Gore's Genocide Policy
Could Sink Campaign
by Scott Thompson and Michele Steinberg
One of the leading topics for the 12,000 participants at an international conference on the world AIDS crisis, which opened in Durban, South Africa on July 22, is to expose the role of Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., in denying African countries the right to purchase low-cost generic drugs for the treatment of HIV and AIDS. As the American head of the U.S.-South Africa Binational Commission, Gore used every threat possible under his doctrine of globalism, to force South Africa to abandon its plans for purchasing generic drugs for the treatment and prevention of AIDS. In 1998, using the sledgehammer of the State Department's definition of protecting "intellectual property rights," Gore threatened then-Deputy President Thabo Mbeki (the Republic of South Africa's new President) with an economic boycott if the nation did not void its law that allowed the development of affordable drugs to fight AIDS.
The criticism of Gore is not limited to Africa; his genocidal policies are becoming notorious throughout the world, including in the United States, where voters persist in rejecting him.
At a conference of the Schiller Institute in Oberwesel, Germany on July 24-25, Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., the third major candidate for the 2000 Democratic Presidential nomination, described a cartoon he had commissioned, in response to a question about the American election from a participant from Africa. Gore, LaRouche said, is not intended to win the election; he's only intended to get the Democratic nomination, so that Bush can win the Presidency. In the cartoon, Bush is riding Al the Donkey into the Presidency. If the donkey is knocked out, the rider will go too.
LaRouche explained that he is the "third" of three major candidates in the Democratic Party. The "second" candidate is former basketball player and former Sen. Bill Bradley, best known for television shots of his armpits. LaRouche said he is not saying much about Bradley now—the priority is to knock out Gore politically.
The context for the election campaign is that the whole global system is finished, explained LaRouche, and he is the only candidate capable of both telling the truth about the crisis, and posing a solution.
After Gore's atrocity in Malaysia last November, where he called for the overthrow of Prime Minister Mahathir, who had defended his nation against international hedge funds and financial speculators, LaRouche decided that Gore was a great danger. LaRouche said he "wrote a couple of articles" which were widely circulated, which caused Gore to react. Now, Gore is in the process of destroying himself.
Up the creek ...
On July 26, the Washington Post reported that the Gore campaign is going to get tough against Republican front-runner George W. Bush, and will "ignore" Bradley. In this shift, Gore's campaign strategists want to pit "Mr. Megabucks" (that is, Bush, whose campaign accounts are bulging) against "Mr. Message" (that is, Al Gore).
Gore's first problem? As even the media hyenas note, Gore doesn't have a message. His early "practical idealism" label was immediately dropped; his harping on "family values" and his lifelong love affair with his wife, Tipper, played like a bad imitiation of Pat Robertson's hypocrisy; and his fatally stupid attacks on the very popular Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair are sinking the Gore campaign further.
And just when former Congressman Tony Coelho, the well-known political thug who runs Gore's campaign, tried to shift the agenda to "issues" to underline the Gore/Bush race, "the dam burst" with bad news. In a cascade of negative reports, the Wall Street Journal revealed that Gore was lagging by $240,000 to $408,000 or more behind Bradley in campaign contributions from the "Silicon Valley" high-technology computer and telecommunications belt in California; new polls show George W. Bush leading Gore by 56% to 38%; and top Gore campaign loyalists are complaining to the media that they being spied on by the "K Street" apparatus—run by Coelho—while they are out in the field trying to campaign for Gore. One unamed "exasperated" Democrat told the Washington Post, "Show me one Democrat besides Tipper Gore" who is dedicating all his time and effort to get Gore elected.
Next, a relatively minor incident—a campaign publicity stunt for Gore, the "great environmentalist," to be photographed on a canoe trip in New Hampshire—took center stage, becoming the symbol for everything that's wrong with Gore: He is now being buried in criticism over the waste of 4 billion gallons of water that was dumped into the Connecticut River from a power company reservoir, so that Gore could paddle four miles down the river without getting stuck in the mud.
Local officials hit the roof. Waterways in New Hampshire, as in many parts of the United States, have been drying up in the severe drought conditions. Director of Natural Resources Jim Kassel, in neighboring Vermont, blasted the water spill, pointing out that requests to release extra water to save the salmon population had been turned down. When asked about this water waste, Gore and his campaign stooges claimed they "knew nothing" about it, and hadn't requested it.
