Black Americans missing at the International AIDS Conference?

Diaspora Report:

Invisible in the AIDS World, Victory in
Venezuela; Israel’s "Apartheid" Wall;
Kangaroo Court in Haiti

Talk about the Black diaspora! Click here.

Blacks are the 'Invisible Man (Woman)' at AIDS Conference

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Although African-Americans represent more than half of all new AIDS cases diagnosed in the United States each year, they were virtually invisible among the hundreds of presenters at the 15th International AIDS conference in July.

"The theme of this year's global AIDS conference is, "Access for all", observes Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute, a Los Angeles-based HIV/AIDS policy center. "I keep looking for the fine print. I can't find it, but it must be there. Access for all--except African-Americans."

"...21,000 African-Americans are diagnosed with AIDS every year and more than 185,000 are living with AIDS today, " Wilson says in a statement. "Those numbers might pale in comparison to what we're seeing in South Africa and Zimbabwe. But to tell that to Keith Cylar, an African-american activist with AIDS who died two months ago. Tell it to Jonathan Perry, a student at Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina, who was infected his freshman year in college."

Pernessa C. Seele, founder and CEO of Balm in Gilead, a nongovernmental New York-based organization that mobilizes the faith community in the US and Africa, suspects there is a racial component to lack of Blacks playing key roles in the conference.

"When this was seen as a primarily gay, White male disease, there was all kind of interest in what was happening in the US," says Seele, "But now that most of those contracting HIV/AIDS are Black, no one seems to care."

Wilson says that of more than 5,000 presentations at the conference-- 445 oral presentations and 5,232 posters-- only 10 were related to African-americans.

"Whether it's intention or not, it definintely sends a message that AIDS does not impact Black people," Wilson says. "It undermines our efforts for prevention and it undermines our efort to get people into treatment. Here we are at the most important HIV scientific conference in the world and we're absent."

Wilson says he discussed the paucity of Black presentations with conference organizers

"When I asked of the conference organizers about the dearth of information concerning African-Americans, I was reminded that the Black epidemic is a domestic one and told this is a global conference," Wilson recalls. "There is no global epidemic; all epidemics are domestic and the African-American one is no less legitimate than any other. You can drive through parts of Washington D.C., or Detroit or East St. Louis and see images that remind you of
Johannesburg, Harare or Nairobi. In fact, some African-american sub-populations, the AID rate rivals those of sub-Saharan Africa."

He said Blacks are caught between two major perceptions.

"Structurally, when people think of prevention, they think about it in a geographic paradigm," Wilson notes. "The US means rich and, quite frankly, to the rest of the world, it means White. Africa means poor and it means crime. For African-Americans, we get left out completely."

Blacks are also partly at fault for not having a larger role at the conference Wilson says.

"There are so few African-americans who are in leadership roles around fighting HIV/AIDS that this limits our ability to impact HIV policy," he says. "The people who organize these meetings don't think about us when they organize them. The reason they don't think about us is because we're not there."—George Curry, NNPA, www.BlackPressUSA.org

Venezuela: After the Referendum

The voting is over in Venezuela, and the U.S.-supported right wing lost -- badly.

Over 60% of Venezuelans voted to keep President Hugo Chavez in power, despite the opposition of the wealthiest segments of Venezuelan society.

Venezuelan society is one of extreme contrasts of rich and poor. Sixty-seven percent of Venezuelans live in poverty; 35% live in extreme poverty.

The opposition to Chavez came from those like owners and managers of Coca-Cola, where workers were intimidated and fired for voting against an earlier recall. The main economic supporter of the anti-Chavez movement came from -- guess where? -- the man who owns Venezuela's subsidiary of Coca-Cola, billionaire Gustavos Cisneros, the guy who also owns the nation's largest TV network, which has been on an anti-Chavez campaign for years.

Chavez has enemies among the wealthy because he has supported using Venezuela's vast oil wealth to try and rectify the nation's staggering social problems. Some three quarters of Venezuelans are unemployed, or work on the margins in the informal economy.

