Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresent Societies - 11 July 2003
Delivering the British Red Cross humanity lecture in London on 10 July, Mandela said that when one spoke of the International Red Cross, one often thought of the role it played in times of war.
"There is a new war of global dimensions under way that we cannot neglect mentioning ... the war against HIV/AIDS," he said.
"AIDS represents a tragedy of unprecedented proportions. AIDS today in Africa is claiming more lives than the sum total of all wars, famines and floods, and the ravages of such deadly diseases as malaria. It is devastating families and communities; overwhelming and depleting health care services; and robbing schools of both students and teachers," Mandela said.
He pointed out that economic growth was being undermined and scarce development resources diverted to deal with the consequences of the pandemic. He said HIV/AIDS was devastating families, communities, societies and economies. Decades had been chopped from life expectancy and child mortality was expected to more than double in the worst affected countries of Africa.
"AIDS is clearly a disaster, effectively wiping out the development gains of the past decades and sabotaging the future," Mandela told the audience. "It is no less than a war, a world war that affects all of us ultimately.
"Once more, an organisation like the International Red Cross and its national chapters can play a huge role in mobilising world opinion and resources to help combat this terrible and threatening scourge," he added.
"We are in this modern globalised world each the keeper of our brother and sister. We have too often failed that moral calling. The International Red Cross had been both our conscience and the source of redeeming us in this regard."
Mandela explained that he had a personal reason to appreciate the work of the Red Cross, which during his imprisonment on Robben Island, had been "a beacon of humanity within the dark inhumane world of political imprisonment".
"It says much for the moral weight of the Red Cross that even the apartheid regime, which was in so many other respects indifferent to world opinion, found itself cowed and pressurised by this organisation," the former president said.
He said the Geneva Conventions continued to be a reminder of "our common obligation to care for each". He described them as "a call to caring multilateralism. They tell us, more powerfully than all the political treaties, of the strength of multilateralism and international consensus."
He said he had been compelled to speak out strongly in recent months against the rise of unilateralism in world affairs, and express his "sharp differences on this matter with Prime Minister Blair and President Bush", especially with regard to the war against Iraq.
"I have lived through almost the entire 20th Century, in a country and continent where we had to devote almost all of that life to struggling against a social and political legacy left by events of the 19th Century. To see young political leaders of the developed world in the 21st Century act in ways that undermine some of the noblest attempts of humanity to deal with those historical legacies, pains me greatly and makes me worry immensely about our future," Mandela said.
"In a world still so grossly unequal, both in material terms and in terms of power and influence, our hope for orderly co-existence lies in global cooperation and an uncompromising multilateral approach to dealing with our problems, conflicts, differences and challenges."
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