The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Tuesday, we get five answers to the question: Is Somalia the right place to exercise U.S. military power? Then an update on the spread of AIDS throughout the world with a documentary from Uganda and an interview with the editor of a new report. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: There was another dose of good economic news out today. The government reported its Index of Leading Indicators rose .4 percent in October. That followed declines in three of the four preceding months. The closely watched index foreshadows economic activity six to nine months in advance. Forty thousand farmers filled the streets of Strausberg, France, today to protest a U.S./European trade accord. The farmers opposed the agreement because it would cut export subsidies for their crops. At least one farmer was seriously hurt when the protest turned violent. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: President Yeltsin of Russia deflected an impeachment attempt today. It came from hardliners at the opening session of his country's congress. Outside the meeting former communists protested Yeltsin's reforms. James Mates of Independent Television News reports from Moscow.

JAMES MATES: Communist Party supporters were on the streets of Moscow at dawn trying to defy the police and get to the Kremlin. Ultimately, their way was blocked. These people believe this is their last chance to turn Russia away from the free market. Orders had gone out, but the situation here is too tense to allow rival demonstrations on Red Square. Inside, they stood for the National Anthem, but this was the only show of unity all day. President Yeltsin's speech was uncompromising, giving no hint he's about to surrender his reforms.

PRESIDENT YELTSIN: [speaking through interpreter] We've only just started building our state so we should not be talking about refurbishing it already. This is just the beginning.

JAMES MATES: Some of his remarks were greeted with audible unhappiness.

IONA ANDRONOV, Member, Russian Congress: [speaking through interpreter] They're going down, down, and down. And the people are angry.

ANDRE FEDOROV, Member, Russian Congress: If the government will insist on the same speed and the same method of reforms, there will be no support.

MR. LEHRER: Yeltsin accused the congress of blocking his reforms. He said the former Communist-dominated body should give up some of its powers to save the country from disaster.

MR. MacNeil: A task force of 1800 U.S. Marines is headed towards Somalia. Pentagon officials said today the Marines are aboard three amphibious assault ships headed West in the Indian Ocean. They said the ships would station in the area until the United Nations decides whether to authorize military action to protect relief efforts in Somalia. At the U.N. today, the United States reportedly proposed a resolution that American commanders head a U.N. force. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. The U.S. Navy said today an October missile accident that killed five Turkish sailors was due to human error. The Pentagon today released this videotape of the incident. The Navy report said crew members of the aircraft carrier Saratoga mistakenly fired at a Turkish destroyer during NATO training exercises in the Aegean Sea. It said one of the crew members mistook the drill for a real attack. Five officers, including the Saratoga's captain and three enlisted men will face a disciplinary hearing. Turkey's defense minister said reprimands were not enough. He said his government would insist on a full court martial. In Washington, Pentagon Spokesman Pete Williams was asked about it.

PETE WILLIAMS, Pentagon Spokesman: The court martial isn't indicated here because there's no evidence of a willful intent to endanger the lives of the Turkish crew members are the American crew members. There's no evidence of intentional wrongdoing. There's no evidence of intentionally putting the ship in danger or having sloppy procedures intentionally. It's all very regrettable. The Navy notes in its accident that there was a lack of adequate communication among the personnel, and they go through what caused it, but there's, there's no evidence of any intention on the part of any of these folks that led to this accident.

MR. MacNeil: Investigators are looking for the cause of last night's crash of two Air Force cargo jets over Montana. The bodies of nine crew members have been recovered. Debris from the collision was scattered over 212 square miles. Air Force officials said the jets crashed during a night time training mission soon after refueling. A total of 13 people aboard both planes apparently died. A B-1-B bomber crashed into a mountain in West Texas last night. Four people were aboard the unarmed plane. There was an unconfirmed report that one person may have survived. Few recognizable airplane parts were left behind, but a wide area of the mountainous region was scorched by fire. The Air Force said today's crash was the fourth involving a B-1-B since 1987.

MR. LEHRER: Relief flights to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo were suspended today because of fighting. U.N. officials said small arms fire hit the tail of a U.S. Air Force cargo plane as it landed in the city. He said the airlift would stay on "hold" at least until tomorrow. Israeli security forces shot and killed an Arab boy in the occupied Gaza Strip today. It happened during clashes between the troops and Palestinians which injured 30 people. Israel's prime minister went to the occupied territory today to make a gesture for peace. We have a report narrated by David Simons of Worldwide Television News.

MR. SIMONS: The Israeli soldiers guard the Allenby Bridge, a reminder of the divide between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors. Reconciliation may be some time coming, but the Israeli prime minister took another step towards peace, reopening a border terminal for Arabs traveling from Jordan into the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

YITZHAK RABIN, Prime Minister, Israel: We stress that we negotiate with the Palestinians throughout the residents of the territories. We look at them as the partner for the negotiations, as partner for reaching an agreement, and as a partner to implement the agreement that will be reached. With whom they talk is their business.