Among the very wealthy, the resources of the nation should be privatized, and sent along the usual routes -- north. They are not social resources, but private ones, to be owned, and sold. They deeply oppose Chavez's plan to share the wealth.

What Chavez is trying to do is deepen a kind of social revolution among the poor, using the name and nationalist spirit of the greatest Venezuelan of them all -- Simon Bolivar -- to rally and mobilize Venezuelans for Bolivarianismo, a strong support of the nation against the Imperialists to the North.

That's why he is being demonized in the western and corporate media. Prepare for more of it -- soon; for while the voting may be over, the battle to exploit Venezuela's natural resources, ain't.

An early American revolutionary, Tom Paine, wrote, in his 1791 classic, Rights of Man, about the kinds of guys who stir up conflicts in nations, for their own ends. Two hundred years later, he seemed to be talking about Americans, when he wrote:

That there are men in all countries who get their
living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels
of Nations, is as shocking as it is true; but
when those who are concerned in the government
of a country, make it their study to sow discord,
and cultivate prejudices between Nations, it
becomes the more unpardonable. [p. 6]

When Paine scribbled these words, he was probably criticizing his birthplace, England. He was always critical of what he saw as Imperial arrogance, and England's attempts to stir up enmity between America and France.

What would this radical writer, and anti-imperialist think of the American empire, with its armies in over 120 countries?

What would Paine think of the nefarious Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whose main job is to
"sow discord" among nations?

What would this American revolutionary think of the Rebirth of Rome on the Potomac?

What would he think about an America that tried, unsuccessfully, to spark a coup in Venezuela several years ago, because oil companies and moneymen didn't want that country to spend its national wealth on the nation's poor?

Would he find in Senor Presidente Chavez, and his struggle to empower the poor, an enemy, or an ally?

The U.S. has consistently treated its neighbors in South and Central America like something on the bottom of one's shoe-- as something repellent. It has treated them as Rome treated Carthage, or Greece, or Britain.

This is not an America that Paine would recognize, or support.

In fact, if he were alive, he'd still be a revolutionary, but he'd be determined to oppose this new Empire, the Empire of Wealth and Greed—the Empire of Capital.—Mumia Abu-Jamal, www.mumia.org

New Movement Likens Israeli Wall to Apartheid

Dr. Arun Gandhi protests Apartheid Wall in Jerusalem.

Peace activist Dr. Arun Gandhi joined Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious and political leaders in a protest against the Apartheid Wall in the Abu Dis neighborhood of Jerusalem on Friday, August 27, and expressed solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in the second week of a hunger strike against inhumane prison conditions.

"This is not a wall for security. It is created to divide the people and cause much pain and agony for them... We cannot have this kind of thing happening in a civilized world," said Gandhi, who compared the wall to Bantustans in apartheid South Africa, where he grew up.

"This is not a problem for the Palestinians alone or for the Israelis alone. It is a problem for the whole world," said Gandhi, the grandson of India's Mahatma.

"It is about time the world gets involved in finding a solution to this problem," because, quoting Rev. Martin Luther King, "'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,'" said.Gandhi. "The 20 th century became the most violent century in human history," recalled Gandhi, who cautioned that, "Unless we change things now the 21 st century will even break that record."

Gandhi spoke to thousands of Palestinian, Israeli and international protesters gathered at the base of the Apartheid Wall, as he called for better conditions for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. The prisoners currently engaged in a hunger strike to protest abusive punishment, life threatening beatings, the humiliating policy of stripping prisoners naked during searches and other inhumane prison conditions.

"Palestinian prisoners have been treated worse than animals," said Gandhi to the gathered assembly. "I would like to see the day when thousands of Palestinians and Israelis can march together to resolve the conflicts that face them, to break down the walls that divide them, and to stand for the human rights of people even if they are in prison.We have to create an atmosphere where people can live together and work together and be in peace and harmony," he said.

Half of the nearly 7500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails began a hunger strike on August 15 to protest deteriorating prison conditions. That strike is entering its third week.

