for defense and arms. Why should Western institutions like the IMF and the World Bank continue to fund African nations that are themselves blind to the impending AIDS holocaust? Why are these African countries pleading for aid and funds for defense when in a few years they shall not have any people, economies or children to defend?

The lucrative nature of the sale of AIDS drugs and weapons makes the above options unthinkable. The stakes are too high for the West to disappoint their multinational corporations. For Gore, this may be just White House campaigning -- moving a step higher on the UN platform; perhaps easily forgotten after capturing the substantial African-American vote.

Whatever posturing the West does at the Security Council, an African revival is a distant myth. What is needed are concrete, unswerving humanity-serving policies from the UN. The UN has to come up with an AIDS eradication program with a timetable for both a vaccine and drugs that cure the syndrome. Wealthy companies that have exploited Africa's ignorance on such issues as unfair prices for Africa's agricultural products and natural resources, like gold and diamonds, should not shy away from funding AIDS programs.

As we enter the 21st century, it is no longer Africa's wildlife that is on the verge of extinction; it is the Sub- Saharan African, haunted by an AIDS holocaust and civil strife. Other continents have a moral duty to help Africa out of these crises. But the speed with which these calls for help are heeded is absolutely vital to a continent condemned to death row by incessant civil strife and a relentless AIDS epidemic.

The writer is working toward his master's degree in psychology at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, and also works for the Ministry of Education in Nairobi, Kenya.