Libyan HIV Case Reveals Primitivism and Scapegoatism
Prologue
Primitive fears and hatreds can be aroused by appealing to humankind's basist nature.
Foreign medics sentenced to die in Libya case: By Lamine Ghanmi. December 19, 2006, TRIPOLI (Reuters) –
A Libyan court sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death on Tuesday for deliberately infecting hundreds of children with the virus that causes AIDS, provoking a chorus of Western condemnation.
Experts argue over the importance of dirty needles in HIV transmission in Africa.
There are two accounts of how hundreds of children in a Libyan hospital mysteriously contracted HIV in the late 1990s. One says unhygienic medical practices fueled the outbreak. The other argues that medical workers murdered the children, possibly in a plot sponsored by the CIA and Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.
Chronology
Libya HIV trial of Bulgarian medics: Reuters AlertNet
Following is a chronology of key events in the case.
Feb 1999 - Nineteen Bulgarian medical workers in Libya detained in connection with investigation into how children in a hospital in the eastern town of Benghazi became infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Thirteen are later freed.
click to show/hide the rest of the post
Feb 2000 - Trial of six Bulgarians - five female nurses and a male doctor - and a Palestinian doctor and nine Libyans opens at Tripoli People's Court. They are accused of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV-contaminated blood products as part of conspiracy by foreign intelligence to undermine Libya. Libyan defendants are charged with negligence.
June 2, 2001 - Defendants plead not guilty. Two Bulgarian nurses retract confessions, alleging they were tortured. Libya denies this.
Feb 17, 2002 - People's Court, which tries national security cases, returns trial to ordinary court citing insufficient evidence that defendants acted against Libyan security.
Sept 3, 2003 - French doctor Luc Montagnier, who first detected the HIV virus, testifies the epidemic broke out a year before the arrival of the Bulgarians.
Sept 8 - Libyan prosecutors demand death sentences for the six Bulgarians and Palestinian accused. They demand nine Libyan officers charged with torturing the medics be tried separately.
May 6, 2004 - Libyan court sentences five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor to death for deliberately infecting 426 children. The Bulgarian doctor is acquitted. The nine Libyans are acquitted. Torture charges against the Libyan officers are transferred to a Tripoli court. Bulgaria, the European Union and the United States condemn the death sentences as 'absurd'.
Dec 5 - Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam says will discuss overturning sentences if Bulgaria offers compensation. Bulgaria refuses, saying that would be an admission of guilt.
May 28, 2005 - Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, visiting Libya, meets children with HIV in Benghazi and the nurses in a Tripoli prison.
June 7 - A Tripoli court acquits nine Libyan policemen and a doctor of torturing the nurses.
Oct 17 - U.S. President George W. Bush urges Libya to free the medics.
Dec 19 - Supreme Court brings forward its appeal hearing to Dec. 25.
Dec 23 - Bulgaria, Libya, the EU and the United States agree to set up fund to help to the Libyan children and their families.
Dec 25 - Libya's Supreme Court scraps death sentences against the nurses and the Palestinian doctor, sends the case back to a lower court for retrial.
Jan 21, 2006 - Families demand total of 4.4 billion euros ($5.6 billion) from donors trying to end the standoff.
April 22, 2006 - Libya court sets May 11 date for retrial.
April 28 - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the Bulgarian nurses have been detained for too long.
July 4 - Defendants again deny charges.
Aug 8 - AIDS outbreak was deliberate, prosecution says.
Aug 29- Prosecutor demands death penalty.
Oct 31 - Neglect caused HIV infections, the defense says.
Nov 4 - Judgment day set for Dec 19.
Dec 19 – Defendants sentenced to die.
Before the Verdict
Libya court to deliver nurses' HIV case verdict: TRIPOLI (Reuters) By Salah Sarrar. Sun Dec 17, 2006 - Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor could face the firing squad if a Libyan court convicts them on Tuesday on charges of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV.
Concluding a retrial regarded by the outside world as a test of justice in Libya, the court will make a decision that, either way, is likely to have repercussions on the north Africa's gradual rapprochement with the West. The six are accused of intentionally infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV at a hospital in Benghazi in the late 1990s. The prosecution has demanded the death penalty. The medics were convicted in a 2004 trial and sentenced to death by firing squad. But the supreme court quashed the ruling last year and ordered the case be returned to a lower court. Medical and human rights associations around the world have rallied to the medics' defense to prevent what they say may be a miscarriage of justice. But in Benghazi, where more than 50 of the infected children have died, most people have seen a member of their extended family touched by the tragedy. There is profound public anger against the nurses and international efforts to free them.
LIBYAN MEDIA WANTS GUILTY VERDICT. State-controlled media want a guilty verdict for the six, who have been in detention since 1999. Aljamahirya newspaper wrote: "What would happen if Bulgarian children were injected with the AIDS virus? Would millions of Bulgarians keep silent about the crime? We say to everyone: Our children's blood is precious."
The Sentence
Libya sentences medics to death: BBC NEWS, Tuesday, 19 December 2006. The medics have one final right of appeal against their sentences.
"They violated their obligations and sold their consciences to the devil." Abdullah Maghrebi, Father of HIV infected child.
A Libyan court has sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for knowingly infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV.
The medics have been in detention since 1999, during which time 52 of the 426 infected children have died of Aids.
The nurses and doctor were sentenced to death in 2004, but the Supreme Court quashed the ruling after protests over the fairness of the trial.
The defendants say they are being made scapegoats for unhygienic hospitals.
The Evidence
Study backs Libya HIV case medics: BBC NEWS
The medics were arrested in 1999. Scientists have cast doubt on charges that five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor deliberately infected Libyan children with HIV.
"All the lines of scientific evidence point in the same direction," said Dr Tulio de Oliveira, Oxford University.