However, it was soon revealed that the same thing had happened before. A week after the New Hampshire incident, the Rocky Mountain News of Colorado on July 27 reported that in the 1996 Presidential campaign, Gore had had some 96 million gallons of water released into the South Platte River so that he could be seen giving a speech in front of a "roaring river."
A day later, July 28, Gore was criticized in a House of Representatives hearing reviewing the 1992 "toilet bill," which had been supported by then-Senator Gore, to restrict the size of toilets in the United States to save water. Rep. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said that the "Vice President, in his trip down the Connecticut River, cost us 6 billion flushes." GOP chairman Jim Nicholson put out a press release saying: "Al Gore and the liberals tell us to hold our water, while they waste 4 billion gallons in the middle of a drought."
Genocide
Such a stunt reveals Gore's true nature: He could care less about the environment. His much touted "environmentalism" is a cover for his belief in radical population reduction—eliminating 2 to 3 billion human beings. As EIR has reported, Gore's book, Earth in the Balance, singles out African countries such as Nigeria, where he says population growth is "frightening."
On July 21, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sponsored an amendment that would have prohibited the U.S. State Department from punishing countries that take actions, legal under World Trade Organization rules, to make affordable AIDS drugs available to their populations. Although the House rejected the measure by a vote of 307-117, the debate reveals the depth of concern over the AIDS epidemic.
In his statements, Sanders called the AIDS epidemic "one of the great moral challenges of this century." He urged his colleagues, "Get the U.S. government on the right side of this issue and help save millions of lives."
Rep. Marion Berry (D-Ark.) backed Sanders's amendment, making the obvious point, "What good are life-saving drugs if they are not affordable for the people who need them? We should not punish countries for trying to save their citizens' lives."
Profits first
Like Gore, the majority of House members appeared more concerned about the profits of the pharmaceutical firms that produce the drugs, than the people whose lives the drugs are intended to save. Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn.) warned that while Sanders's motives may be noble, the result of his amendment "will be reduction in new drugs that will save lives." He added that the amendment would "give the opportunity for wealthier nations" like Israel, he said, "to try to evade our intellectual property laws," and buy drugs in countries that produce them generically.
However, the rhetoric by Gejdenson and others is not taking the heat off Gore, especially with new reports on child mortality, such as the recent UNICEF report (see accompanying article), that show the magnitude of the threat.
Jamie Love of the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, a leader of AIDS Drugs for Africa coalition that has exposed Gore's role, told EIR: "It's hard to appreciate the horror of the situation. Millions of South Africans will die because of what Vice President Gore has done."
"South Africa is prepared to pay reasonable royalties," Love said, and "the conditions ... meet those of the World Trade Organization. One out of every five young South Africans is infected by HIV/AIDS and will die. But Gore has kow-towed to the pharmaceutical companies, so that he can raise campaign contributions. Yes, I would agree with you that 'genocide' is an appropriate term."
Love said: "Al Gore ... is head of the Commission on Binational Relations with South Africa.... He said that he had only allowed there to be 'moderate' sanctions ... rather than the tough sanctions that have been called for by the drug companies.... What is Gore talking about? People are dying in big numbers, and they view people who are infected as already dead, so why give them any treatment? It is terrible and immoral!"
On June 30, Rep. Harold James, head of the Pennsylvania State Legislature's Black Caucus, and one of the most widely known African-American leaders in the United States, issued a statement asking, "Will millions die in South Africa because of Al Gore's policies?"
James's statement reads in part: "Disturbing reports have come to public attention recently, concerning the apparent role of Vice President Al Gore in denying affordable AIDS medications to ... South Africa.... Why would Al Gore take actions, which would unnecessarily increase the suffering and deaths from AIDS in Africa?
"In 1997, the government of South Africa passed legislation allowing the domestic production of generic versions of AIDS drugs, and the purchasing of cheaper types of AIDS drugs on the world market. The law also requires a reasonable fee to be paid by domestic producers to the drug companies which hold the patents. The pharmaceutical industry is worried that if South Africa and other Third World countries go ahead with these plans, their ability to charge vastly inflated prices ... may be undercut. While AZT, for example, can be purchased on the world market for 42 cents for 300 mg, it retails in the United States for nearly $6 a pill."
The criticism from Representative James, a collaborator of Lyndon LaRouche in the policy fight for a New Bretton Woods monetary system, is the tip of the iceberg. Reports from the South Africa conference on AIDS will indeed begin to "break the silence."
