"Don't Forget to Fight AIDS, Poverty": UN Envoy Stephen Lewis Says Terrorist Attacks Should Not Blind People to Other Issues

Canada's former ambassador to the UN, Stephen Lewis, urged Canadians on Monday not to forget global issues like AIDS and poverty after responding to the victims of terrorist attacks in the United States.

Lewis, now a UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, was speaking before an international conference on charitable foundations and was not critical of the public's response to the attacks. "People were overwhelmed and wanted to respond," Lewis said of the $850 million raised for the families of the victims, about 10 times the money raised in the 1980s for hundred of thousands of Africans then suffering from famine. "It spoke to the most elemental and decent human instincts," he added.

"What we have to do is ensure it doesn't get totally distorted, and that we remember the human needs and imperatives that exist out there in the world," Lewis said. His address earned a standing ovation.

Later in an interview with UPI, Lewis suggested that government should be spending more money on the problems the public neglects in the aftermath of Sept. 11. He said that he had "begged" the United States administration for its $200 million contribution to a global trust fund on health and AIDS. "But within 24 hours, $40 billion had been requisitioned to respond to the tragedy," in New York and Washington, D.C. "It isn't that money isn't available for the imperatives of this world. It's just that we have to remind people there are other things going on."

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