Gandhi is accompanied by a 12-member delegations form the United States, and he is touring the area and meeting with groups of Israelis and Palestinians. The group, sponsored by Palestinians for Peace and Democracy, based in the US, is studying the situation in the region in efforts to better understand the people and problems associated with the Middle East conflict.

During his journey, Gandhi met with President Yasser Arafat and also spoke before 5,000 Palestinians in Ramallah and called on them to adopt nonviolence in their struggle for freedom and justice in the face of the Israeli occupation.

"Arafat said he would join in a nonviolent struggle against the occupation, but was unable to come out and appear publicly at the Abu Dis rally because he is locked in," commented Gandhi following his meeting with Arafat. "I think he is afraid of being assassinated," said Gandhi.

Gandhi spoke on a panel of Israelis and Palestinians at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem about the necessity of adopting nonviolence as a way of life if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to come to a peaceful conclusion.

"Unless we become the change we wish to see in the world, we can't bring peace to the world," Gandhi cautioned.

During the question and answer session, several Israelis expressed their fear of Palestinian terrorism and cited the 1000 Israelis who died during the Intifada. Palestinians and others in attendance called the occupation the underlying cause of the terrorism and others mentioned the fact that more then three times as many Palestinians as Israelis died during the last four years. They seemed to be talking right past each other rather than reaching out for common ground.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Service (PRCS) 3,160 Palestinians have died since September 29, 2000. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports that 985 Israelis have been killed since September, 2000. Friday morning, Gandhi and the group listened to a briefing on Palestinian health care at the Augusta Victoria Hospital and heard how the wall, checkpoints and closures are cutting off needed medical, educational, and employment services to residents of the West Bank, Bethlehem and parts of Jerusalem. He was joined by members of the hospital staff, the Lutheran World Federation and the Lutheran Bishop in a tour and discussion of the health care crisis in the occupied territories. The Bishop called for peaceful action against the occupation.

"We care for humanity, and we care for justice, and occupation is a sin against God and humanity," said Bishop Munib A. Younan. "There is no justification for terrorism on any side," said the Bishop, and "We are a people for a just peace and reconciliation."

The founder of the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence in Memphis, Tennessee, Gandhi said he is troubled by the strife, racism and hatred that he sees in the Holy Land and wonders why it is so prevalent here.

"Is this strife radiating out from here and causing strife in the world or is the strife from the world concentrated in this place?" asked Gandhi.

Gandhi and the group are meeting with political, civic and religious leaders in Bethlehem and participating in an interfaith worship service for peace before returning to the United States to share what they have learned with the "American people and the whole world," who know little about the conflict other than what they see in headlines or from brief flashes on the television news. —Paul Pierce, American Friends Service Committee, www.afsc.org

Kangaroo Courts in the New Haiti?

Former death squad leader Louis Jodel Chamblain who twice helped coups against Jean Bertrand Aristide was acquitted of murder in a secretive trial in August. Chamblain was second in command of the paramilitary group FRAPH, the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti. In 1991 the group overthrew Jean Bertrand Aristide's government and went on to kill thousands of Aristide supporters.

After years in exile, he returned to Haiti earlier this year to play a key role in the February coup against Aristide, who was Haiti's first democratically elected president. In 1995, Chamblain and former police chief Jackson Joanis were convicted in absentia of assassinating pro-democracy activist Antoine Izmery, who was a former justice minister under Aristide.

But in August, the convictions were overturned during the secretive proceedings. Chamblain praised the outcome, telling The Associated Press that "it was a true trial, just and equitable." But Amnesty International criticized the actions of the new U.S.-backed Haitian government and said, "This is a very sad day in the history of Haiti." The U.S. State Department also publicly criticized the proceedings. A spokesperson said "We deeply regret the haste with which their cases were brought to retrial, resulting in procedural deficiencies that call into question the integrity of the process."

Both Chamblain and Joanis remain in prison to face other charges. www.Democracynow.org

— September 10, 2004

© Copyright 2001-05 Seeing Black, Inc. All Rights Reserved.