An international team analyzed samples taken from the infected patients. Writing in Nature, they said their work showed the HIV subtype involved began infecting patients in Libya well before the medical workers arrived in 1998. "All the lines of scientific evidence point in the same direction," said Dr. Tulio de Oliveira of Oxford University.
The medics say the children were infected through poor hygiene - and a body of scientific work supports their claims.
See also: news @ nature.com. Dirty needles, dirty dealings.: news@nature.com. Documentary draws attention to the role of hygiene in HIV transmission in Libya. Charlotte Schubert.
And: A Shocking Lack of Evidence.
Implications
This case shows once again how we in the Western World have become so politically correct that we can't say what is actually going on here. First, you have the demagogues of Libya using these poor five nurses and the doctor as pawns in an effort to foment hatred against the West. Once again, a Middle-Eastern country is using innocent humans to exact what they feel is revenge against Western dominance. Second, these demagogues are taking advantage of their populace's primitivism.
Primitivism
One thing no one ever is allowed to say anymore, but I'll say it, is that we human beings need to be enlightened. We can exist with primitive values and superstitions, and behave like animals, or we can elevate ourselves and act civilized. There are some regions of the world where primitivism rules. There, it is easy to incite the populace into an unthinking mob. In our times, much of this kind of thing exists under Muslim rule. Why is this? Let someone smarter than I answer. Of course they won't, will they? It's not politically correct. We know in our hearts, though, that these Muslim mobs we see spouting hatred towards America and Bush and so on, are the same kinds of folks that can see plots to spread HIV for political purposes.
Primitivism, Demagogues, and Liberals
I am horrified by this Libyan HIV case, but I am also concerned with the last vestiges of primitivism in our society—with, you guessed it, the demagogues and liberals.
This same kind of mob rule, blind hatred, and uncritical thinking is practiced by the liberal hate-America, hate-Bush, hate-Republican crowd. This is why I always see a tie-in with them and the conspiracy theorists. It's all paranoia, imagining what goes on behind closed doors, and convicting without evidence.
I like people who are individuals, who can think for themselves. I don't like crowds chanting together mindless mantras, like the liberals screaming "No war for oil."
Again, I don't mind if someone comes to conclusions based on unbiased investigation. Yet, our "mobs," the liberal masses, read only from sources that support their religion. Their sources contain only anti-Bush, anti-American, anti-religious, anti-military articles and opinion pieces.
click to hide most of this post
They are mindless automatons, just like the Libyans calling for the death of these fiendish medics.
Rock
(*Wikipedia is always my source unless indicated.)
Subscribe to my feed
Join me in the war on error, in the fight for truth, justice, and the American way! Support this site! Wanna swap links? It’ll help us both. Truth—The No Spin Politically Incorrect Zone
Join Rock's Political Blog Ring. Both Liberals and Conservatives are Welcome. (see left side bar)
Technorati Tags for this post:
Primitivism, Libya HIV case, HIV, mob rule, mass hysteria, Libya, liberals, demagogues, demagoguery, mindless thinking, anti-Bush, anti-America, War for Oil
2 comments:
I am horrified by this case too, and for more than just the fact that 6 probably innocent health workers might end up dead....
I sat here and watched the entire documentary "Injected"- yes all 80 minutes of it and it's a sad reminder that these Europeans (and a Palestinian) aren't the only victims in this case. Millions of people worldwide are actually GIVEN HIV through no action of their own. Whether by accidental exposure due to unclean and undersupplied facilities (as it seems in this Libyan case) or deliberately (yes Rock, it does happen.)
The only problem I had with the film is that it didn't focus more on the billions of dollars medical corporations are making from keeping this disease around. It made slight mention of one company who kept safer syringes off the market in order to corner it, but that was it. Is THAT not mob mentality? Eliminate competition in order to ensure maximum profit. Capone would be proud.
I agree that people NEED to be enlightened, but it's not just the families of the Libyan children with HIV, it's also the heads of these medical companies who forego morality for the sake of positive results on the stock market. Diseases are BIG business and as long as they're around, there is money to be made.
This case is just a microchosm of the real issue of fighting this horrid disease in developing countries. It's near impossible without total awareness on all sides- doctors, nurses, patients, citizens at large. My only issue with the nurses is that if they knew they were reusing old needles, they also knew that they could use bleach to sterilize them. If I know that, surely they had to as well.
I just KNEW you were going to find some connection between this case and place it firmly on the backdrop of terrorism. Well here's my connection:
It's interesting to me that there is this backlash coming from the Bush administration regarding the unfair treatment, torture and unjust imprisonment of these nurses. Undoubtedly you see that there is some hypocracy considering there are innocent people being held indefinitely by US authorities RIGHT NOW in almost identical fashion. No charges have been filed against them, no trial date set, some have been tortured, and they remain in a virtual state of limbo. In fact, some have been released recently and the cited reason is that "they are no longer a threat to the US" when in fact they probably weren't a threat to begin with. Talk about critical thinking! How stupid do they think we are? I know, I know, the war on terror....but surely you see that it's hard to badmouth a horrible dictator when you employ some of his techniques.
Regardless, my prediction is that these nurses won't be going to the gallows. There is too much at stake for Ghadafi considering all the foreign pressure on him. He'll eventually pardon and release them making himself out to be a noble tyrant rather than just a tyrant.
Paz, great comments. Every time I say something hyperbolic about liberals etc., I always have you in the back of my mind, making me feel guilty. And it's because of thoughtful comments like this, because on many levels you do make sense.
I'll get into detail later, but I do hope that one day I find a liberal blogger to balance my one-sided ranting (even though it's true, ha!:))
Talk to you later.
Rock
Post a Comment