MR. SIMONS: On the other side of Israel in the occupied Gaza Strip, a farmer buries his 13-year-old boy. The Palestinians claim he was shot by Israeli soldiers while buying vegetables at the village market. His corpse was stolen from a local hospital before an autopsy could be performed. Now another curfew has been imposed.

MR. LEHRER: Two bombs exploded at a shopping center in Belfast, Northern Ireland today. Twenty-seven people were injured in the first attack, which was claimed by the Irish Republican Army. There were no claims of responsibility or injuries with the second bomb, which exploded nearby several hours later.

MR. MacNeil: A study on AIDS released today found the spread of the disease worldwide is outpacing efforts to fight it. Harvard University published a study which projects more than 38 million adults and 10 million children will be infected with the virus by the year 2000. We will interview the coordinator of the study later in the program. This was World AIDS Day and Paris was among the cities marking it with marches and demonstrations. The day was sponsored by the World Health Organization to call attention to the need for more education and funding to fight the disease.

MR. LEHRER: The Senate Ethics Committee has begun a preliminary inquiry into charges against Sen. Bob Packwood. The Oregon Republican has been accused of sexually harassing 10 women employees and lobbyists. Ethics Committee Chairman Terry Sanford said today he had instructed his staff to begin gathering information on those allegations. Packwood has hired a lawyer and has agreed to cooperate with the Senate investigation. At the White House today, Barbara Bush told the press corps to go easy on her successor. Mrs. Bush spoke as she waited in the driveway for the horse-drawn arrival of the White House Christmas tree. She said this about Hillary Clinton.

BARBARA BUSH: Give her a break.

REPORTER: Do you think we won't?

BARBARA BUSH: I don't think you have yet. I think the cartoons are ugly, and I think she does not deserve -- let her make her own mistakes. She's just great. She was just the warmest, nicest, friendliest person.

REPORTER: -- be a different kind of --

BARBARA BUSH: I don't know but it's just, it's just not fair. I think she's going to be just great. And let her do her thing. Then when she makes a mistake, like I did, let her know, like you did.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to intervening in Somalia and AIDS in Uganda and elsewhere in the world. FOCUS - POWER PLAY

MR. LEHRER: If Somalia, then why not Bosnia, Haiti, or Liberia, and if them too, then where does it all end? those are among the questions we ask first tonight about sending a large U.S. military force to stop the dying in Somalia. As many as 2 million people are at risk of death from starvation or disease in that East African nation. Three hundred thousand already have died. United States troops would be part of a United Nations force that would allow international food shipments to reach the starving people. Most of those relief supplies are now being stolen and looted by local gangs. We ask our questions tonight of five people; former United Nations ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, retired Army Lt. Gen. William Odom, the former head of the National Security Agency, now a fellow at the Hudson Institute, Richard Helms, former director of Central Intelligence and ambassador to Iran, Patt Derian, the assistant secretary of state for human rights in the Carter administration, and Randall Robinson, executive director of TransAfrica, a lobbying group in Washington. Gen. Odom, first the basic question. Do you think the United States should use its military force in Somalia?

GEN. ODOM: I don't think it should until we've asked the very questions you raised in the opening statement. There are lots of other places where I think one can make an equally compelling moral case. When one sees the footage, the television footage of Somalia, the impulse clearly is to intervene there, and I share those sentiments as deeply as I think anyone else, but if you look at Haiti, for example, it has more direct relation to the United States. You look at Bosnia, I think it has more direct relation to balance of power and stability in Europe. I would include Iraq, where we were involved earlier. I think a lot of atrocities and human suffering is going on there which we need to consider, and I think we're going to have to decide where we can use our limited resources to do something about these kind of things, and I would argue that we need a new design for a world order to give us some general criteria, an outline of where we could go. And I think that's got to be worked out.

MR. LEHRER: In other words, do all of them, or do none of them?

GEN. ODOM: Do ones that make the most sense for us, both to expand democracy and human rights, but not which dissipate our power so that we're less effective in the longer run in this regard.

MR. LEHRER: Based on what you know now about the Somalia situation and the criteria that you would use if you were in charge, Somalia does or does not qualify?

GEN. ODOM: It would not qualify.

MR. LEHRER: Patt Derian.

MS. DERIAN: Well, Somalia does qualify for me, but this is not an easy question because every time something like this comes up - - there was East Seymour and still is, there's the Sudan. There are all of those places. We act as those this is the first time we've have this decision to make and it seems to me that we've got to settle on the series of questions we ask ourselves. For instance, I'm not a military person so I'd like to know if we're planning to send military force somewhere, how it is we think we're going to do it. I'm blessed with a retired Air Force general as a neighbor across the street, so whenever something happens, I run over and say, well, is this going to work. And so far, he's been right every time.

MR. LEHRER: We use Odom that way.

MS. DERIAN: But the main question I think you start out asking is: Is there something that needs to be done to help people? Not an Emir or some dictator, but this is a case where people are starving. There's food for them. There's money to bring those packages to them, and they are unable to do it because armed people are preventing it. It seems to me you could do that.

MR. LEHRER: So don't worry about precedent or worry about all the other spots, just do it in Somalia if the situation there exists?

