“Time to deliver” was the official theme of the 16^th International AIDS Conference,” held August 13-18 in Toronto, Canada. Bill Gates and Bill Clinton,

Gates and Clinton at AIDS conference

whose foundations have assumed leading roles in promoting the use of global tax revenue to fight AIDS, were featured speakers.

 

The conference is the latest indication that the international campaign for global taxes has decided to focus on the AIDS problem as the most effective way to generate hundreds of billions of dollars for the U.N. and other international agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

 

 

Described as the biennial gathering of the global AIDS community,  the event drew 24,000 participants from more than 170 countries and featured a presentation on “diverse communities advocating together around the proposals for an airline solidarity contribution (ASC) and an international drug purchase facility (IDPF),” a project of the International finance Facility (IFF). The “airline solidarity contribution” is an international airline tax whose proceeds are supposed to be channeled to the IDPF, a British idea, and a new facility referred to as UNITAID, backed by the French. These entities would provide AIDS treatment and AIDS drugs.

 

 

The presentation on generating global support and expansion of the airline tax was given by Khalil Elouardighi, a French activist who runs international affairs for Act Up-Paris, described as “one of the most radical organizations in the fight against AIDS.” [1] He has praised the airline tax as “a first step to ensuring genuine sustained funding" [2] to fight AIDS.

 

On July 1, France began applying the new tax, which adds up to $49 to the price of air tickets, depending on the distance traveled and the class of seat. French  Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy says it is expected to bring in $246 million a year. [3]

 

Referring to reports and actions taken during the Clinton Administration, Elouardighi has argued that, “America’s National Security Council and the CIA are the best allies for activists like Act Up. These American security organizations are the first to point it out: Careful, things could go very far indeed in Africa and Asia. The social situation will be unmanageable, sovereign states will disappear, there’s a risk that street children orphaned by AIDS will form uncontrollable armed gangs.”[4] He was referring to a CIA report "The Global Infectious Disease Threat and its Implications for the United States", which was issued in January of 2000.[5] In April of 2000, when the Clinton Administration declared AIDS to be a threat to national security and global security, the National Security Council initiated a review of U.S. policy to fight AIDS and the disease's worldwide effects. The Clinton Administration even took the matter to the U.N. Security Council, which passed resolution 1308 on July 17, 2000, designating HIV/AIDS a possible threat to international peace and security.

 

It has now been acknowledged, however, that estimates of AIDS cases have been grossly exaggerated. The inflated numbers have been blamed on poor testing, a misleading diagnosis of AIDS in Africa, erroneous computer-generated estimates by the U.N., and the desperate desire to generate funds for global purposes.  Author and journalist Tom Bethell calls it “the official manipulation of medical science.” [6]

 

The phony figures led one publication to run a story headlined, “Is the African AIDS pandemic a bluff?” [8] The British magazine, the Spectator, examined the evidence and declared, “Africa Isn’t Dying of AIDS.” The December 2003 article concluded by saying, “Who knows, they may defeat AIDS, but what if we wake up five years hence to discover that the problem has been blown up out of all proportion by unsound estimates, causing upwards of $20 billion to be wasted?”

In fact, U.S. funding for HIV/AIDS has already reached $200 billion since 1981.[9] But that is not enough for the AIDS activists.

 

 

Despite the serious questions that have been raised about the AIDS campaign, AIDS science, and the use of anti-AIDS drugs, the Council on Foreign Relations issued an alarmist report entitled, “HIV and National Security: Where Are the Links?” [10] and the AIDS establishment has ramped up the rhetoric about the disease, calling it a “holocaust” that rivals the Nazi extermination campaign against the Jews. 

 

David Bryden of the Global AIDS Alliance authored an inflammatory paper, “Call for a Grand Anglo-French Alliance to End the AIDS Holocaust,” arguing that the British and the French should integrate the IFF and the “Airline Solidarity Contribution,” beginning in 2007,[11] and that Britain should implement a tax on foreign exchange transactions to help finance the IFF.

