Washington File - July 13, 2000
Charles W. Corey, Washington File Staff Writer

Washington - The U.N. Security Council is now fully aware of the world health threat posed by HIV/AIDS and as such, in a few days will pass its first ever resolution regarding the dreaded disease, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke has told the U.S. Senate.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 12, Holbrooke said "next Monday (July 17), after the Durban conference on AIDS finishes, we will pass the first Security Council resolution in history on AIDS or any (such) health issue."

Passage of the resolution will mark another historic day for the United Nations, he told the committee, which had summoned him to Capitol Hill to review U.N. peacekeeping efforts in Africa.

"We are waiting until Monday so (the head of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS or UNAIDS) Dr. Peter Piot can come back from the Durban conference to join us," he said.

The resolution, which will call for instruction of all U.N. peacekeepers regarding HIV/AIDS, "is going to be supported by Russia, China, and countries which as recently as six months ago didn't want to discuss the issue in the Security Council. They're going to vote for it.... This is a tremendous step forward for the U.N."

Asked if U.N. peacekeepers contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS, Holbrooke acknowledged that the spread of the disease by peacekeepers has become a major problem. Some infected peacekeepers now "bring it with them" overseas and some "take it home with them .... Anyone who thinks differently is misleading themselves."

Some countries "do not conduct on testing" on their soldiers, Holbrooke added. The United States, military, he said, insists on testing its people for HIV/AIDS before they go overseas. "If they have AIDS, they don't go overseas, they get treated. But that isn't true of many countries. This is one of these truths that no one wants to utter."

As it stands now, he said, "we can't order the (U.N.) member states to test every soldier before they go to peacekeeping missions. We can't get there. But this (passage of the HIV/AIDS resolution) will stand as a huge step forward and it goes beyond peacekeeping."

Asked why HIV/AIDS should be viewed as a security threat, Holbrooke said "Unless one's definitions of national security are trapped forever where they were 50 years ago -- and no one in this room would believe that -- we have to discuss threats to our security" posed by the disease now.

"Does anyone in this room not believe that the spread of AIDS is a threat to our own economic and social stability?" he asked rhetorically. "There are reports the rates are beginning to rise slowly in parts of this country. Does anyone believe that we can commit triage by continents and put a wall around Africa and keep AIDS within Africa? It is impossible...."

Responding to a question from Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), Holbrooke said, "Of all the issues that we face in the world today, if you ask, 'What is the number one problem in the world today?' I would say it's AIDS... It is the worst health epidemic in at least a century -- some would argue six centuries. It is continuing unchecked. And all of us will have to ask ourselves, when our careers are done, did we address this problem?"

Asked if African leaders are openly and vigorously confronting the problem, Holbrooke said that "some are, some aren't. Every leader in Africa now pays lip service to the issue. But with some leaders it's only lip service. Denial is a real problem."

Senegal, Uganda and Thailand are seeing lower rates of infection because of very strong leadership on the issue, he said, even while infection rates soar in neighboring countries.

Holbrooke then recalled a story recently told to the U.N. by Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi, who is also a doctor of gynecology. According to Holbrooke, Dr. Mocumbi said HIV/AIDS in Mozambique is called the "disease of women."

"Now, if you call it the 'disease of women,' the game is over before it (can even get) started," Holbrooke stressed, "because men say they can't get it...or they have these great myths about how to get rid of it...."

"Now, the only way to deal with these problems is openly," Holbrooke stressed. "President (Yoweri) Museveni in Uganda did so, and the (disease) rate has dropped from 30 percent to nine percent."

That proves, he said, that it is through education and destigmatization that the disease must be fought.

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