Miami Herald - April 6, 2003
Draeger Martinez, drmartinez@herald.com

'I call on the U.S. and other countries to cancel African nations' debts," said Danso, international affairs department chairman of Clark Atlanta University. "The African economic community has determined that Africa will need $10 billion per year to fight AIDS.

But, right now, Africa owes $360 billion and pays $13.5 billion in interest per year."

Danso spoke Thursday to roughly 40 students at South Florida's only historically black college, Florida Memorial College, 15800 NW 42nd Ave., about Africa's twin troubles.

Danso said afterward that no more than $18 billion of the debt is owed to the United States; Belgium, Britain, China, Germany and Japan loaned the bulk of the funds.

In his speech, he reeled off sobering statistics to show how deeply ingrained AIDS and HIV have become in African life.

"Africa has an AIDS-related death every eight seconds and the World Health Organization estimates that 25 percent of sub-Saharan Africans are HIV-positive," Danso said. "In Zambia, AIDS is expected to wipe out one-third of the population by 2020."

Danso said that, beyond the sheer number of deaths, the AIDS epidemic also endangers the continent's economic future.

"As the work force dies off, industries in these countries will continue to endure labor shortages. By 2020, many sub-Saharan countries will have lost many of their skilled laborers," he said.

"Teachers are dying off, too, and this will set back the African educational level by decades."

Several students who listened to the speech asked Danso about AIDS education efforts in Africa. One of them, Demetria Williams, a psychology junior, offered her own solution to the AIDS problem.

"We get dozens of free condoms each semester, and I'd like to ship them over there where they can use them," she said. "It just makes no sense for them to go to waste here."

Danso responded that Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and other African religious leaders had argued against distributing condoms.

He considered that position an obstacle to combatting AIDS effectively.

The American Friends Service Committee, an Atlanta-based nonprofit affiliated with the Quaker religious denomination, is sponsoring Danso's lecture tour of historically black colleges. On Friday, he spoke at Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach.

Danso told his Miami audience the picture is not entirely hopeless for Africa.

"Some nations have dealt with AIDS more successfully, such as Uganda, where AIDS rates have fallen," he said. "They had political leadership and early acceptance and education. The leadership made it a national crusade, with the president [Yoweri Museveni] personally going into markets and speaking about the problem."

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