WEBVTT

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[Chanting] 'Broken promises kill'

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'Broken promises kill' Protest at the XVIII International AIDS Conference, Vienna 18 July 2010

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I'm protesting because at the global level right now

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there is a shortage in funding of HIV/AIDS.

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[Chanting] 'Stop the Epidemic'

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If all HIV-infected people could be treated,

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because HIV-infected patients when they are treated

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do not transmit any more,

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we could stop the epidemic in 30 years.

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[Chanting] 'Fund AIDS, no retreat'

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The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM)

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was established in 2001 to help fight these diseases

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in developing countries around the world.

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In ten years it has committed 19.3 billion Dollars

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to programmes in 144 countries.

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It saved more than 4.9 million lives;

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2.5 million people were treated for HIV and AIDS,

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6 million people received live-saving drugs for TB,

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and 104 million bed nets for malaria were distributed.

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The Global Fund prevents 3600 deaths every day.

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10 years ago, with the UNGASS Declaration,

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countries all over the world pledged

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to achieve universal access by 2010.

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And here we are in 2010, and support, financial support

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to achieve universal access is completely inadequate.

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Now what we're seeing is that funding

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is not coming in at the rate it needs to be coming in.

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The financial crisis is being used as an excuse

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to cut off AIDS funding.

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The economies will die, everything will die,

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if they do not fullfill their promises.

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Because if they had to lead economies that are sound,

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they must have sound people.

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All Eastern-Europe is actually dependant

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on the Global Fund money, it's the major donor,

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it's the main donor of for example

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harm reduction for injecting drug users.

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If we reduce the funding of the Global Fund,

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we are going to lose 10-15 years of work in the field.

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Several countries, major donors have begun to scale back

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their funding of the Global Fund.

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One of those countries is the United States,

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Obama made bold promises during his campaign

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to increase funding of the Global Fund

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and has not yet kept those promises.

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In fact, here in Austria, where we stand today,

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the Austrian Government while they've given some money

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for this conference that we're participating in

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has not contributed any money to the Global Fund.

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When the financial system was under pressure two years ago,

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in a couple of weeks time all the Western governments

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came together with, I believe,

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the economists estimated at 8 trillion dollars

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to rescue the financial system, which needed to be rescued, OK,

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but that proves that when there is political will,

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when there is political commitment to solve a problem, they can do it.

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It strikes me as we listen to this:

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we want 20 billion dollars for the Global Fund,

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that the BP has taken that out of their bank account

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to support clean up of the Gulf.

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If they can turn around and take 20 billion dollars

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out of their bank account, think in reality

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how easy it is to get that 20 billion dollars

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to give to the Global Fund to actually save people's lives

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all around the globe.

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We see that some countries soon will not be eligible

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to the Global Fund, like Belarus, like Azerbaijan,

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like Kazachstan, some other countries,

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and this is mainly because there's not enough money

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in the Global Fund and donors are pushing:

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'OK, we have not enough money so let's prioritize

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where the sort of biggest problems are.

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And countries that are doing well,

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that are managing to prevent HIV epidemic

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are becoming punished.

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The idea is that the countries are rich enough

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to fund the epidemic themselves, but what's happening

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in our region is that because stigma and discrimination

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are so high and because the epidemic is not prioritized,

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the money isn't going where it needs to go,

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so people in our region with HIV and people in our region

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who are at risk for HIV actually have smaller chances

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of getting the treatment and prevention that they need

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than in countries that are much poorer.

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We, communities of those living with HIV are very much scared

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about those years what are coming after Global Fund leaves Belarus.

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100%, absolutely all medicaments are covered by Global Fund.

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The Government doesn't spend any rubel for medicaments

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for HIV-positive people.

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95% of the activities that are right now financed

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by the Global Fund will terminate at the same moment

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when those grants are finished, when the Global Fund

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stops financing these grants in Serbia.

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The people in need deserve the support and assistance,

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and the Global Fund is there as the best mechanism to assist them,

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to provide them support and to save their lives.

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Any kind of step back has a very high price:

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a price that we can count in human lives.

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We need to shame our governments,

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we need to shame our governments

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for not paying their share.

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We should tell our governments:

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you could do it for the financial system,

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you could do it also to save people.

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In our case we want to make sure that the Global Fund

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is adequatly funded so that we can start

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putting an end to these three killer diseases.

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[Chanting] 'Treat the people, fund the fund!'

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Help keep the Global Fund global!

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Join oone of the actions and sign the petition at

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globalfundreplenishment.org

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Subtitles by: Ferenc Bagyinszky and István Gábor Takács