MS. DERIAN: Well, I think so, absent the fact that we really have no rule of thumb that we use. And I'd like to talk about that as we go on.

MR. LEHRER: You be.

MS. DERIAN: Not now, but --

MR. LEHRER: Just on the simple question, Randall Robinson, of whether or not we should move into Somalia, how do you come down?

MR. ROBINSON: I think we should. And I say this with great reluctance. We have a responsibility for Somalia. It's a victim of the Cold War. Somalia was a very civil society after colonialism and an elected government for nine years before Siad Bari took power, said he was a Marxist, receive massive Soviet assistance in 1977, President Carter took over and from '77 to '89, we put nearly a billion dollars into Somalia in arms and economic assistance behind a cruel dictator. And so a civil society, led by elders, was destroyed. And all of the guns that are in Somalia now, largely Soviet and American weapons, have turned this place into a dangerous arsenal. This is the problem. And so we have a major responsibility for it, two thousand deaths a day. We've got to provide safe corridors for food. At the same time that we do that, very quickly, we've got to make certain that negotiations begin, that a national peace conference is called in Somalia, because no solution will work if it is not conceived and implemented by Somalis, and at the table must be the elders who participated in successful governments of that country for centuries, local leaders, and these militia leaders, and let them solve Somalia's problems. We may end up with three countries, we may end up with one, but we have to make sure that side by side with this military intervention goes a search for a peaceful solution.

MR. LEHRER: But you agree that the search for a peaceful solution up till now has not worked and you have to do the military intervention and then find a peaceful solution?

MR. ROBINSON: I'm afraid that you have to do that but I think it's distinguishable from the other cases. We don't need to intervene in Haiti. A phone call will probably reinstate democracy in Haiti, certainly in --

MR. LEHRER: A phone call to whom?

MR. ROBINSON: A phone call to the military from the President. We have retired Haitian generals before with phone calls, and certainly the serious imposition of the embargo stopping oil flows to that military will shut down the Haitian military. The situation in Yugoslavia is a far more dangerous kind of situation. The Somali situation provides no real serious risk to the U.S. military and probably not a great deal of cost, but it should be a multilateral force, preferably under United Nations leadership, with support from the Africa group, which appears to be there.

MR. LEHRER: Amb. Helms, where do you come down?

AMB. HELMS: I'm in favor of military force going into Somalia, the sooner the better. If we look at these various situations which you have outlined, Haiti, Liberia, and so forth, it seems to me that the criterion that ought to be used is one of need and secondly, of feasibility. Now there's certainly a need in Somalia. This idea of women and children just dying of starvation when they could practically push their hand out and get the food that's sitting there is a scene I don't think that the American public thinks is proper in any sense, moral or otherwise, and on top of this, if you start to worry about precedence every time something happens in the world, you end up -- it's a prescription for inaction. It's a kind of an intellectual top-out, that everything's got to be exactly legalistic and if we do that, it's going to be a precedent for that. I think that's just a lot of nonsense. Here is a place where as far as feasibility is concerned, we can do this with probably a minimum force. It's desert land. It's easy for the Marines to come in from the sea. Helicopters and armed gunships and so forthwould dominate the landscape, and I think that you'd find that the guns would stop firing almost instantaneously as soon as the Marines showed up. Now I recognize that there's a very tough problem of getting out of those situations once you get into them, and getting out ought to be thought through.

MR. LEHRER: Before you go, before you commit militarily?

AMB. HELMS: If possible, but in the meantime, a robust civic action program should be a plan so that when you've pacified the place, then you do what Mr. Robinson says, you get the elders together and you start to try and see if you can't put together some kind of a political arrangement.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Amb. Young in Atlanta, how do you feel about this?

AMB. YOUNG: Well, I'll tell you. I tend to agree that this is really almost like a natural disaster, except as Randall said, it's a disaster that, that was created by political forces. If this were an earthquake, we wouldn't have any qualms about a humanitarian presence of the military. I see this as a demonstration of America's military power at its best, really and truly exercising the compassion, the concern of the people of the world, and I can't think of a better force to do that than the U.S. military, because really and truly there is a diverse, almost international or multicultural force. The army's done a wonderful job in dealing with diversity. I think we can establish a pattern. It's important, I think, to have a big presence to start with, because it says that there's a commitment for order. But the U.N. needs to start immediately putting together the political pieces, and the ongoing economic development strategy that will help to establish order out of the present chaos. But we've got to find ways to stem the tide of chaos in the world which really is a result, as Randall said, of the Cold War, plus a dozen or so years of benign neglect or total withdrawal of our political influence from places like Somalia.

MR. LEHRER: Amb. Young, what about the question that some have raised, not Americans, in particular, have raised, that say, hey, wait a minute, this is going into a sovereign nation, this is not two countries at war, this isn't Iraq invading Kuwait, this is an internal situation where the United States and the other countries under the auspices of the U.N. would come in and literally occupy the nation and take it over, does that bother you as a precedent?

