Randall Tobias,
Bush's new Global AIDS
Coordinator
Marketing strategies overexploiting terrorist threads having proved to be efficient in focusing the American
people?s attention on the necessity of a war in Iraq that would ultimately only serve the armaments, oil,
drug and other business interests of Bush?s soft money donors, the same strategy is utilized to divert the
American public attention from the most important issue of the moment. The Bush administration?s African
tour is supposed to enhance the U.S. president?s tarnishing image within the last public in the world to
show majorities in understanding and rejecting his ?nation building? ambitions.
The Bush administration?s current propaganda strategy is based on numbers that would hit the minds the
most: $15 billion to save Africa from the AIDS scourge, and 2,000 troops to reestablish peace in Liberia.
If sending troops in Liberia may not materialize because Europeans are those who press him the most to do
so, the $15 billion for AIDS assistance will materialize because members of the Establishment are those
who press him to do so. Pressures from armaments, oil and other American business interests have amply
shown the strength of their pressure over the U.S. president during the debates having preceded the
ongoing war on Iraq.
Even as he was delivering the pledge in the HIV highly infected Botwana, Bush?s $15 billion, five-year
AIDS program still has to go through the trims of the Congress, in addition to the total confusion he
installed himself about the distribution of the amount. He also included health assistance to Russia, India and
other countries different from the much mediatized Africa and the Caribbean.
Another confusion the Africans interpret as a mirage is about knowing who will be the actual beneficiaries
of this colossal financial assistance. The argument that neither African governments nor local NGOs should
be trusted as good financial managers leads to accepting that the first beneficiaries be American drug
manufacturing companies and organizations.
Drug manufacturers and researchers will be the main beneficiaries. Their lobby groups have already spread
within the U.S. lawmakers several arguments against the much requested development in Africa of generic
formulas of their antiretroviral drugs, including the main allegation that protection of their intellectual
property rights is sacred.
But yet, only generic antiretroviral drugs would make HIV/AIDS cares available to all patients in Africa.
The only problem with generics is simply that the American drug manufacturers and researchers would
loose the total financial control they requested Bush to obtain for them over the lucrative commerce of
HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria health care in the big African and Caribbean market.
Randal Tobias, the Person in Charge of Funneling the Funds to Bush?s Soft Money Donors
On July 2, 2003, a couple of days before his African tour, Bush announced his nomination of Randall
Tobias to serve as his Global AIDS Coordinator with rank of ambassador within the State Department.
Randall Tobias was Vice Chairman of AT&T International and Chairman of ATT International. ?He also
went to head Eli Lilly and Company, one of our nation's largest and most innovative pharmaceutical
companies,? Bush praised during his announcement speech.
The only disturbing thing with this nomination is that, of the 2000 presidential campaign?s soft money
donors, AT&T contributed $2,303,951 and Eli Lilly & Co contributed $812,934 for candidate George W.
Bush.
It is therefore clear that Randall Tobias is the CEO who ordered the (legal!) bribes. He is now being
recompensed for his past unethical managerial decisions. His mission will be making sure that the lion share
of the $15 billion come back to Bush?s soft money donors and that generic drugs would not be developed
and utilized in Africa, the Caribbean and other countries benefiting the assistance program.
In Washington, the House is about to approve two-thirds of the $3 billion available for the global
HIV-AIDS prevention and treatment act that Bush signed in May. House Appropriations foreign
operations panel approved Thursday $1.43 billion for the budget year starting October 1, 2003 to fight
AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Another spending bill on the House floor may add $644 million, bringing
the total to about $2 billion.
There was no real debate about who will benefit the most of the colossal assistance budget. Lawmakers
are part of the Establishment.
Anyway the ?compassionate nation? of the American tax payers will pay the entire bill, even by resorting to
public debt.
The Africans and other people in the world simply have one more evidence that the ?democracy? that the
fraudulently elected American president is proud of building in targeted countries is the democratic
dictatorship of soft money donors over the People, the numerical democracy that disregards the majority of
abstainers? voice, the capitalist democracy of those who have the financial power to lobby the U.S. laws
they want, the hawks? democracy were private businesses and the wealthy constituting the Establishment
manipulate at will the puppet president they have created through authorized corruption.
They would understand that ?corrupted regimes? also include the political system ruling the U.S., that the
?civilized world? is more likely to be found in Africa or Europe than in the U.S., and finally that democracy
is still to be established in the U.S.
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©2003 The African Independent, Inc. All rights to republication are reserved