Rivers Urges More Awareness, Attention to AIDS Crisis in Africa

World leaders must act to fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa, the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers '83 said in a speech at the Institute of Politics yesterday.

"There is a virtual holocaust in Sub-Saharan Africa," Rivers said. "Africa is about to slide off the face of the Earth."

According to the United Nations Program on AIDS, 4 million of the 5.6 million cases of new HIV infections in 1999 were in Africa.

"The statistics are so unbelievable, that it doesn't seem possible," Rivers said to an audience sobered by the numbers.

He said that rampant cases of rape and sexual promiscuity have left Africa decimated, with AIDS the leading cause of death on the continent.

"The sexual exploitation of young women there is mind-boggling," Rivers said.

He said the problem of AIDS-related deaths have even caused environmental consequences.

"There is ecological disorder due to deforestation due to coffin construction," Rivers said.

Despite the climbing death tolls, Rivers said countries within and outside of Africa have not spent money on AIDS education.

"The South African government has spent only $5 million on AIDS education and care programs in the last five years," Rivers said. "At the same time they have spent $6.5 billion on three new submarines and other military hardware."

Rivers said he saw the problem of AIDS in Africa firsthand when he visited Zimbabwe in 1997.

He has since visited the continent several times and has begun lobbying heavily to have major media organizations and political figures take notice of the epidemic, a fight he said has not been easy.

Rivers said he has struggled the most with getting African-American leaders in the United States to fight against AIDS in Africa.

"No one in the black political leadership is willing to take on this issue," Rivers said.

"This is more devastating than the trans-Atlantic slave trade," Rivers added. "At least with slavery, I had a shot at life."

And he says the rest of the country is also not willing to address the causes of AIDS in Africa.

"Good liberals in the white Midwest are not going to have a conversation about promiscuity and sexual behavior in Africa," Rivers said.

He said that when he tried to organize a symposium on AIDS at the Boston Harvard Club, only 79 people came although 500 invitations were sent.

Despite the difficulties, Rivers said media organizations have begun covering the crisis, citing recent cover stories on the Economist and Newsweek as well as features series in the Boston Globe and on ABC's Nightline.

And Rivers said the increased media attention may make the epidemic an issue in the presidential campaign this year.

"We have to challenge Gore and Bush and persuade other leaders to have a foreign policy on Africa," Rivers said.

But Rivers said the fight against AIDS in Africa is just starting.

"We have to have public education, political advocacy and humanitarian assistance" to combat AIDS, Rivers said.