AMB. YOUNG: It doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I think one of the things we're going to have to do in places like Liberia, to some extent in Haiti, I agree that it can be done easier in Haiti, but we're going to have to find a way under the auspices of the United Nations to deal with internal questions. President Carter's doing that largely on the moral power of the Carter Center. And I was with 200 civilians in Haiti for an election, and just with the presence of 200 civilians and a good corps of the press, the military withdrew and behaved as long as we were there and as long as the White House put its emphasis on the side of freedom and democracy. Once it looked like we didn't care, then the military resumed power and took over in chaos and drove the democratically- elected government out. We've got to establish some forum within the United Nations who defend people because governments are really to serve people. When the governments do what they're doing in Somalia, I think somebody has to morally intervene, and preferably that's the United Nations.

MR. LEHRER: Well, Gen. Odom, isn't that the kind of new world order definition and guide postthat you were talking about? You might disagree with Amb. Young on the specifics.

GEN. ODOM: I don't disagree with what Amb. Young is saying about the moral intervention, nor do I feel less moved by the kinds of arguments that Amb. Helms has made and the other people here tonight, but moral intervention is different from going in with the military intervention and taking political responsibility for follow-on. Now it may be that we want to do that. I merely want to ask some questions. If you had the same camera pictures from Sudan, could we not make the same compelling moral argument? And, you know, it's easy to say we could go in there and feed people and overcome this famine. I think that's probably quite true technically, but it was not just the Cold War that tore up Somalia. It was internal structures as well. It was a long-standing quarrel with Ethiopia, one that is in no sense solved. So right now Kenya is supplying weapons to one tribe. There are at least seven tribes or clans in Somalia. So the, the political -- re-establishing the kind of political order there is not a minor undertaking. Now I'm impressed by some arguments I've heard about Ethiopia and other places where there have been famines. When food comes in, it fattens armies first, which then go back to the killing. Are we sure we can come in, stop the famine, and not have merely re- energized the level of the civil war? I'm quite prepared to support this if somebody can give me a reasonable degree of confidence that that won't be the outcome?

MR. LEHRER: Can you give him that, Randall Robinson?

MR. ROBINSON: Unlike the other countries we've been talking about, Somalia as a nation no longer exists. Somalia was destroyed by the dictator that we imposed on the country.

GEN. ODOM: We didn't impose it. He was there before we came in.

MR. ROBINSON: Well, we took over from the Soviets.

MR. LEHRER: Well, let's talk about what we do from here on.

MR. ROBINSON: The point I'm making is that when Berbera, the air strip, lost value to us, we pulled the plug and of course, Somalia collapsed. And so we have a responsibility. The vast majority of Somalis will welcome this, and the triangle of death about which we're talking really comprises a small part of Somalia. Most of Somalia is under useful, constructive governance now, and so this intervention would be a limited intervention for a limited period of time. At the same time there are elders in Somalia who enjoy enormous respect, who would attend a peace conference, a national peace conference, people that can reconstruct a working Somalia, if we give them an opportunity to do that. They cannot do that in the chaos that exists now, chaos largely attributable to the work of the Soviets and to the United States.

MR. LEHRER: Pat Derian, do you agree with Amb. Young that this is the way U.S. military force should be used? As the Ambassador - - I don't remember his exact words -- but this was an honorable, noble thing for the U.S. military to be doing.

MS. DERIAN: Well, I think it is. This is a case where we know the history, we know what's happening, and the result of it is that people are starving who don't need to starve.

MR. LEHRER: Where would you draw a line, or would you draw a line, and say, okay, we do Somalia, do we do similar situations, Sudan, Ethiopia? There's a long list. Do you think this is -- this should be -- this is the way the U.S. military should be used?

MS. DERIAN: If I was a decision maker --

MR. LEHRER: Yes.

MS. DERIAN: -- you have to ask yourself some questions, and I wasn't talkingabout making a bunch of legislation that says you go from one to thirty-two before you can act. I'm thinking when you have to make up your mind, where do you start, what is the need? Can we help? Should we help? First, can we help? And then how do we do it.

MR. LEHRER: The feasibility.

MS. DERIAN: That's right. And this kind of stuff though that you think of when you're trying to decide something instead of flying by the seat of your pants and saying, oh, oh, trouble there.

MR. LEHRER: But this is -- and talking to the ambassador -- this would be the first time -- maybe I may be wrong in some, I'm sure one of you all will correct me if I am wrong -- this would be the first time that U.S. military force or U.N. military force, let's put it that way, is used to impose something within a country, rather than a conflict between two others, no?

GEN. ODOM: What about the Kurds in Northern Iraq.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

GEN. ODOM: They've just done that.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

MS. DERIAN: And Japan after World War II. We did a terrific job there.

MR. LEHRER: That was a terrific question I was going to ask. So you're not worried.

MS. DERIAN: Sure. I'm worried all the time. AMB. YOUNG: The thing that I see is that there is a pending chaos on this planet, and somewhere we've got to learn to establish order, and I think that the United States alone can't do it, but I think it's appropriate that we take the lead under U.N. auspices and we learn what is possible and what is necessary in Somalia, and then we see how that lesson can be applied with others. I think it's important for the U.S. to help create the model under the auspices of the U.N. But the U.S. military is used to working under civilian authority, and even though we might have military commanders from the U.S., those military commanders ought to always be under the political and civil authority of the United Nations.