 

On the global level, an international tax on financial transactions, the “Tobin Tax,” has been a popular proposal to generate more money for the U.N. and other international agencies. Steven Solomon, a former staff reporter at Forbes, says that such a proposal  “might net some $13 trillion a year…”
 

In the report, Bryden also suggests that the U.S. should commit to spending more on foreign aid by eliminating or reducing “tax cuts for the wealthy” and cutting back on military spending. 

 

In justifying the international taxation efforts, Paul Zeitz, Director of the Global AIDS Alliance, declared that AIDS is comparable to the threat posed by Hitler’s Nazi regime.

 

"We learn from the history of the 1930s that threats to our security cannot be dealt with by attitudes of 'appeasement',” he declared. “Today, the threat posed to global security by the AIDS holocaust means governments must exercise bold leadership, share big ideas and develop common strategies.”

 

In an attack on the Bush Administration, he said, “Given that the world's superpower refuses effectively to exercise such leadership, or mobilize the scale of funds needed, a grand Anglo-French Alliance is now vital to end the AIDS holocaust. We urge the British and French to bury their differences and rivalry, and to merge their respective proposals." [12]

 

At the same time, the “African Civil Society,” another group of NGOs, has issued a  position paper on HIV and AIDS that urges “innovative means of mobilising additional domestic resources to secure sustainable and predictable financing for HIV and AIDS (such as the International Finance Facility and the Airline Solidarity Contribution)” and also urges reductions in military spending “in order to increase social spending…”  [13]

 

Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, has added his voice to the chorus, declaring, “New innovative sources of financing are absolutely necessary.” [14] Piot was in attendance at the Paris conference on “innovative financing for development,” which attracted 18 international organizations and 60 non-governmental organizations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Clinton Foundation.

 

At the International AIDS Conference, in an unmistakable reference to global taxes, Piot said that “…we must put in place the mechanisms and agreements to ensure universal access to all lifesaving essentials – not just for the immediate future but for the long term.” [15]

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[1] http://www.worldpress.org/Europe/1738.cfm
[2] http://www.aegis.com/NEWS/AFP/2006/AF060451.html
[3] Ibid.
[4] http://www.worldpress.org/Europe/1738.cfm
[5] It is available at: http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/dod109/
[6] http://www.humanevents.com/blog-detail.php?id=13920
[7] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12319962&dopt=Abstract
[8] http://www.afrol.com/features/11116
[9] A report from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation said that the U.S. Government had invested approximately $150 billion for domestic and international HIV/AIDS programs from fiscal years 1981 to 2004. Federal funding in FY 2005 was $19,855.1, $21,073.0 in FY 2006, and a budget request of $22,820.1 for FY 2007.
[10] The report concluded that HIV/AIDS “is affecting the security of states throughout the world, weakening economies, military and police forces, government structures, and social structures.” See http://www.cfr.org/publication/8256/hiv_and_national_security.html
[11] http://www.globalaidsalliance.org/docs/Call_for_Anglo-French_Alliance_020606.pdf
[12] http://www.afronets.org/archive/200602/msg00030.php
[13] African Civil Society position paper on HIV and AIDS in Africa: Moving to Action
[14] http://www.unaids.org/en/MediaCentre/PressMaterials/FeatureStory/20060228_airtax.asp
[15] http://data.unaids.org/pub/Speech/2006/20060813_SP_Piot_en.pdf

Activists demand billions more for AIDS fight

“If such a global government were to act in the interests of world citizens as a whole, then global welfare maximization is likely to imply substantial positive taxes on almost everyone in the richer countries and substantial transfers to the majority of people in low-income countries.”

 -- Jeffrey Sachs, adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, August   

     1999.

--   Jose Antonio Ocampo, UN Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs. June 28, 2005. 

-- Branko Milanovic, economist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the World Bank., “An Inequality Tax,” published by Project Syndicate.

-- Kevin Baumert, “Global Taxes and Fees: Recent Developments and Overcoming Obstacles.” May 1997. Published by Global Policy Forum.