MR. LEHRER: Now, Amb. Helms, you said that this should be taken as an individual situation, but isn't -- by taking this as an individual situation, aren't we, in fact, we meaning the big world, creating, at least taking a step toward a new world order, a new adjustment as to how the world reacts when things like this happen? It happens to be Somalia now. It may not be Bosnia or something else, but something else is going to happen in the world, and this is a whole new ball game, isn't it?

AMB. HELMS: But I see nothing wrong with that, if we have a new ball game. I've been saying for a long time, and I think the rest of us as well, we have not the foggiest idea what to do with all these liberals in the world. You have -- you've mentioned only four or five of them. There are a lot of others in the old Soviet Union and so forth. This is an entirely different ball game. Maybe we should go into it slowly and carefully and prudently. I'm all for that, but it seems to me that Somalia's a great place to kick it off, where we've got the moral authority with the United Nations, we've got the force that would be able to do it, and we've got the people to go in and distribute the food. So I think it's fine. You speak about Liberia a moment ago. What's going on in Liberia? There's a seven nation international force trying to bring peace to Liberia. Now, would we want under those circumstances to add our weight to the seven nations that are already there led by the Nigerians? I wouldn't think so. I would think we'd want to wait and see how that situation developed. But their international force is trying impose peace in another country.

MR. LEHRER: Impose sanctions. General.

GEN. ODOM: Let me take a few points. First, as far as using the military, it's interesting what Ambassador, what we've just said here about using it in this new way. Where are we going to find the adequate force to do that if we continue the military build- down? I think before we launch off on this we need to think about the so-called "peace dividend" and a lot of trends in our force structure. Another thing I think we ought to think about is that there are very wealthy, able countries in that region who are Muslims and have some cultural affinity for Somalia, who are doing absolutely nothing, and some of them, such as the Emir of Kuwait, is back on the throne as a result of our military action.

MR. LEHRER: Not doing a thing to help Somalia.

GEN. ODOM: Not doing a thing. And the king whom we support and have given the money is not doing anything positive and doing a number of things that are negative.

AMB. YOUNG: Let me say that it's very dangerous for the countries closest to a situation to be involved in the settlement. That's one of the things that the French-speaking Africans fear about the Nigerian involvement. I think there are two things: One, we're far removed. We don't have a colonial history or heritage, but we'll be operating under a secretary general of the United Nations who is an African, who has grown up in this region, and who is asking for this kind of support. Now where we get the troops from for this I think we clearly are evolving toward the United Nations eventually having the standing military force that it can draw. Nigeria has maybe 250,000 military. They can't use that many in a peaceful society. They could commit twenty-five to fifty thousand and be glad to get rid of them, but not to serve just in Africa, to serve in other parts of the world where the crisis emerges. But I think the United States has to develop the pattern. We have to see to it that there is a model of maintaining order, presiding over a political transition, setting in motion a free market pattern of economic development. And I don't know who else can do that. The Japanese could join once it's established. But it's, it's basically -- there's nothing that happens in this world without U.S. leadership, but that's U.S. leadership in concert with and listening to the forces of the rest of the world.

MR. LEHRER: Quickly, Patt Derian, what do you say to the Americans who would say to Amb. Young, wait a minute, why is it always our responsibility?

MS. DERIAN: Well, we know that we have responsibilities because of the kind of nation we say we are, but we've left out an important thing. Our responsibility is not just jumping on the airplane and jumping out with guns in order to get something done. We could really try diplomacy for a change. We see all these problems. The room full of us here can sit and talk all night and we could work out a whole system of meetings and discussions and arm twistings where we could get something done. What's been absent is the will to do it, and we're talking about two separate things tonight. We're talking about the people who are starving in Somalia right now and they need some help and we seem prepared to give it. And then we're talking about the fact that every single time a roomful of people sit around just as though there were no yesterday, we should have had our diplomats twisting arms on Bosnia. We could do it. And people depend on us. We're rich, and I can't believe we don't have enough soldiers to go over there and do this job.

MR. LEHRER: We will continue this.

MS. DERIAN: Peace dividend or not.

GEN. ODOM: You should count them.

MR. LEHRER: We will continue this.

MS. DERIAN: I wish I could.

MR. LEHRER: Patt Derian, gentlemen, thank you very much. UPDATE - AIDS IN THE WORLD

MR. MacNeil: The global spread of AIDS is next tonight. A major new report called "AIDS in the World" was released today by an independent organization based at Harvard University. We'll discuss the findings with editor of the report. First, we have this backgrounder on the devastation, both personal and economic, in the African country Uganda. Keith Graves of News Force, an independent production company, reports.

[PEOPLE SINGING IN UGANDAN VILLAGE]

MR. GRAVES: In a remote Ugandan village close to the border with Tanzania, the sound of Africa. As they've done for centuries, Uganda tribes people converged on the village of Sanje for miles around fora meeting and to sing and dance. But these are not the usual traditional songs of praise to remind a new generation of the great and glorious history of their tribe, for the very existence of the proud Buganda is threatened by an enemy they cannot defeat, AIDS. "Ugandan mothers and fathers in the name of God, how did this come about?" they sing.

EAMON BREHONY, Relief Worker: Here in Rakay I think at this stage we can say that there isn't a household that hasn't in some way been effected directly or indirectly because of AIDS. If it hasn't lost a direct family member, it most definitely has lost somebody close to the family. Here in Rakay, it's seen as the epicenter of the AIDS problem throughout the world.

MR. GRAVES: And it's not confined to the remote, rural areas. It's a scourge that knows no borders, geographical or human.

DR. STEVEN LWANGA, Director, Uganda AIDS Commission: You're absolutely right, and I don't think just -- it's everybody. Everybody in this country probably has had a relative, not necessarily a close relative, or a colleague, who has, either has HIV or AIDS or died of AIDS.

MR. GRAVES: The figures speak for themselves. There are 17 million Ugandans and in some areas 30 percent are HIV positive. Sixty thousand will die from AIDS this year, and the figures are doubling annually. Homesteads are being abandoned because all the adults are dead. Businesses are being blighted because skilled workers are dying. The labor force is being decimated. But it's not just adults. A new generation is being born HIV positive, infected in the womb. AIDS in what was once to some people paradise is all pervasive. Everyone, everything is affected. After two decades of civil war and invasion and the collapse on world markets of its main exports, copper and coffee, Uganda's resources are hopelessly inadequate to cope with the AIDS epidemic, so, unlike some other African countries similarly afflicted President Yerewi Moseveni has been open about the problem and actively sought outside help.

DR. STEVEN LWANGA: AIDS is a worldwide problem just like the economy is, and our fear as part of the world family I think, the family has to come in and assist its suffering member of the family.

MR. GRAVES: More than 400 foreign NGOs, non-government organizations, some household names, other one-man operations, have answered Uganda's plea for help.

EAMON BREHONY: Well, the efforts that we are trying to do are basically helping the people to cope with the situation, and we're trying to build a new sense of community within the area, so for example, many people get sick, can no longer afford to go to hospital, they cannot afford the taxi fare, so we are training people to look after sick people within their own homes, within their own areas, so we will pick out a number of key people within a village and train them on basic home care, and these people will then go around and visit any sick or needy person within their village, and offer any practical assistance they can. So, for example, if somebody falls sick in a house with AIDS, somebody has to look after that person. So that's tying up two active labor people, so that's reducing the labor potential of the house, so we encourage these people that go around and visit to offer practical assistance like cultivating the land in the wet season, maybe drawing water and drawing firewood, chores that would have to be done by the, maybe the man or the woman in the house that's looking after the sick person. So you free that person to look after the sick person, and the other practical jobs are being done by the neighbors.

MR. GRAVES: Here, the family unit is everything, isn't it?

EAMON BREHONY: Yes.

MR. GRAVES: And that presumably has been in many, many cases, has been destroyed.

EAMON BREHONY: There's tremendous stress on the family unit here. In Africa, luckily, we have an extended family and the extended family is coming very much back into its own here in Uganda, because of the AIDS situation, so you have grandparents, uncles, aunts assuming responsibility for children, looking after their basic needs.

MR. GRAVES: No better illustration of that can there be than 70- year-old Mr. Joseph Cato of the village of Campungu. At a time of life when the retired teacher should have been sitting back and enjoying his position as a village elder, his needs catered for by his four married sons, they and their wives all contracted AIDS and died, leaving him with 10 young orphaned grandchildren and no way of supporting them. Local social workers trained and financed by an NGO persuaded him to keep the family together, showed him how to provide for them and provided him with tools.

JOSEPH CATO: Well, we are trying to grow potatoes for the children and for myself even, because these are orphans of my son's whom I want to educate in the agriculture and even in the mind, to understand what it is to be down in the country. Secondly, I want them to be good children in the country and to be very useful, according to what they have done.

MR. GRAVES: Mr. Cato and his grandchildren are a shining example of how Ugandans, helped and encouraged by foreign and local social workers, are learning to cope with the problems created by AIDS. But not every family can help themselves. This used to be the home of a relatively prosperous farmer and his family. Now, barely habitable, it houses the remnants of that family. The farmer died from AIDS. The young man in the striped shirt is the last of his three sons. Two died from AIDS. This one is too sick to work and will soon join them in a shallow grave behind the house. Inside, his mother, too infirm to move far, cares for her orphaned grandchild close to death from AIDS, and watched by the last of her three daughters. Two died from AIDS. The last one's body is racked by the virus. They depend for their very existence on foreign finance, and local social workers.

WOMAN: Bedding for these orphans is not available here, you see. Enough food is not. Money to meet problems needs like salt, sugar, I mean, clothing, medical assistance is all problem.

MR. GRAVES: Very soon, the grandmother and the orphans will be all that's left of the family. This is Anam Wandu, a widows' group or what's left of it. Two years ago, NGO workers persuaded 13 AIDS widows from one village left with 35 children and no breadwinners to get together and fend for themselves. They'd been left destitute, almost 50 mouths to feed, and nothing to put in them. The NGO workers, one European with the expertise and a limited amount of funds, the locally recruited and trained, showed them how to clear land and cultivate it, and provided them with tools. Five of the widows have since died of AIDS, but the rest are self- sufficient. They are HIV positive, and eventually they could leave behind 35 orphans, adding to another major problem of which the NGO's are trying to come to terms. But if Uganda is to pull through this awful human tragedy, much effort must be directed at stopping the spread of AIDS as into helping those who are already its victims.

DR. WARREN NAAMARA, Director, Uganda AIDS Control Program: The bottom line is change of behavior. If people can change behavior, we would have achieved the ultimate result, and we are beginning to see this. We have a lot of the highest level of awareness possibly in Africa. About 95 percent will tell you how AIDS is spread, how you can control it, and how you can stop it. But the issue is one of changing behavior, and we are not being too worried yet. In the recent evolution, we had about 40, 43 percent people having changed behavior. I mean, like you had four women last year. You're now speaking to one. You are going out over there with a different man, you now don't go out, just about 50 percent.

MR. GRAVES: In the forefront of this campaign to change the ingrained social patterns of centuries are the women, wives and mothers, so often the innocent victims of their menfolk who infect them with the AIDS virus. This group from one village and sponsored by an NGO have put on a play to show their largely young audience the effects of AIDS upon a family. The unfaithful husband sleeps with his girlfriend, is infected, infects his wife, and then dies a horrible death. If the woman playing the husband brings realism to her role, it's because that is exactly what happened to her own family. The main weapon the NGOs are promoting to try and stop AIDS spreading, apart from changing social habits, is the use of condoms. And that presents the churches with a dilemma.

DR. ELIZABETH MARUM, U.S. Agency For International Development: Probably around 80 percent are Christian, with about a half Roman Catholic and half Anglican. And the remainder of the population are Muslim. And for all of them there are feelings about the, advocating condom use. I've talked with leaders in the Protestant Church, in the Catholic Church, and with leaders in the Islamic faith here, and they all have tremendous ambivalent feelings about condom promotion. And yet when they have time to really interact with them and talk with them about the research findings, I'd say in at least some of them, the openness to consider this, certainly the, the case for somebody who's HIV positive to use a condom is very, very strong.

MR. GRAVES: The strength of the case for condoms is that in some areas it's reckoned more than 30 percent of children under 10 are HIV positive. And whilst the church leadership has expressed some reservations about the condom campaign, at a local level, there is tacit acceptance. One Catholic priest, for example, said the condoms were not being used to prevent children but to prevent disease, and he could accept that. But another of Uganda's many tragedies is that so much foreign aid, so much local talent, desperately needed elsewhere in the country, has to be focused on the AIDSepidemic.

DR. ELIZABETH MARUM: That aid and all that talent is not really being used in a way that contributes to the rehabilitation of the country. Many of the prevention trainers and counselors that we work with are former teachers, and they're doing a great job. And yet, I often think when I'm with them, they're not teaching math and science to primary and secondary school students. The administrative and financial and management leadership of these agencies, they're not running small businesses. They're not involved in activities which could contribute to the rehabilitation of the country. The doctors and nurses who are caring for people with AIDS are not caring for people with curable diseases.

MR. GRAVES: Many of Ugandans who've appeared in this film are doomed to die from AIDS. Nothing can save them, not the efforts of their own government, nor the concern or resources of the organizations from all over the world who flock to Uganda in response to the plight of its people, not their own efforts. "AIDS is de-populating is," is the chilling message of the choir, once again made up of women who've experienced the horrors of AIDS, who may themselves become its victims. "It is killing our children," they sing. "It is killing our men and boys and girls. It does not discriminate. It is killing us."

MR. MacNeil: How does the situation in Uganda compare to the rest of the world? Today's report assesses the global epidemic and governmental responses. It was released by the Global AIDS Policy Coalition, an independent group of researchers from around the world. Its editor, Dr. Jonathan Mann, is the former director of the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS. He joins us tonight from Boston. Dr. Mann, thank you for being with us. How does Uganda sit in your scale of vulnerability and action?

DR. MANN: Well, first, let me say I think that was an excellent report. I think it really said it, told the story the way it is. Uganda, unfortunately, is not alone in facing that scope of problem. Throughout Central and Eastern Africa and Western Africa, in major parts of Latin America, like Brazil, and now particularly in Southeast Asia, we see the same kind of picture emerging.

MR. MacNeil: Are their efforts that we saw portrayed there, heroic efforts they seem to be to change social behavior, are they what you mean in your report today when you call for a global strategy on AIDS, and will that work?

DR. MANN: Well, I think what we have to look at now is 10 years or a little more than 10 years of experience fighting this epidemic. We can see the epidemic continuing to spread, continuing to intensify. Paradoxically, at the same time, the overall level of global and national response has plateaued or is even declining. So in a sense, the gap between the needs and the efforts is widening. I think that that kind of effort to change social norms, to change the status quo, is exactly what we needed to ultimately bring this epidemic under control. But to achieve that is going to require a tremendous up scaling of effort and commitment which we have never seen even in Uganda yet to face this problem.

MR. MacNeil: Even with that -- they said 400 non-government organizations around, all that commitment by the government and everything else.

DR. MANN: Well, you see, in Uganda, the situation is, of course, quite complicated like in every other country. You've had the president, Musevani, who, on the one hand, blocked really public education about condoms for quite some time because of his concern that it would lead to immorality. He was later then convinced to accept condom promotion, and then there's a kind of ambivalence that's remained. Even in that country the national leadership has not been consistent and strong. Clearly, a lot of work needs to be done in a country like Uganda, and countries like India, Burma, and Thailand face problems that are just as large and perhaps even growing larger.

MR. MacNeil: Your report today gives, which collects reports from I believe 40 contributors around the world, it gives higher figures for the global spread of AIDS and the projected spread than the World Health Organization whose AIDS program you headed. Why the difference, why are your figures so much bigger?

DR. MANN: Well, essentially, our major difference with the World Health Organization's figures comes for the projections for the year 2000 which really isn't that far away. We project actually between about forty and a hundred and ten million people infected with HIV. WHO prefers to use a more conservative number, of thirty to forty million estimated infections by the year 2000. One of the major differences is that our coalition is independent, it's international and we can say things that the official organizations might be a little more reluctant to talk about. They're more bound with some of the official figures, the official numbers. We name problems. We can really be much more specific. In a sense we're like the Amnesty International Report on Human Rights, whereas, the WHO report is more like the U.N. Center of Human Rights Report on Human Rights.

MR. MacNeil: Your report says that resources have been misdirected, 95 percent going to the industrial world, obviously the U.S. is a big part of that. Why is that misdirected, why misallocated?

DR. MANN: Well, we really wanted to point out the basic inequity when of the approximately $1.5 billion spent last year for HIV prevention, about 95 percent of that resource was spent in the industrialized world which has only about 20 percent of the HIV infections today. Similarly, with CARE, we found that about 95 percent of the CARE dollars were spent in the industrialized countries, which have about a quarter of the people with AIDS in the world. So basically much more of the money is being spent in the industrialized world. For example, $2.70 on average per person spent for prevention in the industrialized world last year compared with only 7 cents per person in Africa and only 3 cents per person in Latin America. That's a fundamental inequality similar to the inequality we see with the availability of drugs and with many other health issues in the world.

MR. MacNeil: How well has the United States, say compared with Uganda, stopped the spread of AIDS?

DR. MANN: Well, I think in the United States we have, first of all, not had leadership at the national level, at the presidential level. Hopefully, we now will have some of that leadership, and that can make a very important difference. The community base in the United States like in Uganda has really been the focus of the anti-AIDS effort. Most of the important work in this country has been done at the community level by people directly confronted with problems of people who are ill and with the needs to educate and to prevent. Our government has been in many respects more reluctant, slower. Our government has had difficulty facing the basic issues of sex education.

MR. MacNeil: But how well -- I mean, compared with the rapidity of spread in a country like Uganda we've just seen, how much more have we stopped or slowed down the spread in this country doyou think?

DR. MANN: Well, I think the community organizations would, in fact, should be given credit for slowing the rate of spread, particularly in some groups, for example, in the gay population, particularly the white, upper middle class gay population in this country. The rate of new infections has been slowed fairly dramatically, but in other populations, in the inner-city poor, in the rural poor, in the inner-city African-American and Latino populations, the rate of spread unfortunately is continuing and there is where we have been failing.

MR. MacNeil: And would that resemble what we've seen in Uganda?

DR. MANN: Well, there are actually rates of infection in, for example, some parts of New York City that are dramatically similar, strikingly similar to rates of infection seen in heavily affected parts of Africa.

MR. MacNeil: To look at it very narrowly, from American chauvinistic perspective, how does the rapid growth in all of AIDS, in all the countries you mentioned, say Indonesia, where you say it may be another huge epidemic, how does that affect Americans?

DR. MANN: Well, it affects Americans in a number of ways. Let's say one day we have a vaccine, a vaccine that's effective against the strain of virus that's prevalent in the United States. The -- if it's not also effective against the strain of virus prevalent in other parts of the world, eventually that virus will, in fact, be the virus that is present here, and the vaccine will be less effective. Because this disease affects young middle-aged adults, adults in the prime of their socii and economic contribution to society, AIDS undermines, as your, as the video showed, as the film showed, AIDS undermines the social and economic development, resources that could be put to much better use were AIDS not a problem, and in that sense, our development, our economic development and their economic development to the extent that they're linked, we are directly affected by the AIDS problem around the world.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Dr. Mann, thank you very much for joining us.

DR. MANN: Thank you. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, the government's Index of Leading Economic Indicators rose .4 percent in October, and a task force of 1800 U.S. Marines headed towards Somalia. They are waiting for a United Nations decision on whether to begin military action to protect relief efforts there. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour tonight, and we'll see you again tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.